The Alola Region

[Mitchman]

A lot of things bug me in that analysis.
Its not a forest behind the starting town. Everyone needs to go back to the first trailers and look at the entrance to it again. Its a cave, and a pretty big one at that, considering how entrances exist both to the west and the east.
The small portion in the second island with the lighthouse and graveyard is not with a cave in the middle. Its likely that its one big circle.
The observatory and ice mountain are separate. After the starting "forest" tgis is the biggest misinformation spreading about.
The power plant is on a cliffside, with only one route leading to it from the south.

 

[Beck]

I'm pretty set on all the hotels being the gyms.

Yeah, it definitely seems likely.

I guess my only concern, if you can call it that, is the supposed lack of towns and cities surrounding some of these hotels. The number of Pokemon Centers (14) to the number of seemingly established locations doesn't equate. I know the map isn't fully detailed (we know this when viewing the in-game map and this one, as certain buildings don't appear in both), but even then it feels like there are less.

Anyway, either way I'm excited for the region, more so than I've been for others.

 

[godiego]

Its not a forest behind the starting town. Everyone needs to go back to the first trailers and look at the entrance to it again. Its a cave, and a pretty big one at that, considering how entrances exist both to the west and the east.

the official art seems to show it as a forest though?

 

[SurfingPikachu6596]

Have you guys seen the sun/moon trailer? If you have and you still haven't guessed...

Spoiler

its based on Hawaii, that's why its called alola like aloha

 

[Mitchman]

the official art seems to show it as a forest though?

View: https://youtu.be/Kn25hijDL7c

Was everyone hyperactive during the starter reveal and ignored all the tiny details? At 1 minute and 11 seconds its clearly a small hilll with forestry on it behind the starting town, or I am the blindest man alive.

 

[Falconwing]

View: https://youtu.be/Kn25hijDL7c

Was everyone hyperactive during the starter reveal and ignored all the tiny details? At 1 minute and 11 seconds its clearly a small hilll with forestry on it behind the starting town, or I am the blindest man alive.

It appears to quite clearly be a forested hill to me. I was neither hyperactive nor blind. Many pokemon games feature a path leading into a forest and presenting it as being some dark hole.

 

[Mitchman]

Its quite clearly a cave, not a forest though. You can see that its a hole in the face of the hill, and its quite clear with its curve on the left side.

 

[laki]

On the region map artwork it looks like a forest on a hill.
However in the gameplay footage it looks more like a cave that leads into a hill with vegetation on top. But maybe thats because, the gameplay footage is less detailed, then the map.

 

[godiego]

it'd be hard to tell since forests always have loading screens, and thus have their entrances as "holes" on the map. not to mention the Early Forest is something that comes before the Early Cave most of the time (afaik only Johto and maybe Unova are the exceptions).

 

[Beck]

Its quite clearly a cave, not a forest though. You can see that its a hole in the face of the hill, and its quite clear with its curve on the left side.

Odds that this cave connects with the cave in the northeast?

 

[Mitchman]

Odds that this cave connects with the cave in the northeast?

I think its all one central cave system to the island, bar the one inside diamond head. There is cave entrance to the route north of the Big City, and the cave that gains you access to the sea cove that is otherwise inaccessible. You can also see at the 25 second mark from the trainer running up the hill that there is mostly rock behind the waterfall, at the same level of the town.

Going over the various amounts of footage and deets we've been given, I'm not even sure if route 2 IS the one I guessed. I just realized the bridge we see lillie in front of is the one leading to the north side of the island to the east of the starting town. Seeing how she is with the greener side behind her, perhaps its the first rival battle? I think I just pieced together the games route through the first island. Starting town, go down to the big city, gym leader is missing, go back to the starting town, take cave west to route 2, which could be what we see the Female MC exiting from instead, go north to route 3 and 4, find the leader, loop around to the suspension bridge, have rival battle, then do whatever you do to get to the next island. Throw in some evil team encounters for good measure.

 

[Beck]

I think its all one central cave system to the island, bar the one inside diamond head. There is cave entrance to the route north of the Big City, and the cave that gains you access to the sea cove that is otherwise inaccessible. You can also see at the 25 second mark from the trainer running up the hill that there is mostly rock behind the waterfall, at the same level of the town.

