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[Theory] Were Z and Delta Emerald planned for Gen 6?

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G-SANtos

Well-Known Member
This is something I've been thinking for a while and I wanted to post. Do you guys think there was more planned for Generation VI that got cancelled? Because I do.

First of all, I would like to start with a disclaimer that I never played any of the 3DS games as I don't own a 3DS. Therefore, I apologize if anything I say about the games in incorrect. However, I did watched a playthrough video series for XY, and also the Delta Episode, and I'm currently watching a SM playthrough series.

I'm mostly making this thread to explain my theory and have somewhere to link to in case I mention it in another discussion. Anyway, here it goes.

The way Gen 6 was handled is weird. We got a pair of games, a remake, a leap year, and then we went straight to Gen 7 with no follow up to Kalos whatsoever, with Zygarde's new form debutting in the anime. At the time, there were theories of a connection between Kalos and Alola, but that didn't materialize. So we were left with a Generation that seems incomplete.

By now, Sword and Shield has released. Because of Dexit, we have evidence that GameFreak has strict deadlines forced on them by higher ups, and they probably have to rush the games because of it. Could this explain why?

SM was released on the franchise's 20th anniversary year. What if it was originally planned for later, but higher ups wanted a new Gen for the 20th anniversary? Sure, you might ask "Well, that doesn't mean anything for 2015. If they HAD to release SM in 2016, how does that cancel a Kalos game in 2015?", and the answer is simple. Game development takes time. If SM wasn't originally planned for 2016, but then pushed for earlier, it's possible that developing a game for 2015 could derail SM. In that case, they would have to scrap the 2015 game and put everyone on the SM team.

While we don't have hard evidence SM was forced to have an earlier release, I've heard some people say it feels rushed. One of the Captains has no trial, and the Pokédex has no National mode. The Mythicals don't even cutscenes. Only for Magearna you have an NPC explaining its lore. Marshadow, and later Zeraora, doesn't even have a lore.

And while we don't know for sure that a 2015 game was cancelled for Gen 7 in 2016, we do have evidence there was more planned for Gen 6 at one point. Here. Game IDs datamined showing 2 unused IDs for the blue pentagon. This tweet is from 2017, after SM's release. While this information already existed, I was only able to find a tweet from after SM's release.
I remember at the time, people were theorizing that the next games would be X2 and Y2, or XZ and YZ. Honestly, if Zygarde was meant to be a mascot of two games, I think Z and W make more sense, because both are axis, and Zygarde has a W-looking thing on its back. Or maybe A and Z.
However, I actually think these two games were meant to be Pokémon Z and Pokémon Delta Emerald.

Let me guess, you guys are probably thinking this is a weird theory. After all, a remake of a third version was never before, and B2W2 are probably a sign of third versions becoming second pairs from now on, specially with USUM.
But here's the thing, both B2W2 and USUM have reasons for not being single games.
From what I remember from an interview, Gen 5 was originally intended to have a traditional third version, but someone from Nintendo, I think it was Iwata but I don't remember for sure, told Game Freak to do something different or move to the 3DS.
Even so, if Grey had happened instead, the game would have to deal with the problem of how to adapt BW's whole "you and N each catch a dragon" thing into a third game story, and I'm not sure how you would do that.

And SM is also designed in a way that you can't exactly create a third game without prioritizing one game over the other.
First is the time problem. While Sun follows the 3DS's clock, Moon has the clock 12 hours ahead. There's not exactly a middle ground here. But of course, this one is a minor problem.

There's a bigger one, and that is Cosmog. The main thing that differentiates SM from other games, is that you have one Pokémon that evolves into the cover legendary, and Cosmog's final form is different for each game.
How do you work that into a third version? The simplest answer of "just have Cosmog evolve into Necrozma" doesn't seem to work that well, specially when Necrozma looks completely different from Solgaleo and Lunala.
If anything, SM is the perfect example of a game that can't have a third version made for it.

