Kanto v. Johto

Kanto v. Johto

Let's pit the most classic Pokemon regions into a matchup. The regions will be based on the Firered/Leafgreen's version of Kanto and Heartgold/Soulsilver's version of Johto.

These are the categories we will be judging in this fight.
Day 1: Starter Pokemon
Day 2: Normal Pokemon
Day 3: Music
Day 4: Locations
Day 5: Characters
Final Day: Events in-game

Since I am not a big fan of using Legendary Pokemon, it doesn't recieve a category. Thank you.
The matchup will start tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Before starting the matchup, let's hear from Mr. Pokemon and Misty who will advocate their own regions.

"Johto is an amazing region. There are lots of nice areas to go to. Also, there are cute and nice Pokemon on Johto. The music you will hear will be amazing. Legendary Pokemons will also captivate you. You will have so much fun on Johto that you will forget Kanto, Sinnoh, Hoenn, Unova, and Kalos." - Mr. Pokemon, from Johto

"Kanto has Red. Enough said." - Misty, from Kanto

I vote Kanto will win day 1, mostly because it has Charmander.

I'm going with Johto since it added lots of new Pokemon and it added on to what Kanto started.

Day 1

Which region will win Day 1? (Starter Pokemon)
Kanto [ 1 ]
Johto [ 1 ]

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Category 1: Starter Pokemon

Kanto had Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle as the starters. Meanwhile, Johto had Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile.

Now for the comparison. Let's check their appearances first. Both the Kanto side and the Johto side's Pokemons look nice, and their evolution forms look nice as well. While I prefer the Charmander line and the Cyndaquil line's appearances the most, their appearances are pretty much equally great for me.

Next, let's check out how well the Starter Pokemon can become useful on your adventure. What capabilities should Starter Pokemon have? Well, they should be strong enough that you would keep it until the end of your adventure. Also, its element should fit with the gym leaders' elements, that it wouldn't get brutally knocked over on Gym Leader Battles.

Well, five of the six Pokemon accomplished this. They were pretty strong, and even though they might be dazed off by some Gym Leader fights, you overall wouldn't really have too much problems by training your Pokemon. (Even training Charmander didn't give me that much of a problem.)

But one Pokemon failed to accomplish this.. That Pokemon was Chikorita. It seems that most Gym Leaders in Chikorita's adventure just hates Chikorita..

Falkner (Flying) gave 2x damage to Chikorita.
Bugsy (Bug) also gave 2x damage to Chikorita. Heck, these were the first two Gym Leader fights. Shouldn't the developers designed a lighter difficulty curve for Chikorita?
Janine (Poison) also gave 2x damage to Chikorita.
Blaine (Fire) also gave 2x damage to Chikorita.
Morty (Ghost) had Pokemons who didn't even get dazed by Chikorita. Gengar and Haunter recieved 1/2 damage from Chikorita, due to the damn Poison Type!
Erika (Grass) had Victreebel and Jumpluff. Chikorita would only give them 1/4 damage, and their Poison and Flying types didn't help at all.
The Elite 4 had Pokemon that are just nightmares for Chikorita. Xatu, Jynx, Gengar, those Fighting Pokemon who could use Blazing Punch, ugh..

Isn't it just sad? Anyway, Chikorita failed to accomplish the fact that Starter Pokemon should be strong enough that you could keep it until the end of your adventure. You will hardly get to use Chikorita unless you train Chikorita A LOT, since there are so many Gym Leaders who are strong to the Grass Type.

Anyways, due to Chikorita's presence, the Johto side automatically loses this round. Kanto side wins, since I never really had horrible problems whether I chose Squirtle, Charmander, or Bulbasaur. Kanto wins this round.

Kanto 1:0 Johto

Knew it, Kanto does have the better starters. But I say Johto will win day 2 due to it having some pretty cool Pokemon additions.

I thought you meant overall but, Charmader being an option means it beats out most starters. I will say Kanto for this one since the 150 then added where better if you factor in most of them but, Johto also had some good Pokemon.

Day 2

Which region will win Day 2? (Normal Pokemon)
Kanto [ 1 ]
Johto (Excluding the Kanto Pokemon) [ 2 ]

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Category 2: Normal Pokemon

As I said in the poll, the Kanto Pokemon that appear in Johto will NOT be counted, to make the battle fair. Let's get started then.

Let's compare their appearances and their creativity first. While both region's Pokemon look pretty great, I find the Johto Pokemon's design to be slightly better. In fact, I consider the Johto Pokemon to have the best appearances out of all the regions' Pokemon. Kanto had nice Pokemon design as well, but Johto's Pokemon definitely looked more interesting.

The Johto Pokemon looked a bit more creative as well. Most Pokemon of Kanto were designed by having an animal/real life thing/creature with two legs and two arms, and giving them an extra characteristic. I'm not saying that this kind of design is bad, but Johto had a lot more Pokemon that were designed much more freshly.

