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Little things you like about Pokémon
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
Not necessarily things I like (they definitely don’t annoy me though) more some observations?
Pokemon numbers per gen have been steadily increasing since Gen 6 (only 72!), slowly making its way back up to 100 Pokemon being introduced again for the first time since Gen 5. Scarlet and Violet also bucked a bit of a trend. We’ve had 18 Alolan forms, 19 Galarian forms (13 in base SwSh), 17 Hisuian forms and now……. 2 (4 if you want to get technical) Paldean forms.
Pokemon numbers per gen have been steadily increasing since Gen 6 (only 72!), slowly making its way back up to 100 Pokemon being introduced again for the first time since Gen 5. Scarlet and Violet also bucked a bit of a trend. We’ve had 18 Alolan forms, 19 Galarian forms (13 in base SwSh), 17 Hisuian forms and now……. 2 (4 if you want to get technical) Paldean forms.
I maintain we got fewer regional forms because they got bored of their own concept wanted an excuse to not bring them back in the future put that usual design work into Paradoxes and probably Wiglett & Toedscool lines.
They occupy very similar design spaces: take a base Pokemon, take it in a varying-degree different direction
They occupy very similar design spaces: take a base Pokemon, take it in a varying-degree different direction
Let's also not forget about the new cross gen evolutions.
And, while I joked about it in another thread, I'm curious if they may consider the Hisuian Pokemon partially Gen XI Pokemon OR, since you'll be able to transfer them over, at the very least taking up the number of the Regional Forms this gen.
And of course let's not forget that DLC may bring some more new Regional Forms.
I purposely excluded them from the conversation both because Coronis didnt bring them up and since Gen 8 had those too. More of them, actually; 6 in base SWSH, another 6 in Hisui, compared to 5 in Paldea
Gen 6 filled in the blanks in its own roster with Mega Evolutions, functionally the generations after Gen 5 (that roster's gimmick was at the time in BW1 being a completely new roster with no direct relation to older mons, but at the same time functionally mirroring Gen 1's roster) had a few totally new Pokemon, and then some sort of thing of older mons to fill in the blanks. Gen 6 had 48 Mega Evolutions in total, essentially having a total of 120 new designs. 18 of them are admittedly from ORAS, but if you were only to count XY, XY had introduced 30 Mega Evolutions, add that to 72 and you had 102 new designs at the time, which was roughly on par with Gen 4 or Gen 2 in total rosters. Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon, if you count those, bring the total to 122 designs.
Yes, Mega Evolutions count because they are effectively evolved forms of the Pokemon they derive from, being new designs, with new stats and abilities, and are akin to new evolutions in a way. So while Gen 6 had a relatively small number of totally new Pokemon and the smallest to date, Megas always had filled in the blanks.
Gen 7 and 8 of course used regional forms and in the latter case, cross-gen evolutions. Gen 7 was all about the first experiment at regional forms which occupy a similar design space to Megas and cross-gen evolutions as well, add that to the 88 completely new mons and you had 106 new designs in total.
Gen 8 between SwSh and PLA had 96 totally new Pokemon with new dex numbers, albeit with 12 of them being cross-gen evolutions. Add 19 Galarian and 17 Hisuian forms to that and you get 132 new designs in total.
Gen 9 has the largest number of totally new Pokemon who occupy new dex numbers in a vacuum, but that's because as far as "designs related to older mons" were concerned the two concepts that served as Game Freak's focus this time around, the Paradox Pokemon and the convergent species, are functionally in-universe designated as separate species from their derivative counterparts who occupy a separate Pokedex number from their original, unlike regional forms and Mega Evolutions. There were only four regional forms, three of them being regionals of the same Pokemon, and regional forms seem to have taken a backseat now after Alola, Galar, and Hisui, with the current focus having been on the Paradoxes and two convergent species. That said, add them in and you get a total of 109 new Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet thus far, but that number is sure to increase in the DLC to at least 5 with Ogerpon, the Kitakami trio, and Terapagos at the very least, but I'm sure more new mons will be introduced in the DLC than those five. Whatever we get after Gen 9 is certain to increase the new design count as well.
Went on a bit of a rant but yeah.
When you look at the grand scheme of things, recent generations appear to have had less new Pokemon, but the total new design count always had its blanks filled in using different ways to bring old Pokemon back to life. Megas, regional forms, and Paradoxes all being among those examples.
