Been playing the DLC in Pokémon Scarlet and most of it takes place in the Unova Region, which has got me thinking what a “modern day” Unova region would look like. Which then got me thinking of what the other regions would like if we went back to them. Now, we have ‘revisit’ some regions in Remakes like Fire Red and Omega Ruby but I think it fun to have a go back to a region with a new story and new friends to meet. So, in today’s post, I will be revisiting the Kanto and Johto region and think of how it would look if we went back today.

Kanto and Johto have always been interesting to me as (at least in the games) are the only regions that share a border and since they also share the Elite Four and Champion, I figure I would have to do these regions together. When looking at the regions, I will be pulling into from the original game, remakes, or if it makes an appearance in another game. Now for Kanto, I will have a lot to pull from consider it’s been in several games: Red/Blue/Green, Gold/Silver, Fire Red/Leaf Green, Heart Gold/Soul Silver and Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, and most do add can add something. When revisiting the region, I will mainly focus on the main cities, major locations and the gym leaders/Elite 4 just to keep it simple. With that in mind, let’s start in Kanto in the first starting town: Pallet Town.

Pallet town in pretty simple as just contains the player’s house, the rival’s house and most of the time, the Professor’s lab, however, in a newer Pallet Town it be cool if it was expanded to include: Red’s House, Blue’s House, the player’s house and the new rival’s house.

From Pallet Town, we head up to Viridian City and home to the 8^th gym. The last gym leader of Viridian Gym was Blue; however, I think it is time for the gym to return to a Ground type gym with a new leader, maybe a relative of Bertha, the Elite 4 member from Sinnoh. As for Blue, think it be cool if he return as the Pokémon Champion as a callback to the first game.

After making our way through the Viridian Forest, we find ourselves in Pewter City. The two main points of interest is the Museum of Science and the Pewter City Gym. Think it will be fun to expand on the museum and maybe have it as the new place to revive fossils given the Pokémon Lab was wiped out by the volcano in Pokémon Gold/Silver. As for the gym leader, I’m thinking Brock retires from being the leader and the only gym trainer, Camper Liam, takes over. It will be still be a Rock type gym but may have camping themed puzzles. Now on through Mt. Moon to Cerulean City.

For Cerulean City, we have the Sea Cottage (Bill’s Kanto House), and the gym. I would have included the Cerulean Cave but in Generation 2 they cave has collapsed and figure I would leave like that. As for the Sea Cottage, thinking one of Bill’s children takes over the box system of Johto and Kanto and used that as a base of operation. So, in Pokémon Gold/Silver and its remakes, you interrupt Misty’s date before challenging her, and thought is what if Misty finds her partner and now the gym is a double battle gym. Know it’s an early gym but a fun challenge early on wouldn’t hurt right. Time to head south and to Vermillion city.

For the Vermillion city, the first thing I want to change is completion of the construction site. I believe it was supposed to be a hotel or department store, however, since it never was finished, I’m taking the opportunity to make it whatever I want and I choose a stadium. The main reason is I’m thinking Lt. Surge retires from being a gym leader and the new gym leader is a up and coming rocker star that performs at the stadium and will remain an Electric type gym. After rocking out, it’s time to head to Lavendar Town.

However, before we get to Lavendar Town, I wanted just mention that the Kanto Power Plant would still be up and running like it was for Gold/Silver and Heart Gold/Soul Silver since the Magnet Train that goes from Kanto to Johto will still be running.

Lavendar Town probably had the biggest change between Generation 1 and 2. So for an updated version of this town, think it would be cool to expand the town and have the Pokémon Tower return and make the Radio Tower more explorable. Now onto Celadon City.

Celadon City will become the go to place for the region with the expansion of the Department store and Game corner. Despite all the changes in Celadon city, Erika has remained as the gym leader, but has open a greenhouse for human and Pokémon and place to see some different Grass type Pokémon from other regions.

