Pokemon Day Presents 2024 - Pokemon LZA 2025

[Yung Dramps]

Man this game is gonna introduce some real wackiness for spinoff media

-What's Horizons gonna do for its inevitable tie-in special? If this happened even one generation earlier the obvious route would be XYZ anime fanservice, but with Ash gone from the protagonist's seat they're gonna have to make the decision on if Horizons is set in the Ashnime continuity or not. If it isn't, what then? For instance, suppose Z-A decides to run at least in part with a plotline about the vengeful remnants of Team Flare. In that case, who defeated them originally in the Horizons universe? What about OCs like Alain or characters best known for their XYZ portrayals like Clemont and Serena, what's happening with them? Now you could point out that the yee-yee-ass Journeys Legends Arceus special just dodged doing much in Hisui and went with a non-descript Team Galactic plotline, but with this game being set in modernity and with no faithful XY remake accompanying it that won't be possible this time around.

-If it's still in operation, what about Masters? Sure, they already have a few classic vs last appearance character alt costumes, namely for BW2 Unova and Kanto guys. But with something like Unova VS Alola Grimsley you're dealing with relatively small in-universe timeskips that don't change much, just a couple of years. What happens to Sycamore, Emma, the XY friends etc when they suddenly face their counterparts from potentially a decade or more down the road? Do the new versions take the old's places as the "defaults"? These questions are probably why they haven't added Alola Red and Blue yet, but they're not gonna be able to dodge them for much longer.

-Lowest rung because it already skipped Hisui but I wonder if Pokespe will find the time for a Z-A arc or if its scheduling is still too cooked to bother

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

-What's Horizons gonna do for its inevitable tie-in special? If this happened even one generation earlier the obvious route would be XYZ anime fanservice, but with Ash gone from the protagonist's seat they're gonna have to make the decision on if Horizons is set in the Ashnime continuity or not. If it isn't, what then? For instance, suppose Z-A decides to run at least in part with a plotline about the vengeful remnants of Team Flare. In that case, who defeated them originally in the Horizons universe? What about OCs like Alain or characters best known for their XYZ portrayals like Clemont and Serena, what's happening with them? Now you could point out that the yee-yee-ass Journeys Legends Arceus special just dodged doing much in Hisui and went with a non-descript Team Galactic plotline, but with this game being set in modernity and with no faithful XY remake accompanying it that won't be possible this time around.

As an avid watcher of the anime, I can say this much: Horizons will definitely be in the same continuity as Ashnime, and I see no reason for them to do otherwise. It would be a complete waste if they just completely threw away all the worldbuilding they had done over 26 years and 1200+ episodes, and while they closed the book on Ash's character arc and story, what you had left in the end was a very big world that's gone through a substantial amount of worldbuilding and still has potential for even more, a now perfect setting for a new cast of characters to inhabit it and have their own new adventures in such world.

The fact that it has the exact same artstyle as Journeys, and so far the world literally follows the same rules as Ashnime, even so far as acknowledging Nurse Joys who have the same voices and appearances as the ones we've seen before, leads me to believe this is the same universe and continuity as always, just with a focus on a different group of characters who have their own adventures.

I think it's currently far too early to tell what Horizons is going to do exactly since that tie-in is still at least a year to a year and a half away from now, but I don't think it's impossible for them to bring back the likes of Serena or Alain or Clemont back to interact with the Rising Volt Tacklers. Especially seeing as how some of the staff who worked on the XYZ anime are still working on Horizons, including its series director who is also holding a directorial position over Horizons. They're not actually that connected to Ash to begin with outside of "we met and we travelled together once" and they can viably contribute to the story as they're their own Trainers and characters with their own careers and at the point we're at when the time comes they may think it's fine to bring them back. Serena for instance has her own career as a performer and the way her one and only Journeys return was written felt like a setup in such a way that they are free to do more with her in the future, and she'd be pretty easy to bring back and have her interact with Liko, Dot, etc. as they see fit. They don't even need to acknowledge Ash if they return, odd as that sounds, which makes it less difficult to have them show up again. Serena would ironically be easier to bring back in Horizons because Ash isn't around since they don't have to worry about acknowledging the elephant in the room between them anymore, and if they bring her back they'll bring her back for herself, for Liko and co. to meet her as "Serena, the respected Pokemon Performer and Trainer" and interact and learn from her on her own terms. I think Alain and even Clemont would be similarly easy to bring back.

