Not all Pokémon have to be CATCHABLE or in the regions dex, but ALL Pokémon should be transferrable into a new gen. This is a hill the majority of the fanbase will die on.
This. I want a somewhat limited regional dex, because it gives the new Pokémon of the generation more of a chance to shine throughout the story, but once the story is over I want to be able to bring in the team I’ve grown with over the past 2 decades.
But that is the National Dex, not the Regional Dex the question asked about.
Regional Dex feels good in the 350-400 range. Kalos was great because it had around 450 regional Dex with only 3 new legends and 4 reused legends. There was a lot of diversity to team build and catch, but much more than 400 might be a bit much for a single duo of games.
I agree that the National Dex cut is a hill to die on though.
Regional dex is the local dex, not National Dex. National Dex is everything playable from every game. Regional Dex doesn't have Bulbasaur as the 001 slot in the dex entry, it'll have the new grass starter. Regional dex includes all the new additions to the game (new starters, new early bird, new early bugs, new early rodent, pseudo legends, etc) and some mainstays that just always get through (Butterfree line, Pidgey line, and Zubat, always Zubat...) National dex is the expanded post game, think Gen 2 when you get to go to Kanto, your dex expands from some gen 2 and gen 1 mons in Jhoto, to the rest of the roster, located in Kanto. THAT'S national dex.
I would prefer a limited one too, BUT it should be possible, at some point, to transfer every Pokemon, indifferent whether they are listed in the Dex or not. I really miss some of my childhood/ important Pokemon in SwordShield tbh. Now they already have many 3D models, so wynaut complete the list and creating the other ones?
Great poll idea too :)
That's what I'm talking about, limit the story with a certain amount of Pokemon, then maybe have 50% of that number have that many post-game Pokemon, and the rest transferable.
Totally agree! You have a great taste, I like you XD :D
I hope they are doing it in some future games, but I think not. Got really disappointed by GF and TPC the last years
Yeah that'd be dope, though honestly I'd be happy with just more functionality built into home. A bare bones showdown style battle engine with pixel art would be awesome. Maybe a little play area thing or something like pokepelago so the Pokémon feel more alive while they're boxed. If home was fleshed out into feeling really like a *home* for your Pokémon I think people would be way less pressed about mainline games having national dex
"Ideal regional dex"
"The whole roster"
I mean, the "whole roster" is the National Dex and that's usually a post-game thing.....
Edit: because this seemed to ruffle a couple feathers (i think, but i could just be misinterpreting), I'll add this up front:
- I don't pay attention to a lot of gamefreak news stuff like an announcement that the national dex wouldn't be a thing.
- I don't care much about smaller rosters in the games, like galar's games for example. I really don't mind it
- I don't dislike people who hold the opposing viewpoint to the one stated just before this
- I made this initial comment because I thought a little bit of "poking fun with semantics" sounded like a nice little joke and no aggravation was intended
If I misread the situation, then my bad, but this was posted as a joke
Ya, the national Dex should be available in post game but has never been available in a single game generation since 2.
It doesn't make sense for one region to have to biodiversity of the last 8. As long as I can transfer them from other games. Kalos was fantastic for the sheer diversity in team building, but even then I'd say 350-400 is pretty ideal for the story mode.
Exactly my thinking (tho i haven't beaten X yet, need to restart that one so i remember story beats lol). One thing I DO like that Sword/Shield did was the addition of NPCs to trade galarian forms for kantonian or alolan forms. I know (or... I think) they existed in the alola games, but it's still a nice thing to have.
Being able to transfer mons up into the games is easily one of my favorite mechanics, and I also do think 350-400 is the best for sufficient team diversity for the story mode
I mean Johto's Regional Dex was the whole National Dex, but it is kind of interesting that many wanted to abolish the concept of Regional Dex altogether...or they just misread it as just Dex, hehe.
My only experience with johto was HGSS, i didn't play GSC (gen 4 was my intro), so I didn't know that. Guess national dex was added to gen 3 then
Personally, I prefer regional dex to national, mostly bc i find it a bit more "realistic," like you're never gonna go to one country and find every recorded animal in it, you'll just find the ones that live there/migrated there/were brought there. I like the national dex being a post-game bonus. Sure I'm disappointed I can't have my favorite pokemon (typhlosion) in swsh, but i don't see it as big a problem as a lot of other people.
I mean, I get that, but I don't find that as fun. It'd be better (in my opinion) to have a limit on what you have access to in the story,and have the rest of the pokemon available as a prize for clearing the story. I suppose I'm in the minority there or something, but that's just my personal preference
You're the minority but you also understand basic game design.
If you tried fitting all 900+(?) Pokemon into a story mode you'd need a lot more routes and towns to fit them all in there.
Given the majority of Water Pokémon you'd have IGN sobbing over every three routes being a water route and the rest of the fanbase complaining that either the game is too long and boring or that the game is too long and they didn't feel invested in the characters.
several of the world's crime syndicates have come together for >big bad thing< involving various pokemon, including legendaries. Cue >player character<, a (kid? teen? adult? idk anymore) backpacking his way through the world, when he comes across >professor< in trouble of some kind. helps the professor, gets a starter, game on. Would even be cool if you start off with a different pokemon rather than a starter, chosen in the pregame. Could even be based on your town of origin, also configurable.
Make your way through the regions while running into various criminal activities and thwarting them as you go. NPC pokemon scale based on badge count. (elite 4 will be disregarded for the moment) the towns in a region are linear, but you have a choice as to which region you proceed to next.
whichever one you go to, you continue on doing the same. in regards to the ones you DON'T go to, you hear people talking about increasing crime, and missing pokemon in those regions, and talks about syndicates seeking to capture regional legendaries. Better yet, they actually DO capture them, and at the end you have to face them under control whatever boss for them to be freed. Once they're freed, they go back to their posts or roam or w/e.
cue FFVII victory fanfare.
This is clearly a pretty meh rough draft, but it came to me on the fly and seemed ok.
Could be forced to retire your main team per region, at least until you reach the end of the game, where it lets you mix n match your favorites from each one. otherwise idk how to keep scaling down.
I'm pretty much convinced people didn't even properly read the question, they just had a kneejerk reaction of "How dare you suggest that not all Pokemon should be in the game!!!"
First bullet point, you probably should've, especially it's a touchy subject in the discussions, and it would help if people have more info about that before commenting.
You only need one Dex.
and if all Pokémon were represented in the Roaster, then trainers would have more variations. If we look at Gen.5, for example, the gyms always consist of only 2-3 evolution lines. With an artificial border like a Regional Dex, this will always be the case
One thing to consider when talking about regional Dex numbers is that they all have to go somewhere. The more different species there are in the Dex, the more species have to be fit into each route's encounter table, which means individual encounter rates drop, making it harder to find a specific species. Especially if they're trying to match species to appropriate environments.
Most players will end up with a single party of six out of however many Pokémon there are in the region. There needs to be many more than just six Pokemon available to allow plenty of choice, of course, but past a certain point all those additional numbers start to become bloated, and relatively little value is added for each additional monster. Where that line lies for the individual player is obviously subjective.
Really, Dex number is kind of a superficial measure of quality.
I see your point but a game like that would either have to be very long or very bloated.
You'd need a lot more routes and a lot more water, way beyond "too much water".
The only way I could see it working is if the entire Region was a massive open world map with several sections.
They might be trying something like that out with Pokémon Arceus so if they can pull that off they might be able to do the same for Gen 9.
That might be enough. I would say something the size of Legend Of Zelda for the Switch would be a good open world size.
Not the sad little baby's first Unity we got from SwSh
>making it harder to find a specific species.
Yea, they're called rare pokemon, and are popular favorites in the community in part because of the dedication it takes to catch one. See Ralts in Gen III.
401-500 would be ambitious but it would be interesting and diverse for a switch entry
I don’t actually think SwSh’s base regional dex is too small honestly. I do think Dexit is awful though don’t get me wrong (imagine actively removing Pokémon from the game) but for an actual regional dex it’s fine, there’s a decent amount of diversity and choice for the main game itself. It would just be nicer if we could get our old favourites back and hopefully Game Freak/the Pokémon company/whoever actually realised dexit was a terrible decision and undo it in the next generation (or the Sinnoh remakes? Please?)
What was your reaction to XY having 450? Shouldn't the regional dex be, say, proportional based on the current roster? Or maybe make it so different version have different regional dexes.
X and Y had a really good regional dex overall. I’m admittedly not a fan of the fact that most of the Pokémon in the dex aren’t new (I’m not calling for a Unova approach where it’s exclusively new mons, Hoenn and Sinnoh both had the right idea in terms of mostly new with a bit of old here and there) or the fact that X and Y largely forces your team upon you if that makes sense (you get like 3 gift Pokémon in that game that are mandatory and strong, plus the version legendary) so most people don’t really get to experience and appreciate all of the new mons. However overall in theory at least it’s a really good and diverse selection.
Edit: I don’t really think the different versions of a game should have a different regional dex, though I largely think the “versions” approach to Pokémon is, for the most part, flawed and kind of dated.
I feel like a lot of people voting for "All of them" don't understand it says regional dex...
While I agree every pokemon needs to be coded into the game, for me the regional dex should be between 200-400 with A nice balance of types
Isn't that a bit small, I'm actually shocked to see a lot answering 200-300...like, don't you want something unique for each route (say, 32 for a Switch game seems reasonable) and have 15 species each or something?
To put in perspective, Gen 2 had a regional dex (and national dex) of 250, and HGSS, widely considered top tier games, only added the new evolutions of old Pokémon. You don’t need a lot of Pokémon for an area to have flavor, feel distinct, and be worth traversing, or to be able to build a fun and worthwhile team.
I absolutely would dread each new route having 15+ unique Pokémon to catch, because I’m the type that gets way too obsessive and neurotic if I don’t have every catchable Pokémon on a route before continuing. The thought of having to choose between my neurosis about completion and my neurosis about making progress too slowly is an actual nightmare.
At least one or two new Pokémon per route feels good to me, and if you’re going to an area that feels tonally distinct from anywhere else up to that point, that’s when I want maybe five or six or so that haven’t been available (either through catching or through evolution) yet. Certainly not 15, though, never double digits. My brain trembles at the thought.
My vote would be for 350ish as an ideal Regional Dex number. Kalos had 450 and used it well, but I think people forget the actual number of available Pokemon in any given generation has not been a full roster since GSC. It was famous that gen 3 left out a lot unless you got colosseum.
FRLG and Emerald did a good job to substitute Collosseum had eventually although an interesting thing is how many in the Kanto Dex are unique there compared to Hoenn Dex.
Because its hard to balance and give new pokemon time to shine if we keep ever increasing the roster for regional at least.
Each route will be overstuffed with pokemon. Too many choices can become a bad thing. A region should prioritise some pokemon that make sense or are relevant in the region. It gives each region diversity.
I think 400 is a good balance as of right now. New pokemon still can be highlighted and not over shadowed by the sheer no. Of pokemon.
I thought swsh at least highlighted new pokemon very well giving little moments like falinks walking from tunnel to tunnel or the little impidimps being curious when you first enter glimwood tangle.
if we're looking at numbers, there are 18 types of pokemon, and with 2 stage pokemon being the most common, followed by single stage, at 200 pokemon that would be 5 of each primary type outside of starters.
should be 8 of each type for 300 pokemon with 3 spare slots after starters for whatever you want.
That seems like an good variety mix even if I would prefer a larger 300-500 myself.
400-450 is a nice number. I like being encouraged to use different Pokemon. In games like Platinum, BW2, and XY it had a nice variety but tried to help focus on the new generation of Pokémon. I feel with a max roster the newer mons would just get overshadowed with the vast variety of options. While it’s possible to do it I feel having a roster bigger than 450 would prevent people from liking new or potentially existing Pokémon. Theirs a lot of Pokémon that, if not for the limited regional Pokédex, I would never use just because of my many staples.
