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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

All they needed to do to make this reasonable was retitle the transformation from "Ash Greninja" to something like "Bonded Greninja" or something, removing the overt anime character reference and tie to the phenomenon. Then they don't have to relate Battle Bond appearances and the form back to a character who only exists in one of the several Multi-Media avenues of the franchise.

My tinfoil hat theory is that Ash-Greninja almost overshadowed Pikachu for that season as far as being Ash's partner/ace Pokemon, and someone on the marketing team simply wasn't having that. Same reason Infernape had a relatively understated part in his reappearances for Journeys given his role in Sinnoh. Hell Greninja's reappearance was just to parallel/train a marketable mon with a superform who they weren't playing above Pikachu this Gen.
 
Fusion Flare said:
none of this wouldve been a problem if they just gave the kalos starters mega evolutions
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I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed by any source code or anything but I remember reading that the plan was to give all the Kalos starters the Bond Phenomenon in XY, with each starter's boosted form having aspects of the player's clothes.

Unfortunately with the wide range of options granted by customisation it likely proved unworkable (if indeed it ever was the plan) so it was junked.

Interestingly in the Adventures manga's Y's Greninja inexplicably has Battle Bond despite it not (to my recollection) ever playing a role in events so that might have been intended to play into this idea (with her Grenina taking on her appearance).
 
green_typhlosion said:
I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed by any source code or anything but I remember reading that the plan was to give all the Kalos starters the Bond Phenomenon in XY, with each starter's boosted form having aspects of the player's clothes.

Unfortunately with the wide range of options granted by customisation it likely proved unworkable (if indeed it ever was the plan) so it was junked.

Interestingly in the Adventures manga's Y's Greninja inexplicably has Battle Bond despite it not (to my recollection) ever playing a role in events so that might have been intended to play into this idea (with her Grenina taking on her appearance).
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That was never stated anywhere as far as I'm aware. It's always just been the assumption

What we do know is Ash-Greninja was made at request of the anime folks and GameFreak worked with them to create it. It's fully possible it was a draft of something they might have planned with Z at some point, but there's no evidence of it.
 
green_typhlosion said:
I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed by any source code or anything but I remember reading that the plan was to give all the Kalos starters the Bond Phenomenon in XY, with each starter's boosted form having aspects of the player's clothes.
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That sounds like what I had suggested to include Ash-Greninja & Bond Phenomenon. Bond Phenomenon would give the Starters some additional details based on the customization option, and Ash-Greninja is just showing what an Ash version of Greninja would look like to show if off in the anime.
 
I have a proposed explanation for the Legendary Pokemon appearances in things like Post-Game of ORAS or Dynamax. Gen 6 onward has established that Pokemon exists in a Multiverse to explain away things like version differences and remake updates.

The Legendaries were implicitly coming from these locations/universes as-is because of mechanics like Hoopa's rings or the Ultra Warp Ride travel in USUM. My proposal is you are specifically catching not-your-version exclusives from these, explaining away their absence in stories where they'd otherwise logically come up (i.e. the Groudon from some version of Pokemon Sapphire). Rainbow Rocket already establishes universes exist where the Bad Guys win and catch their Mascot Legend, so what about ones where they just exist or get pulled away for you to catch?

This would mostly explain away Pokemon who are hard-confirmed to be unique specimens or whose potential-multiples would be accounted for just by existing (like the Sinjoh Creation Trio's event), though it still could be the explanation for something like seeing Zapdos in a Wormhole as opposed to trekking to some Raid in Kanto like Journeys depicts for seeking one out.
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Something that struck me lately is that I find it odd that they never created an ability that explicitly boosts the power of cutting/slashing moves. Considering there are a few abilities that boost moves with certain attributes (Iron Fist boosts punches, Mega Launcher boosts aura/pulse moves, Reckless boosts recoil moves, etc) and the fact that there are so many cutting/slashing moves now, it's strange an ability that explicitly boosts these moves has yet to exist. Namely, we have a lot of moves like this:

- Slash
- Night Slash
- Psycho Cut
- Shadow Claw
- Cross Poison
- X-Scissor
- Dragon Claw
- Razor Shell
- Leaf Blade
- Aerial Ace
- Crush Claw
- Cut (lol)
- Solar Blade
- Razor Wind
- Razor Leaf

Etc.

