Are all pokemon games seperate universes?

[Mistresspaie]

Ok so we all know the multiverse in canon in Pokémon and there are essentially infinite difference universes. With this baseline do you think it’s plausible each game is it’s own seperate universe lore wise?

Like say in universe 1 the events of Ruby happened whilst in universe 2 the events of Sapphire happened. Emerald universe 3 and so on. Additionally each of these could be split into 2 universes depending on whether Brandon or May was the protag.

So with just Gen 3 alone we have 6 different parallel universes. And if you add in ORAS that’s 10.

Obviously main events still happen in most universes regardless of small differences. Ie Red will almost always defeat team rocket, Cyrus will always capture the creation duo and on occasion with acquire both which leads to Giratina.

I personally love this because it fits well into the established lore and can be an easy fix to things that could contradict previous lore or be retcons.

Thoughts?

 

[Jimothy]

Yeah, that pretty much seems to be the case.

Certainly each version is its own universe, there's a sidequest in BW that involves a request for a monster "from another world" (the opposite color version).

And each remake constitutes a new set of universes, that's what ORAS was trying to explain.

And beyond that, it seems like each playthrough/cartridge is its own universe, hence why we are able to trade and fight, despite being the same person in-universe (ie, the person stopping the evil team, etc). The ORAS universe-crossing device being called a Link Cable is a hint to this, but there are others (the entralink in gen 5 describes the other player as being from another world, I believe).

And that accounts for things like which starter you picked, which fossil you picked, if you went Hitmonchan or -lee, which Eevee evo the rival gets in Yellow, and even your character name and your team.

It's tempting (and fun) to try to think of it as "Gold is the sequel to Red, within the same world" or "Gold is a sequel to any gen 1 game that I played," but I think it's more accurate to say "similar events happened in this new game's past to the game I played before." Certainly Gen 2 Red's team is possible no matter what game you played, but it's also clearly meant to evoke a Yellow playthrough. Yet the rival's team is indicative of a R, G, or B playthrough; he has a very different team in Yellow. So you aren't really fighting the Red you played as, you're fighting the Red of this new universe that is your Gold playthrough. A good indication of this is that neither Red nor the rival have the names you gave them in your Red playthrough. The past of that Gold playthrough seems to have followed similar events to the Gen 1 story, being something of a mishmash of versions, but ultimately its own thing.

Of course, the implication that you're trading with the past when you use the Time Machine contradicts this. I think Gamefreak tries to be as consistent as they can, but there are going to be little cracks no matter what you do.

I suspect the only games that might really take place in the same universe might be a B-B2 or W-W2 playthrough with a Memory Link. Though even there I suspect you'd find seams. For instance, I have no idea what happens in you memory link B-W2 or W-B2, but I doubt it accounts for the story placement of the legendaries being thrown off.

I suspect that the various RR villains are meant to be from unfinished playthroughs, the cartridges you lost or stuffed in a drawer but never beat.

 

[Sakuraa]

I think MatPat of Game Theory actually did a whole video on this, where the consensus seems to basically be yes, all games, meaning every single cartridge is it's own universe.

I love it myself because it makes things like version differences all the more interesting, but also things like the previous comments mentioned, like the difference in protagonist, and the chosen starter.

Like look at Sword/Shield, where you could be a male protagonist who starts with Grookey battles Bea/Gordie and eventually captures Zacian, or you could be a girl who starts with Scorbunny, battles Allister/Melony, and eventually captures Zamazenta. So many different options for different universe. It's really cool and I love that part of the lore.