Pokemon Sun and Moon General Discussion: Official Site updated to include every new 'mon

[Zanarkin]

XY's PokéDex is much too big, in my opinion, particularly since the gen had only 72 new Pokémon, they composed only 15.75% of the Kalos regional Pokédex, poor things...

Speaking of the Dex, I was bored, so I counted up how much from each Gen is in the Alola Dex and ran some calcs with that.

Totals	Number	% of gen's Pokémon included	% of Alola's Pokédex
Kanto	86	56.95%	                        28.48%
Johto	30	30.00%	                        9.93%
Hoenn	33	24.44%	                        10.93%
Sinnoh	29	27.10%	                        9.60%
Unova	28	17.95%	                        9.27%
Kalos	14	19.44%	                        4.64%
Alola	81	100.00%	                        26.82%

...Yeah, too many Gen I Pokémon...

Where do alola forms fall though? Cause i would argue that they should either fall in both Kanto and alola, or just in alola. It may be lazy pokemon creation, but they play like totally new pokemon/evolutions. They just happen to have designs similar to Gen 1 pokes.

However I do agree that is far too many gen 1 pokemon.

Edited December 10, 2016 by SlayerX

[Azure Sen]

A lot of the stuff that you've mentioned are one off events (which means that they aren't a consistent reminder of Gen 1 throughout the game, especially considering that at least two of the things that you've mentioned are locked to the postgame), with the only longstanding issue being that Gen 1 had the most mega evolutions (and even then, this was fixed by the time ORAS came out). It just feels like people just pay attention to the references to the Gen 1 games in particular and complain about the amount of them rather than putting some thought into how much of the game experience they actually affect. At the time that XY came out, I can get why people would be frustrated that more Mega Evolutions weren't from later gens (especially since they were one of the selling points of the game and if you didn't like Gen 1 that much, then you wouldn't be as hyped for it). However, the other issues feel very petty.

Eh, fair enough. Part of my problem with XY also tends to be the sheer density (or at least what felt like it, anyway) of the references to Gen I in those games, but I'll also admit that despite playing them when they came out I don't actually have the same fondness for the Gen I games that a lot of people do, so Gen I references don't do much for me.

Where do alola forms fall though? Cause i would argue that they should either fall in both Kanto and alola, or just in alola. It may be lazy pokemon creation, but they play like totally new pokemon/evolutions. They just happen to have designs similar to Gen 1 pokes.

There are only about 16 or so Alola regional variants, so Gen I still has more than double the representation of every other Gen.

[Magical Glace]

Where do alola forms fall though? Cause i would argue that they should either fall in both Kanto and alola, or just in alola. It may be lazy pokemon creation, but they play like totally new pokemon/evolutions. They just happen to have designs similar to Gen 1 pokes.

However I do agree that is far too many gen 1 pokemon.

I put them as Gen I, since that's where their National Dex Number is.

It'd throw off the percents to put them in more than one spot, so.

[Samias]

Honestly, I preferred ORAS's smaller Dex compared to Kalos's Dex. The large number of Pokemon felt rather overwhelming actually.

Some people say that but 211 Pokemon with a large chunk being taken up by the very common Kanto mons we've seen every gen (seriously, we have Zubat, Tentacool, Magikarp, Abra, Geodude, and Machop again?) is pretty bad.

[Emerson]

I swear I've talked about why I think it makes sense to have a lot of Gen 1 'mons in Sun and Moon, haven't I?

Hoenn and Kalos need a break.

Sinnoh is getting a remake, and as with Gen 4 and 6, Pokemon of the region that's getting a remake are often excluded.

Unova's Pokemon are very urban, which doesn't really fit Alola at all.

And I do know, for a fact, we already talked about why it makes sense that Gen 6 and 7 have less 'mons than previous ones when the Dex got leaked.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Emerson

[Quintessence]

Honestly, I preferred ORAS's smaller Dex compared to Kalos's Dex. The large number of Pokemon felt rather overwhelming actually.

To be fair, the Gen 1 and Gen 2 games were very simple, so any remake would be well recieved.

