The Great Regional FRIENDLY Debate: Kanto vs. Rest Of World

churine

Some prelude here. It's quite well known that Ruby and Sapphire were designed as a sort of reboot of the series. The developers completely reworked how Pokémon data was structured among many other changes, and as a result, Pokémon from RBY and GSC could not be transferred up to the new games, much to the dismay of players. The Hoenn games also brought along the first regional Dex in the series, likely due to Game Freak realizing that not every Pokémon can be easily fit into the main campaign. Though GSC was a sequel to RBY, one of the issues that many people have with these games now is their lack of emphasis on the Johto Pokémon, as most trainers stuck with Kanto Pokémon and many of the new Pokémon were either extremely rare or relegated to Kanto and Mt. Silver for whatever reason, not even taking into consideration the usability of the Johto Pokémon themselves. This could also be a different thought process to make the new Pokémon feel rare and rewarding to find at the time, but we are 20 years in the future now, and that mindset doesn't exist. With that in mind, Ruby and Sapphire decided to only have 200 Pokémon available to catch in the initial game, with 135 of them being the new Pokémon, and thus, the first retroactively-dubbed Dex cut occurred, though all 386 Pokémon were programmed into the game of course.

For the most part, I'd say the regional Dex is a beneficial factor for most regions to possess. It allows for the region to spotlight the new Pokémon being introduced while including some older Pokémon to spice up the number of options; in essence, giving each region its own flair. In the case of RSE, around 2/3 of the regional Dex was just brand new Pokémon, many of which would become fan favorites, such as Breloom, Aggron, and Flygon, as much of the spotlight was on them. The remaining third was filled out by older Pokémon, with some of them being all too familiar faces like Zubat, Tentacool, and Geodude, while others were more uncommon options such as Slugma, Marill, and Skarmory that helped shape the identity of Hoenn. Hilarious point about these aforementioned three is that I know too many people who mistake them for being Generation 3 Pokémon simply because they appear in Hoenn. Looking into future entries, many people have probably associated Houndoom with Platinum or Arcanine with BW2 despite being older generation Pokémon due to the fact that they're included and readily accessible in the game, though the emphasis would still be on the new Pokémon of course. Then, as for competitive play, the first year of VGC formats is usually limited to the Pokémon in the regional Dex, and due to this, it is seen by many to be the most interesting years of the format as a wider pool of Pokémon get used and achieve results due to many otherwise dominant Pokémon being absent.

Of course, regional Dexes can have shortcomings. Type diversity is often a common citing for whether a regional Dex is considered good for many people. It should be pointed out that the earlier games in the series, particularly RBY, did want to make certain types like Dragon and Ghost feel more limited and special due to a focus on more single-player RPG design. However, besides this and the overabundance of Water- and Poison-types in Kanto, RBY did a good job on the type diversity everywhere else; you often have three or more solid options for each type in the game. The Hoenn Dex faced some similar shortcomings as Kanto in this regard, though with the number of Ice- and Ghost-types instead. as Dragon received quite a few options in Flygon, Altaria, Salamence, and also keeping Kingdra, with all three types being Elite Four types again funnily enough. Hoenn only has two fully evolved Ice-types in Glalie and Walrein, both of which are also found late-game at the seventh Gym, and only has four Ghost-types in Sableye, Shedinja, Banette, and Dusclops, with the first being a version exclusive, Shedinja being Shedinja, and the latter two being similarly late-game. I understand Hoenn is a more tropical region, so Ice-types would be hard to fit, and that Ghost-types were still deemed a rare type back then, possibly due to the Normal immunity, but couldn't they at least add in something like Cloyster or Gengar to add at least one more option for players and for the Elite Four? I suppose you could do worse and include 50 fewer Pokémon for the regional Dex and also only two Fire-types and three Electric-types, but at least Platinum overhauled that regional Dex later on.