Next is Fuchsia City the location of the original Safari zone. In Generation 2 the Safari zone was closed down and in Generation 4, there was one open south of Cinnawood City in Johto there isn’t a need for a second one. However, in Pokémon Red/Blue the area in front of the Safari Zone was consider the Pokémon Zoo and I kind of want that to return. This would be a way for people in the Kanto region be introduced to Pokémon from other regions and as a game function would be a way to get some of the region variants of Pokémon from Kanto, i.e. trade Sandshrew for an Alolan Sandshrew. For the Fuchsia City Gym, the last gym leader was Koga’s Daughter Janine and I’m thinking she followed her father and got promoted to the Elite 4 to take his place. For the replacement, I’m thinking of using a previous introduced character to be the new gym leader and I’m thinking of Klara from the Galar region. She wanted to setup her own gym but maybe she had hard time doing it in the Galar region and heard about the opportunity in Kanto and took it. Fuchsia City will probably be the city that gets the most changes across both regions. Next up is Saffron City.

Saffron City is home to the Saffron City Gym, the Fighting Dojo, the Kanto station for the Magnet Train and the Silph Co. Head office. Most of those will stay the same, except the gym. Sabrina is the current leader and I think she would be a good candidate to replace Will the Psychic type Elite 4 member. However, rather than finding a new gym leader, the Fighting Dojo decided to use as an opportunity to become a full fledge gym. The Saffron City gym becomes a Fighting type gym, but Dojo will still be accessible and may still be a place to get a fighting type Pokémon. Time to sail the seas and head to the Seafoam Islands and Cinnabar Island.

Between the events of Pokémon Blue/Red and Pokémon Gold/Silver the volcano near Cinnabar Island erupted and wiped out the town, forcing Blaine to use the Seafoam Island as a make shift gym. I would like to think enough time has passed for Cinnabar Island to rebuild the town. The rebuilt town will bring back the Pokémon Mansion, the Cinnabar Lab and the Cinnabar Gym. It will also have its own harbor that takes you to a special place. As for the Cinnabar Gym, it will remain a fire type gym but Blaine was retired and one of his lab assistants has taken over. Now, where does the new harbor in Cinnabar Island take you?

The last location I will take about for Kanto is the Sevii islands. The Sevii Island were a collection of seven islands that were introduced into Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green and some of the islands were used post-game areas to catch Pokémon like Lugia. Originally, you would gain access three of the islands after gaining the 8^th badge and the rest after beating the Elite 4. Figure we do something similar but do a 4/3 split and make 3 of the islands where you can catch Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. Maybe have the player go collect a gem to unlock the area as a reference to Pokémon 2000 when Ash had to collect the 3 gems to summon Lugia. The other 4 islands will be used for as maybe areas to catch Pokémon from other regions and maybe even find Red there training. This completes the modifications to the Kanto region and now we will move over to the Johto Region and the new Elite 4.

For New Bark Town, going to do a similar thing like I did with Pallet Town and add the houses of the original characters of Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal, Ethan and Kris and keep Prof. Elm as the main professor of the region. The next town would be Cherrygrove City and to be honest, not much will be change about this city. Just updated building for the most part.

Next up is Violet City and Azalea Town and to be honest couldn’t think of much to change. Violet City will keep the Sprout Tower, Ruins of Alpha and will keep Falkner as the gym leader. Similar case with Azalea Town, not much change to the Ilex Forest, Slowploke well and will keep Bugsy the gym leader. As much I tried, I didn’t really see a lot of reason to make changes to these cities. Now we found ourselves in Goldenrod City.

Goldenrod City has been a pretty busy place. It has the Department Store, Game Corner, Radio Tower, National Park, Magnet Train Station, Bill’s Johto House and in Generation 4 had the Global Terminal. Most of that stuff will be given an update and have the Magnet Train up and running from the beginning, however, maybe swap the Global Terminal to a Global Arena. Every week it would feature trainers from different regions and would be a fun way to introduce trainers to Pokémon from different regions. Now we get to the gym leader, Whitney and I have two trains of thought. First thought is, since most the Pokémon used in this gym were given the Fairy Type, part of me wants to make it a Fairy Type gym. However, with Milktank being Whitney’s ace Pokémon, we would need to either swap Milktank out or introduce the Tera Type to the region and have Whitney use it during the battle. However, will keep it simple and keep Whitney as the gym leader and keep it as the normal type gym.