Even SwSh would work: If you add a third dog that commands Zacian and Zamazenta, and replace Hop with it in the Eternatus battle it works fine.
Just have the protagonist fight Eternatus alone, with Hop watching because his team has already been incapacitated or something. Midbattle, Hop tells the protagonist to use the Rusted Bow, and it summons the arrow dog, who summons Zacian and Zamazenta. Done, a Raid Battle with the hero and three legendaries. Easy-peasy.
Actually, I think this may have been a plan before they decided to go with DLC: After all, Galar has 18 Gym Leaders and there are exactly 8 that we don't know. But that is besides the point.

The point is none of this works for SM. You would need to work both of Solgaleo and Lunala into the plot somehow, and choose which Nebby evolves into, essentially prioritizing one of the paired games over the other.
Not to mention, they would still have to allow you to catch Cosmog and make it possible for it to evolve into either Solgaleo and Lunala in the same game. Which would be weird if there's already a Solgaleo and Lunala in the game that can presumably catch, as legendary mascots usually don't come in multiples in the same game.

With that, it's probable SM was planned from the start to have two third games instead of one. Necrozma's design seems like it was made with fusion with Solgaleo and Lunala in mind, unlike Kyurem where they had to make two forms for B2W2.
In fact, I actually wonder if the presence of Achroma (Colress) from B2W2 (and maybe Burnet's too) in SM was meant as foreshadowing of Necrozma fusing with Solgaleo and Lunala.

But XY has none of these problems. In fact, it's quite the opposite: The story actually doesn't make sense as separate games. Why? For a simple reason, and one reason alone: The Ultimate Weapon.
The Ultimate Weapon has two abilities: Giving eternal life, and wiping out a bunch of living things. And each of those is tied to one of the cover legendaries: Xerneas the Life Pokémon, and Yveltal the Destruction Pokémon.
And here's the problem: With paired versions, the Ultimate Weapon makes no sense. In Y, you have a source of immortality being powered by the death Pokémon, and in X you have a death cannon powered by the Life Pokémon.

While B2W2 may have made people think traditional third versions were over, and USUM may have confirmed that theory for some, XY is the one place where a traditional third version makes more sense than paired follow ups.

And then, there's Delta Emerald.

You might be wondering, why would they remake a third game when they never did that before? After all, they had Crystal elements in HGSS. Why not do the same for ORAS.
The thing is Emerald is a pretty different case from previous third versions. Blue is literally the same story as RG, and just better graphics. Yellow is basically RGB with minor anime references.
And Crystal is basically no different from different from GS. All that it changes storywise is including a Suicune sidequest with a new character. It is so minor that it doesn't affect the main story in any way, to the point HGSS could even include the sidequest without taking away from the fact it is a GS remake.

But Emerald? That was actually the first time a third game significantly changed the story from its base game. There's no way of including Emerald's changes into a RS remake without making it an Emerald remake instead.
And yes, ORAS has Delta Episode, but that's actually quite different from what I'm talking about. HGSS includes Minaki (Eusine) and the Suicune sidequest, which is the main element from Crystal.
Meanwhile, ORAS barely includes any element Emerald at all. There is no Battle Frontier, Adan (Juan) doesn't appear, Enishida (Scott) doesn't appear, and the Frontier Brains don't appear.
Yes, the Battle Frontier is mentioned as being under construction, and Masuda has given a reason for the Battle Frontier to not return. But the absence of the other characters, is weird. See:
-Enishida is mentioned by an NPC in the Battle Maison. But why couldn't there be a small event where you he gives a Mega Stone? They literally put Handsome (Looker) in ORAS just for that.
-Adan is mentioned by Lutia (Lisia), but why couldn't he show up somewhere in Sootopolis? Maybe even as battleable. B2W2 allowed you to fight the retired Gym Leaders from BW.
-Azami (Lucy) is mentioned by an NPC, and I believe she's the only Brain to be mentioned. Obviously if there's no Battle Frontier you can't challenge them as Brains, but why not have them show up somewhere? Battleable or not.

All of those absences just strike me as weird when they were able to have many new characters in the remake. This is one of the reasons why I think Delta Emerald may have been planned at one point: They may have kept the return of these Emerald characters for the Emerald remake.

