What are some theories, assumptions, headcanons, or general opinions about the series you've changed your mind on over time?

[Esserise]

Maxie and Archie are honestly just diehard environmentalists turned bitter rivals who, while unique on their own, started the trend of "major bad guy wants Legendary Pokémon because mwahahaha I'm evil I guess".

I feel like, already this early into the rundown, this is an extremely reductive take. The whole point of virtually every Pokémon villain is that they’re not just doing things because “mwahaha I’m evil I guess.” Their respective motivations may at times be thinly sketched (because Pokémon tends to tell its stories on a more thematic level than a personal one), but they almost all have reasons for trying to change the world. Archie and Maxie are animated by their desire to make the environment more accommodating to either Pokémon or humans. Their goals are then turned up to the extreme so that the story can make a point about how a balance must be struck between humanity’s infrastructural needs and the stability of the natural ecosystem.

Archie and Maxie aren’t really meant to be deep, complex characters; they’re consciously designed to provide the story with a pair of reckless extremists whose tunnel vision actually does lead them to instigate the calamitous environmental difficulties that such one-sided viewpoints risk bringing about. This is a cautionary tale, and not one that particularly requires villains with a lot of nuance.

I don't care if Platinum gave his character a bit more depth, because you can just as easily make an argument that his character could have been fleshed out as early as Diamond & Pearl since the developers only had to account for one evil team and not two this time.

“I recognize the fact that Platinum added more depth to Cyrus, but I’m not going to give them credit for that because I can imagine an alternate reality in which Diamond & Pearl didn’t suck as much as they do” is certainly a take of sorts, but it’s not a very useful critique.

Oh my gosh, where do I ever begin with Ghetsis? This guy was so, so close to being the first main series villain who actually had some originality to both his character design and his team's plan. That is... until you beat N during the ending of the first Unova games and his actual, far less original plans of ruling the world are revealed.

Ghetsis needs to be a malignant asshole in order for N’s story — that is, the character’s story who actually matters in BW — to work. Complaining about Ghetsis not having some “original” motivation is just overlooking everything they did to give N a unique antagonistic perspective.

I would also say that Ghetsis provides a necessary corollary to the story’s broad insistence on the idea that opposing viewpoints can’t necessarily be categorized as “right” or “wrong,” because sometimes there just are flat-out terrible people who want to hurt and exploit others. N receives sympathy from the other characters who validate his convinction in his beliefs because even though he was manipulated, he still had genuine ideals and concerns about the welfare of Pokémon (enough to win over one of the Legendary dragons, even), but if, hypothetically, N had that same convinction in the belief that he should be the supreme god-king of Unova and should rule with an iron fist, would that still be a viewpoint that is deserving of the same validation? Of course not.

Ghetsis represents and begets everything wrong with Team Plasma’s approach. Team Plasma’s message, its ostensible leader, and many of its followers may were genuinely well-meaning. But as an organization, they still kidnapped peoples’ Pokémon, forever severing countless genuinely meaningful bonds and partnerships without any concern or consent from the parties involved. That’s the part of Team Plasma’s actions that are not justifiable, and the story needs it to spring forth from an objectively unjustifiable character. Otherwise you’d end up with a story that sort of endorses the act of kidnapping peoples’ loved ones based on your own uninformed presumptions.

Lysandre literally couldn't be the more obvious head of Team Flare no matter which way you put it. The audience knowing things isn't the problem, though, so much as how oblivious the entire rest of the Kalos region is to the idea that an already sketchy individual who just happens to own his own company could possibly be affiliated with a group like Team Flare who just happens to want the exact same things he wants.

This is ultimately dramatized to some degree, though. Sycamore openly regrets that he let such obvious warning signs slip just because Lysandre was his friend and colleague.

Besides that, I think one look at the real world that we live in can provide pretty sufficient evidence that there are in fact tons of people who will ignore or overlook not just warning signs, but blatantly evil acts happening in real time, whether they be on the part of high-profile individuals, organizations, corporations, or governments, as long as that entity presents an appealing image or message.

To most of the Kalos region, Lysandre is an accomplished, stylish, charismatic inventor-celebrity. “Sure, maybe he says something a little eugenics-y on his Chatter account every now and again, but the guy’s a genius, y’know? I mean, coming from a guy like that, maybe he actually has kind of a point? Anyway, didn’t you see the new Holo-Caster unveiling he hosted last Tuesday? I can’t wait to buy it!”

I swear, so many techbros would rally around Lysandre like bees around a beehive.

(nice job stealing from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and not giving credit, by the way)

The main games have been using the “Team ____” format since the beginning. The fact that they eventually chose the word “skull” — a common symbol of delinquency or just general counterculture-ism — after a different game in the franchise also happened to chose that word in a different context is hardly a sign of creative theft.

Wouldn’t TPC own the rights to all Pokémon Mystery Dungeon stuff anyway? Does PSMD have to give credit to the anime for their use of the idea of Mega-Evolved Pokémon going berserk? This is just a bizarrely petty accusation.

started a trend of "hey, we're not the actual bad guys, we're just setting the stage for a twist villain later! Oh wow..." yeah, no, anyone who's watched a Disney movie in the past, like, eight years can tell you that red herrings are lazy writing at this point

Red herrings and twists are like, fundamental tools in the writing toolbox and are used in countless examples of highly-regarded and culturally significant media. Literally wtf

And again this is just a very strange criticism. Pokémon finally tries to experiment with its well-worn formula, but now the issue is that the developers didn’t use 100% original, innovative, cutting-edge writing techniques. The issue if that Pokémon isn’t postmodernist enough? Eh?

Team Star... alright, now we're literally running out of ideas.

Pokémon: *introduces a bevy of new ideas*

Fans: “man, they’re really running out of ideas”

Tale as old as time.

 

[bdt2002]

I went ahead and deleted my original post so you guys could know you got your points across. Feel better now that multiple of you went through the effort of disecting (is that you you spell it?) my sarcasm-filled post like some kind of scientist group?

All of this being said, I'm not actually mad at anyone, and you guys do bring up a lot of good points. It's just really difficult for me to understand why these different "eras" of Pokémon villains, so to speak, can still rely on the same patterns sometimes even though they're all trying to make an original impression. Maybe the issue was that I was being a little too sarcastic? Who knows.

I'd like to move on from this so I don't develop an unhealthy case of "I'm mad at myself because people were posting very valid counter-claims against me on the Internet". That's the last thing I need to do to myself, believe me. Thankfully I can think of a number of other things to talk about. I guess we'll just have to see where this thread goes from here.

 

[ant4456]

I went ahead and deleted my original post so you guys could know you got your points across. Feel better now that multiple of you went through the effort of disecting (is that you you spell it?) my sarcasm-filled post like some kind of scientist group?

All of this being said, I'm not actually mad at anyone, and you guys do bring up a lot of good points. It's just really difficult for me to understand why these different "eras" of Pokémon villains, so to speak, can still rely on the same patterns sometimes even though they're all trying to make an original impression. Maybe the issue was that I was being a little too sarcastic? Who knows.

