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Greenlit: Kanto overuse

bobandbill

bobandbill

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The gist: an article that highlights the amount of exposure and focus gen 1 has gotten in the past years, and certainly to a greater extent over others.

Points to include (I may make a Pokemon General thread on the topic to get other people's input and ideas too):

- LGPE
- Kanto (the region) being in gens 1,2,3,4,7
- Reuse of Viridian Forest in Kalos
- Mega evolutions mostly Kanto, to the point of no gen 6 mons having mega evolutions in XY!
--- Especially for the Kanto Starters (and Charizard with two), yet only one for a Kalos Starter... a set of games later. Also, availability of Kanto starters in Kalos to begin with!
- All Alolan forms being Kanto Pokemon
- Focus on Kanto in Galarian and Gigantamax forms (Zigzagoon line the exception so far).

Some counterpoints e.g. SwSh not fully released yet so some asumptions there (if article happens before game release/leaks, I can update however), marketability and popularity, etc, But when one looks at the numbers e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/diu6s6/i_love_pokemon_i_really_do_but_since_ive_been/ ...

Thoughts? Catchy article title ideas too? :V
 
Rivvon

Rivvon

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Yes yes and yes. It is definitely an article worth making due to how prevalent the issue still is after all this time. I'd propose adding a fun extra section: the idea that the gen 1 pandering was "justified" in Alola due to it being the 20th anniversary of gen 1, but in the year 2019 there continues to be Kanto overpandering even though it is the gen 2 20th anniversary year!
 
gimmepie

gimmepie

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Not a daily staffer these days but couldn't not comment in support of this. I'd love to see an investigation into this, maybe a comparison of what Game Freak thinks we want compared to what we actually want.
 
Avara

Avara

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+1 from me as well, and honestly IMO you're halfway there with the title already, maybe something like "The Overuse Of Kanto"? It's something that's bothered a lot of people, myself included. Rivvon made a good point about it being kinda justified for Gen I's 20th anniversary, but yeah, it is disappointing that Gen I Pokemon still seem to be getting the majority of the spotlight.
 
Eleanor

Eleanor

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Not a Daily contributor, but this is a good topic to bring up! What about having a small comparison with Generation 5, which is probably the set of games with the least references to Gen 1 and tried to act as a fresh restart - but is now itself a nostalgic generation for some thanks to (among other things) well made characters like N?
Keep up the great work ^^
 
bobandbill

bobandbill

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Dragon said:
Yeah this is definitely a discussion worth having too - I approve.

How will you format this?
Click to expand...
Brief intro, and then probably go from gen to gen. I might as well include all of then, just briefly talking about the FRLG remake being a 10th anniversary thing (also ties to Rivvon's suggestion), gen 4 won't have too much beyond some events and Kanto being in HGSS of course, BW won't have much; then we'll have gens 6-8 with way more examples which would further highlight how much this has happened of late. Then a conclusion.

Rivvon said:
Yes yes and yes. It is definitely an article worth making due to how prevalent the issue still is after all this time. I'd propose adding a fun extra section: the idea that the gen 1 pandering was "justified" in Alola due to it being the 20th anniversary of gen 1, but in the year 2019 there continues to be Kanto overpandering even though it is the gen 2 20th anniversary year!
Click to expand...
Makes sense to do for me!
Avara said:
+1 from me as well, and honestly IMO you're halfway there with the title already, maybe something like "The Overuse Of Kanto"? It's something that's bothered a lot of people, myself included. Rivvon made a good point about it being kinda justified for Gen I's 20th anniversary, but yeah, it is disappointing that Gen I Pokemon still seem to be getting the majority of the spotlight.
Click to expand...
The Overuse of Kanto makes sense for me, I'll go with that for now.
thedarkdragon11 said:
I think it's also good to mention the Pikachu forms (Cosplay, Ash Hat, Partner), specie-exclusive Z-moves, and Yellow remake all to glorify Gen. 1...
Click to expand...
Good point on the Pikachu hats, something that has also plagued GO! I'll include that, it had slipped my mind before.
Cyaloom said:
Not a Daily contributor, but this is a good topic to bring up! What about having a small comparison with Generation 5, which is probably the set of games with the least references to Gen 1 and tried to act as a fresh restart - but is now itself a nostalgic generation for some thanks to (among other things) well made characters like N?
Keep up the great work ^^
Click to expand...
That makes sense to do. Gen 5 pokes are curious in that a lot do have parallels, e.g. roggenrola being the 'Geodude', then Zubat/Woobat, etc. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Soaring Sid