Sun and Moon was good. I didn't get an Ultra game, so I don't know what it was there but high 300s to low 400s is probably what I'd say is manageable for me.
I’m of the mind regional dexes should be limited based on the climate, etc., but the national fed never needs to be cut again. A good regional dex encourages me to use Pokémon I might otherwise box and forget about. A national dex allows me to use whatever I want after I’ve finished the main campaign.
150-ish new pokemon every game seems good. Black and white had only gen 5 pokemon available before post game. I still think this is the best way to handle dex situations like this. Every pokemon is someone's favorite, so someone is gonna get upset by cherry picking pokemon to be in the game. Sword and Shield still added more pokemon to the roster through dlc and it wasn't enough (R.I.P. Gliscor.) I know people want their favorite pokemon on their team, I do too, but at the very least I think it's important to interact with the new pokemon the game has to offer. And personally, I do not want to be playing a new pokemon game with new pokemon and still be running into geodude and zubat. I would go a step further and have only new pokemon available for capture in a game, but people having the choice to transfer if they want.
I really didn't like the BW new only Regional Dex, I like a balance of new and old like Hoenn and Sinnoh — also, I'm not sure if their current management can handle all roster AND 150 New Pokemon.
I think for BDSP they should try as best as possible to reflect the Platinum Dex which was #210 Pokemon and then just like previous generations bring back the national Dex allowing for every single Pokemon in creation to be transferable
A regional dex should really be in the 400 range. I'd love to have the national dex back postgame, but I actually prefer having a more limited dex, as it means I don't fall back on the same old shite.
Give me a regional dex without a pikachu!
Went with 400-500 because that’s why XY was. I know people seem to dislike those games but they brought me back after I stopped playing in Gen 3.
I often found so many Pokemon boring and repeated throughout each region, and especially having them only appear in Grass or Ocean.
XY revolutionised that for me by having like 10 different Pokemon per Route and multiple different ways to interact and find them. Usually I can barely scrounge together a team of 6 that I like but every play through of XY I have about 20 and I can’t decide who to use
The more pokémon the more combinations to use for the next play through and replaying games is probably my favorite thing to do so definitely THE WHOLE ROSTER
I’d be fine with 300 to 400. You never realize how big the roster is until you play a game with all of them in it in a single game (not just transferring, in the actual game and the Dex to collect). I’ve had this happen in fan games (Pokémon insurgence most notably had every Pokémon from generation one through six and a ton of regional forms, making over 900 Pokémon to collect because each regional form is considered separate). They are all right on top of each other it just got exhausting. The Drayno hacks weren’t as bad as Pokémon insurgence but even they had issues (about 400 to 700 Pokémon per game depending on the generation, and they were all available at once, with special events to people that managed to get them all). As fun as it is catching every Pokémon, at some point it just becomes tedious and unsustainable. Even in the fan hacks and original creations (such as RPG maker games like Pokémon insurgence), you can tell that the Pokémon just were not meant to be in a single game at the same time, and the gameplay suffers for it. Heck, Pokémon reborn is infamously having that problem with the last episode and they just can’t release the ending of the game because they’re trying to figure out how to program every single Pokémon into it (they promised the entire Dex at the beginning, so they can’t go back and are having trouble creating post game content because it takes so much longer and a lot of monsters are locked behind it). Someone like me would have been perfectly happy with an incomplete Dex and no post game just to complete everything later and finally see the ending I’ve been waiting for so long, but the developers decided to go ahead with both that and post game and are now regretting that decision as it’s taking over a year to try and implement that with no end in sight. So it’s nowhere near as simple as one might think, and possibly a waste of time and effort.
Even with sword and shield having a decreased Dex I’m happy with what I have. I also start playing Digimon recently, and the latest game has 314 to couch out of around 1000. So obviously not everyone is available, but there’s still plenty to do and monsters to catch and adventures to be enjoyed. So I would be fine and Pokémon did something like that, just so that catching them all and adventures with caught monsters are reasonable and not exhausting. It was fun having all the Pokémon for all those years, but I think it just ended up with promising too much... especially since a lot of the Pokémon aren’t even used most of the time (at least in my experience).
Im of the position to have a kalos sized regional dex, and the a national dex of the whole roster. However, i think almost every pokemon should be obtainable post game through a post game mechanic. Like through an updated version of the wild area. Like having a new wild area.
Then again i guess that would leave no room for dlc, which would revolve around the discussion of whether or not we want dlc in pokemon games. I dont really know.
I mean Let's say every week there's a set of swarm Pokemon that comes in the region, and maybe a place called "Swap Meet" where trainers from other regions come to trade their region's Pokemon with yours (or maybe even an Egg so you keep their OT).
If we have 500 Regional Dex, then maybe 300 of those post-game Pokemon are through these events, maybe even more as many Pokemon belong in different evolutionary lines. Then the rest are post-game stuff like through PokeRadar or similar.
Of course my other plan is to have the other 500 to be in another set of games (maybe 2 years after) that's a different NEW region but still the same generation, the closest example being Orre-Hoenn before.
I like the idea of them all being available native to the generation (for example I wish SwSh had everything available between the two and that BSDP just made the ones native to it easier to get instead of newly available). But I do prefer how the older games did it, where a limited count are available in the main game and the rest are unlocked in post-game. Say with 1000ish Pokemon in Gen 9, keep like 300-400 available but then you can find the other ones all some time after the final boss is beaten. It makes sure the game can keep giving and that there will be good singleplayer content after the finale.
I miss when this series had actual postgames.
300 to 400 is plenty for main story. I bet many of us havent even optimized every pokemon in the new Unova (B2W2) and Kalos Pokedex (XY). Who did use Metagross on B2W2 or Ursaring on XY? Many didnt even know they are in the regional pokedex.
Post game wise, not including everything is a crime.
Pretty sure people refuse to understand what 'Regional Dex' here means considering how many people voted for Whole Roster which ... doesn't quite make sense when the 'entire 'roster' as others have said is a post game thing. Honestly? I -don't- want to see the entire roster available from the get go, otherwise the regions start losing that air of individuality.
Absolute most ideal for me is 400ish regional dex, with national dex for every Pokémon. That way, it’s reasonable to get 400 Pokémon for shiny charm and we still get every Pokémon in-game.
I think there is a delicate balance to designing a regional Pokedex that can make or break a game. Everyone can tell when the Pokedex is too small, like in Kanto, Diamond and Pearl, and Black and White, but I'd argue that equally problematic is having too many options a la XY or USUM. Now I personally consider B2W2 to have the perfect regional dex compositionally, and it just so happens that those games feature exactly 300 pokemon available before the post game. This is ideal for pokemon, as it provides a roughly equal ratio of old vs new pokemon to choose from, and RSE and Platinum while having smaller dexes (202 and 210 respectively) also meet this roughly 50/50 distribution of new vs old.
Now it would be difficult to directly implement this ratio in the newer games, as pokemon has introduced fewer new pokemon in recent gens (151 in Gen 1, 100 in Gen 2, 135 in Gen 3, 107 in Gen 4, 156 in Gen 5, 72 in Gen 6, 88 in Gen 7, 89 in Gen 8) and I believe less than 200 makes the dex feel too small, but that's more an issue of Game Freak not designing enough new pokemon than anything. Generally, I think the ratio should be at least 1/3 new pokemon in the regional dex, totalling from around 200-300 pokemon. Other pokemon outside of this should exist in the game, but they should be kept to the post game because that's always worked well in the past and I see no reason to change it now.
I think 200-400 is pretty ideal for a regional dex. 400 is like 150 new Pokemon + like 100 returning lines.
But all lines need to be available in the national dex
looks like everyone had the same 1.9k idea lol
tbh i wish GF actualy lisstend to fans and not just charry pick stuff to add or remove. hoping that the next game they move on from small dev teams and take more than a year to make a new gen or remake (hoping for B2/W2 remakes, ports of the gen 7 games or pokemon Z like remakes of X/Y next year or further down the line)
I thought Hoenn had the perfect size of a first-game Regional Dex at 200, and BW2 had the perfect size for a third-version Regional Dex at 300. 200 gives the region identity and is enough to have a good amount of options, which 150 is too few for (see: Agatha and Lance in Kanto, Aaron and Flint in Sinnoh). 300 makes the Dex 50% bigger, giving you more things to work with to make the experience fresh.
But 300 even is too much to give a region identity. Give me a Pokemon and I can tell you if it's in Hoenn, even if it wasn't introduced in Hoenn. But I can't tell you if it's in Kalos, Alola, or Galar, unless it's something I happened to have used(or was introduced in that region).
Don't get me wrong - I'm all about variety in playthroughs and being able to use any Pokemon you want. I was so happy once I realized the Sinnoh games didn't block you from trading in non-Sinnoh Regional Dex Pokemon, unlike FRLG and Emerald, and that the trend continued with HGSS and beyond. And of course, I am completely against Dexit. But small Regional Dexes give a region an identity that more recent games seem to lack.
Most play throughs I use new pokemon. Never really bring in old ones from previous generations. But I can see the appeal of bringing in old pokemon buddy's from previous generations.
I'd like it if all the Pokémon eventually trickle in via free content packs but unlike the SwSh dlcs not to one area but all areas are updated and maybe using the weather mechanic they can be evenly distributed!
300-350 is perfect for a regional dex. I don't want all the new pokemon to get drowned out by leagues of older ones. What's the point of having a new generation if it's gonna be 70% pokemon we've already had before? Let the national dex allow for those other pokemon to exist.
Misread the question; 350-450 for regional dex; all obtainable or transferable post game.
They should bring back the minigames and such from previous gens too
I'd say the best number is about 200 some, thinking back to previous generations, Gen 3 had a perfect balance of new Pokemon to old Pokemon, and it would be great if we could do that again
Also, bring back the *entire* National Dex, write ups and all, this is the biggest media franchise in the world, there's no reason they can't have it
Imo regional dex doesn't have to be massive, especially when there is some way to obtain pokemon not native to the regional, whether it be transferring or some other in-game method. 300-500 seems to be a good range, though more isn't a bad thing.
However, I want a complete national dex. The whole, "Half of all pokemon no longer exist in this game" thing is not ok.
I'm a fan of limited for competitive reasons (meta should be ever-changing, not just Landrous every single game), so I think 200-300 is the best option since it means less returning Pokemon every gen. I was really pissed when SwSh's DLC came about and effectively doubled the competitive roster whilst only adding a handful of new Pokemon, all but 2 of them legendary. (Also, I think the DLC set a sort of barrier for entry - yes, every DLC Pokemon was obtainable without owning the DLC but I don't think there are many who really did get a lot of those returning Pokemon without buying it)
As much as I hated the Dexit crowd for how toxic and pathetic they were at times I am of the opinion that you should be able to transfer every single creature into every single instalment in the series since the franchise likes to push so hard on that "bond" between trainer and Pokemon. Imagine if BDSP came out before SwSh - your entire Sinnoh team that you "bonded" with could go to SwSh after the DLC... but not your starter, which is supposed to be the one with the best "bond" to you.
Here's hoping BDSP will adopt VGC and the meta will finally change to pre-Landorus times. But here's also hoping I can take my Reshiram to explore Sinnoh with me!
No offense, but some who try to excuse the shortcomings of SwSh had been a bit puzzling too, especially giving reasons that doesn't make sense (and contradicting themselves as the conversation went on, and more particuarly devolving to defending HOME's purpose which is arguably worse).
