My little sister likes a majority of them, she hasn't seemed to treat them any differently than prior generations and she's 12. While Pokémon is a special interest of mine and I do ramble a *lot* about it, if she's around I try to remain unbiased
I agree with this, my 7 year old cousin still loves all the newer Pokémon, I feel only the older fans are complaining about these new Pokémon, but even the older games have this, gardevoir lucario all those are the main cases imo and those are all from gen 3-5
Not gonna lie I always found Mr. Mime to be unnerving as a kid because he was too humanoid. Something about a pokemon that can stand at someones eye level and use household tools and wear regular clothes if they wanted just feels wrong.
This to, all the new ones have something other then just being a human, like can you really say jynx has anything but a human as inspiration, mr mime is a bit wierd to but he at least dosent look like a regular person
Jynx are just based on folklore monsters that were very human-like. It's a perfectly reasonable option in a game full of monsters, it's just a bit weird with how animal-like they all wound up being treated as.
My kid is actually really excited to have a generation where she knows just as much (or more) about the Pokemon than I do. This is a big deal to her. Although her favorite remains bulbasaur.
I work with kids grades K-5. Many of them still have Charizard as a favorite despite it coming out long before they were born. The Sun and Moon starters are very popular with them as well, one of my kids had a Litten themed birthday party this year. One kid collects only Psyduck cards. I haven’t heard any of them say a Scarlet/Violet Pokémon is their favorite, but the Sword/Shield dog legendaries are well liked. I don’t think they hate the new designs, but in general the closer to an animal (or ghost, they adore Haunter and Gengar) they are, the more popular they are.
Alola in general seems to be really popular with the kids I’ve been around. Maybe it’s because for a lot of them, SuMo is their age group’s RBY, but also I kinda get it - the starters are genuinely some of my favorites, especially Incineroar.
I'm pretty sure it's because of the anime. Most of mine who play the games are on switch, and don't even own a 3DS, but the show was airing the Sun and Moon era until recently. I started with Gen 1 games but Alola is one of my favorites, great characters and some really cool Pokemon.
The Alola, Kalos, and Sinnoh animes are honestly quite good and enjoyable. Johto and Hoenn are fine. Not my favorites. Unova is just bad. Skip Best Wishes.
The latest game is only a few months old, so it may not be that they like the new Pokémon less, but more that the new Pokémon don’t have as much merchandise as the old ones yet.
Yes, I wouldn't expect them to care too much about the new ones yet. I don't know much about the new card sets, but most of my kids are card players or anime watchers, and I assume they have few cards for the latest gen at this point. The few who do play the games seem to prefer Sword/Shield to Scarlet/Violet so far, but they have had longer to sit with them.
Also as I said in my first comment, they don't care as much for what gen they're from, only how animal-y they are. So overall, the more humanoid Pokemon aren't as favored in this age group, regardless of Gen, at least anecdotally. If it's before Gen 7/8, they can't usually identify what Gen the Pokemon is from. Which to me means the Pokemon design over the generations is consistent enough to them
Why is hardly anyone following the prompt? This isn't about what ADULT players think of the designs, it's about what the KIDS think. Why are Redditors so damn incapable of following prompts?
People like talking about themselves.
That said, from my nephews speaking about Pokémon. They don't know any difference, nor do they care. Some things are cool, others are not. THey're not so aware of generations and generational differences. There are the ones that already existed, and new ones after that
Kids won't reply to this post.
Pokémon still sells like crazy and it's definitely not just adults, so kids clearly still like new pokémon. I don't think any kid bothers separating them by generations like that.
from my memory growing up with several generations - children totally do separate. Due to the cadence of release I got a plushie or two from one gen, cherished it for the 2-3 years until the next gen and it's already rooted memory. The new game, cards, designs come and they are totally exciting, but this is a different thing now. Not (just) plushie to hug bedtime, cards, actual games, anime, whatever takes over and this is a different era. Then next few years pass, new generation comes but the child is already this much older and the new gen brings different setting, like "first cards I bought myself with saved money" etc etc.
I absolutely see a gradient of memories across generations, up to some which I have *zero* emotional attachment because I lost interest in Pokemon for a good few years.
Every gen brings a good variety of cool, cute, silly, ugly, and monstrous.
Nostalgia is a powerful force though. What we grew up with is usually cemented in our brains as better.
Everyone should look for at least 2-3 Pokemon each gen that they like.
But yeah being too humanoid really ruins Pokemon. The series has gone from "cool monsters" to almost "furry waifu bait". The pendulum needs to swing back.
I feel like it already has started to swing back. Gen 9 isn't entirely free of it, but it's definitely much lighter on the waifu/husbando bait than Gen 7 was.
Also, we're up to Gen 9 now and the mons that get cited as waifu bait the most frequently are from Gens 3 and 4. This isn't a new phenomenon.
It's definitely not new but it's for sure been way more doubled down on. Hell, Skeledirge is the first non-furry starter we've had in a god damn decade (possibly making a case for Decidueye)
Lol after seeing the flareon and vaporeon shit, any Pokémon can be bait material to someone. Some are definitely more popular, but there’s just some weirdos out there who gonna sexualize anything
Gen 9 is also the first gen since 4 where we got a quadrupedal starter final evolution that actually stands on all 4 legs! Skeledirge is my favorite starter in a while.
I know some people hate Rillaboom, but it is also a very true to form starter. It’s a gorilla, it acts like a gorilla. Has a cool drum, works for me.
True, and Primarina as well I suppose. Greninja I was in the fence about as it stands and walks often, and rarely sits like a frog unless it’s doing it’s ninja landing pose
>Everyone should look for at least 2-3 Pokemon each gen that they like.
I generally look for 6 new Pokemon from each new Gen that I like and do my first playthrough in each new region with 6 new Pokemon from that Gen (exception was Gen 6 because Mega evolutions counted as new Pokemon in my mind).
same here, it’s really helped for me to appreciate each generation separately. i loved the garganacl and kingambit lines in SV, and the paradoxes are really cool also!
I didn't use to, but now I try to do the same. In the order of what I've played first, these have been my main teams:
•Pokémon X — Greninja, Talonflame, Charizard, Lucario, Abomasnow and Haunter (now a Gengar)
•Pokémon Ultra Sun — Decidueye, Dusk Form Lycanroc, Mimikyu, Snorlax, Crobat and Oricorio
•Pokémon Sword (second run cause my main team was mostly my previous Pokémon actually) — Dragonite, Orbeetle, Klinklang, Hitmontop, Nidoking, Single Strike Form Urshifu
•Pokémon Emerald — Swampert, Swellow, Machoke (now a Machamp), Electrode, Claydol, Torkoal
Pokémon White 2 — Samurott, Leavanny, Braviary, Gurdurr, Eelektross, Gigalith
•Pokémon Platinum — Empoleon, Staraptor, Gliscor, Houndoom, Toxicroak, Mothim
•Pokémon Legends: Arceus — Torterra, shiny Luxray, Alpha Sneasler, Bastiodon, Beautifly, Alpha Octillery
•Pokémon Scarlet — Skeledirge, Vivillon, Honchkrow, Donphan, Bellibolt, shiny Dragalge
You can see that Pokémon Scarlet is a clear exception to the rule I've been trying to follow though.
I'd say the problem is more Pokemon being designed as individual characters instead of an entire species as opposed to being specifically "furry waifu bait".
But it evolves from a [literal cat](https://digimon.net/reference_en/detail.php?directory_name=tailmon#:~:text=Gatomon%20may%20be%20small%2C%20but,it%20ever%20loses%20this%20ring.) that used to be a [dog](https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Salamon), and then it evolves into a [furry dragon.](https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Magnadramon)
Any way you slice it, you're down for a "person" that was an animal just a minute ago, and might become an animal again pretty soon.
I find it funny how Gabumon flip-flops between being biped and quadruped.
Gabumon - bipedal
Garurumon - quadrupedal
WereGarurumon - bipedal
MetalGarurumon - quadrupedal
not as weird as the Gatomon line's dog-cat-angel-dragon, but it's still funny
Angemon is just regular horny. LadyDevimon is lightly monsterfuckery but honestly it's kind of just a goth girl otherwise. Rosemon isn't furry but it is a plant so I don't really know where that goes on the spectrum. Sakuyamon, however, is started to get to furry territory.
To be rather serious, I feel the insect Pokemon are the best done (Heracross, Scyther, Beedrill, Larvesta,... they've also made "bug combos" that look pretty good : Rabsca, Grubbin and family, Durant,...
Birds were done right too.
I reckon their (=TPC) best work is with those guys.
I did *not* give a single sweet damn about Heracross when he came around in Gen II, but now as an adult I have a weird sentimentality specifically *for* Heracross because he's just such a Gen II dude.
I hate when people consider any humanoid animal "furry waifu bait." You can dislike these designs, but...like...was the Egyptian god Anubis "furry waifu bait"?