I'd like to move on from this so I don't develop an unhealthy case of "I'm mad at myself because people were posting very valid counter-claims against me on the Internet". That's the last thing I need to do to myself, believe me. Thankfully I can think of a number of other things to talk about. I guess we'll just have to see where this thread goes from here.

I'm glad you seem to be dealing with the internet healthily and I truly do hold any ill-will towards you, I will keep up my posts because they aren't fully directed at you and I hope they can teach some people why (some) people respect Sun and Moon's plot!

 

[Coronis]

I went ahead and deleted my original post so you guys could know you got your points across. Feel better now that multiple of you went through the effort of disecting (is that you you spell it?) my sarcasm-filled post like some kind of scientist group?

I mean c’mon that’s what the internet is all about, specifically on discussion forums and Reddit, everyone’s allowed to have their opinions and everyone else is allowed to disagree if they want.

 

[ant4456]

I mean c’mon that’s what the internet is all about, specifically on discussion forums and Reddit, everyone’s allowed to have their opinions and everyone else is allowed to disagree if they want.

As someone who has been the subject to a bandwagon like 6 times, the least fun thing to do ever is login to a website and see 2+ notifications about how the thing you said is wrong. Even when you want to move on, it keeps going, and people keep pointing out how the thing is wrong (and god forbid if you still don't even agree with the majority, that's always the worst).

Almost every post I've ever deleted has been in the interest of not getting that exact experience, or preventing it from furthering. To me, it is always justified to want to delete your post, especially if people are quoting it a lot.

 

[Ernesto]

I went ahead and deleted my original post so you guys could know you got your points across. Feel better now that multiple of you went through the effort of disecting (is that you you spell it?) my sarcasm-filled post like some kind of scientist group?

All of this being said, I'm not actually mad at anyone, and you guys do bring up a lot of good points. It's just really difficult for me to understand why these different "eras" of Pokémon villains, so to speak, can still rely on the same patterns sometimes even though they're all trying to make an original impression. Maybe the issue was that I was being a little too sarcastic? Who knows.

I'd like to move on from this so I don't develop an unhealthy case of "I'm mad at myself because people were posting very valid counter-claims against me on the Internet". That's the last thing I need to do to myself, believe me. Thankfully I can think of a number of other things to talk about. I guess we'll just have to see where this thread goes from here.

I guess you can say this helped you change your mind over time? Dunno if having it happen by force counts tho, but in any case don't beat yourself too much about it.

I'm glad you seem to be dealing with the internet healthily and I truly do hold any ill-will towards you, I will keep up my posts because they aren't fully directed at you and I hope they can teach some people why (some) people respect Sun and Moon's plot!

I think you missed a "not" between do and hold. Or so I hope o.O

Anyway, I wanted to piggyback on Blue being the big driving force in Gen 1 as opposed to Team Rocket (although to be fair they did have a whole city hostage so you HAD to beat them to move the plot forward). While it's hard to separate him from the anime's Gary who's a total jerk he's always trying to push you to get better, like even when he says that he'll ask his sister not to give you a map it's his friendly banter way of going "Race you to it!". And even if it's likely that you defeated him all the previous times going to the Pokémon League, that final Champion fight has a different flavor and will always be remembered by those of us who played it as kids.

As for stuff I changed my mind on, I agree with R_N 's take on Johto gym leaders but to give my own as I grew older I kinda shifted my views of the starter types. Originally I thought the Fire-types were the ones that had more reason to be used over the wild alternatives while the Grass- and Water-types just weren't special enough to differentiate them but as I revisited them years later I've come to realize that they haven't missed once with the Grass-types. Yes Meganium is the worst but only because the other ones are better, my sole quirk is that Decidueye-Hisui was built way too similar to Chesnaught—understandable since Scrappy Triple Arrows on a more offensive mon could've been pretty borked. Even Serperior has reasons to be used over other Grasses with a speedy Coil set.
Water-types are also pretty solid all-around outside of Inteleon who'll always live on Greninja's shadow. Unovan Samurott remains cool even tho I wish they'd given it a better hidden ability so as to not make it totally outclassed by its Hisuian counterpart.
Finally, I still really like the Fire-types and there are very few occasions where I'd want to run others but I have to agree that Emboar sadly suffers from being the third /Fighting in a row even if it has (hind) legs to stand on and with Cinderace they tried way too hard to make it the next Greninja with not one but two signature moves and Protean clone (yes, technically Gren also got two signature moves but what even is a Mat Block). Hisuian Typhlosion is generally fine outside of looking goofy but unlike the amazing Skeledirge it lacks an actual ability. Guess in this case they didn't want it to totally outclass its Johtonian counterpart?

 

[ant4456]

I think you missed a "not" between do and hold. Or so I hope o.O

Oops, I meant a "not", yep. Apologies for my error.

 

[PokemonCrusader]

I used to believe that Team Rocket were responsible for the creation of Mewtwo in the games, because that's the case in the Anime and Pokémon Adventures. But after looking a little closer, there's absolutely nothing in the games that connects Team Rocket and the creation of Mewtwo, so I don't consider that canon for the games.

I also used to think that the theory about the Fire starters following the Chinese zodiac was true, but not anymore. After looking closer at it in recent years, I realized that only 5/9 of the starters match the zodiac, which isn't really enough. I think that this theory is an example of how people are trying to see a pattern where there isn't one.

At various points before Gen 5, I used to think that the Johto games had the best post-game in the series, because you had an entire new region to explore. Then I played HG/SS, which made me realize how bad it was and completely changed my mind.

Back when X/Y were new, a common complaint about them was that they had way too much fan pandering to Gen 1. I sheepishly just went along with it, but when I thought back on it later, I realized that it wasn't that bad. It was there, but it didn't bother me, and it was nowhere near as bad as in Gen 7, which is much worse in my opinion (and no, I don't think the 20th anniversary was a good excuse).

Speaking of Gen 6, I used to be quite negative towards it in the past. I have always liked it, but I can apprecate it a lot more nowadays and it is easily my second favorite. I also felt that I could appreciate it more after playing Gen 7 (and 8/9 to an extent). In comparison, I feel like I have started to like Gen 7 less recently. I still like it and it is still a contestant for my third favorite generation, but it can never go any higher than that, and I wonder if I don't actually enjoy Gen 8 and 9 more. It is hard to say. Maybe I should go back to US/UM just to see how I feel about them nowadays.

I used to like Emerald better than OR/AS... because of the Battle Frontier. But after actually playing through OR/AS, and then playing through the Frontier in Emerald once more, I can safely say that I prefer OR/AS on the whole. They have so much more content and way better gameplay, while I only like 3/7 of the facilities in the Emerald Frontier.

Might have more, but this was what I could think of right now.

Welcome to the Kalos Krusaders.

Your certificate is in the mail.

Also, agree with you on Mewtwo. There is nothing in the original games that connect him with Team Rocket.

 

[bdt2002]

For Gen 6, I can at least understand the immediacy of getting Pokémon like Mewtwo and the legendary birds into the new generation. None of these Pokémon were featured anywhere in Gen 5, and for Mewtwo in particular this most likely would have been the first time casual players would have access to Mewtwo’s signature move Psystrike as a result, event distributions not withstanding. Their last appearances, along with certain others like the Kanto starters, were all in HeartGold & SoulSilver by this point, and even then they were all postgame encounters that would inevitably become more obscure the older those games get. It’s great for PokéDex completion as a whole, but I can also understand the argument that ripping off so much of Kanto’s appeal is lazy.

