How Nintendo Is Celebrating Pokemon's 20th Anniversary

Nintendo is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Pokemon with a special edition Nintendo 2DS that comes in four different colors and also come prepackaged with free Pokemon games. The systems are due to launch in Japan on February 27th, 2016 according to the latest reports.

Gamespot rolled out some of the details of the specially packaged Nintendo 2DS devices, which will not only come with special Pokemon themed colors but also arrive with a free version of the monster-capture game that matches the color of the device.

This means that gamers who pick up a 20th anniversary edition of a red Nintendo 2DS will get Pokemon Red. Gamers who pick up a 20th anniversary edition of a green Nintendo 2DS will get Pokemon Green bundled in with the device. Gamers who pick up a 20th anniversary edition of a yellow Nintendo 2DS will get Pokemon Yellow.

Now some of you might be thinking that this is clearly not as cool as you might have been hoping because these games are 20 years old. However, Nintendo isn't just re-releasing the old Gameboy games for the new 2DS, they're upgrading them for today's standards of portable gaming. This means that you don't need to have a Gameboy link cable to play against other players the world around. Instead, for the first time in the history of the original four Pokemon games on a newer Nintendo device, players will be able to connect wirelessly via the internet to other players and battle against them or trade Pokemon with them.

It's a nice nod from Nintendo to the original games that helped Pokemon become the phenomenon that it is today.

The launch of the 20th anniversary Pokemon Nintendo 2DS devices will arrive just ahead of the spring release of Bandai Namco and Nintendo's Pokken Tournament, which is a Pokemon-themed arena fighting game. It's designed similarly to the CyberConnect 2 Naruto Shippuden fighting games insofar that players will fight in circular arenas and duke it out in one-on-one fights. However, the game takes another feature from CyberConnect 2's illustrious history of fighting games, implementing the up-close duel mode that appeared in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi games.

Pokken Tournament and the Pokemon themed Nintendo 2DS devices are a prime showcase of Nintendo acknowledging a series that helped them make a lot of bank over the past 20 years.

While Pokken Tournament will make the leap from arcade games to the Wii U, the remastered versions of the original four Pokemon titles will be made available on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 2DS and 3DS owners.

According to Gamespot, there's no solid date on when North Americans can expect to get their hands on the 20th anniversary edition Pokemon, but I'm sure Nintendo will make an announcement soon. You can learn more (assuming you can read Japanese) by visiting the official Pokemon website.