‘Pokémon Sun And Moon’ Hidden Buddy Pokémon Feature To Debut In ‘Pokémon Stars’ For Nintendo Switch?

Turns out a feature that many loyal fans of the Pokémon franchise have been asking for made it to “Pokémon Sun and Moon.” Unfortunately, this feature remains unused and hidden in the games, leading some to speculate that it was not implemented in the final version due to memory constraints, but it would be debuting in the third version, called “Pokémon Stars.”

Last month, insiders have come out to reveal that Game Freak already started developing the third title following the release of “Pokémon Sun and Moon.” The third version is internally regarded as “Pokémon Stars,” and it is expected to come with expanded features just like how it was with “Pokémon Yellow” for the “Pokémon Red and Blue” installment and “Pokémon Platinum” for “Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.”

Because too little is known about “Pokémon Stars,” some now believe that the hidden feature of “Sun and Moon” will be launched with it. This hidden feature pertains to how pocket monsters were originally designed to be capable of walking or running alongside players in the Alola region just like buddy Pokémon.

This week, Pokéfan and hacker KazoWar data mined the new Pokémon games and found that each Pokémon actually has certain animations that are not present in the final cut. As per Eurogamer, it is very clear that a lot of work was done to make individual animations, but these could have been removed from the final version due to memory limitations, especially in the older Nintendo 3DS.

The animations remain embedded within the files of “Pokémon Sun and Moon.” So after KazoWar’s discovery, many other techie fans followed suit and extracted the buddy Pokémon models from the games using Ohana, a 3DS file viewer, according to Kotaku. Some animations have already been spread via social media, causing other fans of the franchise to be intrigued.

It remains to be seen whether this buddy Pokémon feature is going to be implemented in “Pokémon Stars” for the Nintendo Switch. Game Freak and Nintendo have yet to spill the beans on the third installment, and given that the new console is slated to arrive in March 2017, official details about the third title are unlikely to surface this early.