I was looking at Gen 4's Pokedex to see who could potentially become regional when I realized there are very few Pokemon who actually qualify. To explain what I mean, every Pokemon that is regional currently meets the following criteria:
1. Single evolution line, no evos/prevos* involved
2. Do not hatch from eggs
When held up against a generation with a significant number of cross-gen evos this number becomes... tiny. So small I can count them on one hand: Pachirisu, Chatot, Spiritomb, Carnivine, Rotom. Of these I think Chatot and Carnivine stand to be the most likely candidates to be stuck somewhere tropical / foresty exclusive. I don't think Pachirisu will be since it's the generation's Pikachu clone (Yes I know Plusle and Minun started as exclusives, but they had a sort of alternating theme to them. Plus shortly after they were both made available wordlwide). I can't think of a locale where Spiritomb would make thematic sense to be exclusive, and Rotom will likely not be released immediately due to having multiple forms.
The second part of this question involves the asterisk I dropped in requirement 1. In Gen 4 Mr. Mime gets a baby that would make it no longer meet the established requirements. Would one of the potential new candidates simply replace it as Europe's exclusive? Would Mime Jr. be allowed to hatch in eggs while wild Mr. Mime spawns remain exclusive? Would Mime Jr. be the first regional egg hatch? How will Mr. Mime's relative value as trade bait be affected? It'll be interesting how they handle it.
Your thoughts and ideas?
Regarding the Mime Jr. situation, I've seen speculation that Smeargle has been held back so long because they intend to use it to replace Mr. Mime as the European regional. Decent theory in my opinion, but we'll see.
As far as the new regionals go, they did make a lot of gen 3 regional, but in gen 2 there were only 2 regionals. So maybe they just make 4 new ones and call it day. Or they could make Rotom's different forms regionals which I think would be a pretty fun mechanic.
The Smeagle thing actually makes sense thematically. I always figured they were holding back to figure out how to incorporate its Sketch gimmick.
The Rotom idea could be fun, everyone would at least be able to get one to fill their Pokedex with. Maybe they only do one regional since the Gen 4 Pokedex isn't very large? Once you remove legendaries/cross gens from the equation, that is.
I think Sketch was the original reason they held Smeargle back but now it's been so long I find it hard to believe they haven't come up with some ideas on implementing it.
Good point about the gen 4 pokedex being small, a lot of regionals might have too much of a negative impact on the generation's longevity. Waiting for weeks or months until you can find someone to trade a regional from isn't exactly engaging gameplay.
An idea I had for Sketch would be to have a fast and charge version of it. Send Smeargle out against a defender/raid boss and have the charge circle already active. Tap outside the charge circle and it copies the opponent's fast move permanently. Tap the charge circle and it copies the charge move permanently. Don't like your options? TMs default it back to Sketch so you can try again.
Of course, given its stats I don't see anyone attempting any serious use out of one.
