I just found your videos, and they are so very good. I've never felt so seen (THE ALOLA LIGHTHOUSE! I THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY!). I'm gonna watch the new video right after this one.
You forgot to say that in Black and White 2, the LAST town that your character visits is the town where you START in Black and White, and that you are basically going backwards compared to Black and White. That blew my fucking mind
I feel like Alola is handled way better in the anime than it is in the games. If there’s one thing that the SM anime did flawlessly, is that it made Ash experience and become a part of the culture of Alola. The world building of the region in the anime was great. It really stood out from the past seasons where they would spend an unhealthy amount of episodes wandering a forest that looks exactly the same as the one they were just in 2 episodes ago.
The game did do that, you are someone that just moved to Alola from Kanto and learn all about the culture and spoiler alert, assimilate to the Alolan culture. And Alola even on the 3DS looks better and is more diverse than Galar.
@@dgchvz you are someone who just moved to Alola from Kanto but the only things you really learn about the culture are their greeting, a single food dish, their reverence to the Tapus and the fact that instead of gyms they have totem challenges which are effectively the exact same thing but with a little bit of a "harmony with nature" nature sprinkled on top. There is no real culture to assimilate to since most of the towns look similar to your character's home region or are even an exact copy of the traditional architecture of your home country and life is pretty much the same since nobody is really telling you otherwise.
aww man that's really disappointing, I watched the entire Sun/Moon show and it made me fall in love with the Alola region, and was looking forward to playing their games thinking that they were gonna have that same level of aesthetic and feel of hawaii, but after watching this vid and reading this comment that doesn't seem like that's the case, and that makes me sad 😥
I specifically remember being amazed as a kid when I swam north from Cinnabar island and suddenly found myself back in Pallet town. I don't know if this was intended or not, but returning back to the starting town through a previously inaccessible, entirely unknown route really made me think about how far I had come since I left. It was such a satisfying way to tie the whole journey together.
Agree. Oddly, Kanto has really distinct routee/towns to me anyway, even if they are more "plain". Reminds me of being a kid and walking around my neighborhood in the spring time.
24:25 I just HAVE to mention this: the "clouds" are actually supposed to be the shadows of the tree canopy and the light spots being pockets of the canopy that light filters down through. Even though we don't see the trunks of these supposedly MASSIVE trees, it's an amazing aesthetic that I think is unmatched in the series. It looks so cool. Gen 3 and 4 are my golden era.
I had the exact same thought, "weren't the shadows in Eterna forest the limited light filtering through the thick canopy?" Definitely a great aesthetic. The double battle partners were also an interesting and flavorful addition. Good for XP grinding.
Something i always liked about Kalos's routes is that while your playing through the story it gives off the implication that this game is happening over the course of a year, with the beginning of the game being these spring time looking routes, then you go to the coast which of course is summer then by the time the fifth and sixth gyms happen it's an autum looking route and by the seventh and eighth gyms its snowing.
@British moment That's one of the reasons XY is very special to me, the time they launched the weapon and absolutely shat on the French will forever be engraved in my heart.
Something I've noticed when playing XY was how "free" I felt. Like I genuinely felt like I was exploring a new region with finding new areas and items and new places to explore. Meanwhile with Sun and Moon, while the environments are prettier, don't give me that same sense of exploration. New paths just feel like another checkmark for me to progress.
Ok ok the vid was sick but you forgot something absolutely LARGE. In heartgold and soulsilver your walkin’ pokemon reacts to the environment, experiencing the locations just like you and giving you insight into what it would actually FEEL like being there. (Sights, sounds, scents… etc.) That absolutely sold me on Johto. Edit: That running from Cynthia bit had me dying.
33:10 The woman is actually a Zoroak disguised as a human. A special event allowed the woman to reveal she was a Zoroak and battle you. Really good breakdown of all the regions!
bro i hate that he destroys my love for Aloa i played gen 1,2,3,4,7,8,9 and i gotta say aloa and hoenn are my favorite and to see aloa my first favotite is being hating that pisses me off
The secrets buried in the Hoen region are quite under appreciated, I remember losing my little head when I figured out how to ride the ocean currents and stumbled upon a secret cave with braille on the wall
I personally loved how much you could actually do on the ocean in Hoenn. It felt like real exploration because there were no clear paths, just randomly stumble upon cool things like evolution stones, shoal cave, sky pillar, the brail cave to unlock the regi ruins. When they first anounced the sinnoh remakes i was so excited and hopeful for all the secrets they could add to them. Instead we got a buggy copy paste.
@@jasonreed7522 couldn’t have said any better, the region felt small to those that didn’t truly explore it. I like how there was no hand holding involved, you had to discover the secrets yourself through sheer curiosity. The braille cave is still my favorite, it made me feel like a pirate at the time, especially cause I didn’t search for the answers online. I remember going through one of my old school books to translate the meaning
I like Hoen, I really do, but I can't ever like anything with tall grass after the 6th gym. I don't need 3 routes, which are a drag to get through. And I'm saying 3 routes, because they ruin the route right before the 6th gym for me.
One of the most frustrating aspects of Pokemon is their absolute REFUSAL to bring back features. Apricorns? Hidden Bases? Decorating Pokeballs? Beauty contests? Daycares? Puffin making with berries? Battle Frontier? Extra region? Customized clothing? Cell phone to call characters? A rival that's actually challenging? Game corner mini games? Underwater diving? Pokedex completely replaced with Rotom? A bad guy team thats actually interesting or intimidating? There's tons more im missing
The only way I can see a second region in Pokemon games to not be bland is in one version you start off in region A.) And have access to that region's starters. Go through the story and beat region A's Villain team and Pokemon league, then go to region B.) Get the option to choose one of its starters and find a new story in front of you with the new villain team lowest being lv 65 and the strongest being in the 90's if not lv 100. Same with the gyms and that league. The other version reverse it, region B.) Is where we would start.
For Kalos in particular I think it's very clear it was hurt very badly by fairly late rewriting, and splitting content up to save it for Sun/Moon, as data content leaks a year or so ago ended up revealing; stuff like the Power Plants being the alien spaceships Team Flare, who were sun-based aliens that caused the sundial in Anistar to crash down and causing a reverence for the sun in the city, tying into the weird space theming Mega Evolutions have like Mega Rayquaza and Mega Stones being meteorites that doesn't otherwise tie in very well, or Zygarde being pushed back to Sun/Moon alongside a lot of the space/alternate reality themed mons; in a lot of prerelease and documentation Kalos' main region theme was even supposed to be the meeting of different cultures and ideas, the meeting of the X and Y axis, which the whole aliens coming down to earth and coexisting was supposed to represent. It's a massive shame but it definitely helps to explain why a lot of Kalos *does* have landmarks that feel like they should be relevant and *are* relevant according to in-dev leaks, but ultimately just had any relevance stripped away after the assets were finalised. also ily
Oh. *oh.* Man that’s REALLY frustrating. Despite everything, X and Y have been my favourite Pokémon games since they’re the first games I ever really played, and now knowing that they could have been better is just. God this is really frustrating.
Excuse moi, *_WHAT?!_* o_o ALIENS?! EDIT: I read it. Holy shit. If the inevitable Kalos remakes won't have a plot restructuring akin to ORAS (but even bigger) that uses the scrapped ideas for XY, I'm gonna be disappointed... but forgiving, honestly. I mean, that would be a *gigantic* departure from the original, which would without a doubt upset many fans (just as it would excite many others). Not to mention how it would "retcon" so much stuff (though that could be justified by the multiverse theory that ORAS brought to the table). Still, imagine if we got the scrapped ideas back. That would be _so amazing._ :D
@@joob9as a child playing I hated how linear it was so that’s a flat out lie. Diamond and pearl were so much more complex and was the last Pokémon game that gave me a sense of exploration.
Unova’s seasons mechanic is the peak of region design. It’s absolutely amazing and special to see how the seasons not only affect the visuals but also can make different areas have more to explore like Twist Mountain.
Too bad the Unova map in term of path is the lasiest of them all. Which region in the world just naturally form a perfect circle that just happen to bring you to all the places you need to go to in perfect order ? For me that's when regions started to get lazy design wise, sure seasons are a cool addition but not that cool.
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 For me it has the worst design for new pokemons overall, even gen 6-7-8 had better rosters. Sure it made tons of efforts on other areas like story and had decent challenging content. But the fact that they FORCE you to use the new ones, making me for the first time actually unable to have a full team I like since I could only find 2-3 likeable design during my adventure. Not to mention the great diea of an hard mode being locked in post game AND requiring the right version, stupidly frustrating. And I have no idea why combat start by showing you a perfectly good looking sprite then zoom it out into ugly pixelated mess that really don't serve the new complicated designs at all. For me it's the first pokemong game that left me kinda dissapointed. From my point of view, the best pokemon games are gen2 remakes, they were at the peak of design, had the most content out of any game, great region that beneficed immensely from the remake. Pokemon peaked here.
@@naproupi Okay so then why cry about using the new Pokemon? When we played Red and Blue you had gone in completely blind with 151 creatures you had no clue about. They tried to recreate the same lightning in a bottle with Gen 5 part 1. Which I think is commendable as they have never attempted it again in the series. Also I love how Unova progresses over time as you go from BW to B2W2, and the PWT in B2W2 is fantastic the way you can battle every past Gym Leader from Kanto, to even the older Unova Gym leaders who had retired by then, and all of the Champions, and you could do it in Single, Double, Rotation, or Triple Battles, definitely up there with the likes of the Battle Frontier. Gen 5 was the peak honestly with the deep storytelling, the world building and the way the world grew, and everybody in it changed and found a greater meaning or purpose like Bianca, Cheren, and Iris, or Alder, and the Striaton City Triplets when they were shown why they never showed up at the end of B1W1, because the Shadow Triad showed them they were too weak and needed to be stronger, even Colress sees your resolve, and then assumedly goes off to Alola.
@@MEGAGAMERX1000 I complain because as I said Gen 5 has for me the ugliest and least charming roster out of any gen that came before or after, so it was a serious bummer to be forced to have to pick out of those. I seriously wouldn't have minded being forced to use new pokemon in any other gen, even 7 or 8, but this one ? Sorry but no, there was 3 evolutions lines I genuinely liked and that's it, the 3 others were picked reluctanctly to fill my team. Not to mention how they tried more detailed designs which went terribly with their weirdly pixelated sprites, making the more detailed pokemon ugly as hell to look at. There was a reason why early pokemon had simple designs : to be pleasant to the eye when drawn in low resolution. The story was nice but overated. It's sure better than probably any other pokemon game in the main serie, but it's not even as good as mystery dungeon storylines, let alone any more ambitious rpg like fire emblem or persona. I wouldn't call that "deep" storytelling. More like it's the only generation who tried to have decent storytelling, but it never was the selling point of any pokemon game. If they actually wanted to have good storytelling they could just have copied the stories of the pokemon manga which are actually good, but they didn't bother.
Speaking of the "Mature Breakup" in Unova, I'm pretty sure that has something even deeper. The two people who broke up actually aren't people. They are Zoroarks. If you bring the shiny legendary beast from the Zoroark movie here, the female Zoroark will battle you and you can catch it. The male Zoroark (the backpacker) however will show up in BW2, you can find him in this very forest, and he will give you a TM. After that, he will show itself and run away That's the "Lostlorn Forest". It's a forest made up of Zoroark's illusion, therefore called Lostlorn Forest. A location full of lore and hidden content.
I completely forgot it was the same backpacker holy crap. And I love s that event, but MAN I wish events weren’t tied to limited-time pokemon since any new play through I have are likely to miss out on them
hoooly shit I knew the woman was a Zoroark, but not the guy. does he talk in BW2? I just find it neat since I rewatched that movie recently, and Zorua can talk but Zoroark isn't shown doing it once.
@@rinomander yeah, he talks. He warns you not to be tricked by a Zoroark, talks about what happened in the forest in BW (without necessary implying whether the player character of BW had any part in it or not), gives you the TM, then slips and runs away.
@@TheBananaMan971Watching this video really made me look at Paldea differently and yes, it is actually pretty boring and empty .... But tbh it didn't really bother me much this far as is equalized by the walkability of the region, i.e.nothing is just a dummy but you can actually, walk, climb, jump on pretty much anything. And the Pokémon in the wild are pretty nice imo, no perfect, but they have their own behaviour and all, I sometimes just observe them and take pictures in game. So yes Paldea is empty and plain af but then it distracts you enough with other stuff. At least for me
I screamed "YES" outloud when he mentioned how amazing Village Bridge is. I've been obsessing over this bridge for damn near 7 years, I used to fly there and just leave my ds running to listen to the music
I think one of the biggest growing issues with the Pokemon regions is the gradual move away from the Metroidvania aspects that were heavily present through gen 1 through 5. All of the spiralling connectivity of Kanto and Johto matters, not just because it makes the region feel more real, but because you WANT to go back to past towns at multiple points in the adventure whenever you get a new HM. That's basically all gone as if sword and shield. Thankfully legend's Arceus has brought much of that back.
Yeah man I feel that gen 1 and 2s more Metroidvania type maps really shocked me going back as I present in the vid with the return to pallet from cinnabar as an example I hope they bring these type of worlds back
I feel like this is true across multiple things. The modern era of open world obsession has lead to the decrease in understanding the importance of classic metroidvania progression that gave video games a lot of their meat. "Oh I have to backtrack, that's dumb" is quite common. Progression and growing stronger across the whole game? Why can't I just be a god from the beginning? I've seen it happen with a lot of franchises, several Nintendo ones as well.
I don't mind them not doing the whole non linear gym challenge thing they kinda did with part of gen 1 and 2 (a la fighting say pryce before chuck and Jasmine or fighting blaine before Sabrina) since it kinda wreaked havoc on the games difficulty curve but stuff like being able to just go into a random water route off route 1 in unova was really cool and I wish there was more stuff like that.
@@Jdudec367 Breath of the Wild is the biggest. [Insert obvious essay here]. But Odyssey also kept that "everything is fairly easy and there isn't much of an overarching challenge" approach, which certainly is different from say Sunshine that has each tourist spot change dramatically while opening up, gave you extra nozzles mid game, and heavily rewarded thoroughly exploring everything multiple times. Paper Mario is an rpg series that the producer of the newer ones distinctively went "Imma take out what makes an rpg from an rpg franchise". And the biggest element he removed was the character progression concepts. I'm forgetting what non Nintendo example I was thinking of though.
I love how the first thing you mentioned during Gen 5 section is how beautiful it is, and I agree 100% with it. I still remember my childhood mind being blown seeing the season changes and how detailed the pixels art are, Gen 5 is really peak Pokemon
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 They didn't decide to throw anything away, gen 5 didn't sell as well as any of the previous games and people gave it a lot of crap for how different it was. They just decided to appeal to a more general/casual audience so that it doesn't happen again. And as far as I know, it's been working wonders for them. Can't really fault a company for wanting to make money, but you can definitely blame the community for showing gamefreak/Nintendo that gen 5 apparently wasn't what they wanted out of a pokemon game
Village Bridge is super GOAT tier. Didn't like a lot of the "RUclipsrisms" that slow down the pace of the video for me, but the actual commentary you offer in combination with simple visuals and everything was great. Made me wanna re-visit some of these, and really makes me realize how hard it is to leave those lasting impressions. Fortree City is instantly memorable. I have remembered it with no effort since I first stepped foot there. But I completely forgot about the lore of the warehouses becoming studios in Nacrene City. It's so interesting, so how did I forget about it? Not sure. Lots to think about from this. Thanks for sharing, your thoughts were pleasant to listen to.
Unova just got even better with black and white 2 because it took all the aspects from the previous games and added to them, like how you could explore more of Castelia sewers and find a secret project, or a path connecting to relic castle, or the fact you could take over a gang and become their leader it’s really cool
They didn't have to make BW2 an entirely new take on the region canonically set a few years after BW, but boy they sure went for it and you can tell there was so much love and effort put into making this region we already know with characters we've already met feel fresh and new again and IT WORKED Also that gang is so cool, I love that it's just this tiny little element of the world hidden away in a place you've already explored, but just couldn't quite get to the final part of yet
Back when Sword/Shield came out, the feedback was so dominated by Dexit that I felt like I was the only one who cared more about the decline in region design and lore (as well as story, which some people say doesn't matter, but it always did to me). So it's nice to see people actually do care about this stuff too, as time goes on
@mjm3091 you aren't wrong, it was kind of a breaking point for enough to say something is wrong. And well everything except legends arceus proves it... what a mess man I just want a fun adventure game that has interesting things to find and do while not being made for babies
usually story doesn't really matter, but when half your game is spent listening to some dumb fuck talk about the story it better fucking be good try to think about pokemon like you do the last of us, imagine each cutscene as an actual cutscene instead of a bunch of lifeless models standing around with dialogue boxes if it wasn't for pokemon's presentation being ass it really wouldn't be any different and lemme tell you, if the last of us had a bad story..OH if it had a bad story.. it's almost funny how people don't care when it comes to pokemon, but when it comes to other games it's a dealbreaker
Regions used to be tangentially related to real world locations. They just served as a backdrop to deliver us the monster designs and the characters. But that's changed. Now regions are firmly based on specific regions, almost serving as a parody of their real world counterparts.
Another thing that's often overlooked, because we as Americans aren't familiar with Japan's geography, is that "regions" were not originally the size of countries. I feel like the average interpretation of the Kanto region, for example, is that each of the towns is hundreds of miles from each other and that they're each individual cities, located almost in different states... But they're actually based on different neighborhoods in the real world Kanto region around Tokyo. Some of them are only streets away from each other, just as they are presented in the games.
