This is the first video from this series where I’ve actually started seeing a Pokemon reboot as a viable option. At first I was thinking that there’s already too much to the series to be able to start over from basically scratch. But now thinking of it as starting over but still bringing back old pokemon/characters with new story/background makes a slot more sense than what I was initially thinking. If Game Freak ever does consider a reboot, I do still think they’d have to do it relatively soon. Even if they get rid of most of the Pokemon to start fresh for the reboot, I think most people would want every existing Pokemon to be reintroduced eventually. So they’ll probably have to at least roughly plan out future games for the rate they want to reintroduce old Pokemon at.
haha cheers! Yeah I quite agree that players would expect a return of basically all Pokemon over time. It would need to be planned out but I wonder how much room there would be for iteration on the design of old Pokemon. Could some of them come back in refreshing ways? (...I definitely have an episode about this down the line...)
Y’know, with generation 10 coming in about a year and a half from now, I’d bet if they’re considering a full-blown reboot then that’s when they’ll want to do it.
@@dragoknight589 I agree, it seems suspichious that they are adding lantinamerican spanish in Legends ZA, it makes me think gen 10 will be a reeboot.
This is such an amazing concept! It always made me a bit annoyed that the Pokédex would be blank at the beginning of every adventure. Now with Legends Arceus, it doesn't make sense that we began from scratch if research was already completed hundreds of years ago. I absolutely love this so much. Building observations over generations would help make the dex feel more complete and interactive! I normally skip through the dex entry upon catching a Pokemon. It wasn't until Arceus where I found myself returning to the dex to complete the tasks. I just found your videos and they are so very exciting to listen to. I hope more people find your videos and listen to your ideas--hopefully Gamefreak is thinking of moving in this direction because the formula (pre-Arceus) is getting very stale and makes zero sense.
The Legends mechanics does make sense it’s a newer game obviously they were thinking of it when gen 1 came out…stop seeing it from a perspective that it’s not and focus on just enjoying the games period.
These are fantastic ideas. You could even order these entries to reveal hidden locations or evolution methods. Sharpedos are sometimes known to dive deeper into waters around seafloor caverns or ship wrecks trying to find trapped prey. Panchams are troublesome, known to spend a lot of time in groups with misbehaving pokemon
Further to the idea of repeated encounters. It would be an awesome easter egg if custom shines would be an option "A uniquely coloured Chansey! What did you say it looked like?" You would then enter a screen to adjust colours, maybe even add dots, stripes textures etc.
This series is a really cool concept, that has really neat concepts within. Although I find the Pokeversity idea to be extremely unlikely to happen, it would be a really neat tool for world building, and maybe even gameplay! Really love to see more! Now if you'll excuse me, Imma watch part 1 and 2.
As someone whose main draw to the series is creating a living dex and filling out the regional dex for each game, I think your ideas here would really be awesome! I think the modern games maybe put too much emphasis on battling and forget the roots that made this series so great to begin with (love competitive/showdown despite that!)
Feels like Pokemon is in a weird middle position. Between having cross-game continuity like you describe, and the more abstract thematic continuity like Final Fantasy (where the world is virtually always rebooted).
I totally know what you mean. For me, it comes from the fact that the story of being a new trainer that becomes champion over and over somewhat feels like a reboot every time... although I think Final Fantasy does a much better job of diverse story telling :P
I would love it if you the player were the protagonist still. In your first game in the series it sets up this University account, and when you move to a new region, it's you yourself going but you aren't allowed to bring any of your old Pokemon so you have to start from scratch. The professor knows about you but to everyone else you're a brand new trainer so you don't even need to change that much narratively. Being the "Champion" in Kanto or wherever holds no clout in Hoenn since the Pokemon that brought you the victory aren't here. Then when you're registering league victory you have the champion or the professor congratulate you on being the champion in 2 regions. This entire thing could make you feel like you're working towards a larger goal and may only need two or three lines of text added or replaced.
