GALAR REGION Discussion & Speculation Thread

[A_Merry_Snowrunt]

What if the champion is based off of Freddie Mercury?

 

[Orphalesion]

Okay. So, until I see an in-game map not skewed by the curvature of the Earth, I'm going to stick with my "just Scotland" theory. Here are my guesses as to what locations we might see.

You know...I'm inclined to agree. In a way it does seem more like it's just Scotland, just like Kalos was just Northern France. But then how do you explain things like the Cerne Abbas Giant-ripoff? That one's located in Dorset. Can't get much farther away from Scotland than that while still staying on Great Britain.

Of course...the thing is nowhere near where Dorset would be on this map...and neither is "London"

However:

The previous regions were easy to match. Galar is so difficult, I'm not so sure anymore. Haha. >____>

It might just be that this time around, rather than sticking *very* close like Alola to Hawaii and Kalos to Northern France (no, I will never stop pointing out the northern bit, because I'll never forgive Gamefreak for not including my beloved Provence ) with Galar they might just have taken lose inspiration from the UK and then created a fantasy version. Capturing the spirit, not creating a carbon copy. Which imho is a better approach and might be closer to Gens 1-6

What if the champion is based off of Freddie Mercury?

And who's the evil team leader "based on"? Princess Michael of Kent?

I don't think they've ever based any NPCs on real people, and I doubt they will.

 

[Scammel]

I don't think the inspiration is very 'loose' at all - that actually is Big Ben and the London Eye, right there. That is Manchester and the Lake District, that's clearly Stonehenge. I think folks are a little hung up on the physical distribution of these places. It's the UK cut up and reassembled, but it definitely is still the UK/England.

Also, I'm going to take a massive, early punt here...

That the name of this region ultimately isn't Galar.

Or at least, the name will change over the course of the game. Or each version will have a different name for the region, which merges at the end of the story. I think it's no coincidence that there's no 'O' in the current name and that Galar translates to 'disease' or 'corruption'. I strongly suspect the plot will revolve around the impact of industrialisation, and reaching harmony between progress and natural heritage, perhaps with each version initially favouring one or the other - the sword of reckless progression vs the shield of timid security.

I wonder if we eventually end up with a 'Galor' region.

 

[im_the_rhino]

*The giant area seems to be Nottingham or Lincoln.

I like the sound of a Nottingham sub-region, maybe the gym leader will have a Decidueye?

 

[Runelore]

Points of Interest Map:

Below is my guess at the gym/stadium locations across Galar. Feel free to use this map to reference a location.

Stadium/Gym Locations:
38 (blue symbol, water?)
49 (green symbol, grass?)
55 (brown symbol, ground/rock?)
71 (hard to tell the color.. Ice?)
77 (not sure on color, ghost or bug?)
83 (grand London stadium, elite four?)

Unsure Stadiums/Gyms:
20, 62, 69

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

I don't think they've ever based any NPCs on real people, and I doubt they will.

Diantha's design was inspired by Audrey Hepburn, but emphasis on "inspired".

 

[Lucky3]

I believe Galar might be mostly just England upside-down, with the usual geographic liberties to keep the environments more diverse. City on top is London, steampunk one is Manchester or York, the port might be Liverpool, the big building on the base of the mountain is probably their take on Windsor Castle (the tower has a crown on top) and the lakes could be the Lake District.

 

[Grey Wind]

If you notice at the bottom of the map, where your starting house is at, there is a path as you leave that turns a sharp left and looks like it leads to a forested area or perhaps a hidden area we haven’t seen yet?

I’m also noticing there isn’t any water routes, routes to surf on, unless those beach-like areas on the left side of Galar are our water routes, in which case, I wonder if we will get an “island town” that’s hidden in those massive cloud groupings. I see a few lakes, but that’s really it. I’m still think there is more to the region than what we see on the map, but only time will tell.

Good catch about the forest, I hadn't noticed that. I'm wondering how the early game is gonna play out - I assume that we explore everything in the south first before getting the train to the north, but there doesn't seem to be any gyms or anything so I guess it'll be a while til we reach one.

