In a new feature at N-Europe, we delve into the world of Pokemon each week to celebrate its vast history of music, TV, movies and games in honour of its 20th Anniversary! This week, what better way to start than with something old, something new, something PEGI rated and something Blue.

This year is a celebration for Poké-fans the world over as Pokémon turns 20! With The Pokémon Company promising us new and exciting games to play throughout the year, blu-ray re-releases of classic Pokemon movies, Pokemon GO and Sun and Moon, plus potential new surprises, it seems the celebrations are set to last the whole year and we’ve got plenty to look forward to.

With that in mind, we here at N-Europe want to celebrate the vast history of Pokemon by revisiting some of it’s classic titles, taking a look at some of the more obscure, re-live the childhood joys of the anime and take a look into the mad craze that grew in the late 90’s with Pikachu bed-sheets, endless plushies and Blastoise water guns.

This weekly feature will look at some of the biggest Pokémon events of the last few weeks that have taken place on the site, such as recent news and reviews, as well as fresh content exclusive to this feature.

This week we start in the only logical place, and a controversial one – Pokemon Red and Blue! The games that started it all! But how are they seen 20 years on? As violent, disgusting, gambling-filled filth! Well, violent enough for a PEGI 12 rating at least! Dean Anderson takes a look at some even more terrifying titles within the world of Nintendo. 

A matter of age 

That’s right! This ain’t the 90s anymore because hilariously enough, Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow now comes along with a brand new PEGI rating of 12 for these Virtual Console releases! It seems that the Game Corner is just too successful of a gambling simulator for PEGI to allow it to slip by their insightful grasp.

So in the run up to the re-release of the first generation of Pokemon, we have complied a handy dandy list of games that all have PEGI ratings that are lower, or equal to what these humble little games now have attached to them and a little reminder of the completely unquestionable content that they contain within... Read more

Whilst celebrating the old, we should also acknowledge the new, with the release of possibly the most bizarre but also most satisfying cross-over idea yet – Pokkén Tournament! Dean Anderson (we make him do all the work) reviews Pokkén for your reading and fighting pleasure!

Review: Pokkén Tournament

I can’t really say that Tekken and Pokémon have an awful lot in common really. Sure, both series feature two (or more) combatants violently duking it out for seemingly no good reason and they’re both technically video games but otherwise... there are not a lot of similarities to note. So it must have been a hell of a task for the designers at Namco to figure out how to fuse two completely disparate series into one fighting game that represents the best of both. Indeed, it’s a task that Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada has often been quizzed on; with the line being that it started off with a basic prototype that was based heavily around Tekken’s gameplay engine, but then quickly branched off into something completely different.

Well he’s not wrong, because Pokkén is certainly unlike any other fighting game out there! Read more

More of a mobile gamer? Then hopefully this free-to-play strategy board game can tide you over until Pokémon Go, if it comes out in the West that is! Our N-Europe overlord Ashley Jones has the scoop (of Vanillite)

Pokémon Comaster

The Pokémon Company and HEROZ has announced that they will be releasing Pokémon Comaster on smartphones in Japan during the Spring.

The title is described as a strategy board game for your phone where you collect virtual Pokémon figures (an example can be seen to the right) that all have their own unique abilities. You must then create a team to battle against others online. Read more

You'll all no doubt be busy knocking the lights out of Chandelure for the rest of the week but be sure to join us in the near future for more Pokémon goodness in the form of classic games (either good or bad, dare I take on Pokémon Channel?), movies and more!