Pokemon Evolutions that disappointed you?

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
I meant that Ghost/Dark was weak to Fairy, and Ghost/Normal was weak to Dark
Ah, got you - just looked back and I misread your post.

Normal / Ghost might be the most overrated type combo ever. It doesn't really do anything besides "haha funny marshadow immunity" and getting cooked by Knock Off.
You say that like it already exists...?
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Now, let's look at the other reason I don't like Incineroar compared to the other two: its design. You already know: Game Freak was absolutely trying their hardest to make another Fire/Fighting Starter evolution after taking a break from the trend during the previous Generation via Delphox, giving Chesnaught the stray Fight-Type instead. Of course, this wouldn't have gone over too well with the fans, so what we ended up with is a decent Fire-Type option that turns into an overly masculine humanoid tiger thingy, which hot take, but I honestly don't like this design at all. Having a Fire/Dark starter is a nice change of pace, sure, but my whole point with this post is that Incineroar, at its core, is far too different from its other evolutionary forms. Even Torracat remains pure Fire as opposed to Combusken and co. gaining their secondary type early.
I think this is especially what turned off people from Incineroar. Especially when Torracat remains a biped Pokemon, keeping to a four-legged cat like Litten, people were hoping that the whole line would remain quadruped so we'd have our first quadruped Fire starter ever. Of course, Incineroar broke that trend entirely with it going full anthro. This is unlike the Tepig and Fennekin lines where Pignite and Braixen go biped and make it very clear that Emboar and Delphox will be biped from the middle stage.

Marikeck

So this doesn't feel "off topic" I think I will add this thing into the list... Primarina we can agree has a decent design and a massive improvement from Poplio. But Brionne lookss like an actual clown. And somehow it suppose to be the idol Pokemon?
It's a middle stage so it doesn't matter too much. And Primarina does redeem the evolution line unlike Incineroar.
Don't hate, c'mon, Brionne is a precious baby. Primarina granted is lovely and a sight to behold in battle but Brionne is a real cutie. Maybe the clown nose might be a bit much but if you see it in battle and in the anime it's really cute. I think it's a pretty fun middle stage Pokemon imo.

:ss/chingling: > :ss/chimecho:
Unlike the other three Pokémon that obtain a Baby Pokémon in Generation 4, Chimecho would direly benefit more an evolution than a pre-evolution, or even both as is the case of Roselia. For now, while cute, Chingling ultimately adds nothing of real value for Chimecho aside of three guaranteed IVs.
I think if they gave Chimecho an evo alongside Chingling to turn it into a three-stage evolutionary line it would be much better. Chimecho falls into that weird spot from an in-game standpoint where it's too strong to be an early game Pokemon but too weak to cut it in the late game. Roselia was in a similar position, but gaining both a pre-evo and an evo helped it immensely and bridged both gaps: Budew is a weak mon, but it allows the line to be feasibly obtained early without being too overpowering, which is exactly the function Chingling has in respect to Chimecho in that it allows the line to be made available earlier from an in-game standpoint. But then Roselia also got an evo in the form of Roserade which helped it immensely and made it an actually good Pokemon: Roselia becoming part of a full three-stage line was beneficial to it and made it both good and more memorable by allowing Sinnoh players to raise it from weak little Budew early in their advanture, then a Roselia, then evolve it late game for a cool as heck Roserade.

Chimecho could really really benefit from an evolution, but I don't think Chingling is inherently a bad addition: if they added an evo to make it a full three-stage line and allows Chingling to be an early game mon it would help the line's usability a lot from an in-game standpoint and maybe make a good mon in battle.
 
You say that like it already exists...?
I say it because immunities to Ghost and Fighting are indeed good to have, but then you look past that and... there's not really anything else. Normal immunity is whatever, Poison isn't a very useful resistance, Bug resist is nice for U-turn I guess but not much else (also Bug resists are a dime a dozen), and a weakness to Dark is really bad due to how spammable Knock Off is, and Knock Off is a much more common coverage move on Fighting-types than Shadow Claw. A Normal / Ghost mon would be nice for role compression, but it's far from the overpowered behemoth you and many others make it out to be.
 

