Regional Variants/Alolan Forms Discussion Thread

[hydrosharp_98]

Hawaii does get snow in its mountaintops. I believe the primary snowy mountain in Alola is based on the bigger Hawaiian mountain but I can't remember the name of it.

Mauna Kea, with the equipment shown on the Alolan map likely being an in-game version of the Mauna Kea Observatories.

 

[amoebo]

Nope, it just said "Greninja (Rainbow)". Don't get me wrong, if it is real, it's probably Ash-Greninja, just coming in different colors based on what move it uses, but the "leak" didn't say as much.

CORRECTION: I double checked the "leak" on PokeJungle, and it does say that Rainbow Greninja is Ash-Greninja under another name. Also, it will be announced during the closing ceremony of Worlds (which is how Mega Kang and Mega Sableye were revealed, might I add). It also said a Meowth with "Happy Hour" and the OT Alola will be distributed at Worlds, which means we won't even need to wait until Sunday to confirm/debunk the leak.

Actually, we can deconfirm it now; There wont be a distribution for worlds unless they make it Wi-Fi based as Worlds will not have any additional Spectators. If they do distribute something there it would only be given to 100 people which would make it easy one of the rarest pokemon.

 

[Bus]

I feel like a fairy/dragon Dragonite should look like Figment...if anyone knows who Im talking about lol.

 

[Anthea]

I've always thought dragonite was fairy-ish, and was just thinking of suggesting this idea! Although I don't know about the dragonairish look. From the already shown alola forms, it seems like they tend to keep basic body shapes, and dragonite is as fairyish as dragonair. Besides, I would imagine that if an evolution gets an alola form, it's plausible that its pre-evolution will, so there could be both an alola dragonair and dragonite.

An alola dragonite would make me happy because I love dragonite, and if it could get typing that would keep it from x4 weaknesses it would give me an extra excuse to use it again.


Myself, I've always thought that it would've made more sense to change petilil and lilligant to part fairy than cottonee and whimsicott... I mean, lilligant seems just like some sort of forest sprite...

Anyone thinking of keeping alola and non-alola forms in a team side by side (via importing newly hatched ones from XYORAS)? It would be fun to keep one of each for vulpix and growlith lines (assuming the leaks of a water growlithe/arcanine are true).

Edit: also, can someone explain to me why a region based off of Hawaii has a number of pokemon adapt to be ice types? I'm all for ice/fairy ninetails, but I still find it a bit confusing...

So being feminine is enough to be fairy type? Yet a bulky fat dragon is also capable of being fairy? Why don't you just stick to , you know, the actual LORE and thought process behind the Pokemon. Whimsicott has fairytale influences with it being a "grass sheep". Litigant is just a boring waifu , but that alone is suddenly enough to be fairy. And then people want to complain and say , fairy is a useless waifu type that just sugarcoat a the female designs!

 

[JVLightningLover]

Actually, we can deconfirm it now; There wont be a distribution for worlds unless they make it Wi-Fi based as Worlds will not have any additional Spectators. If they do distribute something there it would only be given to 100 people which would make it easy one of the rarest pokemon.

Well, Worlds usually has distributions, so it would be nothing new. I get that it's invitation only this year, but even then there are almost 3,500 participants in the Video Game Championships alone.

I feel like a fairy/dragon Dragonite should look like Figment...if anyone knows who Im talking about lol.

Of course I know Figment! Then again, I'm in my 20's, so I can't speak to how well known he is when it comes to the younger crowd...

And this is the type of Dragonite design I think everyone is talking about (it's my own art, but feel free to be honest as to what you think of it):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ubJh8cUutBVWR2R0VjUGp0VlE/view?usp=sharing

 

[clbgolden12]

I feel like a fairy/dragon Dragonite should look like Figment...if anyone knows who Im talking about lol.

Oh, I know...

"Because imagination can be a BLAST!"

 

[R_N]

Well, Worlds usually has distributions, so it would be nothing new. I get that it's invitation only this year, but even then there are almost 3,500 participants in the Video Game Championships alone.

It's also later this week and we have not heard a single thing about a distribution.

Last year, they gave away a Sharpedo. This was announced on 8/11, with worlds being on 8/21
2014 gave away an Aegislash, with this being announced a month before
2013 gave away Smeargle, with it being announced a month before

2016 likely doesnt' have a proper Worlds give away due to the event being closed to the public but there was a Machamp giveaway for Nationals this year and a Mewtwo "Play! Pokemon" give away. Mewtwo's distribution ends when Worlds does and Play! Pokemon is specifically connected to competitive play.

