What are some theories, assumptions, headcanons, or general opinions about the series you've changed your mind on over time?

[bdt2002]

What are your guys’ opinions on split versions? Specifically for the core series games, but there’s also more specific things like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2 for example. Split versions of video games were always something I was okay with growing up, but over time I’d say I’d probably have to agree with the masses who might see the business strategy as little more than a blatant cash grab. That being said, in recent years… I’ve started finding split versions incredibly fascinating from a world-building perspective too.

Over the first four generations, it felt like there wasn’t too much to the different versions upon release aside from the Pokémon and maybe a couple of aesthetic differences. Starting in Black & White, this all changed: previously, it was near unanimously accepted that your third version games (Yellow, Crystal, etc.) were the “canon” versions, but suddenly there were subtle differences showing up in the games’ narratives and sometimes even entire locations. Additionally, there’s a bit of dialogue in the postgame of Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire suggesting that the split versions of those games may be alternate universes in their own right. Sun & Moon took this a step further two years later and had a feature where you could essentially travel into the world of the opposite version that you’re playing. We haven’t seen much of this kind of acknowledgement since then, but I do think it would be to the series’ benefit to keep exploring the possibilities in an effort to make split versions all the more justified.

 

[R_N]

What are your guys’ opinions on split versions? Specifically for the core series games, but there’s also more specific things like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2 for example. Split versions of video games were always something I was okay with growing up, but over time I’d say I’d probably have to agree with the masses who might see the business strategy as little more than a blatant cash grab. That being said, in recent years… I’ve started finding split versions incredibly fascinating from a world-building perspective too.

Over the first four generations, it felt like there wasn’t too much to the different versions upon release aside from the Pokémon and maybe a couple of aesthetic differences. Starting in Black & White, this all changed: previously, it was near unanimously accepted that your third version games (Yellow, Crystal, etc.) were the “canon” versions, but suddenly there were subtle differences showing up in the games’ narratives and sometimes even entire locations. Additionally, there’s a bit of dialogue in the postgame of Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire suggesting that the split versions of those games may be alternate universes in their own right. Sun & Moon took this a step further two years later and had a feature where you could essentially travel into the world of the opposite version that you’re playing. We haven’t seen much of this kind of acknowledgement since then, but I do think it would be to the series’ benefit to keep exploring the possibilities in an effort to make split versions all the more justified.

I think we could drop split versions entirely and lose nothing. It's jsut a thing we have because it's Pokemon and it's an excuse for marketing and certain design aspects.
Like we've got it and it's, fine, I guess. It's not really killing the series for me any. But for the most part it doesn't really do much; Legends Arceus just being one game was probably done so for various factors but shows that with some tweaks you could just have every VE split just be something done by a choice at a split point and not worry about other VEs

Also I get BW1 had slightly more emphasized locations but if we're going for "first distinct changes" then it's RS which had different teams with different goals and VE legends that influence those goals. That said BW1 was the first one to actually go with the "different versions, different universes" thing, it's just tied to an obscure side quest with a bad reward so no one remembers or cares about it; a scientist in Opelucid wants to look into the past/future for their kid/parent and see how things were so you need to trade a Pokemon explicitly from another world with Charge to do it (you get a Battery out of it)


I think Masters actually does mess with the AU idea more (I mean, BEYOND the recent Hisui folks where its Spacetime Distortions), though I don't know the full context of each instance. I assume wormholes are involved since Giovanni's still doing rainbow rocket stuff.

 

[Esserise]

Another smaller issue with dual versions is that they add a needless complication to the games’ DLC model, since you have to be sure to purchase the correct DLC “version” to match the version of the game that you own. I’ve seen at least a handful of more casual players get mixed up by that.

The dual version model as a whole does feel a little archaic to me. While I’m not actively bothered by it (it does inevitably mean I end up spending more money, but I realize the fault for that is on me), I can’t really see much of an argument in favor of keeping it. Even when the version differences have been more substantial, they’ve never been so meaningful as to make me think, “Wow, this really justified the concept!” And in some cases, they’ve actually made the game worse (such as with version-exclusive clothing colors in the Alola games…).