@@Aaron-mj9ie Kanto is most definitely not simply a nieghtborhood, it’s a county or region. It’s huge. It’s not simply a nieghtborhood spanning a few miles
Yes and that includes the inspiration of a lot of Pokémon. In the first 4 regions you didn't have the "sushi Pokémon" for example. but in Sword and Shield you have the apple cake Pokémon, and I personally find this way of designing Pokémon based on popular things of the original country quite terrible.
I don't think the problem with Kalos is lack of content, but rather that the content is really unbalanced. Lumiose City has by far the most content in the entire series, but it feels like they had to sacrifice a few other cities to make it happen. Also, there seem to be a lot more smaller throwaway towns in general that could've been scrapped and the resources put into other cities.
The way Hoenn makes Sootopolis only accessible with the dive HM makes it pretty interesting as well. It ensured that you wouldnt skip Mossdeep so your gym battles wont go out of order AND adds more content to explore. Love it
Oofta. My first shiny was an unknown doing a grind for all of the 24. Funny part was - i caught it only because it was a letter I was missing. I didn't even realize it was shiny since it looked the same; my buddy saw it in my pc when we were doing trades lol
My first game boy was found underneath a mattress that was in our apartment that we just moved into and my mom said I could keep it. It had a copy of Pokémon red and it. Thank you to the kid who lost his game boy ❤
Man i just LOVE the pokemon pixel era, you can fell that they put a lot of effort to make these games memorable and unique, with each city having it's unique aesthetic, styles and stories, you can really tell that they made these games with a lot of passion
The new games have love too, but they just don't have enough time and there's so few employees for a big game, I'd imagine that there are a lot that feel sad seeing how many people hated the game they created so they try their best, talking about the developers of course (the people who worked to make the game, not people who didn't put any work into it)
@@mariotheundyingI used to think that but then mouse cursors appeared in the games, that's not being rushed or bad management that's just lazy and a lack of care.
@@Xapheion101 you can't judge 1 developer because of all developers, like for example, people who designed and modeled Galar cities weren't lazy, that's clear, of course the people who tell the story telling were lazy in that game tho, but in Scarlet and Violet I don't think anyone got lazy, you might say they have because of the bugs (programmer's being lazy you might say), but if you go to the Japanese site where people rate their jobs and talk about their experience and go to Game freak, there are programmers saying how they begged for more time for their latest game but didn't get it (this also might be why you can't enter houses, the ones that do that didn't have time), the people working on that game put love and care into it, yet the one that wanted it released sooner than it should've is at fault for all it's problems
@@Xapheion101nah it is rushed, the time between the games still remains basically the same but the games are now 3d, which requires a lot more work than a 2d game since they literally need to make every single model again and animate them (you can see a lot of animations being reused on different pokemon because of this), meanwhile when the games were 2d and pixelated, they could be done with the most important character and pokemon sprites within a month. It's just management not understanding game development and japanese culture being extremely attached to respect to seniority, both in age and in rank.
@@mariotheundying The have literally a 1000 employees working on it and in the last decade had multiple times doubled their employee count. The big issue is the switch to 3D and the giant scale issue, that was already a big issue even back in Gen 2 and only got significantly worse with 3D. A company making 1000+ monsters all with 20+ animations and a 800+ animations for attacks is already a giant logistical nightmare, then add to that they have to fit within the same artstyling. Add to that the giant media company that requires games and new Pokémon to be churned out on a regular basis to sell that merch and movies and you have modern pokemon.
one thing about gen 6 is that its obvious that there was supposed to be a 2nd version that was scrapped. it was their first 3d pokemon game so its like their testing grounds but nintendo's deadlines basically fucked gamefreak over. and all the teased lore wouldve been explored on in x and y's second versions ended up getting scrapped because pokemon was having it's 20th anniversary so nintendo wanted them to force out sun and moon instead for more hype. it really sucks to see how halfassed zygarde complete form was when the x and y anime shows what the secondary x and y games couldve had.
Yes there was evidence found that XY sequels were in development, they were then scrapped when BW2 only sold as much as a 3rd version would have combined. Somehow this was seen as a loss instead of status quo so the sequels got scrapped and left that plot to the anime while all of the Aether assets were quickly funneled into SM development along with Zygrade's forms and our 2nd instance Battle Bond just to have them in the games. Going off colors Floette was likely also under this affect and it was supposed to be more than an ability, possibly a direct alternative to Megas used like gimmicks have been for each starter trio since. We really need a do over of almost all of 6-8.
I would have loved a Z version... X/Y was my favorite after Gold, because I loved the aesthetic, the option between 8-direction movement and free-skating movement... and it radically improved Gardevoir. Z version could have ironed out the lacking lore and added more post-game content, but instead we got my immediate LEAST favorite versions... S/M.
Johto's region design stands out in my mind for having reasons to come back to locations. You're in Ecruteak to fight the gym leader, but then you come back way later to explore the tower. You're in Olivine as part of the main quest, and then again for the boat to take you to Kanto. Goldenrod has you come back to save the radio tower and finally explore the underground. It's not just towns, either. Union Cave rewards you for exploring later when you're stronger by having secret areas where some Pokemon can only be found. That's great world design, it makes the world feel alive, rather than like a set piece.
Locations that insecticide returning in RPG’s are incredibly rewarding, and memorable. I wish this was the norm. Otherwise, in my opinion, they start to feel like boxes to check off
Turffield broke the optimism I had for Galar's region design. I gave the early towns a pass because the first couple towns aren't always amazing. Then I get to the site of the first gym and I see these sprawling buildings in the background. I'm so excited to explore, so I run back and forth trying to figure out how to access them... only to realize that they are just a background. That crushed my spirit.
38:35 Knowing that Kalos is inspired by France, the empty castle makes more sense. During the revolution, a lot of nobles properties were ransacked and all the furnitures taken. Todays, there are still many castle in the country with a lot of history but that are completely empty besides that. The contrast between the activities in Lumiose city and every other town in the game is also reminiscent of the macrocephaly of Paris. I think that in terms of translating its inspiration, Kalos does a good job. However it comes at the cost of game design.
Small nitpick. On the point of gen one not having a clear color palet for each town: edition yellow introduced just that, a uniquie color for each town that often was thematically appropriate (e.g. blue for town with the water gym, red for the island with the fire gym etc.). A bit disapointing they didn't keep that for fire red / leaf green, though i can see why they did it
Not only was it thematically appropriate in terms of the gyms, but with the names of the towns themselves. Cinnabar = red, cerulean = blue, fuchsia = pink, etc.
FR/LG did actually, as did G/S/C and HG/SS. The colour of the rooves in each town matches the town's colour name. Cerulean City rooves are all blue (minus the Pokemon Centers and Marts of course, since they got unique designs in Gen 3 onwards). Vermillion City's rooves are all that orangish colour vermillion is, and so on. You can compare the in-game maps on Bulbapedia to see as well.
@@tamerkohYeah, and same thing for Johto as well even. Interestingly enough, while it’s English name is a shade of green, Olivine is blue in GSC, but that was fixed in HGSS (with the port even being kept blue, which kinda works nicely) (Also speaking of Bulbapedia, they even started colour coding the town pages recently)
I'm from Unova IRL, and the region is even better when you know the history and references of their real-life counterparts. Nacrene City's counterpart is Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood, and Nacrene's museum and old train tracks both refer to the New York Transit Museum which is in the neighborhood. The New York Transit Museum was created within the once abandoned Court Street station, and it was originally meant to be a temporary exhibit for the US Bicentennial in 1976 but it was so popular that they made it permanent. It has several retired subway cars that you can enter with their ads still preserved. It's like you've gone back in time to a different era. Also, Driftveil City IRL is Union City, NJ which is a VERY Cuban area, so Driftveil City having such a bop for its theme checks out as Cubans are known for our music too. And hate to break it to you about the Village Bridge...it's counterpart is the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Nobody lives on it, and the complete opposite of tranquil. Reality is often disappointing.
i found undella town to feel more like brighton beach, but that might be more with the fact that i'm from that area lmao. the town above undella in b&w2 with the boardwalks absolutely felt like it to me though.
Hahaha i love this. From the "I'm from Unova IRL" to people trying to figure out real world locations equal to in game locations; I genuinely love this. It's lovely. It's wonderful.
AVERY YOU ARE THE ONLY COMMENTER THAT I'LL FIND ON SOME RANDOM TNO SUPEREVENT AND ALSO A 1 HOUR POKEMON VIDEO, YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME YOU ARENT STALKING ME.
I know that this was somewhat touched on in this video, but one thing that I would add to this discussion are the caves. Remember in the older generations where you could actually find yourself getting lost in caves? Or how you could tackle a cave without flash early but could find yourself getting lost that way also? Nowadays, in the newer games they are all linear paths that hold your hand all the way through them. Gamefreak seems to think that a pokemon game that poses even a little bit of a challenge in gameplay is a game that people don't wanna play, but that couldn't be further from the truth. That's just my opinion though.
I mean, just to put this out there because I feel the opinion written by you is far more common, I personally LOVE this change in the pokemon games. To me, the maze-like nature of every route in some of the older games not only led to the worlds feeling absolutely nothing like lived in worlds, and like stages in a game, due to the fact that NO CIVILIZATION would just deal with their primary transportations being so windy that going to your friends house a mile away is a 2.5 mile walk. Additionally, it's just seriously irritating after the fact. While the maze-like nature is fine and whatever if I'm just passing through once, any repeated visit becomes an outright annoyance since I'm likely there because I need something specific, and the only worldbuilding in having to essentially walk up a downwards escalator is giving me is making me hate the world. I truly RELISHED in X and Y when routes felt like ROUTES, like direct paths from point A to B designed for human beings to move between, and would be seriously disappointed to see the return of old routes.
@@Carinail Yeah, I loved exploring caves and suddenly finding a static encounter legendary in HG/SS BUT the story parts of these caves where just too long. I'd love it if the bits connecting towns where just straight forward but you can enter lower and higher places inside a mountain/cave to maybe find something amazing. That would honestly be the best of both worlds.
@@Carinail yeah, but they should put content in between, like some caves, lakes, something, make you go in there for a quest or just putting something in there that lights up your desire for exploration, doing the bare minimum is lame for a big ass company, GF is as cheap as Riot Games thinking they are still a little indie company
Ehh, personally I don't miss that design aspect. Having to pull up a map online or wander aimlessly through a cave for the better part of an hour just isn't a fun type of challenge imo. Getting lost in Wayward Cave in Platinum as a kid was easily what felt like an absolute waste of time more than anything else in that game to me. Especially with the high encounter rates of caves. Going through them feels like a chore either way, so adding in the potential to make the experience last 4x longer than it needs to or really should sounds like an absolute pain.
This was one of the best videos I have ever seen. The way you were able to break each region down was nothing short of amazing, I wish I had saw this video sooner!
@@InternetPitstop hey I appreciate that very much, thanks for watching! I’m currently binging your channel and I love it! Every video has been fantastic!
In Kalos, the lore is subtle but all over the place. if i remember correct it was broken up by the direction point and corresponding legendary Pokemon and AZ's lore. Basically how they impacted that region i.e. the West was targeted by Yveltal, East by Xerneas, South by Volcanion, North AZ/the King and his lineage, while Central is mixed based on innovations and resilience. For example, Geosenge Town- is the site of the doomsday device AZ built powered Yveltal. The rock structures leading up to the town are grave sites where Pokemon that died to create the weapon. It is hinted that the rocks have powers and are connected to the mega evolution and life force of the Pokemon etc. ORAS expands on this concept with infinity energy.
27:14 I remember when I first saw Castellia City and couldn't believe how they were able to make such a huge metropolis in a Pokemon game. It just gave off a great vibe and there was so much to do there, as expected of a big city.
I’m a pretty big Sword and Shield apologist, but this video has made me realize how lacking the entire Galar region is. When you mentioned the air ducts in Oreburgh, that unlocked memories deep in my mind of me running around thinking they led to a chest or are hiding some items in them. But then I asked a local and they explained their purpose. The first gym town in Sword & Shield is a giant circle surrounding the gym. Why was it built this way? Why is half the town blocked off?
To add on top of that, Galar Mines #1 and #2 being single level, almost straight lines was such a disappointment. Galar just has no dungeons basically, certainly nothing comparable to what we saw in past games. And them taking the time to set up a cool punk rock town owned by an evil team where dynamaxing can't happen... just to make it so not a single building is accessible? Tragic.
Idk what made you a sword and shield apologist when these are by far the worst games in the entire series and easily the most flawed games with tons of horrible level design and game design decisions sprinkled all throughout the entire game, the forced exp share didn’t do the game any justice. I stopped buying the games since gen 7. Gen 7 was the last game I ever bought and haven’t returned ever since. The only game i currently purchased was Legends Arceus but I’ll be skipping out on Scarlet and Violet and waiting for whatever the next remakes end up being, hopefully the next remakes gets a proper remake and not be robbed of it like sinnoh. Personally wouldn’t mind a legends Unova game aslong as there are tons of npc trainers to fight against and it isn’t all about catching Pokémon but if they make a legends unova then they risk ruining the quality of the unova remakes which I don’t want so I would much prefer if they gave unova a proper remake.
tbf the region design itself is pretty good, open area, has a lot of room for exploration and secrets, feels natural, and auto save does help against the crash somewhat
I really appreciate the fact you can put aside nostalgia to address problems that even earlier games struggle with such as gen 3 water routes or gen 5 just being circle. Gen 3 is my favorite but even I won't deny the water routes can get look the same with diving slightly splitting it up. Great vid
One of my most disappointing experiences in a pokemon game was in the The Crown Tundra when I saw a Heatmor and Durant next to each other...just standing there despite the fact that we're told that they share a predator and prey relationship. I think a major problem with gamefreak is that they (eventually) realise what people want but never why they wanted it. SOS and horde battles where we could see rival pokemon fighting each other were much better at fleshing out pokemon identities than being able to see them in the overworld. I would even argue that certain types of wild encounters in the 2d games (dust clouds in BW, using rock break or honey etc) did much more to create immersion than the wild area
@@grandmastr2602 I remember in Alola there was a guy in a small secluded area who mentioned creating a park for fossil Pokemon (basically Jurassic Park) and there was some speculation that the Ultra games would have that idea fully realized as a new location where you could catch wild fossil mons, but nope. And now there's just, wild fossil mons in Galar with zero fanfare whatsoever...
One of my favorite monents in my first playthrough of sun and moon was fighting a cleffa and having her call a chansey. I looked up why Cleffa could do that and learned that chanseys can be called as backup by every baby pokemon which was a really neat detail.
Unova was peak Pokemon for me. Growing up in my teens, I went from the simplicity and clean execution of LeafGreen to playing BW with the depth and complexity of Unova. Good memories. Great video!
This is very strange, I remember people in the past complaining that Unova was bad, the new pokémon were bad, and everything else, but over the years the region gained the recognition it didn't have at the time. I remember that I liked Unova a lot, I think Black & White 2 helped a lot to increase Unova's popularity
@@Vinilboit wasn’t B/W2, people just actually gave the game a chance, over the years people have been very critical of backwards compatibility with old Pokémon, if they can’t get older gen Pokémon they rage, it happened with gen3 on release not having a way of transferring gen 1 and 2 Pokémon into future games, which FRLG and emerald fixed, so when they found out that none of the original gen 1 to 4 Pokémon were available everyone started sabotaging the game, and the easiest way was to clown on some of the weirder newer designs (vanilluxe and garbodor were literally the only complaints even tho there were 151 original Pokémon, the largest dex ever since gen 1) as time went on people actually gave the game a try, people who weren’t as biased and those who decided to actually play the game after their anger burnt off, and those who did realized that the game actually had really high quality, but at that point it was too late, the game had been off the shelves for a while and gamefreak had learned their lesson, don’t ever try to innovate, people don’t like new ideas, which directly killed the creative development of the series from that point off, the reason the games are sht is because people who were too set on gen 1 and 2 were to busy crying over old Pokémon and sabotaged the best game of the series, B/W2 had very little impact on the criticisms of the game as it was treated very much like it’s prequel
1:04:07 i wanted to make a point about this as well. In legends Arceus I noticed that many smaller frailer Pokémon are found around alpha Pokémon, and I realized it was was probably because they were protecting them. Like it’s such a simple, interesting, crazy good way to make Pokémon interact and add challenge to catching weaker Pokémon. Meanwhile in Sword and Shield I’ll be lucky if two of the Pokémon in the wilds area clipped into each other.
Kanto was pure passion, Johto was a child of love that they thought would be their last, Hoen was an opportunity to expand like they never thought they could (it was no longer a pokemon world, look to the stars and see for yourself), and Sinnoh felt like an explorer making their dream journey to the north
In Unova you forgot to mention How Chargestone cave has many levels where the music becomes lower pitched and slower in the lower levels and how you generate static when passing through the chargestones, how twist mountain connects to the mine Clay owns, Castelia City's sewers and how the water level varies depending on the season or how seasons effect the routes and the items you can find, Lentimas town and its beautiful clay houses that fit the pueblo aesthetic used in areas such as Arizona and the music which is this awesome salsa type theme. You also forgot to mention the mansion where you can find the ghost if the girl who died in a nightmare i believe in the hands of Darkrai. You also forgot to mention interactivity such as being able to get wings in bridges and find Ducklett or Swanna. Also reversal mountain and how it's an active or extinct volcano depending on the version or Humilau City and the houses that are in docks like Pacifidlog town from Hoenn but better or how Victory Road in BW2 is connected to the ruins of N's Castle from the first game.
to be fair,most of what you said pertains to white2 and black2 which he unfortunely skipped. imo the only bad thing about this video,as all the problems and cons about black and white gets corrected with the sequels,region too linear? have some more towns,plus routes that change with the seasons,new cities fully remodeled,more connectivity mostly in the cave/sewer system. Only bad things in bw2 is not fully expanding the underwater part(also building off the ruined parts lore) aswell as fully closing off route 10,when they could've put smth extra there for post-game but kay.