In terms of water route we said the same about Kalos iirc. I think we'll just have the lakes, beaches to the east and that little icy area.

Okay. So, until I see an in-game map not skewed by the curvature of the Earth, I'm going to stick with my "just Scotland" theory. Here are my guesses as to what locations we might see.

We can see near exact replicas of Big Ben, the London Eye, Manchester town hall etc. It's definitely not just Scotland.

Not sure if a thread is needed, but what are the chances of cameo appearances like Looker,Cynthia,or Fantina appearing? Do we need a cameo/ references thread?

IDK if a thread would be needed but I love seeing cameos. Looker is probably a given but outside of that it's hard to guess. We'll probably see someone from Sinnoh, though.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

I agree to an extent. I still firmly believe that the design ideologies are different for each game and you are correct in the fact they don't have to directly contradict with one another, but as you mentioned above pokemon's core concept does not require a story, but THE PROBLEM is that they clearly want one. They've been wanting a better one since gen 5. And gen 7 is when we got even more of that. The director even specifically mentioned in interviews they wanted to create a more cinematic game. If pokemon want to continue these story elements, it's going to keep some of that linearity for the sake of convenience.

Some people just want the basic battling and such, but others also prefer a story (I'm in the later camp). I pointed to games such as FF and DQ because while those games have traditional RPG elements I think they solves the non-linearity issue well enough with their story elements. The reason I think comparing the games to BoTW is unfair is because Zelda is an adventure game in which that genre gives you way more freedom to begin with while RPGs generally do not. So I personally think taking an example from DQ ( the fast travel, party members and how they're handled and some small creative aspects) and FF ( linear story, but still plenty of places to move around to and sidequests to do) is a better idea for possibilities to expand upon. I think comparing Pokemon to better RPGs gives you more of an idea of what they could work from instead of another genre that had it's own sets of issues.

The problem is that "adventure" is a very loosely defined genre and other genres can have similar elements. Platformers is one of them, we've had sandbox platformers since the N64 days where you can run around through open ended maps and use your platforming skills to explore. RPGs are another, you can have a game where you adventure through a map training and battling your team. And in fact, if you look at some of the Zelda overworld maps pre-BotW, especially from the 3D games, they feel very Pokemon-like and it's not hard to imagine swapping out the dungeons for gyms to replicate a similar experience for Pokemon. And Game Freak themselves even refers to these as an "adventure RPG". So the comparison does make sense.

If they want to keep story and openness separate, that's fine, but that's what the two separate styles of game should've been for. They split the fanbase into the LG series and the mainline games to have two different styles of play, so the fact that neither of those styles appeals to the more sandbox/open world style feels like a major missed opportunity. LGPE and SwSh don't really seem all that fundamentally different and LGPE's sales aren't really behaving any differently from normal to suggest its attracting a different audience from normal, meanwhile, the lack of a sandbox style of play to appeal to their new console audience that's grown up on games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time is glaring and that market remains untapped. There's a reason why those types of games exist and why people keep asking for their modern equivalents, the more open world styles of BotW and Odyssey, on every game under the sun. It's because those types of games easily appeal to a console environment. Consoles are meant for you to sit down in front of your TV, so at heart they appeal to people that want more cutting edge experiences that they can play for hours on end. Open world games, by giving you vast swaths of open environments that you can wander around in at your leisure, inherently appeal to that type of experience. Now granted there's other ways to achieve that, but for an adventure game like Pokemon where you're traveling across a large area, it makes perfect sense for the games to accomplish that in this way. Game Freak doesn't seem to understand this, and it makes the series feel lacking.

 

[mtie123]

I believe Galar might be mostly just England upside-down, with the usual geographic liberties to keep the environments more diverse. City on top is London, steampunk one is Manchester or York, the port might be Liverpool, the big building on the base of the mountain is probably their take on Windsor Castle (the tower has a crown on top) and the lakes could be the Lake District.

Defiantly concur with the steampunk town being Manchester, especially with the long canal going into the town which is reminiscent of the Manchester Shipping Canal which was built during the industrial revolution which fits the industrial theme of the town itself.

