When Pokémon Legends: Arceus was announced, fans were excited by the prospects of mainline Pokémon games set in the past versions of existing regions, especially for the Unova region, although that isn’t likely to happen. Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a follow-up of sorts to the traditional remake of Diamond and Pearl: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Instead of taking place in the Sinnoh region as most fans know it, Legends: Arceus takes place a few hundred years earlier when it was still called Hisui.
With the Gen. 5 Pokémon games being next in line to be remade, fans have speculated about a potential Legends game taking place in the Unova region of the past, especially when the “original dragon” was still alive. The original dragon is the first form of the legendary Pokémon Reshiram and Zekrom, before they split apart. But the Unova region’s timeline makes a Legends approach much less feasible compared to its Sinnoh counterpart.
A Legends-style game set in Unova that’s only a few hundred years in the past would not feature the original dragon at all, because the original dragon is said to have split into Reshiram and Zekrom almost 3,000 years ago. A more “recent” setting for Pokémon Legends: Unova is plausible, but wouldn’t feature the original dragon, which is what many players would like to see most in such a title. The Unova region is heavy on lore, but the nitty-gritty details are usually supplemental and tough to find. A lot of details that many fans consider to be “necessities” of a Pokémon Legends game set in Unova would actually be difficult to implement successfully, making it an unlikely approach - at least in the way many fans are expecting.
Players hoping for a Legends: Unova game set back when the original dragon was still alive would find the game lacking in capturing Pokémon. A memory scene in Black 2 and White 2 features the Gym Leader Drayden explaining to Iris that the Unova region didn’t have Poké Balls when he was young, and instead Pokémon lived in close proximity to their favorite humans. Although it’s fun to jokingly speculate if Drayden is actually an all-powerful ancient being, this more realistically means the Unova region didn’t develop Poké Balls until much more recently compared to other regions like Hisui. And it makes sense: there are no Apricorns in Unova, after all.
No Poké Balls could make for unique gameplay, such as a more exploration-centric game with little or no focus on capturing new Pokémon, but this may be a bit too big of a departure for the Pokémon series. Any such mechanical alterations could also be included in a Legends-style game set in more recent times, removing the need for such a game to be set so far into the past. A more recent Legends game wouldn’t feature the original dragon at all, but players could capture Pokémon and may instead feature a younger Drayden and perhaps even a young Alder.
Pokémon games have touched on dark topics before, such as Ghetsis’ abusiveness in Black and White and Lysandre’s attempt at mass genocide in Kalos in Pokémon X and Y. But the games always feature peaceful and, above all, hopeful resolutions. This is possible thanks to the future being unwritten, and its fate is placed into the hands of the young Trainers who helped save the region from certain destruction. But for a game set in the past, the future is already written, and Unova’s history is filled with war and ruin.
The reason why Legends: Arceus works conceptually is because Sinnoh’s lore is based on myth and lifestyles rather than specific events and established historical figures. A game with any kind of story can be set in Sinnoh’s past without many, if any, worries over retconning anything. But much of Unova’s history in the Pokémon series is already defined with key characters and outcomes. There was no winner to the battle between the twin heroes, but their successors’ battle destroyed the region. Each time the region was rebuilt, another major conflict threatened to tear it back down. While some players may certainly appreciate a Pokémon game with a more looming sense of despair, it seems like an unlikely approach for the series.
A hypothetical Legends: Unova could introduce an alternate timeline with a more hopeful outcome, similar to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’s alternate timeline compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But fans of Black and White’s storytelling may not enjoy a game that doesn’t lead into the games they love. A Pokémon Legends game in a more recent Unovan setting, when the timeline isn’t as set in stone, is more feasible to make a story out of, one that’s all-new and has more room for creativity without worrying about retconning anything or creating more alternate timelines.
In the history of Unova, one king stood beside the original dragon and founded the region, although he did have assistance from his twin brother. When the two disagreed, the original dragon split into Reshiram and Zekrom and took separate sides with the brothers. In a hypothetical Pokémon Legends: Unova game, easy speculation to make would be that the twin heroes are retconned from brothers to siblings and that players would play as the first monarch with the original dragon Pokémon by their side. But this would mean that players would lose the original dragon at some point in the story, as it would have to split eventually. Even worse still, the game would miss out on the great opportunity to portray a “good version” of Ghetsis, because the original king of Unova is heavily implied in Black 2 and White 2 to be Ghetsis’ ancestor.
The original king is mentioned in the ancient writing found in Unova’s Abyssal Ruins, although the name can’t be fully deciphered. In Black 2 and White 2, the king’s name is heavily implied to be “Harmonia,” which is Ghetsis’ last name. Ghetsis is a well-loved villain for how detestable he is in the Unovan Pokémon games, and fans would surely want to see his ancestor as a defined character all his own, rather than play as him. Player characters in Pokémon games lack writing, so it would be a waste if Ghetsis’ ancestor didn’t get the opportunity to shine as a major character during Legends: Unova.
Admittedly, there are many fascinating opportunities that could arise from the player character being the other twin hero - in other words, being Ghetsis’ ancestor’s sibling. Such a game would feature meaningful player choices. Choices players make in Pokémon games amount to choosing Pokémon or items to receive, at most, but the story never changes in major ways. In this hypothetical Legends: Unova game, however, there would need to be major choices that align players with either “truths” or “ideals” so that Ghetsis’ original dragon will split and either Reshiram or Zekrom will join the player before battling Ghetsis, similar to how players battled N in Pokémon Black and White for the final time.
The original king, Harmonia, is also described as incredibly loving in the Abyssal Ruins writing, so players would get the chance to see a “kind version” of Ghetsis. A major theme of Black and White’s story is how people can break free from their conditionings and make their own choices to define themselves, so N could become a kinder person despite being raised by Ghetsis. It would be fascinating to have this subverted by portraying Ghetsis’ ancestor as making choices to be loving and protective all while players know how cruel Ghetsis would become.
Story-lovers would likely rejoice at these interesting elements, but it would still result in players not having the original dragon for themselves. The further back a Pokémon Legends game set in Unova has to go - mainly so players can catch a glimpse of the original dragon - the more likely it has to retcon certain elements to live up to various players’ expectations. But this wouldn’t be to the benefit of the strong storytelling Pokémon fans generally agree that Gen. 5 has. With all the challenges facing a potential Pokémon Legends game set in Unova, it may be for the best that any new Unova games moving forward take Black and White’s themes to heart and look to the future with consideration for the past rather than remain stuck in it entirely.