That's a lot of moves, and more than enough to have an ability that boosts them, especially since none of them exceed 90 BP so a boost wouldn't break them too much while it makes them that much cooler. Why they haven't created such an ability at this point is quite strange.
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Well well, talk about fate.
 
So I started speculating and text-rambling about Sneasel variants while looking at some stuff for PLA, and whether or not this is a mystery to people who have played more of the game than I have, I want to get this down.

Johto Sneasel vs Hisuian Sneasel and their evolutions are stated to be because of their respective environments, yet we come to the retroactive issue that normal Sneasel is quite prominent in Northern Sinnoh while Hisuian is nowhere to be seen, despite the latter still being capable of surviving in cold environments. Hisui is based on an era of Japanese history that is approximately 600-700 years ago, which in terms of that dramatic a change would not be a very long time for natural selection (a complete change in body structure and losing/heavily downplaying Venomous claws), as well as a change in social/pack structure between the evolutions. The first explanation my mind jumps to is that these are modern Johto Sneasel introduced effectively as invasive species that simply stuck around in the Cold regions rather than Hisuian Sneasel being naturally selected out for them, also explaining how they would basically be identical to naturally occurring Sneasel in another region.

To my memory, Hisuian Sneasel and Sneasler would be the only time we've had a "full-line" Regional Form occurring within a Region where another form of it appears naturally in the Wild (separated by a large time span but not as evolutionary significant as the changes entail), rather than a shared Pre-evolution diverging on Evolve due to environment factors like Marowak or Exeggutor, so it's the first time the two variants co-existing or having one displace the other becomes a legitimate consideration. All the others come from factors like Ultra Wormholes (which take you outside Alola's environment anyway if the evolutions are an indication) or in-game trades.
 
pika pal said:
So I started speculating and text-rambling about Sneasel variants while looking at some stuff for PLA, and whether or not this is a mystery to people who have played more of the game than I have, I want to get this down.

Johto Sneasel vs Hisuian Sneasel and their evolutions are stated to be because of their respective environments, yet we come to the retroactive issue that normal Sneasel is quite prominent in Northern Sinnoh while Hisuian is nowhere to be seen, despite the latter still being capable of surviving in cold environments. Hisui is based on an era of Japanese history that is approximately 600-700 years ago, which in terms of that dramatic a change would not be a very long time for natural selection (a complete change in body structure and losing/heavily downplaying Venomous claws), as well as a change in social/pack structure between the evolutions. The first explanation my mind jumps to is that these are modern Johto Sneasel introduced effectively as invasive species that simply stuck around in the Cold regions rather than Hisuian Sneasel being naturally selected out for them, also explaining how they would basically be identical to naturally occurring Sneasel in another region.

To my memory, Hisuian Sneasel and Sneasler would be the only time we've had a "full-line" Regional Form occurring within a Region where another form of it appears naturally in the Wild (separated by a large time span but not as evolutionary significant as the changes entail), rather than a shared Pre-evolution diverging on Evolve due to environment factors like Marowak or Exeggutor, so it's the first time the two variants co-existing or having one displace the other becomes a legitimate consideration. All the others come from factors like Ultra Wormholes (which take you outside Alola's environment anyway if the evolutions are an indication) or in-game trades.
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Hisui is just presented as being a harsher environment with different chemical make up to live in than modern day Sinnoh across the board. It's mostly a thing told through gameplay only in so far as there's few settlements and pokemon attack you on sight, so you just kind of have to take their word for it. As the environment changes both in landscape and I guess composition, Sneasel leaves those traits behind.

As for why the change is so sudden in a "real time" aspect well. I know this isn't the best answer. But Pokemon are basically already magic when it comes to their evolutions and regional forms, so the same probably applies to response to environmental changes too. The time scale is small but I can also bring over a Vulpix to alola, breed it and then it's popping out keokeos.
 
