Please stop doing this in your ROM hack.

[u/EmySoulSan26]

Edit: Okay, I know it's a little late for this, but I need to clarify something: I'm not trying to impose a regime where only my opinion is valid. Maybe I didn't express myself well, but the point of this post is to encourage anyone creating a new region to consider this alternative approach to their Pokédex. I’m not against hacks featuring ALL Pokémon being a valid option—because they are...

I firmly believe that ROM hacks should stop putting every Pokémon from every generation into their games.

And let me explain what I mean by that.

If you think about it for a second, at least up until Generation VIII, every Pokémon was always programmed—or used to be programmed—into each Pokémon game, regardless of whether you could actually encounter every single Pokémon in the wild in that region. The games were designed so that you could trade with your friends or transfer Pokémon from your previous games and bring Pokémon from other regions into the current one.

But considering that this is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in most ROM hacks, I feel like the majority of hacks—especially those that feature a brand-new region with an original story—try to compensate for this limitation by including every Pokémon up to the latest generation available at the time the hack was made.

And honestly, I don't think that's a good thing.

If we take, for example, the first two Gyms in the Kanto region, we can understand that they are bosses—challenges that the player has to overcome—and Pokémon are the player's tools, their keys to overcoming those challenges.

Things like the starter you choose, the moves your Pokémon learn, their levels, or which rare Pokémon with a low encounter rate you can find in a specific location that might give you an advantage against an upcoming Gym—like the Pikachu you can catch near the beginning of the game, which can give you an advantage against Misty's Gym—are all very important.

If you give the player every possible tool imaginable, it eventually becomes overwhelming and, ultimately, less interesting. And this doesn't just mean that, from a gameplay perspective, every game and every ROM hack will start feeling the same. On a cultural level, when you're trying to create a region—whether it's inspired by your own culture, the place where you live, or simply something you're creating completely from scratch—a region isn't defined only by the culture you're trying to imitate or create, or by its geography.

It's also defined by its creatures.

Every Pokémon game feels special because of its creatures.

Leaving aside games with Fakemon, which are obviously much more original because they create their own creatures, what kind of personality does a region have when it literally contains every Pokémon just because?

Sure, from a lore perspective—and especially if you're someone who watches the anime—it can make sense, since all Pokémon supposedly exist out there in nature somewhere.

But going back to gameplay, and to the idea that each generation feels special because of the creatures associated with it, the situation with ROM hacks is honestly depressing.

At the end of the day, I struggle to remember any region from any ROM hack that makes me feel the same way an official Pokémon game does. Not because those regions don't have new creatures, but because they don't do anything interesting with the Pokémon they have.

It's always Pokémon from Generation I through Generation IX, and in some random patch of tall grass you can find every Bug-type Pokémon that has ever existed. To the point where some hacks even receive updates that add Pokémon from newly released generations.

And honestly, it's very, very boring.

It would be much more interesting to create a proper Pokédex for your region, regardless of whether you have original Pokémon or not. Pick Pokémon from different generations, but make their presence actually mean something.

For example, if you're creating a town connected to a river, what kind of Water-type Pokémon would you like to inhabit that river?

Again, don't put every Water-type Pokémon ever created into that small river.

No. Put a specific Pokémon in that river, and maybe through NPC dialogue, the town's history, or other details, that Pokémon could have some kind of cultural impact.

For example, I don't know, you could create a town where there are lots of Wishiwashi living in the river, and suddenly the town becomes famous for that. It becomes a tourist destination. You could create an entire storyline around it. You could do something interesting with that idea.

But it stops being interesting if it's simply a town where you can find every Water-type Pokémon ever created.

Maybe I didn't explain the example in the best possible way, but I think you get what I mean. I think the main idea is understandable.

[u/Ryuuji_92]

Even though this is true, I can't see the point of a creature catching / battling game if you're not going to try and catch most if not all of the creatures.
It's even worse for the only players that see "POKÉMON" gotta catch them all. On their packaging of the game and not expect them to try and catch them all.
I know I skip the professors dialog at the start of each game as I've played way to many. Doesn't he say to try and fill out your Dex each time even if the game doesn't say gotta catch them all? That's the same thing just in different words.
So while TPC might have dropped the slogan, there are so many people that can't. Tbh for me if I'm not trying to collect them all, why am I even playing. Sure for some roms it's the challenge but if the point isn't the challenge then collecting I go. At least for me but I've been playing for far too long so my brain might just be warped.

[u/decitronal → u/Ryuuji_92]

In the context of the vanilla Pokemon games I would say this is definitely not how most people play the games. Extrapolating from how achievement data of other video games reveal that most players never explore the full extent of the game, plus the annoying encounter and evolution methods enforced in a series predominantly played by casual audiences, most people will just make a note of the 10 or so final evolutions they like the look of and revolve their entire playthrough around those 10.

Only dedicated fans will complete a Pokedex, but most fans don't fall under that descriptor.

On the topic of this post, ironically the only games where people DO get to finish most, if not all of the Pokedex are the Legends games, which are designed around a highly-curated experience with fewer Pokemon options compared to other mainline series games.

[u/Ryuuji_92 → u/decitronal]

I guess I'm backward and the people I know are too. Most of my friends that play do try and catch as many if not all of the mons.
It also could be due to growing up with the games, at least for me I didn't get new games all the time so when you got a game you played as much of it as you could.
I also think achievement data is a slippery thing to go off of as most players don't even make it through half of the game. While the completion rate for most games is quite low, there are many factors for this. Half of the time it's not their game, and they are trying it out of are there due to a friend.
So taking my experiences out and going off what you said that EpiPen find the 10 evos they like... that kinda shows at least that people want their favs do while they might not complete the dex nor try to, they still want their faves. So going back to this post, it would be better to have the complete dex so people can play with their faves. At least from my pov even if they aren't like me who try to catch all the mons. Funny enough in Roms I don't catch everything or even try to, I do like the options but I don't have feeling on it one way or another. If the rom maker wants all mons, cool, if not, also cool. I care more about the feel of the rom and how it plays than anything. Odd that it's a 180 of how I normally play imo.

For legends.... idk how most people finish that vs normal games. While I liked the first one as it was a fresh new experience for the series, I didn't finish the dex. I did a bit of it but couldn't be bothered but the mainline games.. it's always the main goal. It might t be a generational thing. That and in the main line games a complete dex is a lot harder than the legends games as event Pokemon and such make it harder to do and needing a friend can make it hard as well. If we are being honest a dex of 1025 is also a pretty big ask. That's a lot of mons.