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
I think if they gave Chimecho an evo alongside Chingling to turn it into a three-stage evolutionary line it would be much better. Chimecho falls into that weird spot from an in-game standpoint where it's too strong to be an early game Pokemon but too weak to cut it in the late game. Roselia was in a similar position, but gaining both a pre-evo and an evo helped it immensely and bridged both gaps: Budew is a weak mon, but it allows the line to be feasibly obtained early without being too overpowering, which is exactly the function Chingling has in respect to Chimecho in that it allows the line to be made available earlier from an in-game standpoint. But then Roselia also got an evo in the form of Roserade which helped it immensely and made it an actually good Pokemon: Roselia becoming part of a full three-stage line was beneficial to it and made it both good and more memorable by allowing Sinnoh players to raise it from weak little Budew early in their advanture, then a Roselia, then evolve it late game for a cool as heck Roserade.

Chimecho could really really benefit from an evolution, but I don't think Chingling is inherently a bad addition: if they added an evo to make it a full three-stage line and allows Chingling to be an early game mon it would help the line's usability a lot from an in-game standpoint and maybe make a good mon in battle.
It’s true that Chingling is far from a bad addition, it did helped Chimecho to be available earlier without becoming too strong at earlier point.

That’s a common problem with single-staged Pokémon; they have to be put carefully and not be available too early or too late lest it become too strong or too weak depending on what it had. Delibird’s availability in USUM, in addition to early Flying Z-Moves, benefitted it even after early game, making Delibird’s best case in-game whereas earlier generations, it is obtained too late and doesn’t have the stats, abilities or moves to make up for it.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
A Normal / Ghost mon would be nice for role compression, but it's far from the overpowered behemoth you and many others make it out to be.
I think it would depend on the Pokemon. A Normal/Ghost mon with the stats of Snorlax would be a tank for sure (particularly if it had an ability like Thick Fat for good measure). Whereas something more geared to being a sweeper wouldn't be, and would be the more optimal build as it wouldn't be difficult to KO.

I just posted about Spiritomb in a different thread making pretty much this same point. Having no weaknesses (initially) didn't stop it from being an underwhelming Pokemon. But if it had had better stats, it would have been a very different story. Stantler is more offensively oriented, so if Wyrdeer continued in that direction, it wouldn't be overpowered in the least - which I pointed out in my original post.

You can't tell me a Normal/Ghost Pokemon with, say, 100 HP and 100 in each defensive stat wouldn't be overpowered. It'd be crazily good - very little could hope to OHKO it, even with STAB Dark moves. Which is why if and when we do get one, it needs to be one that isn't broken statwise.
 

CTNC

Doesn't know how to attack
Spr 4h 149.png

I feel bad about this one because I actually like Dragonite a lot, but it does not fit in with its two pre-evolutions at all. Dratini is a cute baby, Dragonair is elegant and graceful, and then Dragonite is...fat and derpy. Doesn't work for me. Dragonite on its own is cute, but I can't get over how different it is from the two things before it.
Dragonite disappointed me too but for a different reason. Emerald was the only game I'd played before Fire Red, so I didn't know much other than Dragons are awesome. Altaria was Dragon/Flying. Rayquaza was Dragon/Flying. Lati@s was Dragon Psychic, so at least not all Dragons are Dragon/Flying. Dratini's line was interesting because I hadn't seen Mono-Dragon before... Then it evolved into Dragonite. Dragon/Flying again. -_-



Alomomola was revealed before the news that the Black and White Dex would have only Gen 5 Pokemon, so a lot of people thought it was a Luvdisc Evolution. Who else was disappointed when Luvdisc's evolution turned out to not be an evolution of Luvdisc? That thing needs an evolution... *Looks at Luvdisc's stats* I'm pretty sure whatever Luvdisc evolved into would also need an evolution too...
 
Like it or not, it's inspired by real-life fiddler crabs, where the males have one claw that is substantially bigger than the other. In their case, its primary use is attracting mates, not as a weapon (at least as far as I know), and if it falls off, the previously smaller claw grows to become the larger one (or am I confusing them with Kingler now? It's been a while since I've looked into crabs).

I guess I can see how this evolution is disappointing, but the girth on Kingler's larger claw helps to sell how much bigger it is than Krabby.