With Gen 7, things are a bit different. We’re talking about a set of games that took away what could have been, say, Pokémon Z, in favor of making sure Pokémon could acknowledge their 20th anniversary “celebrations”. The Alolan Forms, while neat in concept, only being Kanto Pokémon feels a bit disingenuous to the rest of Pokémon’s 20-year history at that time. A good anniversary celebration looks at the entire picture instead of just the very beginning of it, and hilariously enough, the only part of Gen 7 that I think accurately reflects that idea was with Team Rainbow Rocket bringing back all of the older evil team leaders instead of just Giovanni. Like, yeah, I get that that’s kind of the whole point of the “Rainbow” moniker, but still.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

The Alolan Forms, while neat in concept, only being Kanto Pokémon feels a bit disingenuous to the rest of Pokémon’s 20-year history at that time.

I actually disagree with this one point, which I think is worth caveating by saying that I initially didn't much like the concept of regional forms - which was mostly a kneejerk response, since I'm now of the opinion that regional forms are one of the best concepts the series has introduced in recent years.

But this was a fairly bold idea at the time and I have no doubt the Pokemon chosen for it were picked with great thought. Inevitably with a lot of concepts, the Kanto mons are pushed front and centre. Mega Evolution was the same - sure a lot of non-Gen I species got a mega form, but the focus was on the big popular Gen I species: Venusaur, Blastoise, Alakazam, Gengar, Kangaskhan, Aerodactyl, and of course Mewtwo and Charizard. And that worked.

And yeah Gen I pandering absolutely is annoying to long-term players, but you can't deny it works. Anecdotally I can say a couple of my friends who're only very casually interested in the series were absolutely enthralled by the Alolan forms and it was a talking point for a long while afterwards. People were always going to care more about snow Vulpix and tall Exeggutor: the vast majority would not have given a stuff about Alolan Drilbur or Croagunk or Cacnea or Fletchling.

That's why I also think USUM missed a massive trick by not adding some Alolan forms of Johto Pokemon specifically (didn't have to be just Johto, but it would have tied in neatly with the Gen II games coming out on the VC around the same time). That was the time to expand the concept because you've already hooked people in. Introducing new Pokemon mid-gen was massive, but they ended up doing it quite limply by only introducing... five new species and a couple of new forms. And people absolutely were expecting it from USUM! It's quite possibly the biggest misstep those games made overall, even though they're great in some other regards.

 

[Nokocchi]

I am of the personal opinion that Alolan forms were only of Gen I Pokemon because Let's Go was already planned to eventually be a thing at that point. All of the Alolan forms are either types rare(Ice, Ghost, Dragon, Steel) or unseen(Dark) among the first 151 Pokemon, with the exception of Alolan Raichu and Geodude who instead diversify types with few dual-type combinations among the Gen I Pokemon, though some of the former group do that as well.

By doing that there was significantly more type diversity in Let's Go than there was in the original Yellow, they are also currently the the only Kanto-centric games were you could use Dark types before the credits roll(Or use Fairy at all).

 

[Samtendo09]

I actually disagree with this one point, which I think is worth caveating by saying that I initially didn't much like the concept of regional forms - which was mostly a kneejerk response, since I'm now of the opinion that regional forms are one of the best concepts the series has introduced in recent years.

But this was a fairly bold idea at the time and I have no doubt the Pokemon chosen for it were picked with great thought. Inevitably with a lot of concepts, the Kanto mons are pushed front and centre. Mega Evolution was the same - sure a lot of non-Gen I species got a mega form, but the focus was on the big popular Gen I species: Venusaur, Blastoise, Alakazam, Gengar, Kangaskhan, Aerodactyl, and of course Mewtwo and Charizard. And that worked.

And yeah Gen I pandering absolutely is annoying to long-term players, but you can't deny it works. Anecdotally I can say a couple of my friends who're only very casually interested in the series were absolutely enthralled by the Alolan forms and it was a talking point for a long while afterwards. People were always going to care more about snow Vulpix and tall Exeggutor: the vast majority would not have given a stuff about Alolan Drilbur or Croagunk or Cacnea or Fletchling.

That's why I also think USUM missed a massive trick by not adding some Alolan forms of Johto Pokemon specifically (didn't have to be just Johto, but it would have tied in neatly with the Gen II games coming out on the VC around the same time). That was the time to expand the concept because you've already hooked people in. Introducing new Pokemon mid-gen was massive, but they ended up doing it quite limply by only introducing... five new species and a couple of new forms. And people absolutely were expecting it from USUM! It's quite possibly the biggest misstep those games made overall, even though they're great in some other regards.

At the same time, even casual fans would notice something’s up with the blatant favoritism come in the eighth Generation, where with the exception of Melmetal (if you count it as Gen 7) and Garbodor, only Kanto have Pokémon that have Gigantamax forms alongside Galar, which is a huge misstep compared to Mega Evolution that, while giving to popular Gen 1, was nonetheless more balanced about it in comparison. While Melmetal makes a lot of sense considering the connection with Let’s Go, Garbodor is an even bigger outlier to the point casual fans wondered if it is even a Kanto Pokémon or if the selection was just that blatant.

Not helping is that Gigantamax isn’t all that different mechanically other than unique G-Max forms, which only few Pokémon truly benefits it, i.e. Gigantamax Charizard and Gigantamax Lapras. Despite the positives, it must be such a letdown and may caused enough internal troubles that GF decided to back off with extra forms of the universal super mechanic for Terastal in favor of Paradox Pokémon.

It can also be a sign that the franchise stuck itself too much on nostalgia instead of trying to carefully taking turn between the wide casual audience and the lesser but still important grown up audience.

 

[Altissimo]

I am of the personal opinion that Alolan forms were only of Gen I Pokemon because Let's Go was already planned to eventually be a thing at that point. All of the Alolan forms are either types rare(Ice, Ghost, Dragon, Steel) or unseen(Dark) among the first 151 Pokemon, with the exception of Alolan Raichu and Geodude who instead diversify types with few dual-type combinations among the Gen I Pokemon, though some of the former group do that as well.

By doing that there was significantly more type diversity in Let's Go than there was in the original Yellow, they are also currently the the only Kanto-centric games were you could use Dark types before the credits roll(Or use Fairy at all).

Considering every single Elite Four member got a new Alola toy to play with, and considering that many Gym trainers were updated so that the Gym actually represents their chosen type more thoroughly (stuff like Grass/Poison or Gastly family appearing in Koga's gym, Poliwrath in the Fighting Dojo, etc), this makes a lot of sense to me actually

 

[QuentinQuonce]

At the same time, even casual fans would notice something’s up with the blatant favoritism come in the eighth Generation, where with the exception of Melmetal (if you count it as Gen 7) and Garbodor, only Kanto have Pokémon that have Gigantamax forms alongside Galar, which is a huge misstep compared to Mega Evolution that, while giving to popular Gen 1, was nonetheless more balanced about it in comparison. While Melmetal makes a lot of sense considering the connection with Let’s Go, Garbodor is an even bigger outlier to the point casual fans wondered if it is even a Kanto Pokémon or if the selection was just that blatant.