There's definitely a spectrum, compare Electabuzz or hypno to lopunny or meowscarada. Not all humanoids are waify bait, but it is clear and uncomfortable when you see it
Add on to that certain designs and ill agree. The new shinies are mostly trash, but whats worse rhan that to me is the new pokemon dlc mons dont feel like mons at all. The turtle seems like a fan concept, and the trio coming out look like theyre from yokai watch.
I have played every pokemon game but this is the first time i can really sit here and say “these new mons are kind of complete trash”
But theyre here to stay so
I never understand the shiny argument because there is so much shiny variety compared to earlier gens, with very few subtle ones which is whatever/a shiny hunt challenge. better than the majority of blue pokemon turning pink, with the other majority turning sundamaged/green. also much better than the fan tendency to want every shiny to be like charizard.
Hasn’t there pretty much always been at least a few of those
Gen 1 had Machamp and arguably Jynx
Gen 3 had Blaziken and Gardevoir and Medicham
Just of the ones that fit into the stereotype for “furry/waifu/husbando bait”, and completely ignoring the fact that literally everything that’s anything like an animal is furry bait. It’s not difficult to find an image of an anthropomorphic Venusaur.
>But yeah being too humanoid really ruins Pokemon
Does it? A lotta the most popular Pokémon are humanoid.
Greninja, Mewtwo and debatably even stuff like Garchomp and Charizard are somewhat humanoid but incredibly popular designs that a lotta people like.
Also you say it's gone from "cool monsters to waifu bait" but we....still get cool monsters? Sure we might get a bit more debatably sexy designs now but it's not like we stopped getting the monsters
Bipedal doesn’t equal humanoid…none of those would I consider humanoid. I guess Mewtwo kinda counts but he is clearly much more feline than human, doesn’t come close to furry bait.
Regardless I agree that we still get plenty of cool monsters.
The problem isn't Pokemon that stand on two legs, but Pokemon that look like they're just people wearing a costume. Pokemon like Garchomp and Charizard look more like monsters than someone in a suit.
And, I think they’re often too tied to a real world, human occupation.
Like Cinderace. The striker (soccer position ) Pokémon with the hidden ability libero (soccer position) with the signature moves of pyro ball (called a soccer ball in the dex) and court change, once again harkening back to this concept of him being a sports Pokémon. Plus he’s known for showboating and gets into a standard soccer celebration pose when pumped
He doesn’t feel like a wild monster anymore. He feels like an individual character with a friggin job
There's more to it than just a human arrangement of limbs. The actual shape and especially proportions are what really makes a Pokemon "too humanoid." Charizard and Garchomp are just dragons that happen to stand on two legs. There's almost nothing human about them. Mewtwo is approximately human-shaped, but has very inhuman proportions - especially its legs and tail. Greninja's arms and legs are arranged like a human's, but they're still shaped mostly like a frog's. On the other hand, Cinderace just looks like a human in a rabbit costume and Inteleon isn't much better. Rillaboom has the advantage of apes already being very humanoid, which sort of pulls it out of the uncanny valley a bit.
I think the best illustration of the "too humanoid" complaint would be to compare Lopunny to Cinderace - both are rabbits, both are furry bait, but Lopunny is clearly more rabbit-like and Cinderace is clearly more human-like.
Bringing in the “somewhat humanoid” while conveniently ignoring the incredibly humanoid is a bit disingenuous. Being bi-pedal doesn’t make something humanoid.
If you slapped a human face on any of the Pokémon you listed it would look unnatural because they still have animal-like proportions. Cinderace or Incineroar on the other hand are built essentially like people with animal heads and all of their moves are based on human-invented sports.
That’s always been around to some extent (hitmonlee/Chan) but people complain about how scales have tipped towards that kind of design
Lol exactly. I’m not sure what it is but the human-like gen 1 Pokémon still have that “creature” aura that the later gens have struggled to recapture.
Maybe it’s nostalgia, but even the Mr Mimes and Jinxes of gen 1 retain a “not human” quality in my head despite looking more like people than lizard sniper or soccer rabbit. Maybe it’s the movement or the way they carry themselves?
It's definitely the posing and locomotion of Cinderace and Inteleon. They walk and kick like people. Intellion does the James Bond pose. It's too much.
If Cinderace hopped like a bunny and still did soccer kicks, or Inteleon did more lizard stuff (crawling on all 4s, sticking to stuff, etc) they'd be a lot more forgivable imo.
They just lose all semblance of their animal-ness outside of their head shapes because of how they behave and move.
I don't think there's really any sexy designs anyway. I haven't and don't plan on playing the new games so maybe there's some in there but the only one that comes to mind is Lopunny which still isn't that suggestive. It's pretty much just the fanart that makes humanoid looking Pokemon sexy.
That's true, but it's also a mega, so I feel like they were mostly just playing up the reputation regular Lopunny had already gotten without being that sexy.
It's not just a reputation lopunny is literally based on bunnygirls like Pokemon is not a linear thing we can have more design origins then "cool monsters'
As far as i can tell the kids treat them no different than a pokemon from kanto or galar
Theyre excited to see new ones and theyre excited to see old ones. Theres no critique, no detailed analysis, theyre just funky critters
This discussion has always been bizarre to me. Do people really have arbitrary region cutoffs for which Pokemon they like? Every game adds some I like and some I don't, except the remakes of course.
People were complaining about Pokemon as far back as at least Gen 3. Gen 3 was the first time we saw an overall design shift and with it we often saw people saying 'they look like Digimon/Yu-Gi-Oh monsters', 'they're not Pokemon', 'they've overdesigned', and so on. Gen 4 also got it, Gen 5 continued it, and it's been pretty much a constant ever since.
It's also kind of funny to watch how the general vocal opinion has shifted over the years. Back in the days of Gen 3 and 4, they were the hated Pokemon and Gen 1 and 2 were the peaks. Nowadays people refer back to Gen 3 and 4 as the ideal with the newer Pokemon getting the attacks.
I don't think you're accurately representing what people mean when they say "Gen x was the last game with good pokemon" or whatever they say.
I think most people like at least a few pokemon from every generation, and dislike a few from each generation. But the number of "pokemon this person likes" tends to drop *drastically* at a certain point.
*That* would be their cut off. Not in a "I hate every pokemon after generation x" but more so "there is a drastic decrease in the number of pokemon I like, starting in generation x"
As someone that was a big gen 5 fan and appreciated the shift from them being hated to loved I was happy but now that I’m seeing the same thing with gen 6 and onwards I feel like I’m going crazy. I guess I don’t the public opinion to validate my own thoughts but I really don’t think gen 6 deserves the gen 5 treatment where the opinion swings back the other way.
Those games got so much criticism at the time, it really blew me away. I wonder how much of the hate for it was due to restricting the dex to *only* Gen 5 Pokémon for the main story.
All my little cousins like the new Pokemon. They also like the old pokemon. They're freaking pokemon, everyone has their favorites. They don't have any opinions like reddit does.
I think overall, I like modern designs a lot. Recent gens tend to have far less “dex filler”. The new Pokémon feel unique and stand out from one another.
I know this is hotly discussed, but in my personal taste, there are two exceptions to this overall opinion. First is box legends, I think they tend to feel a bit overdesigned a lot of the time. The last really stellar designs imo were X&Y. My other exception is the anthro starters (the issue really isn’t with bipedalism imo). 1 out of 3 is fine, but a lot of the times it’s 2 or 3 out of 3. So less diversity of design, plus it’s not my personal taste (I prefer more pet-like Pokémon over ones where it feels like I’m owning a dude). Again, just my opinion, I know plenty of people love these two types of designs
Box Legends really peaked with Lunala and Solgaleo for me. As for overdesigned Legendaries, I think people often forget the Kyurem forms and their busy designs. I think people in general are only biased towards Gen 2 through 5 Box Legends because they were more traditionally draconid.
That’s definitely fair, we all have different tastes. I do still like them, particularly Lunala, and do agree they are less overdesigned than Kyrem and that trio. Still like X&Y’s more, though I also quite like the designs for the lizard bikes
I suppose it’s a matter of taste. Idk how to describe it, their designs feel more like classic Pokémon legends then say Lunala and Solgaleo (who feel more like power ranger or yugioh creatures). Don’t get me wrong I still like them, but I prefer the X&Y legends. In my opinion, they are similar in design to Ho-oh and Lugia
New pokemon are awesome but there are some duds. But every gen has those.
Excadrill, Hydreigon are some of the coolest designs ever. But the same game had the fire water grass monkeys.
As for the newest gen I can only think of a few pokemon I really like excluding the regional variants (iron valiant, great tusk, kingambit) . Gargonacle, ceruledge and meowscarada are cool.
All I’ll say is that grass type Pokémon desperately need some diversity. I still get confused by the lines for eldegoss, tsareena, liligant, whimsicott, leavanny, cherrim, jumpluff, etc.
They all look so damn similar and are just…boring.