There actually was an abandoned ship in the Hoenn region in the original Ruby and Sapphire! They took it out in ORAS and replaced it with Sea Mauville.
@@KoolKyurem25 Yeah being a alternate universe which speaking of disappointed didnt mention the massive upgrade Mauville City received as it's now a indoor city! And in the original games Wattson even had plans of overhauling the place but scrapped those plans. It sucks that we missed out of the Battle Frontier but it really seems like people don't give the ORAS games credit.
@@SonicLegends ORAS deserves its credit especially after what BDSP turned out to be. They are not bad games but don’t hold up to the improvements introduced in the same Gen. ORAS just like BDSP excluded the Battle Frontier but it expanded the story, improved characters, included the gens gimmick and had slightly better graphics than XY during it’s time both games gave a quality of life feel but ORAS is just the better remake and imo the most ambitious remake we’ve gotten in terms of changing how we perceived the multiverse of Pokémon to be. HGSS could still be argued to be the best in terms of quality.
He shows and mentions the abandoned ship by name at 19:27. I think he meant expanding on the lore of ships being left out at sea by having a ship graveyard or something which would have been absolutely sick and filled some of the empty space.
I think the linear aesthetic in BW made the switch up in B2/W2 a much refreshing and welcomed change. As a native New Yorker, Gen V gave me a fresh new perspective of the city I live in rather than through the eyes of a 9-5er trying to pay his bills and survive. There is unique cultural real world aesthetic and identities to the 5 boroughs including Jersey in Gen V. Like how Narcerene and Pinwheel Forrest is inspired by the Dumbo’s hipster culture and borough parks vastness connecting leading to Brooklyn Bridge. Or how Mistralton’s aviation area is a nod to Jersey’s teeterboro airport which through a flight is connected to Lenitas town which Hispanic influence is reminiscent of the Colombian/Cuban culture of Jackson Heights in Queens, which connects also to Astoria and LaGuardia Airport. Which blows my mind that Unova as vast as it is never included a Bronx or Staten Island area that could’ve contained more traditional Gen I-IV element a like a Safari zone, Cycling Path, abandoned facility, power plant, and a post game battling area. Imagined how much more content Kalos and Alola would’ve had if it was on the DS format.
@@soleanna14 well actually no. Geographically that would be Tribeca, SoHo, NoHo, Greenwich, and Chelsea. The Bronx would be a completely separate region above Oppelucid.
Unova screaming its inspiration being the u.s. was a huge turn-off for me. I just cannot stand Unova for the life of me because I can't stand living in the u.s. for the life of me.
The first four generations all work on the concept of a 'metroidvania'. Yknow where the main thing blocking your access to different places is just not having the things that you need to get to them. Starting with gen 5 they started making the maps a straight line so that you'd play everything in order.
The issue came that gen 5 had a big focus on story so they railroaded you a bit to hard. Little better region layout and gen 5 would easily be the best pokemon game
THE SUNDIAL, you unlocked a memory for me, I remember being so confused and frustrated, convinced something was supposed to happen there, mashing A all around the sundial. I think later on, that area was used to give you Diance or connected to her? But I was still upset, there should've been a event there in the main game, I felt so betrayed.
The music in that town is _amazing_ and it has this very mysterious quality; which only makes it *even more* frustrating and confusing that there is _nothing_ there!
@@UnwantedGhost1-anz25 yeahhh. Having to wait for it to be a certain time or changing the time yourself just to have an hour to find the stones was pretty annoying
Favourite thing about Gen 5's region design is the amount of content you'll never see unless you think to backtrack to earlier routes later on in the game, and the massive fuck off post game where you get to explore the other HALF of unova
@bruh moment I enjoy that too, but Idk why you're coming across so heated lol. It's something I personally enjoy, never said anyone else should've. Also, B&W does give you legendaries and strong trainers in a good amount of those postgame areas, so I don't really understand your point either.
@bruh moment I mean...BW has that but from my experience the 14 jump in levels for the average trainer post game is really jarring and doesn't make any sense.
@bruh moment If all you care is battling then just play on Pokemon showdown. The battling in the games is piss easy anyways so why bother wasting money on a mainline game if you only care about battling which it cant even properly provide
Here's some Lore: In Anistar you can give a guy a Pokemon bc he's lonely and Depressed, but sadly after you beat the Leauge and go back he's passed away, leaving the Pokemon behind for you to collect
crying inside because there IS an abandoned ship to explore in Hoenn, not to mention the secret cave you find by swimming through tides to get, solve puzzles, and then finally spawns the regis around the region 🥲
This (and your channel in general) has become some of my favorite comfort watches. Ive watched this video start to finish several times, but there’s nothing like falling asleep to you gushing about the region design of 1-5
As an avid reader/writer and Pokémon fan, I never realized how much I needed this video until now. World-building is one of my favorite parts of media, because it allows the person who made it to be creative in order to give the consumer an immersive experience. Culture, appearance, history, content, and many more aspects are required to make an environment enjoyable. As difficult as it may be, Pokémon has proven it can do that. Although it has been frustrating, I do appreciate you mentioning how we don't entirely know what's happening with Game Freak to result in the decrease in quality of the region designs. Thank you, and I hope to see you make a video related to Scarlet/Violet eventually!
Man, seeing someone gush about the pixel era is pure nostalgia fuel. They don't make them like they used to. Really feel blessed to have started and ended my Pokémon journey there.
I honestly wondered why I didn't like Gen 6 to 8 and I was wondering why I felt unfulfilled and this kinda puts it to words: We're in new locations, but everything feels hollow.
@@zemellion26 Gen 6 only felt more complete because it was the 1st of the 3D era games and during a critical point of leaving the pixel era. The map was a mixture of pixel areas and the more traditional 3D eras
I honestly never felt so bored as I did when playing Dun and Moon. I truely regret buying Ultra Moon. I expected new story like BW2 but all I got was the same story I had already played plus a DLC. Sw/Sh honestly wasn't better. I only played it for the overworld Pokemon and even these felt disappointing. Especially the harbor town grew my disappointment. I walked into it and it looks SO nice. I started exploring only to see that there is literally nothing to see.
@@zemellion26 The behavior of the wild pokemon was a little to unsurprising. Would have loved a few more nuances or special interactions with other wild pokemon. Idk if there are any, I haven't seen that. But like in the starting area, there are Starly and Wurmple next to another. I think the Pokedex even says that Wurmple are aftaid of birds, they didn't seem very startled by the Starly ie. The gameplay is amazing. I haven't talked to every NPC in every town. But the world didn't feel empty for me. You can go exploring so far. I honestly think that the mounts were only necessary for climbing and swimming. Once I got Braviary, it kind of lost its touch a little. On a sad note: the game had literally nothing unexpected. I can't remember anything that really surprised me. It's a good foundation for upcoming Paldea. I honestly hope they add lots of things to explore. The map is so big in theory. So unless they don't mess up the scale, there should be plenty of room for hidden paths and secrets.
Fantastic video, I hope this blows up even more. Hearing you talk about the lighthouses brought a wave of memories back. I distinctly remember being so mad that i could reach the one in Sun/Moon. Then I found the secret path and got even madder when I still couldn't go in. I also remember being mad in sword/shield since they had an npc at the top and I thought there was some sort of side quest. Game freak needs to bring back the old lighthouses.
The thing I always say about gen 6 is that it has incredible set pieces and memorable moments but is missing that last like 30% of the recipe that made previous regions amazing. Needed that 3rd version so bad, praying the inevitable remake fills in the cracks🙏
Kalos just absolutely reeks of them having big ideas for events/expanded story with another version, but the 20th anniversary coming up forced them to change plans drastically to have a big release that year rather than a third/expanded partner release, leading to the hasty inclusion of zygarde as collectibles in sun and moon and such, thus leaving all their breadcrumbs around it being for nothing (like, power plant, and potential relations to volcanion with its steam abilities)
Honestly I disagree with Kalos being lacking in any capacity. It felt like he was really trying to push this narrative of gen 6 being the downfall of town design to fit the "3D is bad trend" but it just doesn't work. Like when he talks about Camphrier town lacking lore and esthetic, then goes on complaining about the castle giving you "lame lore" about the town (so now there's lore?) and manage to say pastoria has an aesthetic because of one cardboard cutout ?
@@artimist0315 Nah, he’s right. There’s nothing to do in most of the Kalos Towns and cities, and most of them blend in together. Re Camphrier Town, he said there was no lore in the town itself. He hoped the castle would save it, but it was empty, bar a short explanation (“lame lore”) about why it’s empty.
@@cuck1ngfunt Kalos has some of the most distinct cities in the whole franchise, Lumiose, Shalour, Laverre and Snowbelle certainly don't blend together. Especially considering what he said about gen 4, Kalos has excellent cities. And for Camphire, while the town itself is a bit empty it's literally glued to the berry field, Pension and Battle chateau
I think you nailed the issue on the head with the Alola region 49:56 I like the Alola region (some great Pokémon designs and a story I didn’t mind even though it was hand holdy) but I think the problem partially stems from the inspiration. Hawaii is a very blended place in that you have native Hawaiian culture, a lot of Asian immigrants due to proximity (especially Japan and the Philippines), and a lot of transplants from the mainland. I think Nintendo focused too much on the blend and because of that missed out on the Hawaiian culture weaved through the story of the place. Yes the transplants are important but the native culture should be a center point that you add to
This unlocked some deep memories for me. I remember as a kid with big escapist fantasies exploring every inch of Hoenn and wanting desperately to escape into that world. I remember finding Verdanturf and imagining the smell of the air, it was a visceral thing to me that I still strongly associate with the town. Even when I got back into Pokémon in my teens with Black and White, I fell in love with the world and imagined what it would be like to live there. Then came Kalos, which by all means I *should* have fallen in love with. I love mystical, fairytale, fancy doll-type aesthetics, so the town with the dollhouse gym (Laverre city?) and the place with the giant sundial should’ve been ideal settings for me. To be fair, I did love discovering these places at first and I remember running around trying to find every little detail I could about the areas, but… like you said, there wasn’t much there despite pretty set pieces. Its sort of jarring to realize how deeply I believed in somewhere as simple as Verdanturf, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe in Laverre. (Don’t even get me started on the glowy mushroom place in Galar. When i first saw a video of someone else going through the area I got kind of excited, until realizing I would get just as much out of a clip of a lets player going through it as I would if I played through that area myself.)
That's a really good way to put it The routes that werent the wild area were tiny and boring. The spot where you first find sizzlepede and gossefleur comes to mind
Yes, I'm actually wondering if the exp share change was made specifically because there was so little content, like they needed a bandaid way to level your Pokemon up.
Hurts so much that you're so right about Alola. I had so much fun playing Pokemon Moon on my first playthrough, but it's because I loved the characters and the story. The region was a set piece for the primary plot, not really anything more. Man 🐴
Tbh it felt like a slice of life away from the constant formula you went through before. I feel bad gen 7 gets shit on when I really loved that game lol
Yeah in retrospect I really enjoyed sun/moon and love the new concept of the islands and having to beat the island kings (tho I couldn't care less about ultra beasts). Though I do have to admit I didn't even realize how unmemorable the actual content of the region was. When Internet Pitstop asked, I couldn't really remember any specific town and barely any route
It at least HAS the best plot of any of the Pokemon games. Can't say the same for places like Galar where the main antagonist feels like he's only the antagonist because they felt they needed one and slotted him in at the last minute.
The saving grace of Hoenn’s water routes is the Dive mechanic. I always loved that even if it was way underused (in ORAS too). I really wish it would make a comeback in some way.
One amazing thing to mention with Hoenn is when the second half of the game just opens up. You beat your father and get surf, and then you realise: Wait, on that route right above the town above littleroot there is some water, why not go there and surf across? And then you link back right to the route above slateport. Which you previously had to go all the way arround to get to. Also, another thing: Hoenn, now that i look at it, seems to be designed arround various interconnected loops. Hear me out: You start in Littleroot, go up to Oldale Town and west to Petalburg, then south and arround to slateport, which links back to Littleroot via surf. Then, start in Rustboro, go east through the rusturf tunnel, Verdanturf, then Mauville City and go north, arround the volcano, through route 113, Meteor falls and you're back in Rustboro. The second half of the game has this loop: From Mauville go east, then northwards, over routes 119, Fortree city, route 120, then take the route over Mt. Pyre, then route 121 (i think) and go back to Mauville City. And finally, the largest loop: Slateport -> Fortree -> Lilicove-> the water routes -> Pacifidlog and then once more back to Slateport. Its loops within loops within loops, which makes the entire region extremely interconnected. Which may play into the theme of how water and land are interdependant and interconnected with one another.
Gen 7, 8 and 9 suffered from growing pains of no longer having routes built as grids and thus not having much interactivity. And since the games are rushed they dont have time to create dynamic areas to explore in these new freer, more open ended areas.
@@juandiegotorres9632 It does. But what I find weird is that Alola never really improved in design despite receiving USUM. Like, Galar and Paldea's DLCs took place in areas outside of them, so I can kind of get why the regions feel so rushed (even though it doesn't excuse how badly they are). But Alola received four versions overall that took place there, and Alola still feels incredibly shallow for some reason. Was SM _and_ USUM's development so rushed that they didn't bother to improve the region despite having two third versions? I just don't get it.
@@christianmckee2116 SM was not as rushed as XY, it's story at least was fully explored (the main plot anyway) but some areas like the geothermal power plant and the Golf course were not explored. USUM was a great opportunity to release a sequel with Gladion as head of the aether corporation, the ultra recon squad as the antagonists, a more fully explorable ultra dimension megalopolis, Lillie as a trainer, and a reformed Guzma and Lusamine. Maybe Hau as a Kahuna instead of Champion. I guess calling it ultra Sun and moon instead of sun and moon 2 was the first hint that it wasn't gonna be a sequel.
@@juandiegotorres9632 Which makes me wonder more WHY they didn't bother fully fleshing out and expanding Alola. USUM being two third versions wouldn't have prevented Alola from being deeper than just a bunch of hallways (most of the towns and routes) or big empty spaces (Poni Island as a whole). My guess is that development was such a mess that they didn't have the time to improve the region design.
I completely agree with you on gen 6. When watching the video I thought back and realised that I only ever fondly remembered the routes and nothing about the towns except for some small details. The routes of gen 6 were amazing in my opinion but the towns were mostly dry which is really upsetting as I love these games since they were my first Pokemon games.
I love kalos and it definitely does feel incomplete as if there was ment to be a sequel. I was hoping it was just a first step into an exciting next step in pokemon. I saw it as a soft reboot of the series and I was looking forward to the new pokemon games ahead...Then everything went down hill.
@@Airy101 Yeah that killed me. I was actually excited for pokemon Z. There was so many untouched areas and events in xy that I thought Z was going to cover like the crystal sun dial, the train station, the ghost girl, and the power plant.
Same with sun and moon, seeing what they had to cut because they had a unrelenting deadline makes me weep, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GO TO DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS, THE STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DARKER, IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL. To bad they had to cut all that out or downsize it.
I will forever adore the amount of detail gamefreak put into the unova region. I could play that fame for hours, often spending time exploring the towns and cities. I am also in love with the lore behind the sinnoh region, I was always fascinated by it
Absolutely loved this! I had always assumed the newer games cities didn't stick because I was "too grown up" to care or remember. But, given this amazing analysis, it's looking like that's not the case!
Honestly I thought the exact same thing but then I decided to punish myself one summer and just play the entire series lol which is what led to this thank you for enjoying it helps make the hard work mean that much more 🌊
Thank you for this love letter to pokemon. I felt so much emotion when you were talking about gen 1-5. It was like eating a warm apple pie made with love that you haven't had in years. I truly am saddened that pokemon can basically make husks of their games and charge $100 for it. I just wish the series wasn't so stagnant in what it wants to be. Thank you again for this video. It was a wonderful watch
While I certainly tend to agree with the conceit of this video, I'm so glad you highlighted Kalos' positive side. I think it's been said over and over but the guiding principle of discussion about Kalos is 'missed potential.' The DNA from earlier Pokemon level design is still there, they were experimenting and using a completely new engine/hardware, so it seemed natural that it would feel that way. But obviously almost 10 years out it really feels like they dropped the ball after Kalos. Things felt more and more pressed for time as things went on. I can't believe what a success Lumiose city was, and then they seemingly completely abandoned the idea of creating a city that filled with content. And my god I remember being so disappointed with Alola's routes too, such an amazing concept for a region that went just completely unfulfilled. Loved this vid, big nostalgia trip as well as an interesting analysis of what makes a Pokemon town work.
Thank you so much I played through all these games for research on this vid so everything I’m saying is based off how I felt playing them and mostly Kalos had a lot of positives you’re absolutely right “missed potential” is a perfect way to describe it
Playing Sun and Moon, honestly my biggest disappointment how tiny Alola was made out to be. Yes, it's set in Hawai'i, but those islands aren't small, you know? Yes, they look small in a map, but IRL they're pretty sizeable. They're not the Japanese islands and they're definitely not Australia, but they didn't deserve that cramped feeling SM gave them. Another disappointment in the region design was the distinct lack of a lot of Hawaiian... everything. Some of the culture was there, but in terms of cities and landmarks, everything felt aggressively "I'm a Japanese tourist and I didn't do my homework". The very clearly Japanese town in one of the islands was jarring, and the fact it was supposedly the largest of said island despite being like 3 blocks of a town at most was baffling.
As someone who lived in Hawaii for 5 years including when these games came out, I was pretty underwhelmed. The malasadas are a nice touch and I can see some landmarks that are represented, but they made Hawaii, one of the most ecologically diverse areas of the planet, look same-y.
Yeah, real-life size is no excuse for that level of simplicity in the games. For crying out loud, real-life Kanto and Johto aren't even separate islands in Japan; they're different parts of a single island. When old games can make parts of a single island stand out as vibrant regions in their own like, while Alola can even make single islands stand out from each other, you really see the decline in design.