ORAS was the first time they remake games that weren't as "primitive" for a lack of a better word. So it's probably why it felt it backpedalled in some parts.

Where it is said that? What I do remember is a NPC speaking that the reason there are many Kanto Pokemon is because Kanto immigrants.

But there is a city in Alola that was built from people from another region.

It's Malie City, and it was built by Jotho immigrants I believe.

I think it was an NPC on the second island but I don't remember clearly if ut was Kanto or Johto immigrants :<

[Lightchao42]

XY's PokéDex is much too big, in my opinion, particularly since the gen had only 72 new Pokémon, they composed only 15.75% of the Kalos regional Pokédex, poor things...

Speaking of the Dex, I was bored, so I counted up how much from each Gen is in the Alola Dex and ran some calcs with that.

There's also the fact that several Alola Pokémon are unnecessarily hard to find. For example...

-Rockruff, Sandygast, Pyukumuku, and Minior are all found in optional, easily skipped areas.

-Mareanie is an uncommon SOS-only encounter for a rare Pokémon.

-Bounsweet is a 40% encounter in one patch of grass.

-Comfey, Passimian, Oranguru, Mimikyu, and Jangmo-o have a 5% encounter rate in one area each.

-Turtonator and Togedemaru are 10% encounters in one patch of an optional area. Drampa and Komala are also 10% encounters in one area.

-Bruxish is a 1% fishing encounter. Dhelmise is also a 1% fishing encounter in one spot only.

-Type: Null is only given to you postgame.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Lightchao42

[Azure Sen]

Some people say that but 211 Pokemon with a large chunk being taken up by the very common Kanto mons we've seen every gen (seriously, we have Zubat, Tentacool, Magikarp, Abra, Geodude, and Machop again?) is pretty bad.

This is pretty much my problem with Gen I over-representation distilled; not only does it forsake variety from other Gens, but it also ends up largely being the same pool of super-common Gen I Pokemon included in each game.

Unova's Pokemon are very urban, which doesn't really fit Alola at all.

Not really. The only real "urban" Pokemon designs I can think of are Timburr and Pidove's lines. I'm curious what exactly about Unova's Pokemon makes them more "urban" aside from where they're from.

Edited December 10, 2016 by AzureSen

[Magical Glace]

I swear I've talked about why I think it makes sense to have a lot of Gen 1 'mons in Sun and Moon, haven't I?

Hoenn and Kalos need a break.

Sinnoh is getting a remake, and as with Gen 4 and 6, Pokemon of the region that's getting a remake are often excluded.

Unova's Pokemon are very urban, which doesn't really fit Alola at all.

And I do know, for a fact, we already talked about why it makes sense that Gen 6 and 7 have less 'mons than previous ones when the Dex got leaked.

Kanto is pretty much as urban of a region as Unova is.

We don't know for sure that Sinnoh will be remade during Gen VII. Everyone thought Hoenn would be remade in Gen V, and that never happened.

And yes, the reason for less mons has been discussed, but that's not an excuse to let them be overshadowed in their own region.

[Refa]

My issues with the ORAS remakes were mostly a lack of updates to the Pokemon used by trainers to match the accelerated EXP gain. Wallace still has unevolved Pokemon and unimpressive choices like Luvdisc and Seaking. The Elite 4 having so many duplicates of the same Pokemon in the first run is really obnoxious too. Glacia's team is downright boring. Most of these issues were ones I had with the original game too, so it was mostly being upset that they were barely updated except to bring in Froslass and Dusknoir in an attempt to make the Elite 4 teams less repetitive. The Hoenn dex in general is quite bad with only 211 Pokemon available, and feels especially barren after completing XY's Pokedex with 455 total.

I think people liked the FRLG and HGSS remakes because they don't feel like they backpedalled on the games you just played. While ORAS certainly did some things better than XY (DexNav, secret bases, Eon Flute flight, not dealing with your 5 pathetic friends), FRLG was rougly equivalent in gameplay value to RS (less endgame content than Emerald, though), and HGSS was an excellent current gen update with Crystal enhancements and Battle Frontier that put it on par with Platinum. In reality ORAS > HGSS > FRLG in conveniences and endgame content but the latter two feel more well balanced in their own gens.