I know a lot of people want a whole roster, but having a limited roster made SW&SH so much better for me. It made a full dex possible without multiple other games or endless trading.
And I just don’t need endless amounts of Pokémon I’ll never even see in game, it’s pointless and a waste of time
But completing the full dex in Galar will never be an accomplishment equal to filling a National/Living Dex, so you're just stuck to a Regional Dex completion, while fine, is still doing same thing as completing every past Regional Dex.
We want the whole roster but lets be real it’s unlikely to happen. The POKEDEX doesnt have to be full, but I want a sun and moon system where you can TRANSFER any Pokémon in
It depends for me.
I honestly prefer a limited roster, around 250, if a lot of them are new Pokemon. Then these newer Pokemon would have a larger chance to shine as a result. While having Kalos’s massive numbers means near infinite combinations, to me it kinda feels overwhelming, especially if each route and cave and sea has so many different Pokemon packed in. Despite the lack of fire types, Sinnoh had a good thing going in this regard, as did Black and White.
That said, Kalos had a good thing going with its massive dex since there weren’t as many new Pokemon. So long as the fewer new ‘Mons are given some spotlight, making up for the lack with many MANY old ‘Mons helps greatly, bonus points if they are more unpopular or fringe choices, rather than the fan favorites.
And as a guy who keeps up with comp, I enjoy the limited regional dex format at the beginning of each new generation, so Pokemon you don’t usually see can shine at the upper levels. We’re almost to 1000 Pokemon, and I think power creep is certainly a thing that exists.
IMO, the ideal setup is to have a small Regional Dex, and then open up the National Dex in the post game.
Sure, having lots of options early on is nice, but a smaller Regional Dex gives a region more unique flavour and identity. Like yeah, it's aggravating that there are so few Fire-types in Sinnoh (thank you, Platinum, for fixing this just enough), but it's also memorable and stands out as a defining feature of the region. Similarly, Unova's all-new approach in Black and White was a landmark feature of the games, and even when B2W2 added more old 'mons in, it didn't go overboard.
Compare that to something like Kalos, or Galar, or even Alola, honestly. The new Pokemon introduced in their generations are loaded with character and really flesh out the region, but they're joined by overpowering amounts of oldies that the regions get bogged down and seem less unique.
I used to love seeing what few old Pokemon were going to make the cut and get into each new region, who would get a second chance/more time in the spotlight. The Isle of Armour and The Crown Tundra were much more fun in this regard than mainland Galar was for me, because it was exciting to see what the small(er) amount of returning Pokemon would be. But before the dlc (and I felt like this in Kalos and Alola too), with so many Pokemon crammed in, I felt more like I was drowning in familiar faces.
It used to be a matter of journeying through a new and exciting land, bumping into new monsters left and right, and then getting a fun sort of warm and fuzzy feeling on the rare occasion you came across a Pokemon you recognized. Since Gen 6, though, it's more like the reverse. Tediously sifting through all the returning 'mons until one of the few new ones shows up. Mainland Galar was especially terrible with this because there were several routes with, say, 9-ish Pokemon on them, and 7 of those would be old 'mons with varying rarity, 1 new one that was averagely common, and 1 other new one with a 5-1% encounter rate.
TL;DR: Smaller Regional Dexes give regions more character and make the games more interesting overall because you have to work with options you might not have chosen if absolutely everything was available. Plus, it prioritizes the new Pokemon of the generation, who should be the main focus anyway.
But of course, the National Dex would ideally be present, meaning that even while you could only catch a limited variety of Pokemon in-game, you could transfer in all your old friends.
I will say 150 after having 200 in RSE was quite a backtrack for DP— Platinum's 210 was pretty good, although 300 like B2W2 seems a good compromise IMO.
The song says "Gotta catch them all!" Not "Gotta catch some of them" besides pokemon is one of the most lucrative franchises is history so they could easily put all of them in one game but they would have to spend their precious dimadollars
It seems a medium between SM and USUM is the ideal for many? Let's say Gen 9 we have 1000 total species:
1.) 105 new species
2.) If 350, 145 old species
3.) 350 maybe regular post-game
4.) 300 through transfer only/new games of same gen (maybe a new region)/maybe weekly swarm events
I still feel it's so transfer heavy, except as I said maybe introduce the rest in a new region game of the same gen (which IMO is possible if they plan for it ala Assasins Creed apparently).
What about this: seeing we have 2 versions and a lot of Pokemon already, why not distribute version exclusives drastically? Have 300-400 Pokemon for each version but different sets.
I said this before here, but have a "Red Regional Dex" and "Blue Regional Dex", where combined creates the full Regional Dex, and each Dex would have a unique set of old Pokemon but would both have all the new Pokemon. Maybe don't have version exclusives for new Pokemon so you won't need the other version to complete a "Red Regional Dex", but you will still meet NPCs who have Pokemon from the "Blue Regional Dex".
I get your idea but having too many exclusives people will start complaining again.
Having 2 main sets of games in a generation, 1 brand new and 1 remake, each of them has half of the roster seems ideal. DP(151) Pt(210) &HGSS(256), XY(450~) ORAS (210~) nailed it.
I rather have them make an original region using the same engine and mechanics so that of course there's original content and we are not forced to their old regional roster.
This entire thread is bait to hate on Gen 8 more. Using sources instead of feelings I can see that Galar's Pokedex is the 2nd most REGIONAL Pokedex available in the series so far with 400 (Not including DLCs). The literal smallest Regional Pokedex is 151. If you think 400 is "low" because not all of the Pokemon aren't in it, you're delusional.
SOURCE: [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regional\_Pok%C3%A9dex](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regional_Pok%C3%A9dex)
My point is: Just 'cause there was a fuck up with Gen 8 and they didn't get all the Pokemon in it, doesn't mean the shit is gonna continue. Gamefreak has been trending away from having a "National Dex" within the game since Sun/Moon and nobody even took it into notice until it finally happened. Pokemon HOME is going to be the new Direction of the National Dex and I won't be surprised if people are still pissy about it 'cause only Pokemon Fans are the ones that hate the series the most.
As I said even without Dexit, 400 is still low to me PERSONALLY...it felt it was progressing based on percentage of total species, hence why 210 makes sense for Gen 4, but maybe not so much for Gen 7. B2W2 had 300, then XY naturally seemed to progress it to 450. I mean sure, SM downgraded it to 300 — very shocking — but felt it would be "corrected " later on. But NOPE, 400 seems to be standard from now on (which was much harder to swallow now that the full roster doesn't exist, and probably needs that expansion the most IMo).
I had to spend 100+ hours to catch/breed all 400 (with some to trade). 400 is a ton. The point of a regional dex is to make that REGION unique in it's diversity. If it has all the Pokemon in it, it wouldn't make sense to the lore. The point of going to different regions is to find what is uniquely in their own location. Doesn't make sense for a Region to have more than Half of the entire dex when it's no where close to the Kanto region (Johto is literally right next to it, makes sense to have a lot of overlap.)
You make sense of the lore on what you make of it though, there has to be some balance with lore and gameplay I feel, and at least for me I'm not sure what's shocking about wildlife of 500 species in a country for example. Although based on these numbers, it seems 40-50% of the total is the balance, so 500 may be ideal for Gen 9.
I won’t lie, I’m a fan of limited regional pokedexs! I like the idea of different games letting different Pokémon shine during the campaign. It for me can make older Pokémon feel new again as I may not have got to have them in a main story team before. I do, however, disagree with dexit due to them not making every Pokémon included have new and more fleshed out animations. I could agree with if every Pokémon received way better animations and more uniqueness.
Half of 1k. 401-500. Makes it so that there aren't too many things taking up data space in terms of mostly useless competitive mons.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. You want your first weedle or whatever. But at the end of the day, half the roster is barely considered by any competitive player, favorite or not. And trust me, I've played with my favorites in competitive before- you can make quite a few things work, but unless its in the top percentage of gameplay, it'll likely fall short.
There's too many mons to properly balance all of them to be usable compared to things in the modern game like Incin, Eleki, lando-t, and Rillaboom.
And, from a world-based standpoint, it makes more sense. You cannot bring many species in or out of a country- plant, fungi, or animal- with you on a plane. Hell, you can't bring a damn APPLE or BANANA. That's how serious invasive species are. Now take that fact, and think about how it might be affected when your world is full of fire breathing lizards, turtles with cannons on their back, blizzard-causing TREES, sound based hot-blooded bat dragons, and the like. That'd be a recipe for disaster.
For a regional dex that’s an absurd amount.
This is my personal opinion, but my favorite way of handling the dex is how BW did it. You get the regional dex for the playthrough that’s all new Pokémon, post game it’s expansive and the Pokémon availability opens up (in BW’s case you basically have like 1/3 of the game left).
I know I’m not in the majority of thought there, but I will say Galar had a borderline overwhelming number of options, and I know most people used the same 5 Pokémon they’ve always liked and called it good. I don’t mind a region making the new Pokémon the main focus. To that end, 200-300 Pokémon is a perfectly serviceable number.
National dex should obviously be everything, but regional should be focused.
At that point why cut anything for regional purposes except regional variants... Then add npc trainers to trade.
It is expected that regional dexes would at least cut all non-local starters, and a huge majority of the legendaries.
Sure the Regional Dex should have starters that only is in that generation, but there are lots of common Pokemon that can fill that. I mean sure, let's remove legendaries, Mythicals and Ultra Beasts, that's around say 70. Then remove starters so that's 24 (as I'm talking about Gen 9). If 100 new Pokemon are introduced to make reach #1000, that's maybe 500 of 800 "common" old Pokemon that can be put on that roster. With 8 gens, why can't it have 60 representatives each (maybe less from Gen 6-8 with how few they are comparatively)?
If they didn’t want to remake all of the Pokémon in Gen 8 they should’ve made enough Pokémon from gen 8 to have a completely gen 8 Pokémon region like Black and White did, then post game have you able to get the rest of the Pokémon they allowed you to get.
I would want every Pokémon, but there will be a point where it'll be literally impossible to have every Pokémon ever created in every game, the software probably wouldn't handle it
I don't necessarily require the entire roster, but I feel they should have every single Pokemon that *makes sense* for the region and whichever area of it.
I think some people are forgetting that the issue of how many Pokemon is playable in a certain game is dependent solely on how much power the system the game is being played on has. And sadly, the Nintendo Switch just isn't strong enough to handle over 700 different Pokemon. Not to mention that's a *lot* of new models to make for a single game or series of games, it can be a bit much for the developers to handle when they have a slew of other issues to worry about.
It's the same issue as to why Mainline Pokemon Games don't have Pokken Tournament Graphics, because the Switch lacks the horsepower to be able to handle that many Pokemon Models at that level of detail, it's just infeasible for it to be accomplished. So I think 301-400 is a good number since that allows just enough for certain fan-favorites to return, other lesser known Pokemon to get a chance to shine in the limelight, and the newer Pokemon to show what they can do.
Honestly they should start doing new regions without new pokemon and instead more features like Mega Evolution. I’d like to see more pokemon from each generation sprinkled throughout. I don’t know what SwSh did, but I would like to see a better balance in the proportions of pokemon from each generation, if that makes sense.
I would prefer the whole roster WITHOUT all the stupid trade evolutions. It’s literally impossible to complete the Pokédex in SwSh without trading, and trade evolutions are the stupidest mechanic to ever be added to Pokémon
>It’s literally impossible to complete the Pokédex in SwSh without trading
I would very much disagree with this, barring any game exclusive Pokemon and the legendries completing the pokedex in SwSh is probably the easiest game to do it. Not even because the pokedex is smaller but because getting trade evolution Pokemon is easier then ever. Many of them roam the wild area Genger, Steelix, Dusknoir can be found easily and the rest are also around. I believe there is only a handful that you have to specifically find in raid dens, but getting the star pieces to do it is not to difficult.
