Variegated Pokédexes

The first word in the title of this post may seem scary, but it's not. "Variegated" means that something is made to be different, or in other words "varied". In regard to the title of this post, it means that the Pokédex may be made to be different depending on the situation. It may seem implausible, but the reality is that the situations of the Pokémon games are already different from one another, and more importantly, this variegation has happened. It becomes something to consider with this in mind.

Most of the main series games have something called the National Pokédex, which is simply all the Pokémon from every generation in chronological order and the order in which they are present in their games' Pokédexes. From this it's already clear that the games' Pokédexes constitute their own separate Pokédexes, tailoring the National Pokédex to suit the quirks and characteristics of the regions, which to some extent is organizationally sound as is employing the National Pokédex for all other Pokémon, which may or may not be involved in the Pokédexes depending on the game.

Other Pokémon games that do (or at least plan to) include all Pokémon may implement the National Pokédex in its prescribed order, since it just makes sense. These games are likely to be spinoff games that allow a player of the main series to adapt easily and gracefully to new systems while maintaining a semblance of order. One exception would perhaps be Shuffle; instead of the National Pokédex order, all the Pokémon are ordered based on when they were added to the game, which does complicate things a bit for those who are accustomed to the former. Since nearly every Pokémon that exists are now present in the game, it may be time to allow the order to be changed to the traditional National Pokédex order, but this remains to be seen.

If they don't include every single Pokémon, then certain games may be fine with their own Pokédexes, even if they're not called as such. If they hold information on where Pokémon may be found, vital stats or moves or others, and especially descriptors of their properties, then it may be considered the Pokédex for the game, since these are all exactly what a Pokédex does. It's rather straightforward to call them as such, given their similarities. Yet in the end, everything else relies on the nature of the games.

Games that involve Pokémon, let alone many of them, are likely to include a list of some kind of the ones featured in the game. If the function of such a list is to keep track of them in some way, then it's not unreasonable to call it a Pokédex, since it does index them - thus the derivation of the word. Still, the games are different among one another, which means that the realization of these indices must account for their particularities, and thus variance and variegation. It's not hard to expect that this will continue with different and varied Pokémon games.

One year ago: Pokémon and Sports