The other day I found myself thinking about all of the core series Pokémon games again, and upon looking at some of the older games I couldn't help but notice that some of them had been following a sort of pattern that I believe helped establish each game's identity. The Pokémon Company and Game Freak have had quite a few different ways of advertising new installments, ranging from the Pokémon themselves to new content additions, but this pattern that I don't think gets talked about a whole lot is the idea that certain Pokémon and move Types can be and often are more prominent in the games than others. At first glance it might seem like I'm talking about how balanced (or lack thereof) the type chart is in any given generation's multiplayer scene, but what I'm actually referring to is how each Type is presented in single player. In more extreme cases- see Gen 1 Psychic and Gen 5 Dragon for a few examples- a Type can be prominent in both single and multiplayer if it's quote "strong enough", but generally single player and multiplayer are vastly different landscapes with different Types becoming prominent in each play style.
What I'm interested in finding out is how each of the 18 existing Pokémon types and their presentation in-game, whether that be through the selection of Pokémon and moves or through important NPC relevance is able to help each game feel more distinct from one another. This is even more apparent starting in Gen 3, when remakes first became a thing and set the standard for multiple regions getting a Pokémon game during the same generation. If you will, allow me to show you an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about when i say I'm wondering what Type might be represent a generation or an individual region:
I mean, you all saw this one coming, right? The Hoenn region's affinity for all things water related has been talked about more times than I can physically count. If you were to ask anyone which of the Types best represents Hoenn, I feel like there's no other option- you've got two notable Type specialists here in Wallace and Juan, a box art legendary that's a Water-Type, one of the two evil teams being Team Aqua, and by far the largest amount traversable water in any Pokémon region to date. Couple that with the Hoenn regional PokéDex having as many Water-Types as it does and I really don't think I need to spell this out. And yet, when you got to other generations that also have a Hoenn game, I wouldn't say Water is the "main Type" of either Gen 3's Kanto remakes or Gen 6's Kalos games. Both Kanto and Kalos have their own identity that RSE and ORAS respectively may add to, but still have been developed as its own thing.
One more thing before I end off this post- this could be a topic for another day, but ever since the Nintendo Switch became a thing, I feel like Game Freak's been trying to move away from the conventional definition of a Pokémon generation at least as we refer to the term as. I mean, heck, Legends: Arceus could honestly considered its own mini-generation if you wanted to go that far. That's why I have "region/generation" in this thread's title, because the Types that get the most recognition from the developers may be different depending on your criteria. So, yeah. I think that's everything. It's good to be back again, and I hope you all have a great rest of your day. Happy posting, be sure to follow the rules, and on that note I apologize if I'm breaking any rules with this thread. Take care, everyone!
What I'm interested in finding out is how each of the 18 existing Pokémon types and their presentation in-game, whether that be through the selection of Pokémon and moves or through important NPC relevance is able to help each game feel more distinct from one another. This is even more apparent starting in Gen 3, when remakes first became a thing and set the standard for multiple regions getting a Pokémon game during the same generation. If you will, allow me to show you an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about when i say I'm wondering what Type might be represent a generation or an individual region:
I mean, you all saw this one coming, right? The Hoenn region's affinity for all things water related has been talked about more times than I can physically count. If you were to ask anyone which of the Types best represents Hoenn, I feel like there's no other option- you've got two notable Type specialists here in Wallace and Juan, a box art legendary that's a Water-Type, one of the two evil teams being Team Aqua, and by far the largest amount traversable water in any Pokémon region to date. Couple that with the Hoenn regional PokéDex having as many Water-Types as it does and I really don't think I need to spell this out. And yet, when you got to other generations that also have a Hoenn game, I wouldn't say Water is the "main Type" of either Gen 3's Kanto remakes or Gen 6's Kalos games. Both Kanto and Kalos have their own identity that RSE and ORAS respectively may add to, but still have been developed as its own thing.
One more thing before I end off this post- this could be a topic for another day, but ever since the Nintendo Switch became a thing, I feel like Game Freak's been trying to move away from the conventional definition of a Pokémon generation at least as we refer to the term as. I mean, heck, Legends: Arceus could honestly considered its own mini-generation if you wanted to go that far. That's why I have "region/generation" in this thread's title, because the Types that get the most recognition from the developers may be different depending on your criteria. So, yeah. I think that's everything. It's good to be back again, and I hope you all have a great rest of your day. Happy posting, be sure to follow the rules, and on that note I apologize if I'm breaking any rules with this thread. Take care, everyone!
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
. On top of that, it had ghosts in several prominent archetypes: ghost starter + ghost sub-legend + 2 ghost box legends + ghost mythical. On top of that, each of those had a signature ghost-type Z-move (though 
+ ghost sublegend 
+ ghost box legend :calyrex-shadow-rider:, but otherwise its ghosts don't feel quite as notable as Alola's (though I am fond of 
and 
), and there was only 1 ghost gigantimax in Gengar. Of course, smogon singles players might consider galar to be ghosty because that's when pursuit was banished and ghosts got to take their place as powerhouses of the generation.
+ ghost "sublegend" 
+ ghost mythical 
(though technically that's kitikami), and 
is pseudo-psuedo-legend with a 550 bst. 
is also getting a lot of marketability in the new anime and 
also seems to be a bit of a fan favorite. However, Paldea is also super heavy with dragons and fighting. Both box legends 
+ the 3 beast paradoxes 
+ a 
, and while 
being dragon was a given because of its pseudo status, SV also has 
(though that's technically Unova). The remaining dragons are 
, 
, 
, and 
(though again, kitikami and unova by dex). While Paldea didn't introduce the most fighting types, it did introduce a lot of legendary or legendary-adjacent fighters: 
+ 
. The regular fighters are somewhat notable too, with a starter 
, the pika-clone 
, 
.