As a kid I wished you kept your trainer ID in all of the games so if you traded your Pokémon you might stumble upon them one day and recognize it’s them. Like wonder trades and used save files for example
Interesting fact with eggs - now with Scarlet/Violet, we do now see that eggs come from out of nowhere. Like, I was watching them! No shenanigans happened yet I had so many eggs in that basket!
Hey, this is really cool! I've always thought that the Pokémon world has the start of some really cool worldbuilding - especially in the anime. It's great to see this worldbuilding expanded on here in this video - thanks for sharing this with the world!
"Birds and the beedrills" LOL! I feel like pokemon are trying to drop seeds here and there with talks of universities and multiple entries for pokemon in the pokedex but try to stay formulaic instead of running for a big change. Pokemon entries sometimes vary from region to region, so there can be an argument that if you play multiple games you can stock up on the entries to get a reward, like if you collected a pikachu in all 8 regions you can get a special dynamax. Very over the top idea lol. The introduction of Legends Arceus, and outsourcing the remakes to the company ILCA gives me hope that we will get games with different themes and possibly something that can tickle the brain in the future. I loved this video mate, it was very thought provoking! I'm interested in seeing more of these! (Discovered you through reddit! :D)
Although I did think about how a Pokemon could have more entries discovered in different regions (on top of having multiple entries), I'll admit, I did not think of how players could be rewarded for doing so. Something for the longtime fan base. I like that food for thought! I too have hope that Pokemon gets to be placed in the hands of other companies more often, however, I do feel that the remakes might be too closely guarded to receive anything too innovative.
@@RadioactiveMagicGames I've subbed and will definitely check out your content! not to do too much self promo but jump in on my streams sometimes we can have some convos there as well on the chat :)
Oh, since nobody mentioned it, it is impossible to transfer pokemon up from Gen 2 to Gen 3, which is why they dropped the slogan “Gotta catch ‘em all!” (There's three official timelines. Gens 1&2 games are in a timeline to themselves and Gen 6 [X&Y & ORAS] are also in their own separate timeline. Then everything else from FRLG to SS are in the last timeline.) That aside, I’m not actually as excited about the idea of the inter-connective games centralized around a university the second time around. With the advertising for gen 9 around and folks talking with such enthusiasm over some of the new features, I felt like gen 9, and retroactively gens 7 & 8, didn’t feel like they were part of the same generational lineage. From gens 2-6, it felt like each generation’s hallmark was adding upon the systems of the previous games, like the expanding concentric circles of a tree trunk. Each generation recontextualized each pokemon as a unit, regardless of if you’re an old fan awaiting a new entry or a new fan digging through the bargain bin for an older second game. Gens 7-9 are doing a lot to experiment with the game’s formula/structure. They’re experimenting with what resembles a mainline game. On one hand, that’s pretty great for the franchise, since I’ve had a long held belief that the side games are the games that use the world best. On the other hand, I don't actually find any of the new mainline games to be interesting or worthwhile to pickup, because it actually feels *more* like the new regions are effectively aesthetics (or skins) that are repackaging the same game, because the core gameplay hasn't changed. They're nice skins, to be fair, with a lot more detail and integration between new species and their region. New pokemon, new items, new moves, and new movelists will technically always recontextualize every pokemon... but, if that's all, I can just play a fan game too! (...and hey, that's not necessarily a bad thing either!) This makes me wonder if a reboot like this will retread too much old ground and flatten the game experience by turning every region into a skin pasted over the same game or will it actually preserve a region into future relevancy because of the interconnectivity.
I love the data collection entry idea.replace gyms with class credits or class projects. Maybe give the player a present back story like; you are extremely gifted for you age, you advanced far beyond your peers. You are going to university at age(give a range 12-17?)