Soaring Sid

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I think everything is covered:p This is a good idea, but the Gen 8 games aren't out yet, so we don't know whether there will be more references to Gen 1.
One of the things to be noticed is that a specific set of Pokemon from Gen 1 have got better treatment than many others,as Pokemon like Rhydon, Nidoran and Staryu lines have not got as much attention as Pokemon like Meowth, Charizard and Pikachu. Pikachu might get further treatment as it is the mascot, but Charizard is just one starter of the three in Kanto, yet it gets more buffs than the other two. Venusaur and Blastoise might get G-max forms, but 'then, Charizatd got 2 megas. Yare Yare Daze. Butterfree is a unique situation, but I don't see other Kanto Pokemon getting G-max. Maybe the other two starters and Mewtwo, that's it.
 
Last edited:

Henny4315

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So, I agree with you pretty much that Kanto has been shown far too many times, but in gen 2 and 4 at least it wasn't like the only region. In gen 2 it was an add-on to Johto which was really cool (literally the only original game with two regions), and Heart Gold and Soul Silver would have been a disappointing remake if Kanto wasn't added. It would be the same if the original game had much more content than the remake. That being said, maybe it would've been cooler if a totally new region was used instead of Kanto in 2 and 4, though I think it's understandable since Kanto was new when gen 2 came along that Kanto was added in as the second region. Honestly, I wouldn't complain about Kanto in Johto games.

That being said, Let's Go is a bit disappointing imo, since it was just Kanto, not much of a great story imo, and it wasn't much I guess? Gosh, if instead of Let's Go they released a Diamond and Pearl remake (that looks similar to sword and shield) as the first Pokemon Switch game, that would've been so much better tbh. They're not even continuing to release more Lets Go games. It was literally just for Kanto. :P

In my opinion it's weird how gold and silver get remade one, ruby and sapphire remade one, diamond and pearl remade zero times, black and white remade zero times, and Red and Blue/Green get remade two times (three if you count the graphical update in hgss' kanto).
 
Venia Silente

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In G2 it was more than an "add-on" to Johto. It was the postgame region so literally half of the game, even more relevant Johto NPCs such as Gym leaders didn't even have Johto Pokémon in their lineups but had Kanto Pokémon instead. So Kanto was about 66% of the whole game, unfortunately.

You know, you could title this article "KANTOOOOOOOO" for extra punch!
 
bobandbill

bobandbill

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Henny4315 said:
So, I agree with you pretty much that Kanto has been shown far too many times, but in gen 2 and 4 at least it wasn't like the only region. In gen 2 it was an add-on to Johto which was really cool (literally the only original game with two regions), and Heart Gold and Soul Silver would have been a disappointing remake if Kanto wasn't added. It would be the same if the original game had much more content than the remake. That being said, maybe it would've been cooler if a totally new region was used instead of Kanto in 2 and 4, though I think it's understandable since Kanto was new when gen 2 came along that Kanto was added in as the second region. Honestly, I wouldn't complain about Kanto in Johto games.

That being said, Let's Go is a bit disappointing imo, since it was just Kanto, not much of a great story imo, and it wasn't much I guess? Gosh, if instead of Let's Go they released a Diamond and Pearl remake (that looks similar to sword and shield) as the first Pokemon Switch game, that would've been so much better tbh. They're not even continuing to release more Lets Go games. It was literally just for Kanto. :P

In my opinion it's weird how gold and silver get remade one, ruby and sapphire remade one, diamond and pearl remade zero times, black and white remade zero times, and Red and Blue/Green get remade two times (three if you count the graphical update in hgss' kanto).
Click to expand...
Yes, I do agree that in the Johto games Kanto were fine, downsizing n GSC aside.

Probably a bit too early for us to say no LG games, despite what Masuda said on the topic recently. It's standard for companies to say no plans yet when their next game is about to release.
Venia Silente said:
In G2 it was more than an "add-on" to Johto. It was the postgame region so literally half of the game, even more relevant Johto NPCs such as Gym leaders didn't even have Johto Pokémon in their lineups but had Kanto Pokémon instead. So Kanto was about 66% of the whole game, unfortunately.

You know, you could title this article "KANTOOOOOOOO" for extra punch!
Click to expand...
KANTOOOOOO

Not sure I'd agree with Kanto being 2/3 of the game, at least in region and content. Kanto was stripped down. True on Johto Pokemon not having that much representation in Gyms, however.

---

Article's nearly done, on that note - just finishing up proofing!
 
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