 

[League]

They could retcon it the same way they did with Mega-Evos in ORAS - it is an alternate universe version of the same region. Who knows, the universe with Alola and region forms might be yet another universe, because we haven't seen any sign of Mega-Evos in Sun/Moon yet. Maybe Z-Moves take their place in this universe, and a DPPt remake could be part of that world.

We've seen passive signs of Mega evos returning, with the Z Bracelet seemingly having a slot for the Key Stone and/or the Mega Stone, the latest purported leak saying that the Z Bracelet is a key item and that Mega-evolving pokemon may not need to hold their Mega Stone. Technically, also, none of the games actually specify that they occur in the same world as any of the other games, even if they (in their own way and without breaking the fourth wall) imply that they have common events. My personal favorite theory is that each cartridge represents a different world, such that Moon=/=Sun=/=Ruby=/=Omega Ruby. Ruby and Sapphire would just be "sister worlds" in that practically the same apocalypse scenarios occur, only they are the exact opposite. Alpha Sapphira and Omega Ruby, meanwhile, are "XY-universes" wherein the ancient histories of the XY games are present, and are perhaps sisters worlds to a greater degree than XY, as there both apocalyptic scenarios, though again the effective opposites of each other, are yet only plans to the common end of awakening Rayquaza.

But then it just becomes...an Electivire. Certainly, an Alolan Electabuzz would be neat, but an Alolan Electivire would be just as neat. Also going out of their way to snub stuff not in gen 1 to the point of only doing the middles of pokemon lines would just be mean.

It'd be like if there was only an Alolan Pikachu, but no Alola Raichu, you know?

But the game features a professor who is studying pokemon attacks, and a middle Alolan form allows for pokemon to have different total learnsets in their final stage and technically would still allow allow different pokemon to enter competitive play by allowing different Eviolite-holding and baby pokemon to enter the fray. The idea also makes sense from a biological or cultural point of view, as nothing prevents a human who in his infancy and teens years grows up in one culture from then going to the (however disparate in wealth or culture) United States to attend college, and so obtain an Americanized education. To use a more animal example (yet involving a human means of transplantation), nothing prevents (in theory) a theoretical baby pig that is raised to be slaughtered from being found and adored by the slaughterer's daughter, and then being taken inside out of mercy and then growing acclimated to life inside a house as a pet, and a pet with a life now similar in every way to another pig that was always raised as a pet.

There are basically different orders of learned behavior, not just in the real world, but also in Pokemon. There's instinctual behavior and behavior learned by observing your parents, and then there's behavior imparted by training. Hitherto, in the Pokemon games the most important learned behavior has been 1) trainers taking pokemon from the wild to their employ), and 2) that of egg moves, as these are the only moves exclusive to origination.

Then version exclusive could work with covering them up. Like they can switch up game version footage to hide the forms. Like if Zubat had a variant in Moon, Sun footage would regular Zubat. Vice versa for Dragonite.

Yup.

Agreed. My guess is that it's possible for ordinary Pokemon to mutate in their evolution and become an Alolan Pokemon for one reason or another (see Alolan Exeggutor, Marowak and Raichu), but that once you're an Alolan Pokemon, all subsequent evolutions are as well. It doesn't particularly make sense to go through a huge biological change and then just, well, undo that when you evolve.

I definitely don't think they'll be making alolan forms evolve into regular form Pokemon, it just feels poinless. Alolan Persian will definitely be a thing but I kind of hope we don't see it until launch cause I'd like to use it on my team and I'm interested in being surprised.

One thing for the future that I'm really curious if we'll see (and forgive me if it's been brought up before and I missed it) is alternate forms for Pokemon that are said to be invasive. Corphish, Crawdaunt, Yungoos and Gumshoos are all supposed to be from other regions than the ones they were introduced in so I think there's an oppertunity there for them to give these Pokemon regional variations for the regions they come from originally.

It makes sense enough to have Alolans become final traditional FE's. From a gameplay-perspective, it allows for different learnsets for final forms and allows different NFE-pokemon, Eviolite-holders, and baby pokemon to be used in competitions. From a real-life perspective, it only supposes that whatever behaviors learned in infancy, though they may yet be disparate dependent upon the place of origination and and other environmental factors like parentage, they may yet be subsumed into a common pattern in adulthood. Though this is not yet an example of the latter half of the previous sentence, you can use ctrl+f to find the example of the "resident" and "transient" orcas here. To quote the initial part of the section "Controvery", "For some time it was difficult to prove that sympatric speciation was possible, because it was impossible to observe it happening. It was believed by many, and championed by Ernst Mayr, that the theory of evolution by natural selection could not explain how two species could emerge from one if the subspecies were able to interbreed. Since Mayr's heyday in the 1940s and 50s, mechanisms have been proposed that explain how speciation might occur in the face of interbreeding, also known as gene flow."

