Talk:Region-based Evolution
Regional condition criteria
While there are several Pokemon that may have justification in their dex entries or something for being called "regional" evolutions, very few Pokemon mechanically demonstrate an actual (active) difference in evolution within the same game between a non-regional and regional form. Currently, only USUM's branched Alolan evolutions do (Pikachu, Exeggcute, Cubone). (In fact, it seems in games like SwSh, there's just only a single evolution, like Koffing can only evolve to Galarian Weezing, it has no branch at all for regular Weezing (AFAIK currently).) This makes it hard to say that some of these evolutions definitively have a regional condition—another game could show up and have a new way to evolve, say, Galarian Weezing, and it might not be contradictory to SwSh, it could just be (retroactively) attributed to a new kind of condition or...who knows.
So I want to propose some clear criteria for Pokemon that would/could/should be included for this condition.
- Clearly regional
- Any Pokemon that demonstrably evolves differently in the same game, in areas that can be described as different regions (such as Alola proper vs Ultra Space in USUM)
- Presumably regional
- Not regional
- Any Pokemon that evolves into the same regional form (e.g., Meowth, in all forms)
I could also see a negative possibility, to the effect of "Any Pokemon that evolve the same in two games set in different regions do not have a regional condition", like if the evolution to Kleavor got an alternate method. But I could also see some extraordinary justification for that (if we can revive fossils, maybe region radiation is possible or something; or maybe two regions are just "so similar!"). So that may not prove out, but at any rate, it's not really an issue at the moment, just something to maybe keep in mind.
There also could be new cases that come up, or edge cases that are fuzzy right now but may come into relief later or something. But I think the points above are a fairly solid starting point, and I'd like to hear what people think. If these are good, if they're confusing or have implications I haven't seen or anything, if you have other ideas, etc.
Tiddlywinks (talk) 11:54, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- I think we can at least keep all cases where a Pokémon can evolve into regional and non-regional forms using the same method for both evolutions, as in the case of Raichu, Weezing, and Mr. Mime.
- Koffing evolves into Weezing or Galarian Weezing by the same method depending on region since this is a regional form.
- In the case of Kleavor and Ursaluna I'm not sure. The Black Augurite is only available in Hisui, but would it presumably work the same way if we used this item in other regions? Maybe we'll find out in future games.
- The Pokémon pages Scyther, Kleavor, Teddiursa, Ursaring, and Ursaluna explicitly mention "in Hisui" as part of their Evolution data. But it seems that the articles Applin, Dipplin, and Hydrapple don't say "in Paldea" like that. Why the difference?
- Arguably pages like Hydrapple, Ursaluna, and Kleavor don't need to mention the region or game as part of their evolution.
- Anyway, I agree with the point that all Alolan Meowth evolve into Alolan Persian, therefore this is not a region-based Evolution. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- I also suggest double-checking those categories:
- Whatever the criteria, the "region-based Evolution" article and any related categories should probably list the same Pokémon.
- The categories are meant for the pre-evolutions but the category names are misleading. Pikachu is categorized in "Pokémon that only evolve in Alola" but Pikachu is actually perfectly capable of evolving outside of Alola.
- Those categories don't contain cases like Ursaring, Scyther, and Dripplin. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2025 (UTC)