 

[Altissimo]

Split versions of video games were always something I was okay with growing up

I mean Pokemon is basically the only franchise to ever do it

 

[R_N]

I mean Pokemon is basically the only franchise to ever do it

Ehhh especially after Pokemon there were a number of handheld franchises (or hoping to BE franchises) that would do it, mostly on the GB & GBA though some did go into the DS era.
Generally not nearly as successfully, mind you. Only big "successes" I can think of are Battle Network (& Star Force), Nintendogs and Youkai Watch

Though yeah Pokemon reigns supreme when it comes to inertia

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Quite a few Digimon games do it too iirc and Zelda: Oracle of Time/Ages is another one that comes to mind (the latter literally had an ad that showed Link slicing a GBC in half and played up the "you need both!" aspect).

Honestly, I'm fine with the dual versions thing as long as you can justify it. And while certain games do it well and others don't (Gold and Silver are a notable example I'll get to in a second) in the modern age where Internet trading is a thing I really don't think it's justified any more unless there's a story or mechanical aspect that makes doing so worthwhile.

For instance, Black and White made a lot of noise about the dual version thing being important but ultimately it wasn't, really. Sure, there's a theme of old vs new, truth vs ideals. But Unova doesn't really change that much between versions: the cosmetic change is limited to a few areas and while Black City/White Forest are very different locations and give you a notably different experience, with one having battles and the other having exclusive wild Pokemon, it's such a niche novelty mechanic that it's unlikely anyone bought either game on that basis alone. Even in the sequels a lot of what makes the split interesting is locked to the postgame: I always opt to replay B2W2 with Challenge Mode enabled and wouldn't want to do it any other way, but the fact that it's locked to postgame is a huge misstep. The key system is so underused and so underbaked. I generally prefer the Black versions but much prefer White's Opelucid City - what if the key system could have been used to swap around areas?

If there's a real case for having two games where one could just as easily do, then it needs to actually be justified in a major way rather than just being expressed though minor novelty mechanics like the Opelucid quest R_N mentioned (interesting, but so forgettable).

I'm going to spoiler this next bit as it veers into fanfiction/wishlisting, but it's relevant to the topic at hand.

How I'd personally justify having two games instead of one

A while ago there was discussion about how political the games should get and I mentioned that an archetype I'd be interested to see the games explore is a Champion who's a politician: a public servant as well as a powerful trainer. They'd be a figure with a strong sense of justice and responsibility, and much like Alder and Leon would be identified as the champion from the start since they're a public figure as well as a Pokemon trainer. They'd form a friendship with the player and would help out in the climactic crisis scenario (and this would also provide a reasonable justification, for once, for them not getting involved - they don't lead from the front). There's also a neat conceptual link with being dethroned as the region's champion and being a politician: they'd reflect on being beaten that nothing lasts and that both champions and politicians come and go, with new people stepping up all the time, and that this is a wholly natural and good thing.

Anyway. Thinking about how such a character could be used in a plot, one idea I had was that a major part of the game's story would concern a large undeveloped area of land in the region's largest city, which the politician character has responsibility for since they'd likely be the mayor of the city. One interest advocates turning it into a housing development, while another advocates turning it into a major Pokemon battling stadium. Both options, obviously, have their advantages and disadvantages - building a stadium would bring in huge amounts of tourism and trade and provide jobs for a large amount of residents, while a housing development would make the city a better place to live and provide affordable homes for people. The dispute about how to develop the land would likely tie into the game's larger overall conflict as opposed to being its sole focus, but would provide a useful demonstration of the politician character's duties and responsibilities - they would reflect to the player that the decision is one they have to consider carefully, and that whatever they end up deciding there is no one course of action that will make everyone happy.

In this regard, you'd have a real case for two games here: in game A they build the stadium, and in game B they build the housing development. The city (and perhaps the wider region) would subsequently be different in both games, and this could affect all sorts of things: item availability, Pokemon distribution, and so on. It would showcase the "both sides-ism" in a real and concrete way, and could spiral outwards to all sorts of other differing mechanics. Perhaps in game A characters from previous titles show up to battle in the stadium, and in game B characters from previous titles move in to the housing development and give you items, trade with you, or do other small quests. There's all sorts of other smaller ways to demonstrate the change: maybe an NPC who likes battling becomes a major star in game A but in game B laments the lack of opportunity to battle in front of large crowds.

What the wider plot of the game(s) would be is a whole other topic but there's a lot of scope for a story about all sorts of things: competition for resources, nature vs technology, people vs profit, and so on. You could go in a lot of directions but the stadium vs housing aspect I mentioned works as a handy metaphor for a lot of conflicts.