I’m writing a fic rn actually. The main character is a lab technician to the region’s most prominent professor. She doesn’t have a formal education, but she was raised by the professor, and having grown up in the lab, she just has to work her way up. She conducts her own research of course, but it’s more merit based and passed down…
i found this video looking for a video reorganizing the pokedex for example moving pichu to be before pikachu this is one of those videos that may or may not exist that i desperately need to watch im really really really sad that i havent been able to find it
I am very interested though a good portion of questions are answered through other media such as side games, the anime, and even the card game. All contribute to the perception and understanding of the pokemon world. So limiting yourself to just the games gives you painfully little to work with as the games are ultimately the basis upon which everything else is built. For example we know thanks to the anime that there is an international pokemon league association which is responsible for the creation, maintenance, and takedown of all the leagues and gyms across the world, and that there is an international pokemon database that only the professors can access and that data from the pokedex is transferred to so that it can be verified. Despite the mystery as to how Professors are elected it is pretty clear that being a professor is seen as one of the topmost, respected positions anyone can obtain with the power and authority they wield being incredibly scary. Same for Champions and Frontier Brains. Other international forces we know are the international police and the ranger association, all of which most likely work in tandem with each other. I believe a reboot should also take all that into account as well.
Absolutely! Although I limit myself for the sake of the 'game design exercise', a real attempt at a reboot would be poorly approached if all this stuff was not taken into account and brought forward for the new era. Especially with the anime being at the forefront of what is enjoyed by the fanbase. Great points here!
My problem with Sword and Shield not having every Pokemon was my favorite (Chesnaught) being made completely unavailable to me. ORAS and Sun/Moon at least let me import a Chespin into them, but they straight up didn't exist in Gen 8.
Drawing from this video and the comments already here, I have a few thoughts: It's concerning how many international organisations exist in the Pokemon world. Though, realistically speaking, that might actually play to the favour of the soft worldbuilding. Pokemon trainers are, seemingly, a small part of the population, with most people working actual jobs, and maybe having Pokemon working alongside them. There's international police and healthcare (and seemingly no need for insurance as there are no medical bills, seemingly[though who knows, maybe the bills are ticking up at the house you left a long time ago]), other commenters mentioned the Intl. Pokemon League for competitive battling, etc. This all raises a question: Pokemon Trainers have so many unique services to just them. If (true), else (what?). People enjoy battling these creatures competitively and are managed by international organisations. Are there local governing bodies that simply only deal with human crime and management? There's a gigantic bureaucracy of Pokemon Police, Nurses, Professors, Gym Leaders and Champions. Who's on top? Given a region is supposedly around the size of Great Britain or Spain, they're assumedly mapped to one country per region. That gives us like 170 regions for geopolitics, more if large countries like America get broken into actually realistic countries. Again, for a world that's theoretically this big (and also mostly without war [probably because they hit M.A.D. a lot faster because of Hyper Beam]) whoever is sitting atop these huge organisations of the Intl. Pokemon League, InterPokePol, Doctors without Regions, the Pokemon University and Silph. Co (the only manufacturer of Pokeballs, seemingly) have massive political power! The League is capable of massively altering the flow of tourism on a whim by simply establishing a new circuit, the Intl. Police have to be limited to engaging only with rogue trainers because otherwise there would be hundreds of incidents of police brutality, an organisation that offers free healthcare to Pokemon (and presumably trainers, we never see any other medical service for trainers except maybe one hospital in a region somewhere) is already integral to the entire operation (NOT TO MENTION the anime has scenes where it's seen that they might have an Ecosystem Rehabilitation wing) and of course the leading educational institution of the University as you have proposed is EASILY the most powerful political force because that's how trainers learn to utilise PKMN better, how Nurses learn to help injured PKMN, and frankly Professors seem to be terrifyingly calm in front of a Champion's entire team of massively powerful PKMN as they register into the Hall of Fame. It's frankly amazing how all of these institutions are not just the World Government.
