Populations in Pokemon games feel rather unrealistic to me

[Palamon]

I learned today only 391 people live in Kanto. Can we just say that population in most Pokemon games just...feels unrealistic? I know it's just a fictional world and space is limited, but still.

 

[Duck]

I mean, it's a question of realism vs gameplay.

Walking across an entire region in less than 2h without food or water makes absolutely no sense, but forcing you to eat supplies and stop to rest wouldn't be conducive to good gameplay (at least not in Pokemon), so we just pretend that doesn't happen.

Adding more people in RBY (assuming they did have the cartridge space for it, which they most certainly did not) would be more or less the same thing, without bigger maps and custom dialogue they'd just be clutter - like the random people you walk by daily but never talk to, realistic but not a fun experience.

It's no surprise that the same link you posted said that Kanto (the first region and the one done with the least amount of cartridge space) has consistently been the smallest region by population (even after getting a small boost in Generation II).

And it's also no surprise that other artforms like the manga and anime have bigger regions with more "extras" and characters: they're needed (and inexpensive) to throw in there.

And to be fair, even other, much newer games have unrealistic populations, for much the same reasons:

The biggest city in Skyrim has 74 people, which is about the amount of people in Celadon, and about 8 to 4 Viking households if a quick Google Search is right.

Stardew Valley's 28 villagers and Animal Crossing's 20 ish villagers (counting the player, Isabelle, Nook and the Nooklings, etc.) are also nowhere near close to the population of a small village (500 to 2500)

And so on.

 

[Sheep]

I honestly would love a more realistic game that has realistic sizing, but that would result in a bunch of unnecessary NPCs that don't don't anything interesting and only exist to pad the numbers. The anime is great for giving me a more realistic view of how each region is in terms of design and population, so I visualize that more often when playing the games now. :3c

 

[Corveone]

Pokémon world barely makes any sense because it's a world designed to revolve around the player character, which is the opposite to how real world works.

So, for some reason, your character lives in a small town with only two houses and a lab (because yeah, it's so smart to locate a laboratory in a town like that), and the only way to get out of that town is through the one route that's covered in grass and you can't get through there unless you have a Pokémon to defend yourself, which would mean that your character effectively spent a decade or more trapped in his/her town without ever going to school or anything.

Modern Pokémon games have a somewhat more believable world design, but it still revolves around the player. A game like Shenmue is a great example of a believable video game world.

 

[Amore]

I choose to view it through the lens of how Assassin's Creed explains it away as part of their whole "the game is a simulation of somebody's memories" concept.

Red only ever met 391 people in Kanto, but there are actually a few more zeros to that number (maybe only two, given the whole 'Pokémon takes place after a war' theory). You see buildings that don't have doors because Red never bothered to open them, once you become Champion you never get challenged by the next up-and-coming trainer because Red actually just ran off to focus his Chi on Mt. Silver etc.

Hoenn only has 598 people because Brendan/May is repressing their memories of all the people destroyed by Kyogre and Groudon's battle either directly or due to the effects - catastrophic flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis (separate from the flooding), Mt. Chimney blowing its top etc. all because it took them so long to realise Rayquaza - never named by anyone they'd met at that point - was atop Sky Pillar, a place they'd never heard of in an area of the region they were yet to explore, and somehow took just as long to fly to Sootopolis and end the battle as it did for them on their Swellow!

 

[colours]

kinda reminds me of the random people that you would encounter and say stuff in.. i think nimbasa city in bw? it genuinely felt kinda like a city with all of those random npcs there, so they added to that kind of environment. but i understand why that was done, it'd be a bit weird for it to be devoid of people rather than packed and cluttered.

the population size never really bothered me in pokemon games, though, for reasons already stated.

 

[Gardevoir1]

Nimbasa was huge but I think you're thinking of Castelia City. They really nailed down the downtown Manhattan vibe with the busy streets, tons of buildings and a variety of things to see and do.