I have no plans to create a Pokemon game at any point in the near future, buuuut if anyone from Game Freak is reading...

Back to the main series, I think Ruby and Sapphire were the first games to do the split in a way that felt like it mattered. I had a friend who played Ruby and I played Sapphire; we had a lot of opinions on the dividing lines of Hoenn's story and did genuinely discuss the merits of both sides a fair amount. The differing goals of Team Magma and Aqua genuinely do have distinct moral implications. It's an interesting duality that Emerald's knitting together of the two stories doesn't diminish for me.

A set of games that truly did not need to be split are Gold and Silver. Where is the justification there? True enough, I like that you can get both mascots in either game. But ultimately, there's so little difference that there's no proper reason beyond Pokemon availability. Even Crystal isn't measurably different, to the point that all three games have the same numbr of Pokemon available in them. Similarly, Diamond and Pearl and X and Y are practically a hair apart from being the same game respectively: the difference probably boils down to a few altered lines of text.

The fault of course lies with the original games. Red and Blue literally are the same game: there is nothing, outside of Pokemon availability, to differentiate them. But trading was central to how Satoshi Tajiri envisioned the series. Fair enough, but if you have that mindset in place you need to justify it being there at all. If you know your story will be told in two parts actually tell it in two parts. Don't just create two versions because it's the expected formula.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

A set of games that truly did not need to be split are Gold and Silver. Where is the justification there? True enough, I like that you can get both mascots in either game. But ultimately, there's so little difference that there's no proper reason beyond Pokemon availability.

I now have a theory Pokémon Silver version was only planned in the later stages of the development of Pokémon Gold version.
It doesn't help that Lugia was a late addition to the games, being originally designed as an anime-only Pokémon, and has to be retooled as a counterpart of Ho-Oh who IMO could work as a standalone Legendary.
After all, why do we have Gold version betas but no corresponding Silver counterpart? Because Lugia wasn't in the games yet, that's why.

 

[bdt2002]

The fault of course lies with the original games. Red and Blue literally are the same game: there is nothing, outside of Pokemon availability, to differentiate them. But trading was central to how Satoshi Tajiri envisioned the series. Fair enough, but if you have that mindset in place you need to justify it being there at all. If you know your story will be told in two parts actually tell it in two parts. Don't just create two versions because it's the expected formula.

I can’t remember exactly where I heard this from or if this is even legit, but supposedly this was the result of Tajiri and a friend playing a different jRPG (I wanna say it was a Dragon Quest game) and they got different item pulls from the same drop at some point. Or something. Again, I don’t know if this story is credible or not.

What I do know is that there’s no real way to try and measure how much sales figures of the core series are inflated by the dual-version model. By this point I’m sure we all know that they sell better than games with only one version, but how successful those individual games should be considering is up for debate. Should sales for both versions be counted together, or should each version be counted separately? Should each version be averaged out to compensate for one being more popular than the other? Historically Pokémon’s sales recordings go with the first option.

 

[R_N]

Sales of dual versions are likely counted together because of how development goes. They're treated as one combined game since thats how they develop and their sales are interchangable, so they're together.

It probably is the proper way to present them

 

[daesonfrederic]

Another smaller issue with dual versions is that they add a needless complication to the games’ DLC model, since you have to be sure to purchase the correct DLC “version” to match the version of the game that you own. I’ve seen at least a handful of more casual players get mixed up by that.

The dual version model as a whole does feel a little archaic to me. While I’m not actively bothered by it (it does inevitably mean I end up spending more money, but I realize the fault for that is on me), I can’t really see much of an argument in favor of keeping it. Even when the version differences have been more substantial, they’ve never been so meaningful as to make me think, “Wow, this really justified the concept!” And in some cases, they’ve actually made the game worse (such as with version-exclusive clothing colors in the Alola games…).

Hide

Visit https://paydaysay.com/100-dollar-loan/ if you need financial assistance.

It indeed introduces complexities, especially when it comes to purchasing the right DLC to match the game version. This can be confusing, particularly for more casual players who may not be familiar with the intricacies of the gaming industry.