There's also the fact ORAS was hinting at some connection between Hoenn and Kalos, with AZ being mentioned in Delta Episode, and Project AZOTH not being fully explained. A Grunt says the "A" and "Z" in AZOTH mean "beginning" and "end", which is just like how AZ was described at one point in XY, but we have no clue what the "OTH" mean. To me this AZOTH sounds like a hint to another game. And there's also the Eternal Flower in Sootopolis.

And finally, here's the last reason why I think Delta Emerald may have been a thing at one point: The weirdness of Rayquaza not needing a Mega Stone to Mega Evolve. Sure, there's a story explanation for that, but that's not the point. The point is, why would Game Freak specifically make Rayquaza an exception to the Mega Stone rule? Why would they design a Mega that doesn't need a Stone?
Well, think about it. What is the main weakness of Mega Pokémon? They can't hold items. If you ask me, I think that was the point: Mega Rayquaza is able to hold an item.

In my view, the only reason to design Mega Rayquaza with a different requirement for Mega Evolution, is that Game Freak wanted Mega Rayquaza to have a free item for something. Like what?
Well, ever since Platinum, every third version had a new form the third legendary in the cover. And Gen 6's main new concept was the idea of item-induced transformations mid-battle (Mega Evolution, Primal Reversion).
You see where I'm going, right? I think Game Freak's idea was that Mega Rayquaza was meant to evolve further. In the same way Groudon and Kyogre go through Primal Reversion when holding the Orbs, I think the idea was that Delta Emerald was going to introduce another transformation for Rayquaza, probably with a new item, so its total transformations in battle would be Rayquaza -> Mega Rayquaza -> Ultra Instinct Rayquaza.
And this, well, "Ultra Instinct Rayquaza", for lack of a better name... Actually, let's call this hypothetical form Delta Rayquaza, because I don't think Primal Rayquaza would be what it actually is. Well, this Delta Rayquaza would probably be the cover mascot of Delta Emerald.

So the plan, if that was actually the plan, could have been Z in 2015 and Delta Emerald in 2016. Or maybe both games in the same year, maybe as paired versions. I mean, both would have a green dragon on the cover. Who knows? It would also be a first for GF to release two completely different games together.

And here's my theory. Finally written somewhere where I can link to when I bring up. What do you guys think?
 

BCVM22

Well-Known Member
Delta Emerald, probably not. Everything notable about Emerald was mostly folded into OR/AS, just as most of Crystal’s unique elements were to HG/SS, and just as Platinum’s unique elements will likely factor in to eventual Sinnoh remakes. There would have been no need for a third remake title of the same template.

A third Kalos title? Very likely. There is ample circumstantial evidence that a third Kalos title was planned, and assets created for it, but it was lost in the shuffle of other, unavoidable elements, probably related to an unannounced, behind the scenes delay of the Switch. Most notably, Ash-Greninja, the Battle Bond mechanic, and the Zygarde formes and their mechanics were almost certainly not created, and adapted to the anime to the extent they were, solely to be shoehorned into Alola the way they were.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
"Delta Emerald" would've been pointless. Emerald version itself had only a few gimmicks that differentiated it from Ruby and Sapphire, and it wouldn't have been worth the time and effort to create a Gen VI version of Emerald just to include a few features and locations. I've always found the complaints about the lack of the Battle Frontier in OR/AS to be greatly exaggerated. A lot of fans were upset about its exclusion sure, but I bet that overall those fans make up just a small portion of the fanbase as a whole. So I don't think that their distaste over the Battle Frontier's absence in OR/AS would've swayed Game Freak into making "Delta Emerald".
 

TwilightBlade

Well-Known Member
I guess it's possible that Z was planned to be an actual game. I'm glad that X and Y never got a sequel though because I've never liked it when Gamefreak adds just a few new features to the games and sells a sequel that is nothing but a glorified DLC package.
 

Ariki

Well-Known Member
I think there is merit that Gens 6, 7 and 8 have all suffered from being 'rushed'.

However, let's not that during this era Gamefreak has actively been trying to make Pokémon mainline series games like mobile games and they started a process of simplifying the games mechanics and exploration aspects that started with Platinum and has continued right to the present day...
 

