How prominent should older Pokemon be in newer generations?

[PoryKid575]

Pokemon has seemed to bounce around quite a bit on how prominent older Pokemon are in generations after their release (eg: during Gen 2, old Kanto Pokemon came close to overshadowing the new Johto mons at times; while Gen 5 almost entirely ignored anything not introduced in Black/White). Do you think that older Pokemon should still be prominently featured/get attention from GF in newer generations? Or should the focus be mostly/entirely on the new Pokemon introduced?

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Personally, I lean more towards focusing on the new Pokemon. Older Pokemon should still get some love as well (and not get cut out of newer gens), but as far as I'm concerned, they had their time in the sun with their original generation, and should mostly be put aside once its over. I feel like some generations get so caught up in pandering to older fans (looking at you, Kalos) that the new Pokemon introduced outside of the starters and legendaries get ignored in favor of the same 5-10 old favorites. New generations should be primarily for new Pokemon in my opinion, with not much more then the occasional new form or dex entry for anything not introduced in them.

 

[Devalue]

Goes with 67% newer Pokemon, 33% older Pokemon, in terms of focus. Wants to see the newer Pokemon shine. Helps to see and face the older Pokemon too. Provides you with something familiar to compare the new Pokemon against.

Views Sinnoh as a decent example. Always picked a new Pokemon for the gym leader's ace (with two of them being evolutions of old Pokemon). Fielded a good mix of older and newer Pokemon for the rest of the team. Admittedly wishes for fewer evolutions of old Pokemon. Chose some Pokemon that needed it, at least. Gave them a new chance to strut their stuff.

 

[ReKoil]

Given that they seem to be doubling down on regional dexes for the base game being 400 Pokemon... asking for even half of that to be new mons seems unrealistic atm.
Gen 5 was the one that added the most new mons at... 156, Which is still a ways away from the 200 new Pokemon you'd need just to have half. Though the amount of new Pokemon has been going up since gen 6, I doubt they'll be topping 156 anytime soon.

Add to that DLC's... Isle of Armor had a dex of 211, Crown Tundra 210, Kitakami 200, Blueberry 243. So basically 210-220ish per DLC on average.

So for there to be a majority/focus on new Pokemon they'd have to do say 210 new Pokemon at least in the base game and say 120ish per DLC. So 400+ new Pokemon in the next generation. With the current peak being at 156 that seems very unlikely to happen.

Sure they could downsize the dex, but that'd be a demerit imo. The variety of Pokemon available for your team in Galar and Paldea are easily one of the best things about those games. If anything I'd rather see the regional dex increase from 400 to say 500 or 600, excluding DLC.

Feasibility aside... do I mind more than half the regional dex being older Pokemon? Nope. They just need to cycle them better and not always shove stuff like Charizard into every game they can. If the new gimmick isn't for every Pokemon in the new region it should be solely for the newer Pokemon though imo. Like, the only gen 6 Mega is Diancie which is a mythical you might not even have if you miss it. The favoritism for that sort of stuff needs to shift.

Imo, ideally the split would be fairly even with half the dex being new Pokemon and half being older Pokemon that get cycled in a way that every Pokemon can have a game to call home on a single console. Unfortunately that is pretty unrealistic atm.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I'd prefer that each new region have 1/3rd new Pokemon to 2/3rds old Pokemon in its regional dex, and as many of those old Pokemon as possible should be Pokemon that were not in the previous game's regional dex. However, most new Pokemon should be more common than most of the old ones. The old Pokemon should primarily be rarer Pokemon only found in certain routes, and the new ones should be common and catchable all over the place.

Where possible, leave out Pokemon that were common in previous games, or make them much harder to find; like how RSE left Pikachu as a rare encounter in the Safari Zone. Having universally-common Pokemon like Magikarp chips away at regional identity more than any reduction in new Pokemon does.

