TCG Island looks like Ireland (sort of).

[leedsunited]

This may have been posted in the wrong forum, please move it if it is
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With all this talk of the new Galar Region looking like Britain, I'm reminded of how I always thought that the Island In The TCG (the first one) looked a bit like the real life Ireland. Here's a side-by side:

Obviously the most immediately visible similarity is the presence of two large peninsulas on the west coast of both TCG Island and real-life Ireland, as well as in the north (this area in real-life largely being part of Northern Ireland). I'm also thinking that the volcano pictured in the area corresponding to Northern Ireland could reference that areas real-life volcanic prehistory.
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What are your views on these similarities. Did Game Freak take inspiration from Ireland on this one? Is it a coincidence? Do you not see it at all? Am I overanalysing?! I'd love to hear your views

 

[icycatelf]

I can totally see where you're coming from (it looks a LOT like Ireland), but I'm having trouble connecting Ireland to the TCG. In addition being a seemingly-random location, I don't really feel that TCG Island would be that big.

I haven't stumbled upon any discussion on this topic outside your posts, so I looked over some maps to see if I could find another potential origin and came up with a theory of my own: We had a Hawaiian-based region before Alola!

I found that TCG Island resembles Oahu Island, also the origin of Alola's Melemele Island, when flipped horizontally and cut in half (possibly to better fit the square screen). This could support the idea that the TCG games take place in an alternate universe than the core-series games.

But what does Hawaii have to do with the TCG? Before Worlds, international Pokémon TCG Tournaments, Tropical Mega Battle, took place in Honolulu Hawaii (coincidentally on Oahu Island). Ooyama, creator of the TCG and inspiration behind Dr. Mason (Dr. Ooyama in Japanese), attended these tournaments cosplaying as Dr. Mason. Even Imakuni?, also present in TCG GB, was involved. These tournaments weren't held until after TCG GB was released in Japan, but plans may had already been put into motion before or during development.

I could be wrong, but this would fittingly place the Water Club in Pearl Harbor, the Fire Club at the highest point of Kooalu Range (part of a dormant volcano), and TCG GB 2's Airport at Honolulu National Airport. The forested area around the Science and Grass Clubs might represent Ewa Forest Reserve and Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge while the desert-like scenery around the Rock Club could represent the Kaiwa Ridge Trail.

 

[leedsunited]

I can definitely see where you're coming from (it does look a heckin' lot like Ireland), but I suspect that the real-world inspiration for TCG Island (if there is one) would be a lot smaller, as it feels more like a city and its outskirts to me rather than an expansive region with multiple cities.

Maybe it was based on one of Japan's many smaller islands? I can see a little bit of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island, in it, but I feel that this location may be too controversial to use. It's also possible that it draws some inspiration from Hawaii, like Alola. Not only have TCG tournaments taken place in Honolulu, but Ooyama, the inspiration behind Dr. Mason, actually cosplayed as Dr. Mason for these tournaments. O'ahu (which is also the basis of Melemele Island) looks a bit like TCG Island if you cut it in half and flip it. Who's over-analyzing now? :P

If TCG Island was based on Ireland, I'm very curious to know why they chose it instead of something closer to home for their popular card game.

Now I'm curious about what GR Island might be based on...

It is entirely possible that both islands are based on nothing! And that they were just designed at random...though in the case of TCG Island the similarities are so striking.
I can't really find anything that looks convincingly like GR Island...maybe a few of the islands of the coast of Norway, but even then its only slight.
I can see what you're pointing too in those -- perhaps it may be those places combined with added influences from Ireland? I should think that TCG Island is a large place... judging by the presence of .. for example... a substantial forest in the east, and a desert in the west.
Even pre-Unova...there were Pokemon regions in the games...only in the spin offs though.... based on places other than those in Japan. Orre was based on Arizona for example.... I think Fiore took some influence from the Naples region of Italy....
Maybe a designer went on holiday to Ireland and liked it enough to set a game in a region based on it?

 

[icycatelf]

That is entirely possible, especially in the case of GR Island (seeing as it was designed in the shape of a rocket).

It's kind of amazing how so many real-world locations resemble other real-world locations. The "hidden" map in USUM/LGPE still looks more like Sicily than the UK to me, but Galar is undoubtedly based on the UK. As such, I imagine that one could easily make an uninspired fictional region that resembles at least one real-world location.

I edited my former post, focusing more on Oahu.

 

[leedsunited]

Is there any guarantee that the hidden map refers to Galar? Of course the likelihood is that it does... and it does look a heck of a lot more like Sicily than it does Britain. Fancifully, I'd like to say that it hints towards some kind of Sicily-based region! Any Italy-related region would be cool by me :)
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A surprising number of real world places, especially islands, have parallels located elsewhere in the world. I was surprised the first time I took a look at a map of Canada, to see an island that looked quite similar to Great Britain in Newfoundland. They do in my opinion anyway.
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More relevantly... one thing that I sort of saw in the design for GR Island was the footprint of an animal or Pokemon. Especially with the central five islands and the three in the south west. I'm still pretty confident about TCG Island being based off of Ireland though

 

[icycatelf]

So I was playing the English patch of TCG GB 2 and noticed an archipelago when flying between TCG Island and GR Island.