Side note, but we actually haven't had any other true crab Pokémon after this line. Corphish and Crawdaunt are crawdads, Dwebble and Crustle are the "not-technically-crabs" hermit crabs (also, they can't learn Crabhammer), Clauncher and Clawitzer are pistol shrimp, and Crabrawler and Crabominable are in the same "not-crabs" boat as the Dwebble line as coconut crabs and yeti crabs. G-max Kingler IS a separate species of crab, the Japanese spider crab, which makes me a little sad since I wanted a separate species to represent that one day.
1. Fair enough, but being inspired by real-life crabs doesn’t automatically make me like it. Being inspired by something that exists IRL does not excuse a bland design. I feel that Pokémon often take a real-life animal and give it a fun twist, but I don’t think it worked very well (or at all) with Kingler.

2. Perhaps that’s how it is, but they could just as easily have made both of its claws big. Like they did with its sprite in R/B.
:rb/kingler:

3. That’s interesting. I have always considered those Pokémon lines you mentioned to be “crab-like”, but I didn’t know that not a single one of them were actual crabs (by real life standards, if nothing else). Either way, I like all of them better than the Krabby line. Clawitzer especially, it is definitely my favorite out of the bunch. I think it does the whole concept of having one claw being bigger than the other much better than Kingler does. That said, I think Gigantamax Kingler is quite cool. It gets a beard, and that is enough to make any Pokémon better in my eyes.

Since some other people posted Megas they were disappointed with, I might as well do the same. While I like Megas on the whole, there are a few I find disappointing for various reasons.

:sm/venusaur: :sm/venusaur-mega:
:sm/charizard: :sm/charizard-mega-y:
:sm/blastoise: :sm/blastoise-mega:
When the Kanto starter Megas were revealed, my first thought was that they all looked very similar to their base forms. It felt like Game Freak wanted to give a lot of focus to iconic Kanto Pokémon in order to bring back old fans, but at the same time, making these Megas look too different from the base Pokémon would just scare away the old fans (“Is that supposed to be a Charizard? Why did they have to ruin it?” lololol). Personally, I think these would have been better if they had looked more different compared to their base forms. Now, they look way too similar. Though I think they are pretty great in battle at least. Venusaur and Blastoise at least, haven’t used MCY but I can see it being quite good with Drought and high Sp.att. In the end, I think MCX is the best Kanto starter Mega without any doubt, and the only one which wasn’t a disappointment to me.

:sm/pidgeot: :sm/pidgeot-mega:
I wanted to mention this in my previous post, but forgot about it. Like the Kanto starters apart from MCX, I think Mega Pidgeot looks too similar to regular Pidgeot. It doesn’t really feel like an upgrade at all. It also feels like it is very one-dimensional in battle. It has one thing going for it with 100% accurate Hurricane and Heat Wave... and that’s about it.

:sm/gardevoir: :sm/gardevoir-mega:
Gardrevoir is my least favorite Pokémon, and thus it my least favorite Mega by default. It is also the only Mega I will never use. Like the ones above, I don't think it improves upon base Gardevoir at all in terms of design. Can’t speak for how it performs in battle, though I can see it being decent with Pixilate Hyper Voice.

:sm/ralts: :sm/kirlia: :sm/gardevoir:
Speaking of which, I should probably mention regular Gardevoir as a disappointing evolution as well. I think Ralts and Kirlia are fine, and I really like Gallade (as well as Mega Gallade). But not Gardevoir. However, my disappointment from Gardevoir comes mostly from having bad experiences with it in battle. Although I think its design is rather boring and uninteresting as well.

:sm/latias: :sm/latios: :sm/latias-mega: :sm/latios-mega:
Sadly, those feel like a step down from their base forms. I have always liked the Lati@s, they are really cool. I think their Megas look way too similar to each other though, and they are not as cool as their base forms.

:sm/garchomp: :sm/garchomp-mega:
Another one that is a step down. I think Mega Garchomp looks less cool than regular Garchomp, and the fact that they lowered its great Speed stat is just a big punch in the face.

:sm/aerodactyl: :sm/aerodactyl-mega:
:sm/banette: :sm/banette-mega:
I think those are okay in terms of design, but they feel lacking when it comes to performance in battle. Mega Aerodactyl feels like it doesn’t really have any specific niche to make it stand out, and while Mega Banette has a few cool things going for it like Prankster Destiny Bond and high Attack, it still feels lacking.

Apart from those, I think all other Megas are ranging between okay and fantastic. In terms of design at least.
 

