Baseless Pitch: Pokémon Legends Kanto

As mentioned in my previous post I think the next Pokémon legends game will be one that celebrates 30+ years of the franchise and as such it is my belief it will take place in Kanto. With there already being multiple remakes of the original Red & Blue/Green I don’t see a full remake being done. If there was a let’s go Johto then it’s possible to see Kanto but that remains to be seen. I think a legends game in the region gives us a fresh look at a place we have been to multiple times. I wanted to just describe some of the ideas I’d have personally going into that game to make it a fun visit back to this region and also what they could do to have some fun and celebrate 30+ years of Pokémon.

My main points come around the Pokédex. While we are still a month away from Legends Z-A news I don’t expect the Kalos starters to be your choices at the start of the game (I’m thinking Snivy, Torchic & Sobble) I think this trend should be bucked for a Kanto game with the original three. After all it is a celebration of the series and makes sense to have the original three. Plus, I think it would be fun to see their historical regional forms all in one should that be a gimmick carried over from Legends: Arceus. It covers off three of the more wanted Pokémon for this variation (personally waiting for the Blaziken one) all in one go and allows for more people to use starters from other regions in future legends games.

For the existing Pokédex it would be very easy to just say do the original 151 (I guess 150 no Mewtwo created at this point). However, considering how that group has changed over the years I don’t think you can stick with just that. That the likes of Electabuzz and Magmar for example, both got a pre-evolution in generation 2 and an evolution in generation 4 do you just ignore those Pokémon for the sake of nostalgia? I don’t think you do. I believe the original 150 should be your base but added onto that the evolutions/pre-evolutions added in future generations. Once you have that you can then start changing this for regional and convergent forms. The likes of Seaking or Dewgong would be prime candidates for this whereas I don’t know if they would but the long speculated evolution for Jynx may be another one to introduce.

So what about new Pokémon and here’s where I think they can have some fun in celebrating 30 years of the series. I would simply take some of the scrapped beta Pokémon from generation 1 and put them here. I think it makes sense to then say the reason they were cut from generation 1 was they were extinct or the means to now evolve had been lost (until generation 11 when it’s all magically discovered again). I’m doing this mainly for the Kotora line because I want to see it realised but also it would be nice to see Gorochu finally realised and in game. No better time to enhance the lore around your mascot character then a celebration title. I’m not saying use every scrapped generation 1 design but select a few fan favourites and I think you end up with a real fun Pokédex fill of classics and new takes on favourites.

So that leaves the main title Pokemon. So far the legends series has had Arceus and Zygarde who are two Pokemon that not a lot was known about for their original games and this is likely used to help flesh out their role and place in the world or at give them prominence. In that instance Kanto only provides you two options. You either have Mew or created something different a new legendary long forgotten in Kanto. The boom of legendary Pokemon happened really from Generation 3 so Generation 1 had the bird trio, Mewtwo (who can’t be in the game) and Mew. It really does leave you with only Mew for existing Pokémon. The only way around it is to title the game something like ‘Pokémon Legends: The Lost Legend of Kanto’ and debut a new legendary Pokémon. A cop out? Maybe but it’s a needs just type of situation they weren’t betting on making these spin offs 30 years ago.

At the end of the day how Pokémon celebrates its 30th anniversary remains to be seen realistically that time frame goes from 2026 all the way until 2029 when Red and Blue were released in Europe so they have time. I’d personally prefer if this game was real a 2028 release give it the time to develop and polish the game for it to truly be the celebration they’d want it to be.