Pokemon Presents
Serious question — Image: The Pokémon Company

There was a Pokémon Presents showcase today, and while they've gained something of a reputation for not being the most scintillating of Nintendo-related presentations, there's usually something worth tuning in for, even if you're a latent Pokéfan who drifted away after Gen I.

Today, though? Blimey. The pacing seemed totally off, it seemed way longer than its 35-minute runtime, and also felt light on big announcements. A date for Part One of the Scarlet and Violet DLC was the bare minimum of reveals, and... there wasn't much else at all.

Or was there? The new shows and anime stuff looked nice, but it's hardly earth-shattering news. A Mew / Mewtwo event? Sure, why not. Pokémon Café's still trucking along, is it? Good for it. Niantic's got some Pokémon GO events planned? Someone fetch my Meryl Streep groundbreaking gif.

Elsewhere, Pokémon Sleep coverage did what it set out to do, Detective Pikachu Returns looks fun but came across as a real known quantity (it wasn't wow-ing anyone with its visuals, that's for sure), and the imminent World Championships details only really served to highlight all the cool stuff you're missing out on if you're not attending. Maybe someone out there is excited to see what swag the competitors themselves could be leaving the tournament with.

We get that The Pokémon Company is trying to thread multiple needles here, hoping to unite disparate audiences through their shared love of Pokémon and onboard fans from one thing to another. But we also get the impression that nobody came away feeling particularly positive after that one.

Yes, Unite and Masters EX and all the other spin-offs have their fans — hey, we like a lot of them! — but it doesn't feel like these presentations are doing those games any favours whatsoever. In fact, at this point, we'd wager they're actively turning some prospective players off.

Pokemon Presents
This looks good — Image: The Pokémon Company

So what's the answer? Well, we wonder if there really needs to be more than one Pokémon Presents per year. There were three in 2020, and two in every year since. Would a single killer showcase not be sufficient?

It could be on Pokémon Day (27th February) but it needn't be. There's plenty of opportunity to drop Pokémon game news in Nintendo Directs at other times throughout the year, and if the reception to today's livestream is anything to go by, it makes you wonder if TPC is doing more harm than good stringing fans along for 35 minutes. When your most exciting news (outside of DLC details) is dropping two old games on Switch's subscription service, perhaps it's time to step back and reevaluate.

Then again, maybe we're reading the room wrong. Perhaps this one went down a treat for the majority of Pokémon fans! For Team NL, though, we sat back in our chairs at the end feeling deflated and a little confused. Big hmm.

What's that? No, 'Big Hmm' is not the name of one of the new Pokémon. Although it may well be what we end up nicknaming that Paradox Raikou once we catch him.

So, what did you think of the August 2023 Pokémon Presents? Would you rather TPC stuck to one real mother of a blowout just once a year? Let us know in the polls below.

How would you rate the August 2023 Pokémon Presents?
Do you think The Pokémon Company should go back to doing just one Pokémon Presents a year?