Pokémon GO's Pokédex Is Now Bigger Than Any Mainline Entry

Better than any modern game Pokedex. Now I'm starting to miss pixel Pokemon games.

Poor gen 8. Skipped unceremoniously.

In before people start comparing this to mainline games, bringing up the Nat dex dead horse from 4 years ago. The National Dex isn't coming back. Accept it and move on. No other monster collecting games have over 1,000 species in one single game including forms. It's bloat, and the cut was bound to happen eventually. Hell, I'm surprised it didn't happen back in Gen 6, given the whole issue with the game being the first in 3D.

Also, I haven't been keeping up with Pokemon GO, but it's insane that the game is nearly caught up with the modern games, aside from skipping Gen 8 for some reason. Wonder what this'll mean for the future of the game, now that they've pretty much had every pokemon added in.

National Dex...plus so many Pokémon in random hats. They're what truly matter!

Gamefreak could honestly put all the Pokémon in gen 8 & 9 during release or if they wanted to put out an update, the Switch is capable enough for that, they just don’t want to put any resources or effort in doing so cause it’s “Pokemon” and people will eat it up regardless…Gamefreak know they have a cash cow and can get away with anything even if they put out garbage so long as it has the “Pokémon” branding in it.

@Kimyonaakuma Mostly Pikachu in hats. Also Pichu and Raichu forms of the same hats. Then there's the One Piece Pikachu hat! '+ to Smash!!!'

Not to be that girl, but technically it passed the largest pokedex a while ago. Although you can collect a lot of mons in gen 7, there is no national pokedex after gen 6

@Jaina True, Pokemon outside of the Alolan Pokedex don't have Pokedex entries or #s in the Gen VII games. It was something that baffled me back then. But at least every single Pokemon could be brought into them, unlike Gens VIII and XI. =(

Went to walk in a local park today and completely forgot these mon were being added. Very nice surprise when i opened the game!

@Harmonie Oh totally. As someone going for a full variant shiny living dex I'm sad about the national dex thing, but I understand why they did it. And I do like that gen 9 has backwards capability to gen 8 for pokemon that existed then, I hope that continues!

I always thought they could have included every Pokemon in Gen 8 if they wanted too, amd it wouldn't have been too bad balance-wise with the dynamax gimmick... but after Gen 9's ridiculously overpowered Pokemon I'm actually hoping that Gen 10 cuts out every single Paradox Pokemon, Goldengho, the big catfish thing, Garganacle... they're just ridiculous and unfun to play against in most situations.

I mean, it’s a big dex, but they have been expanding it since 2016…

Imagine if a mainline game had that amount of development time…

Yeah, you can afford to do that in a cheap live service mobile title that you work on for 7 years straight as opposed to a AAA console title that offers much more than the Pokemon. Quantity over quality.

@Dragonite89 You do realize that the pokemon count is over 1,000+ unique species, right? This isn't including the forms, which all have their own individual models. Gamefreak isn't reusing the same models they had before either. They're upgrading them and adding more to them. Including every single pokemon and every single form into the code of a singular game isn't efficient for development. I'm tired of people who keep saying "Gamefreak garbage" because they won't put every single pokemon that's ever existed into one singular game. Most of these people don't even know what it's like to develop a game, and keep living in a pipedream that the developers can just magically piece together a product.

@VoidofLight You’re right.

Gamefreak is garbage for a lot of other reasons.

@SpoonySpoons I mean, there are multiple reasons as to why pokemon is suffering at the current, but people are quick to blame the devs, when it's the fault of the higherups in the company. The devs are trying their hardest with the resources they have, and SV is proof of that. If you look past the broken state of the game, you can see that they genuinely had good ideas and good gameplay concepts. It was just that they didn't have enough time or staff for the scope that they wanted to achieve.

@VoidofLight That’s the main issue plaguing the Pokemon series now, the killed schedule mandated by the merchandise part of the franchise, that’s ever hungry for more pokemon and other characters to sell assorted junk of.

I consider myself a moderate NatDexer, i see the improvements to models (Mouths aren’t painted on anymore) and textures (Metallic pokemon look metallic), but still wonder: Once all pokemon are updated, why not put them all in one game?

At some point, i hope GF just gets more time, or goes to a “One game per hardware generation, and longterm DLC support”-model.

@MysticX They don't include them in one game, mostly because they're basically bloat at this point. Not all of them are going to be included in the region naturally, and they still take up space when in the code of the game so that people can trade them in. I just think 1,000 species is enough justification for them to have to limit what pokemon can be in what game.

@VoidofLight Not to mention every animation every creature needs, because people want to run around with them, play with them, feed them, wash them, etc.

@Fiskern Yep. Forgot that SV made the pokemon more lively. Been a while since I've been in the game, but I remember them actually interacting with their environment.

Incidentally, the storage box in PoGo had its limit increased just before Go Fest. You can now store 6800 Pokémon, which is more than you get with a paid subscription to Pokémon Home.