Yeah, my biggest issue with ORAS was that it felt way too easy. I had a similar issue with XY from what I played of it BUT a friend also traded me over like 2 Lucky Eggs and a bunch of cool shit since he was planning on starting over a new file (his original file was in German and he wasn't a native speaker haha) so that might be part of the issue whoops. Having a smaller Dex is fine to me conceptually, but it always felt like I was seeing the same 50 Pokemon over and over again rather than 211 of them.

Doesn't HGSS have more endgame content than ORAS? What w/Kanto being like 50x more fully featured than it was in GSC and all that. It also had a lot of other cool shit that you could do, like chatting up the Gym Leaders and the Safari Zone (there's probably more stuff that I'm blanking on at the moment). Did the Wifi Plaza work in HGSS or was that just Platinum because that was pretty cool too. Also the Pokewalker was sooooo great man HGSS were good games. I'm not sure what XY in particular did better than ORAS in terms of conveniences, though.

The Sevii Islands say hi. And I would say they were a bigger and better thing than the Pokeathlon (hurts your hands ugh) or walking Pokemon (meh).

HGSS added a lot more than that lol, and actually did a lot of rebalancing to put their difficulty more in line with Platinum (whereas the originals were always a bit too easy IMO).

I think there's also that Akala island was built by people from Kanto.

Oh maaaaaaaaaaaaaan, I totally forgot about that. That does make me feel better about there only being Kanto Pokemon, at least.

Eh, fair enough. Part of my problem with XY also tends to be the sheer density (or at least what felt like it, anyway) of the references to Gen I in those games, but I'll also admit that despite playing them when they came out I don't actually have the same fondness for the Gen I games that a lot of people do, so Gen I references don't do much for me.

To be fair, you probably played a lot more of XY than I have, so maybe I'm just downplaying how prevalent they were in game because I never got to experience most of it. But yeah, if you don't have that fondness for Gen 1, I can see the references not doing much for you. Hopefully it doesn't ruin your experience, at least, that'd be really lame.

This is pretty much my problem with Gen I over-representation distilled; not only does it forsake variety from other Gens, but it also ends up largely being the same pool of super-common Gen I Pokemon included in each game.

Man, I'm totally with you on this one. I'd really prefer it if they gave those Pokemon a rest, or made them the rare 1-5% catches in each area (EDIT Actually a lot of those Pokemon would be disappointing rare catches, except for maybe Machop in the early game). ALTHOUGH I really appreciate Abra being common in Alola because YES easy Synchronize users thank god.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Refa

[Nobody]

Doesn't HGSS have more endgame content than ORAS? What w/Kanto being like 50x more fully featured than it was in GSC and all that. It also had a lot of other cool shit that you could do, like chatting up the Gym Leaders and the Safari Zone (there's probably more stuff that I'm blanking on at the moment). Did the Wifi Plaza work in HGSS or was that just Platinum because that was pretty cool too. Also the Pokewalker was sooooo great man HGSS were good games. I'm not sure what XY in particular did better than ORAS in terms of conveniences, though.

And it also had the battle frontier

Which ORAS even had an excuse to include but did not

[Refa]

To be fair, Crystal had a Battle Frontier as well I'm pretty sure. Of course, they probably worked really differently between games but there was an excuse to include it.

[Azure Sen]

Doesn't HGSS have more endgame content than ORAS? What w/Kanto being like 50x more fully featured than it was in GSC and all that. It also had a lot of other cool shit that you could do, like chatting up the Gym Leaders and the Safari Zone (there's probably more stuff that I'm blanking on at the moment). Did the Wifi Plaza work in HGSS or was that just Platinum because that was pretty cool too. Also the Pokewalker was sooooo great man HGSS were good games. I'm not sure what XY in particular did better than ORAS in terms of conveniences, though.

Kanto is still pretty barren in HGSS, as mostly they just restored a few areas cut for space like Viridian Forest and the Seafoam Islands. The Battle Frontier addition is a thing, I guess, but I've never really cared for the Battle Facilities. Otherwise there was almost nothing added to the post-game except gym leader rematches and a few minor things I'm probably forgetting about.