R_N said:
The time scale is small but I can also bring over a Vulpix to alola, breed it and then it's popping out keokeos.
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I thought that only worked the other way around?

Also, someone brought up Relicanth on another thread, and I was reminded of when I saw someone on Bulbagarden Forums years ago wonder if the people who assigned gender ratios in Gen 3 had no idea what they were doing, which is why Relicanth has the gift Pokémon gender ratio and 1/3 of female Azurill become male upon evolving.
 
Could very well be the case that Relicanth was originally intended to be a fossil Pokemon like Aerodactyl, but something changed in the planning and the gender ratio was already assigned and not altered. There are exceedingly few remnants of past designs in the final products of Pokemon games, but Relicanth is notably the only instance of a Pokemon with that gender ratio that did not debut as a gift Pokemon.
 
Since I got mildly nerd-sniped with that:
  • There are only two lines capable of breeding with Hydreigon (Dragon group only) that I would potentially describe as mechanical: the Dreepy line (Dragon and Amourphus) and Duraludon (Dragon and Mineral)
  • The only Flying-type (what Jugulis changes to) in the Mineral Egg group with the real robots is the non-robot Minior
  • The Mineral group also contains the Fidough line
 
I have been lurking on these forums for a while, and decided to make a post here.

I have also been thinking about how why the Pokémon that are present in Pokémon Legends Arceus aren't present in the modern day, and have thought of a potential theory for the absence of the new starter trio. I think it is a bit shaky, but there are some detail that could be evidence for it.

For the starters specifically, the reason they aren't found in modern day Sinnoh is that they were never really native to the region in the first place. I think that the new starters could have been brought to Hisui by space time distortions, like the Porygon line or the Jotho form of Sneasel. Similarly to the other Pokémon found in distortion that aren't native to Hisui, the new trio of starters cannot be found in the wild outside of special events. Unlike them though, the new starters can also be found during massive mass outbreaks, which could be evidence against this idea.

While the dex entries for the Hisui variants for the fully evolved starters states that the Hisui forms were caused the Hisui environment, these new form might have not been created by natural selection of the starters while they lived in Hisui. It seems that regional variants that evolve from a non variant prevolution, like Alolain Raichu or Galarian Weezing, seem to be caused by the prevolution being exposed to unique conditions rather than being a more distinct subspecies like the regional forms where all members are regional variants. If a Pokemon like Pikachu is brought to Aloha from another region is evolved into Raichu, it will become an Alolain Raichu. A similar thing happens in reverse when a Pikachu caught in Alola will evolve into a regular Raichu when brought to another region or into ultra space. These specific types of regional variant might be similar to how split evolution works, with the different evolutions just being more similar to each other. This is even eluded to with multiple dex entries for Alolain Raichu
It only evolves to this form in the Alola region. According to researchers, its diet is one of the causes of this change. From the dex entry in Sun
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It's believed that the weather, climate, and food of the Alola region all play a part in causing Pikachu to evolve into this form of Raichu. From the dex entry in Sword
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The Hisusi forms for the starters could have been adaptations that were evolved for a different region that has a similar enough environment to Hisui for the Hisui form to be able to show up. Or the Hisui forms were not evolved as an adaptation, and the environment of Hisui being able to affect the starters in this way is just a odd emergent property of these Pokémon. Possibly similar to how some item based evolution work.

