Pokemon Games With The Best World-Building

1996 was a big year for RPG fans because perhaps the best Game Boy RPGs of all time were released in Japan: Pokemon Green and Pokemon Red. Two years later, North America got a taste, and that Pokemon fever has not died down yet. The first two games were incredible at world-building, from the campaign premise to how Pokemon were collected to the evil Team Rocket.

The first two games set the stage, but how have dozens of other mainline and spinoff games done? Have any of them outclassed the original games in how they built up their individual worlds? From Pokemon Conquest to the recent Pokemon Pokopia, let’s take a look.

Pokemon Gold/Silver

The Original World-Builder

Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver were the first two sequels in the Pokemon game universe, taking players to a new region: Johto. Beyond getting to a new region to see Pokemon and upgraded tech, there was also something more interesting happening behind the scenes.

After players beat Johto’s Elite Four in a similar campaign, players unlocked the ability to sail to Kanto, the region from the first two games. This let players know these games were not going to be anthology sequels and were instead all taking place within the same universe. Kanto changed slightly between sequels, and there was even a bigger surprise waiting on the other side, which was truly surprising, and no sequel has ever been this ambitious again without the use of paid DLC.

Pokemon Sun/Moon

Introducing Region-Specific Pokémon

Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon are the seventh Generation Pokemon games, which were released for the 3DS. This was the first Generation that introduced the concept of region-specific evolutions for classic Pokemon, bringing about the idea that climate mattered when evolving a Pokemon.

Exeggutor, for example, grew an extremely long neck to mimic palm trees, while Raichu somehow learned how to surf on its tail. Also, instead of Gym battles, the campaign was more of a contest with different events as players traveled around, which made the region of Alola even more special. It was a cool bit of world-building, and there have been advances in region-specific evolutions since.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Crafting Pokeballs

Pokemon Legends: Arceus can be boiled down to an Isekai story about the player-created character getting dumped from the present to the past in the Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl region of Sinnoh. In this time, there is one central town next to a huge area of pure wilderness where Pokemon run wild.

Even with an established town, the technology is still in its infancy compared to the present. For example, players have to gather different materials to craft Pokeballs as that hasn’t become an automated process yet. While it’s not completely set in a proto-society, there is enough backpedaling on standardized mechanics that are fun to look at through a new lens.

Pokemon Pokopia

A Post-Apocalyptic Version Of Kanto

Pokemon Pokopia is the latest spin-off game in the series, which is set in a post-apocalyptic version of what appears to be the Kanto region. Professor Tangrowth leads the charge in helping Ditto rescue other Pokemon all while looking for the lost humans. Players will explore notable ruined buildings and places, like the S.S. Anne ship from Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue.

These places have journal entries left behind, giving the game an almost Resident Evil vibe, a series known for its note collecting. It’s a cozy game with a dark past underneath, which is exactly the type of world-building that deserves to be highlighted.

Detective Pikachu

Pokemon Living In The City

Detective Pikachu was the first good look at a Pokemon game taking place in a city where Pokemon and people lived in unison. Cities in the main games showed Pokemon out and about before, and there were life-sim games with Pokemon societies before, but it was never as detailed as what Detective Pikachu presented.

It’s also one of the few games where a Pokemon, Pikachu, can canonically talk like a human beyond the anime, which has plenty of them from Meowth to Slowking. It was also an interesting look into how the police and detectives dealt with Pokemon-based crimes, albeit not shocking ones like murder.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team/Red Rescue Team

The Original Pokemon Isekai

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team were released on the DS and GBA, respectively, and they were an even earlier example of an Isekai within the Pokemon universe. No matter which version players bought, they were a human whose consciousness was warped into the mind of a Pokemon.

Once inside, players could understand the Pokemon around them. The core gameplay was a roguelike wherein players dived into dungeons to rescue other Pokemon to help fill out their Pokemon-based town. As the start of this franchise, it was a good look into what a full Pokemon society would look like.

Pokemon Conquest

Historical Value With A Fantasy Twist

Pokemon Conquest was a bizarre Pokemon crossover for the DS involving Nobunaga’s Ambition, a long-running strategy sim series taking place in historical Japan. In this tactical crossover, samurai fought with Pokemon by their side to conquer the land instead of engaging in katana-based combat themselves.

It was over the top, but there was some historical value to the figures involved, including Oda Nobunaga, Hattori Hanzo, and Akechi Mitsuhide. As players conquered Japan themselves, they learned a bit more about how this version of Japan ran.

Pokemon XD: Gale Of Darkness

A Dark GameCube RPG

Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, at long last, returns to Pokemon fans after languishing in the GameCube for years, thanks to the Switch 2. Set in a wilder universe, players will not go around fighting Gym battles. Instead, they will go after a Team Rocket equivalent, Cipher, fight other Trainers, and catch Shadow Pokemon with their gnarly prosthetic arm attachment.

There are no random battles, and the chance to catch these Shadow Pokemon is few and far between, but what Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness excels at is giving players a more diverse world to explore in one of the bigger Pokemon games of the early 2000s.