What was the "breakout Pokemon" of each generation?

ant4456 said:
I like to use Pokemon Unite as a pseudo-dictator for how TPC sees a lot of mons, since although they don't always just go 100% with popularity (Especially with new gen mons), I like to see the priority.

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my first take from this was "eldegoss?!", which i guess ties well into your previous "cuter mons are more popular in japan than outside". otherwise it really goes with popular and/or very visually memorable mons.

speaking of which, interesting that nobody had mentioned absol yet. clearly a very high popularity to media push ratio
 
Axiemeister said:
my first take from this was "eldegoss?!", which i guess ties well into your previous "cuter mons are more popular in japan than outside". otherwise it really goes with popular and/or very visually memorable mons.

speaking of which, interesting that nobody had mentioned absol yet. clearly a very high popularity to media push ratio
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The way Unite handled SWSH was weird because it came out like 6 months after it came out

We often forget that Eldegoss was one of the first mons they revealed for SWSH after the starters; they seemingly kinda believed in it?

I don't think it's that popular in JP either tbh, in general the Unite roster during Gen 8 and now Gen 9 has had an air of "Well we gotta include mons from the latest gen". Gen 8 in particular being rough because there aren't that many hitters. Out of any region, they got the most creative with picks for Gen 8, including Greedent for Halloween.

I don't intend to suggest that Unite is fully 100% "well this is popular let's put it in", especially considering sometimes they go out of their way for certain roles (I don't think Blissey/Comfey are particularly popular, but most Pokemon don't fit for a support mon!), sometimes it's to plagiarize a LoL character, and sometimes it's just cuz region quota.

But I think it can give an insight into where TPC is thinking sometimes.

For Gen 9 they've been much more popular picks than they did when SWSH was fresh: Meowscarada, Miraidon, Ceruledge and upcoming Armarogue in that order has been their picks so far.

also this should be up to date:

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ant4456 said:
We often forget that Eldegoss was one of the first mons they revealed for SWSH after the starters; they seemingly kinda believed in it?

I don't think it's that popular in JP either tbh, in general the Unite roster during Gen 8 and now Gen 9 has had an air of "Well we gotta include mons from the latest gen". Gen 8 in particular being rough because there aren't that many hitters. Out of any region, they got the most creative with picks for Gen 8, including Greedent for Halloween.
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oh i get this, sometimes they make choices based on hot much data and then they get it wrong, but even then i was surprised to see "very fluffy grass mon part three" there. surely the first two attempts not becoming big names was a clue?
 
Axiemeister said:
oh i get this, sometimes they make choices based on hot much data and then they get it wrong, but even then i was surprised to see "very fluffy grass mon part three" there. surely the first two attempts not becoming big names was a clue?
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One thing I'd be interested to see is how much Cinderace met their expectations bc they really tried pushing it hard, they wanted a Greninja #2

Similar build for competitive just physical. Goh got Scorbunny as his starter.

This is the Pokemon Unite card image on Switch:

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ant4456 said:
The way Unite handled SWSH was weird because it came out like 6 months after it came out

We often forget that Eldegoss was one of the first mons they revealed for SWSH after the starters; they seemingly kinda believed in it?

I don't think it's that popular in JP either tbh, in general the Unite roster during Gen 8 and now Gen 9 has had an air of "Well we gotta include mons from the latest gen". Gen 8 in particular being rough because there aren't that many hitters. Out of any region, they got the most creative with picks for Gen 8, including Greedent for Halloween.

I don't intend to suggest that Unite is fully 100% "well this is popular let's put it in", especially considering sometimes they go out of their way for certain roles (I don't think Blissey/Comfey are particularly popular, but most Pokemon don't fit for a support mon!), sometimes it's to plagiarize a LoL character, and sometimes it's just cuz region quota.

But I think it can give an insight into where TPC is thinking sometimes.