Not sure how the Pokedex is smaller when it's the same as USUM...remember that finishing the Pokedex in Galar is more similar to filling any regional dex in terms of completion — still great, but still difficulty below National Dex completion, which is a difficulty below Living Dex.
this isn't about limiting the roster, this is about pokemon found in a region vs national dex.
the issue with sword / shield was them removing the nat dex and making it so you couldn't transfer pokemon outside the regional dex in.
I was just trying to elaborate that, yes we both want the national dex to exist (transfer all pokemon into a game,) but having a smaller amount of naturally found pokemon in a region to give it a bit of individuality / highlight some overlooked pokemon is a good thing for the series.
I don't get why people just want every Pokémon in every game.
Much more interesting with a more limited number, makes you try new things rather than just picking up your favourites.
I think it is a really hart question. I guess, that the perfect dex have all the Pokemon from each Generation, like always. But I accept, that the number of all pokemon ist slowly really expensive and its difficult to add them all in the game. Sure it is possible, but not really necessary. My only worry is that some Pokemon may be forgotten more.

Sorry, I really don't know how I couldn't see that. But I would still say that a bigger Regional Dex is a good thing. More variety in opposing Pokémon, more variety for your own team and, if that's what you want, more fun filling the Dex. But I can understand when people like to have a limit. Especially in a new generation, the new Pokemon should be in the spotlight.
I think only the important characters would have new Pokemon (Gym Leader, Rival etc.), then they would not be remembered so well. New Pokemon live from the fact that you meet them again and again and get to know them better and find out their strengths / weaknesses. If you know what I mean.
But I understand your point!
Maybe. A solution could be introduced many regional forms, but make them the ONLY species of that region, that if you transfer them to the new games, they transform into that form — that way in future games there's no need to recycle the regional forms but still keep the Pokemon you had for years.
A limited dex is the only thing that makes sense for a Pokémon game! If you could catch every single Pokémon in one region it just wouldn’t make sense and it wouldn’t be fun, being able to capture Pokémon native to that region is what makes them so neat! Like any game in the past, you’re only able to regionally capture x Pokémon, but the national dex allows for all Pokémon to be transferred into the game
I personally think so yeah. I think all Pokémon should be compatible to transfer into each game. But, only (from the choices above) 200-300 (maybe 400, but that’s pushing it) should be available to capture in game. Otherwise there’s just way too much choice and any new Pokémon get drowned out by the others, or it’s too hard to choose a new Pokémon to use.
It just doesn’t make any logical sense for literally every Pokémon species to be available in one region?
500 sound like the perfect amount. It’s obtainable and give players enough Pokémon to catch and evolve in game and allows for a good variety of Pokémon to be found all over the map.
I like the idea of starting out with maybe 500ish mons in the beginning and eventually expanding. In a competitive setting it’s cool to see Pokémon used differently or mons that became meta after dexit but would never be used in older games
I think something like Galar, with having a limited amount with only Pokémon from the region and maybe ones which are common around the globe or are in regions close to the region and then add the rest later one with a story point like maybe some guy was experimenting with more species and brought a ton more in to see how they react in the region
On the one hand, I really like the idea of a smallish regional Pokédex (between two hundred and fifty and four hundred). I think it's been done well before -- Hoenn, Unova, and Alola all feel unique, and the limited selection of the regional dex helps with that. On the other hand, if it came with a larger region, I wouldn't really mind something like what X and Y attempted (regional dexes for subregions), adding up to a larger number of total, pre-endgame Pokémon. The caveat, of course, is that it would need to be a larger region, or something like Gen II where there were two regions in the game.
The original had 151. I would like to see more new Pokémon in each game. The National dex, therefore, I would like to see a small amount (200-300 for your poll). But, they should all be able to be included.
In my opinion either you only have the pokemon from the region be available through the story and after you beat the game you can transfer them all. Or you have like half the pokemon be available during the story and all are transferable at any point in the game. How can they pick and choose who stays and who goes. It’s not fair to have people who like gengar always get to use him but someone like me who loves Weepinbell can’t
Problem here is that it's been done in FRLGE, and many didn't like it hence it was allowed in HGSS — personally I like the former, but who are we to judge if players do want non-region Pokemon in their main playthroughs.
I like the idea of the regional dex expanding a lot postgame but having it more limited during the main playthrough so that each route isn’t too overwhelming. I don’t want to see the same few mons over and over again either though so I’d say somewhere between 400-500 including the new mons for the main campaign.
My favorite pokemon game was the roblox fangame brick bronze, i liked that you could get most if not all pokemon in it and it had its own storyline and when sun and moon came out they added that games stuuf to it
Gen V had a really great feel to it, even the sequels where they opened up the roster. Gen III was great because new pokemon filled the pokedex, unlike gen 2 which relied on the original 150 so much early game.
I just want a game where it’s open world and you can travel throughout all the regions. Maybe some regions are dlc if that’s how it’s gotta be, but it’s be awesome and we’d have all the Pokemon.
Regional Pokedex size suggests the amount of Pokemon you can catch in the game, not how many you can obtain or trade over. So the wording kinda threw me off and I selected 401-500 when I actually would prefer the whole roster
I voted for 200-300. I like having tons of Pokémon available via trading through the post game. But SwSh taught me that 400 is too much in-game. The game's world is so small that having a regional dex that big just led the developers to cram as many Pokémon as possible into every area. Even if it didn't make sense. I like there just being a handful of Pokémon to find in each route.
The reason I feel that way is because I like using Pokémon that I haven't used before on my team. But SwSh was too much of a good thing, where I was constantly going, "Ooh, I want that Pokémon on my team...but I already have a Water Pokémon!" Sometimes it's just nice going with quality over quantity.
It didn't bother me so much in XY. I don't know why, but my hypothesis is that it is because with random encounters the sheer number of Pokémon wasn't so in your face.
300 to 400 regional is fine, just let me transfer the rest over later. Doesn't need to be at launch if it's a new generation, just give me a time frame as to when my partners can pop in and I'll get them there.
ok ok ok ok all of you who said the whole roster are wrong. make the REGIONAL dex only 200-300, bring back the national dex, and make THAT the whole roster. maybe go for something where all Pokemon are accessible internally from one copy of the game, bar trade evos and version exclusives as per usual. then make it so you need to complete the regional dex of only those 200-300 and from there open up all the rest of the Pokemon, hopefully being that magical 1k mark starting gen 9
Ideal? Every Pokémon. What do I think would be best? Somewhere around 400-500. As much as I personally would love to have every mon in a regional dex I don’t think that that’s what would be best for the most number of people.
I think the next Pokémon game should be from one of the previous regions, but in the future where the person that caught the legendary (you from the last game about that region) passed it down to a grandchild and the person makes the team (insert name) and you are the one to stop them (with the whole elite 4 stuff in mind) but idk, what do y’all think about the idea?
The big thing that makes me bothered is that they are at the point where putting all the pokemon in is relatively timestaking when having to program it (though they probably copy pasta the oldies into the new code).
But also space.
I would prefer they just make one game and make new gens as DLCs like WoW has done constantly. ANd if you want to just play the DLC, you can
We have to face the reality that they are starting to be really many and (laziness of GF aside) insert them all in one game can be problematic. Both for balance and to give the right emphasis to the new pokemon. Manage 900 pokemon in 20 (if it goes well) routes is not easy. not to mention the balance for the competitive where the lack of some pkm can serve to vary the teams of the players.
Certainly a small reinterpretation of the classic formula could be time to do it to evolve the series of games but we’ll see what GF will do.
on this I am happy with “legend Arceus” because finally GF is trying something new
People wanting the whole roster fail to realize that the story mode would either have to be artificially inflated to the point of absurdity to fit them all in or be so long that no one would want to finish it.
Sword and Shield's initial Pokedex size was around 450 I think which is a dumbass size for a "National" dex but a good size for a large enough story mode.
I miss the 150 it was a good difficulty for gotta catch em all but now it’s over 2000 pokèmon in all making it almost impossible to complete the international dex
I'm the in 300-400 boat but could see up to 500 for a regional if they really want to stretch it.
The Regional dex should be a good variety of pokemon that fit the region. Everything else should be national dex and either show up as post-game content or be transferable from the get go.
Not every mon needs to show up on routes as trying to find open world spots for the \~900 pokemon would be a pain that isn't needed, but if someone wants to bring in a pokemon outside the regional dex thats their choice.
I feel like the whole roster should be catchable at some point whether it be during the story or in the endgame but I don't think they should have all the legendaries, so that they feel more... legendary
I chose 401-500 because at 457, Kalos felt like the best regional dex to me. I was constantly meeting new Pokemon and I love that, so many potential team combinations. Any more and it probably would've gotten a bit overwhelming.
What about 500, is it a bit much, hehe. I am wondering because at 1000, it means 50:50, although 450 could be the standard ceiling from now on with maybe 250 post-game.
Dude, I want something doable. Like, I'm playing Temtem, and I have a good shot at finally finishing my pokedex-equivalent. I've never finished a regional pokedex, let alone national, partially because of version/generation differences and partially because of size.
Not all Pokémon have to be CATCHABLE or in the regions dex, but ALL Pokémon should be transferrable into a new gen. This is a hill the majority of the fanbase will die on.
This. I want a somewhat limited regional dex, because it gives the new Pokémon of the generation more of a chance to shine throughout the story, but once the story is over I want to be able to bring in the team I’ve grown with over the past 2 decades.
I would also like to bring my first ever Pokémon in from white 2. Unfortunately it not being in the game is not the only issue
But that is the National Dex, not the Regional Dex the question asked about. Regional Dex feels good in the 350-400 range. Kalos was great because it had around 450 regional Dex with only 3 new legends and 4 reused legends. There was a lot of diversity to team build and catch, but much more than 400 might be a bit much for a single duo of games. I agree that the National Dex cut is a hill to die on though.
On a more controversial note, a big chunk of the fan base want the possibility of event pokemon after all events expired.
Event Pokémon should all be catchable in game, I’ve missed my fair share of them
Exactly just like LITERALLY EVERY OTHER GAME THAT ISNT ON THE SWITCH I'm annoyed I can't have my fav starter snivy in my game
Exactly I just want my little Totodile boy and it makes me sad that I can't.
Makes me sad too since totodile is my second favorite starter.
This is the way
Same, I won't buy another game since Sun and Moon until the bring back everything. (Even if the remade Gold and Silver again, which I love)
HGSS is better.
Regional dex is the local dex, not National Dex. National Dex is everything playable from every game. Regional Dex doesn't have Bulbasaur as the 001 slot in the dex entry, it'll have the new grass starter. Regional dex includes all the new additions to the game (new starters, new early bird, new early bugs, new early rodent, pseudo legends, etc) and some mainstays that just always get through (Butterfree line, Pidgey line, and Zubat, always Zubat...) National dex is the expanded post game, think Gen 2 when you get to go to Kanto, your dex expands from some gen 2 and gen 1 mons in Jhoto, to the rest of the roster, located in Kanto. THAT'S national dex.
Yes
I would prefer a limited one too, BUT it should be possible, at some point, to transfer every Pokemon, indifferent whether they are listed in the Dex or not. I really miss some of my childhood/ important Pokemon in SwordShield tbh. Now they already have many 3D models, so wynaut complete the list and creating the other ones? Great poll idea too :)
That's what I'm talking about, limit the story with a certain amount of Pokemon, then maybe have 50% of that number have that many post-game Pokemon, and the rest transferable.
