The most overused Pokemon designs

Sea slugs

Here's another example where it's not so much the amount of sea slug based Pokemon that's surprising (there are only two evolutionary lines of sea slug-based Pokemon), but rather it's surprising that a whopping six designs based on sea slugs were introduced in a single generation in Diamond and Pearl.

Again, someone on the Pokemon design team must have really been inspired by sea slugs, because not only did they base legendary Pokemon Manaphy on the clione, but in a first-ever for the series, allowed a legendary to breed and produce offspring. Breeding a Manaphy produces another sea slug, Phione, who's basically a poor man's Manaphy but still officially maintains legendary status according to the Pokemon Company.

Also somewhat of a first, in the same generation Pokemon designers granted two distinct designs to a single Pokemon – both Shellos and Gastrodon have strikingly different appearances depending on whether they're from East or West Sinnoh. It's definitely not unheard of for the same species of Pokemon to have different forms, but Shellos and Gastrodon are unique because the difference in their two forms is purely cosmetic and based on geography.

Cats

Now, some of the cats shown here actually vary greatly in actual design, so not all cat-based Pokemon are offenders in the sense of being redundant. In fact, Snorlax may be (and is) the greatest Pokemon of all time, and Meowth is no slouch either. We only include them to show that Pokemon designers continue to churn out boring cat designs even after the original Red & Blue already contained the two best cats Pokemon has ever seen and will ever see. Possibly the four greatest cats, if you count Mew and Mewtwo.

In other words, we already have Snorlax and Meowth – why do we need all these second-rate cat designs like Skitty, Delcatty, Glameow and Purugly? They're not bad Pokemon, but their designs are markedly less inspired than their predecessors.

Pig noses

Pokemon designers seem to love hybrid pig creations. Mankey and Primeape are probably the most egregious offenses here – there's something really creepy about a "Pig Monkey" Pokemon. It's uncomfortably reminiscent of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

And why does the woolly mammoth have to have a pig nose? It's not so bad on Walrein since walruses already have flattish noses, but a stubby nose on an animal that usually has a large trunk is slightly disconcerting, almost as if it were amputated. Ew. With the name Mamoswine, we get that he's supposed to be a mammoth/pig hybrid, but it just doesn't work here. Maybe pig hybrids never work and everyone involved with creating Pokemon should once and for all give up on them. Agreed? Agreed. 

Humanoid

Generation after generation, we continue to see Pokemon that push the boundaries between man and beast. Lots of Pokemon are vaguely anthropomorphic, and in fact there's an entire egg group for Humanshape Pokemon. But things go wrong when a Pokemon design goes from "bipedal version of an animal that's usually a quadruped" to anything that resembles a sexy woman or a clown, or anything wearing shoes for that matter.

Of course the most horrific monstrosities were birthed in Red and Blue, Jynx and Mr. Mime being the most infamous. But it could easily be argued that Hitmonchan is equally bad, because he's basically just a human boxer in full uniform with a weird head. Since then, it seems Pokemon designers have toned it down a bit without completely learning their lesson – see Buneary, the sexy humanoid rabbit, for instance. Where will the madness end?

What did we miss? What kind of Pokemon are you sick of seeing generation after generation? Let us know in the comments below!

Jul 23, 2010

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