Yeah, Hawaii is such a geologically and biologically diverse archipelago and Alola only seems to capture the tourist trap parts of the island. It's also very uncomfortable that there are no Alolan native people unless you count like the 10 or so natives that work as employees for that one luxury hotel. Like uh, where did all the Alolan natives go, GameFreak?
Gen 9 seems to have the same problem. The architecture is there and replicated beautifully (at least when you ignore the million glitches) but theres a definite disconnect. Stuff like in the very first route you have poco path… when that doesn’t translate right at all unless you use Google translate and completely miss the context. Although I will admit there’s no very probable genocide of the native paldeans unlike with alolans.
I agree with all of this but even more importantly, I don't feel motivated to explore a town when the first two towns in a game had houses with NO ITEMS in them. No items=no motivation to explore.
This is truly amazing. To me the first 3 gens are GOAT material, so I never gave much attention to the other games cause I wasn't the biggest fan of those gens and respective Pokemon. HOWEVER this analysis about the games' worlds truly made me WANT to go and dive in a new adventure to become the very best and experience new Pokemons and those regions, so full of lore and life. I was completely blind to these complex worlds just because I really didn't enjoy the starters. Because of that I never bothered to pick up the games. I sat here, listening to the Unova bridge town's music with chills all over my body, that shit is amazing!!! Now I want to go play Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and Pokemon Black and White, it seems like it could be fun, Idk if I'll actually do it, but at least now I have more interest than I ever had in those games. Wat's your favorite Pokemon? Mine's Tyranitar, although I sometimes gravitate toward Calydol And yea, I do love you and work. It IS something worth doing/continuing doing. Sorry about the long ass response OH! And btw (a few videos back Idk if you remember I talked about my thesis and life struggle on the "Atmosphere In Video Games" video through the "checkpoint" mechanic) I got my life sorted out - kinda - got a new thesis subject and I'm hyped af!! Life's good :)
Hey man I always appreciate long form comments like these this is my fav rn ! Thank you for watching my video and giving back such meaningful feedback I think you should definitely play Pokémon platinum vs diamond and pearl and definitely play black and white 1 and 2 there’s so much to enjoy there and my favorite Pokémon has got to be Arcanine I love a big woofer lol and hey that’s great to hear I’m glad you’re moving forward it’s all gonna work out one way or another 🌊
I loved the way you explained all the region's flaws and strengths, It was really detailed! I'm really curious to see your take on the paldea region once the game releases!
I will say I think Gen 6 had some pretty great route design. Gen 6 felt like the 2D games with 3D models. For as short as XY were the path design was phenomenal. I think it’s route 15 that’s completely autumn themed. And then the route with terminus cave was pretty great too. As ORAS had Hoenn’s goated route designs to lean on, but the 3D version was so bright and colorful and did the originals justice
Yeah I'll always be more forgiving to Kalos in gen 6. First exploration with more complex models, fumbled the bag a bit but still clearly had heart and everything. But as more time went on snd it became clear that there just... wasn't going to be the same level of quality my view of the pokemon franchise got more cynical. I think a lot of other people's did as well. Just. Shit. Idk. Kalos had a lot of potential. I wish it got more time to cook.
My probably is that ORAS is that they don't let the route design shine. For example, after you get surf at Petalburg, you can then discover that there is a new shortcut to get back to Mauville through route 103, but the remakes simply teleport you. Like wtf.
The clear answer is: the release timetable of 2D games does not work with 3D games. Nintendo is milking the shit out of those games and we are enabling them by keeping buying them.
Commenting about you having a breakdown right before talking about Galar. Appreciate anyone giving a thorough breakdown of their grievances with the modern games not being as well made as the first 5 gens.
Something that I really liked about Kanto and, to a lesser extent, Johto (both for nostalgia regions and because you can actually visit the path leading to Indigo Plateau from the very beginning), is how close the start and end of the journey is. It really does give a sense of how much you've grown and how far you've travelled despite finding yourself right back where you started. Both games can be completed without fly in such a way that you inevitably return to where your journey started. The only other region where the Pokémon League is so close to where you start is Kalos just east of the first gym, and even then you never have to return home as it's a dead-end. Every other game puts the Pokémon League at the other end of the map; while that does give a sense of how far you've gone, there's no sense of coming full circle. There's something about your destination being so close physically but so far practically that makes Kanto and Johto feel better. Other regions, Johto and Kalos included, try to emulate this feeling with a mid-journey loop that returns you somewhat close to where you started, but it just doesn't quite have the satisfying feeling of making a full loop through the whole region and returning home just before heading to the very end.
The gibberish in the Village Bridge are actually real Japanese lyrics that translate to: I am a geezer standing in the dusk, mesmerized by the gulls.(x4) Gazing fixedly into the blue sea, I bemoan with shed tears, as I yearn for the lovely gulls soaring above the blue harbour. While I personally prefer to just hear it as random sounds its still a pretty cool detail that makes me appreciate that part of Unova even more
You’re forgetting the pre-color games, they did personality without color in Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver and Gold. Crystal is the first Game Boy Color game it is surreal to think about that looking back.
Gold, silver, and even yellow were released for Gameboy Color. It was just before the cartridges changed to the next iteration, so they were backwards compatible. They were designed to be played on the GBC, though.
Johto might have a wack level curve, but man the region is still one of my favorites to go and play through because of how much content is just THERE to experience
I’m currently developing and building my own fan game, and this video was a very helpful case study on what I should be doing and what I need to be changing and preparing for! So thank you!
If this is a pokemon fan game, I'm sure you know the drill by now but DO NOT announce it before you complete it. Pokemon Company will send you a C&D regardless, but at least if you complete it first, you'll have people who can play it before it's taken down. Work hard, fren. Hope we get to play it some day.
@@TheFrostedfirefly from what I’ve seen they don’t issue them unless they are gaining a high popularity and fan base. Otherwise they should really be issuing a lot and it’s not a thing I see happening. I only use Reddit to post the small things that are out there and it’s nothing of strong evidence.
The saddest point in Galar for me was actually on the Route in front of Galar Mine 1. If you remember, you actually meet Sonia there, pointing towards a Factory belonging to Chairman Rose's Enterprise. But instead of maybe having us go there, there is a fence in front of the way there. Along with the TWO Occasions where we had some giant explosion just to have Leon go "Hohoho, I'll do it, you just go and get bored", this really showed there was great stuff planned, but could not be done cause of time restraints. Just makes me sad.
I really love Alola as a region, but I do think that they missed the chance and opportunity to really flesh out the region. There could have been so many cool routes or caves or even underwater areas that ultimately just didn't exist. Just thinking about using dive (like in oras) and being surrounded by coral reefs is just such a cool idea. I wish they took more time to flesh out the region and the environments more in terms of things to do and lore as well. Moon was my first game, but a few years later I played platinum and black and was just so surprised at all the things to do in each town and NPCs that have actually interesting dialogue. There's so much detail in those games that I think SM lacks. I think Alola has a lot of strong points in the characters, but the overall region's design was just lacking. Makes me wish that Gamefreak released a Pokemon Z and worked on SM for longer instead of rushing it out for Pokemon's 20th anniversary.
I remember playing through all the pixel era, from gen 3 to gen 5, all the main series (and remakes) and damn, it's so full of everything. Especially the gen 5 sequels, having so much content and lore, expanding on the cities and towns and everything else. The couple you mentioned living in a caravan? They're actually Zoroarks, and you meet the guy in the sequel. That is *nuts*. Not to mention that almost every place has like some small side quest or interaction. Then I left the game for some time and went back with Sun and Moon, and while it was ok it wasn't like before. The music and the vibes were so spot on but I literally feel scammed because the ultra games feel like the actual game, while I was playing a glorified demo of some sorts. After that I didn't really buy any other game, and just stay around for the fan content, competitive and anything but the games. I literally don't know what's happening at GameFreak or how everything works there but man, it's depressing to see this. I kinda wish they went back to 2D, because they seemed to know what they were doing back then. Tbh I'm also kinda worried about gen 9 too. I feel like we're going to be stuck with this vicious circle of mediocrity
One thing I think is really important to making a great region is to make it feel holistic. The region should feel like one whole coherent place with a distinct culture, climate, and feel. Kanto was modern and heavily urbanised with a lot of large cities and very few wild areas, while Johto was more traditional, with a lot of small towns and historical landmarks. Hoenn was a tropical area with volcanoes, deserts and sunny beaches, while Sinnoh was a colder climate, with mountains, marshes, and long stretches of snow. A region doesn't need to have everything in order to be great - it's more important for it to be a singular coherent thing. Hoenn has a lot of unique areas, but they're all on theme - there's not a random snowy area just to have a snowy area. The design of the region is really important to achieve this, but also are the Pokemon that you find in the region. Like Kanto has a lot of Pokémon created by technology or pollution (Grimer, Koffing, Porygon, Voltorb). Hoenn has a lot of water types and fire types, while also having barely any ice types - you have to go to one specific cave in one corner of the map in order to find any. Sinnoh is the inverse - a lot of ice types but almost no fire types. I know people complained about no fire types in Sinnoh, but to me it went a long way to making the region feel distinct and real - why would there be fire types in a cold mountain region? I know a lot of people loved that you could catch so many Pokémon in Kalos, but for me that diversity lessened the experience. It made Kalos feel less like a real place and more like a zoo, with a designated area for every concievable climate and more Pokémon than you can keep track of shoved in. Unova had this problem too honestly - thinking about the random desert shoved between two modernised temperate cities. The natural endpoint of this "trying to shove everything in" mindset is the wild area - where all the Pokémon in the world are walking around places where it doesn't feel like they should live, and you can take three steps to go from a desert sandstorm to an icy blizzard, and back again. Tldr - sometimes less things better
In Unova's defense, the reason for it is because it's based on the United States, which has very diverse climates within its borders. This also includes deserts between modernized cities such as with the Mojave Desert in Nevada, and other deserts within the borders of the country such as the Great Basin Desert, the Sonoran Desert, and the Chihuahuan Desert.
Good points overall but Hoenn had barely any Fire types either, just Torkoal and the Numel line. Second fewest Fire types after Sinnoh I’m pretty sure. Unless you’re counting the Slugma line in there.
May I add that Floaroma Town in D/P/P is where you get the watering can, as well as daily berries (in case of you not replanting the berries you pick so you dont truly run out). Not to mention it introduces Honey as a tool to catch rare Pokemon. So that town does indeed have Content.
Wow! I happened across this video because of my pokemon splurge lately, but it was a very entertaining watch where even though it was a commentary, I felt engaged the whole time :) Really enjoyed the video!
IMO, Hoenn was for me one of the best ones on a routing perspective. I love how massive it is, and how much you have to explore between gym leaders, and the region being wide open once you get surf, with a ton of hidden places and locations, that's amazing. I personally disliked a lot the routing on Black & White 1, but the one in B&W2 is incredible. It still has that fast phase of gym - route - gym - route that I didn't like, but it uses the better and much more interesting side lf the region, and after defeating Skyla, the gap between the next gym is massive, and going to gym 6 to gym 7 was one of my favorite experiences in a Pokémon game.
mm. it's for this reason that I just wish the current pokemon team was able to take their time with the games. having to cram out games on a yearly-release schedule, cross-developing on all these different mainline and side projects, has clearly had an impact on their approach to designing regions
Going through this made me realise just how much I remember from Unova. And it's not even the region I played in the most, that goes to Johto/Kanto with SSHG, then Unova, and at last Sinnoh. Yet when I think about Unova I instantly get flashbacks of each city and its unique perks, some of the people even stand out. The sportists, the 4 kids singing their folk song about the 2 legendary dragons, the rich family in the peaceful resort, the 2 dumbasses in the eletric cave who give you gold nuggets, the townsolfk playing instruments in the bridge city, that one girl who plays violin for the out of comission trains. When I think of Unova, I don't remember a game I sunk over 300h of my life into, I remember a region and its people, because they were memorable.
Omg, the violin girl! I always forget about that little area but I really love it because there's just something so wholesome about a bunch of people who love trains just gathering together to appreciate their niche thing. Unova by far is the most alive region, it feels like things happen in it that have nothing to do with you. People go to work, they have hobbies, they vacation in Undella in the summer, but leave the city vacant and quiet all the rest of the year. You could end up never even seeing these two sides of Undella if you only played the game once in a month that's the off season, it's just a thing that happens in the background with or without you.
Check out part 2 for my thoughts on scarlet and violet! ruclips.net/video/ttLJ9EqA8Ts/видео.html
no way i clicked on this video after watching it a year ago to rewatch it and see that part two was made 3 hours ago lol
500 subs a year ago? Now your at 100k plus! Bro your phenomenal!
I was finna watch that after anyway but uh. I saw Togepi in this vid. Now I shall sub. Togepi the best ;D
I just found your videos, and they are so very good. I've never felt so seen (THE ALOLA LIGHTHOUSE! I THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY!). I'm gonna watch the new video right after this one.
thankyou for that, I was just about to comment "wait till he finds out about S&V"
Jesse Pinkman telling me how much he hates Galar’s region design was something I never knew I needed.
Mista White, Gamefreak was lazy making soard and shield, betch
Agreed
Jesse, we gotta get Gamefreak worker's rights!
That was pretty funny tbh
Wow I had no idea he had a youtube channel.
Breaking bad is really good show! I love you Mr. Pink man!
You forgot to say that in Black and White 2, the LAST town that your character visits is the town where you START in Black and White, and that you are basically going backwards compared to Black and White. That blew my fucking mind
You're not basically going backwards though during the main playthrough
Pokémon XD and Pokémon Colosseum did something similar.
they did that 12 years before with gold and silver
It destroyed my little child brain when I surfed north of Cinnabar Island and heard the Pallet town theme again
I feel like Alola is handled way better in the anime than it is in the games. If there’s one thing that the SM anime did flawlessly, is that it made Ash experience and become a part of the culture of Alola. The world building of the region in the anime was great. It really stood out from the past seasons where they would spend an unhealthy amount of episodes wandering a forest that looks exactly the same as the one they were just in 2 episodes ago.
Taking like 9 episodes to get through a single route while ash maybe catches one Pokémon that he let's go is television's worst display of filler.
Agreed!!
The game did do that, you are someone that just moved to Alola from Kanto and learn all about the culture and spoiler alert, assimilate to the Alolan culture. And Alola even on the 3DS looks better and is more diverse than Galar.
@@dgchvz you are someone who just moved to Alola from Kanto but the only things you really learn about the culture are their greeting, a single food dish, their reverence to the Tapus and the fact that instead of gyms they have totem challenges which are effectively the exact same thing but with a little bit of a "harmony with nature" nature sprinkled on top. There is no real culture to assimilate to since most of the towns look similar to your character's home region or are even an exact copy of the traditional architecture of your home country and life is pretty much the same since nobody is really telling you otherwise.
aww man that's really disappointing, I watched the entire Sun/Moon show and it made me fall in love with the Alola region, and was looking forward to playing their games thinking that they were gonna have that same level of aesthetic and feel of hawaii, but after watching this vid and reading this comment that doesn't seem like that's the case, and that makes me sad 😥
I specifically remember being amazed as a kid when I swam north from Cinnabar island and suddenly found myself back in Pallet town. I don't know if this was intended or not, but returning back to the starting town through a previously inaccessible, entirely unknown route really made me think about how far I had come since I left. It was such a satisfying way to tie the whole journey together.
Right? It makes it feel less like a bunch of individual maps/loading zones and more like an actual region
Interconnectivity is incredibly important.
Agree. Oddly, Kanto has really distinct routee/towns to me anyway, even if they are more "plain".
Reminds me of being a kid and walking around my neighborhood in the spring time.
You never looked at the map and saw the waterway connecting?
Fr tho I loved it
24:25 I just HAVE to mention this: the "clouds" are actually supposed to be the shadows of the tree canopy and the light spots being pockets of the canopy that light filters down through. Even though we don't see the trunks of these supposedly MASSIVE trees, it's an amazing aesthetic that I think is unmatched in the series. It looks so cool. Gen 3 and 4 are my golden era.
oh wow! , i had no idea , i love that
I had the exact same thought, "weren't the shadows in Eterna forest the limited light filtering through the thick canopy?" Definitely a great aesthetic. The double battle partners were also an interesting and flavorful addition. Good for XP grinding.
It’s much more prominent in the remake. Both in the original and BDSP, there’s just this tangible sense of wonder in there
Something i always liked about Kalos's routes is that while your playing through the story it gives off the implication that this game is happening over the course of a year, with the beginning of the game being these spring time looking routes, then you go to the coast which of course is summer then by the time the fifth and sixth gyms happen it's an autum looking route and by the seventh and eighth gyms its snowing.
Oh wow, I never noticed that! That's a really cool detail.
@British moment That's one of the reasons XY is very special to me, the time they launched the weapon and absolutely shat on the French will forever be engraved in my heart.
@@masterofroblox687 merica bird.
Something I've noticed when playing XY was how "free" I felt. Like I genuinely felt like I was exploring a new region with finding new areas and items and new places to explore.
Meanwhile with Sun and Moon, while the environments are prettier, don't give me that same sense of exploration. New paths just feel like another checkmark for me to progress.
@@NoodleNerd Alola was incredibly linear. Like surprisingly so.
Ok ok the vid was sick but you forgot something absolutely LARGE. In heartgold and soulsilver your walkin’ pokemon reacts to the environment, experiencing the locations just like you and giving you insight into what it would actually FEEL like being there. (Sights, sounds, scents… etc.) That absolutely sold me on Johto.
Edit: That running from Cynthia bit had me dying.
33:10 The woman is actually a Zoroak disguised as a human. A special event allowed the woman to reveal she was a Zoroak and battle you. Really good breakdown of all the regions!