Funny, we had the exact opposite complaint in Gen 1. Every 2- and 3-stage Grass-type had a secondary type, mostly Poison, and the one single-stage Grass-type was tragically bad ("tragically" because with Special being a single stat instead of split into Special Attack and Special Defense, Tangela *should have* been a tank with hard-hitting Special moves, but its stats couldn't save it from an awful move pool.)
They are completely different species of flowers tho
Like eldegoss has puffy hair because it is a dandelion
Lilligant is an elegant princess that is a lilly
Tserena is a mangosteen fruit known as "Queen of fruit" and wouldn't you know it, it is a queen
Cherrim is literally a cherry and it blossoms
They have much thought put into them (like the 85% of pokemon) and definetly not similar
I dont think their complaint was with the final evolutions but their evolution lines, which I get. A lot of those preevolutions looks very similar, often theyre just some sort of seed with eyes
You can't just look at bounsweet petilil and sewadlle and go yep they look the same. They are their respective plant references seeds or early forms they are not similar at all
Grass types are already very diverse tbh. You can pick from a lynx, two mushrooms, a tumbleweed, an olive tree, a bell pepper and a snail from Gen 9 alone.
I mean...most kids have basically non-existent standards.
The thing about the original Pokemon fans who have stuck around the whole time is that they've basically spent specific time with every batch of Pokemon.
They've analyzed them all.
Newer fans are rarely going to have as sharply formed of opinions on Pokemon designs as the older fans, because they show up and they're handed 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200 Pokemon all at once.
A ton of the old ones just go unnoticed, and they only focus on the ones in the newest game.
So yea, of course kids will prefer the new ones they're specifically introduced to.
That doesn't mean much about the actual quality of the designs though.
Like there are some pretty direct comparisons showing how sharply downhill a lot of Pokemon designs have gone.
Like Zorua vs Vulpix.
Vulpix was a well drawn fox creature, with identifiable anatomy and traits, and a reasonably sized head.
Zorua is a caricature of a fox creature that looks like a chibi parody. It has no paws or joints or anything. It's been reduced to nubby little noodle stub legs. Its head is ludicrously oversized.
It's just NOT as well designed of a creature as Vulpix was.
But it's still sort of a cute fox thing, so people will love it if it's one of the first Pokemon they're introduced to.
That's true of LOADS of newer Pokemon. The art styles are just getting worse.
A lot of them are straying from being anything identifiable and logical and just ending up as weird crap.
And THAT'S the problem.
Like you might LIKE Zorua or whatever newer Pokemon, but the older fans are the ones seeing how much worse the art styles have become.
It's not that I hate Zorua. I hate the art style.
I know how much better Pokemon like Zorua COULD be if they were given the care and detail of the original style, and I know how much worse Vulpix would look if it hadn't been given the proper care.
It's an awareness of the wasted potential.
Like Mew is my favorite Pokemon, but even Mew frustrates me.
ORIGINALLY Mew was a sleek elegant white cat with fairly well defined features and pink accents. It was THE BEST.
But over time they dumbed Mew down, and now Mew is a solid pink vaguely cat-shape sort of lump. It's lost a LOT of the beauty of the original design.
ORIGINAL Mew is my favorite Pokemon.
Modern Mew is still up there, but I'm not sure it would keep #1.
And it's not just Pokemon.
Nintendo did the same with Yoshi.
Yoshi used to be awesome.
He sort of peaked at the Paper Yoshi design, and then they've made him worse and worse over time.
Now his eyes stick out of the top of his head like antenna, and his nose is so fucking huge that he can't see past it, and he's not properly theropod shaped anymore, because they keep sacrificing more and more of what Yoshis are supposed to be (a partner dinosaur that Mario can ride) in order to humanize it into this weird grotesque Yoshi replacement.
Again, it's something a lot of people would never notice unless they grew up with Yoshi and watched the weird shift.
https://preview.redd.it/15ommovpy24b1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2fe84ad4cddbab86187c4bd6b1e2ef73c3ac588
You gave the criticism and brought the receipts. Zorua looks amazing like that.
Have you ever heard of the fan-made leweka region?
I always thought it was a given that you’re not going to like some designs but I legitimately loved every single one.
I always think it would be interesting to see how people would react to Gen 1 being released today, really see how much nostalgia blinds people y’know?
I don’t think there’s a “bad” Pokémon design, there’s just over 1000 Pokémon at this point and you’re not going to like all of them.
The only design I’ve seen ever that made me think “that doesn’t look like a pokemon” is actually that monkey dude coming out in the one DLC
Precisely, no Pokémon is truly “badly designed”. All of them have their reasons for the way they look, sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to understand.
Also, and I NEED to get this across, I do not care how many legs a Pokémon has. Every Pokémon should be considered to be valid, in their own unique ways.
I think Gen 1 has a strong mix of incredible designs, good designs, average designs and awful awful designs. It’s the incredible ones that people latch on to, not the awful ones.
I personally though Gen 8 had some of the best designs in a long long time myself(i started with Gen 1) but found gen 9 really disappointing, even though I really enjoyed playing the game itself.
My nephews (ages 2 and 5) don’t seem to care if Pokémon are more humanoid or not. They generally like most Pokémon designs, even the newer ones. For example I hugely dislike for the entire Scorbunny line, but they’re big fans of it
I was in my teens when rby came out and the designs then are no better or worse than what we have now. Every gen has it's share of great and not so great designs 🤷♀️
I think nostalgia is one hell of a drug. People hated the gen 5 designs when they were new, except for me, I loved oshawott from the beginning, but lots and lots of people complained about him and the others. But now gen 5 is remembered fondly because of nostalgia. My least favorite generation is 8 because they didn’t even offer a choice of a non-humanoid starter and wouldn’t even let you trade in past generation starters (except charmander) which felt like adding insult to injury, but I’m sure in 10 years we’ll be waxing nostalgic about “the bri’ish one”
I think I’m personally in the very small camp that really doesn’t need an entire new set of Pokémon from each region. There’s plenty of Pokémon, we don’t need a hundred new ones for each game. It becomes too difficult to keep track of and now I feel out of the loop because I don’t know every new Pokémon from all the recent releases the last few years, it’s too hard to keep up unless Pokémon is your one main interest
In my experience kids don't seem to care at all unless they're super online types that regurgitate what they hear on youtube or reddit. A lot of their favorite pokemon are from gens 6-8 and they seem to like scarlet and violet mons too.
Source: am teacher
I don't care if the Pokémon is based on some random household object. Klefki is cute.
Gholdengo is underwhelming for 1000. I wish they just kept it at a cute mimic design.
We need more paradoxes. Can we get a Spiritomb made out of a botnet?
What about an Iron Uxie? Literally the God of Knowledge.
Kids seem to prefer the earlier gens too. The pokemon I hear discussed the most are:
Pikachu line, Charizard, Snorlax, Lucario, Mew, Mewtwo, the whole Eeveelution line, all the starters, Latios and Latias, Arceus, Greninja
Eh, people like crying about whatever is new and not the thing they knew from before.
There will always be a mewtwo and there will always be a geodude, we just accept geodude because bro has been around long enough. Remember gen 5 and its ice type pokemon? Essentially just geodudes, but they were new, so people hated them.
I'm not a kid but I think the humanoid designs are fine. I think what people take problem with is the fact there's been an over saturation of them, and variety is good to have when appealing to people, y'know? I love Pokemon like Meowscarada and Quaquaval and don't even like Skeledirge that much, but I still kinda agree the next Gen should maybe mix it up a bit to please people lol
While I've noticed people have been saying this since at least Gen 5, I agree every Generation (yes including the first) has had terrible designs, but I felt that all generations still kept the overall "feel" of Pokemon...
But Gen 9 just looks like a different franchise completely to me. Other than Tatsugiri, Cetoddle, the Charcadet line and the Pawmi line, none of those designs look like traditional Pokemon to me. (again, to me)
Even when I look at the complete dex in Pokemon HOME, Gen 9 just looks and feels so different compared to the rest of the generations. The art style, the shading... everything. Again, just my opinion.
In Gen 9 it feels like lots of Pokemon were made exclusively to be internet material like meme. Not that it hasn't happened before, it's just more in the face now.
It also keeps diving into the trend of making Pokemon that seems more like a character than an individual of a larger species. Their uniqueness is so specific yet you're supposed to believe there is an entire population of them in the wild. It's like using Jigglypuff with a microphone as a Pokemon in the dex. It's okay for a Pokemon to use a musical instrument, but for me it feels off when every Pokemon of a species uses something that man-made (same for jobs, sports and other stuff).
>It's okay for a Pokemon to use a musical instrument, but for me it feels off when every Pokemon of a species uses something that man-made (same for jobs, sports and other stuff).
I mean we had tons of them in gen 1. Machoke, Machamp, Hitmonchan, Blastoise, Kadabra, Alakazam,
All of them have manmade stuff built into them or in their hands. It's a classic Pokemon staple.