They can even bring back Bonnie and Squishy+Z2 since the latter two *are* Zygarde. It would actually be very tasteful to bring back some XYZ characters as a way of connecting Horizons to what came before without necessarily acknowledging Ash, or be in any rush to bring him back on screen after he had just been retired as the MC. Also keep in mind Anipoke's target audience is kids, especially new ones who are probably just starting out with Likonime, and many younger kids if they see Serena and the like on-screen wouldn't have the slightest clue that Serena had any ties to the previous protagonist, for instance.

-If it's still in operation, what about Masters? Sure, they already have a few classic vs last appearance character alt costumes, namely for BW2 Unova and Kanto guys. But with something like Unova VS Alola Grimsley you're dealing with relatively small in-universe timeskips that don't change much, just a couple of years. What happens to Sycamore, Emma, the XY friends etc when they suddenly face their counterparts from potentially a decade or more down the road? Do the new versions take the old's places as the "defaults"? These questions are probably why they haven't added Alola Red and Blue yet, but they're not gonna be able to dodge them for much longer.

The Arceus characters showed up and interacted with their modern Diamond and Pearl counterparts just fine as separate characters. We don't know if Z-A is past or future (though we do know the Lumiose in Z-A is a different one from the one we saw in X and Y so it's obviously a different time period), but since Pasio is a conglomerate of characters from different points in time being thrown in with each other to begin with and the Z-A characters, even if they are ancestors or descendants of X and Y characters, are likely going to be different people in the first place so Masters shouldn't have any problems with it.

-Lowest rung because it already skipped Hisui but I wonder if Pokespe will find the time for a Z-A arc or if its scheduling is still too cooked to bother

If they skipped over Hisui then they're probably not gonna bother with this.

 

[Yung Dramps]

The Arceus characters showed up and interacted with their modern Diamond and Pearl counterparts just fine as separate characters. We don't know if Z-A is past or future (though we do know the Lumiose in Z-A is a different one from the one we saw in X and Y so it's obviously a different time period), but since Pasio is a conglomerate of characters from different points in time being thrown in with each other to begin with and the Z-A characters, even if they are ancestors or descendants of X and Y characters, are likely going to be different people in the first place so Masters shouldn't have any problems with it.

Sure, but PLA didn't actually have any returning Sinnoh characters other than kinda sorta not really Rei/Akari. You can have the og characters and their ancestors show up just fine because they are still different people at the end of the day. I'm talking a scenario where Z-A introduces adult versions of the Kalos friends or older Sycamore. They could have some fun with that, it's not an insurmountable herculean task, it's just a situation Masters has thus far managed to avoid that it will soon no longer be able to

 

[Codraroll]

All right, finally caught up with the thread. Time to air some thoughts.

First, I'd like to commend DrPumpkinz for summing things up very concisely:

Its title is "Pokemon Legends Z-A" and it takes place primarily or entirely within Lumiose City. That's pretty much all we know.

By necessity, there will be a lot of speculation at this stage. I usually go on with the same spiel about this, and one day I'll have to make a chart, but to sum it up: With regards to the game, we're in a territory with a whole lot of "unknown unknowns". Stuff we don't know, and which we can't even anticipate. But there are also a few "known unknowns", that is, "things we anticipate in general terms, but don't know the details of". To give an example: Mega Evolution. We can probably anticipate a slew of new Mega Evolutions, but not which Pokémon will get them. But there's a finite number of candidates, so we can have fun betting on which ones will be the lucky ones. Same goes for which starters they will have us play with. Probably a number of the existing ones, of which candidates are finite, but we don't know which ones. So that's what the talk has already swirled around for a while.

There's also the general scope of the gameplay. We know it's set in Lumiose City, but will it be only Lumiose City? I'm leaning towards no. Pokémon has always been about creatures in nature. I don't think they will yank them all out of their natural habitats and place them on regular street corners. Yes, there are some distinctly urban Pokémon, but those are a very small minority (and they are mostly Steel-, Electric-, or Poison-types anyway). So I strongly we will visit "the wild" and that it will be the primary place to find more Pokémon, as has always been the case. The key to this wilderness will probably be the five plazas (plus possibly Centrico Plaza). We know there are five of them, whose names translate to "Green Plaza", "Blue Plaza", "Magenta Plaza", "Red Plaza", and "Yellow Plaza". Those colours can be translated quite easily to habitats without much imagination effort. I.e. "Forest", "Sea", "Swamp", "Volcano", and "Mountain", respectively. I presume the plazas will, in one way or another, serve as portals to greater landscapes where we catch Pokémon and gather materials for our redevelopment of Lumiose.

