ArginX

Two of the clouds merely obscure the Sky Pillar and Battle Frontier. The other one doesn't necessarily mean anything, considering the redundant clouds on the Kalos map.

That purple vortex reminds me of the Distortion World portal. But it looks fairly random without any context.

I was under the impression that we were talking about what GF is actually likely to implement; it may be 'lazy' in your eyes (which I happen to disagree with, as new Houen areas would be substantially more interesting to me than anything Sevii Islands-related, but that's besides the point) but that's sort of irrelevant here.

Anyways, even if GF were to restrict new areas to the five islands in between Pacifidlog and Evergrande, they could easily add around 3-5 more routes, more dive areas, new towns,etc. I'm hardly suggesting that they would in any way have to be restricted to interior areas; I'm merely pointing out that since GF has always made interior areas far larger than they appear from the outside, they can make multiple ones without making the overworld at all 'off-scale'.

Massive size? I beg to differ. Despite its summit, Mt. Pyre is comparable to Kanto's Pokémon Tower, Sinnoh's Lost Tower and Unova's Celestial Tower.

I'll say it again: Game Freak shouldn't restrict themselves to interior areas. It would be a forced solution that wouldn't add much in the sense of open-world exploration, and it would probably render any plot expansion very short. I honestly don't see the appeal of condensing a lot of things into a single region, especially as the cluttering just makes Pokémon harder to obtain. I'm fully aware that it isn't unlikely Game Freak will opt for this rather lazy solution, but they had a better idea for FRLG and I don't see why it shouldn't be repeated.

Alright, but I'm still not sure you get my point about the remaining visible Houen islands--they can make them as large as they want on the overworld if they make them interior areas--by which, again, I do not necessarily mean a cave, but simply any area that the game has you enter into. Mt. Pyre is a good example of one such island; look at it on the overworld http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/e/ec/Hoenn_Route_122_RSE.png/290px-Hoenn_Route_122_RSE.png and then compare that to the massive size once you're inside in (and on top of it). The point is that they can add whatever they want to the remaining islands, and make them whatever size they please if they make them interior areas, and they won't be making them off-scale any more than Mt. Pyre, Sootopolis, etc. To make the remaining islands on the map accessible is not retconning is such a case.

Also, good point about Navel Rock and Birth Island. I had forgotten about those.

----------
Even in the case of the Sevii Islands, even if you consider them a separate region they are still immediately below Kanto, which is why they included them in FRLG in the first place.
----------
Immediately below? The Bonin Islands are about as far from Kanto as they are from Kyushu. And Navel Rock and Birth Island were, in fact, accessible in Emerald. The distance is completely irrelevant once a boat is involved, anyway.


----------
Adding new areas is only 'retconning' as much as Route 47 and 48 were 'retconning'.
----------
No. We still don't have a map for Shikoku, so adding those routes merely required showing us another glimpse of the island. The Hoenn islands are all visible.

Adding new areas is only 'retconning' as much as Route 47 and 48 were 'retconning'. Nor does that entail rendering it off-scale, as I just demonstrated. At this point, all you really have in favor of the Sevii Islands are it sharing a generation, 'Houen has too many sea routes', and, by far worst of all, that it has 'potential'. That's virtually nothing to merit believing that there is anything to suggest that they will be in ORAS.

What the most 'convenient' way to get from one region to another is will be relevant to me as soon as they let you take a boat or train from Houen to Shin'ou. We both know for sure that they won't; taking a boat or a train may be more convenient, but so far they haven't allowed for travel between regions not connected to each other. Even in the case of the Sevii Islands, even if you consider them a separate region they are still immediately below Kanto, which is why they included them in FRLG in the first place.

How many interior areas do there need to be? I assume you mean caves, because nothing else comes to mind. It would be silly if Game Freak restricted the post-game areas to caves rather than bringing back the variety of Sevii Islands landmarks, including their routes.

I don't think that what I am suggesting would make the Houen map necessarily off-scale anyways, though. As I demonstrated with my picture of Evergrande City, interior areas can be as large as they want; same goes for Sootopolis, for Mt. Pyre, etc etc. All islands, all bigger on the inside. As long as they don't name areas after routes, they can look like routes but act as interior areas which GF can make as large as they want.

The Sevii Islands should be brought back due to their age and potential. They don't require retconning the Hoenn map, rendering it off-scale or adding more unnecessary sea routes.

And really? Chugoku is more likely than the Sevii Islands because it would require adding a sea route? Last I checked, we needed a boat ride to get to the Sevii Islands in FRLG. For that matter, the most convenient way to get to Kanto in Generation II was by boat or train. Stop relying on geography so much.

I'd be in favor of Chugoku if I thought Game Freak could do it justice via remakes. I don't.

That's a weak argument since the Sevii Islands are not part of the Kanto's map. We can compare Evergrande to the rest of Hoenn, but we can't do that for the Sevii Islands and Kanto. I do not see the Hoenn map being so off-scale.

