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I like white Basculin's design and think its pretty cool how very small changes give it a completely different personality from Red and Blue, and also think its kinda cool how they took a mon with multiple forms and decided to make a new one for it. That all said...
WHY DOES THIS THING EVEN EXIST???
Back when Basculegion was announced alongside Wyrdeer, we were all hyped for the return of Crossgen evos. Sure, there were some that doubted they were crossgens and not Regional Evolutions like Sirfetch'd. However, unlike the duck, Wyrdeer and Basculegion both just added a type to their monotyped prevo (and at that, in Wydeer's case a type that wouldn't make sense for a Stantler variant to get since Stantler is already heavily psychic-coded and in Basculegion's case, a type that wouldn't make sense for Basculin to get because the Ghost type was directly tied to the lore on how it evolves by getting possessed by fallen Basculin spirits) and both resembled their original forms a lot, Wyrdeer having nearly the same phisique as Stantler while Basculegion looked really close to what you'd expect of a Basculin evolution, most notably the fact it has Magenta stripes because it combines Red and Blue (With the shiny even making reference to this as well, being Purple stripe because that too is a combination of Red and Blue). Lore wise Wyrdeer continued on with Stantler's psychic antlers concept while Basculegion kept Basculin's aggressive disposition.
So why is it that one of these is a real, traditional cross gen evolution while the other is not?
I've also mentioned earlier how I like how it adds another form to a mon with previously established forms, but that addition is really bittersweet when White Stripe feels like a cop out just so that they don't do a regional variant that doesn't change the type.
Design wise, it doesn't really justify its existance given Male Legion actively looks more like Red Basculin and rather unrelated to White, and the evolution's stripes are gender-based either way so its not like them evolving from Red/Blue while having a White Female evo would be any more jarring than white having a Magenta evo.
Functionality wise, we know from datamines that it changes the ability from Rock Head/Reckless to Rattled, but that is quite literally the only change - which is literally MEANINGLESS for Legends because the game doesn't have abilities in the first place. If the games had Red or Blue Basculin in it, they would literally function no different than White currently does.
Lore wise it actively contradicts its evolution while its Red and Blue cousins don't. I would not have minded them pulling this form as much if it at least conceptually tied itself better to Basculegion, like how Cursola can't really be justified as a Johtonian corsola evo, but as I have mentioned before, White Basculin actively goes against Basculegion's lore. White Basculin is supposedly gentle while Basculegion is ruthless and aggressive. And sure, a mon changing personality when it evolves is nothing unheard of, but here you have a group of 3 mons where 2/3 are vicious and 1/3 is gentle, and then you give a vicious evolution to the gentle one while the two vicious one can't evolve into it.
I don't mind the form itself, but it REALLY annoys me that it was entirely missing from the game's advertisement, leading us to believe Basculegion was a traditional crossgen evolution; actively cucks Red/Blue from evolving and getting their own spotlights; and straight up has absolutely
no justification whatsoever why this is the case rather than letting the OG ones evolve normally, in some cases even being a less sensical fit for being the one with an evolution than the other two.
I sincerely hope that there is some context we are missing and it turns out that Red/Blue can still evolve somehow, because this is genuinely one of the most infuriating cases of a mon not needing to exist and actively harms its other forms for literally no reason.
White Privilege, I tell you...