Hisuian Forms and Evolutions Discussion

[blitzle stan]

Realistically, I don't think they're trying to imply that "Kantonian" Mr. Mime is a variant. At most, I think that just means the regular Mr. Mime species is native to Kanto. Between the fact that it already appeared in so many other regions, in which it went totally unremarked upon as anything abnormal, combined with the Pokédex not referring to any of the original designs as a "_____an Form" (although Pokémon GO's press releases often do that, so I guess the company style guide says it's okay, even though it's only happened a couple of times in the main series games to my knowledge) leads me to believe that the original designs are intended to be the baseline of the species, and the regional variants we see are circumstantial deviations...

... except for Zigzagoon, of course, which is pretty much exactly what you're describing, according to the lore. Galarian Zigzagoon is said to be the original form, whereas the "normal" or Hoennian Zigzagoon is the derivative variant.

That said, Game Freak are fickle when it comes to honoring lore. Sometimes they'll preserve it down to the tiniest, most reverential detail, whereas other times they'll be like, "I don't give a monkey's!", and fire up the company bulldozer.

Yep, Hoennian Zigzagoon was a Galarian Zigzagoon brought to Hoenn somehow, that became Hoennian and then... made its way back over to Kalos like that. HAHA It probably separately became Hoennian form in Hoenn and Kalos, but was 'first discovered' in Hoenn so is called Hoennian.

So yeah, Hisuian Growlithe can easily be placed into a future Chinese-inspired region no problem. People in the region you're in don't refer to anything as more than just the species, so in-game it wouldn't be strange at all. They would just call it Growlithe.

 

[Johnny Boy]

I think quilfish and ledian should get an evolution too. I keep forgetting they exist.

 

[Dizzard]

A part of me kinda wishes that they'll streamline how you obtain regional variants somewhat in future. Sort of like how they introduced items that switches Pokemon abilities and natures.

Right now, regional variants appear in future games as trades don't they? (or sometimes as gift Pokemon) I'm not sure if that's feasible long term. (though I guess to be fair, not every regional variant will appear in every game so I guess they could manage it.

I wonder if one day they'll add something like a "Galarian Stone" that changes a Pokemon to it's Galar form....or maybe when held while breeding it creates an egg of a Galarian form. (so for example, breeding a Kanto Koffing holding a Galarian Stone would produce offspring that's a Galarian Koffing. I guess it might not make logical sense but it sure seems like something that would be handy.

 

[Oriden]

A part of me kinda wishes that they'll streamline how you obtain regional variants somewhat in future. Sort of like how they introduced items that switches Pokemon abilities and natures.

Right now, regional variants appear in future games as trades don't they? (or sometimes as gift Pokemon) I'm not sure if that's feasible long term. (though I guess to be fair, not every regional variant will appear in every game so I guess they could manage it.

I wonder if one day they'll add something like a "Galarian Stone" that changes a Pokemon to it's Galar form....or maybe when held while breeding it creates an egg of a Galarian form. (so for example, breeding a Kanto Koffing holding a Galarian Stone would produce offspring that's a Galarian Koffing. I guess it might not make logical sense but it sure seems like something that would be handy.

Maybe... or they'll just lean on GO in that regard, since it's free and regional variants have been pretty easily obtainable there.

 

[Super-Luke]

I didn't understand if Wyrdeer and Basculegion are normal evolutions like Magmortar etc... or if there are Hisuian Stantler and Hisuian Basculin.

 

[Oriden]

I didn't understand if Wyrdeer and Basculegion are normal evolutions like Magmortar etc... or if there are Hisuian Stantler and Hisuian Basculin.

Wasn't confirmed, honestly. Though me personally, I'm betting Basculegion at least is a normal evolution- because hell no, a Hisuian Basculin should not exist.

 

[nickdt]

I didn't understand if Wyrdeer and Basculegion are normal evolutions like Magmortar etc... or if there are Hisuian Stantler and Hisuian Basculin.

I think
Hisuian Stantler evolves into Wyrdeer
Regular Basculin evolves into Basculegion
Regular Rufflet evolves into Hisuin Braviary
Hisuian Growlithe evolves into Hisuian Arcanine or new evolution

 

[Super-Luke]

I think
Hisuian Stantler evolves into Wyrdeer
Regular Basculin evolves into Basculegion
Regular Rufflet evolves into Hisuin Braviary
Hisuian Growlithe evolves into Hisuian Arcanine or new evolution

Strange though, Stantler is of the normal type while Wyrdeer is normal/psychic. Should hisuian Stantler be normal/psychic?
I don't know... it doesn't change much, does it?

