I’ve decided to play through Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu once more, this time with a more varied team and to a more complete degree. But after watching the movie Pokémon: I Choose You, there are some things about the original Pokédex that I feel need updating.

While the movie is predominantly set in Kanto, it clearly is set in a world that includes all the other regions created since the first generation, unlike Let’s Go, which mostly operates in its own bubble. Because of that, some of the Pokémon that appear (or rather, don’t appear) doesn’t really make sense, because later generations have gone on to introduce further evolutions or pre-evolutions of those Pokémon. Furthermore, the fact that you play as new characters (Chase/Elaine) with a new rival (Trace), and can meet the player characters from previous games (Red/Blue/Green) means that this is clearly set some years after, when this increased number of Pokémon would be common knowledge (in-universe).

As such, I’ve decided to go through what the Kanto Pokédex seen in the Let’s Go games should look like, considering where it fits in the timeline:

To start off, I’ve moved Mew from #151 to number #000. Firstly, because the Pokémon coming after Mewtwo doesn’t make much sense, and secondly because obtaining Mew in Let’s Go requires you to spend roughly £40 on a Pokéball Plus. If you don’t want to do that, but do want to complete the rest of the Pokédex, you shouldn’t have to have a gap between Mewtwo and Meltan. Plus, being the ancestor of Pokémon, it makes sense Mew comes first. 

#0 – 29:

With the exception of the ‘baby Pokémon’, Pichu, Igglybuff and Cleffa, as well as the evolved form of Golbat, Crobat, and Gloom‘s alternate evolution Bellossom, the first few sections of the Pokédex remain largely the same. As such, these wouldn’t be hard to integrate into the game, as it would just mean swapping out some of the Pikachu, Jiggypuff and Clefairy roaming in the overworld for their younger counterparts.  

#30 – 59:

The extra evolutions like Bellossom, Crobat and the upcoming Politoed, Slowking and Magnezone also wouldn’t require much tweaking of the game. They don’t need to be represented in the overworld, and with the exception of Crobat and Magnezone, simply need some additional items put into the game. Since most of these evolutions revolve around the Pokémon being traded, I feel like having some of their younger forms carry the neccessary items would be a fair trade off. 

#60 – 89:

Up to this point, these changes to the Pokédex require minimal extra work (in the grand scheme of things), but also give trainers more Pokémon to catch than the now-comparatively small count of 153. 

#90 – 118:

The inclusion of some of these later evolutions also has a secondary purpose, however. Alongside new Pokémon, regions and gameplay styles, a lot of Pokémon types have also been introduced over the years. While Game Freak have retroactively retyped certain Pokémon such as Clefairy as fairy, or Magnemite as steel, adding in more Pokémon like Steelix and Scizor brings in more unique class types that the region is lacking. 

#119 -147:

These later evolutions, like Electivire and Magmortar, would also make the Gym Leader rematches more interesting, as it could showcase in the time you’ve spent travelling around Kanto, they’ve been leveling up their teams into more powerful, previously unseen Pokémon. Rather than just stocking their teams up with the same creatures you’ve seen countless times at this point, it would show actual progression in the teams they already had. 

#148 – 178:

Plus, considering one of the games is titled after Eevee, it makes sense that players new to the series get to experience the wealth of evolutionary potential Eevee actually has, rather than just being stuck with three out of the eight potential transformations it can undergo. 

I’ve also swapped the Legendary birds around with the Dragonite line, just so the Legendaries and Mythical Pokémon are contained to one section of the Pokédex.

#179 – 187 (The Myths and Legends):

While there is a lot of content in the game as it is, it is a bit lacking from a storytelling perspective, especially in the post-game. The majority of activities you can undergo after completing the League are just battling different people again. And with the exception of Meltan and Melmetal, whom you have to acquire through legwork in Pokémon GO!, the legendaries, compared to the variety that have come after, feel a bit… boring (after all, Mewtwo shows up in the Kanto games, the Johto games, the Kalos games and the Alola games). 

So why not introduce a couple of others? I’ve added Lugia due to its ties to the Legendary birds and thrown in Ho-Oh due to them being a conventional pairing. Although due to type similarities I feel like Ho-Oh could easily be substituted for something better if it made more sense. However, Ho-Oh seemed like a decent idea due to the fact it appears in the very first episode of the Pokémon anime, and has a strong presence in I Choose You, which is set in Kanto (plus, with Kanto and Johto bordering one another, it makes sense there would be some crossover in Pokémon). 

All in all, these additions bulk the number of Pokémon present in the game up by thirty-three (thirty-one if you take out the Johto Legendaries), diversify the line-up slightly, and make more sense than a region devoid of Pokémon that theoretically should live there.