Disappointing evolutions

Related to the "I absolutely refuse to evolve my Wartortle!" thread from Gaming Central, but more general.

Which Pokémon do you feel are underwhelming follow-ups to their basic or middle forms, or didn't go in the direction you expected? It doesn't matter if you used them in your team or not - I'm mostly talking about aesthetics, though you're welcome to talk about stats too.

First ones that came to mind:


'Underwhelming follow-up' is an understatement for each of these =p

Wartortle vs blastiose is a good example, but i think both look good for different reasons personally. Ill get hate for it but i always thought charizard was boring. Oh boy, now it has wings, woo

Blastoise. Wartortle is way too good and I really don't want to evolve mine into chonky big turtle with cannons.

Also this thing:



I'm not even the hugest fan of Magmar but Magmortar is just.. ugh.

As for evolutions that didn't go in the direction I expected, I'd say Alolan Persian. Probably a popular opinion. Alolan Meowth looked cool and this evo was not what I expected when it was finally revealed.

Dragonite. I guess it's a fine looking design but I wish it was something else, just look at Dragonair!

Regarding Pokémon designs after evolving, I was mostly disappointed with the designs for many Pokémon given new evolutions in generation four, such as Magnezone, Electivire, and Magmortar. Even though I love these three Pokemon for other reasons, I feel that their designs could have been much better. I believe Electrivire should have looked more similar to (but not exactly like) Zeraora instead of the big goofy-looking thing we have now, as it looked more like the direction that Electabuzz would have went to. I feel that Magmortar should have a sleeker appearance, similar to Mewtwo's shape and stature, but still with a fiery body much like Magmar. Magnezone could have easily looked like a sleeker magnet styled warship but instead came out resembling a toy UFO for kids in pre-school without really much similar to Magneton. Stat-wise/battle wise, I guess I would have to say Delcatty. Despite being a final evolution form, Delcatty is still weaker than almost every middle evolution and even some first stage evolutions are stronger such as Abra and so on.

Sweet Serenity said:

Regarding Pokémon designs after evolving, I was mostly disappointed with the designs for many Pokémon given new evolutions in generation four, such as Magnezone, Electivire, and Magmortar. Even though I love these three Pokemon for other reasons, I feel that their designs could have been much better. I believe Electrivire should have looked more similar to (but not exactly like) Zeraora instead of the big goofy-looking thing we have now, as it looked more like the direction that Electabuzz would have went to. I feel that Magmortar should have a sleeker appearance, similar to Mewtwo's shape and stature, but still with a fiery body much like Magmar. Magnezone could have easily looked like a sleeker magnet styled warship but instead came out resembling a toy UFO for kids in pre-school without really much similar to Magneton. Stat-wise/battle wise, I guess I would have to say Delcatty. Despite being a final evolution form, Delcatty is still weaker than almost every middle evolution and even some first stage evolutions are stronger such as Abra and so on.

Click to expand...

I agree on all of these with you. As regards disappointing Sinnoh evolutions, let me also add Rhyperior, Mismagius, Yanmega, Froslass, Honchkrow, Roserade and Dusknoir to the list. None of them keep the charm of their previous evolutions - Honchkrow even drops the witch themes of its pre-evolution in favor of a mafia don theme! I'm not the biggest fan of Misdreavus or Dusclops either, and even their evolutions are underwhelming. You also mentioned Delcatty, which in addition to being weak, is in my opinion the worst-designed cat Pokémon on par with Liepard and the Galarian Meowth line. I wish it had been more like Skitty.

As regards Pokémon in other Generations... I'd say my greatest disappointments all come from Gen VIII. First was the Impidimp line. I was expecting Impidimp to become a funny mockup of the Devil from Nintendo's game Devil World, or at least a gargoyle... but they chose to go completely serious and give it an oni theme of all things for some reason. My first reaction upon seeing Grimmsnarl was, "Look how they massacred my boy." My second greatest disappointment was, as ReKoil mentioned, Boltund. It looks oddly... robotic and creepy, and a far cry from how cute and lifelike Yamper is. Finally, while I do kind of like the concept behind Inteleon, I wish its design looked less disastrously humanoid. I hate how messed up its proportions look.

Across Generations, I could count Venusaur, Machamp, Wigglytuff, Shiftry, Lopunny, the aforementioned Liepard, the elemental monkeys, Delphox, Diggersby, Talonflame, Florges, Gourgeist (;_;), Crabominable, Salazzle, Obstagoon, Galarian Rapidash, and most of the Hisuian evolutions (barring the starters, Wyrdeer, Kleavor and Sneasler.) The three above, though, are the ones I recall best.

Chespin evolving into a Grass/Fighting type will just never be something I was fond of. Idk, the transition from Chespin to Quilladin to Chesnaught just never did it for me. =/

ho boy is it time to bust out my essay on why electivire is the worst evolution from a game design standpoint

This is low-hanging fruit, but god I hate Coalossal so much. It evolves from a Pokémon that resembles a minecart and has wheels, and has a signature ability called Steam Engine, and it's not even based on a train? I'm forever gonna be mad about Coalossal lol.

