Pokémon Game Boy Titles Dominate 3DS eShop Charts Ahead Of Service Closure

Eh, no.
I already have Pokemon 3DS games in physical and have ed the updates as well so I don't even need the Gameboy Pokemon games.

Both me and my friends have considered getting them, but I think we’ve decided to hope that they eventually come to NSO. It would be super disappointing to spend money on them, and then have them come over.

@Anti-Matter In Scarlet and Violet, they've made it easier than ever to swap between abilities, but if you catch a Pokemon in the 3DS VC games, and transfer it to Gen 7 and beyond through Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Home, every Pokemon caught in Gen 1 and 2 transferred will have their hidden abilities (Gen 5 mechanic) instead of their usual abilities, as well as a neat GB symbol on the Pokemon summary page.

Just a neat benefit to playing those games instead, as well as the ability to catch Celebi in Gen 2 and use the trainer fly glitch in Gen 1 combined with the 8f glitch for a unique Mew.

For casual play, this probably doesn't matter in the slightest, but the games have their purpose, and if someone has managed to preserve their original GB saves, a modded 3DS can be used to bring those original partners into current Pokemon games.

See, capcom gets it. Now let's hope all publishers follow suit and drop a fire sale on us.

I'm kind of wondering about picking up Blue before they delist the lot of them but not really entirely sure about it, especially since I'm also thinking about getting the Fates DLC I don't have and RE4 and that kind of quickly adds up to a lot.

Nintendo should put them all on Switch, but they wont cause reasons.

Yes funny how the chart is dominated by slashed-price games… basically free money for Capcom as let’s face it, if these games get ported to Switch or its successor, people will buy them again anyway… (hint hint follow suit Atlus psst Capcom UK price slash pls)

@Mrkittyhead it seems inevitable they will eventually release them on NSO just depends how quickly you want to play them!

The old Pokémon titles have sat atop the 3DS eShop for the last 5+ years. I'm actually a bit surprised the Capcom games on fire sale weren't able to top Pokémon - goes to show how strong the brand is.

Gotta buy em all?

Zelda: Oracle of Ages being on the list is interesting. I guess people are preferring to buy them digitally as VC versions rather than only having them on NSO (eventually).

@westman98 The headline should have read that they STILL dominate as they have been there pretty much since they released.

@Nua You can't actually transfer the Mew you mentioned to Pokémon Bank. The software recognises that it is illegitimate.

@Pat_trick Don’t tempt them they’re bad enough at writing these.

@NintendoByNature Not in Europe. There is no Capcom sale in sight over here.

Or just use a discord bot so you don't gotta waste money on 30 year old games

Why isn't there a mention anywhere on this siteof the Atlus sale that is currently going on on the 3DS? Or have I missed it somehow. Some Atlus games that were published by NIS America are very cheap at the moment. Think Stella Glow, Etrian Odyssey etc...

I played through crystal when it came out and was really disappointed with it as I’d never played it before. I still love yellow and still think it’s the best Pokémon game ever made

The one thing I don't really get is the giant gap between Red and Blue, when they are basically the same games, and Blue arguably has overall more useful Pokémon.

Yes, yes, YES! Pokemon 1 and 2 gen dominate once more! Truly a glorious moment for the gaming industry!

@C-Olimar Wrong.

If you do the 8F glitch on blue or red, or the ws# glitch on yellow, you do get all checks because you trick pkm bank to think that it is a distributed mew. It do not make sense on 3DS, but bank still considered it legitimate and you can bring it all the way to the Nintendo Switch, and even use on competitions (don't make sense, as mew is not competitive, but you still can).

For those interested in, I recommend doing this mew glitch on yellow (ws# #m# is the full name), as it is way easier.

step by step guide is on reddit, just type the magical words on google and you get there.

Damn no fire emblem games in the top 20? That's what I've been panic buying.

I got super Mario rpg, the apollo attorney games and ever oasis because everything else I already have for 3ds/ wii u or its on or coming to the switch. I wish I had brought ever oasis ages ago it’s probably one of the best rpgs I’ve played on handheld. Also surprised Mario RPG isn’t on the switch snes app so grabbed that too just in case

@C-Olimar Which is why I also mentioned the 8F glitch, but I should have continued to elaborate that with it you can change the trainer ID from yours to 22796, and the OT Trainer name to GF. Any Mew at Lv. 5 or above with those two features es the check.

@Krisi Most fans are buying Red for sentimental/nonsensical reasons, like Charizard being more popular than Blastoise, Red being considered the main character, not Blue, and many probably thinking that Yellow has any Pokemon that Red is missing, when all three games have different exclusive Pokemon.

The Pokemon titles have honestly dominated the 3ds eShop for some time. Nothing really new there. As for the Capcom published titles, I'm sure slashing all of them down to $2.99 hasn't helped at all.

(I finally caved last night and rounded up the three Ace Attorney titles I was missing....)

@KeeperBvK well that stinks

I in the mid 2000s Microsoft expressed interest in buying Nintendo but Yamauchi refused. One thing is almost certain, if Microsoft acquired Nintendo, they most likely would have made Nintendo’s classic games very accessible and carried over to successor generation consoles.

Someone explain why we can’t purchase the snes vc games on a og 3ds. We should be able to purchase them and them later if you can manage to get a new 3ds (although we should be able to play them on a og no problem) or hopefully they will implement vc on switch with Crossbuy being offered.

Honestly, the VC Pokemon games are an amazing buy. Makes sense they’re still at the top.

Personally though, I’m skeptical of if or how the GB Pokémon games would be added to Switch. I’m just not confident that Nintendo or GF would let us transfer Pokémon from Switch Online to Home. Considering they don’t let you transfer Pokemon to Stadium, it just doesn’t seem like a sure thing that we’d be able to transfer Pokémon from NSO to Home.