Speaking of the past/future debate, the general aesthetics of things lead me to believe we're at least in a modern setting. We won't be Baron Haussmann tearing down the slums to make grand boulevards (whose width were mainly a measure to prevent eventual revolutionairies from making barricades, but that's a different story). I think Game Freak has taken inspiration from a much more mundane effort: Paris being touched up and transformed ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games. It has been in the news for a while that they're spriting up public transit, cleaning the Seine, and going to war on bed bugs, among other things. Plus rebuilding the Notre-Dame cathedral after that tragic fire in 2019. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that Game Freak has seen this and thought "you know, this could almost be a game idea ...".

As for why there wasn't a Unova remake, and no main series game at all this year, I'll say "hold on a bit". Because I'm not entirely convinced that we've been told everything yet. There could still be ILCA shenanigans on the horizon.

Because, for all its flaws, BDSP sold extremely well. A smidge over 15 million copies as of one year ago. That's not necessarily big numbers for a main series Pokémon game (SwSh and SV bob around 25 million), but it's a bonkers number nonetheless. It is comparable to a headliner game in all other Nintendo franchises than Mario, Pokémon, Super Smash, or Zelda. BDSP sold better than Splatoon 2 (and 3), better than Luigi's Mansion 3, twice as much as Monster Hunter Rise, or ten times more than Pokkén Tournament HD. Heck, BDSP also outsold Legends Arceus. And I can pretty much guarantee that BDSP was vastly cheaper to make than any of those, likely by an order of magnitude. The entire visual style, script, layout, concept, scope, pretty much the entire creative process of BDSP was ripped straight out of DP and could be skipped during development. They needed a game engine and assets, and a little bit of rework of the UI and the Sinnoh Underground; other than that they only had to copy the existing game to the pixel (then upscale it). This was likely a very inexpensive process with minimal input from most of the usual game making departments. And it sold comparably to Nintendo's biggest headline games. It sold almost twice as much as the best-selling games on the Wii U, or on the GameCube. On its teeny-tiny budget, it sold more than Super Mario Galaxy once did.

Not trying to milk that cow again would mean leaving a vast pile of money on the table. And now they are saying that they keep the holiday 2024 slot open. No new Pokémon game to line Nintendo's coffers for Christmas this year. I call shenanigans.

However, they also know that a BDSP-style, minimal remake of BW1 would not be met with the biggest cheer from the fans. It would be underwhelming for Pokémon Day. So I think they drop the big news about next year's game first, give us something novel, exciting, and juicy to look forward to, then later announce a 2024 game. It's not like there's a lot to say about a direct-upscaling-style remake anyway; there's no need to stretch its pre-release period from February to November. I'd rather expect the news to come at some point during summer: "By the way, here's a BW1 remake, what you see is what you get. Yeah, it's pretty much exactly the same as the DS game, but you can't find it in stores anymore and the touch screen on your DS has been dead since 2017 anyway so you could barely play it if you wanted to. How 'bout playing it with Switch graphics, though?"

It wouldn't be a big, ground-breaking announcement, but it would be a very profitable venture nonetheless. Even with only a quarter of BDSP's sales, it'd outsell Fire Emblem: Three Houses, or Xenoblade Chronicles 2+3, or the entire Bayonetta series combined (at three quarters of BDSP's sales, it'd outsell all of them combined). And again, the game would be vastly cheaper to develop than either of those. That's a whole ton of money for very little investment. ILCA has shown they are up to the task. We might not particularly want it, but I suspect it is coming.

 

[RocketSurgery]

To be honest, I wouldn't mind BW & BW2 faithful remakes because they are the only games I never actually owned and as everyone knows used copies are stupidly expensive. The catch of course is that they'll probably only do the originals and not the sequels. I'd even just take straight up Switch ports that connect to HOME.

