Two major Game Freak Pokemon titles releasing in the same year is an almost unheard-of occurrence, but that's what happened in 2022. Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet both came out to mixed yet intrigued reviews, with many thinking of Pokemon Legends as the prototype for the latter. Each title tackled the open-world genre, with Legends testing the waters through several massive areas and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet sporting one giant map. This resulted in some of the most distinct Pokemon games fans have tried in a long time, renewing hope for the series' future even while its lack of polish grows more obvious.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet ended up sharing a number of traits, though not as many Pokemon Legends aspects returned as some would have liked. Both shared a focus on time travel, with Pokemon Legends and Pokemon Scarlet looking to the past while Violet examined the future. While the player themselves did not personally time travel in Scarlet or Violet, they do meet Paradox Pokemon from the distant past or future. These species introduced a new naming scheme to the franchise, and it would be great if the Pokemon Legends subseries not only continued, but took advantage of this fitting detail.
Scarlet and Violet's Paradox Pokemon Introduced A New Naming Scheme
In most of the games within the Pokemon franchise, Pokemon names are original words based on puns. Regional variants add their given region's name to the front, even in Pokemon Legends where the Hisui region was really the past form of Generation 4's Sinnoh. The first time Game Freak approached breaking this rule was with the Ultra Beasts in Pokemon Sun and Moon. Initially, it isn't clear if these powerful beings are even Pokemon, so they are assigned a UB number followed by a descriptive word. They received normal names after more was learned about them, but the initial titles made them feel unsettling and alien at first.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet threw this tradition away with shocking ease. Once the player reaches Area Zero, they will encounter Paradox Pokemon from Scarlet's past or Violet's future. The Paradox Pokemon in Violet have the word "Iron" at the front of their names, followed by a descriptive word. Scarlet's prehistoric beasts, meanwhile, have no consistency and use names ranging from Scream Tail to Roaring Moon. After decades of Pokemon names rendered in a single, pun-based style, Paradox Pokemon have broken new ground by simply using regular words.
Why A Pokemon Legends Sequel Could Use Paradox Pokemon Names From Scarlet
While this makes Paradox Pokemon stand out as oddities in mainline Pokemon games, they would be right at home in a Pokemon Legends sequel. The thing about Pokemon Legends' setting is that it's only set a few hundred years before most other Pokemon games. Knowledge of what Pokemon are like and how to handle them is scarce but is rapidly growing. Another Legends title playing off of Pokemon Scarlet could go back even farther into the past, way before humans had decided on what to call different Pokemon. Scarlet's freeform descriptive names work perfectly in an ancient setting filled with terrifying, unknown Pokemon.
Violet's naming scheme is a little harder to use, though the idea of a Pokemon title set in the far future is still appealing. At any rate, using Legends to explore Pokemon locations in unseen time periods is brilliant, and unknown Pokemon species that haven't evolved into their modern forms could easily be named like Paradox Pokemon. The future of the Pokemon Legends spin-off series is currently unclear, but many hope that Game Freak carries its concepts forward and gives exploring the life of an ancient Pokemon trainer another shot.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now for Nintendo Switch.
