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Your Canon Games?

herb

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Every generation has multiple games covering the same story with only a few differences. Which game of each gen do you consider as the 'correct' version of the story? For me it's this.


Generation 1, Red: it is nearly the same as Blue version but the only reason I consider Red version the actual one is because the protagonist name is Red and the rival is Blue.

Generation 2, Gold: even though I played more of Silver and Crystal than Gold I still consider Gold to be the actual story. There is just a lot more build up for Ho-Oh than for Lugia and Suicune.

Generation 3, Emerald: Emerald is pretty much the stories of Ruby and Sapphire combined, which I like more than disproving one of the two teams.

Generation 4, Platinum: in this version all three of the creation trio get substantial coverage instead of only one.

Generation 5, Black and Black 2: the only reason for this is that I think N fits better with Reshiram than with Zekrom.

Generation 6, X: Xerneas feels a bit more fleshed out than Yveltal.
 
Everything is canon now, thanks to the multiple worlds theory that was more or less confirmed in-game.
 
Everything is canon now, thanks to the multiple worlds theory that was more or less confirmed in-game.

This. Now, if we were to try and figure out which games belonged to which realities, that could be confusing. Do we consider first-named games to be reality one (RED and Blue), (Gold and Silver) and second-named games reality two? Do they converge at any time, and if so, do they split again after ORAS? Or do we consider Mega evolution games to be another altogether separate timeline, yet retaining the timeline with unmentioned games (Gens 1,2,4,5) and their (nonexistent) mega counterparts? Hey You, Pikachu? Pokemon Snap (although I think this is more an anime thing)?

Still, I think Yellow will always be the black sheep, as it is a game version of the anime, and this is the ONLY instance where the game universe and anime universe actually meld together.
 
The last releases have always more complete storyline, so i prefer always take in account it, so ORAS - x/y line to me is the official. I dont see as being several timelines, but just ORAS, for example, covering diferents events in depth. There's no knowledge of time skip and how long after the e4 May/ Brendan faced the battle frontier.
In this case, i hope to see the remakes of the first, second and fourth generations and how it fit.



but the "older" timeline would be this:
FireRed - HeartGold - Emerald - Platinum - Black - Black 2 - X.
Tough is hard to know. It's only guessings, i think we will never know.
 
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Going off of Bioshock Infinite logic, I'm going to say none of the games strictly follow eachother in any sort of continuity. Each game (heck, each save file) is its own self-contained reality. There are constants, of course... in Kanto, it always starts in Pallet Town, you always speak to Prof. Oak, and there is always an 8-badge circuit. In later games, another constant is the existence of characters that went on journeys in previous installments, along with their victory against the local evil team.

The variables are everything else that isn't scripted: the gameplay itself. They are also the obvious differences that can be seen from version to version, such as which legendary the hero faces. They still face a Legendary, but it's rarely specified in later continuities.

The only two major exceptions to this are BW and BW2. BW has Cynthia explicitly compare you to "that trainer who faced Giritina" (Platinum story), while BW2 follows in direct sequence to the events of BW, so things like which Dragon is in N's possession can change from version to version. For those games, the constants are "a trainer faced Giritina, and Cynthia was there to see it" and "N caught one of the Unovan Dragons and used it to battle a trainer who had its counterpart in his or her possession."

I know there are other examples, but I could be here all day if I addressed each one.
 
Yeah we do have that "infinite universes" theory out there but I'm not terribly fond of it. It's pretty much confirmed so I guess I have to deal with it but it's simply not to my liking.

It makes the story feel redundant to me. Why would I care about saving a region if there are infinite similar ones out there that are doing just fine. It takes the real life situation we are facing with multiple versions of stories and implements them in the game, kind of disconnecting us from that world. It's a bit vague but yeah that's just how I feel about it.
 
Why would I care about saving a region if there are infinite similar ones out there that are doing just fine.

The potential for lots of people to still die, I would hope. "Oh, they're aiming a nuke at my country? Bah, who cares! There are other countries in the world." Just on a larger scale.
 
Yeah, as others have already mentioned, it's all canon, so technically, all versions of the story are correct versions due to the existence of parallel universes.