Daylight

angels roll their eyes
is an Artistis a Contributor to Smogon
Speaking of which, I should probably mention regular Gardevoir as a disappointing evolution as well. I think Ralts and Kirlia are fine, and I really like Gallade (as well as Mega Gallade). But not Gardevoir. However, my disappointment from Gardevoir comes mostly from having bad experiences with it in battle. Although I think its design is rather boring and uninteresting as well.
Unlike you, Gardevoir is actually one of my favorite Pokémon and I love its simplicity, elegance, as well as the whole guardian angel / empath concept—but I’m not here to judge anyone’s personal taste. I just thought the contrast was interesting because, for me, Gallade is actually the slightly disappointing one.

However, I do think I would enjoy it a lot more if (like Gardevoir) it wasn’t gender-locked and/or it became a Fighting/Fairy type instead of a Psychic/Fighting type. Given the whole guardian-thing that both final evolutions have going on (I mean, Gardevoir’s Japanese name is “sir knight” after all lol), it’d be awesome to have a Fairy/Fighting-typed Gallade as a kind of fairy tale protector. You’d have a knight in shining armor & an angel in the wings!

1631043714488.gif
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
:sm/banette: :sm/banette-mega:
I think those are okay in terms of design, but they feel lacking when it comes to performance in battle. Mega Aerodactyl feels like it doesn’t really have any specific niche to make it stand out, and while Mega Banette has a few cool things going for it like Prankster Destiny Bond and high Attack, it still feels lacking.
I really think Banette should've had a normal evolution. Not just because it's kind of eh on its own but because I find it incredibly irksome that its counterpart Dusclops got a normal evolution while Banette itself didn't. Mega Banette sort of makes up for Dusclops getting Dusknoir but it's not quite the same thing.

Now granted, it could still risk not making Banette good enough as Dusknoir is a pretty mediocre Pokemon unfortunately but it would still be something considering how poor Banette itself is. Especially now that Megas are gone Banette just comes off as less impressive and the unfair treatment between itself and Dusclops is still there (also while Dusknoir may be sad, Dusclops gets the luxury of using Eviolite thanks to it and Dusclops reaps the benefits by being one of the best bulky Trick Room setters in Doubles and VGC).
 

Daylight

angels roll their eyes
is an Artistis a Contributor to Smogon
I really think Banette should've had a normal evolution. Not just because it's kind of eh on its own but because I find it incredibly irksome that its counterpart Dusclops got a normal evolution while Banette itself didn't. Mega Banette sort of makes up for Dusclops getting Dusknoir but it's not quite the same thing.

Now granted, it could still risk not making Banette good enough as Dusknoir is a pretty mediocre Pokemon unfortunately but it would still be something considering how poor Banette itself is. Especially now that Megas are gone Banette just comes off as less impressive and the unfair treatment between itself and Dusclops is still there (also while Dusknoir may be sad, Dusclops gets the luxury of using Eviolite thanks to it and Dusclops reaps the benefits by being one of the best bulky Trick Room setters in Doubles and VGC).
I would prefer they made changes all the Pokémon created as pairs and trios consistent. For example, when Beautifly received a ten point increase to its special attack, Dustox should’ve also received one to its special defense. Similarly, it would’ve been nice for Banette and Jynx to get evolutions when their counterparts did in Gen 4–or for Milotic to get a Mega corresponding to Gyarados’ in Gen 6.(Although considering how the mega designs are pretty hit-or-miss, maybe it was for the best lol.)
 

Oh Coalossal, Game Freak did you dirty.

They had a nice thing going. Rolycoly looks great, and is based on a wheelbarrow of sorts. Carkoal, even though it looks like a Banjo-Kazooie enemy, I can still respect it.
With Coalossal, it's like they gave up and just decided to make a generic monster in the end. There's so much more they could have done with the design. An escavator, a dump truck, a bulldozer, a drill.
Nope, just rock monster. So tragic.
It screams Galarian Golem.
 
I actually think the worst part of the incineroar line is litten. generic edgy cat, extremely boring, but I'm just not a fan of cat/dog pokémon unless they have something else going on.

Anyways, here's some pokémon evos that weren't mentioned yet:

:sentret: > :furret:
Sentret is such an interesting first stage. the large tail, the wing-like arms, multiple influences. There's a lot of ways this mon could have evolved that would have been cool, cute, or silly. Instead, we got a generic ferret that literally has nothing remarkable about and the only connection it has to sentret is the stripes and is a normal type.