How do u get the event? 😮
@@BrizukoOG Bro its not an actual event you can attend OP is talking about ... They talked about an event in this woman's past
@@BrizukoOG If you bring the downloaded movie 13 Shiny Raikou/Entei/Suicune to the forest the woman will attack you and be revealed to be a Zoroark.
isn't the guy a Zoroark? He reveals himself then runs away
bro i hate that he destroys my love for Aloa i played gen 1,2,3,4,7,8,9 and i gotta say aloa and hoenn are my favorite and to see aloa my first favotite is being hating that pisses me off
The secrets buried in the Hoen region are quite under appreciated, I remember losing my little head when I figured out how to ride the ocean currents and stumbled upon a secret cave with braille on the wall
I personally loved how much you could actually do on the ocean in Hoenn. It felt like real exploration because there were no clear paths, just randomly stumble upon cool things like evolution stones, shoal cave, sky pillar, the brail cave to unlock the regi ruins.
When they first anounced the sinnoh remakes i was so excited and hopeful for all the secrets they could add to them. Instead we got a buggy copy paste.
@@jasonreed7522 couldn’t have said any better, the region felt small to those that didn’t truly explore it. I like how there was no hand holding involved, you had to discover the secrets yourself through sheer curiosity.
The braille cave is still my favorite, it made me feel like a pirate at the time, especially cause I didn’t search for the answers online. I remember going through one of my old school books to translate the meaning
The Regi quest fookin made me look up Braille. And I probably wouldn't have figured out I needed a Relicanth and Wailord by myself.
Who else discovered Mirage Island on route 130, I completely forgot about it 😂another reason to explore Hoenn’s ocean routes
I like Hoen, I really do, but I can't ever like anything with tall grass after the 6th gym. I don't need 3 routes, which are a drag to get through. And I'm saying 3 routes, because they ruin the route right before the 6th gym for me.
One of the most frustrating aspects of Pokemon is their absolute REFUSAL to bring back features. Apricorns? Hidden Bases? Decorating Pokeballs? Beauty contests? Daycares? Puffin making with berries? Battle Frontier? Extra region? Customized clothing? Cell phone to call characters? A rival that's actually challenging? Game corner mini games? Underwater diving? Pokedex completely replaced with Rotom? A bad guy team thats actually interesting or intimidating? There's tons more im missing
The sports arena from hgss, I spent hours playing the mini games
"Teams that are more intresting" ahh yes team rocket and magma/aqua were do much more engaging then the Aether foundation and Skull
@@vocaloidpartier did I say they were better than skull? Don't tell me you actually think Team Star is a good team
The only way I can see a second region in Pokemon games to not be bland is in one version you start off in region A.) And have access to that region's starters. Go through the story and beat region A's Villain team and Pokemon league, then go to region B.) Get the option to choose one of its starters and find a new story in front of you with the new villain team lowest being lv 65 and the strongest being in the 90's if not lv 100. Same with the gyms and that league.
The other version reverse it, region B.) Is where we would start.
And an actually difficult story!
Hinting at USUM here, I love those games and I'm sad the newer games don't have that type of difficulty.
For Kalos in particular I think it's very clear it was hurt very badly by fairly late rewriting, and splitting content up to save it for Sun/Moon, as data content leaks a year or so ago ended up revealing; stuff like the Power Plants being the alien spaceships Team Flare, who were sun-based aliens that caused the sundial in Anistar to crash down and causing a reverence for the sun in the city, tying into the weird space theming Mega Evolutions have like Mega Rayquaza and Mega Stones being meteorites that doesn't otherwise tie in very well, or Zygarde being pushed back to Sun/Moon alongside a lot of the space/alternate reality themed mons; in a lot of prerelease and documentation Kalos' main region theme was even supposed to be the meeting of different cultures and ideas, the meeting of the X and Y axis, which the whole aliens coming down to earth and coexisting was supposed to represent.
It's a massive shame but it definitely helps to explain why a lot of Kalos *does* have landmarks that feel like they should be relevant and *are* relevant according to in-dev leaks, but ultimately just had any relevance stripped away after the assets were finalised.
also ily
Love u, and great write up
Oh. *oh.*
Man that’s REALLY frustrating. Despite everything, X and Y have been my favourite Pokémon games since they’re the first games I ever really played, and now knowing that they could have been better is just. God this is really frustrating.
Bro I need to play _this_ game
I just searched that up. Holy shit, that’s awesome. Reminds me of Yo-Kai Watch 3
Excuse moi, *_WHAT?!_* o_o ALIENS?!
EDIT: I read it. Holy shit.
If the inevitable Kalos remakes won't have a plot restructuring akin to ORAS (but even bigger) that uses the scrapped ideas for XY, I'm gonna be disappointed... but forgiving, honestly. I mean, that would be a *gigantic* departure from the original, which would without a doubt upset many fans (just as it would excite many others). Not to mention how it would "retcon" so much stuff (though that could be justified by the multiverse theory that ORAS brought to the table).
Still, imagine if we got the scrapped ideas back. That would be _so amazing._ :D
I am developing a fan-game based on Costa Rica and this video was very useful for me to understand what makes the regions so memorable. Great video!
How's it going
Man, Unova really radiated passion. The indepth look at the cities and routes really made me miss old Gamefreak.
Unova is so lineal
@@jorgedalessandro7917as a child playing u don’t realise at all it’s lineal
The game didn't sell well and the community hated it for the designs, so gamefreak thought that was a fail, now we'll never have a game like it
@@jorgedalessandro7917 Black and White 2 exists.
@@joob9as a child playing I hated how linear it was so that’s a flat out lie. Diamond and pearl were so much more complex and was the last Pokémon game that gave me a sense of exploration.
Unova’s seasons mechanic is the peak of region design. It’s absolutely amazing and special to see how the seasons not only affect the visuals but also can make different areas have more to explore like Twist Mountain.
Too bad the Unova map in term of path is the lasiest of them all.
Which region in the world just naturally form a perfect circle that just happen to bring you to all the places you need to go to in perfect order ?
For me that's when regions started to get lazy design wise, sure seasons are a cool addition but not that cool.
Unova was undoubtedly the best generation. I never really liked gen 4, but gen 5 was a masterpiece. Gotta say Gen 5 > 2 > 3 > 1 > 4
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 For me it has the worst design for new pokemons overall, even gen 6-7-8 had better rosters.
Sure it made tons of efforts on other areas like story and had decent challenging content.
But the fact that they FORCE you to use the new ones, making me for the first time actually unable to have a full team I like since I could only find 2-3 likeable design during my adventure.
Not to mention the great diea of an hard mode being locked in post game AND requiring the right version, stupidly frustrating.
And I have no idea why combat start by showing you a perfectly good looking sprite then zoom it out into ugly pixelated mess that really don't serve the new complicated designs at all.
For me it's the first pokemong game that left me kinda dissapointed.
From my point of view, the best pokemon games are gen2 remakes, they were at the peak of design, had the most content out of any game, great region that beneficed immensely from the remake. Pokemon peaked here.
@@naproupi Okay so then why cry about using the new Pokemon? When we played Red and Blue you had gone in completely blind with 151 creatures you had no clue about. They tried to recreate the same lightning in a bottle with Gen 5 part 1. Which I think is commendable as they have never attempted it again in the series. Also I love how Unova progresses over time as you go from BW to B2W2, and the PWT in B2W2 is fantastic the way you can battle every past Gym Leader from Kanto, to even the older Unova Gym leaders who had retired by then, and all of the Champions, and you could do it in Single, Double, Rotation, or Triple Battles, definitely up there with the likes of the Battle Frontier. Gen 5 was the peak honestly with the deep storytelling, the world building and the way the world grew, and everybody in it changed and found a greater meaning or purpose like Bianca, Cheren, and Iris, or Alder, and the Striaton City Triplets when they were shown why they never showed up at the end of B1W1, because the Shadow Triad showed them they were too weak and needed to be stronger, even Colress sees your resolve, and then assumedly goes off to Alola.
@@MEGAGAMERX1000 I complain because as I said Gen 5 has for me the ugliest and least charming roster out of any gen that came before or after, so it was a serious bummer to be forced to have to pick out of those.
I seriously wouldn't have minded being forced to use new pokemon in any other gen, even 7 or 8, but this one ? Sorry but no, there was 3 evolutions lines I genuinely liked and that's it, the 3 others were picked reluctanctly to fill my team.
Not to mention how they tried more detailed designs which went terribly with their weirdly pixelated sprites, making the more detailed pokemon ugly as hell to look at. There was a reason why early pokemon had simple designs : to be pleasant to the eye when drawn in low resolution.
The story was nice but overated. It's sure better than probably any other pokemon game in the main serie, but it's not even as good as mystery dungeon storylines, let alone any more ambitious rpg like fire emblem or persona.
I wouldn't call that "deep" storytelling. More like it's the only generation who tried to have decent storytelling, but it never was the selling point of any pokemon game. If they actually wanted to have good storytelling they could just have copied the stories of the pokemon manga which are actually good, but they didn't bother.
Speaking of the "Mature Breakup" in Unova, I'm pretty sure that has something even deeper. The two people who broke up actually aren't people. They are Zoroarks.
If you bring the shiny legendary beast from the Zoroark movie here, the female Zoroark will battle you and you can catch it.
The male Zoroark (the backpacker) however will show up in BW2, you can find him in this very forest, and he will give you a TM. After that, he will show itself and run away
That's the "Lostlorn Forest". It's a forest made up of Zoroark's illusion, therefore called Lostlorn Forest. A location full of lore and hidden content.
I completely forgot it was the same backpacker holy crap. And I love s that event, but MAN I wish events weren’t tied to limited-time pokemon since any new play through I have are likely to miss out on them
Huh? it's pretty small though and doesn't have that much content. It was just there for a event basically, not so different from Pikachu valley.
hoooly shit I knew the woman was a Zoroark, but not the guy. does he talk in BW2? I just find it neat since I rewatched that movie recently, and Zorua can talk but Zoroark isn't shown doing it once.
Thats actually scray wow
@@rinomander yeah, he talks. He warns you not to be tricked by a Zoroark, talks about what happened in the forest in BW (without necessary implying whether the player character of BW had any part in it or not), gives you the TM, then slips and runs away.
"I feel like we hit rock bottom with Galar"
Paldea: GRAB A SHOVEL B*TCH
hey! Kitakami doesn't look that bad... and the terarium is decent... but yeah paldea itself sucks.
@@TheBananaMan971Watching this video really made me look at Paldea differently and yes, it is actually pretty boring and empty .... But tbh it didn't really bother me much this far as is equalized by the walkability of the region, i.e.nothing is just a dummy but you can actually, walk, climb, jump on pretty much anything. And the Pokémon in the wild are pretty nice imo, no perfect, but they have their own behaviour and all, I sometimes just observe them and take pictures in game. So yes Paldea is empty and plain af but then it distracts you enough with other stuff. At least for me
If it weren’t for the glitches, Paldea would be decent at best
@@TheBananaMan971That's funny since Kitakami is in an unknown region while The Terrarium is in Unova. Guess Paldea still sucks lol.
I screamed "YES" outloud when he mentioned how amazing Village Bridge is. I've been obsessing over this bridge for damn near 7 years, I used to fly there and just leave my ds running to listen to the music
I think one of the biggest growing issues with the Pokemon regions is the gradual move away from the Metroidvania aspects that were heavily present through gen 1 through 5.
All of the spiralling connectivity of Kanto and Johto matters, not just because it makes the region feel more real, but because you WANT to go back to past towns at multiple points in the adventure whenever you get a new HM.
That's basically all gone as if sword and shield.
Thankfully legend's Arceus has brought much of that back.
Yeah man I feel that gen 1 and 2s more Metroidvania type maps really shocked me going back as I present in the vid with the return to pallet from cinnabar as an example I hope they bring these type of worlds back
I feel like this is true across multiple things. The modern era of open world obsession has lead to the decrease in understanding the importance of classic metroidvania progression that gave video games a lot of their meat. "Oh I have to backtrack, that's dumb" is quite common. Progression and growing stronger across the whole game? Why can't I just be a god from the beginning? I've seen it happen with a lot of franchises, several Nintendo ones as well.
I don't mind them not doing the whole non linear gym challenge thing they kinda did with part of gen 1 and 2 (a la fighting say pryce before chuck and Jasmine or fighting blaine before Sabrina) since it kinda wreaked havoc on the games difficulty curve but stuff like being able to just go into a random water route off route 1 in unova was really cool and I wish there was more stuff like that.
@@amandaslough125 What several Nintendo ones? Closest I could think of is BOTW...but even then being a god still takes time and effort to achieve.
@@Jdudec367 Breath of the Wild is the biggest. [Insert obvious essay here]. But Odyssey also kept that "everything is fairly easy and there isn't much of an overarching challenge" approach, which certainly is different from say Sunshine that has each tourist spot change dramatically while opening up, gave you extra nozzles mid game, and heavily rewarded thoroughly exploring everything multiple times.
Paper Mario is an rpg series that the producer of the newer ones distinctively went "Imma take out what makes an rpg from an rpg franchise". And the biggest element he removed was the character progression concepts.
I'm forgetting what non Nintendo example I was thinking of though.
I love how the first thing you mentioned during Gen 5 section is how beautiful it is, and I agree 100% with it. I still remember my childhood mind being blown seeing the season changes and how detailed the pixels art are, Gen 5 is really peak Pokemon
Gen 5 was legendary. Gamefreak had finally made a perfect generation and decided to throw it away
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 Gen 5 was peak of Pokémon the amount of content it had is unrivaled.
@@thelegacyofgaming2928
The fans threw it away
The pokemon fans threw away such a good game because they couldn't use their charizards or lucarios for the 10th game in a row.
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 They didn't decide to throw anything away, gen 5 didn't sell as well as any of the previous games and people gave it a lot of crap for how different it was. They just decided to appeal to a more general/casual audience so that it doesn't happen again. And as far as I know, it's been working wonders for them. Can't really fault a company for wanting to make money, but you can definitely blame the community for showing gamefreak/Nintendo that gen 5 apparently wasn't what they wanted out of a pokemon game
Village Bridge is super GOAT tier. Didn't like a lot of the "RUclipsrisms" that slow down the pace of the video for me, but the actual commentary you offer in combination with simple visuals and everything was great. Made me wanna re-visit some of these, and really makes me realize how hard it is to leave those lasting impressions.
Fortree City is instantly memorable. I have remembered it with no effort since I first stepped foot there. But I completely forgot about the lore of the warehouses becoming studios in Nacrene City. It's so interesting, so how did I forget about it? Not sure.
Lots to think about from this. Thanks for sharing, your thoughts were pleasant to listen to.
Unova just got even better with black and white 2 because it took all the aspects from the previous games and added to them, like how you could explore more of Castelia sewers and find a secret project, or a path connecting to relic castle, or the fact you could take over a gang and become their leader it’s really cool
They didn't have to make BW2 an entirely new take on the region canonically set a few years after BW, but boy they sure went for it and you can tell there was so much love and effort put into making this region we already know with characters we've already met feel fresh and new again and IT WORKED
Also that gang is so cool, I love that it's just this tiny little element of the world hidden away in a place you've already explored, but just couldn't quite get to the final part of yet
Yo, what? I never knew about the gang thing.
@@y2commenter246 They’re kinda a pain to find, those Sewers are a complete maze. God, I miss level design like that in Pokémon games.
Back when Sword/Shield came out, the feedback was so dominated by Dexit that I felt like I was the only one who cared more about the decline in region design and lore (as well as story, which some people say doesn't matter, but it always did to me). So it's nice to see people actually do care about this stuff too, as time goes on
Same here bro like they’re were much more glaring problems
nah dexit was big before the games out, after they came out people properly complained about underwhelming region design and bad graphics
@mjm3091 you aren't wrong, it was kind of a breaking point for enough to say something is wrong. And well everything except legends arceus proves it... what a mess man I just want a fun adventure game that has interesting things to find and do while not being made for babies
As soon as I touched it, I could tell it wasn’t the game we once knew and loved.
usually story doesn't really matter, but when half your game is spent listening to some dumb fuck talk about the story it better fucking be good
try to think about pokemon like you do the last of us, imagine each cutscene as an actual cutscene instead of a bunch of lifeless models standing around with dialogue boxes
if it wasn't for pokemon's presentation being ass it really wouldn't be any different
and lemme tell you, if the last of us had a bad story..OH if it had a bad story..
it's almost funny how people don't care when it comes to pokemon, but when it comes to other games it's a dealbreaker
Regions used to be tangentially related to real world locations. They just served as a backdrop to deliver us the monster designs and the characters. But that's changed. Now regions are firmly based on specific regions, almost serving as a parody of their real world counterparts.
Another thing that's often overlooked, because we as Americans aren't familiar with Japan's geography, is that "regions" were not originally the size of countries. I feel like the average interpretation of the Kanto region, for example, is that each of the towns is hundreds of miles from each other and that they're each individual cities, located almost in different states...
But they're actually based on different neighborhoods in the real world Kanto region around Tokyo. Some of them are only streets away from each other, just as they are presented in the games.
@@Aaron-mj9ie That certainly compliments the sense of abstraction that comes with the 2d games too.
@@Aaron-mj9ie Kanto is most definitely not simply a nieghtborhood, it’s a county or region.
It’s huge. It’s not simply a nieghtborhood spanning a few miles
Yes and that includes the inspiration of a lot of Pokémon. In the first 4 regions you didn't have the "sushi Pokémon" for example. but in Sword and Shield you have the apple cake Pokémon, and I personally find this way of designing Pokémon based on popular things of the original country quite terrible.
i like pokemon drawing more inspiration from real life, i think it gives pokemon a more specific feeling like in Galar every pokemon is british
I don't think the problem with Kalos is lack of content, but rather that the content is really unbalanced. Lumiose City has by far the most content in the entire series, but it feels like they had to sacrifice a few other cities to make it happen. Also, there seem to be a lot more smaller throwaway towns in general that could've been scrapped and the resources put into other cities.
