Regional Pokemon Characterisics

I've always been curious to see what certain Pokemon would look like if they lived in different environments. Perhaps they would come across as different species of the same type (like wolves and painted dogs, for example), or having different coloration to match their environments.

I think we have this with Shellos, florges, and Vivillion, but expanding this variability would make for a much more interesting Pokemon world.

Like, Geodude could have different minerals in its body depending on which mountain it originated and might have small chunks of crystal or trace metals, or we could have different designs for Magikarp resembling designer Koi fish which could be reflected in Gyarados as well. Even reef variations of Corsola depending on which shore it was caught.

Something like this could be applied to most Pokemon, and we could have more interesting variation between Pokemon than one small change based on gender.

I agree. That would make Pokemon more unique and make it a lot easier for people that don't have the luck of catching a shiny.

I like the idea of a pure white Ghost type like Haunter or Gengar. Instead of being malicious and dark, they would be spirits of pure light and wisdom.

Others that could work would be a Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan - Specially bred by religious monks in orange garb and heightened senses found in temples

This topic actually brings up something that I've been interested in for a very long time with the pokemon games which is, the concept behind how a particular region affects its indigenous pokemon population, based on things such as overall environment, climate, and human population.

So, Hoenn actually has some really interesting biological factors to it that are unlike any other region within the entirety of the pokemon franchise. Ignoring for a moment that Hoenn is obviously famous for it's incredibly large amount of water routes that interconnect the islands, it is actually the only region in the entire game series that has: 1. The largest amount of pokemon that never evolve. 2. The lowest human population. 3. The brightest and largest variety of color schemes of any single pokemon population.

It has been explained in multiple games, that Pokemon evolve as their environment changes, which is simply a form of adaptation, and most often the erratic changes in their environment has been influenced by humans developing human friendly environments. The regions that have the largest human populations combined with the largest expansion of human developed territory, actually have pokemon populations that evolve multiple times in a row combined with duller color schemes.
The more influence humans have in pokemon environments, the more likely a pokemon will adapt to the drastic changes within a human environment which would demand a pokemon's necessity to evolve and adapt within that environment. Versus an area that is comparable to Hoenn, which is definitely inhabited by human beings, but has much less influence and progress across the overall continent, allowing indigenous pokemon to survive as is and have no necessity to change and evolve.

This was beautifully designed and put together mostly in the third generation of the game series, but to see it expanded on would be even more wonderful. As this topic explains, seeing pokemon that would change drastically in size, color, or other varying characteristics based on their location within the pokemon world, would not only be really cool and fun, but would also actually make a ton of sense as presented in what we know about the games series as a whole. I would even go as far as to say (and this will probably be an incredibly unpopular opinion) that there should be pokemon that can evolve only in certain regions but can not evolve in other regions, which would help define that the region is so vastly different than the other regions to the point of where specific pokemon are either comfortable as is and have no reason to evolve or change, versus other regions where evolution is completely necessary to the pokemon's survival within that area, or the region is so vastly different and/or unique, that certain pokemon only evolve into certain forms when having been raised on that particular region. I always personally believed that "Sinnoh" is the only region that has the proper environments for "Glaceon" and "Leafeon" to thrive, and it is the only region that had the right type of environment and human science progression which allowed many generation one pokemon to further evolve.

That's a really interesting suggestion, and I suppose it makes sense. In more populated regions there also are more pokemon resembling items, if I recall. Hoenn does not have many (only Gulpin and Shuppet lines) while others seem to have many more.

It always bothered me that they were so close to doing this with Arbok (pictured below), but ended up dropping the concept after the Sinnoh region. It's little things like this that I've always thought could add to the series, giving certain Pokemon an even greater sense of individuality compared to what they currently have. As it is, only a few species even get gender differences, with most Pokemon looking identical no matter where in the world that you find them, which definitely shouldn't be the case. At least the anime has been good with some regional differences of Pokemon in the past (the Orange Islands stuff comes immediately to mind), but having it in the games would be a big step, too.

It's things like those faces on Arbok's body that would make perfect sense. Why would these Pokemon living in different forests, fields, streams, mountains, and whatever have the exact same markings?