25 on the map above interests me, I'm hoping it's the cavern with the tracks from the trailer

Good catch about the forest, I hadn't noticed that. I'm wondering how the early game is gonna play out - I assume that we explore everything in the south first before getting the train to the north, but there doesn't seem to be any gyms or anything so I guess it'll be a while til we reach one.

Could be a case of tradition versus progression, with having small more lowkey gyms, possibly one inside the forest? Then as you go north you get the more extravagant stadium filled gyms.

However it could be a case that there are no gyms again and we get a different method of progression like the trials

 

[Lucky3]

Could be a case of tradition versus progression, with having small more lowkey gyms, possibly one inside the forest? Then as you go north you get the more extravagant stadium filled gyms.

However it could be a case that there are no gyms again and we get a different method of progression like the trials

They did mention we'll be challenging gyms in the video, so they're definitely there. However, it's possible that stadiums are a completely separate thing. They seem to be the gimmick of this gen with all the focus they're getting. Maybe they use the types that aren't for gyms or Elite Four?

 

[mtie123]

They did mention we'll be challenging gyms in the video, so they're definitely there. However, it's possible that stadiums are a completely separate thing. They seem to be the gimmick of this gen with all the focus they're getting. Maybe they use the types that aren't for gyms or Elite Four?

Oh I see, I didn't watch the actual direct just the trailer so must have missed that.

I could see it being a mix if the stadiums being gyms and then less extravagant gyms in the towns and cities, after X and Y it is kind of hard to spot gyms on the map e.g. Grants being just a literal cave

 

[mr.davos]

There's even a Wembley Stadium! (The red stadium in the London-based city).

 

[UltimateNinja]

There's a way around that in the form of level scaling though. Make it so the trainer levels increase the more badges you have and then you can travel anywhere you want while the difficulty follows your progress. Problem solved.

Things like moves and changing Pokemon (evolving) also need to be take in consideration then and that may be a bit too much for GF to care. And we still have the problem about story related things occuring at a specific location in the region.

 

[JohnLynch]

I wonder if the villainous team will be a wealthy corporation and we will get a generic friendly NPC who robs from the bad guys and gives to the poor/PC.

I also wouldn't be surprised if in the lake there is a legend of a sword being thrown into it and the lake pokemon keeping it until it was needed once more.

Also a legendary group of pokemon trainers who sat around a round table and protected the land (perhaps the Elite 4 is inpsired by this legend and you can fight them in any order).

 

[Lumineon457]

Yes. I fully realize that clock tower looks more like Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben is the bell) than any major clocktower in Inverness. I also realize tat lighthouse looks nothing like the Elie Ness Lighthouse. Which is why I want to see an in-game map not skewed by the curvature of the Earth.

 

[lemoncatpower]

Honestly I would be pumped if they turned Galar into the original Gym Region, or like the original Region that colonized a bunch of other regions into the Gym System they have. Just to give a nod to how the UK colonized a bunch of other places but a lot of places are trying to get back to their original cultures. Or they'll just play up that concept within the region itself it seems and have industrial vs nature within the region.

But I do like to think that since Galar region is like this... Canada would have been a mix between Galar region and Alola region mostly now that I think of it, with a bit of Unova in the few huge cities we have. ( Just for my head cannons lol )

 

[AlchemistAzure]

Can we get a Dark Type Gym, please? It still remains the ONLY type to not have a gym in 7 Generations of Pokémon, go ahead for those of you who don't believe me. Every other type has had a gym, even if just but once outside of Dark

 

[Gen82]

Could be a case of tradition versus progression, with having small more lowkey gyms, possibly one inside the forest? Then as you go north you get the more extravagant stadium filled gyms.

However it could be a case that there are no gyms again and we get a different method of progression like the trials

Since there are so many stadiums I wonder if gyms have been replaced by mini tournaments.

 

[lemoncatpower]

Maybe the stadiums will include little mini-games to play online with friends like... POKEMON STRIKERS!