I woke myself up at 6 AM to watch the Pokémon Nintendo Direct event streamed across the world.  Rumor had it that the announcement would be an addition to the main series of handheld titles — that was more than enough to get me out of bed.  And wouldn’t you know it: the rumors were true!  Pokémon X and Pokémon Y have officially been announced for the 3DS:

Get it?  Like X and Y vector coordinates!  (Could “Z” be in the future?)

Since the game is on the 3DS, the graphics have been modernized dramatically.  Here are some shots of the male and female protagonists:

Battles now more closely resemble the action of the Pokémon Stadium titles:

Have you ever seen such convincing Patrat pain?

The new starters were also revealed:

Another frog, another fox, and… um…  A weasel wearing a hat or something?  I’m totally starting with grass weasel.  Grass weasel for life.

I was able to infer a few new features from the trailer.  Like, um, you can use ROLLER BLADES to get around:

Or maybe those are the running shoes?  Either way it looks like a fun way to travel.

While the trailer does reveal quite a bit, it neglects to mention one crucial element to every Pokémon title: the number of new pokémon.  Generally each new title consists primarily of new creatures with older ones being available in the post-game.  In this video, the only new pokémon shown were the starters and legendaries.  It is possible that Nintendo/Gamefreak are saving this info for future releases, but it’s still kind of strange that this wasn’t mentioned.

Other than the graphics overhaul, the next big announcement regarding the game was that there will be a worldwide release this October.  This is a huge first for the series, usually plagued by lengthy localization waits between regions and thus rampant importing amongst hardcore fans.  Now fans all over the world can start the journey at the same time and trade and play together!  Yeah, I’m totally hyped.  Between this, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate — the 3DS just became a must-have system this year.