Game Theory: These 25 Pokemon are DEAD Because of YOU!

If that's the route we're going with this, we have to talk about Lapras. There is a guy who said he spent his childhood afternoons breeding and releasing Lapras back in genII because the pokedex said they were endagered. Fast forward to genVII, now it says that due to peoples efforts wild Lapras' numbers have rise to the point it is no longer in risk of extinction

Honestly, given that Voltorb and Electrode are deliberately meant to resemble Pokeballs to serve as traps, I think it's likely that they transitioned from an apricot design to a more metallic design in order to continue tricking trainers who had largely switched to using more modern Pokeballs (presumably since the Apricorn Pokeballs were gathered unsustainably)

I think one problem with the Voltorb example is that they don't canonically reproduce naturally, and can only exist where Pokéballs exist. So it makes sense that they would be made of the kind of Pokéball that's in use. As metal Pokéballs became more popular, fewer wooden Voltorbs were created, and they eventually died out.

Perhaps Arceus had another motive. They saw that without the player's intervention, Volo, the "Pokemon Wielder" would have torn the world apart by driving Dialga/ Palkia mad. Volo himself posits that the player was sent to Hisui to prevent him from realizing his plans

Alternatively, without the player’s intervention, humans may have simply tried to exterminate all Pokémon entirely out of fear. Arceus could have been trying to avert the worst case scenario.

a pokémon theory??? it feels like it’s been years

If anyone is curious, Basculegion and Hisui Zorua line are excluded as it was humans hunting them that allowed them to exist. When humans stopped doing such, basculin stopped evolving and Zorua/Zoroark lost their hatred of humans.

I viewed Voltorb’s change was due to industrialization. Going from a moral rural environment to cities. Drawn to cities due to the transition from steam power to electric power. Thus their themeing evolved from wood to metal.

Personally, my expectation is that Arceus's plan was twofold: To send you from the future into the past to encourage humans and Pokemon to become symbiotic, but also sent you BACK to the future with the knowledge of how these Hisuian forms became extinct with the expectation that modern civilization would be able to bring them back. Peat may be gone from Sinnoh, but it can still be imported or possibly substituted with a synthetic. And today the region relies much more on renewables so its value as a possible fuel source is very much diminished. The same goes for apricorns: Gone from Sinnoh, still available in Johto, etc. Stantler may have lost its natural ability to learn the move, but a TM could be developed to teach it to captive Stantler. And so on and so forth.

I read the title and just subconsciously said “yay” I knew catching every single growlithe I could and shoving them into a box all their own would do something

Man. I would love to see a game theory about how Garganacl is absolutely the main export of the Paldea region; with Pokémon being generally region locked, and their entry being about how they use their salt on their fingers to heal pokemon, it makes sense that they would be farmed to use that salt to make healing food..

The wyrdeer thing reminds me of neoteny. Neoteny is a phenomena where animals evolve to stay in their larval form. It's the reason why axolotl exist, and the best explanation for how vertebrates evolved from hemichordates

Well, to be fair, the player doesn't exactly have a choice, Mat... they're given an ultimatum by the leaders of the Galaxy expedition - either help them collect pokemon and be given a home and food, or left to die in the wilderness. Cyrus' ancestor says so herself. The fact that they're from the future and have knowledge that they don't is just an advantage. XD

I think Ursaluna might just have been a trait that wasn’t useful enough for Ursaring to keep. Honestly, the Pearl Clan wardens might have been the only ones who could be bothered to evolve an Ursaring. Ursaring are already apex predators, so why would they bother to find a peat block and keep it until a full moon? Assuming they’re even smart enough to understand their own evolution requirements, not only would they be wasting energy to search for the item instead of say, searching for food, they would also be losing all the benefits of being bipedal for a power boost they didn’t need in the first place.

I think this is a really smart tactic to introduce new pokemon and explain why they're not there in the future, give them all reasons to go extinct. Very interesting!

"Scyther no longer be able to evolve" scizor: am I a joke to you

I can’t wait for Scarlet/Violet to completely steamroll this and bring those ancient Pokémon back for fun.

Actually, the starter's evolutions in this game (IE Decidueye, Typhlosion and Samurott) were Pokemon that Professor Laventon admits he bought here from another region, IE they're not native, they only have hisuian forms because it is mentioned that something effected their final evolutions from what they were supposed to be

0:24 Missed opportunity to say connect a few seedots

All of this kind of makes sense, with it paraelling our real life. My area is very mountainous, so we had cougars and mountain cats running around. We changed so much of the landscape that we no longer have any cougars and mountain cats running around.