The Future of Lost Continent

[Mike S]

I'm fine with the gamified elements to the extent that they are used in Super Nintendo World, but it shouldn't go any further than that. Asking people to transmit their Pokémon from within the games themselves is an unreasonable barrier to entry that most people will not be willing to go through the trouble to do. Not to mentioned, there would need to be complex technical work to make that possible, and it would need to be indefinitely updated as new games and Pokémon are released.

I'm sure there will be some app integration with catching Pokémon and filling out a Pokédex, but it will be a smaller curated selection of Pokémon that makes sense to be used within the land.

I’m not saying it would be forced. You could catch Pokémon or link an account to the Universal app so it would just know which 6 are in your main party. It’s very likely to not be as difficult as you’re thinking it would be.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I’m not saying it would be forced. You could catch Pokémon or link an account to the Universal app so it would just know which 6 are in your main party. It’s very likely to not be as difficult as you’re thinking it would be.

How do you visualize Pokémon battles happening? Will guests stop and stand in certain places? Dedicated arena areas?

 

[fryoj]

How do you visualize Pokémon battles happening? Will guests stop and stand in certain places? Dedicated arena areas?

They really can't have it so you roam the land looking for them. That leads to too much of a chance for guest running into each other. Same goes for having you bring your own game system. They aren't going to want you walking around playing the game. I could see there be some app interactivity, but, if so, that'll be dedicated locations like the wands or the Nintendo games. I could definitely see there being things in the land to redeem for things in game. And vice versa, things in game that entice you to go to the park. But just running around with your game system catching them probably is a bad idea.

 

[Mike S]

How do you visualize Pokémon battles happening? Will guests stop and stand in certain places? Dedicated arena areas?

Indoors in a Pokémon Stadium attraction for battles between people and wild battles in set spots like wands and the other Nintendo games.

They really can't have it so you roam the land looking for them. That leads to too much of a chance for guest running into each other. Same goes for having you bring your own game system. They aren't going to want you walking around playing the game. I could see there be some app interactivity, but, if so, that'll be dedicated locations like the wands or the Nintendo games. I could definitely see there being things in the land to redeem for things in game. And vice versa, things in game that entice you to go to the park. But just running around with your game system catching them probably is a bad idea.

Yes.

 

[moth]

I'm just going to spitball:
The lore of the land will be an original region where Meltan/Melmetal originate from.

They've been pretty dicey on saying where exactly it comes from, but they debuted in Pokémon GO so it seems like they're from the "real" world. I think they'll be apart of the lore of the land and interactive elements thru GO.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Indoors in a Pokémon Stadium attraction for battles between people and wild battles in set spots like wands and the other Nintendo games.

Yes.

Id question whether a Pokémon Stadium for guest battles would be an efficient use of attraction space.

I’ll also point out that Pokémon battles have losers, something theme park gamification has tried to avoid for obvious reasons.

 

[mccgavin]

Id question whether a Pokémon Stadium for guest battles would be an efficient use of attraction space.

I’ll also point out that Pokémon battles have losers, something theme park gamification has tried to avoid for obvious reasons.

Based on how Pokémon has been used when licensed in other mediums, I wouldn't be surprised if battles are de-emphasized within the land and attractions.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Based on how Pokémon has been used when licensed in other mediums, I wouldn't be surprised if battles are de-emphasized within the land and attractions.

This is an excellent point in light of a lot of the Pokémon media made to appeal to a wide audience.

 

[moth]

A Pokémon land light on battles is like a Star Wars land without Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

 

[Skold]

The Mystic Fountain in The Lost Continent at Islands of Adventure has closed as additional construction walls continue to expand throughout the area.

Mystic Fountain closes; More Construction Walls added to the Lost Continent at Islands of Adventure

The Mystic Fountain in The Lost Continent at Islands of Adventure has closed as additional construction walls continue to expand throughout the area. The Mystic Fountain was one of the land’s most recognizable features, known for interacting and joking with guests. Its closure mar

www.insideuniversal.net

This one hurts. I only watch it once every two trips or so, and even then, not for long. But i loved it. Probably only two real interactions in the last 10 years.

