In the spirit of nickdt's hypothetical India pokemon region, I would like to propose where I think pokemon is likely to make it's first foray into eastern Europe: the two slavic countries with the highest amount of pokemon fans just happen to be the former Czechoslovakia, so why not mash them both up into a single region? I think this is going to be gen X because gen IX is going to be in the Netherlands.
When it comes to starters, I'm thinking we break from the standard zodiac and instead do mythical figures: a porewit (fire), a kikimora (grass) and a Rusalka (water), each of them designed to represent three different facets of adulthood when fully evolved: nurturing (fire), old knowledge (grass) and freedom (water). That's because the theme of these games (I call them Zero and Infinity) are growth, death, and change. They're an embrace and a response to the fandom and to the pokemon community, a reflection of what the franchise has come to, and a deconstruction of it's ultimate meaning as a definer of childhoods..
As for the boxart legendaries, they're phantom knights, half ghost-type each. Zero's is based off of Byelobog and wields a dussack (a sort of cutlass) whilst Infinity's is based off of chernobog and wields a side sword (too long and too thin to be a medieval broadsword but too thick and too heavy to be an actual rapier). They specifically represent eastern and western concepts of death and enlightenment, respectively (white is worn in the east for funerals and black in the west; white symbolizes purity whilst monks wear black robes). Fitting, the main game ends with the player destroying the original timeline (RBY-B2W2) and starting the postgame is the XY-Present timeline.
When it comes to starters, I'm thinking we break from the standard zodiac and instead do mythical figures: a porewit (fire), a kikimora (grass) and a Rusalka (water), each of them designed to represent three different facets of adulthood when fully evolved: nurturing (fire), old knowledge (grass) and freedom (water). That's because the theme of these games (I call them Zero and Infinity) are growth, death, and change. They're an embrace and a response to the fandom and to the pokemon community, a reflection of what the franchise has come to, and a deconstruction of it's ultimate meaning as a definer of childhoods..
As for the boxart legendaries, they're phantom knights, half ghost-type each. Zero's is based off of Byelobog and wields a dussack (a sort of cutlass) whilst Infinity's is based off of chernobog and wields a side sword (too long and too thin to be a medieval broadsword but too thick and too heavy to be an actual rapier). They specifically represent eastern and western concepts of death and enlightenment, respectively (white is worn in the east for funerals and black in the west; white symbolizes purity whilst monks wear black robes). Fitting, the main game ends with the player destroying the original timeline (RBY-B2W2) and starting the postgame is the XY-Present timeline.