Not helping is that Gigantamax isn’t all that different mechanically other than unique G-Max forms, which only few Pokémon truly benefits it, i.e. Gigantamax Charizard and Gigantamax Lapras. Despite the positives, it must be such a letdown and may caused enough internal troubles that GF decided to back off with extra forms of the universal super mechanic for Terastal in favor of Paradox Pokémon.

It can also be a sign that the franchise stuck itself too much on nostalgia instead of trying to carefully taking turn between the wide casual audience and the lesser but still important grown up audience.

Is there evidence that Dynamax/Gigantamax was some colossal failure though?

I don't think it exactly set the fandom alight, and it IS pretty much a less-interesting version of Mega Evolution, but there's a reasonable argument that the lack of warmth for the feature had more to do with people's (correct) suspicion that it would only be around for Gen VIII, so they were more prepared not to get attached to the concept. Remember that Mega Evolution was retained in Gen VII, so people probably felt it safe to assume that it would be a thing permanently - I know I was quite surprised by it being removed in Gen VIII. By contrast, with the benefit of the events of the last few years to take as a reference, hardly anyone seems to expect Terastal to last into the next generation.

And not to restate myself but nostalgia works, even with the longer-term grown up audience. To take Pokemon Go as another example, which is played by a lot of more casual fans: most of the people in the groups I'm in either have only played the current console games or don't play the MSG at all, but know Pokemon from the anime or having played Red/Blue when they were younger, and even on r/SilphRoad you get a lot of people saying "why does [species/mechanic] work like this?" and people explaining "in the main series, it works this way too".

When they did a Shadow Mewtwo raid event recently, the reaction was staggering. People showed up in numbers I have never seen and stayed for hours - and it's not like I'm a rural player, I play in central London. By contrast, there's an upcoming Shadow Lugia raid weekend and it's not had anything like the same interest, no-one I play with cares. Most of the people in my group aren't familiar with any species older than II (and IV or V in some cases) - it doesn't mean they don't care about them, but they're certainly more interested in older ones.

 

[Samtendo09]

Is there evidence that Dynamax/Gigantamax was some colossal failure though?

I don't think it exactly set the fandom alight, and it IS pretty much a less-interesting version of Mega Evolution, but there's a reasonable argument that the lack of warmth for the feature had more to do with people's (correct) suspicion that it would only be around for Gen VIII, so they were more prepared not to get attached to the concept. Remember that Mega Evolution was retained in Gen VII, so people probably felt it safe to assume that it would be a thing permanently - I know I was quite surprised by it being removed in Gen VIII. By contrast, with the benefit of the events of the last few years to take as a reference, hardly anyone seems to expect Terastal to last into the next generation.

And not to restate myself but nostalgia works, even with the longer-term grown up audience. To take Pokemon Go as another example, which is played by a lot of more casual fans: most of the people in the groups I'm in either have only played the current console games or don't play the MSG at all, but know Pokemon from the anime or having played Red/Blue when they were younger, and even on r/SilphRoad you get a lot of people saying "why does [species/mechanic] work like this?" and people explaining "in the main series, it works this way too".

When they did a Shadow Mewtwo raid event recently, the reaction was staggering. People showed up in numbers I have never seen and stayed for hours - and it's not like I'm a rural player, I play in central London. By contrast, there's an upcoming Shadow Lugia raid weekend and it's not had anything like the same interest, no-one I play with cares. Most of the people in my group aren't familiar with any species older than II (and IV or V in some cases) - it doesn't mean they don't care about them, but they're certainly more interested in older ones.

Nostalgia only works this well because GF is referring to Gen 1 so constantly, plus the casual audience will eventually be outgrown by those who didn’t grew up with purely Gen 1 games. As a result, if they keep up with the Kanto pandering, the newer audience may be more familiar with them, at the expense of the current generation, and when the newer audience grew up, they may be nostalgic about Gen 1, but within them, many would start to wonder what’s even special about the original 151.

I do think that the fact the universal mechanic aren’t permanent makes people less likely to be fond of them purely because of how unlikely they get expanded on, which results Z-Moves, Dynamax and Terastal feeling unpolished and unfinished in comparison to Mega Evolution, which despite it’s faults, clearly have some efforts put into it and is, for the most part, fairly well balanced and have a decently concise lore in Kalos and Hoenn.

Part of the reason why Shadow Lugia didn’t generated as much hype is because Mewtwo have a cool factor of being a manmade Pokémon that is powerful and deadly, something that only Genesect come close, and is pretty powerful even by Legendary standards until the power creep gets ridiculous, so Mewtwo got a lot of credit for it’s backstory, uniqueness and coolness, even today. Lugia feels more generic in comparison, being a natural Legendary Pokémon with clear but minimal connection to Johto.

Mewtwo’s genuine coolness and never really used all thay often in-game stories and other medias helps differiente it from Eevee, Charizard, and arguably Gengar as of late, in that despite the latter three’s popularity, also gain vocal minority, if not undeniable backlash, due to their incessent overexposure to the point that their popularity starts to feel artificial. Eevee is especially a bad case as Game Freak is capitalizing on it’s design alone, not on what makes Eevee so appealing in the first place. Pikachu can be forgiven due to having both cuteness and coolness, as well as too important due to first seasons of the anime and PokéMania back in Gen 1 and how it helped solidify the franchise it is today, for better or for worse.

There’s also the fact that several non-Kanto Pokémon are more popular than even even Pikachu, Eevee and Charizard in Asian countries, with Chikorita ranked 1st in Korea (Here, takes a while to load though, so an alternative saved by yours truly here), and both Buzzwole and Dedenne in Japan (one result and image here), which while Pikachu and Eevee are in fact popular in those countries… it have a lot less Gen 1 reps in the top 10 or 20 than people thought. So Dedenne held the honor of a Pikaclone beating out the original in at least one country, which is an impressive feat.

Previously in Japan polls, top winners was Rayquaza (who used to have V-Create to commemorate it’s victory from Gen 5 to 7, which is wild) and Greninja, two popular Pokémon for sure, but one wouldn’t expect them to beat out Mewtwo, Pikachu or the likes in Japanese popularity contest.

It wouldn’t prove anything in America or Europe, though it makes me think that Asian countries have more varied familiarity on Pokémin compared to the English-speaking countries, so it does checks out.

 

[Esserise]

I guess the opinion I’ve flipped on is that I used to think “Kanto pandering” was annoying, but now I just sort of don’t really care about it.

Admittedly, part of that change comes from my somewhat cynical observation of, “of course the company’s most enduring and iconic characters are going to get special privileges; if anything, the only thing that surprises me is just that Lucario isn’t given a VIP pass more often.”

But mostly I’d say my opinion shifted because even though Game Freak do still put Gen 1 Pokémon on something of a pedestal, they’ve been very generous to other generations after introducing Alola Forms.