As the series grew over time, the concept of types playing into these sort of RPG-centric roles, such as early-game being reserved for common Normal- and Bug-types with Ghost and Dragon being more revered late-game types, would start to fade as type diversity presumably became more important to the regional Dex, possibly attributed to each generation introducing more Pokémon of varied types. We can still see this somewhat in the modern day, as how there's often always an early-game bug, bird, Normal-type, and a pseudo-legendary that is often Dragon type, but beyond this, the regional Dex would be constructed with giving the player options. This is apparent in BW, which only let the player catch the new Pokémon before the post-game but made sure to create at least three new Pokémon of each type so that there is variety for the player and NPCs. On the complete opposite end, Kalos is often regarded as having one of the best regional Dexes in the series despite introducing only 72 new Pokémon, because not only does it have the largest regional Dex yet at 457, it also made every new area you explore rich with new Pokémon to catch, often three or more new Pokémon, leaving an incredible groundwork for repeated playthroughs or challenge runs. The games have since continued to try include around 400 options within the regional Dex so that there is a wide selection of Pokémon available, and the most recent games have included over a 100 new options, so we can see how the regional Dex is valued with a focus on the new Pokémon while using older Pokémon to fill out the holes and make each region stand out.

churine

The physical / special split is often heralded as one of the greatest changes ever conceived and implemented by Game Freak. Finally, your Hitmonchan's elemental punches are hitting off of its solid 105 Attack stat instead of the pitiful 35 Special Attack, and your Dark-types like Tyranitar and Sharpedo can use STAB Crunch off of their higher Attack stat. It is an intuitive change as moves are categorized based on what they actually are rather than simply the type they're associated with, which frankly doesn't make sense at times. It generally allows for Pokémon to have a wider array of coverage options, think Psychic- and Ghost-type Pokémon being able to hit Steel- and Dark-types with Fighting-type moves off of their generally higher Special Attack. One can technically say that Pokémon XD was the first to implement the split, as Shadow moves can be physical or special, but this is likely due to the developers being aware of Diamond and Pearl having the split themselves and wanting to see it pan out in XD while still keeping the battle simulator aspect of the games.

However, what people don't often acknowledge is that implementing the physical / special split alone would not do much to change how Pokémon operate without adding many new attacks. Many of the best attacks that existed prior to DPP were already the category their type was associated with anyways, though Dark, Ghost, and Poison were primarily exceptions. Many physical Dark-types would benefit as they get a usable STAB move, even if its Faint Attack or Bite in the cases of Sneasel and Absol, but Pokémon such as Houndoom would lose out on special Dark-type STAB. Similarly, many Pokémon with a secondary Poison-type that had high Special Attack such as Vileplume and Tentacruel can use Sludge Bomb, though physical Poison-type Pokémon such as Muk and Arbok would not have a solid physical STAB Poison-type move. The Ghost-types Gengar and Misdreavus would largely benefit from Shadow Ball being special, but poor Banette would be left with Astonish as its only physical Ghost-type STAB. The point I'm trying to make here is that the physical / special split alone would not be able to suffice in helping make every Pokémon feel more usable, and Game Freak was most certainly aware of this, as they implemented many decently strong to powerful attacking moves for each of the 17 types. This meant that Sneasel and Absol can use Night Slash for actual STAB, Houndoom can keep Crunch's old damage output with Dark Pulse, Muk and Arbok get both Poison Jab and a powerful Gunk Shot, Banette gets Shadow Claw, physical Water-types like Gyarados and Feraligatr are able to use STAB Waterfall, you get the point. Some of the new moves would see wide distribution such as Focus Blast, Earth Power, and Energy Ball, even as simply coverage, giving Pokémon a new way to hit targets that they otherwise would have difficulty hitting. Now, not every Pokémon fully benefitted from the physical / special split. For example, certain Pokémon lost out on coverage to hit opposing types as they swapped classifications, such as Typhlosion and Sceptile not being able to use Thunder Punch off of their higher Special Attack stat. Physical attackers could not use a physical Hidden Power anymore, as it's been classified as a fully special move now, but Hidden Power is a whole can of worms with its random type and Base Power that most in-game players would not bother. However, the Pokémon that did lose out from the split were few and far between, and many of them had gained new tools anyways.

Even with this in mind, the games before the physical / special split aren't all that different as people may make them out to be. Most Electric-types are special attackers and use Thunder and Thunderbolt, most Ground- and Rock-types are physical and use Earthquake and Rock Slide.