The reason the new starters are not found in modern Sinnoh could be that the distortions stopped bringing them to Sinnoh, and the starters brought into Sinnoh weren't able to establish a stable population and went extinct.
The pokedex entry for Oshawott specially mentions it being from Unova, a detail that would be somewhat odd if it was already native to the region
This Pokémon from the Unova region uses the shell on its belly as a weapon to cut down its foes. Thus, I’ve conferred upon this shell the name “scalchop.”
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A similar thing happens with the entry for Cyndaquil
Hails from the Johto region. Though usually curled into a ball due to its timid disposition, it harbors tremendous firepower.
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The pokedex entry for Hisui Samurott mentions that the form is not common, which could be hinting at how the new starters having a very small population in Hisui, which would be evidence towards them being in Hisui due to the distortions rather than being naturally found in Hisui.
Hard of heart and deft of blade, this rare form of Samurott is a product of the Pokémon’s evolution in the region of Hisui. Its turbulent blows crash into foes like ceaseless pounding waves.
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The entry for Dartix explicitly mentions it struggling with the cold climate of Hisui, which would make more sense if the species only recently moved to the region.
Regularly basks in sunlight to gather power—presumably due to the frigid climate. Nonetheless, the edges of the blade quills set into its wings are keen as ever.
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While all three entries for the final evolutions of the starters mentions them being due to the influence of the environment of Hisui, it is never explicitly stated that this is due to natural selection
The air stored inside the rachises of Decidueye’s feathers insulates the Pokémon against Hisui’s extreme cold. This is firm proof that evolution can be influenced by environment.
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The usage of the word evolution in this context could be referencing more so to the evolution mechanic than the process of evolution the word refers to normally.
The reasoning given for how the environment of Hisui causes Hisui Typhlosion feel more fitting for the possibly that these new forms are odd occurrences rather than the result of adaptations to the environment.
Said to purify lost, forsaken souls with its flames and guide them to the afterlife. I believe its form has been influenced by the energy of the sacred mountain towering at Hisui’s center.
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along with the example of other regional variants, there are some other Pokémon that have evolutions caused by being in different environmental conditions
The evolutions of Magnazone, Probopass, and Vikavolt are caused by exposure to magnetic field found in certain areas
this method feels similar to how Hisui Typhlosion was described, just with a different phenomenon causing the evolution
Eevee evolving into Glaceon or Leafeon by being close to either the ice rock or moss rock.
The evolution of Crabominable by being in a cold area
Another possibly that could explain some of the other Hisui Pokemon missing in the modern day is that the pokemon found in platinum regional dex that were missing in legends arceus were introduced to the region later on either through more space time distortions, or through more conventional ways. These new species could have acted as invasive species and caused some of these Pokémon to go extinct.
pika pal said:
The first explanation my mind jumps to is that these are modern Johto Sneasel introduced effectively as invasive species that simply stuck around in the Cold regions rather than Hisuian Sneasel being naturally selected out for them, also explaining how they would basically be identical to naturally occurring Sneasel in another region.
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This post present a similar idea, and I would imagine that this phenomenon could possibly have happened at a larger scale. With multiple new Pokémon species being introduced to Sinnoh, and then resulting into the pokemon added in Legends Arceus going extinct.
Goldeen line
Meditite line
Hoothoot line
Wooper line
Wingull line
Girafarig line
Azurill line
Feebas line
Swablu line
Houndour line
Tropius line
Absol
Magnemite line
Johto Sneasel line
Porygon is only found in the trophy garden or as a gift so it might not count
Rowlet line
Cyndaquil line
Oshawott line
Stantler line
Paras line
Hisui Qwilfish line
Petilil line
Teddiursa line
Goomy line
Spheal line
Hisui Growlithe line
Basculin line
Vulpix line
Hisui Voltorb line
Hisui Sneasel line
Bergmite line
Hisui Zorua line
Hisui Rufflet line
The genie quartet
The original Sinnoh starters might also count since they are only found in the wild in legends arceus
Some of these Pokemon can be found in the grand underground in the remakes but since they added every Pokemon up to gen four in there, I'm not sure how that would affect this theory.
Considering the large amount of differences between these two regional dexs, I think this theory could be a possibility. Although this could just be because they wanted to add some Pokemon for the Hisui form idea, along with adding and removing other pokemon from the dex in order to suit the game better.

In general a lot of these mysteries could just be because of game design reasons, but it is interesting to speculate and think about these things.
Goldeen seems like a interesting one to me since it range in Sinnoh has gone from not being in the region at all, to being found in many areas when fishing.

