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So, when the original DP came out, there were 493 Pokémon in all, and only a mere 50 were not obtainable in DP in some way. (By the way, Tangela was one of those 50 - Tangela, who received a new evolution in DP good lord GF what were you doing back then??)
I really don’t expect these games to have a roster of 443 species. That’s a lot - three times what was present in the Kanto Dex of LGPE, which I think is highly optimistic for games that are clearly a smaller and lower-priority job. But at the same time, Porygon-Z in the trailer shows us that we can expect more than what was strictly available in the original Sinnoh Dex.
So I expect a sort of middle ground here. Only between 210 and 300 species total will be programmed into the game at all, but we will see the species from the Platinum expansion, as well as Heatran, Regigigas, Giratina, Cresselia, Phione, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus. And if Regigigas is in, then I think we can also probably expect Regirock, Regice, and Registeel as requirements to unlock it. Maybe not Regieleki and Regidrago, but that’d certainly be cool.
I’m guessing they’ll throw Sylveon in too because why not, and maybe the Kanto bird trio as well. I’m more interested to see how they handle the Mythical Pokémon. LGPE only had two to worry about and shunted them off into peripheral devices, but these games will presumably need to find room for four. And how willing will they be to include them in-game (à la Deoxys and Keldeo) rather than exploiting them as incentives to buy other things? For instance, I could definitely see Arceus being unobtainable in BDSP until Legends: Arceus comes out - to incentivize purchases of LA, perhaps having LA save data will retroactively open up an event in BDSP that allows you to access the Hall of Origin (and frankly if they use that as an opportunity to reference and tie in some of the new lore from LA, that’d be really awesome).
That being said, for as much as these games seem to be aping LGPE in terms of visual style, the mechanics are clearly a different story. Wild battles exist. Abilities are in. Presumably held items are too, especially if Arceus is here because its Ability relies on that. I would imagine that breeding is also here, since babies were well-established by the time of DP. So it is quite possible, I suppose, that the Pokémon in these games will have the same data structure and composition as in the traditional games, meaning - potentially - that a Pokémon from Sword or Shield could be imported into BDSP smoothly. All of which is to say that maybe they’re not as concerned about making things like Darkrai or the Regi trio available internally, if those can be brought in via Pokémon HOME.
I really don’t expect these games to have a roster of 443 species. That’s a lot - three times what was present in the Kanto Dex of LGPE, which I think is highly optimistic for games that are clearly a smaller and lower-priority job. But at the same time, Porygon-Z in the trailer shows us that we can expect more than what was strictly available in the original Sinnoh Dex.
So I expect a sort of middle ground here. Only between 210 and 300 species total will be programmed into the game at all, but we will see the species from the Platinum expansion, as well as Heatran, Regigigas, Giratina, Cresselia, Phione, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus. And if Regigigas is in, then I think we can also probably expect Regirock, Regice, and Registeel as requirements to unlock it. Maybe not Regieleki and Regidrago, but that’d certainly be cool.
I’m guessing they’ll throw Sylveon in too because why not, and maybe the Kanto bird trio as well. I’m more interested to see how they handle the Mythical Pokémon. LGPE only had two to worry about and shunted them off into peripheral devices, but these games will presumably need to find room for four. And how willing will they be to include them in-game (à la Deoxys and Keldeo) rather than exploiting them as incentives to buy other things? For instance, I could definitely see Arceus being unobtainable in BDSP until Legends: Arceus comes out - to incentivize purchases of LA, perhaps having LA save data will retroactively open up an event in BDSP that allows you to access the Hall of Origin (and frankly if they use that as an opportunity to reference and tie in some of the new lore from LA, that’d be really awesome).
That being said, for as much as these games seem to be aping LGPE in terms of visual style, the mechanics are clearly a different story. Wild battles exist. Abilities are in. Presumably held items are too, especially if Arceus is here because its Ability relies on that. I would imagine that breeding is also here, since babies were well-established by the time of DP. So it is quite possible, I suppose, that the Pokémon in these games will have the same data structure and composition as in the traditional games, meaning - potentially - that a Pokémon from Sword or Shield could be imported into BDSP smoothly. All of which is to say that maybe they’re not as concerned about making things like Darkrai or the Regi trio available internally, if those can be brought in via Pokémon HOME.
