Another dual-region game? Or no dual-region game?

[henrymidfields]

So far, only GSC and the remakes HGSS have a past region that you can travel to after becoming Champion.

Questions for you:
When you found out that Gen 3 games were not to have a post-game Johto/Kanto, were you disappointed? Do you want another game that allows you to visit a region from a previous generation?
(Update) Did you have pacing/lack of detail problems when playing GSC? If so, was it an issue you had at the time of GSC release, or was it in retrospect? (as in after playing RSE, DPPt, BW(1/2), and/or especiallyHGSS)

My answer:
Yes, I was disappointed that RSE was stuck in Hoenn, and that was one of the reasons I stopped playing Pokemon after GSC. The big stumbling block for me was the lack of integration of the various regions within Poke-Japan. Even today, I don't have the interest in playing RSE and DPPt, like I do/did for GSC, RBY, BW, BW2, and XY.


What about Kanto?
I can tolerate Kanto being on its own, given that it was the very first region, and the original games obviously didn't have a second region. And there were the Sevii islands in the remakes. (Johto is obviously the best for me, because there really was the effort to integrate Johto with Kanto and actually start building up Poke-Japan.)

And Kalos?
On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with Kalos being on its own, because the region's obviously Poke-France, and is far away from Poke-Japan. It...probably would be weird to actually be able to swim/surf to Kanto.

And Unova?
As with Kalos, Unova, being Poke-New York is also far away from Poke-Japan. (There is Orre/Poke-Arizona, but it's a bit of a stretch to make it as an adjacent region. Besides, I'd like to see how Poke-Washington DC would look in a future game.) That and the Unova games seem to have quite a bit to offer post-game. Actually, I'm enjoying my Pokemon Black adventure.

For Hoenn and Shinnoh, however, I just cannot tolerate just being stuck in some backwater provincial area, without the chance to travel to at least one other Poke-Japanese region.

What about the fact that Kanto didn't have much to offer in GSC?
Well, obviously that was due to CPU memory issues, but didn't that get mostly resolved with HGSS? Regions cut out in GSC returning for HGSS, and having Pokathlon added too. And surely the 3DS would be a lot more capable than the old Game Boy, or even the DS.

So my final answer is this. I don't necessarily need a post-game region, if the next game is, again to be in a completely different location. (eg Poke-Greece, Poke-Egypt, or Poke-China). I would like Kalos as post-game region, if it was, say, Poke-Germany, but it not essential either. Similarly with Unova and say, Poke-Boston. If it was set within Poke-Japan, including remakes, then yes it will be essential for me.

 

[Norzan]

If it's handled like in G/S/C and HG/SS then no i don't want another dual-region game, Kanto was a barren wasteland with barely anything to do except defeat the Kanto Gym Leaders, HG/SS didn't solved anything it's the exact same thing as the G/S/C Kanto except it has DS graphics and also Johto suffered from this because it felt really small when compared to other regions. Now with the 3DS they actualy make it much better but if it is handled the same way as G/S/C and HG/SS then no thank you.

 

[Bolt Strike]

No, no, no! No more multi-region games, the design and pacing suffers when they cram two regions in the same game. We can get much fuller, richer regions if there's only one per game.

 

[Stuntology]

I'll say yes, mainly because I really enjoy coming back to an area I've been before and seeing how it's changed, like in GSC and BW2. Like others have mentioned, though, the pacing can have problems. So I guess the best solution might be to take a previous region, add maybe half of another new region's area to it, but still have just 8 badges.

 

[Fairy Ice Ricky]

No dual regions, please. GSC Kanto gives me nightmares when I'm awake.

In terms of adding a new area to an already-developed region, B2W2 does it best in my opinion, and I would like to see something like that happen again. My only disappointment with the new area was that it was so small. I think the ideal situation would be to do something similar to what B2W2 did, but make it more expansive.

The Sevii Islands seem too tacked on in my opinion, so while I appreciate Game Freak wanting to add more play time in FRLG, I think they should stay away from doing something like that again.

 

[Silktree]

No dual regions, please. GSC Kanto gives me nightmares when I'm awake.

