I'm confused as to why some of you guys seem to assume that Shizui possibly having a gym in a town/city near Hiougi necessarily means he's one of the first gym leaders. Even putting aside the fact that he has Ace Trainers in his gym, signalling that he's probably at least the third gym, have y'all forgotten that GF like making us return to gyms that weren't available first time we passed through an area? This was done in Gen 1 and 3 (and Gen 4 before Fantina was bumped down to 3rd Gym in Platinum), so it could be done again.
Could be. But you have to remember the reason revisiting gyms was able to work in previous gens. This is because of the way the regions (and thus the planned routes for players) were set up. In each case, we're talking a relatively short distance even without using Fly. Kanto was pretty much a big circle; most players were already traveling north to Pallet Town after defeating Blaine. Same with Gen 4; Hearthome, Solaceon, Veilstone, and Pastoria make a nice big circle as well. In Gen 2, you had to deliver the medicine to the Olivine Lighthouse anyways. The longest distance was to Petalburg from Lavaridge in Gen 3, and even that is mitigated by shortcuts like Rusturf Tunnel (not to mention that Norman explicitly told you to come back and challenge him once you got four badges).
Unova is...extremely linear, to say the least. There are no branching paths or giant circles until the post-game. Oh sure, you could potentially argue that since this is a sequel, things will be different...but even so, we seem to be going on another ultra-linear path this time around: start in Hiougi, in the southwest portion of the map; take a boat or underwater tunnel to Castelia; travel either east towards Nacrene or north to Nimbasa; and work up the eastern side of the region, passing by Giant Chasm (for Kyurem) and reaching the league via Lacunosa. The only way I can see backtracking to a gym working would be if you were, like with Norman, explicitly told to return at a certain point in your journey. And even then, I can only see it happening relatively soon after you first leave--like, "two cities later" soon; any further would all but require the use of Fly, and required HM usage is, for the most part, something the developers seemingly
have realized is utterly stupid and are trying to phase out. (And before you remind me of the various
other instances of backtracking, which I assure you I do remember, I'll remind you that none of them have involved getting a badge.)
But come on, it's not like Shizui's gym is anywhere near Hiougi City anyways. I mean, not unless someone's trying to insinuate that it'd be in the port city (which I'll remind everyone is noticeably lacking certain key features about Shizui's town, which is to say,
a massive beach with palm trees), or there's this secret new version of the map that nobody but a select few people have access to that shows off a completely new area near Hiougi (obviously including the aforementioned beach and trees) and that obviously must exist (despite reputable sources like Serebii Joe not once saying anything about it) for people to claim that Shizui's gym even
might be anywhere in the western half of the region.
Seriously though. Smart money says that his gym's somewhere in the general area around Undella. (Side note: there being Ace Trainers in his gym suggest it's at least the
fourth, not third. The earliest that Cool/Ace Trainers have ever appeared is in Hoenn, route...112, I believe, north of the desert. So, after the third badge, leading up to the fourth.)
I'm also banking on Homika being the first gym leader, and in the port city. Why? Well, it's rather simple. We can safely assume that the port city has the first gym; not only is the second town far too small (especially seeing how we haven't had an official gym in a "town" since Gen 3), the first gym battle has
always been in at least the third town/city of the game. Not to mention that we are most likely heading to Castelia after this, and I highly doubt they'd downgrade Burgh. (side note: I'm also banking on there being no direct gym replacements.) Aside from that, look at the inside of her gym. There appear to be only two junior trainers: a guitarist behind the microphone on the right side of the stage, and a roughneck behind the drum set on the left. Another fun fact: besides Jasmine's, the only gyms to ever have only two or fewer trainers are the first gyms in each region: Brock, Falkner, Roxanne (R/S), Roark, and the triplets.
Just, y'know, a bit of pattern analysis.
I mean, it makes sense to me, at least.
i think that since we have two replacement gym leaders, there is going to be some excuse for the otheres to have left, and with all the gym leaders having jobs there is many reasons for them to leave i.e. elesa had to go modeling in kanto or something, or burgh is on a retreat to pinwheel forest to find inspiration. I also think that, as much as i want them to leave, the triplets will stay for GF to take advantage of the triple battle, or roatation battle with the triplets.....
