Pokemon Sun and Moon Unused Walking Animations Uncovered

Back in 2009, Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver contained the technology to allow Pokemon to follow player characters around the overworld, and to be used for puzzle solving. That technology was seemingly lost to time, given that every Pokemon game released since has lacked the feature.

However, it looks like developer Game Freak has been working on reintroducing the feature, based on a series of Tweets from user @KazoWAR, reported Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez.

I checked a few Pokemon and they all seem to have it. all the animations work for both versions, even battle and amie/refresh animations pic.twitter.com/0lUBZ7hcsS

— KazoWAR (@KazoWAR) December 5, 2016Having delved into the game files, KazoWAR and others have found unused low-poly meshes and animations that depict many Pokemon simply idling and walking – animations that are not used in the battles found in Pokemon Sun and Moon.

Good content pic.twitter.com/37gDeY1kbL

— Sleepy (@SleepyJirachi) December 6, 2016At this stage it isn't clear why the follow feature wasn't included in Pokemon Sun and Moon, despite the presence of the assets within the game files. Assumedly it was simply an issue of time, priority, or performance. Or, perhaps they were built in preparation for its inclusion in the rumored third version of the game coming to Nintendo Switch?

Magikarp just flops pic.twitter.com/B5CKwlB4bo

— Sleepy (@SleepyJirachi) December 6, 2016Given that sales for this latest Pokemon title have skyrocketed, here's hoping more time can be given to including following Pokemon in future titles.