Galarian Forms pretty much immediatey took the “These are only Kanto Pokémon…” criticism to heart, with the distribution being widened to Gens 2, 3, and 5.

While almost all of the Gigantamax forms for older Pokémon were limited to Gen 1 species (aside from Melmetal for cross-promotion purposes, and Garbodor for, seemingly, a gag), the main focus of Gigantamax distribution was on Gen 8 Pokémon, addressing a criticism that people had of Mega Evolution (“How come Gen 6 Pokémon don’t get to use the big Gen 6 mechanic?”)

Hisuian Forms? Slanted slightly more toward Gen 5 Pokémon than anything (4 Kanto, 3 Johto, 6 Unova, 3 Kalos, 1 Alola). Of note, none of the three Hisuian Starters, which probably get the most marketing and attention, are from Gen 1 — instead they’re from Gen 2, Gen 5, and Gen 7. You know they could have used Charmander if they’d wanted to, but instead they chose to put the considerably less-iconic Cyndaquil in the spotlight.

Paldean Forms? A Gen 1 Pokémon and a Gen 2 Pokémon. (Granted, Tauros actually gets three distinct forms, but to my eyes that looks like a case of a Pokémon being used as a vessel for gameplay concepts — version-exclusivity on one hand, and “Try making Encounter Power sandwiches!” on the other.)

Convergent species? Our introduction to the concept is with a pair of Gen 1 families, but the very next instance we see is from the most *recent* prior generation, of all things.

Paradox Pokémon? Hello Gens 2 and 5, mainly.

Cross-gen evolutions? In Sword & Shield, the breakdown leans slightly toward Gen 1 (3 for Kanto, mirrored by 1 for Johto, 1 for Hoenn, and 1 for Unova), but then Legends: Arceus flips the script (only 1 for Kanto, with 4 for Johto and 1 for Unova), which Scarlet & Violet replicates (sans 1 Johto Pokémon, but then we get 2 new Galar evolutions in the DLC). On top of that, a Gen 3 Legendary trio got new additions in SwSh, as did a Gen 5 Legendary trio in Legends: Arceus.

At this point, I think it’s hard to say that the distrubition for these sorts of things isn’t pretty diversified. While it does seem as though yes, at least one Gen 1 Pokémon will always be guaranteed a spot, I feel like if anything, it’s Gens 2 and 5 in particular that have been feasting on retroactive additions and new concepts for the last few years. (And with Gen 5 especially it’s kind of funny, because BW are often supposed by fans to have been the games that “scared” GF into cranking up the Kanto “pandering” in the first place — but it seems like GF know that Gen 5 is actually pretty popular? Even Ingo showed up in a major role in Legends: Arceus, which is interesting because SwSh and SV have both avoided past-gen character cameos like the plague.)

 

[R_N]

I am of the personal opinion that Alolan forms were only of Gen I Pokemon because Let's Go was already planned to eventually be a thing at that point. All of the Alolan forms are either types rare(Ice, Ghost, Dragon, Steel) or unseen(Dark) among the first 151 Pokemon, with the exception of Alolan Raichu and Geodude who instead diversify types with few dual-type combinations among the Gen I Pokemon, though some of the former group do that as well.

By doing that there was significantly more type diversity in Let's Go than there was in the original Yellow, they are also currently the the only Kanto-centric games were you could use Dark types before the credits roll(Or use Fairy at all).

It kind of makes sense at first blush, but I'm going to say that was more happenstance

let's go seems like something made in response to, well, Go specifically. It blowing up and them wanting a bridge game. But Go didn't blow up until SM was already pretty far along. Let's Go honestly seems like a game that wasn't in the cards until later and the Alolan forms in particular are pretty "tacked on", only available through trades and only used by trainers in rematches that I recall.

I also think regional forms going for those typings was as much to allow Alola to have more "new" additions to those types for its new Pokemon. Dark & ice in particular still stick out in that regard; without regional forms there's only 2 of the former and 1 of the latter. I suspect the small generation prior, which also had some "gaps" like this, might have had them think of ways to add more without more Pokemon.



Then, as for the gen 1 focus, I agree it's also probably just them dipping their toes into the concept. You take a bunch of Pokemon from gen 1 who could use a bit of spotlight on them, recognizable enough to still garner attention regardless, and then you pepper in some rarer/unused typings. It was a success, so they branched out the following game.

 

[Samtendo09]

Well speaking of Mega Evolution… let’s say I almost had a 180 turn when it comes to how I feel about Mega Evolution.

It was something I was very excited about back in the sixth Generation, something that will help lesser known Pokémon and popular-but-fell-off Pokémon to keep up with stronger ones. The requirement of holding a Mega Stone and the one limit per team also helps balance the 100+ BST and usually powerful Ability... well in theory, anyways.

Although I was bothered by how it focused on popular Pokémon back then, I wasn’t too iffy about it, and I become more excited the moment ORAS is announced alongside new Mega Evolutions.

But as years passes… I started to like it less and less. I don’t outright hate it, the concept is great. But it felt too incoherent, in terms of what Pokémon gets, as well as being the root cause of absurd power creep over time.

For the incoherence issue, it’s something to do with the fact that there is no hard rule on what Pokémon can get. This means no pre-Mega BST minimum and it doesn’t have to be third stage Pokémon. It may be sound and all… except it might replace cross-gen evolution as a concept entirely if GF decided to keep Mega Evolution for longer than Gen 7 instead of rotational gimmick, even with Dexit in mind, considering that the only cross-gen evo in Gen 6 is Sylveon, and if one get technical, Alolan Raichu, Exeggutor and Marowak in Gen 7. The concept of new evolutions of old Pokémon (alongside Baby forms) were introduced since the second generation.

This can cause a complete lack of logic on what Pokémon can get a Mega Evolution, since that phenomenon is said to be both straining and powerful, and can go out of control if left for too long and without the power of friendship. How comes the likes of Sableye and Audino, Pokémon with low BST, having access to such a powerful phenomenon? Such Pokémon not made for fighting big powerhouses could logically be even more vulnerable to the Infinity Energy’s aversive effects than the likes of Houndoom or Garchomp, and their Mega Stone might not exist for long because of even higher power strain.

At least Beedrill got the excuse of already being third staged, and the likes of Gyarados and Aerodactyl wouldn’t need a standard evolution at all due to their high BST, neat Abilities and good stat distribution. (More on Duraludon though*.) If Mega Evolution is more akin to a fourth stage, as well as providing a big boost for obsoleted Pokémon with 520 or higher BST, it would at least give a better idea of what Pokémon can get rather than replacing the concept of cross-gen evolution in it’s entirety.

Mega Evolution, in hindsight, also proves how poorly GF playtest their game, if they even playtest at all. While it wasn‘t too bad with Z-Moves, Terastal and especially Dynamax only aids power creep to spiral out of control, rather than making the spectacle stays interesting despite making it available to every Pokémon, and keeping such power creep in check. It doesn’t help that both despite both Dynamax and Terastal having equal or perhaps higher power level compared to Mega Evolution, all Pokémon can have access to these two and Z-Moves.