Generally speaking, most Pokémon in the first three generations were often designed with the category of their type in mind, but the physical / special split allows for the already existing Pokémon to be more useful and for future Pokémon to be more distinguished in terms of their role, as they no longer have to consider the category of their type and moves in allocating their stats. So overall, the physical / special split is an incredible change, letting more Pokémon use their STAB moves and coverage effectively, bolstered by the fact that new moves were introduced to account for the physical / special split; it is one of the most influential changes of the entire series, and is a benefit to nearly every existing Pokémon and the design of future Pokémon.

churine

Every generation has always brought in something that would significantly change how battles would be played that goes beyond simply more moves and Pokémon, whether that was held items, two new types, the Special split, abilities, natures, the physical / special split, and so much more. However, it felt like since BW, the battle system has been refined to the point that it is as good as it can be, and that meaningful adjustments that go beyond the scope of adding or balancing moves, items, abilities, or even types to improve upon the system, would be difficult to achieve. This is why I'd imagine the developers looked towards adding a generational gimmick, as not only would it make battles stand out and feel fresh, but it would also make each region and generation feel distinct in their own way. Game Freak has stated before that they do like to surprise players with whatever they bring into the new Pokémon games, whether those be positive or negative changes.

Onto the actual gimmicks themselves, XY brought Mega Evolutions, which is definitely the favorite among fans, and for good reason. It put the spotlight on many uncommon Pokémon and improved them significantly, and it also gave us the "fourth-stage" evolution we have all thought about before, even if it's only temporary. Mega Evolutions were like adding a brand new Pokémon, because they significantly changed up the stats, increasing by 100 total, often provided a different ability or typing, and even made for justification to expand movepools in cases like Heracross and Blastoise. However, the best part of Mega Evolution is that it let the imagination flow, thinking about what new Mega Pokémon we could be seeing, and letting ideas on what they would look like, what their stats, typing, and ability would be. It's definitely something that could keep feeding you with YouTube content to make that's for sure. This just made Mega Evolutions exciting to many people, which exploded upon the release of ORAS as they brought along more Mega Evolutions, adding up to a total of 48 Megas, 50 if you count the Primals. So why did the developers stop creating new Mega Evolutions if fan reception was positive? Well, it wasn't only because it was the generational gimmick, but Game Freak also stated that one of the reasons to de-emphasize Megas was because not every Pokémon could utilize Mega Evolutions. Only fully-evolved Pokémon could even potentially have one, and they would need to come up with a concept for each one, not to mention how to distribute the specific Mega Stone and other things. Furthermore, chances are if you played Kalos, you wanted to use Mega Evolutions, and probably forced a Kanto starter, Lucario, or some other Mega onto your team, meaning the games with the largest regional Dex did not necessarily lead to the best team diversity, which kind of goes against the idea of playing with a team of your favorites. Megas also had the adverse effect of making it feel like Pokémon that received them would never get a proper cross-gen evolution, with Mawile, Sableye, and Banette probably being the most glaring examples, Banette especially given that its counterpart Dusclops did get one.

So going forward, the gimmicks were built in mind of having it so every Pokémon would be able to utilize or interact with it in some way, which has kind of all felt samey as a result. SM added Z-Moves, SS had Dynamax and Gigantamax, and SV had Terastal. They might all have different effects and functions, with Terastallizing probably being the most interesting due to the way it makes players see Pokémon and how it interacts with the gameplay, but besides these gimmicks being given out to you and making for some interesting fights against NPC trainers, they don't feel as striking as Megas, probably because Megas felt like new mons. All these gimmicks in general a;sp suffer from having long animation times, with long animations and just the general waiting in battles being one of the main flaws the battling in these modern games have in my opinion. It also doesn't help that people are well adjusted to the idea that these mechanics are likely not going to be present in the next games, so unlike the time Megas existed, there's not much hype surrounding them compared to Megas because it will probably not exist in a few years.

