YES WHY NOT FISHING ROD POKEMON
I can see that. Maybe a predatory
Phasmatodea (walking stick bug) what uses a silk string to fish up marine life (or there's also the
Bolas Spider which does something similar, hanging onto a ceiling a lowering down a stick blob at the end of silk to snag moths flying by. There is a species of Spider that "fishes", the
Dolomedes, but they don't use silk buy rather wait on the water and when they feel a ripple they rush over to the prey and sink their hook shaped feet into it (though some do leave a silk dragline to prevent themselves from running too fast and missing the prey)).
"Um, this sounds like wishlisting"
Which is why I'm stopping now. BUT I did want to go into a bit of detail to show how for some objects can be realistically made into a Pokemon that's believable. A Pokemon that's just a straight up fishing rod? Eh, that's something you really gotta sell me on. But an animal that just so happens to have features or traits that can be made to resemble a fishing rod? Personally I feel that's far more interesting and creative, and depending on what the object is they could also use an animal that has not been used before to check that off the list too, two for one! Heck, they could combine several species together via evolution family. Using the above example, they could make the Dolomedes the basic stage by focusing on the "hook feet" aspect about them and they then evolve into Bolas Spider who use their feet as fishing rods and maybe attaches their Dolomedes-based pre-evolution as fishing rods/bait. That said, the Phasmatodea is probably more well known then these obscure spiders (not to mention we have a marine spider species already) so that alone could push it being combined with the fishing rod (and potential to somehow have the trainer themselves use the Pokemon to help them fish, or base fishing rod designs on them).
I think you're overthinking stuff like feasibility of encoutering them. And besides, Pokemon takes liberties with size all the time and just liberties in general with things like weight, size, Pokedex entries, and so on. Like, you can make them the size of common drones or toy cars, and they'll fit in pretty good with other things like Magneton or other robotic Pokemon. Also, cars come in all shapes and sizes, which can look really neat on a Pokemon. I also see other things on the list that is probably more outlandish than the car such as a drilling rig, ant farm, Star Fox Logo, airbag, obelisk; and when you have things like Stakataka and Celesteela (which is like a spaceship/bamboo thing), I don't think car is really all that crazy of an idea. Anyhow, I think we need some blistering fast steel type, so IMO, car and planes are a good place to explore to make that kind of archetype.
Eh, it's all in context. I just find it hard to see a car Pokemon without it ending up looking like a Digimon or Transformer.
That said, thinking back to the Island Guardians I could maybe see a Pokemon that doesn't have wheels itself but maybe has a shell with wheels on it which can combine together to make a pseudo car shape. And I guess we could also have a pseudo-Transfromer like Pokemon if they REALLY simplify it and give it Pokemon aesthetics (or instead of a car maybe make it a skateboard or scooter... yes I know about the mini-cons, similar idea but even MORE simple and Pokemon-like). Actually, thinking about it now, I do think it's the "car" part which rubs me the wrong way and not the wheel thing. I just don't think we need a "car car", but I have no problem with other wheeled vehicles like maybe a mars rover or a tank (which we almost got with the Deino family, there were going to be Dragon/Steel dragon tanks before deciding to make them Dark-type and make them more Orochi looking, though you can still see a small remainder of their tank design via the red tread stripes on Zwelious and Hydreigon's stomach).
Stakataka and Celesteela and Ultra Beasts so they sort of get a pass (though now that just makes me think of a trainer using an Ultra Space Warp to the Transformers universe and trying to catch Transformers, lol). BTW, Celesteela is based on a Japanese legend titled
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Long story short, an elderly bamboo cutting couple finds a baby girl among bamboo, girls turns out to be a princess of a moon tribe (sent to Earth due to a war that was going on), and once an adult and the had ended her people came down and took her back to the moon. Many modern day adaptations have the moon tribe traveling in a rocket ship shaped like bamboo (one example I can think of is the game Okami where this tale was made into a side quest).
It will look like this
(Oh Wheel, from Yokai Watch 3).
NO, this is exactly what I DON'T want. Unless it's a Rotom possessing a car, this is them just taking a car and putting a face on it. It's alright for Yokai Watch because they set a precedent that their object-based monsters look like this, everyday objects with just a face and arms smacked on. However Pokemon has at least tried to make their object based Pokemon look like a natural forming creature or possibly constructed (and for these Pokemon they sort are given an extraterrestrial (Magnemite and Klink family) or fantastical/mythical (Genesect and Magearna) design).
I think we're putting on the nostalgia goggles and inflating "poor balancing issues" as "type identity."
Personally I like that they are shaking up the formula, because if they really intend archetypes then they've done a really poor job at it (please see every article about how ice type has failed to be a wall). So I look forward to the day that we get better special attacks for rock types than power gem.
Good point, I would actually say it's more that we focus on the "popular" Pokemon of that Type and see how well it does we kind of think that's how that Type should be by default. Like for Ice-types the best one is probably Weavile and Froslass... but these are actually exceptions not the rule.
Similarly if there's a Pokemon which Type combination didn't work out for what it was we kind of want to look at it being an "outsider". Using Fire-types as examples here, Flareon is a popular choice since, aside with the whole issue of it being a Physical Attacker, it gave the 110 to Special Defense but it's HP is 65 and Fire-types has way too many weaknesses (many would prefer that 110 go to its Speed or make it's Special Attack 110 and Speed 95). Emboar has the opposite problem, it was given a TON of HP but low defenses plus Fighting-type didn't really do anything to help weaknesses (sure, it's not weak to Rock but not weak to Psychic, a bad trade off). But, as you pointed out, both technically follow the trend of Fire-types being strong physical attackers (for a Type which until Gen IV all their moves were Special, GF were you even paying attention to your own mechanics?).
I'm not against having Pokemon which goes against their Type stereotypes, especially now that I realized a lot of popular Pokemon are actually aversions to their Types traditional roles, but still would like to see GF to take the Type's strength and weaknesses and make Pokemon of that Type able to use that to their advantage (or give them an Ability to help with fixing a perceived role problem).