I'm assuming Pokémon Ranger and Mystery Dungeon series are also canon.
 
Yeah, as others have already mentioned, it's all canon, so technically, all versions of the story are correct versions due to the existence of parallel universes.

I'm assuming Pokémon Ranger and Mystery Dungeon series are also canon.

Those were arguably canon from the get-go. Ranger games have been able to send events such as the Manaphy egg to the core games. PMD has always kicked off with something like "you're about to travel to a world where only Pokemon reside." As for whether the PMD world takes place in the same relative continuity and universe of the core series is... debatable.

As for other spinoffs like Shuffle, Snap, and Hey You Pikachu, I think the events those games follow aren't really that impactful to make a major difference in any other game.

Now, come to think of it, I'm not sure how to explain Orre. You'd think that other regions would acknowledge the various fiascos that went down over there, kind of like how Team Plasma's act was noticed in Kalos. Right now, the only proof of their existence in other games is the fact that Pokemon from those games can be transferred to XY or ORAS.
 
Right now, the only proof of their existence in other games is the fact that Pokemon from those games can be transferred to XY or ORAS.

I'm not so sure that even that really holds much water as evidence anymore. If the core series games themselves are parallel to each other, then technically, that would mean that trade and transfer even on a level that innate is inter-universal. For instance, we have the line from Archie/Maxie in OR/AS where they imply that the opposite version of the game being played could be yet another a parallel universe. So trade between AS and OR games would be trade between universe.

This idea predates ORAS, even. In BW, there is the Cell Battery "quest" in Opelucid City - where a man is attempting to forge a link to another time, and explicitly requires a Pokémon from a parallel world, where history played out differently (in Black, he requires a Pokémon from a world of historic value (so, White), and in White, the Pokémon needs to come from an advanced world (Black). Of course, considering that the Pokémon world already had time-travel and interdimensional travel, the presence of inter-universal transmission really doesn't come as that much of a surprise. :p

Anyway, my point being that the Orre games could still be "distanced" universes despite the ability to make contact with the "core" universe.
 
Yellow for Gen. I because of Red's team in the Johto games. After that, it generally follows the third-version rule (Crystal, Emerald, Platinum), but - oh, shit! We don't have a third version in Gen. V! There, I'd give it to White/White 2, mainly because it makes more sense for Iris to be Champion after being a Gym Leader first instead of being pulled out of nowhere (I call this the Wallace Rule). Then after that, I'd assume X, but then ORAS fucked everything up. I prefer to think of ORAS as a replacement for Emerald, honestly, specifically Omega Ruby (because, let's be honest, the heartless scientists are better suited to be villains). As for the actual timeline, however, I have it as Yellow -3 years- Crystal -3 months- Platinum -5 years- White -2 years- White 2 -1 year- X -same time- Omega Ruby.
 
Everything is canon now, but in my opinion the main games are:

FireRed and Omega Ruby

HeartGold and Platinum

Black and Black II

Y

Of course, if Z is released that will replace Y, and future Gen I, Gen II, Gen IV and Gen V remakes will replace those games, since ORAS and XY are their own timeline.
 
To me it's Red/Blue -> Crystal -> Emerald -> Platinum -> B/W -> B2/W2. I consider the remakes to be alternate realities, while I'm waiting for another Kalos installment before I decide where it fits. I also know my headcannon contradicts the alternate universe stuff in OR/AS.
 
For me, Y makes a lot more sense as the canon game because it makes a lot more sense for Team Flare to want to kill everyone with the pokemon of death.

My struggle with that is that I see Serena as the canon protagonist and I associate her with Xerneas more so than Yveltal.

I wish the story included an arc where you (Serena) had to find the other legendary in the wild (Xerneas) as a foil against the legendary Team Flare caught (Yveltal). This makes sense too as Xerneas is type effective against Yveltal.
 
For me, Y makes a lot more sense as the canon game because it makes a lot more sense for Team Flare to want to kill everyone with the pokemon of death.