To be fair, you probably played a lot more of XY than I have, so maybe I'm just downplaying how prevalent they were in game because I never got to experience most of it. But yeah, if you don't have that fondness for Gen 1, I can see the references not doing much for you. Hopefully it doesn't ruin your experience, at least, that'd be really lame.

Yeah, I played through both games (well most of the game for Y, but I'm restarting that because reasons), so maybe that's part of it. I wouldn't say it gets anywhere near the level of ruining the experience for me (XY has worse things going for it, and I still enjoy playing them), but it does get a little tiring, especially since Gen V is pretty much what Gen I is for other people to me, and Gen V gets shafted a lot.

Man, I'm totally with you on this one. I'd really prefer it if they gave those Pokemon a rest, or made them the rare 1-5% catches in each area (EDIT Actually a lot of those Pokemon would be disappointing rare catches, except for maybe Machop in the early game).

I've actually thought about it a little, and I'd like to see the more unusual lines/Pokemon (Lickitung, Tangela, Tauros, the Hitmons, Omanyte and Kabuto, Krabby, Doduo, etc.) become more common in remakes/future games.

Edited December 10, 2016 by AzureSen

[Water Mage]

And it also had the battle frontier

Which ORAS even had an excuse to include but did not

Honestly, the only reason HGSS had a Battle Frontier it was because it was very easy to copy and paste it from Platinum. Seriously, it's the exact same thing.

If HGSS were to be released before Platinum, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have a Battle Frontier.

To be fair, Crystal had a Battle Frontier as well I'm pretty sure. Of course, they probably worked really differently between games but there was an excuse to include it.

Crystal only had a Battle Tower. In fact, it was the game that introduced it.

[Samias]

Doesn't HGSS have more endgame content than ORAS? What w/Kanto being like 50x more fully featured than it was in GSC and all that. It also had a lot of other cool shit that you could do, like chatting up the Gym Leaders and the Safari Zone (there's probably more stuff that I'm blanking on at the moment). Did the Wifi Plaza work in HGSS or was that just Platinum because that was pretty cool too. Also the Pokewalker was sooooo great man HGSS were good games. I'm not sure what XY in particular did better than ORAS in terms of conveniences, though.

It's hard to say. HGSS has a lot going for it with new routes and the Safari Zone addition but Johto as a region is actually really small. However Kanto got a pretty major restoration compared to the original games.

ORAS made Secret Bases work online, a huge boon compared to the local wireless-only that they used to be. It also added DexNav, the Delta Episode, revamped Team Aqua and Team Magma significantly, added new mega evolutions and the Primals, and then the Eon Flute allowed you to get a bunch of postgame legendaries on a daily basis. It's a bit more disjointed of an experience compared to HGSS so it's hard to sum up all of ORAS's features. I prefer HGSS over ORAS though.

And boy do I hate how most Alola Pokemon, especially in the seas, are more rare than the Kanto mons. I feel like 90% of the new mons are unnecessarily rare. At least the presense of the inevitable Kanto mon inclusions are less here than in ORAS, but they're still there. Abra is the only common Synchronizer since we lost out on Ralts too... The only other options are Umbreon and Espeon, who need friendship evolutions so that's a much bigger pain to deal with than just lobbing nest balls at Abras in Hau'oli grass patches. They really messed up Abra too since it's glitched to not learn Confusion when it evolves despite it being on its movelist.

Kalos didn't feel as bad as they made previously rare Pokemon less rare, and the encounter rate for the Kalos introduced mons is pretty high. It just means most Pokemon are condensed into a single area where they appear, so you're constantly running into new things. I actually like that approach so I'm not encountering *insert Route 1 normal type and bird here* EVERYWHERE for the ENTIRE GAME. 455 was a bit too much. 300 in Alola was fine. They just seriously screwed up the encounter rates.

