>>50374277By the time Generation 6 came around, there was a much larger pool of Pokemon to draw from. The Kalos region incorporates Reshiram and Lucario into its regional identity, but it also repeats the Snorlax blockade and converts the layout of Viridian forest to 3D.
This is all fine, by the way, as these are probably deliberate homages to Generation 1, given that the Generation 6 games were Game Freak's first foray into fully 3D titles, and this kind of nod to the franchise's starting point is standard fare among Japanese franchises and just fictional franchises in general. It's just a form of paying homage to one's roots. I think the Kalos region does a good job of incorporating a bunch of different Pokemon that way.
It should also be noted that Baron Tajirin, the one who pioneered research into Pokemon, is a French scholar. It makes quite a bit of sense for Kalos to be a sort of nexus for various kinds of Pokemon species from all over the world, perhaps more so than any other region.
What I find somewhat distasteful however is the hunt for the legendary birds in Kalos' post-game. While birds are known to migrate, it comes off as lazy without many other Kalos centric legendaries to contrast against them. I'm not sure how to feel about the presence of Mewtwo in a French cave without any text alluding to this anomaly, or environmental subtext to suggest why this is a thing, but as it stands I don't really like it. If there was a story-based reason behind it that was more clearly communicated to the player, I would probably feel differently. As it stands, it just comes off as a tacky way of making sure the player can engage with Mewtwo's new Mega Evolutions, which were a marketing ploy to drum up interest in the games.
