If you’ve been playing Pokemon for a while, you’ve probably been itching to get your hands back on your old Pokemon. Sun & Moon (and their Ultra derivatives) were a hit with fans, and plenty jumped back in time to try out Red, Blue and more on the Virtual Console. But what if you were to bring these old Pokemon back… to the future?
The team behind Pokemon wants you to do exactly that. For a brief window in February and March, you can nab your old 3DS Pokemon for free in Pokemon Box, as the app will be free for one month following Pokemon Home’s release. That means you can basically bring them into the next generation. (We don’t have exact dates at this moment.)
What does this all mean? The Pokemon Company and Nintendo are coming out with Pokemon Home, which is essentially a giant Pokemon Box, plus some extra nifty features. (We’ve broken down what we know so far about Pokemon Home.) And speaking of a Pokemon Box, there’s a 3DS app called exactly that which allows you to “store” your Pokemon and transfer them between games.
Just as a recap, the compatible 3DS games are as follows:
- Sun & Moon
- Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon
- X &Y
- Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire
- Red, Blue & Yellow (Virtual Console)
- Gold & Silver (Virtual Console)
Pokemon Home is basically modern-day Pokemon Box. So if, for some reason, you’ve kept the $4.99 Pokemon Box subscription up all these years, it’ll finally get put to good use.
More Pokemon:
- Don’t Forget Pokemon Mystery Dungeon’s Remake, Another March Game
- Avery Pokémon Is My Boyfriend and Wants You to Come Over for Game Night
- Ranking the Pokémon Starter Middle Evolutions
However, if you’ve got a ton of ‘mons to take care of, you might need to dish extra. The free Pokemon Home edition is fairly limited in capacity: 30 Pokemon in Basic, versus 6,000 for Premium. It’s $15.99 per year, so it’s not terribly steep, but’s still a Jackson from your wallet.
If you intend on battling online with your Pokemon from Sun & Moon, you might want to take advantage of this Pokemon Box offer. The Pokemon Global Link, or PGL, will shut down on February 24th, meaning you can’t do online battles. You can do online trades, as well as friend trades and battles, but online trading won’t track your stats anymore. That’s a feature they’ve migrated over into Pokemon Home, it looks like.
