Today on the OI Discord channel, we were briefly talking about content pile-up in Pokémon. The series has accumulated a lot of strange mechanics over the years, and nowhere is this as prevalent as in the Pokémon themselves. 807 'mons is a lot, but I think we all enjoy and appreciate the diversity. It's fun to play each new game and see what new additions are added to the franchise. New creatures with new lore, and maybe new and strange ways to evolve, and ...to be honest, that bit in particular is starting to pile up a bit more than I'd like. It may be fun to discover that a new Pokémon has a signature item it can use for some new and fancy purpose, but then the designers have to put that item into every new game from now on. Often, the items don't even have any other purpose than doing that one thing for that one Pokémon. And then in later games, as you explore the world you realize that a lot of the things (locations, items, NPCs) you find exist merely to provide the necessary support for the overwhelming load of baggage that the series has accumulated since the turn of the millennium (the first signature items arrived in Gen II).
To sum up, there are 125 regular items that serve only one purpose for one Pokémon (or in some cases, one evolution family), and are completely useless (except for selling them for money) beside that:
- 5 orbs, for Kyogre/Groudon/Dialga/Palkia/Giratina
- 4 Drives, for Genesect
- 48 Mega Stones
- 17 Memories, for Silvally
- 17 signature Z-Crystals, for roughly as many Pokémon (the Tapus share a Crystal)
- 4 Nectars for Oricorio
- DeepSeaTooth/-Scale for the Clamperl family
- Dragon Scale for Seadra
- Up-Grade and Dubious Disc for the Porygon family
- Electirizer for Electabuzz
- Magmarizer for Magmar
- Prism Scale for Feebas
- Protector for Rhydon
- Reaper Cloth for Dusclops
- Sachet for Spritzee
- Whipped Dream for Swirlix
- Oval Stone for Happiny
- Light Ball for Pikachu
- Lucky Punch for Chansey
- Metal Powder and Quick Powder for Ditto
- Soul Dew for Lati@s
- Stick for Farfetch'd
- Thick Club for the Cubone family
In addition, there are a bunch of Key Items, tutors, and other mandatory features to accommodate form changes, mostly for legendaries:
- Deoxys' meteorites
- Dragon Ascent tutor for Rayquaza
- Rotom's appliances
- The Gracidea Flower for Shaymin
- Ice Rock and Moss Rock for Eevee
- Reveal Glass for Unova's Genie trio
- DNA Splicers for Kyurem
- Secret Sword tutor for Keldeo
- Relic Song tutor for Meloetta
- Hair Dresser for Furfrou
- Zygarde Cube for Zygarde
- Prison Bottle for Hoopa
- N-Solarizer for Solgaleo
- N-Lunarizer for Lunala
You could also add stuff like Arceus' Plates being redundant with type-boosting items such as Mystic Water, and Razor Claw being identical to Scope Lens if not for the thing about evolving Gligar.
All this in total adds up to a checklist of more than 150 things the designers have to put into each new game, to enable players to obtain every Pokémon and use them in ways they've become used to, but which have no real purpose apart from that. Or a bit of a retcon may soon be in order. Either way, this pile of baggage is starting to be a little too big for immersion to me. Most of it is dumped into your lap early in the postgame, to give you the means to obtain and use every Pokémon as originally designed. It comes off as a big pile of optional offers handed to you at earliest convenience, that the designers had to stuff somewhere on the off-chance that you would want to use any of those Pokémon at some later point.