Pokemon Sun and Moon officially announced for Nintendo 3DS with 2016 release date

Nintendo has officially announced the seventh generation of the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. The two games will launch exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS handheld in late 2016.

Sun and Moon are the two latest games in the beloved franchise, which celebrates its 20th anniversary tomorrow (27 February). These are the first original mainline titles in the series since X and Y launched in 2013 to a glowing response from fans.

You can watch the announcement below...

A brief Pokémon Direct online broadcast lasted just five minutes, confirming the existence of the games which leaked yesterday thanks to trademarks Nintendo registered in Europe.

Tsunekazu Ishihara, the president and CEO of the franchise's marketing off-shoot The Pokemon Company, appeared in the video to also reveal that both games will be available in nine languages - adding Chinese for the very first time.

We've also taken a look at five features we'd like to see in the new games.

To mark tomorrow's anniversary, Nintendo are launching the original Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow games on 3DS through the virtual console. These games will be released as they were, but with online functionality added in. They will also connect to the Pokémon Bank 3DS app, meaning original Pokémon can be transferred to Sun and Moon when they're released later this year.

To celebrate the anniversary, IBTimes UK has been reminiscing about their personal memories of the seires, have battled over their personal favourites and cast a disgusted eye over those pocket monsters that rank among the most hideously designed.

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