In terms of adding a new area to an already-developed region, B2W2 does it best in my opinion, and I would like to see something like that happen again. My only disappointment with the new area was that it was so small. I think the ideal situation would be to do something similar to what B2W2 did, but make it more expansive.

The Sevii Islands seem too tacked on in my opinion, so while I appreciate Game Freak wanting to add more play time in FRLG, I think they should stay away from doing something like that again.

What would you have them do? Double the size of a region without classifying the added portion as an independent area? That doesn't sound feasible at all.

 

[henrymidfields]

We're getting some interesting results. So far the poll's got 7 ayes, 2 nays, and 1 uncertain. As for the replys, however, the nays seem to be the more vocal.

I'm surprised about the pacing problem, though. I don't remember having such a huge issue in regards to the pacing when I played GSC. I actually had a bigger trouble dealing with the pacings in Pokemon Red. For GSC, I was just simply excited to be able to visit an older region and see how it turned out in 3 years, and that spurred me to play more.

(Update Actually I did find levelling up for Red a huge headache. Simply because Blue's level was around in the 50s, and Red wa in the 80s.

So, additional questions:
Was the pacing/lack of detail problem something that you experienced when GSC came out? Or did this happen to you in retrospect, in particular revisiting Johto in HGSS?

 

[Fairy Ice Ricky]

What would you have them do? Double the size of a region without classifying the added portion as an independent area? That doesn't sound feasible at all.

I was a little foggy about the B2W2 story line hen I made that post, so I was only thinking about the things they added to the western part of Unova (between Aspertia City and Virbank City). But thinking about it more Game Freak actually added a lot more things to Unova than that, like the Castelia Sewers, Humilau City, and the new Victory Road. So I take back what I said--well, I still think B2W2 does it best, but the changes in B2W2 were expansive enough, in my opinion.

Was the pacing/lack of detail problem something that you experienced when GSC came out? Or did this happen to you in retrospect, in particular revisiting Johto in HGSS?

Since I played my Red version and my Crystal version pretty much back-to-back, I definitely noticed back then that most of the "features" I guess of Kanto were either nonexistent (Safari Zone) or heavily reduced (Viridian Forest) in Gen II compared to Gen I. Obviously the barrenness of GSC Kanto became much more apparent as I became older and played later games that had more space on the cartridges to do more things (and it was especially apparent when I played HGSS the first time), but I noticed it even back then. HGSS did more justice to Kanto than GSC did obviously, but again I would rather they did something like B2W2 if they decide to revisit a region.

 

[henrymidfields]

I was a little foggy about the B2W2 story line hen I made that post, so I was only thinking about the things they added to the western part of Unova (between Aspertia City and Virbank City). But thinking about it more Game Freak actually added a lot more things to Unova than that, like the Castelia Sewers, Humilau City, and the new Victory Road. So I take back what I said--well, I still think B2W2 does it best, but the changes in B2W2 were expansive enough, in my opinion.

Awesome! After I finish my Black playthrough, I'm going to do either B2 or W2. I'm going to look forward to it.

Was the pacing/lack of detail problem something that you experienced when GSC came out? Or did this happen to you in retrospect, in particular revisiting Johto in HGSS?

Since I played my Red version and my Crystal version pretty much back-to-back, I definitely noticed back then that most of the "features" I guess of Kanto were either nonexistent (Safari Zone) or heavily reduced (Viridian Forest) in Gen II compared to Gen I. Obviously the barrenness of GSC Kanto became much more apparent as I became older and played later games that had more space on the cartridges to do more things (and it was especially apparent when I played HGSS the first time), but I noticed it even back then. HGSS did more justice to Kanto than GSC did obviously, but again I would rather they did something like B2W2 if they decide to revisit a region.

I'll have to admit, there's a good point you've made. What XY was good was the amount of non-gym towns to visit. They don't really serve any particular purpose, but to me adds detail and depth to the region. Pokemon Black is even better, because in addition to that, there are at least two that I keep wanting to visit. I keep coming back to Nimbasa city in my current playthrough, because the Musical is so addictive. Anville Town is also great, due to the different trains that comes into the train shed and the flute music. Kanto only had two non-gym towns to visit; Pallet and Lavender, and most cities aren't repeat-friendly places.

