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Potential News Dates (Comments May Contain Spoilers!)

They can easily say it's a regional evolution now, but then retcon that in any future game its in (which won't be every game anyway) by saying "oh this region is harsh too so it evolves here, too."

Which, I guess could make it still a regional evolution. Just not for only one region. Lol
 
They can easily say it's a regional evolution now, but then retcon that in any future game its in (which won't be every game anyway) by saying "oh this region is harsh too so it evolves here, too."

Which, I guess could make it still a regional evolution. Just not for only one region. Lol
I suppose that does leave room for them to exclude it when the remakes inevitably come out and they stick with their original regional dex version of things like with LGPE.

Still not really a fan of the direction the franchise is going in. Really getting the feeling that Dexit is going to become a bigger issue just in terms of no longer keeping things sensible. Having to include every pokemon meant having to keep track of every pokemon. Being able to exclude some, even evolutions, based on "Oh it's not in this region" just opens the door for one hell of a mess.

GameFreak how about you just... keep all evolutionary relatives together and keep your regional shit labeled so everything stays organized and we don't reach a point where we need a guide book just for all the different ways and places we can evolve our pikachu. Last thing I want to see is Digimon levels of confusing evolution standards.
 
I think I'm less bothered by the idea of regional evolutions because, to me, it's not actually new. Why didn't Magneton evolve in the Kanto power plant? Why didn't Lickitung evolve when it learned Rollout (or whatever) before being in Sinnoh?

Saying "Farfetch'd evolves in this game" is actually less confusing than anything they did in Sinnoh for (what really were) its regional evolutions.
 
Theoretically, slicing up the Dex should mean that there's less to keep track of. And I don't think a regional evolution is really that much more confusing than "In this region, Thunder Stones still make Pikachu evolve, except they make them evolve into chubby Psychic-type surfers instead of regular Raichu. Although if you jump through a wormhole and use the Thunder Stone on it in a different dimension, you'll get a regular Raichu. Also, breeding two Kantonian Raticate in Alola always produces an Alolan Rattata, unless the mom holds an Everstone."
 
If cutting the dex for each region results in is getting an increase in pokemon again for each gen, and better games overall, I'm here for it tbh. We have cross-gen evo back after a decade of not having it (bar sylveon) and we're getting form changes similar to megas + regional variants in a single game. That's not something I ever saw gamefreak doing, but if having to include the entire dex in each game is what has been holding them back in the 3D era of games, I think it could be a benefit moving forward.

Of course this'll only hold up if sw/sh are good, and pokemon home's features are substantial.
 
I suppose that does leave room for them to exclude it when the remakes inevitably come out and they stick with their original regional dex version of things like with LGPE.

Still not really a fan of the direction the franchise is going in. Really getting the feeling that Dexit is going to become a bigger issue just in terms of no longer keeping things sensible. Having to include every pokemon meant having to keep track of every pokemon. Being able to exclude some, even evolutions, based on "Oh it's not in this region" just opens the door for one hell of a mess.

GameFreak how about you just... keep all evolutionary relatives together and keep your regional shit labeled so everything stays organized and we don't reach a point where we need a guide book just for all the different ways and places we can evolve our pikachu. Last thing I want to see is Digimon levels of confusing evolution standards.

It never really occurred to me that they could keep stuff restricted to a specific region, that sounds like a pain thinking about it...

Though it's always possible they could have an NPC around that trades away stuff like Obstagoon or Sirfetch'd, similar to the Alolan forms in LGPE. Also considering how HGSS/ORAS were willing to add cross-gen evos to the Pokedex unlike FRLG/LGPE, I can see future LGPE-style remakes being relaxed in regards to including them, it'd just always be Kanto remakes that gets the short of the stick.

As for traditional remakes... I'd argue that if regional variants were allowed to be in LGPE, they should also be allowed in Sinnoh remakes, and so on, regional evolutions included imo, but have an NPC around that trades you one so you wouldn't be forced to transfer one over from SS.
 
Theoretically, slicing up the Dex should mean that there's less to keep track of. And I don't think a regional evolution is really that much more confusing than "In this region, Thunder Stones still make Pikachu evolve, except they make them evolve into chubby Psychic-type surfers instead of regular Raichu. Although if you jump through a wormhole and use the Thunder Stone on it in a different dimension, you'll get a regular Raichu. Also, breeding two Kantonian Raticate in Alola always produces an Alolan Rattata, unless the mom holds an Everstone."
On a per-game basis it's less to track, yeah, but on a whole-franchise basis, it's creeping towards becoming messy. Especially if you're a collector and opt for HOME hoarding. I'm prone to collecting things so it's something I'm considering despite my apprehension regarding how they handled Bank storage.

