Which Region Deserves The Pokemon Legends Treatment Next?
After Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which region might we head to next?
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Pokemon Legends: Arceus is set in Hisui, but it’s really set in Sinnoh. It’s Sinnoh centuries before the modern games, when the land was known by a different name – Hisui. There are a few Hisuian variants of ‘mons which don’t exist in the modern day, which suggests they either transformed over time to match their new environment (as Growlithe and Voltorb do) or became extinct entirely (as Sneasler and Kleavor do). For the most part though, over 200 of the 242-strong Pokedex are Pokemon we’ve met before, in exactly the way they looked before. The game feels so fresh not because of the creatures we’re catching, but because of the new, more active way of doing so, and because we’re visiting an old region reimagined.
So which region should be next? It’s dangerous to assume anything when it comes to Pokemon’s plans, but Legends: Arceus has been a huge success and that makes talk of a sequel inevitable. It’s not guaranteed to happen – cough cough Let’s Go cough – but Pokemon fans around the world have already started discussing it. So which region deserves it most?
Our own Ben Sledge has already put forward an argument for Johto, and that does seem a likely candidate. Along with Kanto (which it directly connects to anyway) Johto is the most popular region in Pokemon, and in many ways, a prime candidate for Pokemon Legends: Celebi, or whatever it might be called. But is it really the most deserving? We all love Johto, and visiting it from a new perspective doesn’t seem that interesting. Sinnoh is probably mid-tier by popularity, behind at least Kanto and Johto, as well as arguably Hoenn and Alola; it arrives too late to soak up the nostalgia, but it’s too old to have recency bias or to benefit from modern technical specs. It’s geographically interesting, but Diamond & Pearl (the games which allow you to explore it) are bland and fail to capitalise on it. Platinum is a significant improvement, but Sinnoh never achieved its potential. Legends: Arceus lets it flourish – that makes it the ideal choice to start this new series.
So, what’s next? In between the pairing Kanto and Johto, which would be safe if uninspired choices, and Sinnoh, which we’ve just had, comes Hoenn. The meme of ‘too much water’ has always held true for me. There’s too much damn water. The response to that is usually ‘it’s set on water, what did you expect?’ but my answer is always just ‘less water, duh’. Almost every Pokemon game before and since has been set on dry land. Hoenn has too much water, which would make biome variation difficult, and it’s less modernised and therefore would display fewer changes with its own version of Hisui.
Unova is next after Sinnoh, and while probably the least popular, it might just be the most deserving of a Legends game. Black & White, the games that brought us Unova, already tried to change up the formula as best they could, so having another crack through Legends makes sense. As it’s based on New York, it’s easy to de-modernise and could be set during Pokemon’s version of the Plymouth Rock era – though don’t expect it to interrogate the idea of stolen land nor anything problematic around the merry old pilgrims.
Kalos, the next in line, is another possibility. Medieval-era France, as opposed to modern day Paris, is a fantastic backdrop – but how it would deal with Kalos’ crowning jewel Lumiose remains to be seen. After Kalos, there’s Alola and Galar, but both seem too recent to warrant a revisit. Alola has the same issues as Hoenn too – it’s a less modernised setting in general, and therefore harder to deconstruct. Galar, on the other hand, deals with the Industrial Revolution, historical castles, timeless meadows, and hyper modern metropoles, already embraces its region’s history, so perhaps a Legends game isn’t right for it.
That leaves Unova and Kalos as the two most deserving, but also the two least popular. Of other likely candidates, ruling out the waterworlds and too-recent regions, that leaves Kanto and Johto – the two most popular, but least deserving. Pokemon started with Sinnoh, which straddles the line between popularity and deserving, so who knows which way the coin will roll?
It probably depends on the wider plan. Legends: Arceus follows Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, and if that pattern continues, an Unova Legends game will be next after Blackest Black & Whitest White. Or, if Pokemon bets big on the Legends formula as a standalone idea, it’s more likely Johto or Kanto gets a look in. One thing’s for sure – Pokemon has found a winning formula it now needs to fine tune. Legends can’t be a one-and-done idea like Let’s Go.
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