Moving over to Eruteak City, the home of the Burned and Bell Towers. I would like to actually replace the Burned Tower, say it finally collapsed due to the years of damaged and replaced with a monument to Ho-Oh. As for the Gym leader, we will keep Morty as the gym leader, though now his team should have a more diverse makeup of ghost Pokémon. We now head west to Olivine City.

Olivine City will for the most part remain the same with the Olivine Port, which can be used as a way to sail to Cianwood City, or Vermillion City. The Battler Frontier from Pokémon HeartGold/Soulsilver would make a remain, though wouldn’t be available until the post-game and maybe even introduce a new set of Frontier Brains. As for the Olivine Gym, think a new leader would take over. It will still be a Steel Type Gym but Jasmine would have left to focused on the Lighthouse. Jasmine didn’t care for battling anyway so this move would hopefully make sense.

Now on to Cianwood City, where again not a lot would change from its appearance in the 4^th generation, but the Safari Zone would be well established by now and a great area to catch maybe some Pokémon from other regions. The Cianwood gym would still be a Fighting Gym, but maybe one of Chuck’s students would have taken over so Chuck can finally focus on his family. Next stop would Mahogany Town.

There isn’t much to Mahogany Town to begin with just the Gym, Lake of Rage and the Team Rocket HQ. However, maybe the rumors of the Lake of Rage and the opening of the Team Rocket Museum. Yes, I said Team Rocket Museum. Figure it would be a fun little nod to the series first evil organization with one former member charging too much to learn about this group. Thinking of entering the city and seeing tourist wearing Team Rocket Merch seems fun to me. Lastly, we need to talk about the gym and if I can’t make Whitney a Fairy Type Gym leader, I will just replace Bryce with one and turn the gym from Ice Type to Fairy Type. Part of me thinks this will be a fun challenge of making the last two gyms in the region the 2 most powerful types in the game.

We have now entered the home of the last gym in Johto, Blackthorn City. Again, the city wouldn’t see much change since there wasn’t a lot to it and keeping the Dragon’s Den intact. The gym however, I think it be a fun little story of Claire, the Dragon Type Gym Leader, maturing, with the help of a few lectures from Lance, and earning a spot as an Elite 4 member.  Speaking of the Elite 4, we are finally ready to revisit the end of most trainers’ journeys of challenging the Elite 4 and the current Pokémon Champion.

The Indigo Plateau, the finally stop for trainers taking the Gym challenge. For Kanto and Johto, we have seen two versions of the Elite 4 and have had 2 champions. In Red/Blue, Fire Red/Leaf Green and even Let’s Go Pikachu/Eeeve it was Lorelie; an Ice type trainer, Bruno; a Fighting type trainer, Agatha; a Poison Type Trainer, Lance; a Dragon Type Trainer and your rival as the champion. Though Red/Blue it was Blue and in Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee the rival was Trace. When we return to the Indigo Plateau in Gold/Silver, the Elite 4 changed to include, Will; a Psychic Type Trainer, Koga: the former Poison Type Gym Leader, Karen; a Dark Type trainer and both Bruno and Lance returning but with Lance serving as Champion.

If you have been following along, you should know most of the line-up for the Elite 4 and Champion. I kind of liked the idea of Gym Leaders being promoted to the Elite 4 and tried to think of some reason for so the current list is Sabrina, Janine and Claire with Blue serving again as Champion, leaving one spot open for the Elite 4. Even though I this would be a great opportunity to introduce a new character, I’m thinking of having Karen return as the final member. I know I have swapped out a lot of the previously known characters from these regions but making the Elite 4 as references to the previous generation seemed like a nice detail.

The last location I want to mention before wrapping up is Mt. Silver. I would like to see it return but instead of facing a trainer like Red or maybe Silver there, think it would be fun to use it as Mewtwo’s new home. Making it the ultimate the finally challenge would be kind of cool.

That wraps up our first couple of regions in this region. I know I gutted more of the Kanto Gym Leaders than the Johto leaders, but the Kanto Gym Leaders have made the most appearances in the series. Just as gym leaders alone, they were in Generations 1 thru 4 and return in Generation 7 with Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee. Going forward future entry in this series won’t be as long as I will stick to one region. Kanto and Johto being numbers and connect varies ways, made me feel like I had to do these regions together. And with that, thank you for taking the time to read this and until next time: Stay Safe, Be Kind and Game On!