Ariki

Well-Known Member
What’s the correlation between that take and the thread topic?
I'm suggesting that, in answer to the question, that Gamefreak's hard lean into designing the mainline games like mobile games may have meant that whatever was planned may have been pared down.

We do know that Gamefreak has been trying to change the mainline series games based on interviews with Junichi Masuda, but as to whether or not there was a Z or Delta Emerald game planned, or if Gamefreak were rushed, those are all highly speculative...
 

BCVM22

Well-Known Member
Again, I don't think there ever was a "Delta Emerald" because that specific game would have been beyond redundant. Everything unique about Emerald save the Frontier was incorporated into OR/AS and into the Delta Episode specifically.

We can be fairly sure a "Pokémon Z" was planned at some stage because there's no way they went to the trouble of creating mechanics and assets for the Zygarde formes and Ash-Greninja (particularly with both of those elements factoring into the Kalos arc of the anime as heavily as they did) solely to awkwardly shoehorn them into Sun/Moon. What would have become that game was likely a victim of delays on Nintendo's side, particularly pertaining to the Switch, which sent ripples through Game Freak's plans for Generation VII, which in turn affected their plans for Generation VI.

Both of those explanations for their total/eventual non-existence are more plausible and more readily evident than to place the blame on notions of "simplifying" and "being rushed."
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Delta Emerald, probably not. Everything notable about Emerald was mostly folded into OR/AS, just as most of Crystal’s unique elements were to HG/SS, and just as Platinum’s unique elements will likely factor in to eventual Sinnoh remakes. There would have been no need for a third remake title of the same template.

Well Game Freak's shift from third versions of any kind to DLC could have an impact on how Sinnoh remakes handle Platinum content, I could easily see them releasing Platinum content as DLC for the remakes. Which would certainly be a controversial decision, but I'd rather have that than ORAS' approach of giving us next to nothing from Emerald. Because contrary to what you're saying, ORAS omitted a LOT from Emerald, not just the Battle Frontier (although it is the largest feature to get the cut), it was also missing additions such as Match Call and Gym Leader rematches, Mirage Tower and Desert Underpass, the post game areas of the Safari Zone, Magma Hideout being inside Mt. Chimney, and Trainer Hill. To be fair, HGSS had a lot less Crystal content to include, but seeing as how games on newer hardware are expected to be more advanced than previous games, it feels pretty fair to expect most if not all of these things in addition to what ORAS actually had. At any rate, I agree with the overall point that Delta Emerald was never going to be a thing, but DLC could really change up how this kind of content is addressed going forward.

Also, I think @Ariki is onto something about the games being rushed, but not for the reasons they mentioned. The recent games have felt "rushed" and "incomplete" and disappointing because the shift to 3D and now to HD open world requires more and more resources and Game Freak seems to largely refuse to scale up their resources or development schedules to match the jumps in technology. It's no coincidence that the games started feeling barebones once they made the jump to 3D. I think what actually happened is that they planned a lot of this content early on when they started working on the likes of XY and ORAS and vastly overestimated how much content they'd be able to include sticking to the usual 1-3 year development times. And rather than delay the games (you know, like most competent developers that actually give a **** about the quality of their products do) they simply cut those elements out to get the games out on a yearly schedule. I don't buy the excuse that SM was locked into 2016 because of the anniversary. There's not much about it that really screams "anniversary celebration". It seems more likely that it was locked into 2016 because they didn't feel like spending more than 3 years on a game.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
Magma Hideout being in Mt. Chimney was only a thing because Emerald had you pitted against both teams. They can't both be in the regular hideout off Lilycove's shore.

Also, they don't necessarily have the liberty to delay the games when they have to make sure everything is concurrent with the anime, tcg, among other things.
Pokemon is more than just the video games.
 

Ariki

Well-Known Member
A random thought that came to mind for a possible Pokémon Z plot point would have been focusing on how Mega Evolution hurts Pokémon. It was quite noticeable to me that in the third season of Pokemon XY that the tone of mega evolution took a dark turn going from being about the strength of a trainer's bond with their Pokemon to almost being a sadistic and cruel thing to do - a point hammered home in Sun and Moon.