Mega Evolution, despite being nowhere as worse in terms of overall power creep, did introduced outright broken Mega Evolved Pokémon like Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Lucario, Mega Mawile, and in ORAS, Mega Salamence, Mega Metagross, and most of all, Mega Rayquaza. And as early as XY, it caused what is the infamous CHALK team, the K standing for (Mega) Kangaskhan. That’s how damaging Mega Evolution proved to be for competitive, especially the VGC formats.

There are other issues such as the increasing amount of Mega Stones, but these two are the main reasons why I’m far less fond of Mega Evolution than before. While I do miss the mechanic, I do not want it to come back in mainline games unless GF is willing to rebalance it for better in-game experience… though only time will tell.

*Duraludon, despite it’s 535 BST, suffered a lot from situational to bad Abilities, alongside mediocre Speed and poor Special Defense, that buffing it’s Speed wouldn’t be enough to save it. It’s telling that GF realized that Duraludon, despite being hyped in pre-release for SwSh, got a considerable backlash due to how impractical it feels at the time it can be captured back in Galar, and losing the Gigantamax form when transited to SV doesn’t help it either. It’s a wonder that Archaludon came into existence as unlikely it is to happen.

 

[Coronis]

Nostalgia only works this well because GF is referring to Gen 1 so constantly, plus the casual audience will eventually be outgrown by those who didn’t grew up with purely Gen 1 games. As a result, if they keep up with the Kanto pandering, the newer audience may be more familiar with them, at the expense of the current generation, and when the newer audience grew up, they may be nostalgic about Gen 1, but within them, many would start to wonder what’s even special about the original 151.

I do think that the fact the universal mechanic aren’t permanent makes people less likely to be fond of them purely because of how unlikely they get expanded on, which results Z-Moves, Dynamax and Terastal feeling unpolished and unfinished in comparison to Mega Evolution, which despite it’s faults, clearly have some efforts put into it and is, for the most part, fairly well balanced and have a decently concise lore in Kalos and Hoenn.

Part of the reason why Shadow Lugia didn’t generated as much hype is because Mewtwo have a cool factor of being a manmade Pokémon that is powerful and deadly, something that only Genesect come close, and is pretty powerful even by Legendary standards until the power creep gets ridiculous, so Mewtwo got a lot of credit for it’s backstory, uniqueness and coolness, even today. Lugia feels more generic in comparison, being a natural Legendary Pokémon with clear but minimal connection to Johto.

Mewtwo’s genuine coolness and never really used all thay often in-game stories and other medias helps differiente it from Eevee, Charizard, and arguably Gengar as of late, in that despite the latter three’s popularity, also gain vocal minority, if not undeniable backlash, due to their incessent overexposure to the point that their popularity starts to feel artificial. Eevee is especially a bad case as Game Freak is capitalizing on it’s design alone, not on what makes Eevee so appealing in the first place. Pikachu can be forgiven due to having both cuteness and coolness, as well as too important due to first seasons of the anime and PokéMania back in Gen 1 and how it helped solidify the franchise it is today, for better or for worse.

There’s also the fact that several non-Kanto Pokémon are more popular than even even Pikachu, Eevee and Charizard in Asian countries, with Chikorita ranked 1st in Korea (Here, takes a while to load though, so an alternative saved by yours truly here), and both Buzzwole and Dedenne in Japan (one result and image here), which while Pikachu and Eevee are in fact popular in those countries… it have a lot less Gen 1 reps in the top 10 or 20 than people thought. So Dedenne held the honor of a Pikaclone beating out the original in at least one country, which is an impressive feat.

Previously in Japan polls, top winners was Rayquaza (who used to have V-Create to commemorate it’s victory from Gen 5 to 7, which is wild) and Greninja, two popular Pokémon for sure, but one wouldn’t expect them to beat out Mewtwo, Pikachu or the likes in Japanese popularity contest.

It wouldn’t prove anything in America or Europe, though it makes me think that Asian countries have more varied familiarity on Pokémin compared to the English-speaking countries, so it does checks out.

Eh I think Terastal is doing a decent job with generating interest - with the new Tera form mechanic for Ogerpon and (at least one) other Pokemon in Part 2.

Also please don’t lump Tera in with HURRDURR BIG POKEMON.

The only cool one was Meowth cos you could ridiculously spam it ingame.

 

[Samtendo09]

Eh I think Terastal is doing a decent job with generating interest - with the new Tera form mechanic for Ogerpon and (at least one) other Pokemon in Part 2.

Also please don’t lump Tera in with HURRDURR BIG POKEMON.

The only cool one was Meowth cos you could ridiculously spam it ingame.

Well, that’s fair enough. Terastal’s problems were just too much offense power for no held item requirement to be a surprise factor but that’s it, so overall Terastalization is the step of the right direction compared to Dynamax.

Didn’t know GMax Meowth were that useful for money grinding!

 

[pika pal]

So here's an opinion I shifted into after some time: Kalos, while certainly packed with a lot of Kanto referential material and sections, is not the most egregious with what it has in that regard (and no it's not Alola either). I think Galar in Gen 8 is where the Kanto-focused throwback material, if not the most abundant, feels the most out of place or unnecessarily pushed.

I should acknowledge that this is a bit of hindsight and the position is informed by Gen 6 and 7 coming before it for Kanto reference material. Relevant to this argument is that while I know their official designation, I regard "Let's Go" mentally as part of Gen 8 given they were the first Switch Outing and their primary new addition (Melmetal) is only useable in them and then Generation 8 games, making its appearance in the anime and Go more akin to things like Munchlax in May's team or Bonsly in XD Battle Bingo, where they were previewed and featured to market the upcoming entry but were not considered part of Generation 3 themselves.

So the big thing that enters into the equation for me is that Galar, while not as heavy on the Regional references like lifting Viridian Forest's layout or literally having Red show up as a bonus boss, is still overdoing the focus on Kanto on the heels of two games arguably had explanation for their throwbacks even if it didn't excuse them for you.

• XY taking the main series 3D could be viewed as familiar territory for reintroducing people on a "soft-reboot" of the series formula. A lot of the throwbacks being early game like the basic Forest dungeon, extra starter (should have been the Mega Tutorial instead of Korrina if that's the case), and the Snorlax encounter to depict static encounters to capture ahead of the "big" prizes like the Legendaries and become less dense later in the run at least.
• Alola has been discussed at length as being the 20th Anniversary game, but I also think it fair to note the Kanto references are saved for post-game as a sort of reward like Red/Blue, or are not so in-your-face during the main story as to overshadow the Alola aspects. Things like the Alolan forms are essentially a way to reimagine the old Pokemon as encounters, but the only ones that factor significantly into the trial progression are the Moon A-Raticate, A-Marowak, and 2 Kahunas (Nanu and Hapu) having one on their team (and in Hapu's case it's not her Ace or anything). If you regard them as Kanto Pokemon/References, they're not significantly more emphasized than any other past region's presence overall, and compared to the fully-original Alola Pokemon they're an adapted footnote.

Now is the part where I explain how Galar did worse.