 

[Coronis]

It obviously made more sense when a large part of the game’s attraction was the local multiplayer trading and collecting. It makes less sense nowadays with all the access to Home and Internet connectivity. I still like it though. It still gives me more incentive to use the online features to obtain version exclusives (for now I still haven’t bought Scarlet - have bought/owned both versions of most of the other games in the franchise). While not necessarily crazily changing the game depending on the version, I feel in some of the versions they have done it well enough for me to consider it a noticeably different feeling on playthrough (R/S, B/W, S/M). SwSh didn’t seem to do this as much in the main game despite the different Gym Leaders, however did that very well in IoA. AFAIK sadly, Teal Mask didn’t do anything different outside of some exclusives? I hope The Indigo Disk can lean more into this, considering its Area Zero theme.

I also think at this point a lot of people would complain if paired versions disappeared, far more than people who complain about them now. I also assume it would negatively affect their sales - I know many people (like me) end up purchasing both versions. This would also hold true for parents who have multiple children.

 

[doipy hooves]

I now have a theory Pokémon Silver version was only planned in the later stages of the development of Pokémon Gold version.
It doesn't help that Lugia was a late addition to the games, being originally designed as an anime-only Pokémon, and has to be retooled as a counterpart of Ho-Oh who IMO could work as a standalone Legendary.
After all, why do we have Gold version betas but no corresponding Silver counterpart? Because Lugia wasn't in the games yet, that's why.

The Spaceworld 1997 demos did come in both Gold and Silver variants, as shown on their Super Game Boy borders and title screen.

As an aside, I thought GS had one of the more interesting ways to differentiate themselves compared to RB by making the front sprites different.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

It obviously made more sense when a large part of the game’s attraction was the local multiplayer trading and collecting. It makes less sense nowadays with all the access to Home and Internet connectivity. I still like it though. It still gives me more incentive to use the online features to obtain version exclusives (for now I still haven’t bought Scarlet - have bought/owned both versions of most of the other games in the franchise). While not necessarily crazily changing the game depending on the version, I feel in some of the versions they have done it well enough for me to consider it a noticeably different feeling on playthrough (R/S, B/W, S/M). SwSh didn’t seem to do this as much in the main game despite the different Gym Leaders, however did that very well in IoA. AFAIK sadly, Teal Mask didn’t do anything different outside of some exclusives? I hope The Indigo Disk can lean more into this, considering its Area Zero theme.

I also think at this point a lot of people would complain if paired versions disappeared, far more than people who complain about them now. I also assume it would negatively affect their sales - I know many people (like me) end up purchasing both versions. This would also hold true for parents who have multiple children.

I mean, it can't be denied that as a marketing tactic it's borderline genius. It's a staple of every new release: "Which one will you get?" It makes an instant artificial divide which spurs discussion and, as you said, works well for families with multiple children (or as I've seen a lot, friends, housemates, relationship partners, and so on).

 

[KalosianPorygon]

The Spaceworld 1997 demos did come in both Gold and Silver variants, as shown on their Super Game Boy borders and title screen.
View attachment 572850View attachment 572851
As an aside, I thought GS had one of the more interesting ways to differentiate themselves compared to RB by making the front sprites different.

I honestly wasn't aware of that. But I guess I was still half-right by saying Lugia wasn't there at the beginning.
And yes, the different sprites between versions are really cool.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

As an aside, I thought GS had one of the more interesting ways to differentiate themselves compared to RB by making the front sprites different.

I'd forgotten that when I wrote my post. I do actually really like that, wish more games had followed the example (though I can see why they didn't, it's a lot of sprites to make).

 

[pika pal]

I think Pokemon's best compromise would be something like what Fire Emblem Fates did (hopefully without the massive quality gulfs between versions): Sell the versions as is but offer the ability to buy the other's content as a significant markdown (So if you have Scarlet, Violet's content is available for like $10), which I would hope also unifies the DLC packages better from the headache they are currently.

Fates was dumb because it was doing a Split version thing for an amount of difference that usually would be a route select in prior Fire Emblem games, not to mention in execution only 1 route was particularly engaging to play and all 3 were pretty laughably written. Pokemon "avoids" this by nature of its version diffs mostly being a few encounters and maybe 2 locations/story beats at most (i.e. "does Nebby become a Lion or a Bird?" or "which of Arven's parents is crazy and which one's out getting milk?"), which could be done as simply at the beginning as "what's your favorite color" or "do you want to move into the Red or Blue Dorm" or something, a basic color themed choice in universe before engaging with anything defining the differences. If I recall some of the Pokemon games literally are just distinguished by a flag as to which "version" to load up, to the point that on a hacked console or emulator, you could load a "Version 1" file into its counterpart if you just changed that identifier and no other data.