 

[Yung Dramps]

However, they also know that a BDSP-style, minimal remake of BW1 would not be met with the biggest cheer from the fans. It would be underwhelming for Pokémon Day.

I mean... You can say the same for all the other mobile stuff they dump in the first 95% of the runtime. The big exciting Z-A announcement is still there so... No real point in waiting. More importantly, there is no brand synergy being done here. BDSP was the lead-up to a whole new Sinnoh project, it just straight-up would not have existed in its current state without Legends Arceus. A BW remake is a total nonsequitur.

We always talk about how the merchandising machine affects the decision-making behind the main games, and how just releasing a game isn't where the money ends. BDSP may have been cheap to make, but I am going to make a very ballsy prediction: I think Legends Arceus was still just as, if not considerably more profitable because BDSP is just absolutely worthless to the brand. PLA wasn't just a good game that sold nicely, it also brought a huge assortment of new characters, concepts and of course Pokemon that'll be merchandisable for years to come. Adaman & Irida costumes in Masters! Hisuian forms and evolutions in Go! New Palkia and Dialga forms to turn into plushies! The TCG has effectively had TWO sets with Ursaluna alone as a centerpiece, courtesy of both the Pokemon's first debut and its Blood Moon form from Teal Mask. These introductions in turn inspire fans to create their own projects with the new material, further advertising the series and keeping it alive in the public conscious for even more profits. BDSP doesn't do anything like this! Not a single new Pokemon, no beloved new features that can be iterated on later, not even any good redesigns for old characters like HGSS! What would happen to the brand if BDSP didn't release, really? Maybe Cynthia merch would sell a bit less? And in the end, you can't just write off the mediocre-to-bad critical reception. Reputation matters. Good press matters. Or am I just being overly naive?

 

[R_N]

. Reputation matters. Good press matters. Or am I just being overly naive?

yeah

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

We getting Isekai'd again, but into the future.

I'm actually more curious about whether Agile and Strong Style will be back tbh.

The whole game being set in Lumiose is 100% boom or bust, with no in-between. There are many obvious pitfalls, but I'm guessing that was either an exaggeration and Lumiose will be the main focus but not literally the only area in the game, or GF found ways around them.

Also, the nostalgia cycle for XY is real. I was talking about LZA with one of my students and he instantly got mad hype lmao. It's also hilarious that he was annoyed at SV's fake open-world and he wished they'd just make the games linear again instead of having that mess.
Whoever decided to let Kalos have a runback was very smart. Even the fandom at large seems to have received this game extremely well. We all know that wouldn't be the case with Unova.

 

[R_N]

The whole game being set in Lumiose is 100% boom or bust, with no in-between. There are many obvious pitfalls, but I'm guessing that was either an exaggeration and Lumiose will be the main focus but not literally the only area in the game, or GF found ways around them.

Honestly I can see myself, even in a 100% Lumiose (charitably i will say there's an underground portion to be TOTK get Terminus Cave representation) + 100% Best Game In The Series scenario still going "Ok but I really can't even go through the gates? Touch the routes that are literally right there? Not a single one of them? I'm just in the city forever?"

 

[Rarycaris]

Reputation matters. Good press matters. Or am I just being overly naive?

Another thing that gets overlooked here aswell is that it seems very much like BDSP created a massive technical nightmare with Home compatibility that took around a year to solve. Partly because of lazy intentional coding and partly because they needed to implement a bunch of restrictions to stop clones from early bugs flooding Home. That sort of thing very much hampered enjoyment of the game by casuals.

 

[R_N]

Another thing that gets overlooked here aswell is that it seems very much like BDSP created a massive technical nightmare with Home compatibility that took around a year to solve. Partly because of lazy intentional coding and partly because they needed to implement a bunch of restrictions to stop clones from early bugs flooding Home. That sort of thing very much hampered enjoyment of the game by casuals.

BDSP Home compatibility took the same amount of time to release (BDSP in November 2022, 2.0 in May 2023) as between SV & 3.0 (November 2022, May 2023)
And Honestly half of BDSP's wait time can probably be laid at the feet of being within 2 months of LA. I suspect they wanted them to come as a set.


most casuals probably don't even use Home, if I had to guess.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

"By the way, here's a BW1 remake, what you see is what you get. Yeah, it's pretty much exactly the same as the DS game, but you can't find it in stores anymore and the touch screen on your DS has been dead since 2017 anyway so you could barely play it if you wanted to. How 'bout playing it with Switch graphics, though?"