So now you're basing your argument in favor of the Sevii Islands off of the fact that... Houen has too many surf routes? In and of itself, how does that any more speak to the likelihood of the Sevii Islands than it does to the likelihood of, I dunno, Shin'ou?

Well, I'm entirely in favor of Chugoku, Jouto, and Kanto, but that doesn't mean I entirely expect it. Even in the case that it does happen, however, it would obviously entail new areas for Houen so as to cross from Houen to Chugoku, just as HGSS made new routes to connect to Shikoku. At this point I find it far more likely that they'll just opt to add new areas in the eastern half and jettison Chugoku, but either way the game would add new Houen locations, so there's really no inconsistency here.

Anyways, I'm not sure you caught my point about the Sevii Islands map. Look at them here: http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/3/3f/Sevii_Islands_map.png As you can see, none of the islands are much larger (indeed, most are smaller) than, say, Evergrande Island is on the Houen map: http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/1/1f/Hoenn_RSE_Map.png/250px-Hoenn_RSE_Map.png They barely take up any tile spaces, yet they manage to each be as large as a large chunk of Houen's landmass. What I'm trying to say here is that the Sevii Islands prove that GF will make areas as large as an entire region in the same number of tiles as, say, the little unused islands on the Houen map. In other words, it is absurdto suggest that they cannot add interiors to islands in the eastern half of Houen which are each at least as large as the interiors of the various Sevii Islands are. Even the five unused islands in between Pacifidlog and Evergrande could contain interiors each equal to the size of a Sevii Island, because interior areas can be as large as GF wants.

----------
The fact that in Houen's case part of that region includes areas labelled as 'islands' is irrelevant here, especially since unlike Sevii, nothing in Houen sans the BF is inaccessible by surfing.
----------
I've never argued that the Sevii Islands should be brought back because they match Hoenn's island atmosphere. If anything, the fact that they don't require surfing is a good thing. Who needs more sea routes? Hoenn already has enough of those.

I still don't get how someone who argued for Chugoku, Johto and Kanto is now arguing that Game Freak should only focus on Hoenn-related locations. I appreciate consistency, and I am not seeing it here.


----------
The Sevii Islands may not have been seen in 10 years, but the fandom wasn't demanding them like Houen; they haven't been on anyone's radar prior to ORAS' official announcement, and the only connection they have here is that they were in the same generation in an unrelated remake; that's tenuous as all hell.
----------
From what I'm seeing, there is a bigger demand for the Sevii Islands than for random unused islands. Not that fan demand is the deciding factor here.


----------
Look at it this way: if we're to consider the Sevii Islands as essentially a part of Kanto--based off of their geography, their shared battle music, etc--
----------
Last I checked, they were far enough from Kanto to get their own maps (three of them). The battle music means nothing, especially as Islands 4-7 use Johto route music. The Sevii Islands weren't so much an expansion of Kanto as a way to bring back Generation II elements while keeping Johto itself for the eventual HGSS. That is why I don't get the argument that Game Freak have to make ORAS' post-game content stay within the realms of Hoenn. That is what the main story is for.


----------
Hell, the Sevii Islands were acknowledged in-game as being so small that you needed to expand the map to see them;
----------
What? That makes no sense. They got their own maps due to their distance from Kanto and each other. I don't recall any in-game referrence to their size.

Who says none of them are sizable? I just don't get what is so hard to get about the prospect of GF simply increasing certain parts the size of the eastern half of Houen. Hell, the Sevii Islands were acknowledged in-game as being so small that you needed to expand the map in order to see them; on the normal game map they appeared as roughly the same size as any of Houen's tiny islands appears on its map. Yet in terms of actual tile count they were practically large enough to be their own region. So by your own logic, the extended Ryukyu areas--even if some of it has already been butchered--shouldn't need to be large on the map in order to be 'sizable' for gameplay purposes. The Sevii Islands themselves were what proved that GF can make anything, no matter how small on the map, as sizable as they want to.

You haven't explained why fleshing out an existing island chain is better than making new locations; you merely stated that you did not see the point in GF adding to Houen because of other islands in some unrelated region. That's fine, but it's really nothing more than an opinion with little basis. The fact is, GF doesn't care when they're making new Houen locations that 'there's also islands in a Gen I remake'. They're going to want to make new locations for Houen. Saying they're 'unused' as if that makes them somehow less relevant is ridiculous; the fact is,GF is going to opt in favor of new areas connected to the very region they're featuring over an unrelated area without as much as a single thought. The Sevii Islands may not have been seen in 10 years, but the fandom wasn't demanding them like Houen; they haven't been on anyone's radar prior to ORAS' official announcement, and the only connection they have here is that they were in the same generation in an unrelated remake; that's tenuous as all hell. Meanwhile, I think that so far Miyako and Yaeyama are the only completely non-tenuous of any of the three options we've considered here and yet you seem reluctant to acknowledge their greater likelihood for some reason.

