POKÉCOURT IN SESSION: Nintendo Direct to Reveal Starters’ Evolutions?

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Case Background

There are a lot of expectations on the line for tomorrow’s Nintendo Direct and with good reason. Pokémon fans haven’t heard much about the highly anticipated Pokémon Sun & Moon for awhile now and they’re hungry for more. Will their appetites be satisfied with tomorrow’s Direct? Might it even reveal the evolutions of Rowlet, Litten and Popplio? To the good gentlemen and gentlewomen of the PokéJury, I would ask you to consider the following:

Exhibit A: No Information Scheduled

Pokémon Sun & Moon information has been held at regular intervals with advanced notice; until now. Why? Perhaps Pokémon International decided to share the love and give Nintendo something to hype fans with. Something that would fit nicely within a 3DS-focused Nintendo Direct, perhaps? Seems very convenient.

Exhibit B: Suspicious Timing

Think back to September 2013; fans were eagerly anticipating news from another set of Pokémon games… X & Y. With their release drawing closer, it was the month the second evolutions for the games’ starting Pokémon were revealed. Now return with me to 2016: would it not, in fact, make sense that a similar timeline be followed for Pokémon Sun & Moon? Not out the range of possibilities, certainly.

Exhibit C: Foreshadowing from Nintendo

Nintendo’s social media accounts have also been active, gently teasing Pokémon fans online. Take, for instance, this tweet from Nintendo France:

Roughly translated it reads “In your opinion, what will the evolutions of Rowlet, Litten and Popplio look like in Pokémon Sun & Moon?” A meaningless tweet? BALONEY!! More a calculated marketing tactic to place seeds of hype in the minds of impressionable followers.

How Do You Rule?

What say you Jurors!? I await your decision in the comments below. Share with your friends and ask them to weigh in as well!

<3 PJ

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413 thoughts on “POKÉCOURT IN SESSION: Nintendo Direct to Reveal Starters’ Evolutions?”

  1. since the the corocoro from September 2013 gave us our first look at the X/Y anime will this one feature the first look at the Sun/Moon Anime?

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  2. XY starter evolutions were revealed in September, but the games came out in October. Sun and Moon come it in Novemeber, so that’s two months before release instead of just one

    I don’t see them being revealed quite yet, but maybe.

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  5. I just wasted 30 minutes trying to get a cloned shiny venipede and he goes offline right as I tell him I’m not giving away a shiny since it’s costing him nothing. He cloned it. -.-

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  6. I’m not really expecting it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we got them. What does everyone want to see non pokemon related from the direct? My list is wishful thinking but here it goes:
    1. New Fire Emblem (Too early?)
    2. Maybe the Pokemon x Fire Emblem they’ve mentioned
    3. Surprise me.

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      • I mean an actual crossever. I believe they said they had planned it before it was scrapped. Also if it happens I hope the Lord isn’t Pikachu. Someone else needs the spotlight for once. Riolu would fit nicely. Especially because he’s blue.

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  9. Sorry to post this here, but does anyone have an idea for a fair tournament with 22 participants? (That’s the number or entries we have BTW.) What about this: divide 22 into two groups of 11. Round robin with your group and the winner of those groups fight in the finals? I really don’t want to give like half the people bys.

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    • since we’re trying to decide gym leaders and the champion, why not do it as two groups of 11 and play swiss round, everyone playing ten games I mean, and then the top four of those brackets with the best win/loss record move on to a single elimination finals for the chance at being the champ. Since that would leave you with one champ and 7 gym leaders, you could then take those who placed 5 in both groups and make them battle for the last gym leader slot.

      Just my first thought.

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      • Mm, I like that! However, the tournament is to decide gyms. I think the champion might just literally be who beat the gyms first, because when they get beaten, they have to step down.

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        • That could work as well. I just didn’t know if we want to have an established champion first, since in that system they technically would be the best of the best of pokejungle. But again your call.

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  10. i normally dont like to get my hopes up for this kind of thing, but its seems starter evolutions would be revealed if they are continuing the pattern from x and y, i wouldn’t be surprised if they gave us a trailer of the games, the gameplay, pokemon and then at the end they would finally reveal the starter evolutions, or atleast their secondary stages, i would say they would give us the whole evolutionary line, but maybe giving us the secondary ones would be for this month and the next month would be the final forms, that’s just something that would make sense to me cant think of a reason why it just seems like thats what they would do since the starters and rockruff have this secret that we are all eager to find out, in any case im extremely excited about this, trying hard to not have my hopes up too high incase we don’t see what we’re all expecting but nonetheless if we still get SOME news that would be enough for me since we haven’t had that much as of late but leaks to speculate. #TeamMoon #TeamLitten

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  14. I’m conflicted about the direct tomorrow. I could either glance over the info for five minutes at ten and watch it at four thirty, or just watch it spoiler free at the same time. I feel like if I glance at the info I won’t have any reason to watch the direct, but I really enjoy the surprise while watching them, so I don’t know what I’ll do. Also don’t they normally tell us the length of the direct?

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  18. I’ve seen people point out that September is when we got starter evos with XY, but September isn’t the pattern. If you look back to BW in addition to XY the pattern is actually releasing the starter evos a month before the games’ release, and they’re not tied to a specific time. This could be the generation of breaking trends, and I may be proven wrong, but I just want to point out the actual trend so you don’t get your hopes crushed if we have to wait another month. 😉

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    • Hopefully France was trying to hint at this with it’s tweet. I mean a Direct on the same time Sun and Moon news comes out, a forshadowing winky face on the tweet, the direct being about 3DS games. They better be on here or Frace will get a tongue lashing.

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      • Believe me I hope that they were foreshadowing, but when I read it I just see it as a speculative question, not a hint at all. Personally, I don’t need to see their evos because with the leaked final evos I’m already sold on Popplio.