@VoidofLight @Eel Niantic didn't skip gen 8. There's been a few notable Galar events, like the last 2 elite raids featuring Regidrago and Regieleki. There's been a few Hisuian Pokémon (gen 8.5?) added as well.

@FirstEmperor if you take a look at the Pokédex, the entire Paldea dex is there waiting to be filled in. While Galar’s section is tiny and sad.

@Eel Yes, that is strange that all the blank entries show up for Paldea (up to Gholdengo) but not for Galar. Doesn't change the fact that Galar (and Hisui) weren't skipped, and I doubt all those blank entries for Paldea will be filled in anytime soon.

@VoidofLight My only issue is that, if including extra Pokemon for transfer is "bloat" and because of that they don't include them... why do they have a service with the only purpose being to transfer old Pokemon to newer games? A paid service, too.

@Bolt_Strike Weird that you are critizing Pokemon Go for being "quantity over quality" and claiming the mainline games are "quality" when the mainline games have anual releases that are clearly rushed. Still waiting for that SV patch that was surely going to come out, right?

@jowe_gv The service is made so you can transfer the mons you have to the games that can use the mons. The service is paid because it's running on a server, and servers need upkeep. HOME is no different from applications like Bank. You get the ability to actually transfer your mons in and out for free, as well as a free box to use.

Also, the "quality" is referring to the Pokemon models I'm pretty sure. Gamefreak upped the quality of the models in SV and PLA, as well as the textures for the pokemon themselves. They have fully modeled eyes and mouths, instead of them being like decals like in Gen 6-8. The animations for those pokemon are also more lively in SV and PLA.

I was playing Pokemon stadium 2 last night and it was noticeable how much better the Pokemon and their associated animations look than in modern games. Sure, the textures and such are dated but there is much more detail and tone in them than the present models. Perhaps it would be better to just have a smaller limit on how many pokemon you can get in each generation so that time could be better spent on other aspects of the game.

@VoidofLight Fun fact, before X&Y, the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games didn't require aditional charge and was more useful since it transfered Pokemon that weren't obtainable in game and it include all the Pokemon at that time.

For me, having a more defined mouth doesn't really replace that. Unless the animations are actually really good (which they aren't btw).

If you have a PAID service dedicated to transfer older Pokemon to newer games, then I don't think it is that farfetched to be asked to have a high number of Pokemon to take advantage of that service. If you truly want to reduce the "bloat", make a Pokemon game that looks tuly amazing with 300 creatures tops and close Pokemon Home.

They didn't do that so that tells me that the reason why this happened is not because of a desition to reduce the "bloat" and rather the fault of their unreasonable development times. They clearly still want to take advantage of taking Pokemon for older games to the newer ones (or at the very least the money that brings), hence Pokemon Home existence.

@jowe_gv You know what you needed to transfer old pokemon for "Free" in previous games? Two DS consoles (or a paid game on Gamecube), or a friend to trade up. It's why I went my entire life without having pokemon to bring into future games before X and Y. I didn't have two consoles, nor could I afford them. Most people can't afford two consoles, or have the friends to transfer their mons with.

@VoidofLight What? The games are literally made to have impossible to complete Pokedex unless you have two consoles with two games or a friend. You know that, right?

Also, my point was that you don't need a server to upkeep to offer the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games and that was how it worked before X&Y.

Again, if you have a PAID service dedicated to the transfer of old Pokemon to the newer ones, then claiming all those extra Pokemon that they could include are "bloat" feels... off.

If they truly want to compleatly cut the National Dex, eliminate the service that is basically trying to get money of the idea of compleating all the National Dex (despite the games not having it anymore).

Despite Go's flaws, I've had more fun with it than any other Pokemon game in recent years (minus Legends Arceus). And the game has found a way to include regional variants and Mega Evolutions. We even got clone Pokemon from the first Pokemon movie, never expected that to come back! Go really encapsulates the spirit of "Gotta Catch 'em All" even if the mainline games have long abandoned that motto.

@VoidofLight

>No other monster collecting games have over 1,000 species in one single game including forms. It's bloat

The POKEMON in a POKEMON game are just bloat, lmao.

Void of light, indeed.

@jowe_gv I never said they were, just that Go is even less quality.

@Axecon I totally agree. I was just thinking the other day which Mega Pokémon are left in the Go game to come out, and realized TPC never made any more new megas and how essential to Go megas are despite megas came from X and Y.

I have long believed the mainline Pokémon games do not contain the whole Pokédex is to force players to subscribe to Pokémon Home. A subscription based revenue stream for TPC.

The argument of ever more over complex battle mechanics with the more Pokémon’s there are is muted with Pokémon Go. Sure it is a simpler version, nonetheless it has most of the battle mechanics with different moves and damage etc., and it is doing fine.

And don’t forget, each Pokémon in Go has their own animations…mostly identical from the mainline games. Each Pokémon’s animation already exists, even their 3D models, and yet…. TPC and Game Freak keeps giving us subpar mainline games in every way….

@VoidofLight Not buying another mainline game until they bring it back, simple as that. #BringbacktheNationalDex