What if in an alternate timeline, every Gen took place on the whole planet the size of Kanto? And they always had the same 256 Pokemon? But only overrated ones from every Gen of our current timeline(like Greninja, Gardevoir, Sceptile, Lopunny, Arceus)? Also, what if every sequel from Gen 2 onwards always had three year timeskips? And only introduced new forms of existing mons like Regional/Ancestral Variants and Mega Evolutions(caused by Trainers always trading and releasing extra mons in-between timeskips). Along with new protagonists who'd always add new Dex entries like you suggested. While genders, breeding, Eggs, and day/night cycles were already a thing in Gen 1. Trading compatibility from Gens 2-3. Also, what if the Pokemon League was just invented in Gen 1 lorewise and Red/Leaf became the world's first Champion? Followed by Gold/Kris, who'd become the second Champion after beating Red/Leaf. And the cycle repeats itself every sequel. Imagine growing up in that parallel universe. How'd the Pokemon franchise have looked like from our altered memories and perspectives? How well would Pokemon have recieved? And how'd this whole "Gotta Catch Em All" have been like?
I think another reason why "Gotta Catch em all" was dropped was because of memory space due to not being able to fit all the pokemon into one cartridge (at least on the handhelds).
I mean, you COULD still have every Pokémon during each generation. It took some time to finish rereleasing Gen I + II Mon since you couldn't trade up (officially), but you could have all of the Pokémon released up to that generation in a single game file. Until Sword and Shield, where save data is on the user's system instead of the cart anyways.
It's kind of a side point to what you're talking about, but everything you said makes me appreciate how elegant making the protagonist a child was, especially in the earlier titles. While, like you said, kids aren't stupid, they do show comparatively less interest in the inner workings of the world around us, like, at school, we never questioned what qualified our teachers to teach us things, it was just their job. Making a child the lens through which we see the world facilitates that useful narrative vagueness you talked about to such a high degree. Where did the professor get their qualifications? A kid's not gonna care, it's an adult asking them to go on a fun adventure around the region. How does the Pokemon League manage anything about the gym challenge? Who cares, just beat them all then you can fight the champion like you saw on TV. Why can't we read the books on this shelf? Well, what child is going to sit and read a book in the middle of an adventure where they're making friends with magical animals? I also like to think it helps to explain some of the abstraction you do when representing entire worlds in video games, especially on the GameBoy. The classic thing of the player's mom almost never having a bedroom in her own house, when in reality she obviously does, we're just not shown it because it's not important to the child we're seeing the world through. Pewter City only having like 6 buildings or only being able to enter 9 of the 30ish buildings in Saffron City can be explained in a similar way, they're the only places important to the child we're playing as, with the inaccessible buildings in Saffron conveying the atmosphere of more built up cities. You can also excuse this type of stuff with the inherent suspension of disbelief you're expected to approach it with, but tying it to the vessel through which we experience the world makes things more coherent to me. I've seen a lot of fan ideas for Pokemon games with older player characters, but I feel like a lot of the presentation of even the newer games would fall apart without a child's perspective. And that's not to say I don't think Pokemon games should approach more complex themes, messages or characterization, they should, I just think it could be somewhat jarring if the world and characters approached an adult with the same vagueness they deliver information to the child protagonists. It'd be interesting to know how much of that was intended and how much is me making connections that weren't put there, but it is nice that a decision that was probably "the game's for kids, so the protagonist is a kid" wraps up so many things so nicely. Regardless, I really liked a lot of your ideas, and am totally adding some of it to my headcannon! Big love to your team, your whole channel's a great watch!
Thank you so much for this insight! I think you have hit upon a really important note here. What if this was done in game design intentionally for future Pokemon games? Right now, yeah, probably just "this game is for children so we shall make the protagonist a child" and the world-building ends there. But imagine if all this thought of how the world works, the university, the professors, the history of people and Pokemon, and THEN they intentionally approached that world from the view of a child. All those details are there and consistent but slanted towards what only the main character would care to pay attention to. I think that would create a very rich world indeed.
The idea of the player themselves being head of research for the pokedex is so awesome it gave me chills 😎 😍
daww thank you! :)
This is the first video from this series where I’ve actually started seeing a Pokemon reboot as a viable option. At first I was thinking that there’s already too much to the series to be able to start over from basically scratch.
But now thinking of it as starting over but still bringing back old pokemon/characters with new story/background makes a slot more sense than what I was initially thinking.