Going over the various amounts of footage and deets we've been given, I'm not even sure if route 2 IS the one I guessed. I just realized the bridge we see lillie in front of is the one leading to the north side of the island to the east of the starting town. Seeing how she is with the greener side behind her, perhaps its the first rival battle? I think I just pieced together the games route through the first island. Starting town, go down to the big city, gym leader is missing, go back to the starting town, take cave west to route 2, which could be what we see the Female MC exiting from instead, go north to route 3 and 4, find the leader, loop around to the suspension bridge, have rival battle, then do whatever you do to get to the next island. Throw in some evil team encounters for good measure.

I'm not sure I'm following. You're suggesting that we don't even use the route that has the "Berry Farm"?

I'm also unsure about the caves connecting. This would imply that there's a loop from the Starting Town, through it's cave, out the cave, and around the bridge again to the Starting Town. But when looking at the in-game map, the two entrances are at different levels -- the one furthest right opens at sea level, which would imply that, if they do connect, the cave descends from the Starting Town. So my thought is that unless there's a third entrance in the same mountainside (I may have missed this?) then the route extending past the Berry Farm circles the outer-side of the mountain, loops across the bridge and back near the Starting Town. Which would mean that they cave entrances are independent of this.

Yet that doesn't make sense, as these entrances seem potentially pivotal to the first island's ecosystem.

EDIT: I also think that, if we do find ourselves first entering the city from the right only to find the Gym Leader is absent, when we enter it a second time, we will be entering it from the left, which would explain why the Pokemon Center is what we see first.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

Anyone notice the name Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor? Could be nothing but it is kind of a reference to the DP games. Anyway, I think the boat would be our first way of traveling on water until we get Surf.

 

[godiego]

Anyone notice the name Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor? Could be nothing but it is kind of a reference to the DP games.

Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor are the actual names of those locations irl. so........probably nothing.

@Beck: i think on the whole we'll be going counterclockwise, but we'll head down to the Trainer School before we actually shift directions. that would explain all the Pokemon Centers.

 

[Beck]

I would have to agree, @godiego.

I would imagine, though, that we enter the city from the right first purely because it's more aesthetically pleasing, it's clearly the most visually stimulating entrance of the two. That being said, I also imagine we enter the cave entrance at the top before any other entrance, for similar reasons. So with this being said there's a clear conflict in the direction we take.

But ultimately I imagine it makes the most sense to move counter-clockwise, return to the city from the north, beat the gym, and take the boat. I also cannot imagine having to track back through Route 1 (?) between the Starting Town and the beach to get to the city a second time.

 

[godiego]

@Beck:

Spoiler

created a (crappy) image to get us on the same page. follows in general ROYGBIV order. obviously there may be some differences, maybe we beat up some scrubs at the School and Kukui notes our potential and gives us the Pokedex from there or perhaps we go all the way to the Gym in the city to find out the leader's not there before being sent counterclockwise, but i think that's the general gist of it all.

 

[Beck]

I would agree with your progression, godiego, I'm sure at its core that's the path we'll take.

 

[Falconwing]

Anyone notice the name Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor? Could be nothing but it is kind of a reference to the DP games. Anyway, I think the boat would be our first way of traveling on water until we get Surf.

I'm having this wonderful mental image of the US government hinting at DP remakes since 1887.

Honestly, unless they impose incredibly ridiculous road blocks I don't see why we can't free roam our home island.

In fact, the Alola region is not set up for linear travel at all.

 

[Beck]

I'm having this wonderful mental image of the US government hinting at DP remakes since 1887.

Honestly, unless they impose incredibly ridiculous road blocks I don't see why we can't free roam our home island.

In fact, the Alola region is not set up for linear travel at all.

Do you think it'll be a lack of direction -- i.e. free roam -- or multiple directions offered providing variety? Because I struggle to see Game Freak abandon the linear model entirely, as much as I wish they would.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Do you think it'll be a lack of direction -- i.e. free roam -- or multiple directions offered providing variety? Because I struggle to see Game Freak abandon the linear model entirely, as much as I wish they would.

Probably multiple directions. They're not going to make it full open world or anything, there's probably still going to be paths across the island. But I do think they can let you go anywhere on the island you want as long as you beat the gyms and complete the requisite storyline events there. The island system creates a natural sense of linearity to the region, so it'd still be easy to understand where to go without restricting you in one direction. That plus the Rotom Dex's ability to give you directions leads me to believe they're going to be relaxing the linearity in this game.