#thinking about gym leader mars that was such a cool fucking idea fr

[transandor]

POKEMON.

[superb-fox]

Ya know, Legends Arceus may have it’s issues, but the plot of that game is GREAT! The lore it introduces with the noble pokemon, the clans, the history rich in sinnoh, it’s all great. Not to mention how they have quests that pay off random npc dialogue from the original dpp! There’s a lady in floaroma town who talks about how the town was a barren wasteland where nothing would grow no matter how much people tried until someone gave thanks to the flowers and they all blossomed into a beautiful meadow. You can PLAY OUT that story as a quest! How cool is that? There are so many more examples too! However, all this great stuff just really... emphases a problem for me, that being how TERRIBLE the gen4 remakes really are. In a region all about time, space, and lore of the past you have another side game where you GO INTO THAT PAST and it’s not used at ALL in BD/SP. Now sure, that’s because it’s a “faithful remake” (which is literally the stupidest decision they could have made for more reasons than just this but let’s focus) but come on! You don’t even have to do much!! Some dialogue about how alpha pokemon used to roam around, some references in snowpoint city about how it used to be a pearl clan settlement, any at ALL mentions of the noble pokemon! Are we to assume they just... stopped being cared for? Pokemon that had supposedly been blessed by literal deities that have been protecting the land for centuries just... gone less than 200 years. The clans that lived in the region for millennia just disappeared without a trace by ddp. In a region that has such a heavy emphasis on the past there’s just... nothing on the actual past we see. It is SUCH an absolute let down. There are things that we can infer about the time between PLA and DPP like how certain forms and pokemon are gone because of human settlement and changes to the region, it is a long time. And we can assume the same for the map and how it doesn’t match 1:1 geographically but... come on. Nothing on the clans, the nobles, any of the important figures? This wasn’t millions of years ago either, this is their grandparents grandparents! Now, granted you may be thinking “oh but you cant integrate that into the plot because it’s a remake! You cant change too much or it’s a totally different game! There’s no time or place for all this!” and you are right to an extent, information about these things should not be shoehorned into the remake plot over the gym challenge and team galactic. But there is PLENTY of time and space for information about this! Npc dialogue, new dialogue from characters if you talk to them later (say instead of Mars disappearing after the team galactic plot she appears somewhere and talks about her ancestor from the diamond clan), and the POST GAME!!! Every single remake dating back to the gen 1 remakes has expanded the game it’s based on in the post game! FR/LG had the rocket subplot on the sevii islands directly linking to the future events of GSC. HG/SS had more kanto areas restored and way more interactions with gym leaders and important people. OR/AS had the entire meteor thing with rayquaza! Why can’t BD/SP have a post game expansion about say... helping Cynthia learn about the past? Digging up information about the clans, noble pokemon, and why they’re gone? It’s a perfect pairing! All you have to do is run around and ask important npc’s about their family. You could integrate the underground and digging up clues! Maybe find new areas to explore that have the lore! Fucking ANYTHING!!! Now the argument could also be made that PLA is a side game. It’s not canon, everything explored there doesn’t come up in DPP or BP/SP because it’s all from a non canon side game. And that’s true SURE, I cannot dispute that but... you’re telling me it wouldn’t be cool anyway? OR/AS already established the idea of alternate timelines, why not pair the remakes and the side game as it’s own timeline outside DPP? Or even if they’re not canon just use that lore in a unique way. Hell, just from MARKETING that makes sense! You have to play this side game to get all these references and lore! Game Freak already does that with selling the pair of games and are SHAMELESS when it comes to cash grabs, who cares! Pair the lore together, make people buy more games, there’s NO downside to all this. I know the answer to why this all isn’t a thing is because they absolutely did not give a single shit and just crapped out a terrible remake for money but... besides just being a terrible remake all this musing leaves me wanting so much more it hurts and makes me despise the BD/SP remakes even more...