If Game Freak ever does consider a reboot, I do still think they’d have to do it relatively soon. Even if they get rid of most of the Pokemon to start fresh for the reboot, I think most people would want every existing Pokemon to be reintroduced eventually. So they’ll probably have to at least roughly plan out future games for the rate they want to reintroduce old Pokemon at.
haha cheers! Yeah I quite agree that players would expect a return of basically all Pokemon over time. It would need to be planned out but I wonder how much room there would be for iteration on the design of old Pokemon. Could some of them come back in refreshing ways? (...I definitely have an episode about this down the line...)
Y’know, with generation 10 coming in about a year and a half from now, I’d bet if they’re considering a full-blown reboot then that’s when they’ll want to do it.
@@dragoknight589 I agree, it seems suspichious that they are adding lantinamerican spanish in Legends ZA, it makes me think gen 10 will be a reeboot.
This is such an amazing concept! It always made me a bit annoyed that the Pokédex would be blank at the beginning of every adventure. Now with Legends Arceus, it doesn't make sense that we began from scratch if research was already completed hundreds of years ago. I absolutely love this so much. Building observations over generations would help make the dex feel more complete and interactive! I normally skip through the dex entry upon catching a Pokemon. It wasn't until Arceus where I found myself returning to the dex to complete the tasks. I just found your videos and they are so very exciting to listen to. I hope more people find your videos and listen to your ideas--hopefully Gamefreak is thinking of moving in this direction because the formula (pre-Arceus) is getting very stale and makes zero sense.
Thank you so much! ^_^
The Legends mechanics does make sense it’s a newer game obviously they were thinking of it when gen 1 came out…stop seeing it from a perspective that it’s not and focus on just enjoying the games period.
These are fantastic ideas. You could even order these entries to reveal hidden locations or evolution methods.
Sharpedos are sometimes known to dive deeper into waters around seafloor caverns or ship wrecks trying to find trapped prey.
Panchams are troublesome, known to spend a lot of time in groups with misbehaving pokemon
Further to the idea of repeated encounters. It would be an awesome easter egg if custom shines would be an option
"A uniquely coloured Chansey! What did you say it looked like?" You would then enter a screen to adjust colours, maybe even add dots, stripes textures etc.
This series is a really cool concept, that has really neat concepts within. Although I find the Pokeversity idea to be extremely unlikely to happen, it would be a really neat tool for world building, and maybe even gameplay! Really love to see more! Now if you'll excuse me, Imma watch part 1 and 2.
As someone whose main draw to the series is creating a living dex and filling out the regional dex for each game, I think your ideas here would really be awesome! I think the modern games maybe put too much emphasis on battling and forget the roots that made this series so great to begin with (love competitive/showdown despite that!)
Feels like Pokemon is in a weird middle position. Between having cross-game continuity like you describe, and the more abstract thematic continuity like Final Fantasy (where the world is virtually always rebooted).
I totally know what you mean. For me, it comes from the fact that the story of being a new trainer that becomes champion over and over somewhat feels like a reboot every time... although I think Final Fantasy does a much better job of diverse story telling :P
I would love it if you the player were the protagonist still. In your first game in the series it sets up this University account, and when you move to a new region, it's you yourself going but you aren't allowed to bring any of your old Pokemon so you have to start from scratch. The professor knows about you but to everyone else you're a brand new trainer so you don't even need to change that much narratively.
Being the "Champion" in Kanto or wherever holds no clout in Hoenn since the Pokemon that brought you the victory aren't here. Then when you're registering league victory you have the champion or the professor congratulate you on being the champion in 2 regions.
This entire thing could make you feel like you're working towards a larger goal and may only need two or three lines of text added or replaced.
As a kid I wished you kept your trainer ID in all of the games so if you traded your Pokémon you might stumble upon them one day and recognize it’s them. Like wonder trades and used save files for example
Interesting fact with eggs - now with Scarlet/Violet, we do now see that eggs come from out of nowhere. Like, I was watching them! No shenanigans happened yet I had so many eggs in that basket!