[Refa]

Kanto is still pretty barren in HGSS, as mostly they just restored a few areas cut for space like Viridian Forest and the Seafoam Islands. The Battle Frontier addition is a thing, I guess, but I've never really cared for the Battle Facilities. Otherwise there was almost nothing added to the post-game except gym leader rematches and a few minor things I'm probably forgetting about.

Yeah, I played through both games (well most of the game for Y, but I'm restarting that because reasons), so maybe that's part of it. I wouldn't say it gets anywhere near the level of ruining the experience for me (XY has worse things going for it, and I still enjoy playing them), but it does get a little tiring, especially since Gen V is pretty much what Gen I is for other people to me, and Gen V gets shafted a lot.

It's been a while, but wasn't Kanto mostly the same as it was in Gen 1/3?

Yeah, it'd be great if Unova got more love. I can't speak for everyone but at least for me, it doesn't bother me too much because the Gen 5 games still feel very contemporary to me (even just in terms of playability, they're about as convenient as Gen 6 was). I'm not sure how they'd go about it, but it'd be cool if they added more of the Pokemon at least. Maybe have Drillbur in the caves so they wouldn't be so swarmed by Digletts and Zubats, stuff like that.

Honestly, the only reason HGSS had a Battle Frontier it was because it was very easy to copy and paste it from Platinum. Seriously, it's the exact same thing.

If HGSS were to be released before Platinum, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have a Battle Frontier.

Crystal only had a Battle Tower. In fact, it was the game that introduced it.

Regardless of that, ORAS is still a step down from Platinum in several aspects (balance, lack of features, you couldn't fight both evil teams, probably missing something here). It just wasn't definitive in the same way FRLG and HGSS were (even though FRLG could have definitely done a lot more than the Sevii Islands).

My bad.

And boy do I hate how most Alola Pokemon, especially in the seas, are more rare than the Kanto mons. I feel like 90% of the new mons are unnecessarily rare. At least the presense of the inevitable Kanto mon inclusions are less here than in ORAS, but they're still there. Abra is the only common Synchronizer since we lost out on Ralts too... The only other options are Umbreon and Espeon, who need friendship evolutions so that's a much bigger pain to deal with than just lobbing nest balls at Abras in Hau'oli grass patches. They really messed up Abra too since it's glitched to not learn Confusion when it evolves despite it being on its movelist.

Kalos didn't feel as bad as they made previously rare Pokemon less rare, and the encounter rate for the Kalos introduced mons is pretty high. It just means most Pokemon are condensed into a single area where they appear, so you're constantly running into new things. I actually like that approach so I'm not encountering *insert Route 1 normal type and bird here* EVERYWHERE for the ENTIRE GAME. 455 was a bit too much. 300 in Alola was fine. They just seriously screwed up the encounter rates.

Yeah, that seems to be the most common criticism of the new games. It probably didn't affect me quite as much as I'm letting on because I go out of my way to catch every Pokemon and I do get that "YES A NEW POKEMON" after I've been spending half an hour fishing at a bubbling spot, but it'd be nice if these previously rare Pokemon became more accessible later in the game. I appreciate having interesting methods of catching new Pokemon but that's not something everyone's going to be into.

While the Dex in Kalos did end up being too bloated, it was actually a really refreshing and novel approach overall. Like, I probably wouldn't want every Pokemon game to be like that, but I appreciated like 10 new Pokemon being in every route. It was cool.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Refa

[Water Mage]

Regardless of that, ORAS is still a step down from Platinum in several aspects (balance, lack of features, you couldn't fight both evil teams, probably missing something here). It just wasn't definitive in the same way FRLG and HGSS were (even though FRLG could have definitely done a lot more than the Sevii Islands).

My bad.

To be fair, unless it was going to be an Emerald remake, fighting both Team Aqua and Team Magma wouldn't really happen since one of the major differences between Ruby and Sapphire was the evil team you fight.

So fighting only one of the evil teams was sort of inevitable.

I'm starting to think that people would have been happier if Game Freak only made a remake of Emerald, instead of remakes of Ruby and Sapphire.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Water Mage

[Quintessence]

I'm not following the conversation at all but...

