>>51184310I loved them initially, but in the long term I think they're a bad idea for branding. According to SV leaks, there are very few of them this time around, which I think means GameFreak realized this issue.
When you add a regional variant, you have to drag with it its history as a regional variant every time it reappears. Ten years from now, a kid just getting into Pokemon won't know what the fuck it means to be Alolan/Galarian/Hisuian etc. GameFreak is absolutely terrified of turning people away if they have to absorb more information than what's necessary or if they need to infer anything themselves. This is why they're likely moving towards convergent species instead. Without need of a regional descriptor, new players will just accept that different Pokemon with different names can look similar.
I'm not a huge fan of regional evolutions. They make complete sense to have on a biological level but it sucks that normal Farfetch'd got dicked on that one. I'm dreading Pooper's evolution giving it a totally different personality and sullying the line.
