How unique are Legendary Pokemon?

[Hikamaru]

With every subsequent generation of Pokemon, more Legendary Pokemon have been introduced and are becoming seen more often in the Pokemon media.

Do you think that the Legendary Pokemon are unique in a sense that one could tell a famous tale about that legendary? What do you think about legendaries becoming less rare than they used to be?

 

[Aquacorde]

I think each species in particular is unique and rare but I think I get what you mean- the general subsection of "legendary" is less of a unique thing to be in. imo I take it on a region-by-region basis rather than looking at legendaries as an entire category, but even then the subsection is sometimes larger and less unique than I feel it should be, you know?

 

[blue]

They're still classed as legendaries because they're one-off captures with low capture rates and can only be caught in a specific area that's usually post-game. I don't think as we get more legendaries that they become less rare. We still only get say 5 new legendaries Pokémon for every 70+ new non-legendary Pokémon.

 

[mikey]

Definitely less rare than they used to be. I remember when Mew and Celebi were so rare and somewhat mythical because of it. Everyone wanted to know how to snag them.

Now with the Internet and having a bunch of new legendaries introduced in every generation, legendaries as a whole seem less unique to me.

 

[Hikamaru]

I can definitely understand all your thoughts here, because legendary numbers had been growing rapidly since 4th Gen which had legendaries take up 1/3 of its new Pokemon. 5th Gen roughly had the same number of new legendaries.

While 6th Gen did scale back the new legendary count slightly with only six, in 7th Gen we did get a bigger number again, and while Ultra Beasts are debatable they are grouped with the legendaries in the National Dex order.

 

[Megan]

Some of them certainly have what is needed to return in later generations. Rayquaza is one of those since it lives in the ozone layer making it possible for it to travel to other regions. Celebi, while a mythical, is another one that has reason to be in other regions.

Other legendaries not so much, unless you can come up with something creative for a reason it's in the new region. Like, Mewtwo was created in Kanto, so why would it suddenly appear in a random cave in Kalos?

Not much of a fan of how legendaries just randomly appear in recent games. Though, I do like how SM handles this issue, by simply not doing it and just mainly sticking with their regional Pokedex letting everything else be handled by outside resources.

As for new legendaries: it's definitely necessary to introduce new legendaries, just so you have something to work with that represents the mythology the region is built upon. In that sense, different regions having different amounts of legendaries makes sense, because even irl you have religions with different amounts of deities; for example, you have Christianity which only believes in one god and say Roman mythology who has tons of them all doing their own thing.