Look at it this way: if we're to consider the Sevii Islands as essentially a part of Kanto--based off of their geography, their shared battle music, etc--then both FRLG and HGSS have done one thing to add new content: expand their home regions. So wouldn't it be most logical to assume that ORAS will follow suit and similarly expand its home region? The fact that in Houen's case part of that region includes areas labelled as 'islands' is irrelevant here, especially since unlike Sevii, nothing in Houen sans the BF is inaccessible by surfing.

Bulbapedia says that Pacifidlog Town is based on Ishigaki Island, which is one of the Yaeyama Islands. The explanation makes sense: "Ishigaki Island, located in the Yaeyama Islands, contains rare blue corals. The islands of Okinawa Prefecture are home to many coral reefs. Its location and shape are based on Koshikijima." In other words, Ishigaki Island and Koshikijima were merged.

Game Freak completely skewed the Ryukuku islands to condense them into a single map. There aren't more of them that need to be added. You can make a case that the Hoenn map contains unused islands, but none of them are sizable and they weren't used for a reason. Sure, it would be nice if they used an island for Jirachi (which wouldn't be normally accessible) and another one for Regigigas, but that just isn't enough for a proper post-game segment.

It should be obvious why they weren't used in HGSS: The Generation II games already had more post-game content than any other game did. So Game Freak settled for just Kanto again, while adding a Safari Zone in order not to change the existing Pokémon distribution too much. The Hoenn games, in contrast, basically only have the Sky Pillar and Battle Frontier for post-game content. So I see no reason why they shouldn't get the FRLG treatment. And I've already explained why fleshing out an existing island chain is better than adding another one with barebones content. Also, you may want to bear in mind that HGSS only offered around 200 Pokémon in the post-game segment, but ORAS will need around 400 to match up to XY.

Basically, the only good reason for ORAS being made is that Hoenn hasn't been seen in 10 years. That goes for the Sevii Islands, too. Obviously, they are not as important as Hoenn is, but they're more important than a bunch of unused islands.


----------
Thus, I suspect that there is infinitely more reason to expect the 'insignificant' Miyako and Yaeyama to be featured--in a game where, you know, they are right next to the featured region--than there is to expect anything Sevii Islands-related.
----------
That doesn't matter at all. Those islands are far closer to Taiwan than to Kyushu, anyway. I suspect that you care about real-life geography more than anything else, but I doubt that Game Freak have a checklist they feel obligated to fill. I'm curious as to what excuse you have for the Ryukuku islands being condensed to begin with.

Yeah, I meant Cianwood. I usually use the Japanese names but I figured for convenience' sake I'd try to use the English ones for once... but evidently I've forgotten them :/ Anyways, whether they used Route 47 and 48 during the main story or not is completely irrelevant. Indeed, if I've been following along correctly, the very reason that you and so many others have suddenly decided that the Sevii Islands will be used is so non-Houen Pokemon could be caught... yet in HGSS, Houen and Shin'ou Pokemon were almost solely obtainable via the Safari Zone past Route 48. So if anything, expecting ORAS to expand eastward and allow Miyako and Yaeyama (both infinitely larger than any of the Bonin Islands) to essentially act the same way as did the Jouto Safari Zone is merely to expect tradition to be followed.

Meanwhile, your entire argument in favor of the Sevii Islands comes entirely out of left field. There's nothing to lead you to believe that they will be used, or so it would appear, sans an opinion that they had 'wasted potential'. Yet both this and the argument that the Sevii Islands could be utilized in order to capture non-native Pokemon are, in the last instance, precisely the same arguments as could have been used to argue in favor of their inclusion in HGSS. Actually, the prospect that they could have played a role in HGSS is actually much more sensible seeing as though Kanto is accessible in those games. Yet instead of including them, they instead opted for a tiny chunk of Shikoku--far less significant than Miyako and Yaeyama--and crammed two generations' worth of Pokemon into a Safari Zone when they could have spread them across seven islands. Thus, I suspect that there is infinitely more reason to expect the 'insignificant' Miyako and Yaeyama to be featured--in a game where, you know, they are right next to the featured region--than there is to expect anything Sevii Islands-related.

The westward expansion of Mahogany? I assume you're referring to Cianwood (and why do you use "Jouto" while using English names for the locations?). That expansion was a small one which added content during the main story, so I don't see what you're getting at. Not to mention that there is no map for the entirety of Shikoku (I'm pretty sure you know that all too well), whereas there is one for Evergrande. I've already said that a small expansion is possible, but I don't see it as worth mentioning.

And the Ryukuku Island do not extend "far past" Okinawa. There are only two more island groups: Miyako and Yaeyama. What exactly is so notable about them? See, unlike other people, I am not pretending that there is a lot to do with any island chain. That is precisely why I don't see the point of adding new ones when Game Freak could just flesh out the existing ones. The locations are not important - it is what Game Freak choose to do with them that matters. I thought that the Sevii Islands had wasted potential (regarding their Johto-related lore and Deoxys' origin story), and since it's been over 10 years since their introduction, I see no reason not to give them substance now. The alternatives of ignoring their existence or keeping them for FRLG remakes don't make sense to me.