But the Appearance and the Creativity doesn't always determine the Pokemon of that region. Now let's look the inner quality of those Pokemon. Johto introduced less Pokemon than Kanto. (151 v. 100) I know, Quality definitely tops Quantity, but seeing more Pokemon is always nice.

One the other hand, Kanto Pokemon had a problem which 33 out of 151 Pokemon had the Poison Type! Johto Pokemon had a lot more balance on types, in my opinion. They both have the problem having too few Ghost and Dragon Types, but Johto still wins this part due to not having an absurd amount of one type.

So, which region wins this part? While their qualities were pretty simmilar, Johto Pokemon definitely looked better and were more creative than the Kanto Pokemon. I like both regions' Pokemon, but Johto's Pokemon overall tops over Kanto's. Johto takes the point today. It also helps that my favorite Pokemon of all time, Mareep/Flaafy/Ampharos are Johto Pokemon.

Kanto 1:1 Johto

The fact that you added tie in there when it wasn't there previously makes me think it's definitely a tie. XD

Day 3

Which region will win Day 3? (Music)
Kanto [ 0 ]
Johto [ 0 ]
Tie [ 3 ]

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Both regions have great music. The Pokemon series all had nice music, anyway. My favorites are Kanto's Rocket Hideout Theme, Kanto's Champion Theme, Johto's Ecruteak/Cianwood City Theme, and Johto's Lighthouse theme. Plus, there isn't a single music I dislike in these games.

Now for the comparison. I think Johto slightly had more diversity with the soundtrack. Kanto's town/city themes were all pretty energetic and lively, except for Pallet Town. However, I think Johto's town/city themes had a lot of diversity than just being energetic and happy. Cianwood/Ecruteak City's music are pretty peaceful, New Bark Town's music executed the home town music perfectly, Goldenrod City's music had a nice 'big city' vibe on it, and Azelea Town's music executed the feeling of a small and little town very well.

While I have to say Kanto had the better wild encounter music, I think Johto's Trainer/Gym Leader/Champion music matched the feeling of those matches a bit better. The route music in Johto was also slightly better, which is pretty much because Kanto just used the Route 3 theme too much. Johto had a much better balance on route themes. I like Johto's Dungeon Music (Ilex Forest) a bit more than Kanto's (Mt. Moon and Viridian Forest), its scary theme fitted the dark forests and the caves perfectly.

Johto executed the soundtrack slightly better, so Johto wins this round.

Kanto 1:2 Johto

Day 4

Which region will win Day 4? (Locations)
No Votes. Somehow everybody saw the Plays thread, while nobody saw this, lol.

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A nice amount of locations is a must for all role-playing game universes. And Kanto and Johto have a handful of nice and memorable locations as well, making the Pokemon Adventure fresh.

Now for the comparison. Much like the music, Johto had a bit more diversity with the locations. Yes, Kanto also had nice varying areas like Mt. Moon (Cave) and Viridian Forest (Forest). But it helps that while Johto still had the areas like the cave or the forest, they added a lot of fresh locations like the towers (Sprout Tower/Tin Tower etc.), a nice looking park (National Park), An amazing waterfall area (Route 47/48), and even a tower/theme park where you could fight an endless erray of enemies. (Battle Tower/Battle Frontier)

I also preferred the towns in Johto a bit more. They all felt unique, in my opinion. I loved Ecruteak City's Japanese theme, Cianwood City's Seaside theme, and Goldenrod City's urban theme. I didn't think Kanto's towns were that unique compared to Johto's towns. Kanto gets extra points, though, by having The Indigo Plateau. Yes, Johto had the memorable Mt. Silver where you could fight with Red, but nothing beats fighting the elite four and the champion.

Still, Johto wins again, due to having more variety and uniqueness. The point goes to Johto again.

Kanto 1:3 Johto

So, it seems that Kanto is going to lose the matchup. (Or Tie with Johto) Well, not quite. There could be a twist at the end that could make Kanto win..

Yeah, I didn't even notice this thread was updated, sorry. (I don't know how I missed it...)

It seems like Johto would win locations by default just because it's on Game Boy Color and can have more of a variety and larger areas. I say Johto will win characters too.

Zero Revolution wrote:Yeah, I didn't even notice this thread was updated, sorry. (I don't know how I missed it...)

It seems like Johto would win locations by default just because it's on Game Boy Color and can have more of a variety and larger areas. I say Johto will win characters too.

You're pretty much right, but Johto would still win if I compared the Kanto of Firered/Leafgreen and Johto of Crystal. While FR/LG was a nice remake, they could have added an extra flavor with the original towns/locations, which they didn't do, sadly.

I think Kanto had better character for the guy leaders and Oak but, Johto steped it up and give more NPC's character.