Speculation A Pokemon Game With All Regions

[EmpoleonProd]

People largely consider such a game to be a nearly impossible feat, mainly because of the development time involved and the perceived loss of money that would come over the long-term of not releasing yearly titles but I do think something along these lines COULD happen one day, but it isn't a game with all regions, just the first four.

Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh are all loosely-connected regions with quite a bit of overlapping lore and other indications of existing in close proximity to one another vs. the regions where they went out of their way to say "oh, these regions are a lot farther away from the other ones", like Unova and Galar. I think it's fitting that the first four regions are also the four regions based on Japan, as it makes sense geographically speaking for them to also be the closest to one another in the game world, just like they are in the real world.

Some examples of these connections:

-Kanto and Johto are literally neighboring regions

-Hoenn and Kanto can both be reached fairly quickly from the Sevii Islands, as you can visit Birth Island and Navel Rock in Emerald, and it's stated in FRLG that Brawly comes from Hoenn to the Sevii Islands to train with Chuck. Hoenn and Kanto are also supposedly connected via the Altering Cave.

-the SinJoh Ruins strongly imply a geographical connection between Johto and Sinnoh, and they could quite literally be a former path used by people to travel directly from Sinnoh to Johto. the way I imagine this is that if you follow the mountain range south from Mt. Coronet, you'd eventually reach the mountain range surrounding Mt. Silver.

-Lugia, a Johto Pokemon, is a trio master of a Kanto legendary trio.

-likewise, Regigigas, a Sinnoh Pokemon, is a trio master of a Hoenn legendary trio.

We've already had half of such a game, with HGSS, which are widely considered to be one of the best Pokemon games, if not the best one. If they were to make a game like this, I'd want them to go all-out with being able to customize your journey to be unique to YOU. This involves not just picking the region you start in, but your hometown. This would diversify everybody's gameplay, even if I choose to start in Hoenn, I might choose to start in Sootopolis City whereas you might choose Lavaridge Town. The possibilities and endless and all they'd really have to do to achieve this is make an empty placeholder home in every town and city, and that house would become your's for the city you choose to start in.

After completing one region's league and story, you'd unlock the ability to travel to another one, and this is another point where I think they could add two options to continue on, either you can choose a starter from the new region and start over from Level 5 again, temporarily not being able to use your Pokemon from the previous regions, OR you can continue on with all your Pokemon freely, but all wild Pokemon and trainers would have their Pokemon scaled up accordingly.

This level scaling probably presents the most difficulty for my theoretical game, as not only would trainers have to be scaled differently based on which order you choose the region in (Youngster Joey's Rattata would have to be like a Level 91 Raticate if Johto was your fourth region), but they'd also have to scale based on WHERE you start in each region, for example, if I'm choosing Sootopolis City like I said earlier, all trainers in and around Sootopolis would need to be scaled down for my first gym battle, but another problem that would need to be addressed is: how am I leaving Sootopolis City without Surf or Dive? They could go the LGPE route and just give Pokemon the inherent ability to Surf/Fly/Dive and completely omit HMs.

But the problem still remains that they'd have to program most trainers to have possibly up to a dozen different teams, based on the levels needed for the amount you've progressed through the game. I think the SIMPLEST way to tackle this issue is to code all trainers and wild Pokemon to have a level cap until you've obtained X amount of badges, maybe that cap is 15 before your first badge, then 20 before your second, and so on. By the time you're into your fourth region, if you didn't choose to start over each time with a Level 5 starter, you'd almost surely be encountering trainers with Pokemon in the 90-100 level range.

This would be quite the large undertaking even with just half of the regions, and I could only realistically ever see something like this happening if TPCi/Gamefreak outsourced a lot of the dev work, or if Pokemon went from a yearly franchise to the type of franchise that can survive off of one core game and offering updates for several years. If they released the game as I've outlined with four regions, they could always offer region DLC packs, such as Unova a year later, Kalos another year later, and repeat the process, but I don't think they should do that, either. The problem with the concept of the "ultimate Pokemon game with every region", is that the game would be so good, no game after would top it. If a game came out with all 8 regions, I feel like a Gen 9 game wouldn't be as hyped because people would rather just wait for it to be added to the "master game" with all the regions.

