Ash Ketchum Will Finally Appear In A Pokémon Game After 22 Years

screenrant.com:

After 22 years, Ash Ketchum will finally make an appearance in a Pokémon video game. Even though the Pokémon video games and animated series influence each other — sometimes directly, and oftentimes indirectly — anime-exclusive characters usually don’t make their way into the video games. The anime’s protagonist, Ash Ketchum, is one such example. 

Technically, all characters in the anime are separate from any video game counterpart they’re based on. Still, Ash in particular is in a unique place in that he is based on a video game character, Red, but is different enough in both personality and design that he has become his own distinct, anime-exclusive character over the course of the 25 years that the anime has been running. As a result, Ash hasn’t directly appeared in a video game since the N64 console game Pokémon Puzzle League, which released 22 years ago in North America. 

Related: Why Pikachu Looks So Fat In Pokémon Snap

Although Ash himself hasn’t appeared in a Pokémon video game since Puzzle League, he has been referenced a handful of times. A photograph in the back room of the abandoned Thrifty Megamart in Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, andUltra Moon depicts Pikachu on the shoulder of a Trainer who looks like Ash. Ash is more directly referenced in the Sun and Moon Special Demo Version, in which players receive a letter from someone unknown, but meant to be Ash. What makes it clear Ash is the letter’s sender is that it comes with a special Greninja with the ability Battle Bond that allows it to transform into Ash-Greninja in battle, just as Ash’s could in the XYZ arc of the Pokémon anime. The disappointing mobile game Pokémon Masters EX will be changing this, however, as it’s been datamined by Twitter user absolutelypm