Pokemon players notice bizarre detail about old town maps

The buildings in the Pokemon game series once shared a bizarre aesthetic similarity that players are trying to explain, coming up with ludicrous fan theories to break down why cities looked so strange.

For the longest time, the Pokemon series had to make concessions in terms of graphics. This is due to the franchise being stuck on fairly standard handheld consoles until the Nintendo Switch generation, though even the Gen 8 and 9 games aren’t exactly visual powerhouses.

When it comes to the overworld, the Pokemon regions have always looked basic. In the old days, this worked to the series’ advantage, as the basic visuals of the Kanto region let players’ imaginations run wild, picturing the land as it looked in the Pokemon anime.

Due to the static viewpoint of the games, most buildings in the Pokemon world faced the same way. This was so the player could easily see the entrances from their fixed view. Fans on the Pokemon Reddit have shared theories as to why buildings looked this way.

“All regions believed in a feng shui similar belief that made the buildings face south idk,” one user wrote, while another said, “The Pokemon world has a religion where all doors must open towards the holy site.”

“Some weird international zoning law that their government is too locked up to fix due to consisting solely of Pokemon trainers whose only goal is to “raise the strongest Pokemon,” one user said, while another joked, “Keep all the ghost pokemon out obviously.”

A user tied the design choice to a popular Pokemon fan theory, musing, “A country that Red/Blue hinted having a war against is positioned north of the country and out of a defensive posture all building entrances face south to increase the difficulty of clearing it if invaded.”

Of course, Pokemon wasn’t the only series with this design quirk. Many old entries in the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series had south-facing buildings throughout the land. It was common for towns in old RPGs to use this layout so as not to confuse the player.

Nowadays, Pokemon games use 3D cities, so the buildings can face whatever direction they want. That said, maybe it’s time to bring back the south-facing cities, considering how bad the towns looked in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.