First Pokemon Sun and Moon gameplay footage to debut on 3 April

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are to debut the first look at gameplay footage from the next major Pokémon games, Sun and Moon, on a television show set to air in Japan next weekend, on Sunday 3 April.

According to Serebii.net the first look at the 3DS games will be introduced by series director Junichi Masuda, the games' battle director Shigeki Morimoto and Shigeru Ohmori, who directed the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes for 3DS. It will take place on the Gathering at the Pokémon House variety show.

Sun and Moon mark the seventh generation of the Pokémon series which recently celebrated its 20<sup>th anniversary with a range of celebrations, including the re-releasing the original Red, Blue and Yellow games on 3DS. It was the day prior to the anniversary date that Sun and Moon were announced in a special Pokémon-dedicated Nintendo Direct broadcast.

Little is known about the games. We know their names of course, and also fact they'll be the first Pokémon titles to be published in Mandarin, that they'll be released worldwide on Nintendo 3DS later in 2016 and that Pokémon caught in existing 3DS games will be able to be transferred over.

Following the announcement of Sun and Moon we ran down some of the features we'd like to see, including the return of the Pokéwalker, a mode that acts as a successor to Pokémon Snap and improvements to the rivals system.

No footage of the game was shown off when the game was announced, but we did see some concept art and behinds the scene footage.

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