Once again I find myself bored with nothing interesting to do in the middle of school. Last time this happened, I made the original "how many Pokemon are currently in the Galar dex?" post complete with demographic breakdowns. This post also involves the regional pokedex, but this time I'm gonna try something a little more... ...off the wall.
Using previous regional pokedex counts between original games and their enhanced ports as a guide, I will attempt to
mathematically calculate/properly estimate the total Pokemon count in the Galar Pokedex. Yes, it might be a bit reachy to rely on the patterns I'm going to estimate shortly to figure out this important statistic, and I in no way expect this to be exact at all. In fact,
I'll be surprised if I even get within a 50 Pokemon margin of error of the actual total. Also, whatever you think of this post,
please do not take it as pretext to argue over [REDACTED]. I know this warning is the equivalent of giving a pyromaniac a flamethrower and asking him not to burn anything down, but please at least try.
With all the disclaimers out of the way, let's begin.
Part 1: Past Regional Dexes
To start, let's look at the size of previous games' regional Pokedexes starting from Generation 4, where Pokemon were added in enhanced ports.. Speaking of which, we will also be looking at how these change in each gens' enhanced ports. These stats come from
Pokemon DB.
Diamond/
Pearl: 151 Pokemon
Platinum: 210 Pokemon
+61
Black/
White: 155 Pokemon
Black
2/
White 2: 300 Pokemon
+145
X/
Y: Not yet. This is a special case.
Sun/
Moon: 302 Pokemon
Ultra Sun/
Ultra Moon: 403 Pokemon
+101
Part 1.5: Concerning Kalos
Kalos is a special case since it never got an enhanced port: Instead it was just a single game with a sprawling regional Pokedex of 457 Pokemon, the biggest in any game. This roster surpasses any enhanced port, so what we're gonna do is this: Let's pretend X and Y had a more limited roster while the 457 was reserved for a hypothetical Pokemon Z or X and Y 2 or whatever. Now, how we figure out a feasable Pokemon count of this more limited X and Y? by averaging the Pokemon added per enhanced port and subtracting it from 457, of course?
(61 + 145 + 101) / 3=
102 (Rounded down to nearest whole number)
457 - 102=
355
Part 2: How Much Does the Initial Regional Dex Grow Every New Generation?
Let's figure it out by comparing each generation's growth.
Black and White have 4 more Pokemon (155-151) than Diamond and Pearl.
Our estimated restricted X and Y have 200 more Pokemon (355-155) than Black and White.
Sun and Moon have 53
less Pokemon (355-302) than X and Y.
At first, these stats seem unworkable. There's too much variance! But nonetheless, I will once again estimate the Pokemon gain per new generation via the wonders of averaging.
(4 + 200 - 53) / 3=
50 (Rounded down to the nearest whole number)
To see how accurate this estimate is, let's see how close this is to Sun and Moon's final number when starting from Diamond and Pearl.
151 (DP dex) + (50 x 3 [Black and White, X and Y and Sun and Moon]) =
301
Wow! Only one off from the real deal! Of course, you can feel free to take this with a 50-ton pile of salt with all the variance and exceptions throughout the years, but I consider it accurate enough to continue to the final stage with this number.
Part 3: The (Potential) Final Tally!
And now for the moment you've all been waiting for!
Base Sword and Shield Roster
302 (Sun and Moon) + 50 =
352
Enhanced Ports (Could also be used as a basis if they skip these entirely and immediately move on to past gen remakes or another generation)
352 + 102 =
464
For the very last time, these are merely
estimates: I am in no way, shape or form trying to advertise this wall of mathematics as the true, indisputable size of the Galar Pokedex. But considering all the math I've done and the trends I've noted, I think this is at least a somewhat decent look at what we can expect to see, assuming a good-sized margin of error.