Region Speculation/Discussion Thread

[Wulava]

I would like it if there were less restrictions in accessing areas.
I'd like them to impose risks to the player.

Someone already brought up this idea before about getting lost on a route with high-leveled Pokemon and skilled trainers while you are just on your Lv. 10's. This should be enough to point you back and find a different route without obviously saying that you're not supposed to be there yet. If you managed to get through and reached a town/city, then that would quite an accomplishment. Although pretty sure they will still restrict you on going further.

Also, it would be cool to have alternate routes in reaching areas again. Fuchsia for example.
You have three options: (a) Celadon west exit to Cycling Road; (b) Lavender south exit to Routes 12-14; or (c) Vermilion east exit to Route 11, then south via Routes 12-14 again.

They did the same with reaching Humilau City where you can either choose to go via the Marine Tube or pass by the sea routes on the east, but the other being just a bridge with no challenge at all.

[Colegoco]

I would like it if there were less restrictions in accessing areas.
I'd like them to impose risks to the player.

Someone already brought up this idea before about getting lost on a route with high-leveled Pokemon and skilled trainers while you are just on your Lv. 10's. This should be enough to point you back and find a different route without obviously saying that you're not supposed to be there yet. If you managed to get through and reached a town/city, then that would quite an accomplishment. Although pretty sure they will still restrict you on going further.

Also, it would be cool to have alternate routes in reaching areas again. Fuchsia for example.
You have three options: (a) Celadon west exit to Cycling Road; (b) Lavender south exit to Routes 12-14; or (c) Vermilion east exit to Route 11, then south via Routes 12-14 again.

They did the same with reaching Humilau City where you can either choose to go via the Marine Tube or pass by the sea routes on the east, but the other being just a bridge with no challenge at all.

I've been re-playing FireRed, and realized it isn't totally linear. If I'd wanted, I could have gone to Saffron, beat Giovanni and Sabrina, then gone to Lavender Town if I'd wanted, and I could have battle Blaine without beating Koga or Sabrina. I like the options, BUT, there is something to the linearity of the game where you get a bit lost. Without it being somewhat linear, there's continuity problems, etc... still, one of my problems was that I had to battle Plasma before going somewhere, and there was NO option, it was now you go here then here, don't backtrack. I like also, when you need to backtrack, especially before Fly is available, and you have a new move that gives you access to more areas.

Also, could you get to Himalu over the ocean? I didn't realize that.

[Bolt the Cat]

I would like it if there were less restrictions in accessing areas.
I'd like them to impose risks to the player.

Someone already brought up this idea before about getting lost on a route with high-leveled Pokemon and skilled trainers while you are just on your Lv. 10's. This should be enough to point you back and find a different route without obviously saying that you're not supposed to be there yet. If you managed to get through and reached a town/city, then that would quite an accomplishment. Although pretty sure they will still restrict you on going further.

I said it before when they first posted that, and I'll say it again, if they're going to do something like that, they need to give you a fair warning that you're dealing with high level Pokemon, it's too punishing if you wander into a battle where the opposing Pokemon is so much stronger than you that the battle is unwinnable.

Also, that would encourage people to blow through the game by trading over Lv. 100 legendaries or something, which defeats the purpose of catching and training your own.

They did the same with reaching Humilau City where you can either choose to go via the Marine Tube or pass by the sea routes on the east, but the other being just a bridge with no challenge at all.

Really? I thought you needed to go to Humilau first before you could open up Seaside Cave. I'll have to try it when I get that far.

and I could have battle Blaine without beating Koga or Sabrina.

That's false, actually, you would need to beat Koga so you could use Surf to go to Cinnibar, but aside from that, basically. Pretty much after Vermillion, you can progress through Kanto in just about any way you want, as long as:

-You do the Team Rocket events (Rocket Hideout, Pokemon Tower, Silph Co.) in order.
-You clear Pokemon Tower before you go to Fuschia
-You clear Silph Co. before you take on the Saffron City Gym
-You defeat Koga before you go to Cinnibar
-You defeat every other Kanto gym before you take on the Viridian City Gym
-You collect all 8 gym badges before you go to Victory Road

Aside from that, you can do whatever you want, you could fight Lt. Surge as your 7th gym leader, you could put off Silph Co. until you have every gym badge except the Marsh and Earth badges, anything you can think of that fulfills the above restrictions.

