Nintendo just shut down a fan-made Pokemon game downloaded by millions of people

Between the extreme popularity of "Pokémon Go" and the excitement over the upcoming "Pokémon Sun & Moon," everyone has the lovable pocket monsters on their minds for the first time since the late 1990s.

The passion never died for millions of fans, though, and a couple in particular: The two-person development team behind "Pokémon Uranium" finally shared their work with the world last week after 9 years of development. Within days, the free, fan-made Pokémon RPG was downloaded more than 1.5 million times.

Unfortunately, due to copyright pressure from Nintendo, the team behind "Pokémon Uranium" removed all official download links before the gaming giant could take legal action against them.

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Pokémon Uranium

"Pokémon Uranium" has traditional turn-based combat featuring more than 150 original Pokémon.

The game was in the same vein as the traditional Pokémon RPG games that have existed on Nintendo's handheld platforms for decades. Here are some of its main features:

• A whole new world to explore called the Tandor region.
• More than 150 original Pokémon, alongside some from the official games.
• A new type of Pokémon called Nuclear Pokémon.
• A robust online trading and battling system.
• Dozens of hours of content, from eight gym battles to an original storyline for players to follow.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first fan project Nintendo has killed, nor will it be the last. Last week, Nintendo gave the same treatment to "AM2R," a remake of the GameBoy classic "Metroid II" that had been in development for four years.

Obviously, Nintendo has a right to protect its copyrights, but it's a bummer that they're so litigious towards people who are just showcasing their love for Nintendo games. The existence of "Pokémon Uranium" wasn't going to hurt any other official Pokémon games, just as "AM2R" wasn't going to hurt the basically-dead Metroid series.

Hopefully, after years of hard work, the makers of these games are able to share it with people in some way.