Theory: The Orange Archipelago=The Alola Region

[Bloodless]

I know another post has been made mentioning the Pokemon forms but I've been thinking about this for a while and have more to say about the similarities between the regions. Here's what we know about the Alolan region.

A chain of islands:

In a tropical setting:

Pokemon transport:

Four island gaurdians:

Alternate forms of pokemon we already know, including alternate types:

Strange crystals/orbs

Four 'gym' challenges:

To quote the SM website "To complete the island challenge, young trial-goers must overcome the trials in store on each of the four islands. These trials are not limited to battling with Pokémon. They take a variety of forms, such as finding items or completing tests of knowledge. You will not be able to accomplish them with ordinary methods". "The final trial on each island is called the grand trial. It is a Pokémon battle against the kahuna who leads that island. If a trial-goer succeeds in clearing this grand trial, he or she will be publicly recognized as having cleared all of the island's trials and can move on to the next island."

Now I'm not completely up to date on SM news and I have not watched the Orange Island Adventures in many years so there may be more similarities I'm not aware of, if anyone can think of any please post them here. It seems to me that just maybe this is intentional, releasing an Orange Islands game would simply not be feasible as far as game sales go. It's been 16/17 years since the series aired and on top of that the only new Pokemon seen in this series were Johto Pokemon and Kanto forms. It would be skipped over as it has nothing new to add to the series, obviously GF wouldn't want this. My theory is they've taken old ideas but added new areas, features, characters, Pokemon, etc. in order to maximise sales.

This is the first Pokemon game I've been genuinely excited for since Pokemon Gold, I've played most of the main series games since (other than XY) but they never held any joy for me, I don't think I've completed even one of them after Gen II, but SM genuinely seems like a game I'll enjoy and that's because it's the closest we'll get to an Orange Islands game.

What do you guys think? Is it intentional or just a coincidence?

 

[Hands]

Puka was in Kanto (Seafoam Islands), not the Orange Islands.

The rest of the stuff kinda makes sense. I can see the Orange Islands serving as a base idea that became Alola.

 

[Bloodless]

Thanks for the correction Hands. For some reason Pi Kahuna was listed in list of series 2 episodes I was looking at, I thought that didn't sound right based on the Beach house in RBY.

 

[Hands]

Thanks for the correction Hands. For some reason Pi Kahuna was listed in list of series 2 episodes I was looking at, I thought that didn't sound right based on the Beach house in RBY.

Easy mistake. Probably doesn't help that the Alolan Raichu is clearly based on Puka.

 

[MidnightSkye]

Now maybe people will stop calling season 2 non canon.

 

[Palamon]

Well, if this theory proves true, I would like to see an Alolan Crystal Onix that becomes an Ice type, lol.

 

[Itcheeee]

I've always wanted an Orange Islands game, even featured in FR/LG would of been amazing. But I think this is as close as we are going to get. Makes me look forward to Sun and Moon even more though :D

 

[Hikamaru]

As Angie said, it's more of a coincidence than intentional. But it is very interesting how much we've known about Alola does have similarities to the Orange Islands like how there's regional differences for some Pokemon, and the Orange Islands' Gym Leaders doing challenges very similar to Alola's Island Trials.

 

[Lunar]

There's obviously a few similarities between the Orange Islands and Alola which is cool but Game Freak have never created an island based region before so we can't jump to conclusions that the first one they make is in fact the Orange Islands. It's a fun theory though and there is obviously similarities between the two but I just think GF wanted to create a different style of region and change up the formula whilst doing it.

 

[Flowerchild]

Yeah I can see the similarities. But I agree that it probably wasn't an intentional base theme - it's just easy to go back to the same well of ideas on accident. There are certainly numerous differences as well.