Yes, Mega Evolutions count because they are effectively evolved forms of the Pokemon they derive from, being new designs, with new stats and abilities, and are akin to new evolutions in a way. So while Gen 6 had a relatively small number of totally new Pokemon and the smallest to date, Megas always had filled in the blanks.
Gen 7 and 8 of course used regional forms and in the latter case, cross-gen evolutions. Gen 7 was all about the first experiment at regional forms which occupy a similar design space to Megas and cross-gen evolutions as well, add that to the 88 completely new mons and you had 106 new designs in total.
Gen 8 between SwSh and PLA had 96 totally new Pokemon with new dex numbers, albeit with 12 of them being cross-gen evolutions. Add 19 Galarian and 17 Hisuian forms to that and you get 132 new designs in total.
Gen 9 has the largest number of totally new Pokemon who occupy new dex numbers in a vacuum, but that's because as far as "designs related to older mons" were concerned the two concepts that served as Game Freak's focus this time around, the Paradox Pokemon and the convergent species, are functionally in-universe designated as separate species from their derivative counterparts who occupy a separate Pokedex number from their original, unlike regional forms and Mega Evolutions. There were only four regional forms, three of them being regionals of the same Pokemon, and regional forms seem to have taken a backseat now after Alola, Galar, and Hisui, with the current focus having been on the Paradoxes and two convergent species. That said, add them in and you get a total of 109 new Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet thus far, but that number is sure to increase in the DLC to at least 5 with Ogerpon, the Kitakami trio, and Terapagos at the very least, but I'm sure more new mons will be introduced in the DLC than those five. Whatever we get after Gen 9 is certain to increase the new design count as well.
Went on a bit of a rant but yeah.
When you look at the grand scheme of things, recent generations appear to have had less new Pokemon, but the total new design count always had its blanks filled in using different ways to bring old Pokemon back to life. Megas, regional forms, and Paradoxes all being among those examples.
It's an arbitrary distinction, but if you exclude cross-gen evos/prevos and legendaries/mythicals from both Gens 4 and 6, Gen 4 actually has fewer new Pokémon than Gen 6 (64 to 65). Obviously the cross-gen line expansions are a big part of Gen 4's identity, but I think it's funny.
My typical policy is to count the Cross-evos to Regionals if they specifically evolve from a Regional variant, arbitrary as that sounds.
So Kleavor doesn't count since it evolves from the same Scyther, but Sneasler or Clodsire evolve specifically from their region's version of the existing species and thus aren't a broad addition to the family (and let's be real, Clodsire is basically Paldean Clodsire but they wanted to have even more redesign freedom).
Convergent Species in particular feel like an attempt to refine the Regional Variant concept because they avert an issue I could see GF being concerned about down the road: Species Clause inducing obsolescence. Several Regional Variants are just completely outclassed by the original form or vice versa, whether they are that similar in build (Dugtrio) or the tweak just makes them better at the same job (Marowak). Convergent Evolutions as an idea let them reinvent the Pokemon a lot more thoroughly so they can have more distinctive niches, and thus people might show them off more without one being overshadowed and left in the dust.
What I find ironic is that the best case they've got so far of such is Toedscruel, who by all indications was a late addition to replace a Scrapped Magikarp Convergent.
I think one big reason for Convergent species is a bit less competitive-minded: It allows an older Pokemon to be re-interpreted as an entirely different type of organism
Like Alolan Diglett is still a "mole" like diglett, since it is Diglett adapted to a new environment, but because Wiglett is an entirely new species, it doesn't even have to be mammal, in this case a type of fish(Eel). Toadscool takes this a step further and outright changes kingdoms, since it is a Fungus(mushroom) instead of an Animal(Jellyfish). Concept-wise that is the biggest difference I've seen between regional forms and convergent evolutions
Toedscruel being a late addition makes sense from Mycelium Might coming last in the ability index, but I don't think I've heard of a scrapped Magikarp convergent. What's that about?
Toedscool & Toedscruel internal code names are OKAKINGU and OKAGYARADOSU which effectively translate to "Land Magikarp" and "Land Gyarados" (technically Oka is "Hill" but I think in context "Land" makes more sense).
This also might be why Tentacool & Tentacruel aren't in Paldea; they were relatively late addition to fill a gap.
My personal theory on why it was changed has to do with what I said in the last post about Convergents being a type of organism completely unrelated to the basis of the original Pokemon. How do you take something like Magikarp, whose whole design is basically just being a Fish, and manage to convincingly make a new Pokemon using that base design that ISN'T a fish to justify it not just being a regional form of Magikarp?
