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Are there too many "cute" pokémon?

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    There has always been some pokémon we could consider cute. Often early evo stages, or legendaries like Mew and Celebi. In Johto, we had baby pokémon who were mostly on the cute side. But nowadays there are a lot of pokémon who remain cute throughout their evolution stages and whose whole purpose is to be cute (not necessarily Fairy types!).

    Do you think the pokémon creators should have focused more on making imposing and exciting designs - monster like, you might say - or do you think it's a good thing that there are so many "cute" pokémon?
     

    Vinny Vidi Vici

    Leave Luck To Heaven
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    • Seen Jan 2, 2016
    It could be argued there are 'too many' of any type of Pokemon now that there are over 800 of the buggers if you include all alternate forms. I've never been the biggest fan of 'cute' Pokemon, but they have their audience and I have no problem with them. After all if there were 800 Pokemon that were all designed to be intimidating and aggressive looking, that would be massive overkill, the the more variance the better in my books.

    Come to think of it, a good dividing point can actually be found in the contest categories where you have Cool, Cute, Tough, Beauty and Smart. If you apply Pokemon to those categories, just as an example you could have something like Jolteon for Cool, Pikachu for Cute, Garchomp for Tough, Gardevoir for Beauty and Murkrow for Smart. All those pokemon are very different but worthwhile in they're own way, so I think it's a credit to Gamefreak that there are so many different pokemon with their own unique charms and even after 800 or so, they're still coming up with the goods for the most part.
     
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    Im only strongly familiar with Gen 1 to 4 and they all had their "super cool" evolutions. Just look at the starter pokemon from gen 1 to 4 and their evolutions. Now I think that having a few pokemon stay cute as they evolve is a bad thing? I personally like that because I like to look at cute pokemon and it sometimes bothered me using an everstone on a.starter.pokemon and at the same time needing it to evolve to complete the pokedex.

    As for too many? Im not sure....I seen a lot of cute pokemon. But ive also seen alot of cool ones too. Perhaps we need more gepdudes and machop where they start off regular looking and then appear more advance. Like graveler and Machoke.
     
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    It's an interesting question, and I've thought about it before.

    Now, let's be honest, Pokemon is for kids, at least that's their target audience. But the reason I started playing again as an adult was that I realized how much hidden stuff there was behind the scenes that kids would never understand. The ins-and-outs of the meta-game, IV's, natures, HAs, EV training, the specifics of breeding etc. etc. It's actually a great game that anyone of any age can enjoy.

    But there still are a lot of "cute" pokemon though, and for the most part, I can't think of too many of these being competitively viable. Baby pokemon are a good example. There's always an exception of someone who can make a cute pokemon work for a short time, like Pachirisu most recently, or Wigglytuff. But typically these are even then never really seen as actual "competitive" Pokemon.

    I think there should be a balance between cute Pokemon and non-cute ones, but that balance should exist within the gameplay itself as well and on that point I'm not sure it holds up quite so well. The competitive side is largely dominated by Dragons and fierce looking Mega-Evolutions nowadays.
     
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    KorpiklaaniVodka

    KID BUU PAWAA
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  • Yes. There are many "cute" Pokemon which aren't cute at all in my eyes, and some of them are either downright ugly (I'm looking at you, Oshawott) or lazy and uninteresting (Eevee, Vulpix, Piplup, Teddiursa, Torchic and many others).

    Pikachu and Oshawott are severely overrated, just because Ash owns them in the anime and managed to turn Pikachu into the Pokemon mascot, while Oshawott acted "OMG SO KAWAII!!" in Best Wishes. Piplup suffers from the same problem. Eevee is another extremely overrated Pokemon because "omg it can evolve into so many things and is so cuteeeeeee~~~~". What they fail to realize is that ALL the Eeveelutions are outclassed by something else. ALL OF THEM.
     

    Oryx

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    It's an interesting question, and I've thought about it before.

    Honestly as an adult who I'd imagine is older than most of you (I was in 8th grade when Pokemon Red and Blue came out.) The perceived "cuteness" of Pokemon leads to the stigma that it's "for kids" and some people make judgements about that.

    Now, let's be honest, Pokemon is for kids, at least that's their target audience. But the reason I started playing again as an adult was that I realized how much hidden stuff there was behind the scenes that kids would never understand. The ins-and-outs of the meta-game, IV's, natures, HAs, EV training, the specifics of breeding etc. etc. It's actually a great game that anyone of any age can enjoy.

    But there still are a lot of "cute" pokemon though, and for the most part, I can't think of too many of these being competitively viable. Baby pokemon are a good example. There's always an exception of someone who can make a cute pokemon work for a short time, like Pachirisu most recently, or Wigglytuff. But typically these are even then never really seen as actual "competitive" Pokemon.

    I think there should be a balance between cute Pokemon and non-cute ones, but that balance should exist within the gameplay itself as well and on that point I'm not sure it holds up quite so well. The competitive side is largely dominated by Dragons and fierce looking Mega-Evolutions nowadays.

    I don't think that the cuteness is what causes the "for kids" label. I mean, when I think of a kid liking Pokemon, it really is not a kid thinking "I love Cleffa, it's so cute!" It's a young boy freaking out over Charizard and Garchomp and Lucario because they're cool and tough, not the cute ones. Other than Pikachu, the most popular Pokemon are basically all intimidating types, not cutesy types, and I think that that's the image Pokemon puts out.
     
