Media Essays: What If Kanto Got The Paldea Treatment?

Written by KivatheDCWizard

Hello everyone, I’m the Passing-through Kamen Rider, and if it is cheesy I love it.

As you know I’m a Pokémon fan, and I love the games. Now, the Paldea Region in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet allow us to face important opponents in a way that every type is countered. Between the Titan Pokémon, the Gym Leaders and the Star Bosses every type was represented.

So I thought, why not a similar system for another region? What if aside from the Gym Leaders, we face an evil team and special rogue Pokémon that make up certain type specialties. So I am going to try with the Kanto region and see if it works out. If it is popular enough, I may consider doing it for other regions.

So let’s see how we can handle this.

First things first, I am not limiting myself to the original 151 Pokémon. Because when Kanto was remade, they left out new evolutions and breeding to the postgame in FireRed and LeafGreen, and they don’t have them at all in the Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee games yet they allow the useage of regional variants and the Meltan line? So no, I will use any Pokémon as long as it is a Pokémon introduced in Kanto, or a variant or evolution of them.

Now, let’s begin with Titans. The Paldea Titans have a type that correspond to the Elite four and Champion. Or in Geeta’s case, the Rock Titan Klawf shares a type with her ace Glimmora. So I will use the same principle. I also will need to pick a location where these can be fought. And we also do not use the ace Pokémon of the Elite Four member they correspond to, as the Rogue Pokémon. To avoid repetition.

• To reflect Lorelei and the Ice Type, we go to Seafoam Island. And the Rogue Titan for Kanto, I feel should be Jynx. It is gets shafted compared to Electabuzz and Magmar, and never got an evolution. There is the controversy with Jynx’s skin tone which was not blackface but gyaru…but despite that she could have used an evolution that could lean into her Viking theme or something…but anyhow, for now she is the Titan. The reason I picked her is because of the secondary Psychic Type which makes her powerful in Kanto due to the lack of good Dark types. Even in Let’s go Sabrina as gym leader was still the toughest and we had access to Dark Type regional variants. With Ice and Psychic moves and a few status moves like Sweet Kiss, it could be a tricky opponent.

  

• To reflect Bruno and the Fighting Type I think Rock Tunnel could work. There isn’t a lot to the cave afterwards, it is not as memorable as Mt. Moon and has fewer unique Pokémon. A fighting type that is overlooked is Primeape which could work well or dare I say Annihilape? Now that would be a powerful foe to go up against. No question.

  

• Ghost was difficult as there is only the Gengar line. And hence one of the main reasons I allow regional variants. Because there is one variant that is too good to pass up. Alolan Marowak, it’s Ghost type…and tied to the location where you fight it, it will be in Lavender Town’s Pokémon Tower! Due to the story of the ghost of Marowak, the theme fits too well. Sure, it overlaps with Annhiliape, but the lore works too damn well.

  

• With Lance and the Dragon type, the same can be said as Gengar, there is only one Dragon line native to Kanto. Until future generations changed it. I could pick Alolan Exeggutor…but go with Kingdra instead. A location for it is tricky…but I settle on the Cerulean Cape. It is close to the Water Gym and to the Cerulean Cave where the strongest Pokémon of Kanto are so Kingdra would reflect both of these aspects of Cerulean very well.

  

• For Blue it is hard since his ace is always the starter most effective against yours. But what is his ace outside the starter? Well half his team shifts around depending on the starter. And Rock and Psychic already have gyms, so that leaves Pidgeot…which Blue has Mega Evolved and formed a synch pair with. So the final Titan is a flying type. And the one I want to use is Dodrio in the Safari Zone. The Safari Zone is iconic and the Doduo family can be caught on routes close to it. And Dodrio is a pretty good Flying type.

  
  

OK, with the Titans dealt with how do we handle the villain group? It is going to be Team Rocket of course. They don’t have Star Mobiles but in the anime they are known to use mecha. So their ace, instead of a Star Mobile is a mecha of their respective type. Since with the Titans and Leaders we covered some types, the Rocket Bosses and their mechs get the remaining types.

I will place these Rocket Bosses at important points in the game where Rocket Presence is notable in the main game. Their ace will always be a mecha where a Porygon with a special Conversion program has been Downloaded into to correspond to said type. With that principle, let’s see what we can do.

• Mt. Moon is where we first meet Team Rocket, so there is where our first commander should be, and he has the Fairy Type. Because Clefairy is abundant. The commander has a Clefairy and a Fairy-Type Porygon Mech.

  

• Next would be a Rocket Grunt around Cerulean. It is near the Nugget Bridge and also where you fight a Rocket Grunt that steals a TM. Since in the Let’s Go Games. The Rocket Grunts though use types already covered, so I have to get creative. I have him be a Steel user, using regional variants. A Magnemite and Alolan Sandshrew as well as a Steel Type Porygon Mecha. I use Steel here since the other Rocket Grunts’ placements make more sense for later on.

  

• Third would be the Dark Type user at the Pokémon Tower. He uses Dark Types and it would be perfect to counter the Ghost Titan Marowak whom is giving the problems. He also uses Dark type regional variants, like Raticate, Grimer and Persian as well as the Dark type mecha. He hails from Alola and may have given the Steel grunt their Sandshrew.

  

• In the game Corner we meet the Bug type user. Since the Bug types Pinsir and Scyther are prizes in the game corner, it would make sense this Rocket executive uses them. Aside Pinsir and Scyther would use Parasect to take advantage of its Spore as well as of course the Bug-type Porygon Mech.

  

• The final one should be a normal type user. Normal types can be pretty strong and can learn a lot of coverage moves. So the Normal type Rocket grunt is the last you’ll face and right before Giovanni at Sylph. It will have a Tauros, Snorlax, Lickylicky, Porygon Z and the mecha (if Atticus uses both a normal and Star mobile Revavroom, he can use a Porygon Z as well as a Porygon mech).

And with that, we have covered all of Kanto as if it was a Paldea scenario. I hope I did well explaining my reasoning and thought process upon deciding these and hope you understand why I picked these. If you have other suggestions, I am happy to take them. But it was fun and if it gets enough positive comments, I may consider doing this for other regions.

This was the Passing-Through Kamen Rider, signing out.