Anyway, I do think that Gamefreak have shown that it is unrealistic to rely on them to produce games year on year. I'd love another studio to step in and create mainseries games as well - perhaps, a spin-off universe which interacts with Home (to facilitate moving mons between games) but is its own thing and thus have the freedom to break free of every trope that Pokemon seems to be stuck with.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Magma Hideout being in Mt. Chimney was only a thing because Emerald had you pitted against both teams. They can't both be in the regular hideout off Lilycove's shore.

Which made more sense anyway. They're both whackjobs trying to throw off balance in the environment, it doesn't make much sense for one to be an ally. They should've had you fight both and just have one be more successful to retain the version exclusivity.

Also, they don't necessarily have the liberty to delay the games when they have to make sure everything is concurrent with the anime, tcg, among other things.
Pokemon is more than just the video games.

Oh please. There's little that's actually "concurrent" with the other aspects of the business as they all have little to do with each other. They did it before with DP, they can do it again.

Anyway, I do think that Gamefreak have shown that it is unrealistic to rely on them to produce games year on year. I'd love another studio to step in and create mainseries games as well - perhaps, a spin-off universe which interacts with Home (to facilitate moving mons between games) but is its own thing and thus have the freedom to break free of every trope that Pokemon seems to be stuck with.

Yeah, and that's what CoD does to maintain its yearly presence, they can release a game each year because they have 3 different studios working on it which each are as large as Game Freak if not larger. Pokemon definitely needs another studio pitching in to the main series if not assuming control of the IP completely, Game Freak is proving they're not up to the task nor particularly interested in creating the modern, AAA console Pokemon experience that's needed going forward. I would say start by allowing another team to work on the remakes or spin off games as you said, and if that team can be trusted, eventually give more control over the series to them and less to Game Freak and eventually cut ties with them. That seems like a good strategy.
 
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G-SANtos

Well-Known Member
Sorry for the delay in answering. I was focusing on some things and ended forgetting about this thread. Thankfully, I remembered before the bump deadline.

Everything notable about Emerald was mostly folded into OR/AS
Can you be more specific about that? Because from what I read, and everyone else says, ORAS actually ignored most of the things added in Emerald, contrary to what you say. None of the E-only characters even get to appear, which is one of the things I brought up in the first post.

A third Kalos title? Very likely. There is ample circumstantial evidence that a third Kalos title was planned, and assets created for it, but it was lost in the shuffle of other, unavoidable elements, probably related to an unannounced, behind the scenes delay of the Switch. Most notably, Ash-Greninja, the Battle Bond mechanic, and the Zygarde formes and their mechanics were almost certainly not created, and adapted to the anime to the extent they were, solely to be shoehorned into Alola the way they were.
I'm pretty sure the Battle Bond was created for the anime, not the games, as a replacement for Mega Evolution for Satoshi.

Remember how before XY was released they announced no new Pokémon was getting a Mega? I don't remember teh exact wording of that interview, but I always interpreted it as "no Kalos Pokémon will get a Mega in XY", meaning they could get a Mega in a later game, and I see Mega Diancie's existence as a confirmation of that interpretation.
And in the anime, despite the games introducing a new type of power-up completely different from anything before seen in the franchise, the protagonist was given no Pokémon that could use it.

In my opinion, the Kalos Starters were always meant to get Megas in a Z version, which the anime staff was aware (or maybe was counting on), and Satoshi was planned to use Mega Greninja. When the anime staff learned there would be no Z, they created the Bond Phenomenon as a replacement.

"Delta Emerald" would've been pointless. Emerald version itself had only a few gimmicks that differentiated it from Ruby and Sapphire, and it wouldn't have been worth the time and effort to create a Gen VI version of Emerald just to include a few features and locations. I've always found the complaints about the lack of the Battle Frontier in OR/AS to be greatly exaggerated. A lot of fans were upset about its exclusion sure, but I bet that overall those fans make up just a small portion of the fanbase as a whole. So I don't think that their distaste over the Battle Frontier's absence in OR/AS would've swayed Game Freak into making "Delta Emerald".
I think you may have misunderstood part of my logic. I was mostly focusing on the exclusion of Emerald-only characters, which I find more glaring than the lack of Battle Frontier. There's no reason they couldn't have been placed somewhere in Hoenn. And it's not just the Frontier Brains, Adan (Juan) is an Emerald character that has nothing to do with the Battle Frontier, and yet he's not in ORAS. They totally could have placed him somewhere in Sootopolis, but didn't.