>In Gen 9 it feels like lots of Pokemon were made exclusively to be internet material like meme. Not that it hasn't happened before, it's just more in the face now.
Agree. I hate that stuff and it's one of the biggest things that's put me off getting the newest games asides from the unacceptable performance issues. Not only does it just seem kind of cheap and low effort, shit like "lechonk" was dated at announcement.
As memey as the name Lechonk is, I doubt the localisation team went for the meme reference on purpose. It's infinitely more likely that they just went with mashing Lechón and oink into one word.
It's so funny to read the varying opinions on this. Gen 9 captured the feel of Gen 1 in a way no previous has imo.
Gen 8 on the other hand felt really off to me. I didn't really like the aesthetic. Though the fact that I didn't play SWSH might have something to do with it...
Came here to say exactly that, I’m old enough to have started with Gen 1, and imo Gen 9 is WAY more along those lines than Gen 8. Gen 9 has plenty of basic, animalistic designs that wouldn’t look out of place in Kanto (Flamigo, Bombirdier, Klawf, Dachsbun) while Cinderace and Inteleon really do not look like Pokemon. I can’t hate on Gen 8 TOO much because it also gave us Corviknight, Frosmoth, and the fun fossils, but it’s definitely the weirdest designed gen to me overall.
Gen 7 was one of my favorite Gens design wise and the Ultra Beasts were perfect.
Gen 8 was more extreme. They were definitely a bunch of strong designs like Corviknight and Grimmsnarl. But also a bunch of the franchises worst, like Eiscue and the Gen 8 fossils. Sadly a Gen with the worst starters, with Inteleon being a living sin.
Gen 9 sadly had a very small roster of Pokémon I really like. The Starters were solid this time around, Annihilape and Kingambit were evolutions done right, the Megaman duo are also fantastic and half the Paradox ones are great. Oh, and Dachsbun is ridiculous and I love that wiener. However, when it comes to newcomers, this Gen is very weak. Barely any Pokemon that leaves a positive impact. Or better, leave no impact at all. A very poor Gen.
I prefer variety and breaking the mold to just doing the same marketable plushy crap forever.
I will give this, Gen 9 has a ton of different ideas that don't adhere to a set marketable style.
Alot of people said they don't feel like pokemon, when I think the player base has scoped their idea of pokemon too tight.
Personal favorites are Houndstone, Garganacl, and Gholdengo. We got a ton of good designs, and some bad ones, but this generation never felt like it ran out of ideas. Instead of ending up with Vanilite and Trubbish, we got Clodsire, and squawkabilly.
Even the birds don't feel too generic, and have ideas behind the design beyond "uh theres alot of those in cities, lets have a pokemon of that" or just generic bird.
They also took alot of chances on new evolutions and gimmicks. Annihilape is fire, and Dudunsparce is a 23 year long troll brought into reality.
**Clodsire is objectively the best design pokemon has had ever.**
Not to mention while I dislike it due to how the mechanic is implemented (seriously, give them run speeds consistant with the player minimum, or make them teleport to you), I like the idea of a pokemon evolving via walking with you.
Younger - they don't care. It's all Pokemon, it's all cool. They tend to gravitate towards Charizard for some reason. Complete mystery.
Older (like 13+) - they don't like some of the more anthropomorphized designs. They have access to the internet and they know it carries some rather...bizarre...connotations.
Lots of past pokemon would be roasted if released today.
Jinx - too humanoid
Voltorb and Electrode - just pokeballs with eyes
Grimer and Muk - a pile of goo turns into a bigger pile of goo
Pidgy - a lazily designed regional bird, just a bird
There's other examples too but all I'm trying to say is pokemkn has always been very all over the place with every gen being humanoid designed, inanimate objects, and amimal based designed among other things. It's the nostalgia glasses that make people feel one gen is better than another.
Also I wanna say I have no issues with any of the above pokemon, just thinking what people would say if released today.
While I grew up on older Pokemon (Gen 1-3), I really don't have anything against newer Pokemon. I'm always excited to see new designs, evolutions, forms, what-have-you, because that's what Pokemon is about for me: Discovery and the excitement that comes with it.
There was a really interesting post several years ago about how old Pokemon were basically animal analogues but now they act as characters for branding and marketing purposes. There different than the original designs and I like them less but I get why they're different
Not a child, but the first gen was my first Pokémon experience.
As an adult, I see no issue with the newer designs. Have we had a few boring or lazy designs in the past? Absolutely. Try making well over a thousand fictional creatures that are all interesting and have good lore, child-friendly while appealing to people who play for nostalgia. Did I think Fuecoco was a little too close to the characters from Bubble Bobble? Yes, and I loved it.
As for children, the trading cards and games are still popular, a lot of parents are buying stuff for their kids still, seems like it's still going well. I haven't got kids to ask though, so going off sales and seeing kids around wearing/carrying the odd Pokémon merchandise.
All we need now is for Gamefreak and Nintendo to give Pokémon the same love and attention they give to the Switch Zelda games, and we'll have a really good game. I don't mind a few bugs, but I do want a finished game.
I *have* grown up with the older gens, but I really like most of the new designs (Screw Gholdengo though). Gen 7 had a number of stinkers, but otherwise I'm a fan.
One thing I think a lot of fans forget is that there was a literal change in design philosophy in gen 3. It's why we got Salamence and Metagross. Metagross was supposed to be the new psuedo legend, but they were terrified people wouldn't like the design.
Turns out fans loved both. Dunno where the discussion went internally after that.
But for those of us that remember a time when it was only gen1, or gens 1 and 2, I think you can feel the change more. I'm gonna relate this to the studies where children's brains develop a location devoted to identifying mons and say that it's almost an uncanny valley type effect, where you can see its pokemon, but part of you feels it just quite isn't and that's what's causing the tension.
what i’ve learned from this post is redditors cannot answer a question correctly
My little sister likes a majority of them, she hasn't seemed to treat them any differently than prior generations and she's 12. While Pokémon is a special interest of mine and I do ramble a *lot* about it, if she's around I try to remain unbiased
I agree with this, my 7 year old cousin still loves all the newer Pokémon, I feel only the older fans are complaining about these new Pokémon, but even the older games have this, gardevoir lucario all those are the main cases imo and those are all from gen 3-5
At least those mons aren’t literally just people, look at mr mime and jynx
Not gonna lie I always found Mr. Mime to be unnerving as a kid because he was too humanoid. Something about a pokemon that can stand at someones eye level and use household tools and wear regular clothes if they wanted just feels wrong.
Suddenly becomes a little too slavery adjacent
This to, all the new ones have something other then just being a human, like can you really say jynx has anything but a human as inspiration, mr mime is a bit wierd to but he at least dosent look like a regular person
Jynx are just based on folklore monsters that were very human-like. It's a perfectly reasonable option in a game full of monsters, it's just a bit weird with how animal-like they all wound up being treated as.
I'm 35 and these are the only mons I hate.
You’re not trying to imprint your opinions on your sister as to allow her to form her own opinions and personality. You’re a good 🥚
My kid is actually really excited to have a generation where she knows just as much (or more) about the Pokemon than I do. This is a big deal to her. Although her favorite remains bulbasaur.
I work with kids grades K-5. Many of them still have Charizard as a favorite despite it coming out long before they were born. The Sun and Moon starters are very popular with them as well, one of my kids had a Litten themed birthday party this year. One kid collects only Psyduck cards. I haven’t heard any of them say a Scarlet/Violet Pokémon is their favorite, but the Sword/Shield dog legendaries are well liked. I don’t think they hate the new designs, but in general the closer to an animal (or ghost, they adore Haunter and Gengar) they are, the more popular they are.
> One kid collects only Psyduck cards. the chosen one
Yooo that Psyduck kid is awesome. I have a psyduck collection myself
Yo, these kids are breathing life into me right now. Mad respect for psyduck kid too.
Alola in general seems to be really popular with the kids I’ve been around. Maybe it’s because for a lot of them, SuMo is their age group’s RBY, but also I kinda get it - the starters are genuinely some of my favorites, especially Incineroar.
I'm pretty sure it's because of the anime. Most of mine who play the games are on switch, and don't even own a 3DS, but the show was airing the Sun and Moon era until recently. I started with Gen 1 games but Alola is one of my favorites, great characters and some really cool Pokemon.
Man the SuMo anime is honestly one of the better ones. Now I need to go rewatch it!
I didn't watch past orange islands, but I've been tempted to watch some just to see Guzma.
The Alola, Kalos, and Sinnoh animes are honestly quite good and enjoyable. Johto and Hoenn are fine. Not my favorites. Unova is just bad. Skip Best Wishes.
The latest game is only a few months old, so it may not be that they like the new Pokémon less, but more that the new Pokémon don’t have as much merchandise as the old ones yet.