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    • No, September is the pattern. The Gen V and VI starter evolutions were revealed in the Corocoro issues released in September 2010 (just before the games themselves on the 18th), and September 2013 (a month before release) respectively.

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    • Yeah the “pattern” if there is one is that it’s basically the last CoroCoro before the games come out. BW came out just late enough in the month that they were able to get the starters evos out the same month, but with XY the games came out on the 12th so they need to do the reveal the month earlier in CoroCoro. Granted now they aren’t relying on CoroCoro as much now a days, but even still I think the idea as a whole stand true lol

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        • I suspect that we might actually see the starter finals instead of the evos this time. Warning, long post incoming.

          Most curiously, in the Japanese anime, we only have titles for this week’s episode and next week’s one (XYZ 40 and 41). We usually get titles a month in advance. The next two (42 and 43) are apparently a one hour long special, featuring Lucario and Greninja respectively.

          Lucario is one of the poster children for Mega Evolution, and Greninja for Synchro/Bond Phenomenon. This could be when they finally explain the latter in the anime, hence why they don’t want to reveal the titles.

          Also, we know that Rockruff and the starters share a secret. This could be Synchro/Bond Phenomenon in their final forms, in which case it would make sense to reveal said final forms.

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          • Yeah that’s the only thing. CoroCoro is gonna talk about Rockruff’s evo and it’s evo would probably only share the special trait with the final evos of the starters rather than the mid evos. I still wonder tho….maybe the whole split evo thing is real? Could be a good reason to show off the finals now as they’d still leave the others for us to find when the games come out. Usually they only reveal the mid evos before the games come out and then the finals the month after. Maybe the split is why they seem to be teasing the evos so earlier rather than in October when it’d be more suiting for them to do so?

          • If there are split-evos, they’ll be alt forms rather than separate Pokemon. We’ve seen the starters in the Dex, Rowlet is 1, Litten is 4 and Popplio is 7, so there’s no space for multiple evos.

          • Well yeah technically you’re right. Everyone’s just calling them split evos, basically they would just be different forms lol Either way I think that could be a possible secret. Only time will tell though..lol

  19. How long is the Direct? I won’t be able to check the news until an hour after, and I’d like to know if we’ll have our information by then (if at all).

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  20. So I just watched a video from Tyranitar Tube about the “leaks” about muk being ground, koffing being fire , parasect being poison fairy etc..

    He used Pokejungle as the site and then he took my comment about it being a very fan service(y) leak and that it was so plausable it was probably fake.

    He then took what some of you said and just resaid it in his video, really good investigation and sourcing huh ? :

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    • Not gonna lie…..when they were first revealed I was a naysayer……It wasn’t that I didn’t like the designs, but idk….I just didn’t buy it…..I always liked them all so when Mallow was confirmed to be the girl in the pic I was pleased. Popplios evo is pretty great. If the whole sync thing is real I’m looking forward to seeing all three of them in their different “forms” depending on how the character looks lol

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        • With all these leaks and rumors saying it’s gonna be in the games I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. There’s only so many people that can say before it basically should be real lol I mean I can’t imagine EVERY leaker or rumor spreader is lying to us lol

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  24. The fact that some Alola forms come directly from the original Pokémon gives me even more reason to believe Kalos is in the game. Example: Cubone will evolve into Alola Marowak in Alola, but regular Marowak in Kalos. Because what if I wanted to breed for original Marowak? Or original Raichu? Unless there’s some alternate evolution method in Alola for these Pokémon outside of the normal means of evolving them, it just gives more credence to the Alola-Kalos speculation.

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    • Although this does raise a question, how will we get Alola-form Pokémon in future games? Maybe that instead adds more credence to just a separate evolution method?

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      • But you see, that means you can never breed a normal Marowak and get a legit 7th gen normal Marowak. I can’t imagine that would be the case.

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        • I imagine it has something to do with if the parents are alolan or not. As in I bet if you transfer a regular marowak and breed with it, the baby will be regular.

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          • Interesting, yet confusing at the same time as the Pokémon are one in the same, yet one will just have been caught in Alola. Perhaps that would be how to get Alola forms again in the future, the OT must originate from Alola and thus must have been transferred?

          • That’s the only way it could possibly make sense. Unless there are special items or evolution methods for evolving them.

          • I’d like ’em more if they end up not being just gen 1. I hate gen 1 pandering because it takes me out of the game.

          • I typically hate Gen 1 pandering, but in this case oddly I am not against it. These are the oldest Pokémon and these new forms do give them a breath of fresh air without resorting to wasting Mega slots on them.

          • Because if it only evolves into Alola Marowak, you can never evolve it into a normal Marowak, hence you can’t have a legit Gen 7 normal Marowak.

    • Pfft nope, kalos wasted its time to shine, it is now time for Alola and Sinnoh remakes which means non alolan forms will be acquired by transfering or from the gen 4 remakes jkjk

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      • I’m big on the Alola-Kalos theory, to me this has been planned all along. And if true, what an amazing two gens Gen 6 and 7 will have been. Kalos, Hoenn remake, a dual region game, and Sinnoh remake. Hope it plays out this way.

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        • It would be amazing but knowing GF they will probably just move the spotlight from Kalos to Alola and just say something like “Zygarde’s cells are spread all over the globe blahblahblah” and that would be the explanation for perfect zygarde in alola but idk now that i think about it, it does seem that they planned this all along with the whole strange souvenier so yeah then Alola-Kalos may be possible

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          • There are just too many connections between Kalos and Alola right now, and waaaaay too many Gen 2 references, for me to think this wasn’t planned. I’ll beat the Alola-Kalos drum until the games release and prove otherwise haha xD

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