Hey, this is really cool! I've always thought that the Pokémon world has the start of some really cool worldbuilding - especially in the anime. It's great to see this worldbuilding expanded on here in this video - thanks for sharing this with the world!
"Birds and the beedrills" LOL! I feel like pokemon are trying to drop seeds here and there with talks of universities and multiple entries for pokemon in the pokedex but try to stay formulaic instead of running for a big change. Pokemon entries sometimes vary from region to region, so there can be an argument that if you play multiple games you can stock up on the entries to get a reward, like if you collected a pikachu in all 8 regions you can get a special dynamax. Very over the top idea lol. The introduction of Legends Arceus, and outsourcing the remakes to the company ILCA gives me hope that we will get games with different themes and possibly something that can tickle the brain in the future. I loved this video mate, it was very thought provoking! I'm interested in seeing more of these! (Discovered you through reddit! :D)
Although I did think about how a Pokemon could have more entries discovered in different regions (on top of having multiple entries), I'll admit, I did not think of how players could be rewarded for doing so. Something for the longtime fan base. I like that food for thought!
I too have hope that Pokemon gets to be placed in the hands of other companies more often, however, I do feel that the remakes might be too closely guarded to receive anything too innovative.
also, glad you enjoyed it! Feel free to check out the rest of the channel and share them around! (I would super appreciate it :P )
@@RadioactiveMagicGames I've subbed and will definitely check out your content! not to do too much self promo but jump in on my streams sometimes we can have some convos there as well on the chat :)
Oh, since nobody mentioned it, it is impossible to transfer pokemon up from Gen 2 to Gen 3, which is why they dropped the slogan “Gotta catch ‘em all!” (There's three official timelines. Gens 1&2 games are in a timeline to themselves and Gen 6 [X&Y & ORAS] are also in their own separate timeline. Then everything else from FRLG to SS are in the last timeline.)
That aside, I’m not actually as excited about the idea of the inter-connective games centralized around a university the second time around. With the advertising for gen 9 around and folks talking with such enthusiasm over some of the new features, I felt like gen 9, and retroactively gens 7 & 8, didn’t feel like they were part of the same generational lineage.
From gens 2-6, it felt like each generation’s hallmark was adding upon the systems of the previous games, like the expanding concentric circles of a tree trunk. Each generation recontextualized each pokemon as a unit, regardless of if you’re an old fan awaiting a new entry or a new fan digging through the bargain bin for an older second game.
Gens 7-9 are doing a lot to experiment with the game’s formula/structure. They’re experimenting with what resembles a mainline game. On one hand, that’s pretty great for the franchise, since I’ve had a long held belief that the side games are the games that use the world best. On the other hand,
I don't actually find any of the new mainline games to be interesting or worthwhile to pickup, because it actually feels *more* like the new regions are effectively aesthetics (or skins) that are repackaging the same game, because the core gameplay hasn't changed. They're nice skins, to be fair, with a lot more detail and integration between new species and their region. New pokemon, new items, new moves, and new movelists will technically always recontextualize every pokemon... but, if that's all, I can just play a fan game too! (...and hey, that's not necessarily a bad thing either!)
This makes me wonder if a reboot like this will retread too much old ground and flatten the game experience by turning every region into a skin pasted over the same game or will it actually preserve a region into future relevancy because of the interconnectivity.
I love the data collection entry idea.replace gyms with class credits or class projects.
Maybe give the player a present back story like; you are extremely gifted for you age, you advanced far beyond your peers. You are going to university at age(give a range 12-17?)
I’m writing a fic rn actually. The main character is a lab technician to the region’s most prominent professor. She doesn’t have a formal education, but she was raised by the professor, and having grown up in the lab, she just has to work her way up. She conducts her own research of course, but it’s more merit based and passed down…
i found this video looking for a video reorganizing the pokedex
for example moving pichu to be before pikachu
this is one of those videos that may or may not exist that i desperately need to watch
im really really really sad that i havent been able to find it
Id say make the Pokedex alot more like Bulbapedia.