The way Hoenn makes Sootopolis only accessible with the dive HM makes it pretty interesting as well. It ensured that you wouldnt skip Mossdeep so your gym battles wont go out of order AND adds more content to explore. Love it
How does anyone get in and out of the city tho? 😂
@@AS-ri1mb Scheduled pokemon rides or rented pokemon, probably.
‘Everyone remembers their first shiny’
Victory Road Gravellers in Gold know self destruct. I’m still upset all these years later.
Soul Silver Safari Zone pink Quagsire is a coward son of a bitch
I met a shiny paras in the safari zone and it fled, I feel you
Oofta. My first shiny was an unknown doing a grind for all of the 24. Funny part was - i caught it only because it was a letter I was missing. I didn't even realize it was shiny since it looked the same; my buddy saw it in my pc when we were doing trades lol
That and wild double battles where your npc partner KOs it
Not a single original experience smh
My first game boy was found underneath a mattress that was in our apartment that we just moved into and my mom said I could keep it. It had a copy of Pokémon red and it. Thank you to the kid who lost his game boy ❤
Man i just LOVE the pokemon pixel era, you can fell that they put a lot of effort to make these games memorable and unique, with each city having it's unique aesthetic, styles and stories, you can really tell that they made these games with a lot of passion
The new games have love too, but they just don't have enough time and there's so few employees for a big game, I'd imagine that there are a lot that feel sad seeing how many people hated the game they created so they try their best, talking about the developers of course (the people who worked to make the game, not people who didn't put any work into it)
@@mariotheundyingI used to think that but then mouse cursors appeared in the games, that's not being rushed or bad management that's just lazy and a lack of care.
@@Xapheion101 you can't judge 1 developer because of all developers, like for example, people who designed and modeled Galar cities weren't lazy, that's clear, of course the people who tell the story telling were lazy in that game tho, but in Scarlet and Violet I don't think anyone got lazy, you might say they have because of the bugs (programmer's being lazy you might say), but if you go to the Japanese site where people rate their jobs and talk about their experience and go to Game freak, there are programmers saying how they begged for more time for their latest game but didn't get it (this also might be why you can't enter houses, the ones that do that didn't have time), the people working on that game put love and care into it, yet the one that wanted it released sooner than it should've is at fault for all it's problems
@@Xapheion101nah it is rushed, the time between the games still remains basically the same but the games are now 3d, which requires a lot more work than a 2d game since they literally need to make every single model again and animate them (you can see a lot of animations being reused on different pokemon because of this), meanwhile when the games were 2d and pixelated, they could be done with the most important character and pokemon sprites within a month. It's just management not understanding game development and japanese culture being extremely attached to respect to seniority, both in age and in rank.
@@mariotheundying The have literally a 1000 employees working on it and in the last decade had multiple times doubled their employee count. The big issue is the switch to 3D and the giant scale issue, that was already a big issue even back in Gen 2 and only got significantly worse with 3D. A company making 1000+ monsters all with 20+ animations and a 800+ animations for attacks is already a giant logistical nightmare, then add to that they have to fit within the same artstyling.
Add to that the giant media company that requires games and new Pokémon to be churned out on a regular basis to sell that merch and movies and you have modern pokemon.
one thing about gen 6 is that its obvious that there was supposed to be a 2nd version that was scrapped. it was their first 3d pokemon game so its like their testing grounds but nintendo's deadlines basically fucked gamefreak over. and all the teased lore wouldve been explored on in x and y's second versions ended up getting scrapped because pokemon was having it's 20th anniversary so nintendo wanted them to force out sun and moon instead for more hype. it really sucks to see how halfassed zygarde complete form was when the x and y anime shows what the secondary x and y games couldve had.
Yes there was evidence found that XY sequels were in development, they were then scrapped when BW2 only sold as much as a 3rd version would have combined. Somehow this was seen as a loss instead of status quo so the sequels got scrapped and left that plot to the anime while all of the Aether assets were quickly funneled into SM development along with Zygrade's forms and our 2nd instance Battle Bond just to have them in the games. Going off colors Floette was likely also under this affect and it was supposed to be more than an ability, possibly a direct alternative to Megas used like gimmicks have been for each starter trio since. We really need a do over of almost all of 6-8.
I would have loved a Z version... X/Y was my favorite after Gold, because I loved the aesthetic, the option between 8-direction movement and free-skating movement... and it radically improved Gardevoir. Z version could have ironed out the lacking lore and added more post-game content, but instead we got my immediate LEAST favorite versions... S/M.
I love some parts of Galar, but the best way I can describe it is that it's bunch of cool-looking concept art that you can kind of walk over.
Johto's region design stands out in my mind for having reasons to come back to locations. You're in Ecruteak to fight the gym leader, but then you come back way later to explore the tower. You're in Olivine as part of the main quest, and then again for the boat to take you to Kanto. Goldenrod has you come back to save the radio tower and finally explore the underground.
It's not just towns, either. Union Cave rewards you for exploring later when you're stronger by having secret areas where some Pokemon can only be found. That's great world design, it makes the world feel alive, rather than like a set piece.
Locations that insecticide returning in RPG’s are incredibly rewarding, and memorable. I wish this was the norm.
Otherwise, in my opinion, they start to feel like boxes to check off
Turffield broke the optimism I had for Galar's region design. I gave the early towns a pass because the first couple towns aren't always amazing. Then I get to the site of the first gym and I see these sprawling buildings in the background. I'm so excited to explore, so I run back and forth trying to figure out how to access them... only to realize that they are just a background. That crushed my spirit.
38:35 Knowing that Kalos is inspired by France, the empty castle makes more sense.
During the revolution, a lot of nobles properties were ransacked and all the furnitures taken.
Todays, there are still many castle in the country with a lot of history but that are completely empty besides that.
The contrast between the activities in Lumiose city and every other town in the game is also reminiscent of the macrocephaly of Paris.
I think that in terms of translating its inspiration, Kalos does a good job. However it comes at the cost of game design.
Is literally the meme of "Things to do in France: LEAVE"
Youngins don't realize how crazy was to discover that water right there in front of your house led to kanto.
Small nitpick. On the point of gen one not having a clear color palet for each town: edition yellow introduced just that, a uniquie color for each town that often was thematically appropriate (e.g. blue for town with the water gym, red for the island with the fire gym etc.). A bit disapointing they didn't keep that for fire red / leaf green, though i can see why they did it
Not only was it thematically appropriate in terms of the gyms, but with the names of the towns themselves. Cinnabar = red, cerulean = blue, fuchsia = pink, etc.
FR/LG did actually, as did G/S/C and HG/SS. The colour of the rooves in each town matches the town's colour name. Cerulean City rooves are all blue (minus the Pokemon Centers and Marts of course, since they got unique designs in Gen 3 onwards). Vermillion City's rooves are all that orangish colour vermillion is, and so on. You can compare the in-game maps on Bulbapedia to see as well.
@@tamerkohYeah, and same thing for Johto as well even. Interestingly enough, while it’s English name is a shade of green, Olivine is blue in GSC, but that was fixed in HGSS (with the port even being kept blue, which kinda works nicely)
(Also speaking of Bulbapedia, they even started colour coding the town pages recently)
I'm from Unova IRL, and the region is even better when you know the history and references of their real-life counterparts. Nacrene City's counterpart is Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood, and Nacrene's museum and old train tracks both refer to the New York Transit Museum which is in the neighborhood. The New York Transit Museum was created within the once abandoned Court Street station, and it was originally meant to be a temporary exhibit for the US Bicentennial in 1976 but it was so popular that they made it permanent. It has several retired subway cars that you can enter with their ads still preserved. It's like you've gone back in time to a different era.
Also, Driftveil City IRL is Union City, NJ which is a VERY Cuban area, so Driftveil City having such a bop for its theme checks out as Cubans are known for our music too. And hate to break it to you about the Village Bridge...it's counterpart is the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Nobody lives on it, and the complete opposite of tranquil. Reality is often disappointing.
Would u say undella town is more like outer banks, Myrtle beach, or ocean city (definitely not Florida)
Nvm i just figured out undella town is the hamptons
i found undella town to feel more like brighton beach, but that might be more with the fact that i'm from that area lmao. the town above undella in b&w2 with the boardwalks absolutely felt like it to me though.
Hahaha i love this. From the "I'm from Unova IRL" to people trying to figure out real world locations equal to in game locations; I genuinely love this. It's lovely. It's wonderful.
AVERY YOU ARE THE ONLY COMMENTER THAT I'LL FIND ON SOME RANDOM TNO SUPEREVENT AND ALSO A 1 HOUR POKEMON VIDEO, YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME YOU ARENT STALKING ME.
I know that this was somewhat touched on in this video, but one thing that I would add to this discussion are the caves. Remember in the older generations where you could actually find yourself getting lost in caves? Or how you could tackle a cave without flash early but could find yourself getting lost that way also? Nowadays, in the newer games they are all linear paths that hold your hand all the way through them. Gamefreak seems to think that a pokemon game that poses even a little bit of a challenge in gameplay is a game that people don't wanna play, but that couldn't be further from the truth. That's just my opinion though.
I mean, just to put this out there because I feel the opinion written by you is far more common, I personally LOVE this change in the pokemon games. To me, the maze-like nature of every route in some of the older games not only led to the worlds feeling absolutely nothing like lived in worlds, and like stages in a game, due to the fact that NO CIVILIZATION would just deal with their primary transportations being so windy that going to your friends house a mile away is a 2.5 mile walk. Additionally, it's just seriously irritating after the fact. While the maze-like nature is fine and whatever if I'm just passing through once, any repeated visit becomes an outright annoyance since I'm likely there because I need something specific, and the only worldbuilding in having to essentially walk up a downwards escalator is giving me is making me hate the world.
I truly RELISHED in X and Y when routes felt like ROUTES, like direct paths from point A to B designed for human beings to move between, and would be seriously disappointed to see the return of old routes.
@@Carinail Yeah, I loved exploring caves and suddenly finding a static encounter legendary in HG/SS BUT the story parts of these caves where just too long. I'd love it if the bits connecting towns where just straight forward but you can enter lower and higher places inside a mountain/cave to maybe find something amazing. That would honestly be the best of both worlds.
@@Carinail yeah, but they should put content in between, like some caves, lakes, something, make you go in there for a quest or just putting something in there that lights up your desire for exploration, doing the bare minimum is lame for a big ass company, GF is as cheap as Riot Games thinking they are still a little indie company
i personally feel like old caves were bad though. i think the look and environment of the caves are much more important
Ehh, personally I don't miss that design aspect. Having to pull up a map online or wander aimlessly through a cave for the better part of an hour just isn't a fun type of challenge imo. Getting lost in Wayward Cave in Platinum as a kid was easily what felt like an absolute waste of time more than anything else in that game to me. Especially with the high encounter rates of caves. Going through them feels like a chore either way, so adding in the potential to make the experience last 4x longer than it needs to or really should sounds like an absolute pain.
This was one of the best videos I have ever seen. The way you were able to break each region down was nothing short of amazing, I wish I had saw this video sooner!
Woah! Dude you’re Jordan Fringe lol so cool to see you here I love your vids I’ve watched a lot of em! Thank you so much for enjoying mine!
@@InternetPitstop hey I appreciate that very much, thanks for watching! I’m currently binging your channel and I love it! Every video has been fantastic!
In Kalos, the lore is subtle but all over the place. if i remember correct it was broken up by the direction point and corresponding legendary Pokemon and AZ's lore. Basically how they impacted that region i.e. the West was targeted by Yveltal, East by Xerneas, South by Volcanion, North AZ/the King and his lineage, while Central is mixed based on innovations and resilience.
For example, Geosenge Town- is the site of the doomsday device AZ built powered Yveltal. The rock structures leading up to the town are grave sites where Pokemon that died to create the weapon. It is hinted that the rocks have powers and are connected to the mega evolution and life force of the Pokemon etc. ORAS expands on this concept with infinity energy.
27:14 I remember when I first saw Castellia City and couldn't believe how they were able to make such a huge metropolis in a Pokemon game. It just gave off a great vibe and there was so much to do there, as expected of a big city.
I’m a pretty big Sword and Shield apologist, but this video has made me realize how lacking the entire Galar region is. When you mentioned the air ducts in Oreburgh, that unlocked memories deep in my mind of me running around thinking they led to a chest or are hiding some items in them. But then I asked a local and they explained their purpose. The first gym town in Sword & Shield is a giant circle surrounding the gym. Why was it built this way? Why is half the town blocked off?
To add on top of that, Galar Mines #1 and #2 being single level, almost straight lines was such a disappointment. Galar just has no dungeons basically, certainly nothing comparable to what we saw in past games. And them taking the time to set up a cool punk rock town owned by an evil team where dynamaxing can't happen... just to make it so not a single building is accessible? Tragic.
Because people supposedly only care about the gym.
Idk what made you a sword and shield apologist when these are by far the worst games in the entire series and easily the most flawed games with tons of horrible level design and game design decisions sprinkled all throughout the entire game, the forced exp share didn’t do the game any justice. I stopped buying the games since gen 7. Gen 7 was the last game I ever bought and haven’t returned ever since. The only game i currently purchased was Legends Arceus but I’ll be skipping out on Scarlet and Violet and waiting for whatever the next remakes end up being, hopefully the next remakes gets a proper remake and not be robbed of it like sinnoh. Personally wouldn’t mind a legends Unova game aslong as there are tons of npc trainers to fight against and it isn’t all about catching Pokémon but if they make a legends unova then they risk ruining the quality of the unova remakes which I don’t want so I would much prefer if they gave unova a proper remake.
Dude really just said, "I'm a pretty big shit-eater, but this video has made me realize how bad shit tastes."
@@The_Big_Jay pretty much yeah. I ain’t afraid to admit when I was wrong about something
id love to see an update about Scarlet/Violet. the towns are empty other than sandwich stores
And even when you go inside the stores its not even a room... just a selection screen...
tbf the region design itself is pretty good, open area, has a lot of room for exploration and secrets, feels natural, and auto save does help against the crash somewhat
@@naganut9718 Great region but the most hollow cities of any game by far. I love exploring Paldea though. Best region since Kalos for me.
@@Crysta1Pisto1 true. The cities look great but they're felt empty
Lma9
I really appreciate the fact you can put aside nostalgia to address problems that even earlier games struggle with such as gen 3 water routes or gen 5 just being circle. Gen 3 is my favorite but even I won't deny the water routes can get look the same with diving slightly splitting it up. Great vid
One of my most disappointing experiences in a pokemon game was in the The Crown Tundra when I saw a Heatmor and Durant next to each other...just standing there despite the fact that we're told that they share a predator and prey relationship. I think a major problem with gamefreak is that they (eventually) realise what people want but never why they wanted it. SOS and horde battles where we could see rival pokemon fighting each other were much better at fleshing out pokemon identities than being able to see them in the overworld. I would even argue that certain types of wild encounters in the 2d games (dust clouds in BW, using rock break or honey etc) did much more to create immersion than the wild area
Bro I felt the same way seeing fossil Pokémon in the wild
@@grandmastr2602 I remember in Alola there was a guy in a small secluded area who mentioned creating a park for fossil Pokemon (basically Jurassic Park) and there was some speculation that the Ultra games would have that idea fully realized as a new location where you could catch wild fossil mons, but nope. And now there's just, wild fossil mons in Galar with zero fanfare whatsoever...
Nice to see the Zoroark couple got back together. 😇
One of my favorite monents in my first playthrough of sun and moon was fighting a cleffa and having her call a chansey. I looked up why Cleffa could do that and learned that chanseys can be called as backup by every baby pokemon which was a really neat detail.
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Unova was peak Pokemon for me. Growing up in my teens, I went from the simplicity and clean execution of LeafGreen to playing BW with the depth and complexity of Unova. Good memories. Great video!
This is very strange, I remember people in the past complaining that Unova was bad, the new pokémon were bad, and everything else, but over the years the region gained the recognition it didn't have at the time. I remember that I liked Unova a lot, I think Black & White 2 helped a lot to increase Unova's popularity
@@Vinilboit wasn’t B/W2, people just actually gave the game a chance, over the years people have been very critical of backwards compatibility with old Pokémon, if they can’t get older gen Pokémon they rage, it happened with gen3 on release not having a way of transferring gen 1 and 2 Pokémon into future games, which FRLG and emerald fixed, so when they found out that none of the original gen 1 to 4 Pokémon were available everyone started sabotaging the game, and the easiest way was to clown on some of the weirder newer designs (vanilluxe and garbodor were literally the only complaints even tho there were 151 original Pokémon, the largest dex ever since gen 1) as time went on people actually gave the game a try, people who weren’t as biased and those who decided to actually play the game after their anger burnt off, and those who did realized that the game actually had really high quality, but at that point it was too late, the game had been off the shelves for a while and gamefreak had learned their lesson, don’t ever try to innovate, people don’t like new ideas, which directly killed the creative development of the series from that point off, the reason the games are sht is because people who were too set on gen 1 and 2 were to busy crying over old Pokémon and sabotaged the best game of the series, B/W2 had very little impact on the criticisms of the game as it was treated very much like it’s prequel
@Vinilbo it was a soft reebok of sorts so people hated it. But as the years go by people have realized the depth put into it
@@daltonwright6514 sorry but what is a reebok? im not a native speaker
@@Vinilbo reboot was a typo my bad
1:04:07 i wanted to make a point about this as well. In legends Arceus I noticed that many smaller frailer Pokémon are found around alpha Pokémon, and I realized it was was probably because they were protecting them. Like it’s such a simple, interesting, crazy good way to make Pokémon interact and add challenge to catching weaker Pokémon. Meanwhile in Sword and Shield I’ll be lucky if two of the Pokémon in the wilds area clipped into each other.