That's why I think this idea ONLY works with like the first four regions, I think they could feasibly do just a game with the first four Japan-based regions, and then we wouldn't need Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh remakes for a LONG time. They could just remaster this game every decade, or every time a new console comes out, instead of needing to inevitably tackle individual remakes for each region separately, as they have been doing.

 

[Jimothy]

I think about almost this exact concept a lot, especially after we learned that GS's original postgame was a tour of all Japan, rather than Kanto.

I half-wonder if we could get it this year, since it seems perfect for an anniversary title.

Seems a bit too much to hope for though, so maybe for the 30th.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I think about almost this exact concept a lot, especially after we learned that GS's original postgame was a tour of all Japan, rather than Kanto.

I half-wonder if we could get it this year, since it seems perfect for an anniversary title.

Seems a bit too much to hope for though, so maybe for the 30th.

Yeah I think this is the best halfway compromise for the "we want a game with all regions" crowd and the "there's no way that could ever be feasibly possible" crowd.

It's basically the game we all know we want, but toned down to a more reasonable expecation.

 

[Jimothy]

I think once they've built up to a BOTW-esque open-world-type game, it will make the most sense. Fill in the gaps of Japan that haven't been adapted yet and have the whole country as a big seamless world. Even bring back soaring toward the end of the game so you could really take in the breadth of it.

 

[Phosphene]

It's basically the game we all know we want, but toned down to a more reasonable expecation.

I for one wouldn't say an all-region game is something that I'd want, and a four region game is still rather unreasonable.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

I think about almost this exact concept a lot, especially after we learned that GS's original postgame was a tour of all Japan, rather than Kanto.

Which was extremely condensed from what I remember. The maps showed that all of Kanto was basically shrunk into a single city in the GS beta iirc. Where's the fun in that? I can't even begin to fathom how condensed all the regions would have to be in order for all of them to appear in a game in the future. Unless GF goes back to using small sprites instead of full 3D models I don't see how they could fit 8 regions in one cartridge.

 

[prog rocker]

Which was extremely condescended from what I remember. The maps showed that all of Kanto was basically shrunk into a single city in the GS beta iirc. Where's the fun in that? I can't even begin to fathom how condescended all the regions would have to be in order for all of them to appear in a game in the future. Unless GF goes back to using small sprites instead of full 3D models I don't see how they could fit 8 regions in one cartridge.

Not only that, it was a massive mess. Only Pallet Town was recognizable. I can't tell if Red's gym is supposed to be in Viridian or Pewter. Heck, I thought it was *two* towns instead of one.

 

[Daenerys]

Eh I've never wanted a game with every region in it. Not just because it would be hard for Gamefreak to do, but also because if they did that it would render all of my old games completely irrelevant imo. I mean why even play my old copies of R/S/E or OR/AS if a future game would have Hoenn and all the other regions in it?

If Gamefreak ever manages to make a complete game like that then they would probably have to cut corners and remove tons of areas to make it work.

 

[Shib]

I really liked the idea of a game with every region included but using a different story line based on hunting legendaries or something to that effect. The leagues could then have been incorporated as a way of gaining access to areas where the legendaries were positioned. Level scaling would have been incredibly difficult though - I still think that the inclusion of Kanto in gen 2 is a big part of what scuppered the level scaling in those games.

Once the games moved off of a grid based design (Alola) I basically realised it became completely unrealistic. It’ll be really interesting to see if a hypothetical future Sinnoh remake keeps the grid design or go for a complete overhaul to match modern games - I’m aware it’s a subject that has already been raked to death in the Gen IV remake speculation thread so I won’t get into it here.