Dammit.

 

[Mike S]

Id question whether a Pokémon Stadium for guest battles would be an efficient use of attraction space.

I’ll also point out that Pokémon battles have losers, something theme park gamification has tried to avoid for obvious reasons.

My idea was to make a show out of it as well with daily tournaments and a final champion at the end of every day. If it’s possible, the Pokémon would be seen battling in the arena behind “safety glass” that in actuality is a giant AR screen. The guests and trainer participants would have their own views of the action. Maybe the seats also move when moves like Earthquake are used.

On the topic of losers, you can lose in Mario Kart. It happened on my last ride when I decided to just take in the scenery rather than play along. It was also an easy way to get the achievement for not hitting anyone on Team Mario. Not to mention all of the interactive games have fail states as well. You can also lose on Men in Black showing Universal itself doesn’t care much about it either.

Edit: a second attraction would be a chill Pokémon Safari where nothing goes wrong. Filled to the brim with animatronics but screens are also used to extend scenes and show even more Pokémon that could be randomized between rides as well so you could potentially always see something new.

 

[mccgavin]

A Pokémon land light on battles is like a Star Wars land without Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

Perhaps if it was Pokémon as it existed within the 90's, but I argue that it isn't the case as things stand now. Pokémon content and marketing has shifted significantly over the last 30 years, and it has found a lot of success leaning into the more "cute" aspects of the brand. Pokéopia being the franchise's big hit this year is a pretty big signal of this. I'm not saying we wont see Pokémon doing attacks at all, but I wouldn't expect something in the vein of a Pokémon Stadium/Gym. The games do a fairly good job at de-emphasizing any potential comparisons to real-world animal fighting through cartoon-like animations and emphasis, but that might be harder to do in a physical space.

I expect that whatever they build will have a similar cute vibe/tone to Pokémon Kanto (although, obviously FAR more elaborate in design and experiences)

 

[MAC]

While I think a Pokémon Stadium-esque experience would be surreal and lean into the initial vibe of Pokémon, I doubt they would do that for the land. I think it’s more likely to be more along the lines of going after Team Rocket (or whatever the new baddies name is). I don’t believe they have tried a Pokémon Stadium type experience in Japan, which I would expect to see before they tried something at a theme park level.

The wait times would be miserable I’d imagine.

 

[quinnmac000]

I'm actually against guest-versus-guest Pokémon competitions in the park unless they put a lot of guardrails in place. When it comes to video games, many people don’t take losing well, and in a theme park environment, it’s not safe, especially for a family-friendly IP.

I think the Pokémon-catching aspect isn’t that hard. You could use land animatronics with RFID sensors, similar to the wands in the form of Pokéballs. That’s how you could catch the common Pokémon, the popular non-rare ones. You could also create an indoor walking attraction utilizing screens and animatronics, like a safari zone or Poké Park. Once a Pokémon is caught, it wouldn’t appear for a set amount of time, creating a challenge for visitors and encouraging repeat visits.

With screens, you could include many more Pokémon. Since there are over 1,025 Pokémon, fans would be upset if their favorites weren’t represented. For example, if you want to catch Mew, you could, but Mew would only show up twice a day. You could also include shiny versions.

You could sell multiple types of Pokéballs to give visitors a challenge, with each type offering a specific chance of catching a Pokémon, just like in the games. The Pokéball could light up and shake if the Pokémon is successfully caught, and it would then show up in the app. The Pokéball could also act as an amiibo and connect to Pokémon Home, though it wouldn’t work the other way around.

For battles, staff could act as trainers, Elite Four, Gym Leaders, and so on. Visitors would need to train their Pokémon first, so you could have a Pokémon Training Camp, an all-age play area where guests scan their Pokéballs to train Pokémon in strength, agility, and other skills. This area would have activities for all ages.

After training, guests could go to a kiosk to register a six-Pokémon team and battle a staff member. Battles could scale based on the player’s skill. Holographic Pokémon would work better than AR for these battles, and the kiosks could also allow Pokémon trading.