The Wingull line is known to eat fish Pokemon so they could have hunted the White-Striped Basculin and the Hisui form of Qwilfish to extinction. Although I think it's less likely for Hisui Qwilfish considering it being poisonous and it's aggressive behavior would discourage hunting it. I think a combination of competition from goldeen and wingull hunting was what caused the extinction of White-Striped Basculin

I'm not that sure on what impact the hoothoot line had. One possibility is that hoothoot caused Hisui Braviary to go extinct considering that Noctowl can found in areas that are likely located in the Alabaster Icelands, where Hisui Braviary lives. Another possiblity for Hisui Braviary extinction is that it's dex entry mentions hunting Pokemon living in lakes.

Screaming a bloodcurdling battle cry, this huge and ferocious bird Pokémon goes out on the hunt. It blasts lakes with shock waves, then scoops up any prey that float to the water’s surface.
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Considering that you find the Hisui Braviary naturally in the Alabaster Icelands, the lakes referenced to in it's entry is likely Lake Acuity along with other unseen lakes that are similar to it in the Alabaster Icelands. Lake Acuity has only White-Striped Basculin living in the water during Legends Arceus. So the extinction of White-Striped Basculin could have led to the extinction of Hisui Braviary. In modern Sinnoh White-Striped Basculin has been replaced with golduck, magicarp, and interestingly goldeen. The extinction of Hisui Braviary could have been a knock on effect caused by the introduction of goldeen causing White-Striped Basculin, the main prey of Hisui Braviary, to go extinct.

A interesting detail is that Magicarp seems to be more common in modern Sinnoh than in Hisui. In most games and in modern Sinnoh Magikarp can be found in every body of water, which fits many of it's descriptions in the games as being able to live in any body of water. But in legends Arceus it is absent from two of the main areas of the game, the Crimsom Mirelands and the Alabaster Icelands. The possible expansion of it's range, either through Gyarados being able to fly allowing in to migrate to new bodies of water and establish new populations of Magikarp, it being accidently released into new habitats, or even through spacetime distortions, could have also had a impact on the ecosystem of Sinnoh.
 
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Magcargo said:
View attachment 473066

The secret behind the Terastallization phenomenon has been hiding in plain sight all along. Unfortunately, once it setup its trap for Turo and Sada in Area Zero, it took them out before they even noticed.
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Hmm, maybe, but I have a different theory...
cozRWYY.jpeg

Cause nothing screams messing with reality more than an eldritch abomination mixed with a Biblical accurate angel.
 
LonelyGaruga said:
Could very well be the case that Relicanth was originally intended to be a fossil Pokemon like Aerodactyl, but something changed in the planning and the gender ratio was already assigned and not altered.
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Relicanth's whole thing is that it's a living fossil like its inspiration, the Coelacanth. It's a Pokemon thought to have gone extinct, but found still living in a remote location. Interestingly, Kabuto is mentioned have some surviving specimens in some dex entries.
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Unless all of these dex entries were a lead up to the Crown Tundra having released revived Kabuto in the wild, I'm still on my "Ancient Pokemon were just commonly Rock types" stance.
 
Interestingly, there are also current-time crinoids (lileep's inspiration) that closely resemble the fossil record, though they're rarer and usually deep-sea (most present crinoids don't have a stalk and free-swimming rather than anchored to the ground)

Apparently ammonoids and nautilouds split pretty early so the Helix Fossil is out of luck despite the visual resemblance.
 
Imperial Magala said:
Relicanth's whole thing is that it's a living fossil like its inspiration, the Coelacanth. It's a Pokemon thought to have gone extinct, but found still living in a remote location.
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Of course, but between "the developers assigned Relicanth a gift Pokémon gender ratio by mistake" and "Relicanth was assigned the gift Pokémon gender ratio because it was planned to be a gift Pokémon, and was changed later on without being updated", I'm going to go with the latter theory regardless of Relicanth's design origin. I did a book report on coelacanths precisely because of Relicanth, so I'm pretty familiar with its basis.
 
