Remakes: But what if it's not Gen IV?

Alright so, I'm not opposed to the idea of Gen IV remakes, not in the slightest! I loved the Sinnoh region, and I'd be immensely happy to travel through it again in beautiful 3D graphics.

But.

Playing through Pokémon Sun, I started thinking of another option, something that I've heard surprisingly few people talk about. This option being new games settled once again, in the Kanto region.

I'm purposefully avoiding the word 'remake', because, as far as my theorizing goes, it wouldn't be a remake. It would be a completely new game, with new story elements, while taking place in a familiar region.

Here's the few things I've gathered as 'evidence':

- The player character originally came from Kanto.
- At the end of the main story in Sun and Moon, Lillie leaves Alola with Lusamine, to go to Kanto. She wants to visit Bill, who hopefully can help her to separate Lusamine from the remnants of Nihilego's poison. This could prove for some kind of plot elements to take place in Kanto.
- In the post-game, when Hau asks if Kanto is far away, the player's mother says that it's close enough to visit every now and then. This, too, proves a possible connection to the first region.
- The existence of Samson Oak in general seems to be pointless to me. In the entire course of the game, he never does anything important to the story, except for being an obvious nod to the original Pokémon Professor.
- The entire Nugget Bridge is remade in Malie Garden. Again, there's no point to this at all, unless if referencing Kanto is so important it had to be done.
- Red and Blue are back. While this doesn't really prove anything to suggest new Kanto games by itself (characters from almost every region are present in the Battle Tree), it does prove one thing: a time difference. Red and Blue have obviously aged since their original debut, which means there's room for new characters to make an appearance in Kanto, for a new generation (hehe).
- All Alolan Pokémon are Kanto Pokémon. I don't really have anything to add to that, other than that with this alone, enough reference to Gen I should have been made, right? With all these old Pokémon getting new forms, we're already reminded of the good ol' times enough, without all the other references I have stated above. They're really laying the Gen I references layers thick here, maybe not without good reasoning.
- Mew has a special Z-move, despite not being obtainable anywhere in the game.

Again, I'm no top-tier theorist, I'm no MatPat, nor do I aim to be, but this is just what I've noticed while playing the game. I think there's a fair amount of evidence pointing to Kanto games, maybe even more so than Sinnoh remakes. What do you think of this? Do you agree with my theory, or not? What's your opinion on a potential new Kanto game? Let me know!

 

I wasn't actually aware of the 20th anniversary thing, that might play a role in it too. Although I still feel like the amount of Kanto/Gen I references far exceeds what would be just a simple 20th anniversary thing.

That's about the only thing I'm very confident in. If my theory is right, and we will get new Kanto games, I can't imagine them being remakes again. The original Gen I games already had their remakes, so that story has been done already. And like I said, Red and Blue are proven to have aged, so that story literally lies in the past now. Also, Red and Blue are now fully their own character. I'd find it weird to get new games, where you play as a character you've seen in a previous game, with their own story and dialogue. But hey, anything is possible.

 

Yeah I've been thinking about the story too, honestly they could do anything. It would be the first time they revisit an older region, but not in the form of a remake. There's a possibility they could bring back Team Rocket in some way, but they could also just go for a new evil team altogether. I just hope it's very different, because as much as I love the first generation games, if they keep a lot of things the same as before (or make a "remake", aka the same story but with different characters), I'm not sure if that would be so great.

 

I highly doubt they would re-use Team Rocket again, I really do feel like they would have a separate new evil organization. Also, if you think about it, the last time we saw Kanto as a full region (not counting HG/SS, because that version's Kanto was much smaller and not nearly as complete), is longer ago than Sinnoh (with FR/LG being Gen III and D/P/Pt being Gen IV), so if we're going by 'time it's been since a region has had their own game', Kanto would be the first in line to reappear, followed by a second place tie between Sinnoh and Johto.

I could see the possibility of revisiting Kanto after the National Dex patch, though I don't expect it at all. It's not unimaginable though, since there was two whole years between the release of OR/AS and Sun/Moon, yet a lot of things (like the Pokémon sprite) have completely remained unchanged. Chances are that they've already been working on something big apart from Sun/Moon.
I'm no game expert, so I have no idea if it would even be possible to add another region to the games, keeping the size of the cartridges in mind.