Paldea Region - Discussion/Speculation Thread

[Wulava]

Discuss about the new Spain/Portugal-based region here.
I'll update the thread title once the actual region's name has been revealed.

 

[U.N. Owen]

I’m not too surprised Iberia ended up becoming a Pokémon region. It does help that Iberia has historically been the crossroads between Roman, Germanic, and Arabic cultures, so it allows for many inspirations to be drawn from as far as the Middle East. Those countries are also full of cathedrals and palaces, so unique landmarks are not in short supply

 

[Wulava]

Iberia having a part of southern France kinda makes me wish that we can visit a piece of Southern Kalos.

To those who don't know what Iberia is, it is basically a peninsula that comprises of Spain, Portugal, as well as a small area of Southern France, Andorra and Gibraltar.

 

[Red and Blue]

I'm not too familiar with that many Spanish or Portuguese landmarks but I'd love a city based on Madrid or Barcelona somewhere

 

[U.N. Owen]

Alhambra honestly needs to be in it. It is the crossroads between Arabic and Spanish architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra

 

[Wulava]

I'm not too familiar with that many Spanish or Portuguese landmarks but I'd love a city based on Madrid or Barcelona somewhere

The church-like building with the massive Pokeball on top is based on the Sagrada Familia, which is a famous landmark in Barcelona.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

As skeptical as I am about this game, the one thing that excites me is the confirmation that these games are open world from the website:

https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-us/

The Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet games, the newest chapters in the Pokémon series, are coming to Nintendo Switch later this year. With these new titles, the Pokémon series takes a new evolutionary step, allowing you to explore freely in a richly expressed open world.

Various towns blend seamlessly into the wilderness with no borders. You’ll be able to see the Pokémon of this region in the skies, in the seas, in the forests, on the streets—all over! You’ll be able to experience the true joy of the Pokémon series—battling against wild Pokémon in order to catch them—now in an open-world game that players of any age can enjoy.

This game looks to be even a step above LA in terms of openness, and they want to make that clear right out the gate. No linear pathways like past Pokemon games and not even the segmented zones like LA, the region is just one big game world.

Now I am a bit less excited because LA was already 90% of the way there, but the other 10% can still open up some exciting new possibilities. For example, can we now visit gyms in any order? Can we go clear over to the other side of the map and catch a rare Pokemon we really want instead of having to wait until the game decides we're allowed to go to that area? If it's open world, that implies that we should be able to. This is one of the aspects of the game I'm most paying attention to, if they can get this next step right it'll go even further towards making Pokemon that grand adventure driven by the player's choice and curiosity, as I remember it being from older games and I envisioned Pokemon doing when it made the jump to console.

 

[Kangaflora]

Whatever the name is, it will have to reflect the fact that it is based on Spain, like Unova did for New York, Kalos for France, Alola for Hawaii and Galar for the UK.

 

[Luxeon]

In before the region's name is five letters long, or maybe they'll pull a Sinnoh on us and make it 6 letters.

Spain is a lovely choice! Though at this point it's very clear that GF is quite a big Europe fan. First France, then the UK, now Spain/Iberia. Italy would be another easy one but I wonder if they'll ever venture into Germany.

But yeah it's a good setting.

 

[Ryker101]

Ngl I was hoping for India or Australia lol

But Spain is good too, the trailer certainly looks promising for it

 

[RedJirachi]

I wonder if the country of Andorra will be adapted into a city. We've technically had two countries in one region (Sinnoh has a little sliver of Russia in the Sakhalin Island) and it hugs the Spain/France border

 

[Wulava]

In the trailer, I noticed that the design on the plaza has all 18 types in a circle surrounding what looks like a battleground. I wonder if that actually has a significance and we actually get to battle 18 type specialists in the whole region.

Galar's major and minor league was a wasted opportunity and I've always wanted to have each type represented by a specialist. The only time we had that was in Gen 2 (including Dark for E4).

 

[Bolt the Cat]

In the trailer, I noticed that the design on the plaza has all 18 types in a circle surrounding what looks like a battleground. I wonder if that actually has a significance and we actually get to battle 18 type specialists in the whole region.

Galar's major and minor league was a wasted opportunity and I've always wanted to have each type represented by a specialist. The only time we had that was in Gen 2 (including Dark for E4).

So where was GSCHGSS' Ground type specialist again?

Seriously though, I'd love if they played around with having more type specialists. I always hate seeing some types not get any type specialists for generations at a time, and while SwSh came somewhat close to having all of them (the closest since GSCHGSS), my favorite type (Electric) was one of the few that were excluded.

 

[Wulava]

So where was GSCHGSS' Ground type specialist again?

Seriously though, I'd love if they played around with having more type specialists. I always hate seeing some types not get any type specialists for generations at a time, and while SwSh came somewhat close to having all of them (the closest since GSCHGSS), my favorite type (Electric) was one of the few that were excluded.

Well, in HGSS you can battle Giovanni.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

Well, in HGSS you can battle Giovanni.

He's not a Ground specialist in HGSS though (he uses a relative mix of types, although he does have Nidoking and Nidoqueen) so not quite.

 

[Noy]

I get the feeling that while the game will be open-world, it's still going to be segregated by various geographic features. In other words: until we can surf, large rivers and ocean will isolated sections; and until we get rock climb, mountains and tall ledges will segment various areas and routes. Additionally, bridges, tunnels and boats, can be used to grant limited access to areas via plot progress, until we get those HM/Rides. So expecting possible railroading to some extent near the beginning, would be a fair bet.

 

[kamineko23]

Reposting this from my post (with some paraphrasing) on speculation thread:

This location:

Is pretty much similar to the Rose Compass in Lisbon, Portugal (image taken from Google Maps):

I assume that city location on the game is pretty much on the opposite side of the city with the "Sagrada Familia" inspired building, considering Lisbon is almost the opposite side of Barcelona.

 

[janejane6178]

Reposting this from my post (with some paraphrasing) on speculation thread:

This location:

Is pretty much similar to the Rose Compass in Lisbon, Portugal (image taken from Google Maps):

I assume that city location on the game is pretty much on the opposite side of the city with the "Sagrada Familia" inspired building, considering Lisbon is almost the opposite side of Barcelona.

The graphics in the first pic look horrible.... all blurry

 

[Teravolt]

The graphics in the first pic look horrible.... all blurry

It really looks fine to me.

 

[Reinhardt]

Seeing as it's fully open world, I do wonder if there'll even be stuff like gyms or a Pokemon League, or if it'll be like Legends: Arceus with a focus more on exploration and Pokedex completion. Alola had no gyms, while Galar didn't have an Elite Four, so perhaps this new region will have neither One? I hope not.
One of the things I HATE about Legends: Arceus is the Pokedex and all of the tedious research tasks you have to do to fill in each entry, so I do hope Scarlet and Violet don't repeat this with its own Pokedex.