The thing with Alolan forms is that you still could get the regular forms in those games- when you can no longer obtain the originals and GameFreak doesn't even have to consider the fact that they exist, where could that lead to? Farfetch'd evolves into Sirfetch'd in Galar but doesn't evolve in the next region? Gets an entirely new evolution and pretends like Sirfetch'd doesn't exist? I just want to know that they're not going to take Dexit and this regional thing too far and lead us down the Digimon route where a monster can evolve into twenty different things based on way too many factors.
 
Now that I'm home and have gotten a better look at Sirfetch'd, I... am really underwhelmed by the design. XD Sorry Sirfetch'd, but dominatrix goose did it better. I don't like the implication that Farfetch'd only evolves in Galar either- and even if they are hiding a Galarian Farfetch'd up their sleeve, Sirfetch'd's design differs so little from regular Farfetch'd that it feels like it would be totally unnecessary. I'm hoping that it really is just a regular evolution and not a region-specific one, because things are starting to look way more complicated than move-based or item-based evolutions ever were.

I agree, after 20 year of fanarts and one year of Madame showing it as a crane or swan many of us thought impossible a Farfetch'd evo would keep pretty much the same shape as Farfetch'd, yet it doesn't, it's just a recolor of it with a sword and a shield, and its move having a random name doesn't help. And as you said, "Galarian Farfetch'd" is bad whether it exists or not, if it exists it will be a redundant form in the vein of Alolan Digglet, and if it doesn't exist it means that what they said about regional evolutions when revealing Obstagoon was a lie.

I appreciate its smug though.
 
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Today's announcement was underwhelming as I thought it would be. Why did they waste an entire opportunity to showcase several game features for an evolution of a Pokemon that I find to be completely useless?
 
Today's announcement was underwhelming as I thought it would be. Why did they waste an entire opportunity to showcase several game features for an evolution of a Pokemon that I find to be completely useless?
I want to argue about how the fact that you find it completely useless is just a personal opinion and really isn't important in terms of what they release for news, but I can't disagree that the build-up was disproportionate to the lackluster reveal.
 
This really does feel like we were supposed to get a bigger reveal with more pokemon but then they cut it up and are only showing us Sirfetched for some reason.
 
I want to argue about how the fact that you find it completely useless is just a personal opinion and really isn't important in terms of what they release for news, but I can't disagree that the build-up was disproportionate to the lackluster reveal.

I had my fingers crossed that we would get a different Pokemon, one that was perhaps of legendary status or something. The build up that was generated by the site glitch and the announcement of the information release... well, to get an evolution for that bird, I was highly disappointed.

I only mentioned my opinion of the bird to emphasize the depth of the disappointment I felt about the build up to the announcement. The argument itself of the usability of the bird is not really relative to this thread, nor is it something I want to engage in. If you don't agree with how I injected my opinion of the bird to highlight my disappointment, then feel free to add me to your ignore list. No hard feelings. The bottom line is that it feels they put more into this announcement / reveal for SwSh than they have the previous announcements. Having a "glitched website" with only partial information being visible is probably something that should have been done when they announced the games.
 
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I had my fingers crossed that we would get a different Pokemon, one that was perhaps of legendary status or something. The build up that was generated by the site glitch and the announcement of the information release... well, to get an evolution for that bird, I was highly disappointed.

I only mentioned my opinion of the bird to emphasize the depth of the disappointment I felt about the build up to the announcement. The argument itself of the usability of the bird is not really relative to this thread, nor is it something I want to engage in. If you don't agree with how I injected my opinion of the bird to highlight my disappointment, then feel free to add me to your ignore list. No hard feelings. The bottom line is that it feels they put more into this announcement / reveal for SwSh than they have the previous announcements. Having a "glitched website" with only partial information being visible is probably something that should have been done when they announced the games.
Fair enough. I 100% agree that the whole glitch thing felt like a build up for something potentially bigger, just for them to turn it into a weak joke that no one would ever find funny. =/ "Oh it was a wild rotom, haha-" no one's laughing, Pokemon Twitter. No one is laughing.

If they don't turn it into something more, then I am definitely throwing it into the bin with the blank Sun and Moon cover teaser as being the worst marketing reveals to date.
 
On a per-game basis it's less to track, yeah, but on a whole-franchise basis, it's creeping towards becoming messy. Especially if you're a collector and opt for HOME hoarding. I'm prone to collecting things so it's something I'm considering despite my apprehension regarding how they handled Bank storage.

The thing with Alolan forms is that you still could get the regular forms in those games- when you can no longer obtain the originals and GameFreak doesn't even have to consider the fact that they exist, where could that lead to? Farfetch'd evolves into Sirfetch'd in Galar but doesn't evolve in the next region? Gets an entirely new evolution and pretends like Sirfetch'd doesn't exist? I just want to know that they're not going to take Dexit and this regional thing too far and lead us down the Digimon route where a monster can evolve into twenty different things based on way too many factors.
you're needlessly complicating this. LGPE shows exactly what Game Freak is most likely going to do for regional forms. it really isn't rocket science.
 
you're needlessly complicating this. LGPE shows exactly what Game Freak is most likely going to do for regional forms. it really isn't rocket science.
LGPE also had Mega Evolutions so I wouldn't take it as solid evidence that normal forms are going to be available in the same games as their regional variants and vice versa.
 