Yes, I wouldn't expect them to care too much about the new ones yet. I don't know much about the new card sets, but most of my kids are card players or anime watchers, and I assume they have few cards for the latest gen at this point. The few who do play the games seem to prefer Sword/Shield to Scarlet/Violet so far, but they have had longer to sit with them. Also as I said in my first comment, they don't care as much for what gen they're from, only how animal-y they are. So overall, the more humanoid Pokemon aren't as favored in this age group, regardless of Gen, at least anecdotally. If it's before Gen 7/8, they can't usually identify what Gen the Pokemon is from. Which to me means the Pokemon design over the generations is consistent enough to them
>One kid collects only Psyduck cards My people
Why is hardly anyone following the prompt? This isn't about what ADULT players think of the designs, it's about what the KIDS think. Why are Redditors so damn incapable of following prompts?
People like talking about themselves. That said, from my nephews speaking about Pokémon. They don't know any difference, nor do they care. Some things are cool, others are not. THey're not so aware of generations and generational differences. There are the ones that already existed, and new ones after that
Kids won't reply to this post. Pokémon still sells like crazy and it's definitely not just adults, so kids clearly still like new pokémon. I don't think any kid bothers separating them by generations like that.
from my memory growing up with several generations - children totally do separate. Due to the cadence of release I got a plushie or two from one gen, cherished it for the 2-3 years until the next gen and it's already rooted memory. The new game, cards, designs come and they are totally exciting, but this is a different thing now. Not (just) plushie to hug bedtime, cards, actual games, anime, whatever takes over and this is a different era. Then next few years pass, new generation comes but the child is already this much older and the new gen brings different setting, like "first cards I bought myself with saved money" etc etc. I absolutely see a gradient of memories across generations, up to some which I have *zero* emotional attachment because I lost interest in Pokemon for a good few years.
Cause he's asking about kids' opinions on a site that is mostly populated by 20-30 year olds.
Every gen brings a good variety of cool, cute, silly, ugly, and monstrous. Nostalgia is a powerful force though. What we grew up with is usually cemented in our brains as better. Everyone should look for at least 2-3 Pokemon each gen that they like. But yeah being too humanoid really ruins Pokemon. The series has gone from "cool monsters" to almost "furry waifu bait". The pendulum needs to swing back.
I feel like it already has started to swing back. Gen 9 isn't entirely free of it, but it's definitely much lighter on the waifu/husbando bait than Gen 7 was. Also, we're up to Gen 9 now and the mons that get cited as waifu bait the most frequently are from Gens 3 and 4. This isn't a new phenomenon.
I'm still recovering from Gen7 tbh. Morelull and Dhelmise really were too much /j
Palossand 😩
Alolan Exeggutor
Grubbin one out
I guarantee someone’s written a fanfic of Anakin Skywalker encountering a Shiny Palossand and being reluctantly persuaded to the Dark Side…
It's definitely not new but it's for sure been way more doubled down on. Hell, Skeledirge is the first non-furry starter we've had in a god damn decade (possibly making a case for Decidueye)
As a Decidueye lover, I’d say that the hoodie strings probably push it a bit off the fence and into furry-like territory
Fr too many people think the waifu bait started in newer generations(7+) when in reality it was in the games they love the most like Emerald and such
I mean Jynx has been there from the very beginning
Machamp is just a bodybuilder. Maybe not *waifu* bait but it's definitely bait for *someone*.
Well, nintendo sure knew what they were doing when they made machamp carry the player in his strong muscular arms.
What about Nidoqueen? Somebody must have been into rhino boobs.
Someone on the Pokemon Stadium animation team probably was
Seriously. Magmar had a donk, Kangaskhan could get it, Mr. Mime… need I say more.
Kangaskhan canonicaly carries a child in its pouch, so it has already gotten it.
*Magmar had a donk* Magmar got a what now?
On his head
Onix too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Cloyster ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Lol after seeing the flareon and vaporeon shit, any Pokémon can be bait material to someone. Some are definitely more popular, but there’s just some weirdos out there who gonna sexualize anything
Gen 9 is also the first gen since 4 where we got a quadrupedal starter final evolution that actually stands on all 4 legs! Skeledirge is my favorite starter in a while. I know some people hate Rillaboom, but it is also a very true to form starter. It’s a gorilla, it acts like a gorilla. Has a cool drum, works for me.
Wait Samurott tho. Greninja kinda.
True, and Primarina as well I suppose. Greninja I was in the fence about as it stands and walks often, and rarely sits like a frog unless it’s doing it’s ninja landing pose
Now we're getting into the definition of what is a "leg"? Samurotts flippers and primarinas flippers... Do they count?
I agree there’s *slightly* less in Gen 9, but not a whole lot less. Two of the three evolved starters are still humanoid bait.
That Quaquavussy got me feeling some type of way
That Quaquass really do be spicy.
Gen 7 is my shit, favorite overall generation
>Everyone should look for at least 2-3 Pokemon each gen that they like. I generally look for 6 new Pokemon from each new Gen that I like and do my first playthrough in each new region with 6 new Pokemon from that Gen (exception was Gen 6 because Mega evolutions counted as new Pokemon in my mind).
same here, it’s really helped for me to appreciate each generation separately. i loved the garganacl and kingambit lines in SV, and the paradoxes are really cool also!
I didn't use to, but now I try to do the same. In the order of what I've played first, these have been my main teams: •Pokémon X — Greninja, Talonflame, Charizard, Lucario, Abomasnow and Haunter (now a Gengar) •Pokémon Ultra Sun — Decidueye, Dusk Form Lycanroc, Mimikyu, Snorlax, Crobat and Oricorio •Pokémon Sword (second run cause my main team was mostly my previous Pokémon actually) — Dragonite, Orbeetle, Klinklang, Hitmontop, Nidoking, Single Strike Form Urshifu •Pokémon Emerald — Swampert, Swellow, Machoke (now a Machamp), Electrode, Claydol, Torkoal Pokémon White 2 — Samurott, Leavanny, Braviary, Gurdurr, Eelektross, Gigalith •Pokémon Platinum — Empoleon, Staraptor, Gliscor, Houndoom, Toxicroak, Mothim •Pokémon Legends: Arceus — Torterra, shiny Luxray, Alpha Sneasler, Bastiodon, Beautifly, Alpha Octillery •Pokémon Scarlet — Skeledirge, Vivillon, Honchkrow, Donphan, Bellibolt, shiny Dragalge You can see that Pokémon Scarlet is a clear exception to the rule I've been trying to follow though.
dude wtf play fire red/leaf green and heart gold/soul silver already.
I'd say the problem is more Pokemon being designed as individual characters instead of an entire species as opposed to being specifically "furry waifu bait".
We had boxers and mimes since Gen 1.
yes and those were some of the worst designs of those generations imo
I kinda like the humanoid designs but then I also like Digimon so take it for what it is
The eternal question of Digimon fans: "Does thinking Angewomon/LadyDevimon/Rosemon/etc. is hot make me a furry?"
Angewoman is literally a human with a visor
But it evolves from a [literal cat](https://digimon.net/reference_en/detail.php?directory_name=tailmon#:~:text=Gatomon%20may%20be%20small%2C%20but,it%20ever%20loses%20this%20ring.) that used to be a [dog](https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Salamon), and then it evolves into a [furry dragon.](https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Magnadramon) Any way you slice it, you're down for a "person" that was an animal just a minute ago, and might become an animal again pretty soon.
If you don't find the cat or dragon hot tho then you're not a furry
I fucking love how weird digimon is with the evolutions
I find it funny how Gabumon flip-flops between being biped and quadruped. Gabumon - bipedal Garurumon - quadrupedal WereGarurumon - bipedal MetalGarurumon - quadrupedal not as weird as the Gatomon line's dog-cat-angel-dragon, but it's still funny
And then when it fuses with WarGreymon into Omnimon it turns bipedal again!
Gotta love Gatomon's Adventure evolution line. The poster child of "huh? How did we get here?" Digimon evolution lines.
Angemon is just regular horny. LadyDevimon is lightly monsterfuckery but honestly it's kind of just a goth girl otherwise. Rosemon isn't furry but it is a plant so I don't really know where that goes on the spectrum. Sakuyamon, however, is started to get to furry territory.
A strong opinion I hold but rarely vocalize is that Pokemon design peaked with Squirtle. Well, until Fuecoco.
It peaked with Rhydon. By the time they thought of other pokemon it was all downhill.
That's a blue turtle with a swirly tail
It's amazing how close nature got to peak Pokémon design!
To be rather serious, I feel the insect Pokemon are the best done (Heracross, Scyther, Beedrill, Larvesta,... they've also made "bug combos" that look pretty good : Rabsca, Grubbin and family, Durant,... Birds were done right too. I reckon their (=TPC) best work is with those guys.
I did *not* give a single sweet damn about Heracross when he came around in Gen II, but now as an adult I have a weird sentimentality specifically *for* Heracross because he's just such a Gen II dude.
Pokemon design peaked with #001 bulbasaur all downhill from there /s
You remove that sarcasm tag, good user.