 

[Castersvarog]

Tbh I think the only game that can legit get away with the dual versions system is Scarlet and Violet. But that’s by virtue of Koraidon, Miraidon and the paradoxes being so heavily tied into the plot and being so mutually exclusive in their concepts.
Other games could get away with being a single version by virtue of choices and player actions. Like in Gen 7 Nebby would become Solgaleo if you played more in the day, vice versa for Lunala, or even adding in new small plot point involving the antagonists, like stopping one group frok the team from getting a certain item or saving a legendary leads to a different story, or the good old tweaked story like the third versions of before.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

You know, when I read the topic, I expected posts like "I thought Grass was weak to Psychic" or " I believed Rotom was a Legendary Pokémon".

This reminded me of two random assumptions I made when I first played X/Y.

1. I thought Inkay/Malamar were Water-types since they are based on squids. When I first played X, I met a wild Inkay and I used some move on it which was neutral against both Water and Dark/Psychic. This just confirmed my wrong assumption that it was a Water-type. I was quite surprised later when I learned their real types.

2. At some point right after the games had been released, I skimmed through the list of Fairy-types on Serebii and saw Carbink, followed by Klefki. I didn’t look very close at their designs or Pokédex numbers, and since it was a Rock/Fairy followed by a Steel/Fairy, I just assumed that Carbink evolved into Klefki. But this turned out to be incorrect.

Regarding split versions, that’s something I’m sort of okay with, but I wouldn’t mind if they were to be dropped. As it is now, I can just get one game and skip the other. But they have shown that there's no real need for it anymore, they made just one game with Legends, and I think it worked fine. They can still force the player to choose between two different things, but they don’t need two games for that, they can simply make one game which offer choices (like which Urshifu form/Regi/horse you want in the S/S DLC, or whether you want to side with the Diamond or Pearl clan in Legends).

Anyway, the reason I’m posting again is because I remembered an assumption I used to believe in, but that I stopped believing in… simply because it isn’t true. Might as well explain everything about it.

Back during the late Gen 3 days, this assumption was wide-spread and common “knowledge” among hardcore and semi-competitive fans. Since most people believed in it and nobody thought to question it, I just followed along. I never even considered trying it just to see if it was true or not. The assumption was this: If you used Rare Candies on a Pokémon, any EVs it had would be completely ignored upon level-up, thus giving it lower stats when it reached level 100. Since I believed in this, I never used Rare Candies on any of the Pokémon I trained for Battle Facilities (or for other important purposes). I also remember one specific situation where I used a lot of Rare Candies on a Linoone I was training on Emerald as part of a Pickup squad. I posted about this on Serebiiforums, then one user replied to me and said: “Never used Rare Candies in any pokemon, ever.” Which I took as him recommending me to not use Rare Candies due to the assumption that they ignored EVs. But it didn’t matter for this Linoone since I wasn’t going to use it in any super-serious battles.

Anyway, I thought this was true for many years, so for several generations, I never used Rare Candies on Pokémon that I trained for anything important. Instead, I left the candies in my bag, or sometimes used them for less important means (like with the Linoone I mentioned above). It wasn’t really until Gen 7 that I started to question this assumption. I had never thought about questioning it before, but as I was older and more knowledgeable about Pokémon at this point, I thought about it and it just didn’t make any sense. Why would Rare Candies skip EVs?

I was playing S/M and had planned to Hyper Train some Pokémon for the Battle Tree, which I had previously EV-trained. Since Hyper Training required level 100, and since S/M have awful training spots, I used some Food stalls in Festival Plaza for some quick level-up, and finally Rare Candies for the last 1-2 levels. I Hyper Trained my Pokémon, checked their stats afterwards… and as I had expected, their EVs had not been skipped. After this, I went back to occasionally using Rare Candies on Pokémon I trained for serious purposes.