Kanto was pure passion, Johto was a child of love that they thought would be their last, Hoen was an opportunity to expand like they never thought they could (it was no longer a pokemon world, look to the stars and see for yourself), and Sinnoh felt like an explorer making their dream journey to the north
In Unova you forgot to mention How Chargestone cave has many levels where the music becomes lower pitched and slower in the lower levels and how you generate static when passing through the chargestones, how twist mountain connects to the mine Clay owns, Castelia City's sewers and how the water level varies depending on the season or how seasons effect the routes and the items you can find, Lentimas town and its beautiful clay houses that fit the pueblo aesthetic used in areas such as Arizona and the music which is this awesome salsa type theme. You also forgot to mention the mansion where you can find the ghost if the girl who died in a nightmare i believe in the hands of Darkrai. You also forgot to mention interactivity such as being able to get wings in bridges and find Ducklett or Swanna. Also reversal mountain and how it's an active or extinct volcano depending on the version or Humilau City and the houses that are in docks like Pacifidlog town from Hoenn but better or how Victory Road in BW2 is connected to the ruins of N's Castle from the first game.
to be fair,most of what you said pertains to white2 and black2 which he unfortunely skipped.
imo the only bad thing about this video,as all the problems and cons about black and white gets corrected with the sequels,region too linear? have some more towns,plus routes that change with the seasons,new cities fully remodeled,more connectivity mostly in the cave/sewer system. Only bad things in bw2 is not fully expanding the underwater part(also building off the ruined parts lore) aswell as fully closing off route 10,when they could've put smth extra there for post-game but kay.
@@lisiastar8441 yeah you're right About BW2
There actually was an abandoned ship in the Hoenn region in the original Ruby and Sapphire! They took it out in ORAS and replaced it with Sea Mauville.
Which is kinda cool cause ORAS aimed to show a different Hoenn than the originals
@@KoolKyurem25 Yeah being a alternate universe which speaking of disappointed didnt mention the massive upgrade Mauville City received as it's now a indoor city! And in the original games Wattson even had plans of overhauling the place but scrapped those plans. It sucks that we missed out of the Battle Frontier but it really seems like people don't give the ORAS games credit.
@@SonicLegends ORAS deserves its credit especially after what BDSP turned out to be. They are not bad games but don’t hold up to the improvements introduced in the same Gen. ORAS just like BDSP excluded the Battle Frontier but it expanded the story, improved characters, included the gens gimmick and had slightly better graphics than XY during it’s time both games gave a quality of life feel but ORAS is just the better remake and imo the most ambitious remake we’ve gotten in terms of changing how we perceived the multiverse of Pokémon to be. HGSS could still be argued to be the best in terms of quality.
He shows and mentions the abandoned ship by name at 19:27. I think he meant expanding on the lore of ships being left out at sea by having a ship graveyard or something which would have been absolutely sick and filled some of the empty space.
I think the linear aesthetic in BW made the switch up in B2/W2 a much refreshing and welcomed change. As a native New Yorker, Gen V gave me a fresh new perspective of the city I live in rather than through the eyes of a 9-5er trying to pay his bills and survive. There is unique cultural real world aesthetic and identities to the 5 boroughs including Jersey in Gen V. Like how Narcerene and Pinwheel Forrest is inspired by the Dumbo’s hipster culture and borough parks vastness connecting leading to Brooklyn Bridge. Or how Mistralton’s aviation area is a nod to Jersey’s teeterboro airport which through a flight is connected to Lenitas town which Hispanic influence is reminiscent of the Colombian/Cuban culture of Jackson Heights in Queens, which connects also to Astoria and LaGuardia Airport.
Which blows my mind that Unova as vast as it is never included a Bronx or Staten Island area that could’ve contained more traditional Gen I-IV element a like a Safari zone, Cycling Path, abandoned facility, power plant, and a post game battling area.
Imagined how much more content Kalos and Alola would’ve had if it was on the DS format.
Bro this was an amazing comment to read learned a bunch of cool shit from it thank you 🌊
the bronx is supposed to be the desert route above castelia which…. makes sense
@@soleanna14 well actually no. Geographically that would be Tribeca, SoHo, NoHo, Greenwich, and Chelsea. The Bronx would be a completely separate region above Oppelucid.
Unova screaming its inspiration being the u.s. was a huge turn-off for me. I just cannot stand Unova for the life of me because I can't stand living in the u.s. for the life of me.
Gen 5 is also the only Pokemon game with some voice acting.
The first four generations all work on the concept of a 'metroidvania'. Yknow where the main thing blocking your access to different places is just not having the things that you need to get to them. Starting with gen 5 they started making the maps a straight line so that you'd play everything in order.
The issue came that gen 5 had a big focus on story so they railroaded you a bit to hard. Little better region layout and gen 5 would easily be the best pokemon game
THE SUNDIAL, you unlocked a memory for me, I remember being so confused and frustrated, convinced something was supposed to happen there, mashing A all around the sundial. I think later on, that area was used to give you Diance or connected to her? But I was still upset, there should've been a event there in the main game, I felt so betrayed.
Not really an event, but at a certain time of day it ‘activates’ and you can find the mega stones all over the region.
The music in that town is _amazing_ and it has this very mysterious quality; which only makes it *even more* frustrating and confusing that there is _nothing_ there!
It may have had some more relevance if we got a return to kalos, but that didn’t happen, likely because of the gear project.
@@arthursmarthur That was dumb and tedious in my opinion.
@@UnwantedGhost1-anz25 yeahhh. Having to wait for it to be a certain time or changing the time yourself just to have an hour to find the stones was pretty annoying
Favourite thing about Gen 5's region design is the amount of content you'll never see unless you think to backtrack to earlier routes later on in the game, and the massive fuck off post game where you get to explore the other HALF of unova
Truly great stuff honestly
@bruh moment I enjoy that too, but Idk why you're coming across so heated lol. It's something I personally enjoy, never said anyone else should've.
Also, B&W does give you legendaries and strong trainers in a good amount of those postgame areas, so I don't really understand your point either.
@bruh moment I mean...BW has that but from my experience the 14 jump in levels for the average trainer post game is really jarring and doesn't make any sense.
@bruh moment If all you care is battling then just play on Pokemon showdown. The battling in the games is piss easy anyways so why bother wasting money on a mainline game if you only care about battling which it cant even properly provide
@@Jdudec367 True that! I just hurried down to Relic Castle and Master Balled the Volcarona to carry me through the rest ^^’
Here's some Lore: In Anistar you can give a guy a Pokemon bc he's lonely and Depressed, but sadly after you beat the Leauge and go back he's passed away, leaving the Pokemon behind for you to collect
crying inside because there IS an abandoned ship to explore in Hoenn, not to mention the secret cave you find by swimming through tides to get, solve puzzles, and then finally spawns the regis around the region 🥲
This (and your channel in general) has become some of my favorite comfort watches. Ive watched this video start to finish several times, but there’s nothing like falling asleep to you gushing about the region design of 1-5
As an avid reader/writer and Pokémon fan, I never realized how much I needed this video until now. World-building is one of my favorite parts of media, because it allows the person who made it to be creative in order to give the consumer an immersive experience. Culture, appearance, history, content, and many more aspects are required to make an environment enjoyable. As difficult as it may be, Pokémon has proven it can do that. Although it has been frustrating, I do appreciate you mentioning how we don't entirely know what's happening with Game Freak to result in the decrease in quality of the region designs. Thank you, and I hope to see you make a video related to Scarlet/Violet eventually!
Man, seeing someone gush about the pixel era is pure nostalgia fuel. They don't make them like they used to. Really feel blessed to have started and ended my Pokémon journey there.
I honestly wondered why I didn't like Gen 6 to 8 and I was wondering why I felt unfulfilled and this kinda puts it to words: We're in new locations, but everything feels hollow.
Id agree with gen 7 and Gen 8 before the DLC but Gen 6 was pretty filled.
@@zemellion26 Gen 6 only felt more complete because it was the 1st of the 3D era games and during a critical point of leaving the pixel era. The map was a mixture of pixel areas and the more traditional 3D eras
I honestly never felt so bored as I did when playing Dun and Moon.
I truely regret buying Ultra Moon. I expected new story like BW2 but all I got was the same story I had already played plus a DLC.
Sw/Sh honestly wasn't better. I only played it for the overworld Pokemon and even these felt disappointing. Especially the harbor town grew my disappointment. I walked into it and it looks SO nice. I started exploring only to see that there is literally nothing to see.
@@Nigolasy what did you think of PLA
@@zemellion26 The behavior of the wild pokemon was a little to unsurprising. Would have loved a few more nuances or special interactions with other wild pokemon. Idk if there are any, I haven't seen that. But like in the starting area, there are Starly and Wurmple next to another. I think the Pokedex even says that Wurmple are aftaid of birds, they didn't seem very startled by the Starly ie.
The gameplay is amazing.
I haven't talked to every NPC in every town. But the world didn't feel empty for me. You can go exploring so far. I honestly think that the mounts were only necessary for climbing and swimming. Once I got Braviary, it kind of lost its touch a little.
On a sad note: the game had literally nothing unexpected. I can't remember anything that really surprised me.
It's a good foundation for upcoming Paldea. I honestly hope they add lots of things to explore. The map is so big in theory. So unless they don't mess up the scale, there should be plenty of room for hidden paths and secrets.
Fantastic video, I hope this blows up even more.
Hearing you talk about the lighthouses brought a wave of memories back.
I distinctly remember being so mad that i could reach the one in Sun/Moon. Then I found the secret path and got even madder when I still couldn't go in.
I also remember being mad in sword/shield since they had an npc at the top and I thought there was some sort of side quest.
Game freak needs to bring back the old lighthouses.
it’s crazy that the newest gen has a town with
a gym
a poke center
and that’s everything. litterally the whole town
Yeah I love to think about what the people who live there do: fuckin nothing
sounds like dewford lol
@@CJMcGdewford had people though
Does it have a name at least?
@@charlesvattimo4674Glaseado
The thing I always say about gen 6 is that it has incredible set pieces and memorable moments but is missing that last like 30% of the recipe that made previous regions amazing. Needed that 3rd version so bad, praying the inevitable remake fills in the cracks🙏
Kalos just absolutely reeks of them having big ideas for events/expanded story with another version, but the 20th anniversary coming up forced them to change plans drastically to have a big release that year rather than a third/expanded partner release, leading to the hasty inclusion of zygarde as collectibles in sun and moon and such, thus leaving all their breadcrumbs around it being for nothing (like, power plant, and potential relations to volcanion with its steam abilities)
Agreed, it's a game I think of fondly but also leaves me thinking "this needs just a hint of spice". RIP Pokemon Z.
Honestly I disagree with Kalos being lacking in any capacity. It felt like he was really trying to push this narrative of gen 6 being the downfall of town design to fit the "3D is bad trend" but it just doesn't work. Like when he talks about Camphrier town lacking lore and esthetic, then goes on complaining about the castle giving you "lame lore" about the town (so now there's lore?) and manage to say pastoria has an aesthetic because of one cardboard cutout ?
@@artimist0315 Nah, he’s right. There’s nothing to do in most of the Kalos Towns and cities, and most of them blend in together.
Re Camphrier Town, he said there was no lore in the town itself. He hoped the castle would save it, but it was empty, bar a short explanation (“lame lore”) about why it’s empty.
@@cuck1ngfunt Kalos has some of the most distinct cities in the whole franchise, Lumiose, Shalour, Laverre and Snowbelle certainly don't blend together. Especially considering what he said about gen 4, Kalos has excellent cities. And for Camphire, while the town itself is a bit empty it's literally glued to the berry field, Pension and Battle chateau
I think you nailed the issue on the head with the Alola region 49:56
I like the Alola region (some great Pokémon designs and a story I didn’t mind even though it was hand holdy) but I think the problem partially stems from the inspiration. Hawaii is a very blended place in that you have native Hawaiian culture, a lot of Asian immigrants due to proximity (especially Japan and the Philippines), and a lot of transplants from the mainland.
I think Nintendo focused too much on the blend and because of that missed out on the Hawaiian culture weaved through the story of the place. Yes the transplants are important but the native culture should be a center point that you add to
Yeah, it ends up making Alola feel like more "Hawaii-themed vacation resort" than it feels like actual Hawaii
"It doesn't feel like a pokemon world. It feels like a videogame." Yeah, that hit me 🥺
This unlocked some deep memories for me. I remember as a kid with big escapist fantasies exploring every inch of Hoenn and wanting desperately to escape into that world. I remember finding Verdanturf and imagining the smell of the air, it was a visceral thing to me that I still strongly associate with the town. Even when I got back into Pokémon in my teens with Black and White, I fell in love with the world and imagined what it would be like to live there. Then came Kalos, which by all means I *should* have fallen in love with. I love mystical, fairytale, fancy doll-type aesthetics, so the town with the dollhouse gym (Laverre city?) and the place with the giant sundial should’ve been ideal settings for me. To be fair, I did love discovering these places at first and I remember running around trying to find every little detail I could about the areas, but… like you said, there wasn’t much there despite pretty set pieces. Its sort of jarring to realize how deeply I believed in somewhere as simple as Verdanturf, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe in Laverre.
(Don’t even get me started on the glowy mushroom place in Galar. When i first saw a video of someone else going through the area I got kind of excited, until realizing I would get just as much out of a clip of a lets player going through it as I would if I played through that area myself.)
The design of Galar was one of my biggest problems when playing Sword. Not enough physical space and stuff to do between gyms so the game is too fast
It's both slow and fast
Slow because of cutscenes
That's a really good way to put it
The routes that werent the wild area were tiny and boring. The spot where you first find sizzlepede and gossefleur comes to mind
@@slinky6415 the wild area was pretty boring too
It's also way too fast because of the Exp Share, and the easy access to candies. You level pokemon up way too easy in that game.
Yes, I'm actually wondering if the exp share change was made specifically because there was so little content, like they needed a bandaid way to level your Pokemon up.
Hurts so much that you're so right about Alola. I had so much fun playing Pokemon Moon on my first playthrough, but it's because I loved the characters and the story. The region was a set piece for the primary plot, not really anything more.
Man 🐴
Tbh it felt like a slice of life away from the constant formula you went through before. I feel bad gen 7 gets shit on when I really loved that game lol
Yeah in retrospect I really enjoyed sun/moon and love the new concept of the islands and having to beat the island kings (tho I couldn't care less about ultra beasts). Though I do have to admit I didn't even realize how unmemorable the actual content of the region was. When Internet Pitstop asked, I couldn't really remember any specific town and barely any route
It at least HAS the best plot of any of the Pokemon games. Can't say the same for places like Galar where the main antagonist feels like he's only the antagonist because they felt they needed one and slotted him in at the last minute.
Massive same
The saving grace of Hoenn’s water routes is the Dive mechanic. I always loved that even if it was way underused (in ORAS too). I really wish it would make a comeback in some way.
One amazing thing to mention with Hoenn is when the second half of the game just opens up.
You beat your father and get surf, and then you realise: Wait, on that route right above the town above littleroot there is some water, why not go there and surf across?
And then you link back right to the route above slateport. Which you previously had to go all the way arround to get to.
Also, another thing: Hoenn, now that i look at it, seems to be designed arround various interconnected loops. Hear me out:
You start in Littleroot, go up to Oldale Town and west to Petalburg, then south and arround to slateport, which links back to Littleroot via surf.
Then, start in Rustboro, go east through the rusturf tunnel, Verdanturf, then Mauville City and go north, arround the volcano, through route 113, Meteor falls and you're back in Rustboro.
The second half of the game has this loop:
From Mauville go east, then northwards, over routes 119, Fortree city, route 120, then take the route over Mt. Pyre, then route 121 (i think) and go back to Mauville City.
And finally, the largest loop:
Slateport -> Fortree -> Lilicove-> the water routes -> Pacifidlog and then once more back to Slateport.
Its loops within loops within loops, which makes the entire region extremely interconnected. Which may play into the theme of how water and land are interdependant and interconnected with one another.
I really like the design of Hoenn
I totally forgot about the people in Unova who add instruments to the background music. Such an incredibly simple but artful feature
Gen 7, 8 and 9 suffered from growing pains of no longer having routes built as grids and thus not having much interactivity. And since the games are rushed they dont have time to create dynamic areas to explore in these new freer, more open ended areas.
Yes! You nailed why I don't like Alola, Galar, and Paldea. They feel less like regions and more like placeholders.
@@christianmckee2116 well all games since gen 6 have been rushed. So the lack of lore and lack of creative dungeon/area design makes sense.
@@juandiegotorres9632 It does. But what I find weird is that Alola never really improved in design despite receiving USUM. Like, Galar and Paldea's DLCs took place in areas outside of them, so I can kind of get why the regions feel so rushed (even though it doesn't excuse how badly they are). But Alola received four versions overall that took place there, and Alola still feels incredibly shallow for some reason. Was SM _and_ USUM's development so rushed that they didn't bother to improve the region despite having two third versions? I just don't get it.
@@christianmckee2116 SM was not as rushed as XY, it's story at least was fully explored (the main plot anyway) but some areas like the geothermal power plant and the Golf course were not explored. USUM was a great opportunity to release a sequel with Gladion as head of the aether corporation, the ultra recon squad as the antagonists, a more fully explorable ultra dimension megalopolis, Lillie as a trainer, and a reformed Guzma and Lusamine. Maybe Hau as a Kahuna instead of Champion. I guess calling it ultra Sun and moon instead of sun and moon 2 was the first hint that it wasn't gonna be a sequel.