Even as a certified Unova hater, I can't possibly imagine why people would be mad at an ILCA BW1 remake besides "Muh sprites! "

It's also the easiest money they'll ever make. Don't forget, unlike DP (but not Plat), BW1 came out as fully-fleshed games with GF having a whole gen's worth of experience on the DS. There really shouldn't be any pushback towards that from the fanbase.

The suits would certainly enjoy another safe and cheap holiday release selling double-digit million copies, so no hate from them either.

Unova fans might have legit shot themselves in the foot with how vocal they are over it, there's a legit chance they might not get to see that region for the next 5-10 years.

Oh well, can't say I'm not happy about it.

I think Legends Arceus was still just as, if not considerably more profitable because BDSP is just absolutely worthless to the brand.

Not really, it set a very important precedent. Remakes were demoted to essentially game filler to open up space and dev time for bold, ambitious projects like PLA and to a lesser extent, SV.

They did it while also pocketing an outrageous amount of money. Granted, the side-effect was that BDSP had to take an L, namely Masuda being a head-in-the-sand idiot and using fucking DP as a base, but it did pave the way for PLA to be as reckless as it needed to be because it had a safety net.

Had ILCA been allowed to use Platinum as the base (and Hisui mons programmed in), we'd be talking about how that was the best thing the franchise could've ever done and that Sinnoh saved the franchise again. (It did, but it doesn't get the credit it deserves.)

Honestly I can see myself, even in a 100% Lumiose (charitably i will say there's an underground portion to be TOTK get Terminus Cave representation) + 100% Best Game In The Series scenario still going "Ok but I really can't even go through the gates? Touch the routes that are literally right there? Not a single one of them? I'm just in the city forever?"

Pretty much. That would be a hilariously dumb decision.

BDSP Home compatibility took the same amount of time to release (BDSP in November 2022, 2.0 in May 2023) as between SV & 3.0 (November 2022, May 2023)
And Honestly half of BDSP's wait time can probably be laid at the feet of being within 2 months of LA. I suspect they wanted them to come as a set.


most casuals probably don't even use Home, if I had to guess.

Don't remind me. I've inhaled so much copium thinking Hisuian Mons would be added to BDSP over it...

 

[R_N]

Don't remind me. I've inhaled so much copium thinking Hisuian Mons would be added to BDSP over it...

Bro.....I mean it was one thing to have SWSH addition copium but BDSP didn't even have Alolan forms......

 

[DrrT]

I just don't see the point of announcing a BW remake later, specially if it's coming before ZA. They are very well aware the fan reception would be bad. Why not try to mitigate it by showing it before the ZA teaser? The announcement would be even more of a disaster now that the fandom have their hopes up about them "taking more time" which as I mentioned previously may not even be the case but it has already extended. And if the artstyle is anything like BDSP people will (understandably) be even more mad.

But hey I didn't finish my marketing career so maybe I'm missing something important. Still, even if they know they will sell like pancakes, it feels like they would have handled things differently if there was a remake coming.

 

[Bakugames]

-Lowest rung because it already skipped Hisui but I wonder if Pokespe will find the time for a Z-A arc or if its scheduling is still too cooked to bother

brother they dont even have the final volume of oras done

 

[DrrT]

Bro.....I mean it was one thing to have SWSH addition copium but BDSP didn't even have Alolan forms......

I honestly thought they would add only the Origin Formes just so they could say the cover legends got something new. But I guess the "remake" really had to be "faifthful".

 

[R_N]

I just don't see the point of announcing a BW remake later, specially if it's coming before ZA. They are very well aware the fan reception would be bad. Why not try to mitigate it by showing it before the ZA teaser? The announcement would be even more of a disaster now that the fandom have their hopes up about them "taking more time" which as I mentioned previously may not even be the case but it has already extended. And if the artstyle is anything like BDSP people will (understandably) be even more mad.

But hey I didn't finish my marketing career so maybe I'm missing something important. Still, even if they know they will sell like pancakes, it feels like they would have handled things differently if there was a remake coming.