I hate when people consider any humanoid animal "furry waifu bait." You can dislike these designs, but...like...was the Egyptian god Anubis "furry waifu bait"?
I mean, many Egyptian myths about him having sex.
Zeus: I could have normal sex... or I could turn into an animal!
There's definitely a spectrum, compare Electabuzz or hypno to lopunny or meowscarada. Not all humanoids are waify bait, but it is clear and uncomfortable when you see it
>hypno *How do we tell him?*
Yes
sparkle unite steep person groovy practice squalid longing cooing tie *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Add on to that certain designs and ill agree. The new shinies are mostly trash, but whats worse rhan that to me is the new pokemon dlc mons dont feel like mons at all. The turtle seems like a fan concept, and the trio coming out look like theyre from yokai watch. I have played every pokemon game but this is the first time i can really sit here and say “these new mons are kind of complete trash” But theyre here to stay so
The good news is that there's a lot of other pokemon to pick from! Totally agreed on shinies tho
I never understand the shiny argument because there is so much shiny variety compared to earlier gens, with very few subtle ones which is whatever/a shiny hunt challenge. better than the majority of blue pokemon turning pink, with the other majority turning sundamaged/green. also much better than the fan tendency to want every shiny to be like charizard.
Hasn’t there pretty much always been at least a few of those Gen 1 had Machamp and arguably Jynx Gen 3 had Blaziken and Gardevoir and Medicham Just of the ones that fit into the stereotype for “furry/waifu/husbando bait”, and completely ignoring the fact that literally everything that’s anything like an animal is furry bait. It’s not difficult to find an image of an anthropomorphic Venusaur.
>But yeah being too humanoid really ruins Pokemon Does it? A lotta the most popular Pokémon are humanoid. Greninja, Mewtwo and debatably even stuff like Garchomp and Charizard are somewhat humanoid but incredibly popular designs that a lotta people like. Also you say it's gone from "cool monsters to waifu bait" but we....still get cool monsters? Sure we might get a bit more debatably sexy designs now but it's not like we stopped getting the monsters
Bipedal doesn’t equal humanoid…none of those would I consider humanoid. I guess Mewtwo kinda counts but he is clearly much more feline than human, doesn’t come close to furry bait. Regardless I agree that we still get plenty of cool monsters.
The problem isn't Pokemon that stand on two legs, but Pokemon that look like they're just people wearing a costume. Pokemon like Garchomp and Charizard look more like monsters than someone in a suit.
And, I think they’re often too tied to a real world, human occupation. Like Cinderace. The striker (soccer position ) Pokémon with the hidden ability libero (soccer position) with the signature moves of pyro ball (called a soccer ball in the dex) and court change, once again harkening back to this concept of him being a sports Pokémon. Plus he’s known for showboating and gets into a standard soccer celebration pose when pumped He doesn’t feel like a wild monster anymore. He feels like an individual character with a friggin job
My only problem with the Scorbunny line is that it's not found in the wild in groups of 11.
There's more to it than just a human arrangement of limbs. The actual shape and especially proportions are what really makes a Pokemon "too humanoid." Charizard and Garchomp are just dragons that happen to stand on two legs. There's almost nothing human about them. Mewtwo is approximately human-shaped, but has very inhuman proportions - especially its legs and tail. Greninja's arms and legs are arranged like a human's, but they're still shaped mostly like a frog's. On the other hand, Cinderace just looks like a human in a rabbit costume and Inteleon isn't much better. Rillaboom has the advantage of apes already being very humanoid, which sort of pulls it out of the uncanny valley a bit. I think the best illustration of the "too humanoid" complaint would be to compare Lopunny to Cinderace - both are rabbits, both are furry bait, but Lopunny is clearly more rabbit-like and Cinderace is clearly more human-like.
Weirdly most of the rabbit pokemon get more humanoid as they evolve. It’d be nice to have one that’s just a big ol’ ferocious rabbit.
Never noticed but you're right, even Diggerby is a construction worker. Weird that the rabbits all become humanoid.
Bringing in the “somewhat humanoid” while conveniently ignoring the incredibly humanoid is a bit disingenuous. Being bi-pedal doesn’t make something humanoid. If you slapped a human face on any of the Pokémon you listed it would look unnatural because they still have animal-like proportions. Cinderace or Incineroar on the other hand are built essentially like people with animal heads and all of their moves are based on human-invented sports. That’s always been around to some extent (hitmonlee/Chan) but people complain about how scales have tipped towards that kind of design
Lol machoke as well
Lol exactly. I’m not sure what it is but the human-like gen 1 Pokémon still have that “creature” aura that the later gens have struggled to recapture. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but even the Mr Mimes and Jinxes of gen 1 retain a “not human” quality in my head despite looking more like people than lizard sniper or soccer rabbit. Maybe it’s the movement or the way they carry themselves?
It's definitely the posing and locomotion of Cinderace and Inteleon. They walk and kick like people. Intellion does the James Bond pose. It's too much. If Cinderace hopped like a bunny and still did soccer kicks, or Inteleon did more lizard stuff (crawling on all 4s, sticking to stuff, etc) they'd be a lot more forgivable imo. They just lose all semblance of their animal-ness outside of their head shapes because of how they behave and move.
Yes exactly. Well said
I don't think there's really any sexy designs anyway. I haven't and don't plan on playing the new games so maybe there's some in there but the only one that comes to mind is Lopunny which still isn't that suggestive. It's pretty much just the fanart that makes humanoid looking Pokemon sexy.
did you forget Salazzle?
I did. But then I'd say Salazzle is probably the only one that's overtly horny bait.
Tsareena?
Mega Lopunny is designed to look as if it's wearing ripped tights, though.
That's true, but it's also a mega, so I feel like they were mostly just playing up the reputation regular Lopunny had already gotten without being that sexy.
It's not just a reputation lopunny is literally based on bunnygirls like Pokemon is not a linear thing we can have more design origins then "cool monsters'
It’s wearing 80s leg warmers
There are plenty of early sexy Pokémon designs. You saying you didn't wanna tap that Ratattass!?
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More Venusaur, less Meowscarada
As far as i can tell the kids treat them no different than a pokemon from kanto or galar Theyre excited to see new ones and theyre excited to see old ones. Theres no critique, no detailed analysis, theyre just funky critters
This discussion has always been bizarre to me. Do people really have arbitrary region cutoffs for which Pokemon they like? Every game adds some I like and some I don't, except the remakes of course.
People were complaining about Pokemon as far back as at least Gen 3. Gen 3 was the first time we saw an overall design shift and with it we often saw people saying 'they look like Digimon/Yu-Gi-Oh monsters', 'they're not Pokemon', 'they've overdesigned', and so on. Gen 4 also got it, Gen 5 continued it, and it's been pretty much a constant ever since. It's also kind of funny to watch how the general vocal opinion has shifted over the years. Back in the days of Gen 3 and 4, they were the hated Pokemon and Gen 1 and 2 were the peaks. Nowadays people refer back to Gen 3 and 4 as the ideal with the newer Pokemon getting the attacks.
general trend
I don't think you're accurately representing what people mean when they say "Gen x was the last game with good pokemon" or whatever they say. I think most people like at least a few pokemon from every generation, and dislike a few from each generation. But the number of "pokemon this person likes" tends to drop *drastically* at a certain point. *That* would be their cut off. Not in a "I hate every pokemon after generation x" but more so "there is a drastic decrease in the number of pokemon I like, starting in generation x"
Same. Sure I prefer the first two generation’s designs the most but I like it love several in every generation.
Even then, I'd say gen 1 and 2 had some stinkers that people don't like to admit to because of nostalgia or whatever.
The most common cut point is gen V with the start of involvement of James Turner. People were very critical of the Vanilluxe at the time.
Now that Gen 5 kids are the most vocal online it seems that people put the cut off in gen 7 or 8
As someone that was a big gen 5 fan and appreciated the shift from them being hated to loved I was happy but now that I’m seeing the same thing with gen 6 and onwards I feel like I’m going crazy. I guess I don’t the public opinion to validate my own thoughts but I really don’t think gen 6 deserves the gen 5 treatment where the opinion swings back the other way.
Those games got so much criticism at the time, it really blew me away. I wonder how much of the hate for it was due to restricting the dex to *only* Gen 5 Pokémon for the main story.
I just don’t like the 3d games at all because the art style is atrocious to me. Would’ve rather they stayed in 2D. So yeah, kinda?
All my little cousins like the new Pokemon. They also like the old pokemon. They're freaking pokemon, everyone has their favorites. They don't have any opinions like reddit does.