 

[Oriden]

Strange though, Stantler is of the normal type while Wyrdeer is normal/psychic. Should hisuian Stantler be normal/psychic?
I don't know... it doesn't change much, does it?

Yeah, it would be a shame to just get a silver normal/psychic stantler variant, especially as stantler was a borderline psychic pokemon to begin with. Plus I'm pretty sure Wyrdeer's color, beard and type are all alluding to it having become wiser through age- it could easily come from young brown regular stantler. And Wyrdeer's design is so just a grey stantler with a beard that people already keep mistaking it for a regional variant of stantler, I think an actual Hisuian Stantler would wind up even more underwhelming than Galarian Farfetch'd, which at least was trying to make a joke.

 

[Super-Luke]

Yeah, it would be a shame to just get a silver normal/psychic stantler variant, especially as stantler was a borderline psychic pokemon to begin with. Plus I'm pretty sure Wyrdeer's color, beard and type are all alluding to it having become wiser through age- it could easily come from young brown regular stantler. And Wyrdeer's design is so just a grey stantler with a beard that people already keep mistaking it for a regional variant of stantler, I think an actual Hisuian Stantler would wind up even more underwhelming than Galarian Farfetch'd, which at least was trying to make a joke.

Indeed! In the Pokédex descriptions Stantler has "psychic powers" and with Wyrdeer it makes sense. Evolution feels like an aged, wise Stantler to me too.

 

[Tuoko]

I didn't understand if Wyrdeer and Basculegion are normal evolutions like Magmortar etc... or if there are Hisuian Stantler and Hisuian Basculin.

My guess is they'll have variants, purely because the text suggests they're region specific like the SwSh ones. Here's Obstagoon/Sirfetch'd & Basculegion/Wrydeer's text from the websites that includes the base mon up to who they evolve into.

For Obstagoon: "The Linoone of the Galar region live in harsh conditions compared to those found in other regions, with fierce competition against others of their species. Their survival instincts have been honed as a result, leading to their Evolution into Obstagoon."

For Sirfetch'd: "The Farfetch’d of the Galar region can evolve into Sirfetch'd after experiencing many battles."

For Basculegion: "Basculin in the Hisui region can evolve into this Pokemon."

For Wyrdeer: "In the Hisui region, Stantler can evolve into Wyrdeer."

As for the typings, I can see Normal/Psychic Stantler & pure Water Basculin, with the latter only having a single form this time.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that giving them variants would make distributing these mons easier in the long run, especially if they're being marketed as region-specific evolutions. That way we can just breed the variant instead of Basculin/Stantler being unable to evolve for no reason in later games

 

[Oriden]

My guess is they'll have variants, purely because the text suggests they're region specific like the SwSh ones. Here's Obstagoon/Sirfetch'd & Basculegion/Wrydeer's text from the websites that includes the base mon up to who they evolve into.

For Obstagoon: "The Linoone of the Galar region live in harsh conditions compared to those found in other regions, with fierce competition against others of their species. Their survival instincts have been honed as a result, leading to their Evolution into Obstagoon."

For Sirfetch'd: "The Farfetch’d of the Galar region can evolve into Sirfetch'd after experiencing many battles."

For Basculegion: "Basculin in the Hisui region can evolve into this Pokemon."

For Wyrdeer: "In the Hisui region, Stantler can evolve into Wyrdeer."

As for the typings, I can see Normal/Psychic Stantler & pure Water Basculin, with the latter only having a single form this time.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that giving them variants would make distributing these mons easier in the long run, especially if they're being marketed as region-specific evolutions. That way we can just breed the variant instead of Basculin/Stantler being unable to evolve for no reason in later games

We also haven't had any straight up new evolutions for old pokemon in awhile, though, so aside from maybe Sylveon, we don't have any recent examples of how they'd handle or reference just regular new evolutions. We can refer back to the old ones, of course, which had special evolution methods introduced to avoid that conundrum, and there isn't any reason that they couldn't have gone back to that.