Fair enough. I 100% agree that the whole glitch thing felt like a build up for something potentially bigger, just for them to turn it into a weak joke that no one would ever find funny. =/ "Oh it was a wild rotom, haha-" no one's laughing, Pokemon Twitter. No one is laughing.

If they don't turn it into something more, then I am definitely throwing it into the bin with the blank Sun and Moon cover teaser as being the worst marketing reveals to date.

I honestly wasn't even surprised at the Sirfetch'd reveal as we already had the rumors floating, I just thought it would be something more. But I'm with you, this was not the greatest marketing attempt I've seen.
 
I can also agree that this little gimmick marketing maneuver was... poor, to put it simply. They were building it up to be like it was some sort of demi-legendary Mon that could've had a tie-in to the box legends (ie: Lake Trio). Instead, we got an evo for a run-of-the-mill Mon. Granted, I like Sirfetch'd, but how they were hyping it up was a very bad idea. Even if it was part of the whole "Friday the 13th" deal, it wasn't that well thought out. Hopefully the next time they try something like this they actually give us a Mon that has more merit than just a regular evolution, even if it further solidifies certain leaks.
 
LGPE also had Mega Evolutions so I wouldn't take it as solid evidence that normal forms are going to be available in the same games as their regional variants and vice versa.
what? you definitely got the wrong thing out of that. LGPE shows that if Game Freak wants to include something that's regional, they'll just throw it in the game by some trade.
 
what? you definitely got the wrong thing out of that. LGPE shows that if Game Freak wants to include something that's regional, they'll just throw it in the game by some trade.
And again- they had Mega Evolution in those games. We know that Mega Evolution will not be in Sword and Shield. The fact that they did it in LGPE does not mean that it will be the practice moving forward.

To me it seems evident that LGPE was largely an introductory pair of games and offered a taste of regional variants and mega evolution so they would not be unfamiliar to the GO players and whomever was coming in new to the series, in order to bring those people up to speed with the rest of the fanbase. It isn't evidence that they will definitely include regional variants alongside their original forms in future games any more than it was evidence that they would include Mega Evolution in future games.

We're still treading into territory where an entire evolution can disappear in future games due to being the "wrong region" for it. Obstagoon isn't guaranteed to be in every game that Linoone is in, but you can at least predict where it will show up while it's tied to its regional form. If Farfetch'd doesn't have a regional variant but only evolves into Sirfetch'd in Galar, what does that mean for them both?

Sorry, but the waters look murky to me and I'm not comfortable with how things are laid out yet until GameFreak makes it clear that there will be some order established so we really can make "safe" assumptions like Serebii's "available in Galar" list including evolutions for pokemon we've seen in trailers despite not actually seeing those evolutions yet. Because this zone of "this pokemon only evolves into this in this region" is falling into a realm of possibility where you can't count on the fact that your Rattata will definitely always evolve into a Raticate.
 
And again- they had Mega Evolution in those games. We know that Mega Evolution will not be in Sword and Shield. The fact that they did it in LGPE does not mean that it will be the practice moving forward.

To me it seems evident that LGPE was largely an introductory pair of games and offered a taste of regional variants and mega evolution so they would not be unfamiliar to the GO players and whomever was coming in new to the series, in order to bring those people up to speed with the rest of the fanbase. It isn't evidence that they will definitely include regional variants alongside their original forms in future games any more than it was evidence that they would include Mega Evolution in future games.

We're still treading into territory where an entire evolution can disappear in future games due to being the "wrong region" for it. Obstagoon isn't guaranteed to be in every game that Linoone is in, but you can at least predict where it will show up while it's tied to its regional form. If Farfetch'd doesn't have a regional variant but only evolves into Sirfetch'd in Galar, what does that mean for them both?

Sorry, but the waters look murky to me and I'm not comfortable with how things are laid out yet until GameFreak makes it clear that there will be some order established so we really can make "safe" assumptions like Serebii's "available in Galar" list including evolutions for pokemon we've seen in trailers despite not actually seeing those evolutions yet. Because this zone of "this pokemon only evolves into this in this region" is falling into a realm of possibility where you can't count on the fact that your Rattata will definitely always evolve into a Raticate.
I agree that this is jumping a slippery slope, but I think that swapping one evolution for another evolution isn't as bad as having a normal version of a particular Pokémon only evolve in one region, which seems to be what Game Freak's doing with regular Farfetch'd instead of just having a Galarian Farfetch'd be the one that evolves. That is definitely a dick move.
 
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