[Colegoco]

I said it before when they first posted that, and I'll say it again, if they're going to do something like that, they need to give you a fair warning that you're dealing with high level Pokemon, it's too punishing if you wander into a battle where the opposing Pokemon is so much stronger than you that the battle is unwinnable.

Also, that would encourage people to blow through the game by trading over Lv. 100 legendaries or something, which defeats the purpose of catching and training your own.



Really? I thought you needed to go to Humilau first before you could open up Seaside Cave. I'll have to try it when I get that far.



That's false, actually, you would need to beat Koga so you could use Surf to go to Cinnibar, but aside from that, basically. Pretty much after Vermillion, you can progress through Kanto in just about any way you want, as long as:

-You do the Team Rocket events (Rocket Hideout, Pokemon Tower, Silph Co.) in order.
-You clear Pokemon Tower before you go to Fuschia
-You clear Silph Co. before you take on the Saffron City Gym
-You defeat Koga before you go to Cinnibar
-You defeat every other Kanto gym before you take on the Viridian City Gym
-You collect all 8 gym badges before you go to Victory Road

Aside from that, you can do whatever you want, you could fight Lt. Surge as your 7th gym leader, you could put off Silph Co. until you have every gym badge except the Marsh and Earth badges, anything you can think of that fulfills the above restrictions.

Yeah, I always trade over my pokemon after the 7th or 8th gym. Because they're better.

I think you do...

Yeah, Kanto's much more free, Sinnoh, I remember you could swap out Wake and Fantina if at least Platinum, Hoenn was linear, but not so linear that you didn't explore new areas, like going back and finding the Magma Hideout, underwater areas, etc...

[Bolt the Cat]

Sinnoh, I remember you could swap out Wake and Fantina if at least Platinum,

Sinnoh gives you a bit of leeway primarily when you're exploring the eastern half, you can choose between fighting Maylene and Crasher Wake (and in Platinum, Fantina), plus there's several optional paths and quite a bit of backtracking (you have to go back to Jubilife at least twice, you have two ways to get to Pastoria City, you can choose between Rt. 211 E or W after getting Strength, Rt. 206 (the area below Cycling Road), Wayward Cave are optional, Lost Tower or Iron Island are optional (depending on which one had Strength), Fuego Ironworks was optional, Solaceon Ruins is optional in DP, Rt. 219-221 are optional).

Hoenn was linear, but not so linear that you didn't explore new areas, like going back and finding the Magma Hideout, underwater areas, etc...

Hoenn had less choices as to how to progress through the region, but a few of the gym leaders were skippable (Brawly and Winona) until the very end, there was a lot more backtracking (returning to Rt. 104 to sail to Dewford, returning to Rt. 111 to ascend Mt. Chimney, returning to Petalburg to challenge Norman, returning to Slateport to witness Team Magma/Aqua stealing Cap. Stern's submarine, returning to Jagged Pass to infiltrate Magma Hideout in Emerald), and a ton of optional areas (Rt. 105-108 were optional aside from having to sail past them on Mr. Briney's ship, Abandoned Ship , the east side of Rt. 103 , Rt. 111's desert, Rt. 115, Rt. 123, Rt. 125, Shoal Cave, Rt. 129-131 and Sky Pillar (RS only), Pacifidlog Town, Rt. 132-134, Sealed Chamber, all of those were optional).

Anyway, both regions had great regional design, some of the best this series has had yet. I'm hoping this game will follow suit.

[rocky505]

Please, no more seasons, it's really annoying having to wait 3 months just to access a particular area. I'd rather they use weather to do the same thing, that way it could follow weekly patterns instead of monthly ones. There's a lot of neat things they could do with that, too. Sunshine would cause the water level to lower so you can access low lying paths. Rain could raise the water so you can Surf to higher paths, as well as adding puddles everywhere. Snow would function like Winter, creating snow piles in the area and freezing over waterways. Sandstorms could cause sand to pile up similar to Autumn in Rt. 20. And like with seasons, different Pokemon could appear based on the weather, you could see more Fire and Grass types when it's sunny, more Water and Electric types when it's raining, more Ice types when it's snowing, and more Rock and Ground types during sandstorms.

It's not hard to change the date on your DS/3DS, doing that means you wouldn't wait 3 months.