Similar to Mega Flygon, I think it was left out due to artist's block on how it would work. both Diglett/Dugtrio and Tentacool/Tentacruel are simplistic enough looking to easily re-imagine as something else.
Wel lfrankly I look at Wiglett & Toedscool and still go "these could have just been regional forms, no one would care", so the conceit of "justify it not being just a weird fish" does nothing for me
But there's like optoins. You can keep it looking like a fish but swim through the ground. You can turn it into a fat snake. I strongly suspect that there waas probably design work that made it worm like (perhaps it could "extend" itself), and the reason it got the boot was because especially Gyarados overlapped heavily with Orthworm
It'd be nice to see concept art, one day. I imagine they must have gotten a decent amount into its design work before scrapping it entirely.
Just chiming in that Toedscruel is the best convergent species in contrast with Wugtrio being the worst convergent species IMO.
Being a shroom that conspiciously looks like Tentacruel is more believable than Dig/Dug that is just.... long. And I still can't believe the Toed are the last Paldea mon implemented!
Being a shroom that conspiciously looks like Tentacruel is more believable than Dig/Dug that is just.... long. And I still can't believe the Toed are the last Paldea mon implemented!
The whole convergent Magikarp/Gyarados thing is something I find really fascinating, as those two plus the scrapped Charmeleon split evolution for gen IV are, that I can think of, the only scrapped Pokémon past gen III that have been discovered in data. Mega Flygon didn't get far enough to have any game data for it, but these Pokémon at least had something in some version of the game. The convergent Magikarp/Gyarados example is particularly special for their internal names being present in the final game, gen I is the only other example where traces of cut Pokémon still exist in the final product.
We have found out a few others. Interviews confirmed that there was originally a midstage for the Petilil line and we know thanks to SWSH's alpha/beta builds that bergmite line was also meant to have a middle stage. Which was also thanks to a codename; they left the codenames in for the Pokemon models they had in there for testing and Avalugg's was like "iceberg3"
I had forgotten about Bergmite's middle stage, oops. That one is a little different, but still counts. I had never heard about a planned middle stage for Petili though, that's news to me. Doesn't sound like it made it far enough to have data in any existing builds of the game though. Can't say I'd be interested in seeing what a middle stage for Bergmite would be, but Petili and Cottonee middle stages might've been good designs.
As a general thing, I find the development stages of Pokémon once it's hit the point of actually programming mons in to be most fascinating, with what gets altered, replaced, or outright scrapped. Like the "Spider Lily" Pokémon that was in the data of one of the really old Ruby/Sapphire builds that almost certainly evolved into the Ralts line. Wally getting associated with those flowers in ORAS makes it even more interesting to me, like how much of these older unused designs have an unnoticed influence on the later games?
As a general thing, I find the development stages of Pokémon once it's hit the point of actually programming mons in to be most fascinating, with what gets altered, replaced, or outright scrapped. Like the "Spider Lily" Pokémon that was in the data of one of the really old Ruby/Sapphire builds that almost certainly evolved into the Ralts line. Wally getting associated with those flowers in ORAS makes it even more interesting to me, like how much of these older unused designs have an unnoticed influence on the later games?
The gen 3 scrapped Pokemon are sooo frustrating. It's like we just missed seeing them, like if we just had a few earlier builds we could be seeing their designs like we did with the DP dumps.
There was sadly no image data associated with it but we had a name that was effectively "Chargun"
Thanks to the body shape assignments, it's probably safe to assume "Chargun" had multiple heads, as it was one of very few Pokémon that had the "multiple" body shape, like Dugtrio and Magneton. Would have been pretty cool to see, that thing made it far enough to have an actual name and not just an internal name or reference.
it also would have been interesting, from a design space, to see them go back to something like the starter lines and do stuff like this in the future
Or at least would have been interesting in a scenario where one can only assume the backlash to cross-gen evolutions didn't cause them to in order:
-have none
-have one normal one for typing purposes and then create an entirely different design space for "cross gen" """"evolutions"""""
-different forms (most of which amounted to different coloration)
-different forms but this time the different forms get evolutions! The base versions are left to die, but hey!
-okay we'll half & half but half of them will be in the shadow realm going forward
-Okay they're BACK, baby. Probably. I mean we'll see if Twin Beam and Hyper Drill and the Leader's Crest return at all moving forward and they are--i'm getting away with this you get the point.
