Heroic Hoenn. I thought for sure, Humble Hoenn would be the preferred alliteration. But Pokémon official channels say otherwise. So Heroic Hoenn it shall be.
When we think of Hoenn, what comes to mind? Is it the cacophonous din of trumpets, abundant water routes to comfortably shelter all of the Pokéverse’s marine life (7.8/10), or rival organisations so diametrically opposed in their ambitions that their respective schemes equate to net zero and both may as well disband? Hmm! Or is it the giant landsnake Legendary perched on top of an impossibly tall pillar, a town covered in soot and volcanic ash, or a certain mysterious, double helix-like shapeshifting Pokémon found only on Birth Island? It might well be all of the above, for Hoenn defies easy distillation into a single adjective, no matter how hard the Pokémon Company tries.
In gameplay terms, Hoenn debuted the overdue physical-special split, introduced Pokémon contests and ribbons, and developed an enviable postgame (in Emerald) that all games since have struggled to match. It even did away with barriers to inter-regional compatibility, allowing players to exchange Pokémon between Japanese and Western gamecarts without the unwanted side-effect of savedata spontaneously corrupting into a cubist’s glitchland dream. And perhaps more subtly, by bridging the occidental-oriental divide, Hoenn laid the foundations for a true global community came the GTS in Generation Sinnoh (also here).
Hoenn, then, got a lot of things right… Except, quite possibly, backwards compatibility. The regrettable decision to cut inter-generational trading and sever the chain with RBGY and GSC upset a generation of players, and its consequences are still felt today. The notion of Pokémon as forever friends shattered, as we waved goodbye to Johto and awaited the unavoidable hour when batteries ran dry and our pals vanished. I consider it the gravest error of judgement GameFreak has made – worse than (the inevitable) Dexit. I hated the breaking of the chain, and I was evidently not alone, given how it inspired one grown man, twenty-plus years on, to develop a post-facto, homebrewed method to make the impossible trade possible.
Heartache aside, what I want to talk to you about is Hoenn’s influence on event Pokémon. Which is, depending on your perspective, either enormous or miniscule. This generation did not yet relinquish the link cable; for another four-odd years, cables remained a hard requirement for common trades as well as interactions with GBA event dispenser systems powered by distribution cartridges. Yet Hoenn (and FRLG reboots in particular) edged closer to a cable-free reality as the generation introduced Joyspot local WiFi and pioneered the wireless adapter. To be sure, the prospective acquisition of event Pokémon still demanded that players leave the comfort of their homes in order to download data at some predetermined location, but occasionally at least, they could pull ‘Mons (or the items that unlocked them) directly from the aether on-site.1 Examples are Old Sea Map at PokéFesta 2005, and the PokéPark eggs. And while this may not seem significant in and of itself, in hindsight it’s evident that such delivery-method experiments blew the path towards nationwide local WiFi wide open culminating in Sinnoh’s confident, nationwide theatre Eigakan Darkrai distribution. And eventually, global WiFi.
Hoenn’s event scene, then, makes for an eclectic blend of uniquely interesting in-lifes topped off by a dollop of mail-ins. As such, it would be unfair to dismiss Hoenn as a halfway house between link cables and global WiFi; a mere intermediate step in the evolution towards a grander vision. Heroic Hoenn was much more than that. Constraints foster creativity, and in the event space, Hoenn certainly found unique ways to sell event Pokémon to the (wo)man. Enjoy!
Shogakukan × Pokémon Stamp Rally Series
– Stamp Absol (September 2003) – COMING SOON!
– Stamp Pichu – COMING SOON!
– FLET’S Sunday Wobbuffet (July – August 2005) – COMING SOON!
- Harvest Moon 3 (2001) - March 5, 2020
- Pokémon Trading Card Game 2 (2001) - February 5, 2020
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories (2002) - January 5, 2020