- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
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There is not a single mechanic in any game that is “needed”. It’s all up to what they think would be popular, and clearly Variants have been. I’m not really sure why you believe that the entire reason for their existence is to avoid National Dex padding, but I’m certain you can’t say that concretely. It’s not a waste of time when it’s a mechanic that would draw in consumers. And, if they did things right, then all those other things you listed could be included as well.
Nobody knows why they exist except for GameFreak, and “what makes a good game” is entirely subjective. If they did their research and found that variants are a popular mechanic, then yes they absolutely should include them.
Come on dude, it's obvious. They're able to redesign existing Pokemon instead of taking the effort to design brand new ones in an era when people are already complaining about relatively poor designs in newer generations vs. older generations. If you think this isn't the reason Megas and regional forms exist I don't know what to tell you. It's clearly to avoid National Dex padding. We're quickly approaching 1000 Pokemon, when is it too many? We don't know for sure, but they can at least slow down the massive amount of Pokemon by reusing certain Pokemon and reworking them into regional forms. It's a very good strategy and I commend Game Freak for it, but Sinnoh already has a solid regional dex. It's one of the better regional dexes if you look at Platinum (which clearly sought to fix the problems from DP).