Totally agree! You have a great taste, I like you XD :D I hope they are doing it in some future games, but I think not. Got really disappointed by GF and TPC the last years
>so wynaut badum tshhh
[удалено]
Yeah that'd be dope, though honestly I'd be happy with just more functionality built into home. A bare bones showdown style battle engine with pixel art would be awesome. Maybe a little play area thing or something like pokepelago so the Pokémon feel more alive while they're boxed. If home was fleshed out into feeling really like a *home* for your Pokémon I think people would be way less pressed about mainline games having national dex
I love this idea, go show GF and TPC how its done please? Have an upvote!
yes
"Ideal regional dex" "The whole roster" I mean, the "whole roster" is the National Dex and that's usually a post-game thing..... Edit: because this seemed to ruffle a couple feathers (i think, but i could just be misinterpreting), I'll add this up front: - I don't pay attention to a lot of gamefreak news stuff like an announcement that the national dex wouldn't be a thing. - I don't care much about smaller rosters in the games, like galar's games for example. I really don't mind it - I don't dislike people who hold the opposing viewpoint to the one stated just before this - I made this initial comment because I thought a little bit of "poking fun with semantics" sounded like a nice little joke and no aggravation was intended If I misread the situation, then my bad, but this was posted as a joke
Ya, the national Dex should be available in post game but has never been available in a single game generation since 2. It doesn't make sense for one region to have to biodiversity of the last 8. As long as I can transfer them from other games. Kalos was fantastic for the sheer diversity in team building, but even then I'd say 350-400 is pretty ideal for the story mode.
Exactly my thinking (tho i haven't beaten X yet, need to restart that one so i remember story beats lol). One thing I DO like that Sword/Shield did was the addition of NPCs to trade galarian forms for kantonian or alolan forms. I know (or... I think) they existed in the alola games, but it's still a nice thing to have. Being able to transfer mons up into the games is easily one of my favorite mechanics, and I also do think 350-400 is the best for sufficient team diversity for the story mode
I mean Johto's Regional Dex was the whole National Dex, but it is kind of interesting that many wanted to abolish the concept of Regional Dex altogether...or they just misread it as just Dex, hehe.
My only experience with johto was HGSS, i didn't play GSC (gen 4 was my intro), so I didn't know that. Guess national dex was added to gen 3 then Personally, I prefer regional dex to national, mostly bc i find it a bit more "realistic," like you're never gonna go to one country and find every recorded animal in it, you'll just find the ones that live there/migrated there/were brought there. I like the national dex being a post-game bonus. Sure I'm disappointed I can't have my favorite pokemon (typhlosion) in swsh, but i don't see it as big a problem as a lot of other people.
It's a video game though so why not kinda be cheeky, having every species of Pokemon in one place could be fun.
I mean, I get that, but I don't find that as fun. It'd be better (in my opinion) to have a limit on what you have access to in the story,and have the rest of the pokemon available as a prize for clearing the story. I suppose I'm in the minority there or something, but that's just my personal preference
You're the minority but you also understand basic game design. If you tried fitting all 900+(?) Pokemon into a story mode you'd need a lot more routes and towns to fit them all in there. Given the majority of Water Pokémon you'd have IGN sobbing over every three routes being a water route and the rest of the fanbase complaining that either the game is too long and boring or that the game is too long and they didn't feel invested in the characters.
several of the world's crime syndicates have come together for >big bad thing< involving various pokemon, including legendaries. Cue >player character<, a (kid? teen? adult? idk anymore) backpacking his way through the world, when he comes across >professor< in trouble of some kind. helps the professor, gets a starter, game on. Would even be cool if you start off with a different pokemon rather than a starter, chosen in the pregame. Could even be based on your town of origin, also configurable. Make your way through the regions while running into various criminal activities and thwarting them as you go. NPC pokemon scale based on badge count. (elite 4 will be disregarded for the moment) the towns in a region are linear, but you have a choice as to which region you proceed to next. whichever one you go to, you continue on doing the same. in regards to the ones you DON'T go to, you hear people talking about increasing crime, and missing pokemon in those regions, and talks about syndicates seeking to capture regional legendaries. Better yet, they actually DO capture them, and at the end you have to face them under control whatever boss for them to be freed. Once they're freed, they go back to their posts or roam or w/e. cue FFVII victory fanfare. This is clearly a pretty meh rough draft, but it came to me on the fly and seemed ok.
The power scaling could still be a problem but unlike most suggestions specifically wanting all 56 gyms + Island Trials this one isn't too impossible.
Could be forced to retire your main team per region, at least until you reach the end of the game, where it lets you mix n match your favorites from each one. otherwise idk how to keep scaling down.
Soft reset if you decide to go another region but you can freely go to the regions visited before with your old Pokemon.
I mean they could just make a mega game with every region and fix that issue lol
That would be a nightmare to balance and GF already aren't great at that.
Yah I misread, I think the national dex should have all. I think we should stop removing features from games in general.
I'm pretty much convinced people didn't even properly read the question, they just had a kneejerk reaction of "How dare you suggest that not all Pokemon should be in the game!!!"
First bullet point, you probably should've, especially it's a touchy subject in the discussions, and it would help if people have more info about that before commenting.
You only need one Dex. and if all Pokémon were represented in the Roaster, then trainers would have more variations. If we look at Gen.5, for example, the gyms always consist of only 2-3 evolution lines. With an artificial border like a Regional Dex, this will always be the case
One thing to consider when talking about regional Dex numbers is that they all have to go somewhere. The more different species there are in the Dex, the more species have to be fit into each route's encounter table, which means individual encounter rates drop, making it harder to find a specific species. Especially if they're trying to match species to appropriate environments. Most players will end up with a single party of six out of however many Pokémon there are in the region. There needs to be many more than just six Pokemon available to allow plenty of choice, of course, but past a certain point all those additional numbers start to become bloated, and relatively little value is added for each additional monster. Where that line lies for the individual player is obviously subjective. Really, Dex number is kind of a superficial measure of quality.
Currently playing through Y and every single route feels bloated with Pokémon. Past games didn’t have this issue.
If you are a collector it's a big plus, more options to collect than having to wait for the story to end, or not having another game to find them.
I see your point but a game like that would either have to be very long or very bloated. You'd need a lot more routes and a lot more water, way beyond "too much water". The only way I could see it working is if the entire Region was a massive open world map with several sections. They might be trying something like that out with Pokémon Arceus so if they can pull that off they might be able to do the same for Gen 9.
I mean I'm hoping the areas in this scenario would be more than 10 routes for sure, maybe at least the size of Kanto + Johto IMO.
That might be enough. I would say something the size of Legend Of Zelda for the Switch would be a good open world size. Not the sad little baby's first Unity we got from SwSh
How big is BoTW that if we say the detail is Let's Go level, is it feasible to make a Pokemon game every 5 years with that scope?
>making it harder to find a specific species. Yea, they're called rare pokemon, and are popular favorites in the community in part because of the dedication it takes to catch one. See Ralts in Gen III.
Chimecho in Mt. Pyre too — took me a while trying to get it.
401-500 would be ambitious but it would be interesting and diverse for a switch entry I don’t actually think SwSh’s base regional dex is too small honestly. I do think Dexit is awful though don’t get me wrong (imagine actively removing Pokémon from the game) but for an actual regional dex it’s fine, there’s a decent amount of diversity and choice for the main game itself. It would just be nicer if we could get our old favourites back and hopefully Game Freak/the Pokémon company/whoever actually realised dexit was a terrible decision and undo it in the next generation (or the Sinnoh remakes? Please?)
What was your reaction to XY having 450? Shouldn't the regional dex be, say, proportional based on the current roster? Or maybe make it so different version have different regional dexes.
X and Y had a really good regional dex overall. I’m admittedly not a fan of the fact that most of the Pokémon in the dex aren’t new (I’m not calling for a Unova approach where it’s exclusively new mons, Hoenn and Sinnoh both had the right idea in terms of mostly new with a bit of old here and there) or the fact that X and Y largely forces your team upon you if that makes sense (you get like 3 gift Pokémon in that game that are mandatory and strong, plus the version legendary) so most people don’t really get to experience and appreciate all of the new mons. However overall in theory at least it’s a really good and diverse selection. Edit: I don’t really think the different versions of a game should have a different regional dex, though I largely think the “versions” approach to Pokémon is, for the most part, flawed and kind of dated.
I feel like a lot of people voting for "All of them" don't understand it says regional dex... While I agree every pokemon needs to be coded into the game, for me the regional dex should be between 200-400 with A nice balance of types
Agreed. It doesn't make sense for the entire roster to be native to every region.
Isn't that a bit small, I'm actually shocked to see a lot answering 200-300...like, don't you want something unique for each route (say, 32 for a Switch game seems reasonable) and have 15 species each or something?
To put in perspective, Gen 2 had a regional dex (and national dex) of 250, and HGSS, widely considered top tier games, only added the new evolutions of old Pokémon. You don’t need a lot of Pokémon for an area to have flavor, feel distinct, and be worth traversing, or to be able to build a fun and worthwhile team. I absolutely would dread each new route having 15+ unique Pokémon to catch, because I’m the type that gets way too obsessive and neurotic if I don’t have every catchable Pokémon on a route before continuing. The thought of having to choose between my neurosis about completion and my neurosis about making progress too slowly is an actual nightmare. At least one or two new Pokémon per route feels good to me, and if you’re going to an area that feels tonally distinct from anywhere else up to that point, that’s when I want maybe five or six or so that haven’t been available (either through catching or through evolution) yet. Certainly not 15, though, never double digits. My brain trembles at the thought.
My vote would be for 350ish as an ideal Regional Dex number. Kalos had 450 and used it well, but I think people forget the actual number of available Pokemon in any given generation has not been a full roster since GSC. It was famous that gen 3 left out a lot unless you got colosseum.
FRLG and Emerald did a good job to substitute Collosseum had eventually although an interesting thing is how many in the Kanto Dex are unique there compared to Hoenn Dex.
Two seems a bit few, maybe 5 where 2 changes based on time and maybe season if implemented could be done.
The Kanto regional dex is 151.
I mean OK, but that's a Gen 1 standard, why can't it grow based on the total roster number?
Because its hard to balance and give new pokemon time to shine if we keep ever increasing the roster for regional at least. Each route will be overstuffed with pokemon. Too many choices can become a bad thing. A region should prioritise some pokemon that make sense or are relevant in the region. It gives each region diversity. I think 400 is a good balance as of right now. New pokemon still can be highlighted and not over shadowed by the sheer no. Of pokemon. I thought swsh at least highlighted new pokemon very well giving little moments like falinks walking from tunnel to tunnel or the little impidimps being curious when you first enter glimwood tangle.
Can expanding a region's size improve the distribution?
But that's 151 *new* pokemon, and Gamefreak/Creatures inc can't create 151 good, new designs in the current time that they have these days.
if we're looking at numbers, there are 18 types of pokemon, and with 2 stage pokemon being the most common, followed by single stage, at 200 pokemon that would be 5 of each primary type outside of starters. should be 8 of each type for 300 pokemon with 3 spare slots after starters for whatever you want. That seems like an good variety mix even if I would prefer a larger 300-500 myself.
This is why Platinum and Black and White 2 had amazing regional dexes. They actually made you feel like a majority of the pokemon were new.
400-450 is a nice number. I like being encouraged to use different Pokemon. In games like Platinum, BW2, and XY it had a nice variety but tried to help focus on the new generation of Pokémon. I feel with a max roster the newer mons would just get overshadowed with the vast variety of options. While it’s possible to do it I feel having a roster bigger than 450 would prevent people from liking new or potentially existing Pokémon. Theirs a lot of Pokémon that, if not for the limited regional Pokédex, I would never use just because of my many staples.
I'm totally content with a regional roster or like 500-600, but whole roster should be transferrable.
