Version Differences

[pkmin3033]

Apart from the obvious version exclusives, Pokemon titles often have smaller differences. In Sun/Moon, different trainers were available in the Battle Tree, and of course the most prominent difference was that one took place hours ahead of the other, so - unless you were a night owl, anyway - you'd be playing Pokemon Moon predominantly at night, and Pokemon Sun during the day.

Outside of the obvious version exclusive Pokemon, and the probable difference in the time of day, what sort of differences would you want or expect to see in USUM? Should these games attempt to differentiate themselves outside of version exclusive Pokemon and maybe one or two trainers - to actually be two completely different titles in truth - or should they strive to stay as close to one another as possible without being the same game, so that players don't miss out on certain features? And would the inclusion of certain differences or features sway you into buying one game over the other?

This comes off the back of a weird thought about what if one game had Gyms and the other had Trials, and maybe day/night will be reversed this time around

 

[L'Belle]

I want huge version differences like in the unova games. Have version exclusive locations like Opelucid City, Route 4 and Reversal Mountain.

 

[Lunar]

I really hope we see something cool like a completely different island for the different versions. Like, one island in Alola could have the polar opposite terrain and stuff in both versions.

 

[Alexander18]

I think we have enough version exclusives as it is.

 

[tokyodrift]

I'd love to see game specific locations return, I thought that was a pretty nice feature. I don't think we've ever had trainer differences in games before, it'd be interesting to see how they would do that if it were a thing.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'd love to see game specific locations return, I thought that was a pretty nice feature. I don't think we've ever had trainer differences in games before, it'd be interesting to see how they would do that if it were a thing.

I was thinking about how Guzma/Plumeria are exclusive trainers to the Battle Tree in Sun/Moon, rather than completely separate trainer types...although we have kinda had those too with Magma/Aqua grunts. I'm not sure how it'd work with generic trainers, though.

 

[Hikamaru]

I'd love to see game specific locations return, I thought that was a pretty nice feature. I don't think we've ever had trainer differences in games before, it'd be interesting to see how they would do that if it were a thing.

As mentioned, we have Plumeria, Sina and Kiawe in Sun, while Guzma, Dexio and Mallow are in Moon. However, OR/AS was the first time we had version-exclusive AI partners in the battle facility, with Maxie in OR and Archie in AS. The other AI partners there were Wally and Brendan/May.

The other AI partners in previous battle facilities were not version exclusive. B/W and B2/W2 had the opposite gendered player character while X/Y had Trevor, Tierno and Shauna regardless of version or player's gender.