That would be weird. I assume it's not the case. By how current mechanics go- breeding a female pokemon should produce an identical variant. (Normal Persian= Normal Meowth) But evolution variants such as Exeggcutor and Marowak- I'm guessing that anything born within the Sun/Moon games becomes Alolan- with any Cubones and Exeggcute marked as previous gen will remain normal when evolving.

These rules makes the most sense to me.

It's generally been stated over and over that this is the general theory. If so, the statement that Alolan Exeggcute becomes Alolan Exeggutor because of the stronger sunlight might yet be an oversimplification if other-origination Exeggcute yet does not become an Alolan Exeggutor if raised, trained, and evolved as an Exeggutor in Alola.

The real-life-like answer could lie, not strictly in genetics, but in epigenetics. Alolan[originating] Exeggcute has different different gene markers, and a different in-game marker to boot, than does elsewhere-originating Exeggcute.

Otherwise, I'm for the idea that the mother of Alolan marker and/or form if Cubone or Marowak (respectively, here weakly supposing strictly for the sake of known information that Cubone does not have an Alolan form) should generally produce Alolan Cubone when bred, however, if one breeds an Alolan Marowak with a traditional form Marowak, both forms should be available. This would allow for a controllable quirk that would somewhat represent a real-life phenomenon.

I agree. I'm pretty sure they'll work almost exactly like Shellos. Eastern Shellos always evolves into Eastern Gastrodon, Western Shellos always evolves into Western Gastrodon. The only interesting ones are when regular pokes evolve into Alola Forms, because - as you say - there is some lore-support for it working like a split evolution. Kind of like Eevee's Leafeon and Glaceon, or the "electric field" evolutions, where the place you evolve it determines which form it will take. But while that makes sense for Exeggucute, I'm not sure how much it does for Pikachu or Cubone. If it's determined by their parents/where the original was caught, it would be useful to have some kind of indicator, like the Kalos pentagon, to tell us whether a poke that is possibly Alolan, but looks the same, is or not. Otherwise things getting mixed up in boxes is a real possibility, not to mention Wondertrade!

It is generally supposed this is going to happen, the use of a marker as was used in Gen VI. For all intents and purposes this means that an Alolan[origin] Pikachu will differ more from a traditional[origin] Pikachu than does a "Western" Shellos from an "Eastern" one, and it practically means that come Gen VII's trading environment the meta-enviornment would feature threads asking for "Alolan Pikachu" and "traditional Pikachu", meaning that even if Alolan Pikachu is not differentiated it will for all intents and purposes nevertheless exist.

I could see them giving a NFE Pokémon an alolan form (especially if it was originally a Gen I, and had an evolution in a later Gen, since it seems to be going Gen I only at present) and then making it unable to evolve into its later form (i.e so Alolan Electabuzz can't evolve with the Electirizer), and then the reasoning would be 'Electabuzz didn't need to evolve to counter _____ threat or gain _____ ability, because here in Alola, it adapted by gaining _____ type / ability and so...' blah.

Not saying I want this to happen, but it looks like we can't rule too much out with GF these days!

They could do this, because they could do whatever they want to, but generally this would be disappointing and would be furthermore too much complication for relatively little reward, as you'd be creating complex relationships between such pokemon and items like the Eviolite.

 

[R_N]

It makes sense enough to have Alolans become final traditional FE's. From a gameplay-perspective, it allows for different learnsets for final forms and allows different NFE-pokemon, Eviolite-holders, and baby pokemon to be used in competitions. From a real-life perspective, it only supposes that whatever behaviors learned in infancy, though they may yet be disparate dependent upon the place of origination and and other environmental factors like parentage, they may yet be subsumed into a common pattern in adulthood. Though this is not yet an example of the latter half of the previous sentence, you can use ctrl+f to find the example of the "resident" and "transient" orcas here. To quote the initial part of the section "Controvery", "For some time it was difficult to prove that sympatric speciation was possible, because it was impossible to observe it happening. It was believed by many, and championed by Ernst Mayr, that the theory of evolution by natural selection could not explain how two species could emerge from one if the subspecies were able to interbreed. Since Mayr's heyday in the 1940s and 50s, mechanisms have been proposed that explain how speciation might occur in the face of interbreeding, also known as gene flow."

Sure there's lots of ways they can justify it to make sense in universe. Or if Raichu is any indication, don't justify it because it just comes down to the designers wanting to make an Alola form of a specific pokemon.