I will posit one aspect that might lead to them delaying announcing the remake, if there is one: they took to heart that maybe showing a game that they're not going to talk about for another 6 months and showing it in a really early state is, perhaps, something to avoid
Z-A can't avoid being talked about because it's a GameFreak major title and it's Pokemon Day you have to show something, but they got around it by just showing an elaborate teaser to sell the concept.

meanwhile farmed out remake can cook a bit and just reveal it later when they'd talk about it normally.


At least that would be the only thing to get me to go "I guess that makes sense" in the event it winds up being a GS remake, considering the strange focus Johto got in the Presents.

 

[Yung Dramps]

brother they dont even have the final volume of oras done

Ah so it's still cooked. Gotcha

Unova fans might have legit shot themselves in the foot with how vocal they are over it, there's a legit chance they might not get to see that region for the next 5-10 years.

Honestly they've been pretty chill about the Z-A reveal. From what I've seen the reactions from Unovabros have been a mix of "Oh well, better luck next time", congratulating Kalos fans and relief at not having to deal with ILCA Unova

I just don't see the point of announcing a BW remake later, specially if it's coming before ZA. They are very well aware the fan reception would be bad. Why not try to mitigate it by showing it before the ZA teaser? The announcement would be even more of a disaster now that the fandom have their hopes up about them "taking more time" which as I mentioned previously may not even be the case but it has already extended. And if the artstyle is anything like BDSP people will (understandably) be even more mad.

But hey I didn't finish my marketing career so maybe I'm missing something important. Still, even if they know they will sell like pancakes, it feels like they would have handled things differently if there was a remake coming.

To be fair, if Z-A is releasing late 2025 and a BW remake is outsourced then they still are giving Game Freak extra time. It's just that now 2024 might have another faithful remake of questionable quality, which to a lot of people would be worse than nothing.

Also, the nostalgia cycle for XY is real. I was talking about LZA with one of my students and he instantly got mad hype lmao. It's also hilarious that he was annoyed at SV's fake open-world and he wished they'd just make the games linear again instead of having that mess.
Whoever decided to let Kalos have a runback was very smart. Even the fandom at large seems to have received this game extremely well. We all know that wouldn't be the case with Unova.

XY really is the modern RBY: Us loser diehards online always pick on it but it's still absurdly popular among casuals and is responsible for the shape of Pokemon as it is now. Still better than BW1 tho

 

[Hugin]

I'm coming down more and more on the side of...how to put this? Lumiose City is the hub and focus, but not the entire area. Picture Lumiose as the hub area, surrounded by a single wild region with various biomes. So that a lot of everything happens in the city, but there's still enough wilderness to justify catching pokemon that aren't fit for urban enviroments.

Since we're talking Kalos, my thoughts on the OG games as a whole:
The original map layout was very good. No surprise after my Hoenn post, but I like when they've got lots of smaller loops to get you back to the same place with new areas unlocked. Kalos feels like you're wandering, even if it's still linear.
LOTS of mons available. I know this is a contentious point, but if I'm doing a mono-fire run, I'd like there to be actual fires available to catch before the midgame. Kalos made challenge runs viable in a way lots of the series doesn't.
The gyms leaders were so bad. Rock and Fairy were good, and Clemont was closer than most Electric gyms get to being balanced, but they really just sucked.
On the other hand, the route trainers were EXCELLENT at giving you a real challenge if you went in unprepared.
I liked the various alternate battle styles(Timed Restaurant battles, Inverse, Flying), and they could have been good if there were more than a handful of each(so you could justify building for them).
Team Flare/Lysandre was a disaster and needed a full rework.
MegaEvolution was the least objectionable supermechanic, and was arguably even good.
The various lore had potential, but was undercooked.
A LOT of the Gen VI mon designs are great visually and mechanically interesting.
4 rivals is too many.

Honestly, looking over that list, I'm surprised there wasn't louder clamoring for remakes/Pkmn Z. Basically all the good stuff would stay for future versions and all the bad stuff would get reworked just by default. It's an obvious fix.
Of course, with the revisit being a Legends game, MOST of what I listed is going to vanish or be unrecognizable no matter what.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I'm coming down more and more on the side of...how to put this? Lumiose City is the hub and focus, but not the entire area. Picture Lumiose as the hub area, surrounded by a single wild region with various biomes. So that a lot of everything happens in the city, but there's still enough wilderness to justify catching pokemon that aren't fit for urban enviroments.