[cascadethewarrior]

Please, no more seasons, it's really annoying having to wait 3 months just to access a particular area. I'd rather they use weather to do the same thing, that way it could follow weekly patterns instead of monthly ones. There's a lot of neat things they could do with that, too. Sunshine would cause the water level to lower so you can access low lying paths. Rain could raise the water so you can Surf to higher paths, as well as adding puddles everywhere. Snow would function like Winter, creating snow piles in the area and freezing over waterways. Sandstorms could cause sand to pile up similar to Autumn in Rt. 20. And like with seasons, different Pokemon could appear based on the weather, you could see more Fire and Grass types when it's sunny, more Water and Electric types when it's raining, more Ice types when it's snowing, and more Rock and Ground types during sandstorms.

Each season only lasts for 1 month...

But I kinda have to agree. I don't know why they made the seasons 1 month long. The most they should have did is the following season every 2 weeks and even that is a long time for a game. Also they should let us choose what season to start in when we begin a new game.

[Shine]

I don't think it's right that we have to start as the default summer

Very sure B/W/B2/W2 didn't default the season to Summer.

I'm not sure about B/W, but B2/W2 were just happens to be released on a Summer month (October).
If you change the date on your DS before starting a new save file, you can start the game at Autumn, Spring, or even Winter.

[cascadethewarrior]

Very sure B/W/B2/W2 didn't default the season to Summer.

I'm not sure about B/W, but B2/W2 were just happens to be released on a Summer month (October).
If you change the date on your DS before starting a new save file, you can start the game at Autumn, Spring, or even Winter.

Yeah I realized that, that's why I edited it out.

[Wulava]

Really? I thought you needed to go to Humilau first before you could open up Seaside Cave. I'll have to try it when I get that far.

Both Seaside Cave and Marine Tube open up after beating Drayden.

[BBtheASH]

Each season only lasts for 1 month...

But I kinda have to agree. I don't know why they made the seasons 1 month long. The most they should have did is the following season every 2 weeks and even that is a long time for a game. Also they should let us choose what season to start in when we begin a new game.

Honestly, I like it. Though I agree that the seasons take a bit long to change, for a video game. I think they should just change it so that the seasons change once a week. That way we would enjoy all four seasons in 1 month. Seems reasonable right?

[Solacen]

An unlikely alternative i could see is them moving the day / night / seasons control away from real time to an ingame time. So say several hours of real time is a day in game. That way not only could they bring back certain species only appearing at night (and not having to wait all day to have a chance at them) but they could have seasons change after a set amount of ingame days rather then every real month.

[pkmntraineramit]

An unlikely alternative i could see is them moving the day / night / seasons control away from real time to an ingame time. So say several hours of real time is a day in game. That way not only could they bring back certain species only appearing at night (and not having to wait all day to have a chance at them) but they could have seasons change after a set amount of ingame days rather then every real month.

That is a terrible idea. You should feel ashamed. Real time functionality is way better, it's convienient, i'm not waiting 5 hours of gameplay to catch me a hoothoot.

[Maya The Awesome]

Yo dawg, you double posted. Delete that for me, bro?

---

An ingame clock system would be horrible. Imagine a time when you're used to 'it's night IRL it's night IGL', and then you're like "Oh man, four hours of gameplay to get to night?" and you have to go to bed in 2 hours, busy all next the next day, etc... life is pain...

[Aurath8]

An ingame clock system would be horrible. Imagine a time when you're used to 'it's night IRL it's night IGL', and then you're like "Oh man, four hours of gameplay to get to night?" and you have to go to bed in 2 hours, busy all next the next day, etc... life is pain...

You go to a bed and sleep.
It advances in-game time to the next time period, be it morning, day, evening or night.
???
Profit.

Of course you'd have to return to your trainer's house or find a random bed and sleep in it, but it'd be nice regardless. The day/night cycle would have to be quite long though maybe 8 hours for dawn to dawn. I play pokemon for hours at a time and it'd feel weird going through several days as a result.

An alternative would be basing the in-game clock on the system clock but being able to essentially advance the clock by sleeping(the date stays the same though. This only stays for each save and gets reset when you go back in, but it'd be more convenient than changing the in-game clock as that ruins daily events for 24 hours.

[Bolt the Cat]

It's not hard to change the date on your DS/3DS, doing that means you wouldn't wait 3 months.