On the topic of Pokemon eggs, to be fair, we still don't know how eels reproduce. Like, at all
0:07 i dont have any game shown on screen for all of them i have the other version
im playing pokemon lets go pikachu as im typing this
I am very interested though a good portion of questions are answered through other media such as side games, the anime, and even the card game. All contribute to the perception and understanding of the pokemon world. So limiting yourself to just the games gives you painfully little to work with as the games are ultimately the basis upon which everything else is built. For example we know thanks to the anime that there is an international pokemon league association which is responsible for the creation, maintenance, and takedown of all the leagues and gyms across the world, and that there is an international pokemon database that only the professors can access and that data from the pokedex is transferred to so that it can be verified. Despite the mystery as to how Professors are elected it is pretty clear that being a professor is seen as one of the topmost, respected positions anyone can obtain with the power and authority they wield being incredibly scary. Same for Champions and Frontier Brains. Other international forces we know are the international police and the ranger association, all of which most likely work in tandem with each other. I believe a reboot should also take all that into account as well.
Absolutely! Although I limit myself for the sake of the 'game design exercise', a real attempt at a reboot would be poorly approached if all this stuff was not taken into account and brought forward for the new era. Especially with the anime being at the forefront of what is enjoyed by the fanbase. Great points here!
My problem with Sword and Shield not having every Pokemon was my favorite (Chesnaught) being made completely unavailable to me. ORAS and Sun/Moon at least let me import a Chespin into them, but they straight up didn't exist in Gen 8.
Drawing from this video and the comments already here, I have a few thoughts:
It's concerning how many international organisations exist in the Pokemon world. Though, realistically speaking, that might actually play to the favour of the soft worldbuilding. Pokemon trainers are, seemingly, a small part of the population, with most people working actual jobs, and maybe having Pokemon working alongside them. There's international police and healthcare (and seemingly no need for insurance as there are no medical bills, seemingly[though who knows, maybe the bills are ticking up at the house you left a long time ago]), other commenters mentioned the Intl. Pokemon League for competitive battling, etc.
This all raises a question: Pokemon Trainers have so many unique services to just them. If (true), else (what?). People enjoy battling these creatures competitively and are managed by international organisations. Are there local governing bodies that simply only deal with human crime and management? There's a gigantic bureaucracy of Pokemon Police, Nurses, Professors, Gym Leaders and Champions. Who's on top? Given a region is supposedly around the size of Great Britain or Spain, they're assumedly mapped to one country per region. That gives us like 170 regions for geopolitics, more if large countries like America get broken into actually realistic countries. Again, for a world that's theoretically this big (and also mostly without war [probably because they hit M.A.D. a lot faster because of Hyper Beam]) whoever is sitting atop these huge organisations of the Intl. Pokemon League, InterPokePol, Doctors without Regions, the Pokemon University and Silph. Co (the only manufacturer of Pokeballs, seemingly) have massive political power! The League is capable of massively altering the flow of tourism on a whim by simply establishing a new circuit, the Intl. Police have to be limited to engaging only with rogue trainers because otherwise there would be hundreds of incidents of police brutality, an organisation that offers free healthcare to Pokemon (and presumably trainers, we never see any other medical service for trainers except maybe one hospital in a region somewhere) is already integral to the entire operation (NOT TO MENTION the anime has scenes where it's seen that they might have an Ecosystem Rehabilitation wing) and of course the leading educational institution of the University as you have proposed is EASILY the most powerful political force because that's how trainers learn to utilise PKMN better, how Nurses learn to help injured PKMN, and frankly Professors seem to be terrifyingly calm in front of a Champion's entire team of massively powerful PKMN as they register into the Hall of Fame.
It's frankly amazing how all of these institutions are not just the World Government.
What if in an alternate timeline, every Gen took place on the whole planet the size of Kanto? And they always had the same 256 Pokemon? But only overrated ones from every Gen of our current timeline(like Greninja, Gardevoir, Sceptile, Lopunny, Arceus)?