Since we're talking Kalos, my thoughts on the OG games as a whole:
The original map layout was very good. No surprise after my Hoenn post, but I like when they've got lots of smaller loops to get you back to the same place with new areas unlocked. Kalos feels like you're wandering, even if it's still linear.
LOTS of mons available. I know this is a contentious point, but if I'm doing a mono-fire run, I'd like there to be actual fires available to catch before the midgame. Kalos made challenge runs viable in a way lots of the series doesn't.
The gyms leaders were so bad. Rock and Fairy were good, and Clemont was closer than most Electric gyms get to being balanced, but they really just sucked.
On the other hand, the route trainers were EXCELLENT at giving you a real challenge if you went in unprepared.
I liked the various alternate battle styles(Timed Restaurant battles, Inverse, Flying), and they could have been good if there were more than a handful of each(so you could justify building for them).
Team Flare/Lysandre was a disaster and needed a full rework.
MegaEvolution was the least objectionable supermechanic, and was arguably even good.
The various lore had potential, but was undercooked.
A LOT of the Gen VI mon designs are great visually and mechanically interesting.
4 rivals is too many.

Honestly, looking over that list, I'm surprised there wasn't louder clamoring for remakes/Pkmn Z. Basically all the good stuff would stay for future versions and all the bad stuff would get reworked just by default. It's an obvious fix.
Of course, with the revisit being a Legends game, MOST of what I listed is going to vanish or be unrecognizable no matter what.

Lol wow we have basically the same takes on all the key bits of XY, good and bad. I'm especially interested to see what Z-A comes up with for story: In theory they can take XY's good/salvageable characters and otherwise take advantage of the many years later sequel premise as a clean slate to write a whole new plot. I agree that Team Flare is such a mickey mouse storyline that even a regular Z Version back on the 3DS wouldn't have been able to do enough to "fix" it, shit needs a series of comprehensive rewrites far outside the scope of a Emerald/Platinum-level third version. Well, now they have a chance to do exactly that. I'm still keeping expectations low after PLA not having much of a story focus (It did just enough to get you going and justify some cool moments which is all it needed to do imo), but I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Honestly they've been pretty chill about the Z-A reveal. From what I've seen the reactions from Unovabros have been a mix of "Oh well, better luck next time", congratulating Kalos fans and relief at not having to deal with ILCA Unova

That's what I said. Had they not been so vocal about not wanting ILCA Unova, maybe they'd have gotten a remake.

LZA was extremely well-received across the board until we've heard about "The game is set entirely in Lumiose!". And even then, the general vibe is still somewhat positive.

 

[Eriorguez]

In my opinion, Kalos was better than Alola. Alola had character, yeah, but the overworld was quite annoying and limited. Kalos was a quite vanilla region, but quite diverse, and evidently built expecting a revisit that didn't come.

X is the one game I played for 1000 hours (although that's because that's where I started breeding and bred, well, almost the entire Dex over 3 years), and I'm still frustrated at how many loose threads ripe for revisit were in those. I mean, Thousand Arrows and Thousand Waves are moves introduced in XY.

4 year generations still work fine. Leave Gen X for the 30th anniversary.

 

[Pax_Unda]

Like I've said on another forum, full-3D remakes of Sinnoh and Unova were never happening tbh. Like, imagine being forced to adapt Mt. Coronet to SwSh's artstyle. Imagine having to adapt the entirety of Unova to not just 3D but a rotatable camera. ORAS was the last time lifting previous games to current fidelity was sustainable, doing modern adaptations of DPPt and BW would be an abject nightmare for properly staffed AAA studios let alone Game Freak. The real mistakes of BDSP were completely ignoring Platinum, a complete lack of polish and adding mechanics that destroyed the balance, not being faithful.

 

[Eriorguez]

SwSh have routes and dungeons outside of the Wild Area, Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra that work more like traditional Pokemon games tho.

BDSP went too heavy into being a remaster of DP, and felt more clunky than Let's Go.

 

[R_N]

I got one last side note before they probably lock this for the next 7 months: it is going to be so goofy when they add new Pokemon to this but because of how they want to categorize in Home (& Go) all the listings have to be listed in something like "New Lumiose City" because they're probably not going to tack them onto the Kalos category and definitely won't be lumping them into the Paldea category judging by how Hisui & Meltan/Metal were handled