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    • Seen Jan 1, 2023
    I can't say I've noticed this. There are certain types that are more likely to have cute pokemon in them. The first stage of a two stage evolution family typically starts out cute or
    just looks unimpressive compared to its final stage. That all seems normal to me though.
     

    Xela

    Do you believe in yourself?
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    I don't think there's too many cute Pokémon at all, in fact, I barely ever see any. I agree with some of the people who has already said that there's more intimidating and badass Pokémon rather than cute ones and that's what has been the image for Pokémon since it's creation.
     

    Naruyan

    夢~で暮らす
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    • Seen Dec 21, 2014
    I want more cute Pokemon! From 4th gen on, my main complaint is that most of the Pokemon look hideously ugly, as if their only wish is to be put out of their miserable existence. What happened to the cuter, better designs in the first couple gens? I think they should fire whoever came up with Scraggy/Scrafty, Amoonguss, Probopass, and Hippopotas. It's not like there aren't any good ones in the later gens or any odd ones in the first few gens, but the quality has definitely taken a drop with each one. I like cute ones the most, but I'm not even talking just cute, the ones I mentioned are awful and those are just the first few that came to mind.
     
    12,284
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    I'm not sure there are too many cute Pokémon, per se. Although there are some, which are quite notable due to their rarity and whatnot, there are many more monster-like Pokémon out there in comparison, I feel. Though, I believe this is more of a good thing; Pokémon stands for Pocket Monsters, as we know, and when we hear the word "monster," our mind would likely imagine some big, scary-looking creature. This seems to be their way of living up to that, haha.
     

    Kameken

    URYYYYYYYYY
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  • I don't see why you're all being so edgy about this. Sure, there's lots of cute pokemon, but there are plenty of "Badass" looking pokemon as well, and there certainly wouldn't be more if jigglypuff and eevee just disappeared. Besides, there are cute animals in real life, so it's not like the cuter pokemon don't fit in with the world.
     
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    • Seen Nov 13, 2019
    There has always been some pokémon we could consider cute. Often early evo stages, or legendaries like Mew and Celebi. In Johto, we had baby pokémon who were mostly on the cute side. But nowadays there are a lot of pokémon who remain cute throughout their evolution stages and whose whole purpose is to be cute (not necessarily Fairy types!).

    Do you think the pokémon creators should have focused more on making imposing and exciting designs - monster like, you might say - or do you think it's a good thing that there are so many "cute" pokémon?

    I want GF to make pokemon that can beat the **** out of any Digimon !!!
    I don't care if they cute or not as long they has the power to beat Digimon.
    Can you believe Most people think Pokemon only capable to beating champion level Digimon.
     
    37,467
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    I want GF to make pokemon that can beat the **** out of any Digimon !!!
    I don't care if they cute or not as long they has the power to beat Digimon.
    Can you believe Most people think Pokemon only capable to beating champion level Digimon.
    I really don't care about whether or not pokemon could beat Digimon. Digimon fight to kill while pokemon fight to win. Their styles are so different it's not easily comparable.

    While we're on the subject though, there are really cute and really strong digimon too. Remember this?
    Spoiler:


    But in general, it's got to do a lot with how the creators want the franchise to be regarded, I think. Cute makes for a lot of relatable characters that make good plushies and anime figures.
     

    Masterge77

    Robot Mienshao
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  • I don't think there are too many "cute" Pokemon, but I do think the franchise over-markets the cute Pokemon over the non-cute ones far too much anymore. Pikachu aside, the base forms of starters, Eeveelutions, and the Pikachu clones are particularly abusive of this trope.
     
    2,581
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    I have enough with cute Pokemon
    GF should create--

    --Non-legendary Giant Pokemon that can fly .

    -- Big Quadruped Feline/Canine non-legendary rid-able Pokemon like Arcanine or Entei.

    --Mecha-based Steel Pokemon .
     

    Pryze

    Straight chillin
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  • Of course not. In fact, I would even go as far to say that there's a fantastic balance of cute and cool-looking Pokemon.

    Looking through the list of X/Y Pokes, I found that the only Pokemon I considered 'cute' were the Goodra line and the Meowstic line--excluding just about every Fairy, as well.

    What they fail to realize is that ALL the Eeveelutions are outclassed by something else. ALL OF THEM.
    Kind of irrelevant, but that's not exactly true. Both Sylveon and Espeon are essentially the best at what they do. Not to be 'that guy', or anything.
     
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    2MooglesGaming

    PokeMoogles
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    • Seen Nov 20, 2015
    I've never really felt that the balance has been too far in the cute category. Cute Pokemon are always going to be important both to provide something for everyone, and to make the intimidating/scary Pokemon stand out. Looking at Gen 1, Haunter and Hypno wouldn't have made me feel the way I did about them without the Pikachu's and Vulpix's.

    Personally, I would like to see more badass Pokemon designs. Designs like Lucario, Scyther and Salamance, IMO, are awesome because they have a sleekness to them.

    I guess I actually would like to see less cute Pokemon. Who knew?
     
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