On the other hand, since the evidence suggests that it doesn't matter which Legendary is powering it (it can function as a weapon either way; it just needs a huge power source), one could argue that it makes more sense to use Xerneas, since it serves as a power source for the initial culling, but then Lysandre can also exploit it to make him and his cult immortal, which aligns with what he says at the Café Soleil in X: "I would make this world unchanging and eternal so all beauty will last forever."

Compared to what he says in Y, which doesn't make anything resembling sense: "I would end the world in an instant so that beauty never fades."

(Umm, yeah, hey there, Lysandre, buddy... ending the world would make that beauty fade pretty darn quick.)
 
but then Lysandre can also exploit it to make him and his cult immortal, which aligns with what he says at the Café Soleil in X: "I would make this world unchanging and eternal so all beauty will last forever."

Was it ever mentioned that he wanted to make Team Flare immortal? I only recall Team Flare being the only survivors but not in perpetuity.
 
Was it ever mentioned that he wanted to make Team Flare immortal? I only recall Team Flare being the only survivors but not in perpetuity.

I'd argue that it's implied right there in that quote and in his larger discussion with Diantha where he appears to disdain the thought of growing old:
"You played a young girl so wonderfully in your debut on the silver screen. Wouldn't you rather remain young and beautiful forever and always play such roles? You were chosen to be a movie star, correct? Isn't it your duty to be ever beautiful? Everything beautiful should stay that way forever."

But even then, choosing Xerneas over Yveltal just pure pragmatism, no? Why stop at a kill-all Legendary if a different Legendary can do the same thing and grant limitless life energy? Even if it's not necessarily a central part of your plans, it surely doesn't hurt to have, does it? And wouldn't it just make more sense to try to assert an eternal dominance of his philosophy? After all, once Lysandre dies after creating his utopia, the world is just going to be free to repopulate. It might take thousands of years to get back to where it was, but it will get there. He views himself as a chosen one, so I don't think it would be beyond him to believe that he needs to be there himself in order to keep the world from straying off the path again. It might also be that he comes to discover a taste for having that level of control over the world, and refuses to give it up. Authoritarians don't like having to relinquish their power, and Lysandre definitely trends in that direction.
 
That logic is pretty convincing, although I question how the Ultimate Weapon was only supposed to spare Team Flare when Xerneas hadn't done anything to them yet. Lysandre aimed it at himself expecting to survive, so what would have been different for the rest of the world?

For games I actually care about:

Green: I view Bulbasaur as Red's starter due to the original artwork. Yellow was inspired by the anime and GS didn't really represent it except for Red's team (which is easier to explain without Yellow than Blue's team is with it).

Crystal: Its lore is a big improvement over GS'. It made perfect sense how Suicune and its brethren tested the player for Ho-Oh.

Emerald and Platinum: They involved three mascots each rather than just one.

White and White 2: N has been depicted with Reshiram in Sugimori artwork and the anime.

Sun: Lunala is pretty creepy for Lillie, while the USUM story is forced.

FireRed: This version of Red has been depicted with Charizard.

HeartGold: Surely the Kimono Girls have a better reason to care about Ho-Oh than Lugia.

Alpha Sapphire: I'd think that Team Magma, as scientists, would be more level-headed than their counterparts.

Let's Go Pikachu: It's a Yellow remake.
 
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That logic is pretty convincing, although I question how the Ultimate Weapon was only supposed to spare Team Flare when Xerneas hadn't done anything to them yet. Lysandre aimed it at himself expecting to survive, so what would have been different for the rest of the world?

To be honest, I question a lot of things about how exactly the ultimate weapon works. I'm not sure any explanation is going to be very convincing since it would mostly boil down to technobabble.

I think it would have made a bit more sense if you needed both Legendaries in order to operate it, because whichever way you choose to use it, you are inherently exercising control over both life and death since they are intrinsically linked concepts, so maybe the machine acts as an artificial Zygarde in terms of mediating that balance. Which, who knows, maybe the game-that-must-not-be-named would have depicted properly, but for God's sake let's not go any further down that road. :sick:

(For comparison, I also don't think it made much sense for DP Cyrus to be targeting only one of the Sinnoh deities. It's ultimately just the plot logic taking a backseat to the larger decision to release paired versions.)
 
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