The complete exclusion of Emerald's new characters, some of which are reduced to mere references, is one of the reasons I think "Delta Emerald" was planned at one point. In my opinion, they excluded all these characters from ORAS so they could be kept as DE-exclusive ones, with or without Battle Frontier (although I think the BF would have returned).

There are two game of origin codes that are unused but are designated as being "from Kalos".

Source: Look at 28 and 29 on the list.
Yes, I know. I mentioned those game IDs at the start of the thread. However, I'm not sure the codes being marked as "from Kalos" neccessarily proves they both were planned to be Kalos. What if they're just marked as "Kalos" by default? Do we know if Bank always listed those IDs as "from Kalos"? Where the two ORAS IDs at any point coded as "from Kalos"? These all affect whether that is conclusive evidence both games were Kalos-based.

I don't buy the excuse that SM was locked into 2016 because of the anniversary. There's not much about it that really screams "anniversary celebration".
Did you not pay attention. There were MORE shoutouts to Kanto than normal.
-Alola has an entire city built by people from Kanto.
-The protagonist is from Kanto.
-There's an Okido (Oak) clone.
-Kukui's mask references the three Starter types + Electric. Guess why.
-Red and Green actually appear in the game. That might not seem like a big deal for you because Pokémon games constantly have past characters show up. But remember that Red and Green usually only appear in the Kanto and Johto games, and prior to SM the only exception was B2W2, which had the Pokémon World Tournament.

And possibly others I'm not remembering right now. I'm not counting the Alolan forms being only for Kanto Pokémon because of an interview where they said that was to experiment with the concept and see how people reacted before giving regionals to other Pokémon.
 
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BCVM22

Well-Known Member
I would believe the Battle Bond was meant as an anime-only substitute for Mega Evolution if they hadn’t turned right back around and suspiciously had Ash-Greninja assets ready to awkwardly place in Alola, a region where Greninja means nothing and where Mega Evolution means very little.

I can’t think of anything that would suggest that they adapted an anime-only mechanic back into the games exclusively for a region where neither the Pokémon nor the mechanic has any real significance. The history of the core titles features the barest minimum of adaptation exclusively from the anime back to the games and I have difficulty believing they created a model, stats, and a game mechanic - all things that require valuable development resources - exclusively to advertise anime episodes that were no longer current by the time Sun and Moon were released.
 

Reinhardt

You! Me! Rivals! Yes?
The Ultimate Weapon has two abilities: Giving eternal life, and wiping out a bunch of living things. And each of those is tied to one of the cover legendaries: Xerneas the Life Pokémon, and Yveltal the Destruction Pokémon.
And here's the problem: With paired versions, the Ultimate Weapon makes no sense. In Y, you have a source of immortality being powered by the death Pokémon, and in X you have a death cannon powered by the Life Pokémon.
I never got that impression from the Ultimate Weapon while I was playing X and Y. While it is capable of both mass destruction and reviving the dead, it never seemed like it was either one or the other depending on the version. Lysandre's plan in both games was to wipe out most of life on PokeEarth, and is using the box cover Legendary's dorant form as a power source, but perhaps I missed some details.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Did you not pay attention. There were MORE shoutouts to Kanto than normal.
-Alola has an entire city built by people from Kanto.
-The protagonist is from Kanto.
-There's an Okido (Oak) clone.
-Kukui's mask references the three Starter types + Electric. Guess why.
-Red and Green actually appear in the game. That might not seem like a big deal for you because Pokémon games constantly have past characters show up. But remember that Red and Green usually only appear in the Kanto and Johto games, and prior to SM the only exception was B2W2, which had the Pokémon World Tournament.