...also the regional evolution issue is something we're already seeing with Alolan Marowak, Exeggutor, and Raichu, so it's not like this isn't something that already needs a solution.

 

[vivian20]

A hisuian stantler could be a more baby looking gray stantler. Regular stantler might look like a mix of wyrdeer and hisuian stantler, since it doesnt evolve. Stantlers might have become stronger over time, so it no longer needs and evolution. Sirfetch´d also looks like a white farfetch´d with a shield and a bigger leek .

Basculin on the other hand, could be in its regular form and evolve to basculegion, because its lore sugests that it only becomes ghost type when it evolves . So basculin itself is still pure water, or water/something. There is no regional variant that shares the same type with the regular form. They also never had introduced a new type in a regional variant just to remove it through an evolution. All the regional evolutions ( cursola, sirfetch´d , runegrigus, perrseker, Mr. Rime) share their typings with their regional variant pre-evos. Its also not completely true that no regular pokemon can evolve into a new regional variant evolution. A Mime jr. caught in diamon/pearl can still become a Mr. Rime in sword/shield. Yeah, it has to evolve to galarian Mr. mime first, but a mr rhime can still have moves and ribbons only found in other generations.

In future generations, hisuian regional variants could be found as fossils . They probably are going to be extinct, at least extinct in nature. In real life , there are many animal species that are extinct in nature, but still live in zoos, for example. The Pere Davids deer is extinct in China, its homeland, and its antlers shape look a lot like Wyrdeer´s antler´s shape. They can also have a greyish fur : Père David's deer - Wikipedia.

Maybe we will be able to find them in BD/SP as fossils. Up until gen VIII, fossils couldnt be found in the wild . In crown tundra, they are found in the wild, but its said that trainers have been releasing revived fossils in the wild. So in the future, we could see hisuian pokemon in the wild. Just say that they were revived fossils introduced by trainers.

 

[Jimothy]

Basculin on the other hand, could be in its regular form and evolve to basculegion, because its lore sugests that it only becomes ghost type when it evolves . So basculin itself is still pure water, or water/something. There is no regional variant that shares the same type with the regular form. They also never had introduced a new type in a regional variant just to remove it through an evolution.

I'm of the belief that we're going to see a Hisuian Basculin, but this is a good point. My best guess is either

A. Hisuian Basculin is Water/Normal, giving it essentially a placeholder secondary typing, or

B. Hisuian Basculin is pure Water and our first example of a regional variant that keeps the original's typing (will probably have a different ability than either Unovan Basculin once transferred to a game that features abilities in its battle system).

 

[Phosphene]

I don't think we'll see a Hisuian Basculin considering how similar regular Basculin is to Basculegion.

Spoiler: Comparison

They're both this greenish-grey color, have a black stripe on the top of their bodies with a colored stripe right below it, and have spiky dorsal fins. The eyes of Basculegion are similar to Red-Stripe Basculin's, and the side and lower fins are similar to Blue-Stripe Basculin's fins. Their mouths all have jagged edges reminiscent of teeth, their bodies have spots albeit in different colors, and the vertical red stripe on Basculegion's face could be analogous to the thin black line separating Basculin's head from the rest of their body. Not only that, but Basculegion is also Water type like regular Basculin.

While Farfetch'd is somewhat similar to Sirfetch'd, Galarfetch'd have the same/similar eyes, a tuft of feathers on the chest, thicker eye brows with a kink at the ends, a puffed-out chest, bulky leaks, and the same typing, while Kanto Farfetch'd lacks these features. These changes help sell the difference between the two forms in my opinion. I just don't see GameFreak creating a regional form of Basculin, but then make it very similar to the regular form down to the shapes of the fins.

 

[Oriden]

I don't think we'll see a Hisuian Basculin considering how similar regular Basculin is to Basculegion.

Spoiler: Comparison

They're both this greenish-grey color, have a black stripe on the top of their bodies with a colored stripe right below it, and have spiky dorsal fins. The eyes of Basculegion are similar to Red-Stripe Basculin's, and the side and lower fins are similar to Blue-Stripe Basculin's fins. Their mouths all have jagged edges reminiscent of teeth, their bodies have spots albeit in different colors, and the vertical red stripe on Basculegion's face could be analogous to the thin black line separating Basculin's head from the rest of their body. Not only that, but Basculegion is also Water type like regular Basculin.