 

[Yoshi64]

Im gonna say no on this one. That was what made G/S/C/HG/SS so special for me. Personally, gen 2 is my favorite generation, and it would ruin it for me.

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

So far, only GSC and the remakes HGSS have a past region that you can travel to after becoming Champion.

Questions for you:
When you found out that Gen 3 games were not to have a post-game Johto/Kanto, were you disappointed? Do you want another game that allows you to visit a region from a previous generation?
(Update) Did you have pacing/lack of detail problems when playing GSC? If so, was it an issue you had at the time of GSC release, or was it in retrospect? (as in after playing RSE, DPPt, BW(1/2), and/or especiallyHGSS)

My answer:
Yes, I was disappointed that RSE was stuck in Hoenn, and that was one of the reasons I stopped playing Pokemon after GSC. The big stumbling block for me was the lack of integration of the various regions within Poke-Japan. Even today, I don't have the interest in playing RSE and DPPt, like I do/did for GSC, RBY, BW, BW2, and XY.


What about Kanto?
I can tolerate Kanto being on its own, given that it was the very first region, and the original games obviously didn't have a second region. And there were the Sevii islands in the remakes. (Johto is obviously the best for me, because there really was the effort to integrate Johto with Kanto and actually start building up Poke-Japan.)

And Kalos?
On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with Kalos being on its own, because the region's obviously Poke-France, and is far away from Poke-Japan. It...probably would be weird to actually be able to swim/surf to Kanto.

And Unova?
As with Kalos, Unova, being Poke-New York is also far away from Poke-Japan. (There is Orre/Poke-Arizona, but it's a bit of a stretch to make it as an adjacent region. Besides, I'd like to see how Poke-Washington DC would look in a future game.) That and the Unova games seem to have quite a bit to offer post-game. Actually, I'm enjoying my Pokemon Black adventure.

For Hoenn and Shinnoh, however, I just cannot tolerate just being stuck in some backwater provincial area, without the chance to travel to at least one other Poke-Japanese region.

What about the fact that Kanto didn't have much to offer in GSC?
Well, obviously that was due to CPU memory issues, but didn't that get mostly resolved with HGSS? Regions cut out in GSC returning for HGSS, and having Pokathlon added too. And surely the 3DS would be a lot more capable than the old Game Boy, or even the DS.

So my final answer is this. I don't necessarily need a post-game region, if the next game is, again to be in a completely different location. (eg Poke-Greece, Poke-Egypt, or Poke-China). I would like Kalos as post-game region, if it was, say, Poke-Germany, but it not essential either. Similarly with Unova and say, Poke-Boston. If it was set within Poke-Japan, including remakes, then yes it will be essential for me.

it makes g/s/c feel more unique if we did this every geneation it'd feel more predictable then it already was before bw2. i mean it's cool to go back and fight your previous self once but if we did that in gen 3 go back and fight ethan in johto it would have felt bland. not to mention hoenn is like a large island its supposed to be isolated. sinnoh would later have hg/ss so there was no point in adding kanto or johto and hoenn was not an option because hoenn and sinnoh have completely different climates thus they're quite far away from each other.

honestly i'd like it if we stuck to one region per game unless they make a game to go through every region, besides in r/s/e's time we had fr/lg that gave you kanto to explore in a sense. besides the dual regions were badly executed alot of new pokemon appeared in kanto thus you couldn't even catch them until the after game and the leveling was awful the pokemon were lvl 3 but the gym leaders were lvl 50 your team is bearly on lvl 50 by the time you're done then you have to fight red who has his team in the high 70's

 

[skittlepup~]

I never played in the original Kanto of RBGY/FRLG, so I can't really say anything about the supposed "emptiness" of Kanto. However, what I can say is is that it was pretty exciting for me to go to another entire region in HGSS, one that I had never been to before. I thought it was pretty awesome. I also liked how I got to battle each of the Kanto Gym Leaders.
Though the level jump from Blue to Red was terrible. I had to spend days training my Pokemon on that mountain.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

While I don't care much for HGSS's rendition of Kanto, I still think it's possible for this to be pulled off well. Better than an all-region game would be, anyway.