And possibly others I'm not remembering right now. I'm not counting the Alolan forms being only for Kanto Pokémon because of an interview where they said that was to experiment with the concept and see how people reacted before giving regionals to other Pokémon.

Shoutouts to a past game are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, anniversary games typically reference much bigger things than a few characters and lore. Usually an anniversary game ends up being a collection of past games or references significant events and locations or something like that. XY feels much more like an anniversary game because of things such as choosing one of the Kanto starters, Santalune Forest sharing the same design as Viridian Forest, and Unknown Dungeon in Pokemon Village housing Mewtwo. Looking at SM's design and concept it's pretty clear they didn't design the region with the mentality of "let's celebrate the series' history", they just wanted a regular old new region for 2016 because they didn't feel like spending more than 3 years designing it (probably because money).
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I think there were plans for a third game for Kalos but Delta Emerald always seemed like it was meant to be a post game for ORAS. The evidence for that is in the games themselves. We see Zinnia disguised as a grunt for the evil team you’re fighting against in each game and the cutscenes clearly focus on her face. She always notices the player character and looks directly in their direction as if she is watching you. Z was hinted at in XY with several comments hinting towards something bigger that never came to be. Examples would be Zygarde’s relationship with Xerneas and Yveltal, Luminoise City being stated to have wild Pokémon living under the streets similarly to Castellia City, And several moves being programmed in ORAS that were clearly meant for Zygarde itself. There were even the train tracks that were explicitly said to lead to a very specific location that we never got to see and parts of Kalos that we never got to visit or enter that clearly had some sort of purpose such as the extra doors leading inside the Plant which displayed a special message if you tried to open the doors which is never said anywhere else with a door that was meant to go nowhere.
 

Locormus

Can we please get the older, old forum back?
Also, they don't necessarily have the liberty to delay the games when they have to make sure everything is concurrent with the anime, tcg, among other things.
Pokemon is more than just the video games.

The animé follows the games and are updated with any changes. If there would be a delay, they would be notified and we'd get either a meaningful extension (think Orange Islands/Battle Frontier) or a Decolore Archipelago (and everybody simply just checks out).

I think there were plans for a third game for Kalos but Delta Emerald always seemed like it was meant to be a post game for ORAS. The evidence for that is in the games themselves. We see Zinnia disguised as a grunt for the evil team you’re fighting against in each game and the cutscenes clearly focus on her face. She always notices the player character and looks directly in their direction as if she is watching you. Z was hinted at in XY with several comments hinting towards something bigger that never came to be. Examples would be Zygarde’s relationship with Xerneas and Yveltal, Luminoise City being stated to have wild Pokémon living under the streets similarly to Castellia City, And several moves being programmed in ORAS that were clearly meant for Zygarde itself. There were even the train tracks that were explicitly said to lead to a very specific location that we never got to see and parts of Kalos that we never got to visit or enter that clearly had some sort of purpose such as the extra doors leading inside the Plant which displayed a special message if you tried to open the doors which is never said anywhere else with a door that was meant to go nowhere.

Yeah, completely agree here.

I also think it's worth to say that we got spoiled with B2W2 in regards to how much it actually diverged from the first pair. I know Unova as a whole gets a lot of criticism for being too linear (and I dislike that as well), but in my eyes though - it still feels massive and most routes have things to explore after you have first visited them. Kalos simply doesn't bring that much exploring (and Galar as well for that matter) and the region could really have benefited from being reworked in a sequel.

With what you said, and reflecting back on B2W2, it just gives off the impression that regionwise they were again going for another huge improvement in a sequel and it would've given us a definitive rendition of Kalos instead of the barebones one we now have.

Ps. Galar is obviously getting it through DLC though, though that doesn't change that current routes/caves feel boring as hell to begin with. Heck, even insignificant caves like Mt.Mortar or Union Cave feel so much better to pass through than the Galar Mines which are incredibly boring because they're straight paths and offer nothing in terms of adventure. Yes, Mt.Mortar. That cave that you can simply surf past and is completely optional unless you really want a Azumarill and Hitmontop on your GS-team.
 
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