That doesn't stop it from being kind of lame to focus on a middle of a stage, especially if it just so happens to be the gen 1 portion of a line, when they could focus on the entire line (Vulpix, Ninetails) or the latter, more evolved portion of the line.
Especially if it's a cool concept. Imagine if Electabuzz, since it's a fuzzy kind of tubby tiger, evolved to be a more thin-furred, svelte *spins wheel* electric/fairy. I'd love to see that concept literally evolve. Especially since Electivire are even bulkier and furrier.

(Likewise it would be lame if Alola Meowth just becomes plain-jane Persian; gotta see smug dark persian come on guys)

 

[goodpeople25]

I've said it before but I can see electrabuzz working fine as he already was standalone/fully evolved (so it makes sense to focus on just him, even taking out the gen 1 stuff) and his evolution isn't the typical style of evolution in the first place. (Both design wise, and being more of a stat relocation and a cool ability concept) and his evolution method also makes it very easy to justify.

 

[Bguy7]

Skimming the fossil discussion I'm not sure if it was mentioned, but a neat back story for Alolan fossils could be they are simply found in the wild and never truly went extinct. This would explain why they have their "natural" typings in Alolan form, instead of all being half Rock.

But if you don't revive them from fossils, what makes them Fossil Pokemon? We've had plenty of Pokemon based off of prehistoric designs, but not revived from fossils, and they're not considered Fossil Pokemon.

 

[Aromatic Mist]

But if you don't revive them from fossils, what makes them Fossil Pokemon? We've had plenty of Pokemon based off of prehistoric designs, but not revived from fossils, and they're not considered Fossil Pokemon.

The poster is presumably referring to rediscovering Pokémon thought extinct and only used to be available via fossil, how ever these Alola Forms would of adapted due to the nature of Alola Forms and would most likely not be considered fossils in that form whereas their older forms still are.

 

[Bguy7]

The poster is presumably referring to rediscovering Pokémon thought extinct and only used to be available via fossil, how ever these Alola Forms would of adapted due to the nature of Alola Forms and would most likely not be considered fossils in that form whereas their older forms still are.

They specifically said Alola Fossils, and I assumed that meant the Alola Region's Fossil Pokemon.

 

[Gizmoa]

I would like an Alolan Ditto...
Looks almost the same, but different type and base stats, notable change is that crossing it with a common ditto results in baby dittos, making the species breed-able for the first time. The lore could be something about genetically divergent enough to recognize common ditto as another pokemon where normally they have trouble with this and simply don't breed.... I just want a breed-able ditto, and really... a usable one with high enough stats to survive entry hazards would be lovely as well.

 

[Bus]

Sorry what? I've been super busy and unable to check the forums all day. Whats this about Alolan fossils? We have a new rumor floating about? Where might one (I) read this?

 

[Gizmoa]

Sorry what? I've been super busy and unable to check the forums all day. Whats this about Alolan fossils? We have a new rumor floating about? Where might one (I) read this?

I think it was just someone suggesting that old fossil pokemon could have non fossil alolan forms, but they worded it in a way that confused some people.

edit:
...they could also flip it potentially and have a fossil form on alola of a pokemon that isn't normally a fossil to high lite a localized extinction... like ekans and arbok since snakes once lived on hawaii and have since been reduced to 1 marine specie(if you can even count that since marine snakes live in all the oceans) and 1 itty bitty blind cave remnant species.

I could see the scientist being like "So long ago ekans live on alola, but since went extinct, reviving this fossil will be like a look at ancient ekans and may help us understand what happened to the alolan population" and then you get a rock/poison ekans.

 

[Aromatic Mist]

They specifically said Alola Fossils, and I assumed that meant the Alola Region's Fossil Pokemon.

They literally said Alola Forms, which are only given to old Pokémon.

 

[GDK]

I want an alolan magcargo (while slugma stays the same).
IT would be fire/ice and its shell would be icy instead of rocky.

The reason? I dunno fluffy round pancakes?

 

[Alexander18]

Alola Primeape - Fighting/Electric with Iron Fist and Static. Primeape became this form when adapting to an electrical area/terrain in Alola which resulted in it's new form. It can paralyze it's opponents before finishing them off with it's best moves.

 

[clbgolden12]

Alola Primeape - Fighting/Electric with Iron Fist and Static. Primeape became this form when adapting to an electrical area/terrain in Alola which resulted in it's new form. It can paralyze it's opponents before finishing them off with it's best moves.

Mmmmmm, I like this idea. I can see Primeape's giant hair fluff turning yellow and start channeling static electricity.