The idea of a multi region game that could be something between a standard mainline game and a spin off is interesting though - it’s the sort of thing that would make an interesting project for another studio (like Colosseum/XD) if GameFreak felt like licensing the franchise out in that way but it’s the sort of thing that I don’t think would make sense for GameFreak to do unless they do something like Gen 2 remakes then have Hoenn and Sinnoh as DLC.

 

[Emmy]

When I hear the idea of a "Pokémon game with all Regions" the first thing that comes to mind is a Civilisation style game whereby you choose a Region to be a part of and have to help build it up whilst competing against rival Regions using the geography and 'mons from your selected Region to your advantage.

 

[nickdt]

Main problem is level scaling. You need to leave your old Pokemon behind before progressing towards the new region i see people making as a counterargument to the level scaling. You still have the issue with OP moves if you can take TM's with you to the next region. So you basically need to start from scratch in every region, which makes it pointless to have a more than 2 region game from a business standpoint if they can release every single region as a solo region instead and gain money.

As such, a multi (Read more than 2) region game is never gonna happen, unless its potentially the last game in the franchise (But even then, which console can run a game with that amount of space needed on the cartridge anyways).

 

[Lanstar]

The issue I have with an all-regioned game is that many designs of the regions themselves are redundant to each other - and stitching them together just makes for a frankenstein-style region that would take an incredible amount of work to improve and unify as one game.

As an example, Many of the starting and early towns have very, very similar layouts, such as 4 houses in a square. To make them worth travelling through over and over again, you'd have to totally alter many of these towns drastically. In fact, to prevent the sense of repetitiveness in each region's design, the only parts of each region that would remain intact are the overall shape and distribution of land and water, and perhaps the most important landmarks that make each region unique.

Routes would also need a huge makeover as well. Many starter routes are hardly challenging to navigate at all, so to up the sense of exploration from region to region 8 times over, you'd have to completely redesign them - or just scrap the whole route system entirely. And don't get me into overall Pokemon distribution - That's would require scaling up the levels of all Pokemon to the progress you've made, and adjusting a lot of the routes to have a lot more Pokemon added to them.

From all of this, if they were to glue all regions together into one game, there would be a lot of things to fix up to make a worthy game out of it all. Maybe an open-world style Pokemon game could work here, but considering the effort it would take, I doubt Game Freak would ever attempt such a feat.

 

[Greninjaman]

What they could do is this: take a boat to the other regions.
Kanto and Johto would have this as an option, though one could just walk to the other.
You would take a boat from Vermillion or Olivine to the port town/city of the region that you are going too.

 

[Shib]

Another idea that just came to me, and I suspect a lot of people would not like - a multi region spin off that is done in some sort of mission based levels.

Each region gets the equivalent of a wild area for catching and general training, additional mechanical stuff like day care for breeding and perhaps each having some kind of battle facility in this wild area too. Then the bulk of the gameplay is based on missions which could lead to alternate routes to meeting gym leaders/champions/former PCs/rivals for story battles.

Ive got three rough scenario ideas for the main game:

1.Legendary hunting - this one could be good for building on the lore of the Legendaries and help make some of the implicit lore more explicit. Also given the Villan teams have often had links to Legendaries it adds an interesting possibility for having to track down former leaders when looking for clues.

2. Research Assistant - A little bit lame as it’s kind of what filling the Pokédex is meant to be about but it does link nicely to the current anime set up which also includes region hopping and could also give the PC a lot of motive for meeting a lot of the past support characters who have been professors or their assistants.

3. International Police Agent - Probably the one I’d have most interest in. The player is a rookie International Police Agent - this opens up a lot of possible reasons to region hop - start with small stuff like finding missing Pokémon/Items building up to dealing with resurrections of past villain teams building up to finding the legendary Pokémon or stuff like the Ultra Beast task force stuff. Downside is it would probably draw a lot of comparisons to Digimon Cyber Sleuth.