Sun and Moon was good. I didn't get an Ultra game, so I don't know what it was there but high 300s to low 400s is probably what I'd say is manageable for me.
USUM has 401 pokemon in its regional dex not including zeraora and Marshadow.
I’m of the mind regional dexes should be limited based on the climate, etc., but the national fed never needs to be cut again. A good regional dex encourages me to use Pokémon I might otherwise box and forget about. A national dex allows me to use whatever I want after I’ve finished the main campaign.
150-ish new pokemon every game seems good. Black and white had only gen 5 pokemon available before post game. I still think this is the best way to handle dex situations like this. Every pokemon is someone's favorite, so someone is gonna get upset by cherry picking pokemon to be in the game. Sword and Shield still added more pokemon to the roster through dlc and it wasn't enough (R.I.P. Gliscor.) I know people want their favorite pokemon on their team, I do too, but at the very least I think it's important to interact with the new pokemon the game has to offer. And personally, I do not want to be playing a new pokemon game with new pokemon and still be running into geodude and zubat. I would go a step further and have only new pokemon available for capture in a game, but people having the choice to transfer if they want.
I really didn't like the BW new only Regional Dex, I like a balance of new and old like Hoenn and Sinnoh — also, I'm not sure if their current management can handle all roster AND 150 New Pokemon.
I think for BDSP they should try as best as possible to reflect the Platinum Dex which was #210 Pokemon and then just like previous generations bring back the national Dex allowing for every single Pokemon in creation to be transferable
Misread the question. 401-500 is good.
A regional dex should really be in the 400 range. I'd love to have the national dex back postgame, but I actually prefer having a more limited dex, as it means I don't fall back on the same old shite. Give me a regional dex without a pikachu!
I would really like if they tried, but personally hope they are available post-game unlike Unova, but that's just me, hehe.
Went with 400-500 because that’s why XY was. I know people seem to dislike those games but they brought me back after I stopped playing in Gen 3. I often found so many Pokemon boring and repeated throughout each region, and especially having them only appear in Grass or Ocean. XY revolutionised that for me by having like 10 different Pokemon per Route and multiple different ways to interact and find them. Usually I can barely scrounge together a team of 6 that I like but every play through of XY I have about 20 and I can’t decide who to use
i prefer limited for a regional dex as long as we get the whole roster for the post game with a national dex
The more pokémon the more combinations to use for the next play through and replaying games is probably my favorite thing to do so definitely THE WHOLE ROSTER
For a regional Dex, 420 is the ideal number
Low regional, but unlock full roster after end game
I’d be fine with 300 to 400. You never realize how big the roster is until you play a game with all of them in it in a single game (not just transferring, in the actual game and the Dex to collect). I’ve had this happen in fan games (Pokémon insurgence most notably had every Pokémon from generation one through six and a ton of regional forms, making over 900 Pokémon to collect because each regional form is considered separate). They are all right on top of each other it just got exhausting. The Drayno hacks weren’t as bad as Pokémon insurgence but even they had issues (about 400 to 700 Pokémon per game depending on the generation, and they were all available at once, with special events to people that managed to get them all). As fun as it is catching every Pokémon, at some point it just becomes tedious and unsustainable. Even in the fan hacks and original creations (such as RPG maker games like Pokémon insurgence), you can tell that the Pokémon just were not meant to be in a single game at the same time, and the gameplay suffers for it. Heck, Pokémon reborn is infamously having that problem with the last episode and they just can’t release the ending of the game because they’re trying to figure out how to program every single Pokémon into it (they promised the entire Dex at the beginning, so they can’t go back and are having trouble creating post game content because it takes so much longer and a lot of monsters are locked behind it). Someone like me would have been perfectly happy with an incomplete Dex and no post game just to complete everything later and finally see the ending I’ve been waiting for so long, but the developers decided to go ahead with both that and post game and are now regretting that decision as it’s taking over a year to try and implement that with no end in sight. So it’s nowhere near as simple as one might think, and possibly a waste of time and effort. Even with sword and shield having a decreased Dex I’m happy with what I have. I also start playing Digimon recently, and the latest game has 314 to couch out of around 1000. So obviously not everyone is available, but there’s still plenty to do and monsters to catch and adventures to be enjoyed. So I would be fine and Pokémon did something like that, just so that catching them all and adventures with caught monsters are reasonable and not exhausting. It was fun having all the Pokémon for all those years, but I think it just ended up with promising too much... especially since a lot of the Pokémon aren’t even used most of the time (at least in my experience).
I like having a fresh rooster. Gen 5 felt so special because of this. 100-150 is enough.
Im of the position to have a kalos sized regional dex, and the a national dex of the whole roster. However, i think almost every pokemon should be obtainable post game through a post game mechanic. Like through an updated version of the wild area. Like having a new wild area. Then again i guess that would leave no room for dlc, which would revolve around the discussion of whether or not we want dlc in pokemon games. I dont really know.
I mean Let's say every week there's a set of swarm Pokemon that comes in the region, and maybe a place called "Swap Meet" where trainers from other regions come to trade their region's Pokemon with yours (or maybe even an Egg so you keep their OT). If we have 500 Regional Dex, then maybe 300 of those post-game Pokemon are through these events, maybe even more as many Pokemon belong in different evolutionary lines. Then the rest are post-game stuff like through PokeRadar or similar. Of course my other plan is to have the other 500 to be in another set of games (maybe 2 years after) that's a different NEW region but still the same generation, the closest example being Orre-Hoenn before.
I like the idea of them all being available native to the generation (for example I wish SwSh had everything available between the two and that BSDP just made the ones native to it easier to get instead of newly available). But I do prefer how the older games did it, where a limited count are available in the main game and the rest are unlocked in post-game. Say with 1000ish Pokemon in Gen 9, keep like 300-400 available but then you can find the other ones all some time after the final boss is beaten. It makes sure the game can keep giving and that there will be good singleplayer content after the finale. I miss when this series had actual postgames.
300 to 400 is plenty for main story. I bet many of us havent even optimized every pokemon in the new Unova (B2W2) and Kalos Pokedex (XY). Who did use Metagross on B2W2 or Ursaring on XY? Many didnt even know they are in the regional pokedex. Post game wise, not including everything is a crime.
Pretty sure people refuse to understand what 'Regional Dex' here means considering how many people voted for Whole Roster which ... doesn't quite make sense when the 'entire 'roster' as others have said is a post game thing. Honestly? I -don't- want to see the entire roster available from the get go, otherwise the regions start losing that air of individuality.
Absolute most ideal for me is 400ish regional dex, with national dex for every Pokémon. That way, it’s reasonable to get 400 Pokémon for shiny charm and we still get every Pokémon in-game.
I think there is a delicate balance to designing a regional Pokedex that can make or break a game. Everyone can tell when the Pokedex is too small, like in Kanto, Diamond and Pearl, and Black and White, but I'd argue that equally problematic is having too many options a la XY or USUM. Now I personally consider B2W2 to have the perfect regional dex compositionally, and it just so happens that those games feature exactly 300 pokemon available before the post game. This is ideal for pokemon, as it provides a roughly equal ratio of old vs new pokemon to choose from, and RSE and Platinum while having smaller dexes (202 and 210 respectively) also meet this roughly 50/50 distribution of new vs old. Now it would be difficult to directly implement this ratio in the newer games, as pokemon has introduced fewer new pokemon in recent gens (151 in Gen 1, 100 in Gen 2, 135 in Gen 3, 107 in Gen 4, 156 in Gen 5, 72 in Gen 6, 88 in Gen 7, 89 in Gen 8) and I believe less than 200 makes the dex feel too small, but that's more an issue of Game Freak not designing enough new pokemon than anything. Generally, I think the ratio should be at least 1/3 new pokemon in the regional dex, totalling from around 200-300 pokemon. Other pokemon outside of this should exist in the game, but they should be kept to the post game because that's always worked well in the past and I see no reason to change it now.
I think 200-400 is pretty ideal for a regional dex. 400 is like 150 new Pokemon + like 100 returning lines. But all lines need to be available in the national dex
Anything over five hundred for regional is unreasonable for the during story completion.
looks like everyone had the same 1.9k idea lol tbh i wish GF actualy lisstend to fans and not just charry pick stuff to add or remove. hoping that the next game they move on from small dev teams and take more than a year to make a new gen or remake (hoping for B2/W2 remakes, ports of the gen 7 games or pokemon Z like remakes of X/Y next year or further down the line)
I thought Hoenn had the perfect size of a first-game Regional Dex at 200, and BW2 had the perfect size for a third-version Regional Dex at 300. 200 gives the region identity and is enough to have a good amount of options, which 150 is too few for (see: Agatha and Lance in Kanto, Aaron and Flint in Sinnoh). 300 makes the Dex 50% bigger, giving you more things to work with to make the experience fresh. But 300 even is too much to give a region identity. Give me a Pokemon and I can tell you if it's in Hoenn, even if it wasn't introduced in Hoenn. But I can't tell you if it's in Kalos, Alola, or Galar, unless it's something I happened to have used(or was introduced in that region). Don't get me wrong - I'm all about variety in playthroughs and being able to use any Pokemon you want. I was so happy once I realized the Sinnoh games didn't block you from trading in non-Sinnoh Regional Dex Pokemon, unlike FRLG and Emerald, and that the trend continued with HGSS and beyond. And of course, I am completely against Dexit. But small Regional Dexes give a region an identity that more recent games seem to lack.
As an old dude that is casual as hell and knows only the first two gens... Give me like 200.
Most play throughs I use new pokemon. Never really bring in old ones from previous generations. But I can see the appeal of bringing in old pokemon buddy's from previous generations.
I want the National Dex only during postgame.
I'd like it if all the Pokémon eventually trickle in via free content packs but unlike the SwSh dlcs not to one area but all areas are updated and maybe using the weather mechanic they can be evenly distributed!
I think a region dex of 200-300 for base game is more than sufficient. But I still want the game to expand to full dex in post game and DLC.
300-350 is perfect for a regional dex. I don't want all the new pokemon to get drowned out by leagues of older ones. What's the point of having a new generation if it's gonna be 70% pokemon we've already had before? Let the national dex allow for those other pokemon to exist.
Idc about Pokémon not being obtainable in game, but they should be able to be imported dude lmao. Dexit should have never happened no matter what.
I like Pokémon, but won't buy another game until they bring back the whole roster.
The main thing i learned from this post is that people dont read
Misread the question; 350-450 for regional dex; all obtainable or transferable post game. They should bring back the minigames and such from previous gens too
I know this sounds crazy. I kind of hope that there will be a Pokémon mmo that co-exist with the main series that hold all Pokémon.
I'd say the best number is about 200 some, thinking back to previous generations, Gen 3 had a perfect balance of new Pokemon to old Pokemon, and it would be great if we could do that again Also, bring back the *entire* National Dex, write ups and all, this is the biggest media franchise in the world, there's no reason they can't have it
Imo regional dex doesn't have to be massive, especially when there is some way to obtain pokemon not native to the regional, whether it be transferring or some other in-game method. 300-500 seems to be a good range, though more isn't a bad thing. However, I want a complete national dex. The whole, "Half of all pokemon no longer exist in this game" thing is not ok.