Hope I’m wrong, but I think if anyone wants to be able to catch and trade original G1 and 2 Pokémon, they should get the 3DS games. I wouldn’t bank on NSO letting us do that anytime soon, but that’s just my speculation.

Fingers crossed and hope and pray that these titles will all launch on NSO sooner than later. You never know what the fate they have when the stores close, especially when it's up to the big N.

Well this certainly explains why there wasn't an NSO announcement on Pokémon Day.

I know that at least gen 3 is coming to the Switch in the future as they were found in the leak along with the games that were released on NSO in February and are confirmed to be coming later. I am not confident about Gen 1 & 2 being added to NSO. My gut is telling me they will only release Gen 3 on NSO and not Gen 1 & 2. I would recommend purchasing them on the 3ds while you can because I wouldn't trust Nintendo to bring them to NSO.

This is why I don't think gamefreak will ever allow these game to be added to the NSO subscription, or at least not soon, they still sell too well on their own

@Waluigi451 Coliseum?

Edit: You edited it to Stadium some time later. That's what you meant, I see.

Everyone buy Stella Glow right now!

If Gen 1 and 2 come to Switch I hope it’s through purchase and not part of NSO. Otherwise, eventually all progress will one day disappear when Nintendo discontinues NSO.

To be fair, I don’t think the Pokémon games ever left the 3DS VC Top Charts.

VC's top games just being hyper-popular game is part of the reason why we don't have VC anymore. Why bother with Virtual Console, when you can just put your most popular games on a new service (with some niche ones, like Winback, in there as well).

@GameOtaku have you tried purchasing directly from the nintendo website?

@Wheatly You’ll just have to play the games “any way you can.”

@KingEidilleg Because they had different publishers in different regions, they are only on sale in Europe. Not sure if that includes the UK.

The 3DS VC was woefully unpopulated, these have always been the most popular because there isn't much else going on outside of titles people already probably bought on the Wii or Wii U.

@pnott
Where did you see the leak about Pokémon Gen 3 coming to NSO?

@GameOtaku The 3DS system architecture actually struggles with 2D games. The system was designed with 3D polygonal games in the mind, and can struggle with sprite games.

The 3DS has been hacked for years, and the fanmade SNES emulator on 3DS still does not run at 100%, despite years of improvements. For New 3DS models though, it works just fine, like SNES VC titles on the new 3DS. This really is one of those times where Nintendo didn't make up their reasoning, they could not get an SNES emulator to run at full speed on the original 3DS, so they locked the games to New 3DS.

Someone else mentioned that you should be able to buy the games you'd want on Nintendo's website though. I'd say give that a shot if you want.

@Moonlessky
I don’t think you can purchase 3ds vc on their website.
@Nua
I’ve heard it from many that it can do it. Maybe not as well as the New but to a competent level anyway.

@InTree
I’m shocked beyond all imagination that popular games are well……….so popular! Of course popular games that lots of people enjoy would sell really well. But that’s not saying the other niche games haven’t done well. Most of them have been laying dormant for years not making any money at all then vc comes along giving them the ability to be enjoyed once again.

Too bad that NSO is only temporary. I like to own games, not rent them. Buying them on my 3DS makes sense.

@GameOtaku I went and checked for you, yes you can purchase 3ds eshop games through the website.

@Don

The leak was back in April 2022. It was reported on all gaming websites including Nintendolife. The NSO files were datamined and a load of files containing GB and GBA games were found. Of course the leak was verified as the games contained in the leak are now on NSO. Screenshots of the berry tag screen in Pokémon Emerald were also found along with files called 'Pokémon trade'. Doesn't mean that Pokémon Gen 3 is definitely coming to NSO but it shows Nintendo were at some point testing it and testing trading.

Absolutely no surprise to me. If anyone hasn't picked up these games yet, I would strongly encourage doing so. I feel like odds of getting some of the other Pokémon games (Game Boy Advance titles specifically) on the GBA Emulator through Nintendo Switch Online is going to be pretty slim. I would love to be wrong though. Not necessarily for myself, but for other people that may not have gotten the chance to play these games yet.

Such a shame still. Great reminder to pick up the remaining games from the eshop, but closing it remains tragic. There's some great games in that chart, neat guideline for geting the best of the best.

@GameOtaku Yeah, but these niche titles aren't being bought because they are niche. I wouldn't have bought Winback on VC (although it wasn't on VC) if I had the chance, but since I have NSO, I tried it, and now I love it.

@InTree
I’m sure Winback has its fans and many of them would prefer to play it offline and not subscribe.

Myself personally I don’t play online, neither do I have a constant readily available internet service nor do I have any of the games that have dlc given free through the service so I can’t justify paying $20 let alone $50 a year. I would be better off just buying the individual games that I want instead.

@GameOtaku Your not forced online for NSO, though. If you play on NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Gameboy or Gameboy Advance, you only need to play online, when you want to play with your friends online.

And as I said, most people wouldn't play a niche title like Winback, if it was on VC. Its proven that the niche titles on VC are very low on the list of VC games when sorted by popularity.

@InTree
You are forced online to keep access to the games every seven days.

But what if you weren’t interested in Winback? There are many games both popular and niche on nso I enjoy and a lot that I would never touch. But they all take up precious memory space! $50 a year for games and services I’d never use is not money well spent. At least with VC you can buy only the titles you want many times on a discounted price. NSO is a good alternative but it shouldn’t be the only option available.

@GameOtaku I agree that it shouldn't be the only option, but it isn't a bad single option. VC and NSO are fine on their own, but when both included on a console, it can be powerful.