For Gen 9 they've been much more popular picks than they did when SWSH was fresh: Meowscarada, Miraidon, Ceruledge and upcoming Armarogue in that order has been their picks so far.

also this should be up to date:

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Click to expand...
I've always gotten a chuckle out of the disproportionately high Kalos rep in Unite. Other than Kanto all the regions preceding it have less Pokemon and Sylveon was the first Eeveelution added iirc. It's not even just a matter of chucking in all the obvious shillmons like Greninja, you got weirdos like Trevenant and Hoopa which definitely wouldn't get the best placement in a Mythical popularity poll

Here's to the share rising even higher with Z-A (also please add my goat Chesnaught)
 
Yung Dramps said:
I've always gotten a chuckle out of the disproportionately high Kalos rep in Unite. Other than Kanto all the regions preceding it have less Pokemon and Sylveon was the first Eeveelution added iirc. It's not even just a matter of chucking in all the obvious shillmons like Greninja, you got weirdos like Trevenant and Hoopa which definitely wouldn't get the best placement in a Mythical popularity poll

Here's to the share rising even higher with Z-A (also please add my goat Chesnaught)
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Best region should be highly represented.
 
I don't know if tinkaton was surprising for them. A pretty original design that still maintains a lot of fairy cuteness and has an oversized weapon and funny lore that makes it more aggressive than you'd imagine? That's pretty much turning a loveable character in a cartoon into a pokemon, of course its gonna sell like hotcakes. it hits all the fanbase needs of being cute, scary, funny and cool, malleable to any situation. I don't say this as a diss, tinkaton isn't my type of design but its extremely well crafted and it makes complete sense that its as much of a hit as it is, and I think they knew that was gonna be the case.

Pawmot is a nepo baby, and a very successful one. Ceruledge was also a bet they had and they hit it perfectly. I think koraidon is more popular than miraidon? Idk I keep seeing art of koraidon a lot more often than miraidon at least.

It's hard to pick a breakout pokemon because of how intertwined the designs are with merch, you'll see so many of them promoted at once in different niches and places like plushies, the tcg, unite, the physical cafes etc.
 
I’m just gonna opine that not every generation had a breakout Pokemon; at least not on the level of Lucario or Mimikyu or even Gengar. It’s been interesting seeing discussion on what could count for each gen as a thought exercise, but ultimately i just don’t think anything in gen 5 or 8 happened regardless of how popular the gens may be overall. Sometimes that happens.

There’s also the clincher that in more recent gens, what gets the most focus will often be a past gen Pokemon anyway. For instance, I would say that way more than anything actually added to the dex; what got the most attention both officially and from fans in Gen 8 was Charizard due to the Gigantamax. Greninja of course pulled through in Gen 6, but I would readily give 2nd and 3rd spots to Lucario and Charizard there too.
 
Valoo said:
Just thought it was interesting that the new TCG packs for each region have a cover with a box legend + one Pokemon from each gen. Most of the choices are pretty expected, except for Unova which has… Amoongus?

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Yeah, I have questions about that list. Most of them are fine, but Amoongus? Even if they needed it to be a Bug or Grass type, Gen 5 had a good selection(Durant, Serperior, Sawsbuck, Lilligant heck I wouldn't be surprised if they used Simisage) that feel more special to that gen than Amoongus does. Similarly, Noivern isn't exactly a common association with Kalos(I usually assume it's Gen V). Props for them at least picking Snorlax over Eevee.
 
Hugin said:
Yeah, I have questions about that list. Most of them are fine, but Amoongus? Even if they needed it to be a Bug or Grass type, Gen 5 had a good selection(Durant, Serperior, Sawsbuck, Lilligant heck I wouldn't be surprised if they used Simisage) that feel more special to that gen than Amoongus does. Similarly, Noivern isn't exactly a common association with Kalos(I usually assume it's Gen V). Props for them at least picking Snorlax over Eevee.
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Eh I’d say Noivern is a pretty standard pick to represent Kalos. It was one of the first regular Pokemon revealed and had a role in the anime before XY were released.
 
Valoo said:
Eh I’d say Noivern is a pretty standard pick to represent Kalos. It was one of the first regular Pokemon revealed and had a role in the anime before XY were released.
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Yeah I think Noivern would be (outside of Greninja of course) one of the first I would pick/think of for Gen 6, along with probably Talonflame?
 
Coronis said:
Yeah I think Noivern would be (outside of Greninja of course) one of the first I would pick/think of for Gen 6, along with probably Talonflame?
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Goodra, Aegislash, Talonflame, or any Mega would all make sense to me. My personal pick would be Furfrou or Vivillion. Kalos almost requires an appearance-heavy customizable mon as it's representative.

Noivern is one of those mons that I just always assume first appeared a different Gen, which makes associating it with Kalos not happen for me.
 
Valoo said:
Just thought it was interesting that the new TCG packs for each region have a cover with a box legend + one Pokemon from each gen. Most of the choices are pretty expected, except for Unova which has… Amoongus?