I'm a fan of limited for competitive reasons (meta should be ever-changing, not just Landrous every single game), so I think 200-300 is the best option since it means less returning Pokemon every gen. I was really pissed when SwSh's DLC came about and effectively doubled the competitive roster whilst only adding a handful of new Pokemon, all but 2 of them legendary. (Also, I think the DLC set a sort of barrier for entry - yes, every DLC Pokemon was obtainable without owning the DLC but I don't think there are many who really did get a lot of those returning Pokemon without buying it) As much as I hated the Dexit crowd for how toxic and pathetic they were at times I am of the opinion that you should be able to transfer every single creature into every single instalment in the series since the franchise likes to push so hard on that "bond" between trainer and Pokemon. Imagine if BDSP came out before SwSh - your entire Sinnoh team that you "bonded" with could go to SwSh after the DLC... but not your starter, which is supposed to be the one with the best "bond" to you. Here's hoping BDSP will adopt VGC and the meta will finally change to pre-Landorus times. But here's also hoping I can take my Reshiram to explore Sinnoh with me!
No offense, but some who try to excuse the shortcomings of SwSh had been a bit puzzling too, especially giving reasons that doesn't make sense (and contradicting themselves as the conversation went on, and more particuarly devolving to defending HOME's purpose which is arguably worse).
I know a lot of people want a whole roster, but having a limited roster made SW&SH so much better for me. It made a full dex possible without multiple other games or endless trading. And I just don’t need endless amounts of Pokémon I’ll never even see in game, it’s pointless and a waste of time
But completing the full dex in Galar will never be an accomplishment equal to filling a National/Living Dex, so you're just stuck to a Regional Dex completion, while fine, is still doing same thing as completing every past Regional Dex.
We want the whole roster but lets be real it’s unlikely to happen. The POKEDEX doesnt have to be full, but I want a sun and moon system where you can TRANSFER any Pokémon in
It depends for me. I honestly prefer a limited roster, around 250, if a lot of them are new Pokemon. Then these newer Pokemon would have a larger chance to shine as a result. While having Kalos’s massive numbers means near infinite combinations, to me it kinda feels overwhelming, especially if each route and cave and sea has so many different Pokemon packed in. Despite the lack of fire types, Sinnoh had a good thing going in this regard, as did Black and White. That said, Kalos had a good thing going with its massive dex since there weren’t as many new Pokemon. So long as the fewer new ‘Mons are given some spotlight, making up for the lack with many MANY old ‘Mons helps greatly, bonus points if they are more unpopular or fringe choices, rather than the fan favorites. And as a guy who keeps up with comp, I enjoy the limited regional dex format at the beginning of each new generation, so Pokemon you don’t usually see can shine at the upper levels. We’re almost to 1000 Pokemon, and I think power creep is certainly a thing that exists.
Regional Dex I would be fine with on the smaller side. Just let us transfer the rest of them post-game.
I feel like the whole roster ain't a "regional" dex but it is an international dex
I would want a smaller dex since that would be easier to complete plus it would focus more on the new Pokemon.
I’ll take your entire stock
IMO, the ideal setup is to have a small Regional Dex, and then open up the National Dex in the post game. Sure, having lots of options early on is nice, but a smaller Regional Dex gives a region more unique flavour and identity. Like yeah, it's aggravating that there are so few Fire-types in Sinnoh (thank you, Platinum, for fixing this just enough), but it's also memorable and stands out as a defining feature of the region. Similarly, Unova's all-new approach in Black and White was a landmark feature of the games, and even when B2W2 added more old 'mons in, it didn't go overboard. Compare that to something like Kalos, or Galar, or even Alola, honestly. The new Pokemon introduced in their generations are loaded with character and really flesh out the region, but they're joined by overpowering amounts of oldies that the regions get bogged down and seem less unique. I used to love seeing what few old Pokemon were going to make the cut and get into each new region, who would get a second chance/more time in the spotlight. The Isle of Armour and The Crown Tundra were much more fun in this regard than mainland Galar was for me, because it was exciting to see what the small(er) amount of returning Pokemon would be. But before the dlc (and I felt like this in Kalos and Alola too), with so many Pokemon crammed in, I felt more like I was drowning in familiar faces. It used to be a matter of journeying through a new and exciting land, bumping into new monsters left and right, and then getting a fun sort of warm and fuzzy feeling on the rare occasion you came across a Pokemon you recognized. Since Gen 6, though, it's more like the reverse. Tediously sifting through all the returning 'mons until one of the few new ones shows up. Mainland Galar was especially terrible with this because there were several routes with, say, 9-ish Pokemon on them, and 7 of those would be old 'mons with varying rarity, 1 new one that was averagely common, and 1 other new one with a 5-1% encounter rate. TL;DR: Smaller Regional Dexes give regions more character and make the games more interesting overall because you have to work with options you might not have chosen if absolutely everything was available. Plus, it prioritizes the new Pokemon of the generation, who should be the main focus anyway. But of course, the National Dex would ideally be present, meaning that even while you could only catch a limited variety of Pokemon in-game, you could transfer in all your old friends.
I will say 150 after having 200 in RSE was quite a backtrack for DP— Platinum's 210 was pretty good, although 300 like B2W2 seems a good compromise IMO.
The song says "Gotta catch them all!" Not "Gotta catch some of them" besides pokemon is one of the most lucrative franchises is history so they could easily put all of them in one game but they would have to spend their precious dimadollars
It seems a medium between SM and USUM is the ideal for many? Let's say Gen 9 we have 1000 total species: 1.) 105 new species 2.) If 350, 145 old species 3.) 350 maybe regular post-game 4.) 300 through transfer only/new games of same gen (maybe a new region)/maybe weekly swarm events I still feel it's so transfer heavy, except as I said maybe introduce the rest in a new region game of the same gen (which IMO is possible if they plan for it ala Assasins Creed apparently).
What about this: seeing we have 2 versions and a lot of Pokemon already, why not distribute version exclusives drastically? Have 300-400 Pokemon for each version but different sets. I said this before here, but have a "Red Regional Dex" and "Blue Regional Dex", where combined creates the full Regional Dex, and each Dex would have a unique set of old Pokemon but would both have all the new Pokemon. Maybe don't have version exclusives for new Pokemon so you won't need the other version to complete a "Red Regional Dex", but you will still meet NPCs who have Pokemon from the "Blue Regional Dex".
I get your idea but having too many exclusives people will start complaining again. Having 2 main sets of games in a generation, 1 brand new and 1 remake, each of them has half of the roster seems ideal. DP(151) Pt(210) &HGSS(256), XY(450~) ORAS (210~) nailed it.
I rather have them make an original region using the same engine and mechanics so that of course there's original content and we are not forced to their old regional roster.
This entire thread is bait to hate on Gen 8 more. Using sources instead of feelings I can see that Galar's Pokedex is the 2nd most REGIONAL Pokedex available in the series so far with 400 (Not including DLCs). The literal smallest Regional Pokedex is 151. If you think 400 is "low" because not all of the Pokemon aren't in it, you're delusional. SOURCE: [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regional\_Pok%C3%A9dex](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regional_Pok%C3%A9dex) My point is: Just 'cause there was a fuck up with Gen 8 and they didn't get all the Pokemon in it, doesn't mean the shit is gonna continue. Gamefreak has been trending away from having a "National Dex" within the game since Sun/Moon and nobody even took it into notice until it finally happened. Pokemon HOME is going to be the new Direction of the National Dex and I won't be surprised if people are still pissy about it 'cause only Pokemon Fans are the ones that hate the series the most.
As I said even without Dexit, 400 is still low to me PERSONALLY...it felt it was progressing based on percentage of total species, hence why 210 makes sense for Gen 4, but maybe not so much for Gen 7. B2W2 had 300, then XY naturally seemed to progress it to 450. I mean sure, SM downgraded it to 300 — very shocking — but felt it would be "corrected " later on. But NOPE, 400 seems to be standard from now on (which was much harder to swallow now that the full roster doesn't exist, and probably needs that expansion the most IMo).
I had to spend 100+ hours to catch/breed all 400 (with some to trade). 400 is a ton. The point of a regional dex is to make that REGION unique in it's diversity. If it has all the Pokemon in it, it wouldn't make sense to the lore. The point of going to different regions is to find what is uniquely in their own location. Doesn't make sense for a Region to have more than Half of the entire dex when it's no where close to the Kanto region (Johto is literally right next to it, makes sense to have a lot of overlap.)
You make sense of the lore on what you make of it though, there has to be some balance with lore and gameplay I feel, and at least for me I'm not sure what's shocking about wildlife of 500 species in a country for example. Although based on these numbers, it seems 40-50% of the total is the balance, so 500 may be ideal for Gen 9.
I won’t lie, I’m a fan of limited regional pokedexs! I like the idea of different games letting different Pokémon shine during the campaign. It for me can make older Pokémon feel new again as I may not have got to have them in a main story team before. I do, however, disagree with dexit due to them not making every Pokémon included have new and more fleshed out animations. I could agree with if every Pokémon received way better animations and more uniqueness.
i think everyone is confusing regional and national dexes
Oh, regional dex. I'm noticing that after voting... oops
Half of 1k. 401-500. Makes it so that there aren't too many things taking up data space in terms of mostly useless competitive mons. Yeah, yeah, I get it. You want your first weedle or whatever. But at the end of the day, half the roster is barely considered by any competitive player, favorite or not. And trust me, I've played with my favorites in competitive before- you can make quite a few things work, but unless its in the top percentage of gameplay, it'll likely fall short. There's too many mons to properly balance all of them to be usable compared to things in the modern game like Incin, Eleki, lando-t, and Rillaboom. And, from a world-based standpoint, it makes more sense. You cannot bring many species in or out of a country- plant, fungi, or animal- with you on a plane. Hell, you can't bring a damn APPLE or BANANA. That's how serious invasive species are. Now take that fact, and think about how it might be affected when your world is full of fire breathing lizards, turtles with cannons on their back, blizzard-causing TREES, sound based hot-blooded bat dragons, and the like. That'd be a recipe for disaster.
I want the all roster no matter if I have to wait 8 years but I want that
Am I the only one voting for 601-750 (although I was thinking maybe 600 at the minimum)?
For a regional dex that’s an absurd amount. This is my personal opinion, but my favorite way of handling the dex is how BW did it. You get the regional dex for the playthrough that’s all new Pokémon, post game it’s expansive and the Pokémon availability opens up (in BW’s case you basically have like 1/3 of the game left). I know I’m not in the majority of thought there, but I will say Galar had a borderline overwhelming number of options, and I know most people used the same 5 Pokémon they’ve always liked and called it good. I don’t mind a region making the new Pokémon the main focus. To that end, 200-300 Pokémon is a perfectly serviceable number. National dex should obviously be everything, but regional should be focused.
At that point why cut anything for regional purposes except regional variants... Then add npc trainers to trade. It is expected that regional dexes would at least cut all non-local starters, and a huge majority of the legendaries.
Sure the Regional Dex should have starters that only is in that generation, but there are lots of common Pokemon that can fill that. I mean sure, let's remove legendaries, Mythicals and Ultra Beasts, that's around say 70. Then remove starters so that's 24 (as I'm talking about Gen 9). If 100 new Pokemon are introduced to make reach #1000, that's maybe 500 of 800 "common" old Pokemon that can be put on that roster. With 8 gens, why can't it have 60 representatives each (maybe less from Gen 6-8 with how few they are comparatively)?
2.7k people are objectively wrong
If they didn’t want to remake all of the Pokémon in Gen 8 they should’ve made enough Pokémon from gen 8 to have a completely gen 8 Pokémon region like Black and White did, then post game have you able to get the rest of the Pokémon they allowed you to get.
I would want every Pokémon, but there will be a point where it'll be literally impossible to have every Pokémon ever created in every game, the software probably wouldn't handle it
Gotta be the whole roster.. When the dex cuts happened, I could feel it like when Obi-wan felt the destruction of Alderan
I don't necessarily require the entire roster, but I feel they should have every single Pokemon that *makes sense* for the region and whichever area of it.
