Never underestimate the popularity of Pokemon. This is the lesson we learned today as we hit the store at the event’s starting time. Making it right on the dot, we expected a line…but not one of this mammoth magnitude! The size of the line was incredible. It was the biggest I’ve ever seen at the store, rivaling that of Nintendo Wii’s launch of 2006!
Make sure to stick around after that humongous line in the video, we also tour the plaza and show off some of the neat stuff Nintendo has set up. After finding out that there was literally no way we were getting in that line, we tried to find alternate means of entry to the plaza. We needed to make it in there at any means necessary so we can share it with you guys! Well, to make a long story short..we totally found a way in. That took a while though, so we missed out on some stage events. (Such as the ever popular dance segment. Sorry!)
Once you got into the plaza, you had a couple of things to do. You could take pictures with giant versions of all 3 new starters, both stars of Pokemon Black & White’s covers and of course, our favorite electrical rat you see above. After you were done with that, you could head on over to the Game Station where you can check out a demo of said games. You could also check out one of the C-Gear (A new feature introduced with these games, which acts as a communications hub) uses, which is chat and survey fellow players around you with the game. It was pretty neat, and I can’t wait to test it out some more. After that, you can walk on over to the main stage, where Professor Juniper herself greeted you and hosted many shows throughout the say.
The final and main attraction is a quest that Nintendo set up for the event: Passport to Unova. Once you enter the plaza, an attendant will give you a passport, officially inviting you to the new region in the Pokemon world. As you walk around with this passport and check out the other attractions, you’ll receive a stamp in each one. Once you attend all the attractions and collect all of the stamps, you can not only call yourself a full citizen of the Unova region but get a free T-shirt too!
While we couldn’t get inside the store due to it’s MASSIVE line, we were glad that we could catch the rockin performance by the band The Presidents of The United States of America. They were energetic and loved the crowd. They performed some of their popular hits and debuted their own version of the famous Poke-Rap for the Unova region! You can check out the (admittedly poor quality..sorry!) first part below, and the full thing on our Youtube page!
[Update - Here's a direct audio version!]
The amount of people at this thing was incredibly staggering. Pokemon fans of all ages celebrated the birth of a new generation of Pokemon, and made this event a blast. We’ve got a full gallery of pictures from the event, as well as some super fan cosplayers we managed to catch during the festivities. There’s also some bonus pictures for our Facebook group, so make sure to Like us and check it out that page too! Now I’ve gotta do what Pokemon Masters do best and catch em’ all for our upcoming Pokemon Black & White review!
Gallery