Nitro Indigo said:
What I was getting at is that some programmer might've looked at Relicanth's type and mistook it for a fossil.
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LonelyGaruga said:
Of course, but between "the developers assigned Relicanth a gift Pokémon gender ratio by mistake" and "Relicanth was assigned the gift Pokémon gender ratio because it was planned to be a gift Pokémon, and was changed later on without being updated", I'm going to go with the latter theory regardless of Relicanth's design origin.
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It could be on purpose. Distribution-wise, Relicanth is considered "rare". It's only found underwater (so is late game) in Route 124 & 126 and only is a 5% encounter. It's also needed to open the Regi Chambers (along with Wailord which prevo was made super common as contrast, though requires to be raised to Level 40 which back in the days was pretty high), so I can see them wanting to do the most that they can to have the player have to go out of their way and catching their own Relicanth instead of just getting an "extra" one from their friend. They still wanted it be able to breed because there's no reason not to, and with its close relation to Fossil Pokemon as a "Living Fossil" it was easy enough to slap it with a 7m:1f gender ratio.

And though Relicanth was the first non-gift Pokemon to do this, it wasn't the last. Combee, the Elemental Monkeys, & Salandit too have 7m:1f, each with their own reason (Combee and Salandit because of their evolution method, Elemental Monkeys because they're treated as pseudo Starters).
 
Can't really agree with the idea that Relicanth was given the gift Pokémon gender ratio solely to discourage trading it, since that's partly why gift Pokémon have that gender ratio to begin with. It would make more sense for it to be a gift Pokémon than a wild Pokémon that has the gift gender ratio if that was the intent. I could see an argument for the opposite though, that Relicanth was a gift Pokémon but made more available because of the Regi puzzle relation.

Also I might point out that the gen V monkeys essentially are gift Pokémon, since they're given as a secondary starter. You can just find them in the wild too, which admittedly is a unique case here. Combee and Salandit have their evolution tied to gender, and so have another gameplay reason for their gender ratio. Relicanth being given the gift Pokémon gender ratio solely to discourage trading it to help others solve the Regi puzzles seems a little tenuous, seeing how all of the other Pokémon with that gender ratio have a clear gameplay objective for it that affects the player directly.

Also I just don't think the developers wanted to discourage people from helping each other solve the Regi puzzles, that seems like the opposite of their goal.
 
Which camp is everyone in when it comes to Paradox Pokémon?

Are you team "They are imaginary Pokémon created by the Third Legendary using the dreams of Sada/Turo"

Or


Are you team "They are from an altered past/future that were brought to Area Zero by Sada/Turo's Time Machine which was powered by the Third Legendary"


Given that they are called Paradox Pokémon I personally believe they are from a past that never existed/ a future that will never come. They are real Pokémon but more in a What If sense. I think the main reason I don't think they were imaginary was that Great Tusk/Iron Treads killed someone within Heath's Expedition Team which took place decades before Sada/Turo ever ventured into Area Zero themselves.

The only thing that puzzles me is that if they aren't imaginary then how does Paradox Suicune/Virizion work? Entei, Raikou, and Suicune didn't appear until the death of the 3 mystery Pokémon in the Burned Tower and the subsequent resurrection done in the aftermath. Given that at no point has it ever been stated or implied that they existed prior to this point then how could a Pokémon that is Fusion of all 3 exist even further in past? Even if it's from an altered past the concept of Entei, Suicune and Raikou was something only Ho-oh thought of. And Ho-oh to our knowledge never visited Paldea. That doesn't even factor in Paradox Virizion which is a fusion of the Swords of Justice sans Keldeo. Considering Virizion is supposed to be from the future how is it that Keldeo who is ostensibly part of this Legendary quartet missing? Every legend involving the Swords of Justice do include Keldeo so for it to be missing from Paradox Virizion is just as odd as Paradox Suicune presumably existing long before Ho-oh created the original Entei, Raikou, and Suicune.


I'm curious to see where everyone else falls in terms of the true origins of the Paradox Pokémon.
 
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