Also, what if every sequel from Gen 2 onwards always had three year timeskips? And only introduced new forms of existing mons like Regional/Ancestral Variants and Mega Evolutions(caused by Trainers always trading and releasing extra mons in-between timeskips). Along with new protagonists who'd always add new Dex entries like you suggested. While genders, breeding, Eggs, and day/night cycles were already a thing in Gen 1. Trading compatibility from Gens 2-3.
Also, what if the Pokemon League was just invented in Gen 1 lorewise and Red/Leaf became the world's first Champion? Followed by Gold/Kris, who'd become the second Champion after beating Red/Leaf. And the cycle repeats itself every sequel.
Imagine growing up in that parallel universe. How'd the Pokemon franchise have looked like from our altered memories and perspectives? How well would Pokemon have recieved? And how'd this whole "Gotta Catch Em All" have been like?
I think another reason why "Gotta Catch em all" was dropped was because of memory space due to not being able to fit all the pokemon into one cartridge (at least on the handhelds).
I mean, you COULD still have every Pokémon during each generation. It took some time to finish rereleasing Gen I + II Mon since you couldn't trade up (officially), but you could have all of the Pokémon released up to that generation in a single game file. Until Sword and Shield, where save data is on the user's system instead of the cart anyways.
Man, now I'm sad this isn't real!
It's kind of a side point to what you're talking about, but everything you said makes me appreciate how elegant making the protagonist a child was, especially in the earlier titles. While, like you said, kids aren't stupid, they do show comparatively less interest in the inner workings of the world around us, like, at school, we never questioned what qualified our teachers to teach us things, it was just their job. Making a child the lens through which we see the world facilitates that useful narrative vagueness you talked about to such a high degree. Where did the professor get their qualifications? A kid's not gonna care, it's an adult asking them to go on a fun adventure around the region. How does the Pokemon League manage anything about the gym challenge? Who cares, just beat them all then you can fight the champion like you saw on TV. Why can't we read the books on this shelf? Well, what child is going to sit and read a book in the middle of an adventure where they're making friends with magical animals?
I also like to think it helps to explain some of the abstraction you do when representing entire worlds in video games, especially on the GameBoy. The classic thing of the player's mom almost never having a bedroom in her own house, when in reality she obviously does, we're just not shown it because it's not important to the child we're seeing the world through. Pewter City only having like 6 buildings or only being able to enter 9 of the 30ish buildings in Saffron City can be explained in a similar way, they're the only places important to the child we're playing as, with the inaccessible buildings in Saffron conveying the atmosphere of more built up cities. You can also excuse this type of stuff with the inherent suspension of disbelief you're expected to approach it with, but tying it to the vessel through which we experience the world makes things more coherent to me.
I've seen a lot of fan ideas for Pokemon games with older player characters, but I feel like a lot of the presentation of even the newer games would fall apart without a child's perspective. And that's not to say I don't think Pokemon games should approach more complex themes, messages or characterization, they should, I just think it could be somewhat jarring if the world and characters approached an adult with the same vagueness they deliver information to the child protagonists.
It'd be interesting to know how much of that was intended and how much is me making connections that weren't put there, but it is nice that a decision that was probably "the game's for kids, so the protagonist is a kid" wraps up so many things so nicely. Regardless, I really liked a lot of your ideas, and am totally adding some of it to my headcannon! Big love to your team, your whole channel's a great watch!
Thank you so much for this insight! I think you have hit upon a really important note here. What if this was done in game design intentionally for future Pokemon games? Right now, yeah, probably just "this game is for children so we shall make the protagonist a child" and the world-building ends there. But imagine if all this thought of how the world works, the university, the professors, the history of people and Pokemon, and THEN they intentionally approached that world from the view of a child. All those details are there and consistent but slanted towards what only the main character would care to pay attention to. I think that would create a very rich world indeed.
I don’t like anything you just said because…
It’s too good! Now I am upset this game is not real lol. Anyway great video!
Soul therapy!!! Boost your stats > P r o m o s m.