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Is Alcremie that popular among the Generation VIII roster? This thing was also the first playable Gen VIII Pokémon in Pokémon Mesters EX if I remember correctly.
 
It's a cute, girlie little Pokemon that's gotten a lot of merch, had a very distinct gimmick & was #5 Galar Pokemon on the 2020 google poll & #3 Galar Pokemon on the 2021 Pokemon Day poll

As the rest of this conversation has shown those may not be the be all end all aspects of popularity but yeah I'd say people like it. Not that the TCG is beholden to doing the Absolute Most Optimal Popular Selections regardless.
 
KalosianPorygon said:
Is Alcremie that popular among the Generation VIII roster? This thing was also the first playable Gen VIII Pokémon in Pokémon Mesters EX if I remember correctly.
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Wasn't the first, but was the second. We had Zacian release beforehand, which was obviously going to be a big one, and then after it was Obstagoon
 
Personally I think for Gen 4 it would be Lucario and Garchomp because Lucario was pushed heavy in the marketing leading up to this gen with its movie and whatnot. Garchomp gained a ton of popularity too once the games came out being Cynthia’s ace and its overall strength in competitive.

Gen 5 its definitely Zoroark Similar to Lucario it got its own movie and I remember it being really hyped. Once the games came out I got the sense its hype kind of died down though.

Gen 8 I would say Toxtricity Tbh this gen didn’t seem to have many popular pokemon but this one seems to be the most popular in my memory.

And currently Gen 9 I would say Ceruledge and Tinkaton These two seem to be the most popular.
 
Kurona said:
Has anything on here ended up surprising anyone? I had no idea until the mentions of it here and it polling high in this thread that Toxtricity was so popular. I fully never think about it or had heard anything of it from anyone
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"Toxtricity is very popular compared to other gen 8 mons" and "nobody talks about Toxtricity" aren't mutually exclusive, provided people aren't talking much about most other gen 8 mons. Given I never had a good reason to interact with SwSh, that situation describes my status pretty well. I'd probably answer Dragapult just because I know that the pseudolegend exists.
 
Kurona said:
Has anything on here ended up surprising anyone? I had no idea until the mentions of it here and it polling high in this thread that Toxtricity was so popular. I fully never think about it or had heard anything of it from anyone
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It was definitely a mon GF was trying to PUSH for gen 8, and arguably they succeeded. It's not the most famous/memorable one from that gen, but it was a giftmon, had 2 forms, was powerful for meme sets, had a GMax form, and it has a convenient excuse for GF to bring it back(any music-related anything).

Honestly the Gen 8 mon selection is just meh. There's broken mons, sure, and individuals might be fans of certain ones(I love the fossils, the starters/legends have their defenders, many of the others are fine), but I don't think any of them really took off.
 
Hugin said:
Honestly the Gen 8 mon selection is just meh. There's broken mons, sure, and individuals might be fans of certain ones(I love the fossils, the starters/legends have their defenders, many of the others are fine), but I don't think any of them really took off.
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Corviknight is one of the most popular regional birds.
Hatterene was also popular in fanart.
Falinks and Snom are well-liked too.
 
I think it’s a tough question. There are mons GameFreak clearly tried to market, mons that I found through osmosis before I played the games, mons that stuck out to me when I played, mons I’ve seen my peer group and students talk about it, so on and so forth.

Maybe as a consequence of Pokemon Go, but over the years, I’ve heard constant mention of Rayquaza. Perfect IV Rayquaza, Shiny Rayquaza. A lot of memes about that intervention between Kyogre and Groudon. Out of all legendaries, it and Ho-Oh stand above the others, and the latter only bc of that scene in the first anime episode.

I’ll also say, Gastly/Haunter were in part shown off with the Silph Co lens, they weren’t some regular route pokemon.

I feel like Gardevoir is in some weird zone where people clearly like the design and know it, but it’s such a target for jokes about it being sexualized that it’s hard to treat it “seriously” like other popular pokemon. Vaporeon suffers from this too to a lesser extent.

Maybe even Lucario a little bit. I feel like he *should* feel special, but there’s something off with his power and strength. Maybe because he should’ve been some bigger physical attacker, but felt outclassed or too similar to other hard hitters.

Gar has him lapped for Gen 4 I’d say. My students talked about him more.

When I think of Gen 5, I think of Cofragrigus or Chandelure’s sprites, but I don’t think that generation produced any superstars.
 
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