Topic: Pokémon Sun & Moon - Discussion & Speculation

Fair enough.

So how many new Pokemon do you guys think there will be in total? There's 42 of them revealed so far.

50

It'll be over NIIIIIIIIIIIINE--!!!!!!......

....That's it, over 9.

There will be over 721 new pokemon... since all previously made pokemon will need alola forms

50 new Pokémon and 721 Alola versions.

Alola is the most hilariously overpopulated island in the ocean. The game's story chronicles the mass die off following the J-curve population's soaring over Alola's carrying capacity and depleting all of the natural food sources.

Remember some of those species are also food sources.

It was teased awhile go there would be atleast 10....

So expect some of your new favorites to get scrapped before release.

80 something, plus 20 or so Alolan forms.

@FriedSquid @DefHalan I suppose it'll technically remain guesswork until we know every last Pokémon, but it seems pretty hard to imagine anything else. The revelation that Alonan evolved forms don't necessarily require Alolan pre-evos was a surprise, but I highly, highly doubt we'll get a situation in which Alolan forms will evolve into their non-Alolan/standard evolutions. It'd just be such a... waste of designing the Alolan form to begin with, if it just reverted into its normal evo after reaching a sufficient level. That only leaves options A and B (as @FriedSquid has stated), and I suppose option C, where non-Alolan forms evolve into non-Alolan forms, but that's so boring and obvious that it doesn't bear mentioning. The only other possible option is D; where Alolan Pokémon evolve into non-Alonlan Pokémon, but that seems stupid for the reasons mentioned. I suppose exceptions could be made for split evolution lines, where (say) an Alolan Poliwhirl could evolve into an Alolan Poliwrath or standard Politoad, but for linear evolution lines, it seems all but impossible.

@Maxz I think having Alolan forms evolving into non-Alolan forms would work just fine. That would mean you have more move options for Persian than just what normal Meowth learns. With Alolan form Meowth being Dark type, we can see that learning a lot of Dark type moves, then evolving into a Normal type Pokemon, it may lose the STAB functionality but it has a wider move pool than its particular type.

It would really be a wasted opportunity.

Persian can already learn many dark type moves, giving it that typing would be better than letting it learn a few more moves.

Making new designs and statistics for unevolved pokemon but not their evolved forms is as silly as making more incense baby pokemon.

Except Persian already has access to a lot of Dark type moves, so that'd be a pointless reason to create a Dark type Meowth. Dark type STAB is pretty much the only thing left for Persian.

Alola forms evolving into non-Alola forms would be fairly nonsensical. The whole point of them is that they're a form of evolution, they're meant to diverge from their original forms, not converge to them. So it'd be reasonable for non-Alola forms to evolve into Alola forms (and we already seem to have confirmation of this with Exeggcute and Pikachu), but not vice versa.

@Bolt_Strike That's another good point. It'd break the whole narrative of Pokémon 'adapting' to their environment if their evolutions suddenly unadapted. I think it's safe to say that either a Pokémon's entire evolutionary line has adapted to the Alolan climate, or there is 'something in the air' that causes standard Pokémon to Alolatise upon evolving in the region - a bit like how Magneton evolves into Magnezone if levelled up in specific areas.

Even if Alolan Meowth gets access to some extra moves by virtue of being Dark type, if it evolves into a plain Normal Persian then it's just a very labour-intensive way of giving Person a few extra egg-moves, or move-tutor moves, or moves from any other source. Designing a whole new form for a Pokémon's base form is a lot of work to go to just to expand the said Pokémon's movepool a bit.

It seems like a huge waste to me to not have the non-Alola form of pokemon available in game too, but that is what most people are speculating.

You have many ways to get those.

Why not let the new guys take the spotlight?

They'd probably have you transfer some of the non-Alola form Pokemon from VC or 6th gen, it would just make sense for them to want to push that to get you to buy more games.

I wouldn't worry about it, you'd get the regular pokemon through transfer or trading, simular to blue shellos in X/Y being unobtainable naturally, you'll just have to get it another way.

The only thing I would worry about however, is whenever gen 8 (big jump i know) begins and we move from the Alola region to another region.. what would become of "Alolan Forms". If they'd be transferable for every single forward generation or if they'd be scrapped like megas are currently starting to look like.

Oh, I guess not all of you have a full living pokedex to transfer over, huh?

(I don't actually have a full living pokedex in ORAS, but pretty close sans some pre evolutions and event-only legendaries.)

@MegaBeedrill I'm pretty certain Alolan forms are going to be pokemon #700, 701, 702, etc. They'll be taken into future gens like every pokemon has.

Blue Shellos and the other forms of Sawsbuck / Deerling bum me out though. I know it takes a lot to support 700+ creatures, but if don't want to do that, just make a game with all new pokemon. It'd be pretty dumb if Castform suddenly stopped switching forms. Kinda ruins the point of the thing.