 

[Soulweaver]

I won't demand it but I would be okay with a dual region game.

What about the fact that Kanto didn't have much to offer in GSC?
Well, obviously that was due to CPU memory issues, but didn't that get mostly resolved with HGSS? Regions cut out in GSC returning for HGSS, and having Pokathlon added too. And surely the 3DS would be a lot more capable than the old Game Boy, or even the DS.

The funniest thing about the claims of the cart not having enough space for a proper Kanto is that there were a lot of unused maps present on the GSC carts that could have been easily removed to make more room.

 

[Hidden Mew]

The idea sounds nice and I did enjoy exploring Kanto, in spite of being fairly empty, in G/S/C/HG/SS, but I'd rather see them use that space for the new region instead of having to split it up between two regions. Adding in a few new areas like what B2/W2 did would probably be better in the long run. I wouldn't be upset if they do that in a future game, but I'm fine with each game focusing on one region instead of two as well.

 

[henrymidfields]

Cheers for the reply folks. So far the polls are:
16 ayes
6 nays
6 depends

So poll-wise, it looks like I'm not the only one who would like another dual-region game. As for the actual replies, the opinions are more diverse. At least two people were against another dual-region game, specifically because that was what made GSC/HGSS special. And at least two prefers the B2W2 format of expanding an existing region. While I'm yet to play B2W2 (as I need to finish Black 1 first), I will have to admit, I am looking forward to see the new Unova region once I start playing B2W2. I hope that the same will happen for the expanded XY versions too. (And a expanded storyline as well.)

Keep those votes and replies coming folks!

Cheers,
Henry Midfields

 

[G50]

Although Kanto was a bit empty in GSC and HGSS, I really liked having a different version of Kanto in a game like it was. If they could expand more on the second region in another new dual-region game, I'd love another one even more.

 

[RetroBulbasaur]

Questions for you:
When you found out that Gen 3 games were not to have a post-game Johto/Kanto, were you disappointed? Do you want another game that allows you to visit a region from a previous generation?
(Update) Did you have pacing/lack of detail problems when playing GSC? If so, was it an issue you had at the time of GSC release, or was it in retrospect? (as in after playing RSE, DPPt, BW(1/2), and/or especiallyHGSS)

I can remember being disappointed when I found out that Hoenn wasn't connected to Johto or Kanto. At the time it felt like a bit of a step backwards, and now it just seems strange to me that Kanto and Johto are the only connected regions. When I played GSC I definitely didn't notice any pacing issues or lack of detail, in fact I think Gen II added a lot to the game, and I don't think it's fair to judge GSC in retrospect because obviously we want each new set of games to be improvements on what came before.

So my final answer is this. I don't necessarily need a post-game region, if the next game is, again to be in a completely different location. (eg Poke-Greece, Poke-Egypt, or Poke-China). I would like Kalos as post-game region, if it was, say, Poke-Germany, but it not essential either. Similarly with Unova and say, Poke-Boston. If it was set within Poke-Japan, including remakes, then yes it will be essential for me.

I like the way you've put this, that regions should be available post-game if it's logical that a trainer could move between the two regions.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but I think this question strongly relates to issues around continuity, maintaining a timeline of events and generally making the Pokémon World feel like one big world. (E.g. The main story-line of Gen II flowed from the main story-line of Gen I. You had some of the old characters interacting with the new characters, and you also saw how things had changed for characters like Lance or Blue in the time that had passed since the earlier games.) That's something I missed in Gen III & IV, and something I really liked about BW2. I know each game makes some mention of events from other games but it's usually some random statement from an NPC that could easily be missed. So that's another reason why I like the idea of visiting past regions, I'd love to see how Oak is getting on, if Red is still hanging out in Mt Silver, or if Lance has stopped forcing his Dragonite to evolve early!

 

[ProfOaked]

I would be fine with it. could be cool

 

[Raikou Is Epic]

I would love a new two region game.The 3DShas much mor capacity than a DS or Game Boy, so it may be as good as the original.Plus, who wouldn't want to visit an old place they haven't been in a long time.