Sneasler is also...ugh. I like Hisuian Sneasel's design, especially because of its color scheme, which at least makes it a little apparent that it's a Poison-type, but when it evolves it turns into a man with an attitude and a furry suit, and for some reason ditches its previous form's much more pleasant color scheme. It shocked me to discover that Sneasler was designed by Hitoshi Ariga, the same person who designed my favorite Pokémon, Charjabug. Sneasler's animations are its saving grace, but just about nothing else about it sits right with me.

I dislike Overqwil too, because its design is just a mess. Its ridiculously long, mostly immobile spikes muddle it so much imo, and I feel there are far cleaner ways to go about designing an evolution for Qwilfish.

I really, really feel Rolycoly was missed potential to give us a unique wheeled rock type. Instead we got another rock kaiju :/

Also I love Cyndaquil, but Johtoian Typhlosion bores me. Hisuian Typhlosion fortunately fixed it, though.

Dubwool. I dislike it because of its design, it's such a disappointment when compared to Wooloo.

nothing disappointed me as much as quilladin evolving into chesnaught

look, i don't take pride in being a chesnaught hater. i love grass type starters but chesnaught is the only one who i just do not vibe with design-wise

Time to bring back this thread now that a new Generation is out!

Oh, boy. This Gen, I don't really know which ones count as disappointing evolutions and which ones aren't really that disappointing because the entire line was consistently horrible. In any case...

-ALL the final starter evolutions are disappointing this Generation. While I dislike Quaquaval the most because of its Uncanny Valley traits similar to Inteleon in Gen VIII, the one that stung the most was actually Skeledirge. Why couldn't they have kept the cute charm of Fuecoco and even Crocalor? Did they really have to slim it down that much into a generic eDgY crocodile!? And as for Meowscarada, it's Delphox 2.0; it would have been good if it hadn't been so overdesigned and stuck along similar lines as the middle stage.
-Greavard to Houndstone. Another case of a Ghost-type losing more weight than it should upon evolution, like Skeledirge and to an extent Hisuian Typhlosion. Let my Ghosts be chonk like Gengar!
-Arctibax to Baxcalibur. I dislike the entire line but this gets mentioned anyway because so far Baxcalibur is my least favourite pseudo-Legendary. Did we really need another Godzilla clone when Tyranitar already did the job well? Or another Dragon pseudo when Dragapult last Gen was so good?

I dislike all the Fire/Fighting starter evolutions. They all feel the same. That being said, I don't really like the final evolutions of any starter past Gen 2 with the exception of Primarina.

From Paldea, I really think the Pawmi evolution was unnecessary all it does is get a new type, stand up, and have more hair/fur. Most of the new bug type evolutions were disappointing, and I wish they had more three-stage evolutions because most of them are just an addition to previous two-stage evolutions

Never responded to this previously, apparently.

• Incineroar. Had a great design with Torracat. Became walking muscle cat instead.
• Lombre + Ludicolo. From "what happened to its face?" to "what happened to its face again?". Interpreted Lotad's bill as a normal mouth. Was not prepared for the incoming evolutions.
• Liepard. Did not commit the sin of standing on two legs. (Imposed that on Purrloin later from some weird reason.) Objected partially to its color scheme, partially to the spots, and also to its stats/moves.
• Seismitoad. Wanted a headphones frog, not a giant wart toad. Turned its bumps more orange-y over the previous form too. (Owned the shiny version.)
• Drizzile. Disliked the color scheme and the kind of...dopey expression?

For Paldea:

• Wugtrio. Named the previous form Wiglett, not Paldean Diglett. Expected it to become something different. Would have accepted a trio, but with something like Veluza heads or something. Feels exceedingly lazy to call Wugtrio a new Pokemon. Was less disappointed by the other Pokemon doing this due to knowing what was coming.

(Stuck to the more egregious ones. Mentions Floragato as a recent one that did not go as hoped. Shares more in common with Zangoose than Sprigatito. Would have been happy with Floragato and Meowscarada as their own line, independent of Sprigatito.)

Drizzile & Inteleon. I absolutely love Sobble but its evolutions have never quite sat right with me. I just find them so immensely disappointing, no matter how much I've tried to convince myself otherwise. While I wouldn't call it disappointing per se, I feel as though Dudunsparce is just underwhelming, though that may be the whole point of it. Pawmi is another one that is just a bit of a letdown, given how it barely changes physically via evolution. I also will repeat what others have already stated in this thread that Coalossal could've been so much better.

I also don't particularly like Wartortle, why does it have ears like that? It bothers me. Blastoise is decent but Wartortle is the epitome of an awkward and weird middle stage.

im sorry but why is Pawmi evolving at all, what even changes

Incineroar, Inteleon, Cinderace.
What happens when a Pokémon tries so hard to represent the human gimmick, role, job, etc. that defines it to the point it forgets to behave like a Pokémon. I'm giving Quaquaval and Meowscarada the benefit of doubt for now, because I didn't see them much in action yet, but I'm not holding my breath.

Dugtrio, Magneton, Maushold, Dodrio
I basically hate multi-head/multi-body Pokémon designs, unless there's an interesting concept behind it (like Girafarig)

Pawmot, Vanilluxe, Klinklang.
Don't know why these have three stages, but considering how little their evos contribute design-wise, two stages would have been more than enough.

Dudunsparce.
They had two decades to design a Dunsparce evo and this is all they got?

I wanted Lechonk's evolution to be more chonky.