Personally, gimmicks tend to dilute the battles and games to me, and I would not mind one bit going back to playing Pokémon without any gimmick. I play Pokémon for the Pokémon themselves, and gimmicks don't really add much to what is already there. There are many other ways to make each generation feel memorable without a battle gimmick, think about the Wild Area in SS or the open world aspect of SV, and why should people care about gimmicks if they'll likely not appear in the next game? Mega Evolutions were pretty cool and are the one gimmick I'm fine with simply because they felt like new Pokémon. Either way I just wanna play some good old Pokémon, and gimmicks intrude on this.

churine

As a disclaimer, I have not played Scarlet and Violet for many other reasons, but the open world aspects is one that I think is really cool. Non-linear progression can be incredible if done right, but it can also be off-putting otherwise. These games give the player nearly endless freedom in traversing the whole region, including how they choose to progress about the game such as with the Gyms, something that the Pokémon games have not tried to explicitly do since the Kanto and Johto games. So, before talking about Paldea, let's talk about the first two generations, and why the games got more streamlined in terms of progression afterwards.

Kanto follows a linear path up until you beat Misty and get the HM for Cut from the S.S. Anne, and then the game slowly opens up bit by bit until you get the Poké Flute to wake up the two sleeping Snorlax. The player can choose whatever order to fight the next five Gym Leaders at this point if they desired. Johto is similar in that it's linear up until you beat Morty and get the HM for Surf. The player can then go west to fight Chuck and Jasmine in the intended order, or go east to take on Team Rocket and Pryce. While letting the player fight Gyms out of order and progress their own way is great, the developers have to balance the game to account for this player agency. This is likely most apparent in Johto, and is part of why many of the Trainers are at a similar level on both routes, why Pryce's Pokémon are comically lower leveled than Jasmine even though he's the seventh Gym Leader, and probably contributes to how people feel about Johto's level curve. It's also why Koga and Sabrina specifically have Pokémon in the same Level range of 37-43. In short, the first two Pokémon games did give some flexibility to the player, but with the developers wanting to balance each option, the game at that part may feel that it flattens out for a bit as levels of Trainers and wild Pokémon stagnate, which is likely why many of the games since then have mostly abandoned this concept; one exception is Hoenn letting you skip Brawly and fight him after the fourth Gym, which is a nice speedrun strat! This doesn't mean the other games don't allow you to explore, though, as Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos all have tons of areas regions to explore, even many optional ones like Pacifidlog Town and Fuego Ironworks or areas to just make light work of your HMs and get items; it's mainly the Gym order that is static.

Now this brings us to Paldea, which is the first truly open-world experience for the series; the developers wanted to home in on all the aspects of an open world, which means non-linear progression at its fullest. There are 18 objectives to do with each objective corresponding to a type, the eight Gyms as usual, five Titan Pokémon to fight, and five "evil" team bases to barge into and ransack. Your legendary bike Dragon also learns more movement options the more you progress through the game, which can include swimming, gliding, scaling rocks. This open world design means you can find yourself traversing into an area where the wild Pokémon overlevel you considerably, which might sound wrong but that's kind of a charm of an open world design. However, what's kind of a missed opportunity here and was likely annoying by many is that the Gym Leaders teams don't scale based on anything at all, whether that be how many Gym Badges you have or how many objectives you've cleared. It's kind of become established in the lore that Gym Leaders have lots of Pokémon ready and use the appropriate Pokémon depending on how skilled a Trainer is or how far they are into their journey, like in Pokémon Generations, you can see Brock have a full row of Pokémon yet only select two; so, this would've been the perfect time to bring that idea into the series. Instead, the player can choose to do whatever they want, beat the Titans or some of the later Gyms, and return to the early Gyms who throw out a toothpick and wet towel while the player rolls up with Level 40+ monsters. Some players have had to consult an image made by other players to show the recommended path of progression so that the levels stay constant, going against the whole idea of non-linear progression and a fun of open world games. I suppose it is not as logical to level scale Titan Pokémon, and I have no idea on those team bases, but Gym Leaders should have some kind of level scaling even if it's not that intricate.

I suppose the best way to describe the non-linear progression in the series is: Kanto and Johto balanced open progression based on the expected resources the player would have at that point, whereas Paldea made an open world and left to get a bag of milk when it came to balancing. Having the Gym Leaders in Paldea scale their teams based on how far you have progressed in the game would have really helped in multiple ways, and I imagine that it is more than possible on Switch than a Game Boy. It would also help strengthen the aspect of each player having an individualized experience with the game, and their memory of each of the fights. It's very probable that the next generation of games is in a similar open-world style as Scarlet and Violet, which would mean more of the non-linear progression, but one thing to look into is trying to implement some form of level scaling for sure.