A population’s quality of life is the measurement of their access to certain necessary accommodations and can include everything from access to fresh water to how long the people are living on average. There are often conversations on how to improve different societies’ quality of life, but it seems as if the world of Pokémon has mastered certain aspects of it.
There are many aspects of the Pokémon world that are likely helped by the existence and assistance of the magical creatures. According to user TheJesterofHyrule on Reddit, this includes the fact that Poké Balls have somehow managed to have no inflation for over 25 years, costing 200 PokéDollars since the first game.
That’s roughly $2, with PokéDollars being based on Japanese yen. Adjusted for inflation in the U.S., the Poké Ball would cost $3.80. This makes the Poké Ball the Arizona Iced Tea of the Pokémon universe.
That’s not all, though. Each game has also featured free healthcare for the Pokémon that the player catches, with a quick visit to the Pokémon Center healing them in an instant. One has to expect that this is similar for humans, especially when there are Pokémon with healing abilities that can take care of everything from scrapes and bruises to illnesses like the flu.
On the other hand, there is basically no travel infrastructure across any of the Pokémon games. In fact, this often leads the player to be unable to get to another large city until they can find the right Pokémon or learn an ability from some random person.
This seems to be resolved in Paldea somewhat, with the country having some sort of flying taxi service, but it only runs to places you’ve already been. This system leads to long treks through the world filled with Pokémon that could attack you at any instant every time you want to visit somewhere new. In this case, having a Pokémon is more of a necessity than having a pet.
There are likely other downsides to living in the Pokémon universe as well, like that the past Pokémon government seems to have no problem with 10-year-olds gambling openly. There are also questions to raise about letting kids seemingly younger than that roam the fields in each region, equipped with obedient monsters with the power to, at minimum, cause property or environmental damage.
We also can’t forget that each region basically has at least one terrorist organization dead set on causing some kind of cataclysmic event. There’s no way to maintain your stress level in a world where three guys with a single Rattata are trying to cause an apocalyptic flood that will decimate the population.
The police or other peacekeeping force in any of these regions is minimal, at best. Each region seems to have one police officer, all named Officer Jenny. She clearly has her hands full, with an entire criminal organization often doing very little to hide its illegal activities and being thwarted by a 10-year-old who left home for the first time about a week ago.
While the Pokémon world has a lot of positives, they largely seem to be dependent on the magical creatures of the world. While humans relied less on the Pokémon in the days of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, they’ve come to work together with them in the latest titles.