• First and foremost, the Gym Leaders/League. People have discussed the issue of Johto Gym Leaders emphasizing Kanto Mons over Johto, which even if true (though greatly exaggerated I feel), there is the Watsonian (in-universe) explanation that most of Johto and its Pokedex is intrinsically linked to Kanto by lore, while some could be argued as a result of their story placement: Falkner gets a Skarmory in a lot of depictions but imagining fighting THAT at Level 10 in GSC, Bugsy's Scyther could be a Scizor if not for similar problems, Jasmine's Steelix is a cross-gen Evo, etc. Galar I think has the same problem in quality even if not in quantity compared to Johto.
  • The Gym Leaders I see the most often are probably Nessa, Bea, and Raihan, whether or not that is reflective of the writing. Bea in particular was a Rival to Ash for a long stint of the Journeys anime, and along with Nessa and Alister was one of the Gym Leaders to get a dedicated episode of "Twilight Wings" compared to some Gym Leaders never appearing or getting a Speaking role at all. Of these heavily marketed Gym Leaders, 1/3 of them (or 2/4 if I count Alister for the TW appearance and role as Bea's Counterpart for marketing the version exclusive Gym gimmick) have a Gigantamaxed Kanto Pokemon as their Ace. While not as many as Gen 2 by any stretch, this does stick out to me because Johto's most prominent focus/legacy is definitely on the Gym Leaders with Gen 2 Aces at least (Whitney, Pryce, Jasmine, Claire, most significant deviation is probably Morty in this regard). Galar meanwhile I challenge anyone to remember the other Gym Leaders and their teams, as opposed to knowing the person for a meme or other fanart reason like Piers or Melony (who would kind of feed my point since her ace is a Lapras).
  • Leon is kind of self demonstrating with the Charizard focus everyone memed on, but I have to stress how forced Charizard feels in this case compared to being 1/3 starters in Kalos or an innocuous Ride Pokemon in Alola. Charizard in Galar is the ONLY Kanto starter in the Dex (not even a Paldea case of outside availability), it's made the Ace of the most prominent and story-focused League character (Leon has much more presence than a lot of Champions and a big deal is made of his fame/prestige), and despite running the "stronger" starter to yours, he will not swap out Charizard, doubling up on a Fire Weakness rather clumsily with Cinderace despite otherwise adjusting his team to account for the Starter (Rhyperior with Rillaboom to help against Bug, Steel, and Fire weaknesses, WA Seismitoad helps vs Cinderace's Water/Rock/Ground concerns, etc). The only other overlap here is Ghost (Aegislash/Drag on Ghost and Drag/Haxorus for Dragon), but those slots are locked and the Pokemon are not only powerful but seemingly built to deal with them (Dragapult has Flamethrower for Ice, Haxorus has Poison Jab/Iron Tail for Fairies, and Aegislash carries Sacred Sword for concerning Dark types).
• Regional Forms got a bit better at Diversifying from literally all Kanto, but still heavily lean Gen 1. Excluding Region-specific Evolutions like Mr. Rime or Obstagoon, 9 Galarian-form Lines are Kanto (granted one is Slowpoke who splits to Johto), 1 is Johto, 1 is Hoenn, and 3 are Unova. Kanto comprises almost 50% of the Galarian Lines compared to the other reps COMBINED, and this is without considering weird points to argue like Meowth having just had a Regional last Gen or 3 of the Kantos being the Galarian-form Birds (i.e. Legendaries with very in your face presentation). Transparency/Hypocrisy-addressing disclaimer for Gen 9: While I like the implementation it also falls into this if we count Convergent/Regional Fake lines under the same banner as Regional forms (3 Kanto out of 5 reimagined lines), though it feels less stand out there by reduced quantity.
• Gigantamax forms have literally ONE form in the base game that is neither Kanto or a Gen 8 mon specifically (12 Kanto to 19 Galar), though is with me counting Melmetal as a Gen 8 mon as I said earlier that I know may not be a universal sentiment, and counting the Urshifus separate due to differing designs while Appletun/Flapple are 1 for their shared form's design. This is almost the opposite problem of Mega Evolution where the distribution was relatively fair but the debut Generation was suspiciously absent, where here it's lopsided to just two, admittedly one being the Region the gimmick is exclusive to in-universe, and I can't help acknowledging 3 of them are gimmicks to tie into either LGPE (Pikachu and Eevee) or the anime (Pikachu and Meowth). In a way Garbodor's one off almost feels more egregious as a "see, it's not ALL Kanto" bone for the old reps.

What brings all these aspects to a head for me is that these came after the discourse we've reviewed about Kalos and Alola maybe going a bit heavy on the Gen 1 nostalgia even with some reasoning. So what do they do on the Switch? MORE Kanto, which at the least feels misplaced when you're liable to exhaust the nostalgic fans those references are for (similar things happened with a lot of Hollywood endless rebooting/reviving of old IPs overshadowing original/updated works). It feels like the Pokemon equivalent of that Wii/Wii U era where Mario games became very homogenized and focused on "hey remember old Mario?!" with the (ironically named) New Super Mario titles and spin-offs like Paper Mario focusing heavily on classic-but-unused-by-them elements like the Koopalings and standardized enemy designs. I put Galar in a similar category to the post-3DS Paper Mario sequels on that front: Maybe they're "better" on that front than the preceding games (Galar for Kanto overdose and CS/OK for... everything in design), but the fundamental problem is still there long after it was impossible to ignore the criticism's existence, so not having addressed it makes it a worse case.

 

[Coronis]

Well, that’s fair enough. Terastal’s problems were just too much offense power for no held item requirement to be a surprise factor but that’s it, so overall Terastalization is the step of the right direction compared to Dynamax.

Didn’t know GMax Meowth were that useful for money grinding!

Honestly its probably why its the most memorable to me, because I actually used it a fair bit ingame. Plus I enjoyed the stretched out design fsr and I loved the cry.

 

[R_N]

Now is the part where I explain how Galar did worse.

• First and foremost, the Gym Leaders/League. People have discussed the issue of Johto Gym Leaders emphasizing Kanto Mons over Johto, which even if true (though greatly exaggerated I feel), there is the Watsonian (in-universe) explanation that most of Johto and its Pokedex is intrinsically linked to Kanto by lore, while some could be argued as a result of their story placement: Falkner gets a Skarmory in a lot of depictions but imagining fighting THAT at Level 10 in GSC, Bugsy's Scyther could be a Scizor if not for similar problems, Jasmine's Steelix is a cross-gen Evo, etc. Galar I think has the same problem in quality even if not in quantity compared to Johto.
  • The Gym Leaders I see the most often are probably Nessa, Bea, and Raihan, whether or not that is reflective of the writing. Bea in particular was a Rival to Ash for a long stint of the Journeys anime, and along with Nessa and Alister was one of the Gym Leaders to get a dedicated episode of "Twilight Wings" compared to some Gym Leaders never appearing or getting a Speaking role at all. Of these heavily marketed Gym Leaders, 1/3 of them (or 2/4 if I count Alister for the TW appearance and role as Bea's Counterpart for marketing the version exclusive Gym gimmick) have a Gigantamaxed Kanto Pokemon as their Ace. While not as many as Gen 2 by any stretch, this does stick out to me because Johto's most prominent focus/legacy is definitely on the Gym Leaders with Gen 2 Aces at least (Whitney, Pryce, Jasmine, Claire, most significant deviation is probably Morty in this regard). Galar meanwhile I challenge anyone to remember the other Gym Leaders and their teams, as opposed to knowing the person for a meme or other fanart reason like Piers or Melony (who would kind of feed my point since her ace is a Lapras).

