Crossover fan art is always interesting because it allows the artist to highlight their favorite video game franchises and what they think makes each special. One artist, however, crossed three different gaming staples together and made them into Pokemon starters as well as showcasing the entirety of their evolutionary lines.
Posted to Twitter, user @caseysguts shared their Pokemon crossover for Mario, Sonic, and The Legend of Zelda by turning each series' lead into a Pokemon starter: fire for Mario, water for Sonic, and grass for Link. It doesn't just stop there, however, as @caseysguts made three different Pokemon for each character showing the monsters' developments as they level up and evolve.
Each "Pokemon" name is a play on something related to the character without being too on the nose. For example, the second evolution of the Sonic Pokemon is named "Gagofas," a clear allusion to the "gotta go fast" meme that stemmed from the Sonic X intro music. Other references include the Mario starter "Tanuee" being a reference to the Tanooki suit featured in the games and Link's final evolved form "Hylink" references the land of Hyrule where many Zelda games are set.
In addition to designing and naming each new Pokemon, @caseysguts also assigned their elemental types. Since they're three starter Pokemon, they all start as monotypes, fire, water, and grass as mentioned above, but grow into dualtypes as they evolve. To reflect the flight aspects of the Tanooki suit in Super Mario 3, the Mario-inspired Pokemon eventually evolve into being Fire-Flying. The final evolution of the Link Pokemon ends up as grass-steel to accommodate for the Master Sword and Hylian shield and the Sonic Pokemon eventually turn into water-electric to power the shields that are often featured in Sonic games.
The art really shows some excellent creativity, but it also highlights the fact that there's a lot on the horizon for the Nintendo Switch in 2022. So far, three of the four franchises included in the crossover have games coming out with Pokemon Legends: Arceus kicking off the year with a late January release date. Neither Sonic Frontiers nor the currently untitled Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel have specific release dates yet, but they're both expected to be coming at some point down the line.
Given the fact that there hasn't been a new, mainline Mario title since Super Mario Odyssey in 2017, many fans feel like 2022 might be the year when the next game releases. There isn't much to suggest that's the case just yet, but there's still plenty of time for Nintendo to make an announcement.