A stunning reimagining of a ‘90s classic, a spirited riff off of a long-established genre, a pair of beloved games reinvented for contemporary audiences, and a smart approach to a mobile game that’s been growing for five years and counting. When you put it like that, the fact all four of these descriptions refer to a classic RPG series like Pokemon is a bit weird. And yet, together, they’re capable of testifying to just how brilliant the world’s highest-grossing entertainment franchise truly is.
It would be easy to say 2021 was a slow year for Pokemon – hell, it would be easy to say 2021 was a slow year for games. If I may be so bold as to vaguely oppose Occam though, not everything easy is correct. From critical darlings like The Forgotten City to indie sleeper hits like The Riftbreaker, 2021 teemed with all kinds of fascinating games that may not have been afforded the same visibility had the industry been dominated by titans like God of War Ragnarok and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2.
Interestingly enough, the same can be said of Pokemon. Not only have New Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Unite already earned their place into the PokePantheon – even older games got new opportunities to shine. While Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl hardly reinvented the Whirlipede (it’s a wheel, geddit?), the fact the long-coveted Gen 4 remakes were this faithful to the originals is pretty heartwarming. They’re not the most inspired duo around, but I defy anyone who claims they made it past starter selection without experiencing a welcome pang of the feels.
That’s not to mention other aspects of Pokemon, most of which received expansions, updates, or some other form of news throughout the year. Perhaps the most impressive of these was the TCG’s Evolving Skies expansion, which acted as a sort of reintroductory point to the card game for tons of long-dormant fans – including some of us here at For The Win.
Meanwhile, Pokemon Sword & Shield received shiny variants of Celebi, Zacian, and Zamazenta, as well as Global Exhibition Champion Leonardo Bonanomi’s Charizard. If you’re a big enough fan to be tuning into the likes of Pokemon Cafe Mix and Pokemon Masters EX, then you’re also a big enough fan to be well aware of their year in review, too. A lot of people might cite the absence of Gen 9 as a point against the value of 2021, but even if it had been ready, there wasn’t really any room for it. What’s more, it was always going to come out in 2022 – something that may or may not change now depending on how hard Game Freak was hit by the pandemic.
While we’re on that topic, it’s probably prudent to point out that 2022 has the potential to outdo this year. If Pokemon Legends: Arceus is as good as it looks and Gen 9 does in fact come out, it could quickly establish itself as the best year in Pokemon history. Until we can judge its merits this time next year though, all we can really do is focus on 2021 in retrospect, by which I mean celebrate all of the wonderful games and updates listed above.
We still haven’t talked about Pokemon’s trump card though. In the introduction to this piece, I mentioned “a stunning reimagining of a ‘90s classic” (New Pokemon Snap), “a spirited riff off of a long-established genre (Pokemon Unite), “a pair of beloved games reinvented for contemporary audiences” (Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl), and “a smart approach to a mobile game that’s been growing for five years and counting.” That last one, while probably obvious to anyone who has ever seen a phone, hasn’t been mentioned by name yet. The fact we can get this far into an article about how strong of a year Pokemon has had without even typing the words “Pokemon Go” says it all, really.
And while it says it all, what more is there to say? Pokemon Go is one of The Pokemon Company’s greatest successes. You might not see people breaking and entering to catch a Squirtle anymore, and trees these days have way fewer face-shaped dents in them, but Niantic’s mobile catch-’em-up has quietly become bigger than ever. It surpassed $5 billion in lifetime revenue back in July and had almost one million daily active users in January in the U.S. alone. More so than either of these statistics though, Pokemon Go’s ability to adapt to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 has been a remarkable feat to witness. In a year of great Pokemon games, Niantic’s AR colossus has once again emerged as top dog.
It’s useful to go back to that point about Go growing quietly, as it’s actually a fairly apt way of describing the series at large’s presence in 2021 as well. While there’s been no Legends: Arceus or Gen 9 stand-in, the sheer number of moving pieces that Pokemon successfully fitted into place this year is astonishing. We could have made a PokePun there, but we’ve probably done enough of those already – plus we just used an absolutely horrific term like ‘PokePun’, so we’ll respectfully spare you further duress.
In the same way that 2021 was a better year for games than many people would like to give it credit for being, it saw a phenomenal performance from all the various teams behind Pokemon. In our eyes, it’s the best single year the series has had since Sinnoh was called Hisui, which was… next month? Never mind. It’s the best year in ages. You know what we mean.
Anyway! Three cheers for Pokemon in 2021. Here’s hoping Legends: Arceus lives up to the hype when it launches on Jan. 28, 2022. If not… well, at least we have this year’s lineup to get through, eh?
Written by Cian Maher on behalf of GLHF.