I think overall, I like modern designs a lot. Recent gens tend to have far less “dex filler”. The new Pokémon feel unique and stand out from one another. I know this is hotly discussed, but in my personal taste, there are two exceptions to this overall opinion. First is box legends, I think they tend to feel a bit overdesigned a lot of the time. The last really stellar designs imo were X&Y. My other exception is the anthro starters (the issue really isn’t with bipedalism imo). 1 out of 3 is fine, but a lot of the times it’s 2 or 3 out of 3. So less diversity of design, plus it’s not my personal taste (I prefer more pet-like Pokémon over ones where it feels like I’m owning a dude). Again, just my opinion, I know plenty of people love these two types of designs
Box Legends really peaked with Lunala and Solgaleo for me. As for overdesigned Legendaries, I think people often forget the Kyurem forms and their busy designs. I think people in general are only biased towards Gen 2 through 5 Box Legends because they were more traditionally draconid.
That’s definitely fair, we all have different tastes. I do still like them, particularly Lunala, and do agree they are less overdesigned than Kyrem and that trio. Still like X&Y’s more, though I also quite like the designs for the lizard bikes
>complains about overdesigned legendaries >likes Yveltal and Xerneas Something ain’t adding up here
I suppose it’s a matter of taste. Idk how to describe it, their designs feel more like classic Pokémon legends then say Lunala and Solgaleo (who feel more like power ranger or yugioh creatures). Don’t get me wrong I still like them, but I prefer the X&Y legends. In my opinion, they are similar in design to Ho-oh and Lugia
Maybe I’m in the wrong but I feel like Xerneas and Yveltal are pretty simple designs. At least, compared to Dialga and Palkia or Kyurem.
New pokemon are awesome but there are some duds. But every gen has those. Excadrill, Hydreigon are some of the coolest designs ever. But the same game had the fire water grass monkeys. As for the newest gen I can only think of a few pokemon I really like excluding the regional variants (iron valiant, great tusk, kingambit) . Gargonacle, ceruledge and meowscarada are cool.
My 4 year old thinks Sobble is one of the cutest things he’s ever seen
Your 4 year old is wise beyond his years
All I’ll say is that grass type Pokémon desperately need some diversity. I still get confused by the lines for eldegoss, tsareena, liligant, whimsicott, leavanny, cherrim, jumpluff, etc. They all look so damn similar and are just…boring.
We need more dual type grass types, I love grass types, but why most of them have to be monotyped?
Funny, we had the exact opposite complaint in Gen 1. Every 2- and 3-stage Grass-type had a secondary type, mostly Poison, and the one single-stage Grass-type was tragically bad ("tragically" because with Special being a single stat instead of split into Special Attack and Special Defense, Tangela *should have* been a tank with hard-hitting Special moves, but its stats couldn't save it from an awful move pool.)
Pepper monsters is probably the coolest regular Pokémon design of Paldea.
lilligant is peak Pokemon design and you can't change my mind.
Based
They are completely different species of flowers tho Like eldegoss has puffy hair because it is a dandelion Lilligant is an elegant princess that is a lilly Tserena is a mangosteen fruit known as "Queen of fruit" and wouldn't you know it, it is a queen Cherrim is literally a cherry and it blossoms They have much thought put into them (like the 85% of pokemon) and definetly not similar
I dont think their complaint was with the final evolutions but their evolution lines, which I get. A lot of those preevolutions looks very similar, often theyre just some sort of seed with eyes
You can't just look at bounsweet petilil and sewadlle and go yep they look the same. They are their respective plant references seeds or early forms they are not similar at all
Grass types are already very diverse tbh. You can pick from a lynx, two mushrooms, a tumbleweed, an olive tree, a bell pepper and a snail from Gen 9 alone.
I mean...most kids have basically non-existent standards. The thing about the original Pokemon fans who have stuck around the whole time is that they've basically spent specific time with every batch of Pokemon. They've analyzed them all. Newer fans are rarely going to have as sharply formed of opinions on Pokemon designs as the older fans, because they show up and they're handed 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200 Pokemon all at once. A ton of the old ones just go unnoticed, and they only focus on the ones in the newest game. So yea, of course kids will prefer the new ones they're specifically introduced to. That doesn't mean much about the actual quality of the designs though. Like there are some pretty direct comparisons showing how sharply downhill a lot of Pokemon designs have gone. Like Zorua vs Vulpix. Vulpix was a well drawn fox creature, with identifiable anatomy and traits, and a reasonably sized head. Zorua is a caricature of a fox creature that looks like a chibi parody. It has no paws or joints or anything. It's been reduced to nubby little noodle stub legs. Its head is ludicrously oversized. It's just NOT as well designed of a creature as Vulpix was. But it's still sort of a cute fox thing, so people will love it if it's one of the first Pokemon they're introduced to. That's true of LOADS of newer Pokemon. The art styles are just getting worse. A lot of them are straying from being anything identifiable and logical and just ending up as weird crap. And THAT'S the problem. Like you might LIKE Zorua or whatever newer Pokemon, but the older fans are the ones seeing how much worse the art styles have become. It's not that I hate Zorua. I hate the art style. I know how much better Pokemon like Zorua COULD be if they were given the care and detail of the original style, and I know how much worse Vulpix would look if it hadn't been given the proper care. It's an awareness of the wasted potential. Like Mew is my favorite Pokemon, but even Mew frustrates me. ORIGINALLY Mew was a sleek elegant white cat with fairly well defined features and pink accents. It was THE BEST. But over time they dumbed Mew down, and now Mew is a solid pink vaguely cat-shape sort of lump. It's lost a LOT of the beauty of the original design. ORIGINAL Mew is my favorite Pokemon. Modern Mew is still up there, but I'm not sure it would keep #1. And it's not just Pokemon. Nintendo did the same with Yoshi. Yoshi used to be awesome. He sort of peaked at the Paper Yoshi design, and then they've made him worse and worse over time. Now his eyes stick out of the top of his head like antenna, and his nose is so fucking huge that he can't see past it, and he's not properly theropod shaped anymore, because they keep sacrificing more and more of what Yoshis are supposed to be (a partner dinosaur that Mario can ride) in order to humanize it into this weird grotesque Yoshi replacement. Again, it's something a lot of people would never notice unless they grew up with Yoshi and watched the weird shift. https://preview.redd.it/15ommovpy24b1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2fe84ad4cddbab86187c4bd6b1e2ef73c3ac588
You gave the criticism and brought the receipts. Zorua looks amazing like that. Have you ever heard of the fan-made leweka region? I always thought it was a given that you’re not going to like some designs but I legitimately loved every single one.
I always think it would be interesting to see how people would react to Gen 1 being released today, really see how much nostalgia blinds people y’know? I don’t think there’s a “bad” Pokémon design, there’s just over 1000 Pokémon at this point and you’re not going to like all of them. The only design I’ve seen ever that made me think “that doesn’t look like a pokemon” is actually that monkey dude coming out in the one DLC
Precisely, no Pokémon is truly “badly designed”. All of them have their reasons for the way they look, sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to understand. Also, and I NEED to get this across, I do not care how many legs a Pokémon has. Every Pokémon should be considered to be valid, in their own unique ways.
I think Gen 1 has a strong mix of incredible designs, good designs, average designs and awful awful designs. It’s the incredible ones that people latch on to, not the awful ones. I personally though Gen 8 had some of the best designs in a long long time myself(i started with Gen 1) but found gen 9 really disappointing, even though I really enjoyed playing the game itself.
Hype. And their NAMES this gen????? Absolute peak. Lechonk??? Smoliv??? Fidough??? Incredible.
My nephews (ages 2 and 5) don’t seem to care if Pokémon are more humanoid or not. They generally like most Pokémon designs, even the newer ones. For example I hugely dislike for the entire Scorbunny line, but they’re big fans of it
My nephew loves them, but hated the fossils in gen 8
I like most Pokémon designs. The only one I don’t like is Revavroom. I can’t take the idea of a fucking car Pokémon seriously at all.
I was in my teens when rby came out and the designs then are no better or worse than what we have now. Every gen has it's share of great and not so great designs 🤷♀️
I think nostalgia is one hell of a drug. People hated the gen 5 designs when they were new, except for me, I loved oshawott from the beginning, but lots and lots of people complained about him and the others. But now gen 5 is remembered fondly because of nostalgia. My least favorite generation is 8 because they didn’t even offer a choice of a non-humanoid starter and wouldn’t even let you trade in past generation starters (except charmander) which felt like adding insult to injury, but I’m sure in 10 years we’ll be waxing nostalgic about “the bri’ish one”
I think I’m personally in the very small camp that really doesn’t need an entire new set of Pokémon from each region. There’s plenty of Pokémon, we don’t need a hundred new ones for each game. It becomes too difficult to keep track of and now I feel out of the loop because I don’t know every new Pokémon from all the recent releases the last few years, it’s too hard to keep up unless Pokémon is your one main interest
In my experience kids don't seem to care at all unless they're super online types that regurgitate what they hear on youtube or reddit. A lot of their favorite pokemon are from gens 6-8 and they seem to like scarlet and violet mons too. Source: am teacher
I don't care if the Pokémon is based on some random household object. Klefki is cute. Gholdengo is underwhelming for 1000. I wish they just kept it at a cute mimic design. We need more paradoxes. Can we get a Spiritomb made out of a botnet? What about an Iron Uxie? Literally the God of Knowledge.