Recently, I decided to try to find out where this whole assumption started. The answer I found was seemingly a misunderstanding. If you train a Pokémon through regular battles, it will gain both Exp. and EVs (if they aren’t maxed out). But if you use a Rare Candy, the Pokémon will level up without getting any EVs. It seems this led people to misunderstand it as using Rare Candies would completely skip EVs in all situations.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

As a kid, it took me a while to distinguish Poliwhirl from Poliwrath.
I get the latter has angry eyebrows, but if GF gave Poliwrath three heads like Dugtrio, I would have seen the difference immediately.

 

[bdt2002]

This is kind of stretching the definition of a "theory" or "headcanon" somewhat, but coming back to this thread yet again let's ignore the fact that this is the first post here in over a month I have something I want to bring up that's been bothering me for a while now. Anyone who knows about the timeline of the core series games may know that Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 supposedly take place at the same time as Pokémon X & Y. At least, according to a now-deleted tweet that would be... almost ten years old at this point, holy crap I'm getting old, from someone at either Game Freak or The Pokémon Company, I can't remember which. That's fine and all, but there's one tiny little problem with that idea. Generation 6 introduced the Fairy-Type. Aaaand Unova has Pokémon in it that would eventually become Fairy-Type.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Yes, I know that in practice, this is because Black 2 & White 2 are Generation 5 games and all that, but I like to analyze these kinds of things from an in-universe perspective. With the previous "newly introduced Types", the games provided a clear explanation for the discovery of new Types not seen in Generation 1, mostly with the Steel-Type, sure, but it was at least something. With the Fairy-Type, though, if we are to assume the games take place at or around the same time, what's stopping some random tourist NPC from Kalos traveling to Unova and asking why the same species of Pokémon they may already be familiar with are so different? For the sake of conversation, let's assume that the two games don't take place at the same time, just to make sure we can look at every possibility we can. Even in a scenario where Black 2 & White 2 canonically take place just before the discovery of the Fairy-Type, similar to what happened with Magnemite and Magneton in between Generations 1 and 2, are we to assume that all these Pokémon just spontaneously changed their biological typings out of nowhere? Generation 1 Kantonians not knowing about Pokémon like Scizor and Steelix, yeah, I can give that a pass since even if Generation 1 did have held items, the Metal Coat still wouldn't have been discovered until the shift to Generation 2 anyways. Forretress also gets a pass since it and its preevolution Pineco were discovered in Johto, not Kanto. But how do you canonically explain in-universe that Pokémon in Kalos that were also in Black 2 & White 2, such as the Marill and Jigglypuff families to name a few, suddenly changing Types? You can bring a Marill or Azumarill to Roxie's Gym Battle and it won't be weak to her team's Poison-Type attacks, but assuming these games are all canon, out of nowhere it suddenly is weak to Poison...? What?

My original explanation for this was that maybe Xerneas, the mascot Legendary of Pokémon X, had something to do with this. Ass the first Fairy-Type Legendary Pokémon, I thought maybe Xerneas somehow created the characteristics of Fairy-Type Pokémon in the Mega Evolution timeline via the Fairy Aura or something, which would explain why Fairy-Types only showed up once Xerneas was included... eeexcept for the problem that this argument completely falls apart when you consider Yveltal also doesn't exist in Black 2 & White 2, and if you use the same logic as its counterpart Xerneas, Dark-Types shouldn't exist at the time of Black 2 & White 2's story, and yet there they are. So what is it? What am I supposed to believe, Game Freak!?

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

then mayb the post was deleted cause it was incoherent

 

[bdt2002]

then mayb the post was deleted cause it was incoherent

Not sure if you noticed yet, but your post loaded in twice. Probably just something with the Internet connection, if I had to guess. I would imagine telling you this way would be more civil than, say, reporting for example. As for what specific post you were talking about... hey, I just got here half an hour ago. Maybe I missed something?

 

[Yung Dramps]

USUM. Just the whole damn thing. Still in absolute awe that I wrote an exhaustive, eleven page analysis mercilessly shitting on a game that I had not played a single time. And then I did and it immediately became one of my top 3 favorite videogames ever (granted I haven't played THAT many games but still).