I try not to mess with the system's calendar, that tends to lead to complications. Besides, if you're desperate enough to do something like that, that's usually a good sign that whatever event you're trying to make happen takes too long.

Each season only lasts for 1 month...

Yes, I know, but if you miss that particular month by a day, you have to wait another 3 for it to happen again.

The most they should have did is the following season every 2 weeks and even that is a long time for a game. Also they should let us choose what season to start in when we begin a new game.

Honestly, I like it. Though I agree that the seasons take a bit long to change, for a video game. I think they should just change it so that the seasons change once a week. That way we would enjoy all four seasons in 1 month. Seems reasonable right?

IDK, that seems a bit unrealistic and volatile if the seasons change so quickly. It makes more sense with weather, plus there's more they can do with weather.

Very sure B/W/B2/W2 didn't default the season to Summer.

I'm not sure about B/W, but B2/W2 were just happens to be released on a Summer month (October).
If you change the date on your DS before starting a new save file, you can start the game at Autumn, Spring, or even Winter.

BW started in Spring in Japan and Autumn internationally, no one who started the game on its release date started in Summer. With BW2, however, everyone did, because the Japanese and international release dates were 4 months apart. In fact, I bet that's part of the reason they shortened the localization gap to 4 months then, so that everyone would start at the same point in the seasonal cycle.

[sflytal]

I think it'd be pretty cool if the region represented all of Europe. With Paris being the mega city of the region (i.e., Celadon, Goldenrod, Castelia... the others i can't remember.) I would love to see some German or Italian influence.

[BBtheASH]

That is a terrible idea. You should feel ashamed. Real time functionality is way better, it's convienient, i'm not waiting 5 hours of gameplay to catch me a hoothoot.

Precisely. I mean c'mon, I would hate to go back to the original days of gold and silver -.-

[Maya The Awesome]

I would hate to go back to the original days of gold and silver -.-

Your argument is invalid. I thought there wasn't a day/night cycle until the advent of the GBA? (Or DS?)

[Bolt the Cat]

Your argument is invalid. I thought there wasn't a day/night cycle until the advent of the GBA? (Or DS?)

Wrong. It existed in GSC, was removed in 3rd gen, then brought back for 4th.

[The Eleventh]

Your argument is invalid. I thought there wasn't a day/night cycle until the advent of the GBA? (Or DS?)

Gold and Silver introduced a time system, actually, hence Espeon and Umbreon and numerous other time-based events.

Wrong. It existed in GSC, was removed in 3rd gen, then brought back for 4th.

It wasn't entirely removed in Gen III. It was absent in FRLG, but RSE still recorded time, though they didn't exactly feature night and day.

[Zorgaz]

I think it'd be pretty cool if the region represented all of Europe. With Paris being the mega city of the region (i.e., Celadon, Goldenrod, Castelia... the others i can't remember.) I would love to see some German or Italian influence.

Yeah would be cool to have Scandinavia in it.

[fitzy909]

Going off of the time cycle subject... i hope that the region has other European influence. I know it's majorly based off france, but i'd love to see some italian or british culture mixed in. You know leaning tower of Piza, big BEn, etc.

[Bolt the Cat]

It wasn't entirely removed in Gen III. It was absent in FRLG, but RSE still recorded time, though they didn't exactly feature night and day.

I know, but he was specifically asking about Day/Night, which in fact was removed. 3rd gen only had time.

[Maya The Awesome]

*Shrug* Well I guess that's what I get for not doing my research.

I'm think of a region that has France, Germany, Poland and the UK, with Southern Ireland (Republic of Ireland) in it for kicks. Maybe the capitals and other largest two cities of each country could be the towns, since the region has to be condensed, so we have London, Paris, Berlin (maybe some subtle Nazi references, I dunno), Warsaw, Dublin and (possibly) Munich and Wales. So I'm hoping for a nice big region with plenty of Post-story stuff to do considering the amount of potential cities in France alone. So that brings down the question of the gyms. When we have this much potential, I want more potential in more ingame aspects that will affect us. I want this order of gym:
1st: Dark
2nd: Ice
3rd: Normal (if not E4, then Rock)
4th: Flying
5th: Psychic
6th: Dragon
7th: Fire
8th: Electric

I know most of you will hate on the Electric gym, but imagine if we had a Lt. Surge like puzzle, and an electrician as the Gym Leader.