Ok so this part bugs me
Of the three "big" pushed leaders, one of them using a g-max kanto pokemon is...posited as being inherently bad, even though it's still as you pointed out better than it was. 1 out of 3 just does not stand out at all.
And I'd say that the big issue with the Johto leaders that gets brought up is less even ace, but having the gen 2 Pokemon at all. Every Galar leader at least uses a gen 8 pokemon and of the 10 leaders 7 of them have a gen 8 ace. That's pretty good considering everyone operates on the G-Max selection handicap (Machamp is literally the only fighting one outside .

It also feels kind of iffy to say the other leaders aren't memorable and then also make sure to exclude any "fan art reason" (which I assume you mean horny reasons) or "meme" why someone might remember them. Like Piers is likely very memorable, thats why he gets a lot of fan art. I've seen plenty of people like Opal (personally she's my favorite leader in general), Kabu, Allistar, even Milo (probably the "meme" one) too. They have distinct designs, personalities and Pokemon...there's plenty of reasons why someone would like them and then fan art reflects that (and people are going to meme about everyone anyway, ).
Also feels kind of irrelevant to the point of Gen 1 Pandering...

Anyway I don't think that makes them less "qualtiy" as you bring it up at all, in either the Kanto Pokemon situation (which I'd tag as marginally worse than gen 6/7 but not quite as bad as presented) or the less relevant design situation. Obviously, subjectively, it can make you not care for them, but I'd be hardpressed to push that as An Issue that marks them discernably "worse" than the other 2 or Johto in this context if all I mean.

At least with Leon & Charizard he is front & center and very noticeable at what they're pushing which kind of eclipses the rest of his team, not to mention the G-Max situation, & while I don't quite agree with the regional variant thing, those all I get what you're putting down. But the leaders? ehhhhh, I wouldn't put it on the scoreboard.

 

[pika pal]

Ok so this part bugs me
Of the three "big" pushed leaders, one of them using a g-max kanto pokemon is...posited as being inherently bad, even though it's still as you pointed out better than it was. 1 out of 3 just does not stand out at all.
And I'd say that the big issue with the Johto leaders that gets brought up is less even ace, but having the gen 2 Pokemon at all. Every Galar leader at least uses a gen 8 pokemon and of the 10 leaders 7 of them have a gen 8 ace. That's pretty good considering everyone operates on the G-Max selection handicap (Machamp is literally the only fighting one outside .

It also feels kind of iffy to say the other leaders aren't memorable and then also make sure to exclude any "fan art reason" (which I assume you mean horny reasons) or "meme" why someone might remember them. Like Piers is likely very memorable, thats why he gets a lot of fan art. I've seen plenty of people like Opal (personally she's my favorite leader in general), Kabu, Allistar, even Milo (probably the "meme" one) too. They have distinct designs, personalities and Pokemon...there's plenty of reasons why someone would like them and then fan art reflects that (and people are going to meme about everyone anyway, ).
Also feels kind of irrelevant to the point of Gen 1 Pandering...

I'll preface this by saying the Gym Leader point is definitely the most subjective/tenuous of the things I cite, easily the most "this feels off to me" one compared to my arguing the others more heavily as "numerically this feels lopsided"

So what I was getting at on the memorable thing was how much people remember the Gym Leader for the battle or their team. I cite comparison to Whitney and Claire in this respect because while they have memorable character scenes, their battles are also a big part of what people know them for, and while the Johto factor is a correlation rather than causation, my point is that I know significantly fewer people that could tell me what Pokemon the Galar leaders ran, Ace or Team. I exclude fan art/horny/meme reasons because those don't really tend to have much to do with the Gym Leader's Pokemon, and in several cases they would have that same appeal as unbattling NPC's

My other argument is that the marketing push gives a lot more prominence to some Gym Leaders than others, Bea being a big one since she had both the Version Gimmick and a massive anime role to her name. I had a 2/4 with Allister's Gengar, citing his Twilight Wings episode (another thing Bea has alongside Nessa) as an iffy basis for being more pushed, and while Bea is 1/3 if he's not counted, she's easily the biggest name among the Galar Gym Leader as far as the character and not just her design or a one-off moment (straight played like Opal or memetic like Piers singing).

Citing the G-Max Handicap would lead me in a circular argument, as I bring up in another point how the Gigantamax distribution is another sticking point on the Kanto emphasis. These would just be two points that I feed back into my argument: I would want other Gens to have Gigantamaxes so that the most marketed characters could have stuff besides Galar and Kanto. Like imagine if for 8 Gym Leaders they had 8 different Gens of G-Max Pokemon? Or how about just not making the most advertised Gym Leader a Kanto ace on top of your Champion being a Kanto Ace? Give a G-Max to Mienshao or Toxicroak or Hawlucha or Pangoro, or at least stuff like that to the other Gym Leaders so that the 3-match Gym Leader Rival isn't the sore thumb with Machamp out of an 85% Galarian G-Max roster.

To address the feeling of irrelevant to Gen 1 Pandering: I think that selection is what makes Bea a sticking point for me. You have 10 Gym Leaders this Gen, some don't have time to get featured much (some like Melony and Gordie don't appear in Journeys or get at most voiceless Cameos in other Animation projects), and yet a Lion's Share of focus goes to the one whose Ace isn't even a Mon from this Gen.

It's also the most subject to the point I put at the end: It's not as heavy or "bad" as the immediately preceding Gens (or in this case a significantly older one in Johto), but the context of it coming after 2 Gens were causing Kanto-Nostalgia fatigue makes it more egregious to me overall even if it's the 3rd-4th "most guilty" in a vacuum.

 

[Esserise]

People have discussed the issue of Johto Gym Leaders emphasizing Kanto Mons over Johto, which even if true (though greatly exaggerated I feel)

In what way would you say the problem is exaggerated? Here’s the breakdown of each Leader’s team by generation:

Falkner - 1, 1
Bugsy - 1, 1, 1
Whitney - 1, 2
Morty - 1, 1, 1, 1
Chuck - 1, 1
Jasmine - 1, 1, 2
Pryce - 1, 1, 2
Clair - 1, 1, 1, 2

That’s four Gym Leaders who exclusively use Pokémon from Gen 1, and the four remaining Gym Leaders all use only a single Gen 2 Pokémon on their team, with the rest coming from Gen 1.

While I think it would be fair to argue that it doesn’t make a fundamental difference whether, say, Falkner uses the Pidgey line or the Hoothoot line and thus the degree to which it is a “problem” is overstated, I’m not sure how, if we are looking at the critique that the Johto Gym Leaders’ teams overwhelmingly show off Gen 1 Pokémon, the issue could be said to be exaggerated. Of the 23 total Pokémon used, only 4 of them are from Gen 2, even though there were Gen 2 options for all of the Gym Leaders’ respective types except for Clair.