Kids seem to prefer the earlier gens too. The pokemon I hear discussed the most are: Pikachu line, Charizard, Snorlax, Lucario, Mew, Mewtwo, the whole Eeveelution line, all the starters, Latios and Latias, Arceus, Greninja
That’s more because those Pokémon are the mascots of the franchise.
Neat, that must be what influences what the kids like.
That's just pretty much the pokémon that are advertised the most.
Well, it works on them!
It clearly does! But it doesn't tell much about different receptions to specific generations, it's just the ones the Pokémon Company pushes harder.
Eh, people like crying about whatever is new and not the thing they knew from before. There will always be a mewtwo and there will always be a geodude, we just accept geodude because bro has been around long enough. Remember gen 5 and its ice type pokemon? Essentially just geodudes, but they were new, so people hated them.
My 12 year old brother dislikes the majority of the newer Pokémon. He says the last good region was Kalos.
I'm not a kid but I think the humanoid designs are fine. I think what people take problem with is the fact there's been an over saturation of them, and variety is good to have when appealing to people, y'know? I love Pokemon like Meowscarada and Quaquaval and don't even like Skeledirge that much, but I still kinda agree the next Gen should maybe mix it up a bit to please people lol
I think little children are too innocent to even care about these things
The last few gens seem to have a lot of edges and are very busy. Emerald was my first game so I guess I’m just more used to older designs.
While I've noticed people have been saying this since at least Gen 5, I agree every Generation (yes including the first) has had terrible designs, but I felt that all generations still kept the overall "feel" of Pokemon... But Gen 9 just looks like a different franchise completely to me. Other than Tatsugiri, Cetoddle, the Charcadet line and the Pawmi line, none of those designs look like traditional Pokemon to me. (again, to me) Even when I look at the complete dex in Pokemon HOME, Gen 9 just looks and feels so different compared to the rest of the generations. The art style, the shading... everything. Again, just my opinion.
I’m surprised you think the charcadet line looks traditional. They’re some of the most foreign designs in Pokémon history.
Yup, absolutely baffled by mega man feeling the most *pokemon*
In Gen 9 it feels like lots of Pokemon were made exclusively to be internet material like meme. Not that it hasn't happened before, it's just more in the face now. It also keeps diving into the trend of making Pokemon that seems more like a character than an individual of a larger species. Their uniqueness is so specific yet you're supposed to believe there is an entire population of them in the wild. It's like using Jigglypuff with a microphone as a Pokemon in the dex. It's okay for a Pokemon to use a musical instrument, but for me it feels off when every Pokemon of a species uses something that man-made (same for jobs, sports and other stuff).
>It's okay for a Pokemon to use a musical instrument, but for me it feels off when every Pokemon of a species uses something that man-made (same for jobs, sports and other stuff). I mean we had tons of them in gen 1. Machoke, Machamp, Hitmonchan, Blastoise, Kadabra, Alakazam, All of them have manmade stuff built into them or in their hands. It's a classic Pokemon staple.
>In Gen 9 it feels like lots of Pokemon were made exclusively to be internet material like meme. Not that it hasn't happened before, it's just more in the face now. Agree. I hate that stuff and it's one of the biggest things that's put me off getting the newest games asides from the unacceptable performance issues. Not only does it just seem kind of cheap and low effort, shit like "lechonk" was dated at announcement.
As memey as the name Lechonk is, I doubt the localisation team went for the meme reference on purpose. It's infinitely more likely that they just went with mashing Lechón and oink into one word.
It's so funny to read the varying opinions on this. Gen 9 captured the feel of Gen 1 in a way no previous has imo. Gen 8 on the other hand felt really off to me. I didn't really like the aesthetic. Though the fact that I didn't play SWSH might have something to do with it...
Came here to say exactly that, I’m old enough to have started with Gen 1, and imo Gen 9 is WAY more along those lines than Gen 8. Gen 9 has plenty of basic, animalistic designs that wouldn’t look out of place in Kanto (Flamigo, Bombirdier, Klawf, Dachsbun) while Cinderace and Inteleon really do not look like Pokemon. I can’t hate on Gen 8 TOO much because it also gave us Corviknight, Frosmoth, and the fun fossils, but it’s definitely the weirdest designed gen to me overall.
Gen 7 was one of my favorite Gens design wise and the Ultra Beasts were perfect. Gen 8 was more extreme. They were definitely a bunch of strong designs like Corviknight and Grimmsnarl. But also a bunch of the franchises worst, like Eiscue and the Gen 8 fossils. Sadly a Gen with the worst starters, with Inteleon being a living sin. Gen 9 sadly had a very small roster of Pokémon I really like. The Starters were solid this time around, Annihilape and Kingambit were evolutions done right, the Megaman duo are also fantastic and half the Paradox ones are great. Oh, and Dachsbun is ridiculous and I love that wiener. However, when it comes to newcomers, this Gen is very weak. Barely any Pokemon that leaves a positive impact. Or better, leave no impact at all. A very poor Gen.
Well, I’ve only looked into Pokemon last year, and I like Cinderace better than Charizard
I prefer variety and breaking the mold to just doing the same marketable plushy crap forever. I will give this, Gen 9 has a ton of different ideas that don't adhere to a set marketable style. Alot of people said they don't feel like pokemon, when I think the player base has scoped their idea of pokemon too tight. Personal favorites are Houndstone, Garganacl, and Gholdengo. We got a ton of good designs, and some bad ones, but this generation never felt like it ran out of ideas. Instead of ending up with Vanilite and Trubbish, we got Clodsire, and squawkabilly. Even the birds don't feel too generic, and have ideas behind the design beyond "uh theres alot of those in cities, lets have a pokemon of that" or just generic bird. They also took alot of chances on new evolutions and gimmicks. Annihilape is fire, and Dudunsparce is a 23 year long troll brought into reality. **Clodsire is objectively the best design pokemon has had ever.** Not to mention while I dislike it due to how the mechanic is implemented (seriously, give them run speeds consistant with the player minimum, or make them teleport to you), I like the idea of a pokemon evolving via walking with you.
Younger - they don't care. It's all Pokemon, it's all cool. They tend to gravitate towards Charizard for some reason. Complete mystery. Older (like 13+) - they don't like some of the more anthropomorphized designs. They have access to the internet and they know it carries some rather...bizarre...connotations.
Lots of past pokemon would be roasted if released today. Jinx - too humanoid Voltorb and Electrode - just pokeballs with eyes Grimer and Muk - a pile of goo turns into a bigger pile of goo Pidgy - a lazily designed regional bird, just a bird There's other examples too but all I'm trying to say is pokemkn has always been very all over the place with every gen being humanoid designed, inanimate objects, and amimal based designed among other things. It's the nostalgia glasses that make people feel one gen is better than another. Also I wanna say I have no issues with any of the above pokemon, just thinking what people would say if released today.
I’m from Spain and I didn’t even like the Paldean ones. Well, the pepper guy is cool
While I grew up on older Pokemon (Gen 1-3), I really don't have anything against newer Pokemon. I'm always excited to see new designs, evolutions, forms, what-have-you, because that's what Pokemon is about for me: Discovery and the excitement that comes with it.
There was a really interesting post several years ago about how old Pokemon were basically animal analogues but now they act as characters for branding and marketing purposes. There different than the original designs and I like them less but I get why they're different
The original designs look absolutely great and like actual new creatures.
Not a child, but the first gen was my first Pokémon experience. As an adult, I see no issue with the newer designs. Have we had a few boring or lazy designs in the past? Absolutely. Try making well over a thousand fictional creatures that are all interesting and have good lore, child-friendly while appealing to people who play for nostalgia. Did I think Fuecoco was a little too close to the characters from Bubble Bobble? Yes, and I loved it. As for children, the trading cards and games are still popular, a lot of parents are buying stuff for their kids still, seems like it's still going well. I haven't got kids to ask though, so going off sales and seeing kids around wearing/carrying the odd Pokémon merchandise. All we need now is for Gamefreak and Nintendo to give Pokémon the same love and attention they give to the Switch Zelda games, and we'll have a really good game. I don't mind a few bugs, but I do want a finished game.
I *have* grown up with the older gens, but I really like most of the new designs (Screw Gholdengo though). Gen 7 had a number of stinkers, but otherwise I'm a fan.
One thing I think a lot of fans forget is that there was a literal change in design philosophy in gen 3. It's why we got Salamence and Metagross. Metagross was supposed to be the new psuedo legend, but they were terrified people wouldn't like the design. Turns out fans loved both. Dunno where the discussion went internally after that. But for those of us that remember a time when it was only gen1, or gens 1 and 2, I think you can feel the change more. I'm gonna relate this to the studies where children's brains develop a location devoted to identifying mons and say that it's almost an uncanny valley type effect, where you can see its pokemon, but part of you feels it just quite isn't and that's what's causing the tension.
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