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. Again, I cannot stress this enough: Every single word of this was written with an Ultra Moon combined playtime of 0 hours, 0 minutes and 0 seconds, as the game would not come into my possession for over a year after publication. As the great crowbcat once so eloquently titled a video on the ouya: failure, regret, death.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

This is kind of stretching the definition of a "theory" or "headcanon" somewhat, but coming back to this thread yet again let's ignore the fact that this is the first post here in over a month I have something I want to bring up that's been bothering me for a while now. Anyone who knows about the timeline of the core series games may know that Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 supposedly take place at the same time as Pokémon X & Y. At least, according to a now-deleted tweet that would be... almost ten years old at this point, holy crap I'm getting old, from someone at either Game Freak or The Pokémon Company, I can't remember which. That's fine and all, but there's one tiny little problem with that idea. Generation 6 introduced the Fairy-Type. Aaaand Unova has Pokémon in it that would eventually become Fairy-Type.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Yes, I know that in practice, this is because Black 2 & White 2 are Generation 5 games and all that, but I like to analyze these kinds of things from an in-universe perspective. With the previous "newly introduced Types", the games provided a clear explanation for the discovery of new Types not seen in Generation 1, mostly with the Steel-Type, sure, but it was at least something. With the Fairy-Type, though, if we are to assume the games take place at or around the same time, what's stopping some random tourist NPC from Kalos traveling to Unova and asking why the same species of Pokémon they may already be familiar with are so different? For the sake of conversation, let's assume that the two games don't take place at the same time, just to make sure we can look at every possibility we can. Even in a scenario where Black 2 & White 2 canonically take place just before the discovery of the Fairy-Type, similar to what happened with Magnemite and Magneton in between Generations 1 and 2, are we to assume that all these Pokémon just spontaneously changed their biological typings out of nowhere? Generation 1 Kantonians not knowing about Pokémon like Scizor and Steelix, yeah, I can give that a pass since even if Generation 1 did have held items, the Metal Coat still wouldn't have been discovered until the shift to Generation 2 anyways. Forretress also gets a pass since it and its preevolution Pineco were discovered in Johto, not Kanto. But how do you canonically explain in-universe that Pokémon in Kalos that were also in Black 2 & White 2, such as the Marill and Jigglypuff families to name a few, suddenly changing Types? You can bring a Marill or Azumarill to Roxie's Gym Battle and it won't be weak to her team's Poison-Type attacks, but assuming these games are all canon, out of nowhere it suddenly is weak to Poison...? What?

My original explanation for this was that maybe Xerneas, the mascot Legendary of Pokémon X, had something to do with this. Ass the first Fairy-Type Legendary Pokémon, I thought maybe Xerneas somehow created the characteristics of Fairy-Type Pokémon in the Mega Evolution timeline via the Fairy Aura or something, which would explain why Fairy-Types only showed up once Xerneas was included... eeexcept for the problem that this argument completely falls apart when you consider Yveltal also doesn't exist in Black 2 & White 2, and if you use the same logic as its counterpart Xerneas, Dark-Types shouldn't exist at the time of Black 2 & White 2's story, and yet there they are. So what is it? What am I supposed to believe, Game Freak!?

Honestly you're way overthinking this

It's pretty much canon by now that there's a Pokemon multiverse, in which the different worlds and timelines take place. ORAS basically solidifies this idea, as well as confirming that alternate game versions are equally part of divergent timelines: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are simply parallel universes running side-by-side, while RSE are in a timeline that split off at a vastly earlier point.

You can draw the lines wherever you want but a lot of fans split it as RBYGSC are one universe, RSEFRLGDPPHGSSBWB2W2 are another, and XYORASSMUSUMSwShL:ALGPEScVi are yet one more. That could absolutely be broken down further though. But anyway, to the point, in the timeline where Fairy doesn't exist, it simply... doesn't exist. Either because it wasn't been discovered or because the type literally never evolved that way. And it follows that characters we see reappear from older games are thus not literally the same people. The Grimsley we see in Alola isn't literally the same individual we saw in Unova, he's an alternate version.

It's the only really logical way around the issue, tbh. It worked purely in the context of RBY>GSC to say Steel was newly discovered, but it became a problem as soon as they remade RBY and had to explain why Steel and Dark were things when previously they hadn't been. And that's before you get into the idea of prequel games like L:A. The "it's a type that was only recently discovered" explanation never fully works unless you assume that it's only the case for the XYonwards universe specifically. In the universe containing the B2W2 we see, it doesn't happen.

 

[Eriorguez]

The Regis being related to the Weather trio: We had Rock to go with Ground, Ice to go with Water, and meteor Steel to go with the spacefaring Dragon.

Then Regigigas happened and that became less likely, and finaly we got 2 extra Regis that buried it.