:eevee: > every single eeveelution
The definition of wasted opportunity. Establish a creature known as having unstable DNA, then instead of doing anything cool about it, just make a bunch of evolutions that use a carbon copy body and add the bare minimum type signifiers. I don't know what's worse, the lost chances or the fact there are 8 of them. Should have stopped at the Kanto trio.

:lombre: > :ludicolo:
Lombre is a cool kappa, ludicolo feels cheap. This isn't about being offensive or not, I just think designs based on stereotypes tend to be extremely boring regardless, and a waste of design space. It also feels super disconnected from the line, I honestly don't know which one was designed first.
 
:rs/torchic: :rs/combusken: :rs/blaziken:

This line just doesn't work for me. Torchic starts off quite cute. Then Combusken comes along and doesn't look much anything like Torchic not to mention looking quite bizarre with its obviously phallic shape. And finally Blaziken who doesn't look like a natural evolution of either Torchic or Combusken and looks quite ugly to me frankly with its weird hairdo and bell bottom pants. Not a good start for Fire Fighting starters in my opinion.
Something funny
So I've been looking at Gen 3 palettes. Noticeably the transparent color was either
-Tan (most repped for Gen 1/2 mons)
-White/off white (second most repped, though seen in some Gen 3 mons too)
-Light blue
-Cyan (Kecleon and Nidoking notably)
-Deep green
-Beige Green
-Light green
-Orange (Cacnea line)
-Light red (Grovyle)
-Yellow for Milotic
-Purple for Treecko/Sceptile

What I noticed was, despite Torchic and Combusken having the same deep green, Combusken was Beige Green. It's also notable that;
-Lati Twins are deep Green
-The weather duo (Groudon, Kyogre) are deep green
-most paired single staged mons bar Volbeat are deep green
Which implies these were Sugimori done sprites, since we know he did Torchic, Latias, and Groudon. But then Blaziken sticks more since that's clearly based on his early design for Latias
So potentially the reason it looks off compared to Torchic/Combusken was because another artist did the design for Combusken based on scrapped Sugi elements
Admittedly we should consider that the sprites aren't equal to the pokemon designer, but it's interesting to see sprite patterns
For those curious, other mons that use the same color Blaziken does;

Chimecho, Grumpig, Makuhita, Roselia, Volbeat, Vibrava, Flygon

Which implies
-Trapinch had a different designer or spriter than Vibrava/Flygon
-Grumpig and Hariyama a different designer to Spoink/Makuhita respectively
-That these mons were sprited later, given how late Chimecho was
 
Last edited:
I remembered a lot of the Gen 5 Pokemon final forms being a disappointment. But looking back at it, I don't see a lot. That doesn't mean there aren't any starting with these:
Sugimori 613.pngSugimori 614.png
I don't even remember their name, but the first stage looks cute and fine. But the final form looks just stupid with that icicle beard. Also that head design I can't get used to it. The entire body shape looks like a triangle shame, a very unbalanced design. I would expect more build on the chest area.

Sugimori 498.pngSugimori 499.pngSugimori 500.png
You knew this was coming at some point and the main reason is obviously: Fire/Fighting Typing.
It still goes on. Why do every fire starter stand on 2 legs?
I could tolerate it up to Gen 4 simply for the kind of animals we were dealing with. Not only that, this is the start of humanization of Starter Pokemon feeling less of a creature you can insert a character into to something that has a fixed role.
All Scorbunnies become football players.
All Grookies become drummers.
All Greninja are ninjas.
Pignite is the most hideous in design looking like an egg and has no neck. Emboar looks kinda threatening but after all that stuff it just doesn't sit with me. Design itself is fine. Not as bad as the Litten-line visually.
 
:sm/Magmar: --> :sm/Magmortar:

Don't take this as me saying I like Magmar. I don't. But I do think it had reasonable potential for an evolution. But Magmortar is kinda ugly as fuck and ruins any of that. Weird egg shape, stupid mouth. I don't like it and it's easily my least favorite regional cross generation evolution
 
Last edited:

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
:sm/Magmar: --> :sm/Magmortar:

Don't take this as me saying I like Magmar. I don't. But I do think it had reasonable potential for an evolution. But Magmortar is kinda ugly as fuck and ruins any of that. Weird egg shape, stupid mouth. I don't like it and it's easily my least favorite regional evolution
I understands the disappointment with Magmortar - it’s design definitely needs some rework - but one problem.

As I put in the bold, you call it a regional evolution, while Magmortar isn’t region-exclusive.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top