As for rides, I’m still against Pokémon Snap—it’s basically another shooter ride, and for a video game IP, we need something fresh. We need something thrilling but family-friendly, like Spider-Man, to appeal to the masses. You could also have a Gym Show, a huge animatronic spectacle on the level of Waterworld, where Pokémon come to life.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

I'm fine with the gamified elements to the extent that they are used in Super Nintendo World, but it shouldn't go any further than that. Asking people to transmit their Pokémon from within the games themselves is an unreasonable barrier to entry that most people will not be willing to go through the trouble to do. Not to mentioned, there would need to be complex technical work to make that possible, and it would need to be indefinitely updated as new games and Pokémon are released.

I'm sure there will be some app integration with catching Pokémon and filling out a Pokédex, but it will be a smaller curated selection of Pokémon that makes sense to be used within the land.

I think the solution is to link the Pokemon Home, a syching service for Pokemon in games. Link your UO Profile in the app to Pokemon Home. Also it's how you choose and monitor your six Pokemon. Think like how SNW is used in the app.

When I thought of battling I thought of mini-Musion based arenas where folks can randomly battle their Pokemon by sycning their app or device to the game system. Then from here they would use voice recognition or something to control the Pokemon. The whole thing could scale down to a table top for bug pokemon to huge stadiums for those huge Pokemon battles. I don't believe the main attraction should focus on battling but battling should be represented in the land somehow.

 

[Legacy]

The only way they can really do guest battles at scale is basically Raid Battles. And the scale is an important factor. If a battle takes three minutes + one minute reset (a longer reset due to interactivity), each head-to-head battle station is only seeing 40-guests an hour. That would need 50 stations to see 1,000 guests an hour. And half of those guests lose, and you have to police the inevitable trash talk between guests.

Instead of a stadium or tournament (which is incredibly limiting), I imagine a “battle” attraction would be a “Team Rocket Raid Battle,” and would structurally mimic the Bowser Jr Shadow Showdown. Eight guests at a time battle a randomized collection of three Team Rocket pokemon.

I’d also expect them to limit the pokemon you can fight with to the ones you can catch in the park. The reason would, again, be scale. In the game, a single pokemon can learn a combination of four moves from nearly 20-50 possible moves. Some of those moves act differently depending on generation. At a baseline, that allows one pokemon to have over 160,000 possible configurations. To do that for ALL pokemon, requires Universal to program for (or animate) over a million permutations.

Conversely, if they start with 150 catchable pokemon in the land, each with 4 predefined moves, they can create 600 more developed animations for the Raid Battles, then slowly build out additional pokemon seasonally.

This is still a theme park that has to engage thousands an hour in a very limited space. I don’t think a largely passive stadium is going to make the cut.

And I also want to point out the only Universal park without an interactive shooter is IoA. I have expect THAT is a key reason Islands is getting Pokemon.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I'll be honest - I don't need any interactive "game" stuff in this land. It's fun in Nintendo, but I don't have a lot of desire to redo any of it - including the Bowser Jr Showdown.

What this land needs is POKEMON. I know that sounds simple, but I mean: animatronics and puppets. If any land exists that should not rely on screen technology, it needs to be this one.

I want to see animatronics similar to Berk, scattered around the land as well as the ride. I also would love to see meet and greets similar to Toothless/Raptor Encounter/the babies in Jurassic Park.

 

[Jake S]

Yeah, the template for a Pokémon land is Berk. What “worries” me is that the entire brand is basically about merchandise. And while I understand why that makes the
land very attractive to corporate, I remain a little cautious about how good a theme park land this will end up being. Time will tell!

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Yeah, the template for a Pokémon land is Berk. What “worries” me is that the entire brand is basically about merchandise. And while I understand why that makes the
land very attractive to corporate, I remain a little cautious about how good a theme park land this will end up being. Time will tell!

Pokemon feels like something that would be a theme park designer's dream - but also something that could be ruined very quickly by corporate lol

 

[Jake S]

Pokemon feels like something that would be a theme park designer's dream - but also something that could be ruined very quickly by corporate lol

Very well said, haha.