>>47692645There's a general rule of thumb, if the game celebrates all regions in creative or fun manners like letting you visit the region or giving you a 2nd starter, it's a good reference.
The issue is more that since Gen 7, there is no benefit to the pandering and it's almost exclusively to Kanto; except it barely even has attachment to Kanto since they'll go out of their way to reference it at every turn.
Compare the references in XY to those in SM; in XY, the ONE mention of Kanto is in the Sushi High Roller restaurant because the Black Belt who runs it is the same guy from Johto that used to run the dojo in Kanto. That's a reference that encompasses a part of the series history in an obscure but fun way.
Then there's SM, which tells you that Charizard is from KANTO and that there are Alolan variants of Pokemon from KANTO that you should know, because after all your player is from KANTO and Lillie gets the chance to go to KANTO after the story.
There's no benefit to the player in the latter because there is no payoff.