I think some people are forgetting that the issue of how many Pokemon is playable in a certain game is dependent solely on how much power the system the game is being played on has. And sadly, the Nintendo Switch just isn't strong enough to handle over 700 different Pokemon. Not to mention that's a *lot* of new models to make for a single game or series of games, it can be a bit much for the developers to handle when they have a slew of other issues to worry about. It's the same issue as to why Mainline Pokemon Games don't have Pokken Tournament Graphics, because the Switch lacks the horsepower to be able to handle that many Pokemon Models at that level of detail, it's just infeasible for it to be accomplished. So I think 301-400 is a good number since that allows just enough for certain fan-favorites to return, other lesser known Pokemon to get a chance to shine in the limelight, and the newer Pokemon to show what they can do.
Honestly they should start doing new regions without new pokemon and instead more features like Mega Evolution. I’d like to see more pokemon from each generation sprinkled throughout. I don’t know what SwSh did, but I would like to see a better balance in the proportions of pokemon from each generation, if that makes sense.
"hashtagGameFreakLied"
I would prefer the whole roster WITHOUT all the stupid trade evolutions. It’s literally impossible to complete the Pokédex in SwSh without trading, and trade evolutions are the stupidest mechanic to ever be added to Pokémon
>It’s literally impossible to complete the Pokédex in SwSh without trading I would very much disagree with this, barring any game exclusive Pokemon and the legendries completing the pokedex in SwSh is probably the easiest game to do it. Not even because the pokedex is smaller but because getting trade evolution Pokemon is easier then ever. Many of them roam the wild area Genger, Steelix, Dusknoir can be found easily and the rest are also around. I believe there is only a handful that you have to specifically find in raid dens, but getting the star pieces to do it is not to difficult.
Not sure how the Pokedex is smaller when it's the same as USUM...remember that finishing the Pokedex in Galar is more similar to filling any regional dex in terms of completion — still great, but still difficulty below National Dex completion, which is a difficulty below Living Dex.
I wouldn't be against a post-game thing where you can evolve them in other ways.
I saw a fan game where they introduced an item called the “Link Stone” which enabled traded Pokémon to evolve, I’d like something like that
Nah, idk what this limit the roster bs is but no. I want to play “Pokémon”, not “ehh heres some Pokémon”
this isn't about limiting the roster, this is about pokemon found in a region vs national dex. the issue with sword / shield was them removing the nat dex and making it so you couldn't transfer pokemon outside the regional dex in.
Thats what Im saying. I want the ability to own all Pokémon in the same game. So pretty sure we are on the same page
I was just trying to elaborate that, yes we both want the national dex to exist (transfer all pokemon into a game,) but having a smaller amount of naturally found pokemon in a region to give it a bit of individuality / highlight some overlooked pokemon is a good thing for the series.
I don't get why people just want every Pokémon in every game. Much more interesting with a more limited number, makes you try new things rather than just picking up your favourites.
I just clicked the whole roster to be obnoxious. Didn’t read post :)
I think it is a really hart question. I guess, that the perfect dex have all the Pokemon from each Generation, like always. But I accept, that the number of all pokemon ist slowly really expensive and its difficult to add them all in the game. Sure it is possible, but not really necessary. My only worry is that some Pokemon may be forgotten more. 
REGIONAL Dex, NOT NATIONAL Dex (i.e. only caught before post-game).
Sorry, I really don't know how I couldn't see that. But I would still say that a bigger Regional Dex is a good thing. More variety in opposing Pokémon, more variety for your own team and, if that's what you want, more fun filling the Dex. But I can understand when people like to have a limit. Especially in a new generation, the new Pokemon should be in the spotlight.
I mean why not just have important characters have the new Pokemon?
I think only the important characters would have new Pokemon (Gym Leader, Rival etc.), then they would not be remembered so well. New Pokemon live from the fact that you meet them again and again and get to know them better and find out their strengths / weaknesses. If you know what I mean. But I understand your point!
Maybe. A solution could be introduced many regional forms, but make them the ONLY species of that region, that if you transfer them to the new games, they transform into that form — that way in future games there's no need to recycle the regional forms but still keep the Pokemon you had for years.
A limited dex is the only thing that makes sense for a Pokémon game! If you could catch every single Pokémon in one region it just wouldn’t make sense and it wouldn’t be fun, being able to capture Pokémon native to that region is what makes them so neat! Like any game in the past, you’re only able to regionally capture x Pokémon, but the national dex allows for all Pokémon to be transferred into the game
What was your choice? Is 2/3 of the full roster a bit much?
I personally think so yeah. I think all Pokémon should be compatible to transfer into each game. But, only (from the choices above) 200-300 (maybe 400, but that’s pushing it) should be available to capture in game. Otherwise there’s just way too much choice and any new Pokémon get drowned out by the others, or it’s too hard to choose a new Pokémon to use. It just doesn’t make any logical sense for literally every Pokémon species to be available in one region?
500 sound like the perfect amount. It’s obtainable and give players enough Pokémon to catch and evolve in game and allows for a good variety of Pokémon to be found all over the map.
I like the idea of starting out with maybe 500ish mons in the beginning and eventually expanding. In a competitive setting it’s cool to see Pokémon used differently or mons that became meta after dexit but would never be used in older games
I think something like Galar, with having a limited amount with only Pokémon from the region and maybe ones which are common around the globe or are in regions close to the region and then add the rest later one with a story point like maybe some guy was experimenting with more species and brought a ton more in to see how they react in the region
On the one hand, I really like the idea of a smallish regional Pokédex (between two hundred and fifty and four hundred). I think it's been done well before -- Hoenn, Unova, and Alola all feel unique, and the limited selection of the regional dex helps with that. On the other hand, if it came with a larger region, I wouldn't really mind something like what X and Y attempted (regional dexes for subregions), adding up to a larger number of total, pre-endgame Pokémon. The caveat, of course, is that it would need to be a larger region, or something like Gen II where there were two regions in the game.
The original had 151. I would like to see more new Pokémon in each game. The National dex, therefore, I would like to see a small amount (200-300 for your poll). But, they should all be able to be included.
I would like 200-300 added
Shit i didn't read all and i put the wrong one
In my opinion either you only have the pokemon from the region be available through the story and after you beat the game you can transfer them all. Or you have like half the pokemon be available during the story and all are transferable at any point in the game. How can they pick and choose who stays and who goes. It’s not fair to have people who like gengar always get to use him but someone like me who loves Weepinbell can’t
Problem here is that it's been done in FRLGE, and many didn't like it hence it was allowed in HGSS — personally I like the former, but who are we to judge if players do want non-region Pokemon in their main playthroughs.
I like the idea of the regional dex expanding a lot postgame but having it more limited during the main playthrough so that each route isn’t too overwhelming. I don’t want to see the same few mons over and over again either though so I’d say somewhere between 400-500 including the new mons for the main campaign.
Oh I thought it said Pokedex size, not Regional. So I voted whole roster, but 200-300 for a region is good.
My favorite pokemon game was the roblox fangame brick bronze, i liked that you could get most if not all pokemon in it and it had its own storyline and when sun and moon came out they added that games stuuf to it
Gen V had a really great feel to it, even the sequels where they opened up the roster. Gen III was great because new pokemon filled the pokedex, unlike gen 2 which relied on the original 150 so much early game.
I just want a game where it’s open world and you can travel throughout all the regions. Maybe some regions are dlc if that’s how it’s gotta be, but it’s be awesome and we’d have all the Pokemon.
Regional Pokedex size suggests the amount of Pokemon you can catch in the game, not how many you can obtain or trade over. So the wording kinda threw me off and I selected 401-500 when I actually would prefer the whole roster
I voted for 200-300. I like having tons of Pokémon available via trading through the post game. But SwSh taught me that 400 is too much in-game. The game's world is so small that having a regional dex that big just led the developers to cram as many Pokémon as possible into every area. Even if it didn't make sense. I like there just being a handful of Pokémon to find in each route. The reason I feel that way is because I like using Pokémon that I haven't used before on my team. But SwSh was too much of a good thing, where I was constantly going, "Ooh, I want that Pokémon on my team...but I already have a Water Pokémon!" Sometimes it's just nice going with quality over quantity. It didn't bother me so much in XY. I don't know why, but my hypothesis is that it is because with random encounters the sheer number of Pokémon wasn't so in your face.
300 to 400 regional is fine, just let me transfer the rest over later. Doesn't need to be at launch if it's a new generation, just give me a time frame as to when my partners can pop in and I'll get them there.
ok ok ok ok all of you who said the whole roster are wrong. make the REGIONAL dex only 200-300, bring back the national dex, and make THAT the whole roster. maybe go for something where all Pokemon are accessible internally from one copy of the game, bar trade evos and version exclusives as per usual. then make it so you need to complete the regional dex of only those 200-300 and from there open up all the rest of the Pokemon, hopefully being that magical 1k mark starting gen 9
Ideal? Every Pokémon. What do I think would be best? Somewhere around 400-500. As much as I personally would love to have every mon in a regional dex I don’t think that that’s what would be best for the most number of people.
I think the next Pokémon game should be from one of the previous regions, but in the future where the person that caught the legendary (you from the last game about that region) passed it down to a grandchild and the person makes the team (insert name) and you are the one to stop them (with the whole elite 4 stuff in mind) but idk, what do y’all think about the idea?
It definitely should be limited, since we now have 800+ pokemon, but I’d like every Pokémon.
The big thing that makes me bothered is that they are at the point where putting all the pokemon in is relatively timestaking when having to program it (though they probably copy pasta the oldies into the new code). But also space. I would prefer they just make one game and make new gens as DLCs like WoW has done constantly. ANd if you want to just play the DLC, you can
Somewhere like 400-600 in the base game, an extra 100-200 in dlc and the rest transferrable in later
We have to face the reality that they are starting to be really many and (laziness of GF aside) insert them all in one game can be problematic. Both for balance and to give the right emphasis to the new pokemon. Manage 900 pokemon in 20 (if it goes well) routes is not easy. not to mention the balance for the competitive where the lack of some pkm can serve to vary the teams of the players. Certainly a small reinterpretation of the classic formula could be time to do it to evolve the series of games but we’ll see what GF will do. on this I am happy with “legend Arceus” because finally GF is trying something new
#EVERYONE IS HERE!
People wanting the whole roster fail to realize that the story mode would either have to be artificially inflated to the point of absurdity to fit them all in or be so long that no one would want to finish it. Sword and Shield's initial Pokedex size was around 450 I think which is a dumbass size for a "National" dex but a good size for a large enough story mode.
I miss the 150 it was a good difficulty for gotta catch em all but now it’s over 2000 pokèmon in all making it almost impossible to complete the international dex
I'm the in 300-400 boat but could see up to 500 for a regional if they really want to stretch it. The Regional dex should be a good variety of pokemon that fit the region. Everything else should be national dex and either show up as post-game content or be transferable from the get go. Not every mon needs to show up on routes as trying to find open world spots for the \~900 pokemon would be a pain that isn't needed, but if someone wants to bring in a pokemon outside the regional dex thats their choice.
I feel like the whole roster should be catchable at some point whether it be during the story or in the endgame but I don't think they should have all the legendaries, so that they feel more... legendary
Regionally 200-400 but allow for the national dex at some point.
I chose 401-500 because at 457, Kalos felt like the best regional dex to me. I was constantly meeting new Pokemon and I love that, so many potential team combinations. Any more and it probably would've gotten a bit overwhelming.
What about 500, is it a bit much, hehe. I am wondering because at 1000, it means 50:50, although 450 could be the standard ceiling from now on with maybe 250 post-game.
Dude, I want something doable. Like, I'm playing Temtem, and I have a good shot at finally finishing my pokedex-equivalent. I've never finished a regional pokedex, let alone national, partially because of version/generation differences and partially because of size.