News: Sun and Moon region revealed: The Alola Region

A thing I am noticing with the nature of the Alola region could also be the connecting theme for the starters. Alola is a region that's abundant in land, sea and air - some speculators on Serebii Forums seem to be picking up that the starter theme appears to be land (Litten), air (Rowlet) and sea (Popplio).

I know land/air/sea was a theme done with the Hoenn mascot legendaries, but given Hoenn was a tropical region in a sense like Alola is, it's like this same pattern is happening again but this time to the starters.

colours said:

If this air/land/sea theory holds up, then it seems to be unlikely that Rowlet would be Grass/Ground as a final evolution, and it's probably likely that Popplio would retain its water typing throughout, but of course this is just wild speculation, if anything.

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A wild SPECULATION appeared!

I agree, I think that Rowlet will keep its Grass/Flying type. One of the starters that I personally would prefer to have a secondary Ground typing would be Popplio since it seems to be both a sea and land dweller like the past Water starters. I can't quite envision Litten to have a Ground typing, but I think anything is possible. Since Litten seems to be based on a cat that's nocturnal, I can see it getting a Dark type.

I honestly can't see a starter Pokemon changing its typing for the final evolution. Grass/Flying would be most suitable for Rowlet throughout its three stage evolutionary line imo.

I'm liking the Hawaii theme, though I hope we aren't in the water 50% of the time, not if every two seconds we're gonna run into water Pokemon. :|

Hopefully there's plenty of land and air and not just water, haha.

Snow it always cool to see, but it doesn't seem like a region that will have much of it.

Also, the characters aren't as chibi in this one, and that's a nice change.

Satoshi said:

I'm liking the Hawaii theme, though I hope we aren't in the water 50% of the time, not if every two seconds we're gonna run into water Pokemon. :|

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I'll never forget IGN's OR/AS review... 7.8 "too much water". Just imagine if they did that again for this game due to the large body of water.

It's funny they said too much water when the same game changed how surf worked.

In ORAS Surf was change to have less battle per tiles also you could get different Surf speed depending on certain Pokemons.

colours said:

Should people really even care about the water? IMO, that's just being nitpicky...I really loved the Hoenn water routes because they were fun to travel through, and that was that. Criticizing the region because of the water routes seems dumb to me, but whatever.

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It's because people think Alola will be like Hoenn, you know... a tropical region. The internet is never perfect, as people always say. I hated Hoenn's water routes as well but at least ORAS made them more tolerable.

IGN are renowned for giving terrible reviews and having bias towards particular franchises. If they introduce alternate methods of transport across the water routes then nobody would complain. In my opinion though I think a tropical based Region can't avoid having an abundance of water routes and quite frankly I have no issues with them.

Considering since ORAS all future surfing routes will feel less of a chore. Since now you get less encounter per tiles and you can use certain pokemon to go faster on water.

colours said:

Hopefully there'll be more options as far as Pokemon to surf on, too! While the addition of Wailmer, Kyogre, and Sharpedo was certainly pretty impressive, I want Gamefreak to expand beyond that and hopefully give some Gen VII newcomers a chance to carry the player around swifty across water.

It would be a stretch to ask for every water type's model to be a available (plus Surf can be learned by even non-water types, so there's that...), but a good handful more would be nice.

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I can see Lotad's line, Wailord, Chinchou's line, Manaphy, Phione, the water starters lines (at least the final evolution) being added. I imagine that Swampert's surfing will be fast to go along with it's dex entry of being as fast as a ski boat or something like that.

Another thing I'm interested in is seeing the different species of Bird Pokemon. Hawaii is home to plenty of different birds, hopefully this will be an opportunity to introduce a few more. We usually just get the one Regional bird per generation, it would be nice to see more of a variety this time rather than having just one or two?

4 mains islands, a smaller one on the left and a huge white floating building. Could it be the Elite 4 location? With an underwater victory road for more cancer?

On the left island we can see a huge monument in the mountain, probably where the legendaries will be encountered. There is also a huge tree, and a dark rocky place with a geyser. The tiny island left to it doesn't seems to have big things on it, but there is a dock to access it.

On the right one we can see a town in the snow, so yes gen 7 will probably have some ice pokémons around! There is also a big town behind, with a lighthouse. And what is that castle which looks like a big box? There are also other smaller villages, and a facility on the right of the mountain, I guess something with the villainous team will happen here.

Top right one has volcanoes, you know where to go for fire pokémons... Also there is another island behind the clouds, can't tell if it's only a decorative one or maybe some mirage island like in ORAS with the eon flute. I like the waterfalls place too, looks funny to visit. There is also a big town here, and that stripped grassy area looks like a gold club :p

And the top left one, it's the island we already saw, where we select the starter.

I don't think we'll be able to surf between those islands, so the boats are probably going to be the way to go. Maybe we will drive them? Something like Zelda Phantom Hourglass or Wind Waker?

I would say that there will still be a few water routes. But at least it isn't cover in water routes. We were right about snow being on the mountains.

This is far more reasonably sized. The first island seems to have 3 towns. It looks like the big island has about 6 towns to iteself. It looks like there may be about 15 towns/cities on all of the islands.

You still can't really see the routes very well, but I think that is probably because it is islands.

Still no word on the location of the region though. I am going to assume it is south of Kalos and Unova though.

Four islands... that seems quite accurate to real-life Hawaii.

That first island we were revealed with in the last trailer is the one on the top-right in the artwork there. If this is to go by, we could be traveling in a plane or on a boat if the islands are far from each other, which is a notable contrast with Hoenn having its smaller islands fairly close to the main island.

That artificial island screams Elite Four so hard.

It looks like each Island has a port so that would support the use of travelling by boat. By the looks of things we have different climates for islands as expected with the island furthest to the right having an icy mountain whilst the third island has a volcanic area.

I was hoping that it'll have 8 islands.

I think the top right island is supposed to be the collection of island in Hawaii.

And then the one to the far left is probably the 2 islands that are kinda far away from the other islands, which is Forbidden Island.

So technically all 8 Islands are there, just together. I didn't think the smaller islands would be islands to themselves.

We also see this in the trailer, if this map shows the actual archipel organization then surf routes could be something.

The first island (the one we saw in the previous trailer) was the tiniest one... Also the top right island hidden in the clouds isn't visible here, or maybe it's a secret thing. That big cloud is weird, why would they put it on the map? Only to fill empty space?

Huh, Oahu is suppose to be the third biggest island. Obviously GF took some liberty with the region's inspiration.