 

[Corveone]

I think all new Pokémon is a bad idea, we've seen that in B&W and I didn't like it.

An all new mon Dex forces devs to at least include 150 or more new Pokémon, which is too much for a single gen at this point. So many new Pokémon will most likely result in more questionable designs, and also Pokémon that feel like fillers or blatant "replacements" of older ones.

It also doesn't feel natural. New regions should feature a variety of new Pokémon combined with some older faces from previous gens. Just because a Pokémon already existed doesn't mean that everyone already used it. Arcanine exists since Gen 1, and I didn't have one on any of my teams until Black 2, so it was essentially "new" for me.

Of course, the returning Pokémon should ideally vary between games. There's no need to have Scyther or Lucario in three consecutive games just because they're popular.

 

[PageEmp]

I too am in the club of people wanting there to be more focus on the new mons. In general, I think they should make it that the newly introduced stuff are the more common mons you would see in any new game and most of the older mons are the rarer bonuses.

I don't recall many times where they did the opposite of making the new mons rarer than the old ones, but the only time I wasn't impressed by them doing that would probably be in the original SM. In XY, I think I remember many of the new mons being rarer too but the sheer variety available made it that many old mons that were rare in previous games were more common now so there I didn't mind. But the first time I played SM when I tried getting my team consisting of all new mons, I think I spent around an hour on each route trying to get the mon I wanted. It was ridiculous and I'm glad I did not nuzlocke that playthrough. Especially that, moreso than that time half my team fainted to the rival before the E4.

 

[chongjasmine]

I will say 75% new pokemons and 25% older will do it for me.

 

[RoreyG]

The older generations have been around long enough for the powers that be to realize what works and what doesn't. Which Pokemon is popular, sees use and what doesn't.

Older generation Pokemon should be limited to the cream of the crop: most popular, most useful, people pleasers and draws money.

At the same time though, there has to be better quality control. Not to say that there aren't cool or clutch Pokemon in the newer generations, but I feel like the gap between quality Pokemon and those Mons that come off as filler is widening each successive generation.

 

[TeeVeeBlue]

I prefer having the focus on the new Pokémon. I actually thought it was really cool when Black/White did that 😅 I do like when they make new regional forms or evolutions for the older mons though.

Realistically, I do see the need to include older Pokémon: it probably helps reacquaint older fans who might have dropped the series for a bit with the newer games, and, in turn, it helps newer fans get acquainted with Pokémon from the previous generations. I appreciate that there seems to be a mix of less popular older Pokémon (e.g. Maractus, Beheeyem) included with the older super popular Pokémon. But I wouldn't mind not including some of the older Pokémon for a bit so that the games aren't oversaturated with them.

 

[Sheep]

I'm actually on the side that would prefer all old Pokémon in games. People seem to dislike that but I find it a lot of fun to be surprised by new ones at every corner.. part of why I miss BW. It really felt like a fresh new step in the series. But if I had to go with a mix, probably somewhere around 70-75% new and 30-25% old!

 

[Setsuna]

I think Black and White had a great idea of introducing a lot of new Pokemon throughout the main story, then including post-game areas that focused on being able to catch older Pokemon and allowing you to transfer your older mons after beating the game. I think it created a really fresh experience where you were forced to use and learn and strategize around all-new Pokemon instead of just getting your favourite Pokemon since you were a kid and just using that again. It just doesn't feel like the general public agrees with that opinion.

I get that people get very attached to their favourites, but as someone who always tries to build a team using only Pokemon she's never used before when replaying the games, I've started to like a lot of Pokemon I'd never given a chance to before. I think having a bigger pool of newer Pokemon and making the main story locked to only those Pokemon not only gets people more excited to see what those new Pokemon are and really makes them feel unique when compared to older Pokemon, but it would also allow every new generation to feel unique regardless of things like trying to introduce new gimmicks in battles (Mega Evolutions, Dynamax, etc.) and would allow them to age more gracefully.