The Day-Night Cycle and Pokémon Games

One thing that I would consider to have made certain Pokémon games more lively and realistic is the addition of a day-night cycle as well as things that are affected by that cycle. Day and night are present in the real world, and they define many of the interactions in life that occur there. It therefore would make sense that the realism of a game would be enhanced by having a day-night cycle. For Pokémon games, that couldn't be more true.

I actually thought of discussing this topic by a different kind of game where realism (and a bit of mystery) is a concern, especially in its more recent iterations. One of the things that was added to subsequent reworkings of the game is in fact a day-night cycle, and such an addition has indeed heightened the realism, and when it is noticeably absent in places that demand it, the realism is slightly lost. While Pokémon doesn't concern realistic environmental aspects as much as that other game, at least the aspect of the day-night cycle has some relevance.

The Ghost and Dark types are two types that make sense concerning day and night, at least regarding the latter, as they would be expected to be more active in that time rather than the other. It further makes sense that the Dark type is positioned as the counterpart to the "brightness" of the Psychic type - as per Umbreon vis-à-vis Espeon - and that one demands the darkness of the nighttime and the light of the daytime. With this in mind, a day-night cycle fits in for the framework of the two types and the things they entail.

Many of the main series games after the first generation have a full day-night cycle even without visual evidence; even the Moon games of the seventh generation have an "inverse" day-night cycle where the game is in nighttime in real daytime hours and vice versa. Pokémon Go has a full and realistic day-night cycle because the game is real - at least, its environment is an abstraction of the real world, and it therefore demands it. In all cases, the dynamics as above play out as expected.

It's hard not to consider that the Pokémon world, being that it is faithfully realistic, would have day and night. That would be realized in the games as a day-night cycle, and indeed, some of the games implement this. I suppose that it would be considered fortunate that Pokémon games can and do implement this; it is the facet that brings in more of the liveliness and realism that many players like me would expect.

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