@@juandiegotorres9632 Which makes me wonder more WHY they didn't bother fully fleshing out and expanding Alola. USUM being two third versions wouldn't have prevented Alola from being deeper than just a bunch of hallways (most of the towns and routes) or big empty spaces (Poni Island as a whole). My guess is that development was such a mess that they didn't have the time to improve the region design.
I completely agree with you on gen 6. When watching the video I thought back and realised that I only ever fondly remembered the routes and nothing about the towns except for some small details. The routes of gen 6 were amazing in my opinion but the towns were mostly dry which is really upsetting as I love these games since they were my first Pokemon games.
I love kalos and it definitely does feel incomplete as if there was ment to be a sequel. I was hoping it was just a first step into an exciting next step in pokemon. I saw it as a soft reboot of the series and I was looking forward to the new pokemon games ahead...Then everything went down hill.
@@Airy101 Yeah that killed me. I was actually excited for pokemon Z. There was so many untouched areas and events in xy that I thought Z was going to cover like the crystal sun dial, the train station, the ghost girl, and the power plant.
Same with sun and moon, seeing what they had to cut because they had a unrelenting deadline makes me weep, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GO TO DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS, THE STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DARKER, IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL. To bad they had to cut all that out or downsize it.
I will forever adore the amount of detail gamefreak put into the unova region. I could play that fame for hours, often spending time exploring the towns and cities. I am also in love with the lore behind the sinnoh region, I was always fascinated by it
Absolutely loved this! I had always assumed the newer games cities didn't stick because I was "too grown up" to care or remember. But, given this amazing analysis, it's looking like that's not the case!
Honestly I thought the exact same thing but then I decided to punish myself one summer and just play the entire series lol which is what led to this thank you for enjoying it helps make the hard work mean that much more 🌊
This video definitely has a purpose bro. I really enjoyed it and your points were pretty spot on
Thank you for this love letter to pokemon. I felt so much emotion when you were talking about gen 1-5. It was like eating a warm apple pie made with love that you haven't had in years. I truly am saddened that pokemon can basically make husks of their games and charge $100 for it. I just wish the series wasn't so stagnant in what it wants to be. Thank you again for this video. It was a wonderful watch
Exactly. Its so soothing when someone can perfectly explain why a game you love is so good or otherwise bad
While I certainly tend to agree with the conceit of this video, I'm so glad you highlighted Kalos' positive side. I think it's been said over and over but the guiding principle of discussion about Kalos is 'missed potential.' The DNA from earlier Pokemon level design is still there, they were experimenting and using a completely new engine/hardware, so it seemed natural that it would feel that way. But obviously almost 10 years out it really feels like they dropped the ball after Kalos. Things felt more and more pressed for time as things went on. I can't believe what a success Lumiose city was, and then they seemingly completely abandoned the idea of creating a city that filled with content. And my god I remember being so disappointed with Alola's routes too, such an amazing concept for a region that went just completely unfulfilled. Loved this vid, big nostalgia trip as well as an interesting analysis of what makes a Pokemon town work.
Thank you so much I played through all these games for research on this vid so everything I’m saying is based off how I felt playing them and mostly Kalos had a lot of positives you’re absolutely right “missed potential” is a perfect way to describe it
Playing Sun and Moon, honestly my biggest disappointment how tiny Alola was made out to be. Yes, it's set in Hawai'i, but those islands aren't small, you know? Yes, they look small in a map, but IRL they're pretty sizeable. They're not the Japanese islands and they're definitely not Australia, but they didn't deserve that cramped feeling SM gave them.
Another disappointment in the region design was the distinct lack of a lot of Hawaiian... everything. Some of the culture was there, but in terms of cities and landmarks, everything felt aggressively "I'm a Japanese tourist and I didn't do my homework". The very clearly Japanese town in one of the islands was jarring, and the fact it was supposedly the largest of said island despite being like 3 blocks of a town at most was baffling.
The plot of the game is also just.. we colonize alola lol
As someone who lived in Hawaii for 5 years including when these games came out, I was pretty underwhelmed. The malasadas are a nice touch and I can see some landmarks that are represented, but they made Hawaii, one of the most ecologically diverse areas of the planet, look same-y.
Yeah, real-life size is no excuse for that level of simplicity in the games. For crying out loud, real-life Kanto and Johto aren't even separate islands in Japan; they're different parts of a single island. When old games can make parts of a single island stand out as vibrant regions in their own like, while Alola can even make single islands stand out from each other, you really see the decline in design.
Yeah, Hawaii is such a geologically and biologically diverse archipelago and Alola only seems to capture the tourist trap parts of the island. It's also very uncomfortable that there are no Alolan native people unless you count like the 10 or so natives that work as employees for that one luxury hotel. Like uh, where did all the Alolan natives go, GameFreak?
Gen 9 seems to have the same problem. The architecture is there and replicated beautifully (at least when you ignore the million glitches) but theres a definite disconnect.
Stuff like in the very first route you have poco path… when that doesn’t translate right at all unless you use Google translate and completely miss the context.
Although I will admit there’s no very probable genocide of the native paldeans unlike with alolans.
I agree with all of this but even more importantly, I don't feel motivated to explore a town when the first two towns in a game had houses with NO ITEMS in them. No items=no motivation to explore.
This is truly amazing. To me the first 3 gens are GOAT material, so I never gave much attention to the other games cause I wasn't the biggest fan of those gens and respective Pokemon. HOWEVER this analysis about the games' worlds truly made me WANT to go and dive in a new adventure to become the very best and experience new Pokemons and those regions, so full of lore and life. I was completely blind to these complex worlds just because I really didn't enjoy the starters. Because of that I never bothered to pick up the games. I sat here, listening to the Unova bridge town's music with chills all over my body, that shit is amazing!!! Now I want to go play Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and Pokemon Black and White, it seems like it could be fun, Idk if I'll actually do it, but at least now I have more interest than I ever had in those games.
Wat's your favorite Pokemon? Mine's Tyranitar, although I sometimes gravitate toward Calydol
And yea, I do love you and work. It IS something worth doing/continuing doing. Sorry about the long ass response
OH! And btw (a few videos back Idk if you remember I talked about my thesis and life struggle on the "Atmosphere In Video Games" video through the "checkpoint" mechanic) I got my life sorted out - kinda - got a new thesis subject and I'm hyped af!! Life's good :)
Hey man I always appreciate long form comments like these this is my fav rn ! Thank you for watching my video and giving back such meaningful feedback I think you should definitely play Pokémon platinum vs diamond and pearl and definitely play black and white 1 and 2 there’s so much to enjoy there and my favorite Pokémon has got to be Arcanine I love a big woofer lol and hey that’s great to hear I’m glad you’re moving forward it’s all gonna work out one way or another 🌊
Gen 4 and 5 are the best
Gen 1 and 2 are kind of mid.
Euh my mans, play platinum not diamond and pearl. No hate for the latter, but platinum is tbh just the better version of diamond and pearl
Q
I loved the way you explained all the region's flaws and strengths, It was really detailed! I'm really curious to see your take on the paldea region once the game releases!
Thank you! And I’m hyped to play it!
I will say I think Gen 6 had some pretty great route design. Gen 6 felt like the 2D games with 3D models. For as short as XY were the path design was phenomenal. I think it’s route 15 that’s completely autumn themed. And then the route with terminus cave was pretty great too. As ORAS had Hoenn’s goated route designs to lean on, but the 3D version was so bright and colorful and did the originals justice
Yeah I'll always be more forgiving to Kalos in gen 6. First exploration with more complex models, fumbled the bag a bit but still clearly had heart and everything.
But as more time went on snd it became clear that there just... wasn't going to be the same level of quality my view of the pokemon franchise got more cynical. I think a lot of other people's did as well. Just. Shit. Idk.
Kalos had a lot of potential. I wish it got more time to cook.
Thank you 🙏🙏
My probably is that ORAS is that they don't let the route design shine. For example, after you get surf at Petalburg, you can then discover that there is a new shortcut to get back to Mauville through route 103, but the remakes simply teleport you. Like wtf.
The clear answer is: the release timetable of 2D games does not work with 3D games. Nintendo is milking the shit out of those games and we are enabling them by keeping buying them.
Commenting about you having a breakdown right before talking about Galar. Appreciate anyone giving a thorough breakdown of their grievances with the modern games not being as well made as the first 5 gens.
Something that I really liked about Kanto and, to a lesser extent, Johto (both for nostalgia regions and because you can actually visit the path leading to Indigo Plateau from the very beginning), is how close the start and end of the journey is. It really does give a sense of how much you've grown and how far you've travelled despite finding yourself right back where you started. Both games can be completed without fly in such a way that you inevitably return to where your journey started. The only other region where the Pokémon League is so close to where you start is Kalos just east of the first gym, and even then you never have to return home as it's a dead-end. Every other game puts the Pokémon League at the other end of the map; while that does give a sense of how far you've gone, there's no sense of coming full circle. There's something about your destination being so close physically but so far practically that makes Kanto and Johto feel better. Other regions, Johto and Kalos included, try to emulate this feeling with a mid-journey loop that returns you somewhat close to where you started, but it just doesn't quite have the satisfying feeling of making a full loop through the whole region and returning home just before heading to the very end.
Glad the new game got this right.
Yes Gen 1, 2 classics especially gen 1 putting the last gym. Close to your hometown meaning you passed indigo plateu on your just to come back ⬅️ .
The gibberish in the Village Bridge are actually real Japanese lyrics that translate to:
I am a geezer standing in the dusk, mesmerized by the gulls.(x4) Gazing fixedly into the blue sea, I bemoan with shed tears, as I yearn for the lovely gulls soaring above the blue harbour.
While I personally prefer to just hear it as random sounds its still a pretty cool detail that makes me appreciate that part of Unova even more
You’re forgetting the pre-color games, they did personality without color in Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver and Gold. Crystal is the first Game Boy Color game it is surreal to think about that looking back.
Gold, silver, and even yellow were released for Gameboy Color. It was just before the cartridges changed to the next iteration, so they were backwards compatible. They were designed to be played on the GBC, though.
@@isetmfriendsofire that is pretty cool. Thanks for the fact 😍
Johto might have a wack level curve, but man the region is still one of my favorites to go and play through because of how much content is just THERE to experience
I’m currently developing and building my own fan game, and this video was a very helpful case study on what I should be doing and what I need to be changing and preparing for! So thank you!
Good luck on your work and let us know how things go
Have you settled on a name for your game? I’d love to check it out whenever you’re able to release
If this is a pokemon fan game, I'm sure you know the drill by now but DO NOT announce it before you complete it. Pokemon Company will send you a C&D regardless, but at least if you complete it first, you'll have people who can play it before it's taken down.
Work hard, fren. Hope we get to play it some day.
You know it's bad when fangame devs try to do the opposite of what pkmn games do instead of replicating them 😭
@@TheFrostedfirefly from what I’ve seen they don’t issue them unless they are gaining a high popularity and fan base. Otherwise they should really be issuing a lot and it’s not a thing I see happening. I only use Reddit to post the small things that are out there and it’s nothing of strong evidence.
The saddest point in Galar for me was actually on the Route in front of Galar Mine 1. If you remember, you actually meet Sonia there, pointing towards a Factory belonging to Chairman Rose's Enterprise. But instead of maybe having us go there, there is a fence in front of the way there. Along with the TWO Occasions where we had some giant explosion just to have Leon go "Hohoho, I'll do it, you just go and get bored", this really showed there was great stuff planned, but could not be done cause of time restraints. Just makes me sad.
I really love Alola as a region, but I do think that they missed the chance and opportunity to really flesh out the region. There could have been so many cool routes or caves or even underwater areas that ultimately just didn't exist. Just thinking about using dive (like in oras) and being surrounded by coral reefs is just such a cool idea. I wish they took more time to flesh out the region and the environments more in terms of things to do and lore as well. Moon was my first game, but a few years later I played platinum and black and was just so surprised at all the things to do in each town and NPCs that have actually interesting dialogue. There's so much detail in those games that I think SM lacks. I think Alola has a lot of strong points in the characters, but the overall region's design was just lacking. Makes me wish that Gamefreak released a Pokemon Z and worked on SM for longer instead of rushing it out for Pokemon's 20th anniversary.
I remember playing through all the pixel era, from gen 3 to gen 5, all the main series (and remakes) and damn, it's so full of everything. Especially the gen 5 sequels, having so much content and lore, expanding on the cities and towns and everything else. The couple you mentioned living in a caravan? They're actually Zoroarks, and you meet the guy in the sequel. That is *nuts*. Not to mention that almost every place has like some small side quest or interaction.
Then I left the game for some time and went back with Sun and Moon, and while it was ok it wasn't like before. The music and the vibes were so spot on but I literally feel scammed because the ultra games feel like the actual game, while I was playing a glorified demo of some sorts.
After that I didn't really buy any other game, and just stay around for the fan content, competitive and anything but the games. I literally don't know what's happening at GameFreak or how everything works there but man, it's depressing to see this. I kinda wish they went back to 2D, because they seemed to know what they were doing back then.
Tbh I'm also kinda worried about gen 9 too. I feel like we're going to be stuck with this vicious circle of mediocrity
Great vid 🎉
One thing I think is really important to making a great region is to make it feel holistic. The region should feel like one whole coherent place with a distinct culture, climate, and feel. Kanto was modern and heavily urbanised with a lot of large cities and very few wild areas, while Johto was more traditional, with a lot of small towns and historical landmarks. Hoenn was a tropical area with volcanoes, deserts and sunny beaches, while Sinnoh was a colder climate, with mountains, marshes, and long stretches of snow.
A region doesn't need to have everything in order to be great - it's more important for it to be a singular coherent thing. Hoenn has a lot of unique areas, but they're all on theme - there's not a random snowy area just to have a snowy area.
The design of the region is really important to achieve this, but also are the Pokemon that you find in the region. Like Kanto has a lot of Pokémon created by technology or pollution (Grimer, Koffing, Porygon, Voltorb). Hoenn has a lot of water types and fire types, while also having barely any ice types - you have to go to one specific cave in one corner of the map in order to find any. Sinnoh is the inverse - a lot of ice types but almost no fire types. I know people complained about no fire types in Sinnoh, but to me it went a long way to making the region feel distinct and real - why would there be fire types in a cold mountain region?
I know a lot of people loved that you could catch so many Pokémon in Kalos, but for me that diversity lessened the experience. It made Kalos feel less like a real place and more like a zoo, with a designated area for every concievable climate and more Pokémon than you can keep track of shoved in. Unova had this problem too honestly - thinking about the random desert shoved between two modernised temperate cities. The natural endpoint of this "trying to shove everything in" mindset is the wild area - where all the Pokémon in the world are walking around places where it doesn't feel like they should live, and you can take three steps to go from a desert sandstorm to an icy blizzard, and back again.
Tldr - sometimes less things better
I feel like Unova is justified in trying to have a lot of very different climate zones, because it's based on the USA which is kinda like that
In Unova's defense, the reason for it is because it's based on the United States, which has very diverse climates within its borders. This also includes deserts between modernized cities such as with the Mojave Desert in Nevada, and other deserts within the borders of the country such as the Great Basin Desert, the Sonoran Desert, and the Chihuahuan Desert.
Good points overall but Hoenn had barely any Fire types either, just Torkoal and the Numel line. Second fewest Fire types after Sinnoh I’m pretty sure. Unless you’re counting the Slugma line in there.
@@anzaia2164 Unova is mostly based on the area around New York City, and not the entire US at once.
Still I can kinda understand the argument.
May I add that Floaroma Town in D/P/P is where you get the watering can, as well as daily berries (in case of you not replanting the berries you pick so you dont truly run out).
Not to mention it introduces Honey as a tool to catch rare Pokemon.
So that town does indeed have Content.
Wow! I happened across this video because of my pokemon splurge lately, but it was a very entertaining watch where even though it was a commentary, I felt engaged the whole time :) Really enjoyed the video!
IMO, Hoenn was for me one of the best ones on a routing perspective. I love how massive it is, and how much you have to explore between gym leaders, and the region being wide open once you get surf, with a ton of hidden places and locations, that's amazing.
I personally disliked a lot the routing on Black & White 1, but the one in B&W2 is incredible. It still has that fast phase of gym - route - gym - route that I didn't like, but it uses the better and much more interesting side lf the region, and after defeating Skyla, the gap between the next gym is massive, and going to gym 6 to gym 7 was one of my favorite experiences in a Pokémon game.
Hoenn is the best and yet to be topped imo.
@@dcta51 unova, sinnho and jhoto are all better than hoenn
@@milnnoroc5157 how
mm. it's for this reason that I just wish the current pokemon team was able to take their time with the games. having to cram out games on a yearly-release schedule, cross-developing on all these different mainline and side projects, has clearly had an impact on their approach to designing regions
Going through this made me realise just how much I remember from Unova. And it's not even the region I played in the most, that goes to Johto/Kanto with SSHG, then Unova, and at last Sinnoh. Yet when I think about Unova I instantly get flashbacks of each city and its unique perks, some of the people even stand out. The sportists, the 4 kids singing their folk song about the 2 legendary dragons, the rich family in the peaceful resort, the 2 dumbasses in the eletric cave who give you gold nuggets, the townsolfk playing instruments in the bridge city, that one girl who plays violin for the out of comission trains.
When I think of Unova, I don't remember a game I sunk over 300h of my life into, I remember a region and its people, because they were memorable.
Omg, the violin girl! I always forget about that little area but I really love it because there's just something so wholesome about a bunch of people who love trains just gathering together to appreciate their niche thing. Unova by far is the most alive region, it feels like things happen in it that have nothing to do with you. People go to work, they have hobbies, they vacation in Undella in the summer, but leave the city vacant and quiet all the rest of the year. You could end up never even seeing these two sides of Undella if you only played the game once in a month that's the off season, it's just a thing that happens in the background with or without you.
@@mori6434 or the first town in Black/White with drummer boy and piano girl.