While Farfetch'd is somewhat similar to Sirfetch'd, Galarfetch'd have the same/similar eyes, a tuft of feathers on the chest, thicker eye brows with a kink at the ends, a puffed-out chest, bulky leaks, and the same typing, while Kanto Farfetch'd lacks these features. These changes help sell the difference between the two forms in my opinion. I just don't see GameFreak creating a regional form of Basculin, but then make it very similar to the regular form down to the shapes of the fins.

Plus there's the whole 'blue and red make magenta' aspect and there'd be absolutely no reason to make a third pure water Basculin form- we already have two, it couldn't possibly be more redundant. And giving it a water/normal form would just be forcing something that's clearly unnecessary to have a point, when they could just finally salvage the original filler pair instead.

 

[Super-Luke]

A user from another forum wrote this:

Spoiler

Wyrdeer being Normal/Psychic is significant because vanilla Stantler is already a pure Normal type with heavy Psychic motifs. Its dex entries talk about its antlers being able to distort reality and it learns a menagerie of Psychic staples from Calm Mind to Psychic/Psyshock to Trick Room and Magic Room. A Normal/Psychic Hisuian Stantler would be the equivalent of a Psychic/Dark Girafarig or a Rock/Grass Sudowoodo: It's such a banal, redundant extension of the original concept far below the remixes other regional forms have offered in terms of creativity. Besides, Wyrdeer already has so many physical similarities with Stantler that one questions what a unique pre-evo would even look like, would it literally just be Blue Stantler?
-As for Basculegion, just take a look at its description: "This Evolution occurs when a Basculin is possessed by the souls of other Basculin from its school that could not withstand the harsh journey upstream." This is not a fusion of souls, this is pretty clearly suggesting that there has to be at least one living Basculin that can serve as the host for the spirits of its dead comrades. An evolution from a Water/Ghost Hisuian Basculin would contradict this way too hard to not be noticeable.

I think like him, you?

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

A user from another forum wrote this:

Spoiler

Wyrdeer being Normal/Psychic is significant because vanilla Stantler is already a pure Normal type with heavy Psychic motifs. Its dex entries talk about its antlers being able to distort reality and it learns a menagerie of Psychic staples from Calm Mind to Psychic/Psyshock to Trick Room and Magic Room. A Normal/Psychic Hisuian Stantler would be the equivalent of a Psychic/Dark Girafarig or a Rock/Grass Sudowoodo: It's such a banal, redundant extension of the original concept far below the remixes other regional forms have offered in terms of creativity. Besides, Wyrdeer already has so many physical similarities with Stantler that one questions what a unique pre-evo would even look like, would it literally just be Blue Stantler?
-As for Basculegion, just take a look at its description: "This Evolution occurs when a Basculin is possessed by the souls of other Basculin from its school that could not withstand the harsh journey upstream." This is not a fusion of souls, this is pretty clearly suggesting that there has to be at least one living Basculin that can serve as the host for the spirits of its dead comrades. An evolution from a Water/Ghost Hisuian Basculin would contradict this way too hard to not be noticeable.

I think like him, you?

100%. May not actually happen, but the logic is pretty sound.

 

[techitisJ]

Regional variant Rockruff and Lycanroc (or some new regional evo), that walk around in packs. We've already seen from the trailer that some of the Pokemon seem to react and do a little more than they did in Sword and Shield, so this doesn't seem like it would be too hard to implement.

And, going off that idea, what if this was one of the red-eyed Pokemon? It would travel with its pack and they straight up start hunting you down kind of like the wolves in BOTW do. Like the red-eyed one would attack you, and the others would encircle you. This would be terrifying, but kind of fun. I don't think they would ever do anything like this though.

 

[Oriden]

Regional variant Rockruff and Lycanroc (or some new regional evo), that walk around in packs. We've already seen from the trailer that some of the Pokemon seem to react and do a little more than they did in Sword and Shield, so this doesn't seem like it would be too hard to implement.

And, going off that idea, what if this was one of the red-eyed Pokemon? It would travel with its pack and they straight up start hunting you down kind of like the wolves in BOTW do. Like the red-eyed one would attack you, and the others would encircle you. This would be terrifying, but kind of fun. I don't think they would ever do anything like this though.

Daaaamn I would so be down for that, though. XD