@WaterMage Confirmed, the Mysterious Old Man in HeaHea City near the port says:

Many trainers who traveled in Kanto and Johto long, long ago came together to form this town, now known as Heahea City

Apparently the Gen I remake is Sun and Moon after all! Edited December 10, 2016 by Quintessence

[Refa]

To be fair, unless it was going to be an Emerald remake, fighting both Team Aqua and Team Magma wouldn't really happen since one of the major differences between Ruby and Sapphire was the evil team you fight.

So fighting only one of the evil teams was sort of inevitable.

I'm starting to think that people would have been happier if Game Freak only made a remake of Emerald, instead of remakes of Ruby and Sapphire.

Yeah, that's fair. It just felt like a missed opportunity after HGSS which added all of the Crystal content in.

I definitely would have been, but despite all of my complaining, I still enjoyed the games. The DexNav was godly, and the story felt more impactful than it did in the original (despite the fact that I agree with Nobody that the gym leaders felt really bare bones in ORAS and I'm not sure if that's because they were always that way or they're relatively less interesting now that other parts of the story got improved).

[Water Mage]

I'm not following the conversation at all but...

@WaterMage Confirmed, the Mysterious Old Man in HeaHea City near the port says:

Apparently the Gen I remake is Sun and Moon after all!

To be fair, it's both Kanto and Johto, so it's not only Kanto.

And it seems that the Johto immigrants had more of an impact in Alola than the Kanto immigrants, with places such as Konikoni City and Malie City.

Usually, when there's a building, clothes, object or anything else that related to traditional japanese culture in Pokemon games, it's usually associated with Johto rather than Kanto.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Water Mage

[Zanarkin]

I'm starting to think that people would have been happier if Game Freak only made a remake of Emerald, instead of remakes of Ruby and Sapphire.

To be fair it is questionable why they would remake the incomplete ones. Many times the first versions, feel incomplete or allude to things that will be (and end up being completed) in the newer versions (like the tunnel from the fossil maniac in RS which is completed in Emerald)

[Magical Glace]

The best thing ORAS did was make Team Magma/Aqua make a bit more sense.

Before they just kinda wanted to destroy stuff because they could, they're expanded quite a bit in ORAS.

Also Archie at Mount Chimney actually makes more sense now lol.

[Water Mage]

To be fair it is questionable why they would remake the incomplete ones. Many times the first versions, feel incomplete or allude to things that will be (and end up being completed) in the newer versions (like the tunnel from the fossil maniac in RS which is completed in Emerald)

Actually, this is the major reason I think the Sinnoh remakes will be badly recieved.

Diamond and Pearl were probably the pair of games that felt most incomplete in the entire Pokemon series. No pair of games released at the start of every generation felt as incomplete as Diamond and Pearl.

Not even Ruby and Sapphire felt as incomplete as Diamond and Pearl.

Honestly, Diamond and Pearl feel like beta versions, instead of actual completed games.

[Azure Sen]

It's been a while, but wasn't Kanto mostly the same as it was in Gen 1/3?

It has all the same areas as Gen 1/3 (well, minus the stuff that was added in GSC), but it doesn't have nearly as much content; if you know what you're doing, the majority of Kanto's events can be cleared in 2-4 hours.

And it seems that the Johto immigrants had more of an impact in Alola than the Kanto immigrants, with places such as Konikoni City and Malie City.

Usually, when there's a building, clothes, object or anything else that related to traditional japanese culture in Pokemon games, it's usually associated with Johto rather than Kanto.

Which is probably because Kanto is basically Pokemon's equivalent of Tokyo and the surrounding metropolitan areas, while Johto is definitely supposed to be more rural and traditional.

[Zanarkin]

Actually, this is the major reason I think the Sinnoh remakes will be badly recieved.

Diamond and Pearl were probably the pair of games that felt most incomplete in the entire Pokemon series. No pair of games released at the start of every generation felt as incomplete as Diamond and Pearl.

Not even Ruby and Sapphire felt as incomplete as Diamond and Pearl.

Honestly, Diamond and Pearl feel like beta versions, instead of actual completed games.

Why do they insist on making first version re-releases, instead of the more favored later versions?