Are there too many legendaries/mythicals?

PoryKid575

PoryKid575

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    According to Bulbapedia, as of Gen 9, there are 72 Legendary Pokemon and 23 Mythicals; which adds up to about 9.2% of the National Dex. That strikes me as kind of a lot, and every generation usually introduces at least 5 new ones. Do you think we're hitting a point of oversaturation where legendaries & mythicals don't feel as special as they used to?

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    I've seen this sentiment online fairly often, but I think the legendary oversaturation was really at its worst in Gens 4 and especially 5; Heatran and Regigigas are essentially completely unnecessary, as were Cobalion/Terrakion/Virizion/Tornadus/Thunduru/Landorus. They have almost 0 interesting lore and could've easily been cut out of the games entirely with a few minor tweaks. Since then, they seemed to have cooled off a bit, and I find the Gen 6+ legendaries pretty good for the most part. There are still a few silly ones like Volcanion, but overall I think they've been trending in a positive direction recently.
     
    I fully believe there are way too many. They don't really strike me as very 'legendary' either, what with GF shoving like 20+ 'legendary repeats' into every modern main series game. It seriously makes me question the devs for cutting out a bunch of random Pokemon 'to save space/time/whatever other BS they spouted as a reason for the cut, only to then go back on that entirely by stuffing the endgame full of past series legendaries. (made even worse when they're shiny locked... >.>)
    Most of them don't even feel special anymore, they aren't even close to rare, and the whole thing just causes me to lose further interest in the series.
     
    I think that, per game, the amount of legendaries added in each new generation isn't too bad, aside from Gen 5 trying to shoehorn in both the Swords of Justice and Forces of Nature when one should've been left for Kalos.

    The issue, of course, is all the old legendaries from outside the regional dex. If Dexit is going to be a thing, most of them should've been left behind in previous generations or require transfers from other games, and they shouldn't be catchable in a region unless there's a story-related reason for them to be there. Ramanas Park, the Mysterious Rings in ORAS, the Ultra Space Wilds legendaries, the Dynamax Adventure legendaries, and Snackworth's Treats are all clearly low-effort ways to shoehorn in old legendaries, and they shouldn't have been a thing in the first place.

    And mythicals. I disagree with the entire concept of mythical Pokemon and they ought to have been treated the way regular legendaries were, like Deoxys was in ORAS. Giving mythicals away for free in events was a terrible idea that cheapens them more than the sheer number of legendaries ever could.
     
    Yes. There have been a ridiculous number of them lately, and I've completely lost count.

    There comes a point when it's less "Oh look this Pokemon is rare, cool and powerful" and more "Oh great, it's another Pokedex filler Pokemon with a stupidly low catch rate so I have to waste tons of <insert ball type here> to catch the damn thing." And Pokemon passed that point quite a long time ago. Also, a Pokemon loses its rare/special factor when it keeps showing up in every single subsequent game, usually tacked on with no explanation as to why it's showing up there.

    Call me old, but I still have no idea what the hell the actual difference is between a "legendary" and a "mythical" besides Game Freak arbitrarily throwing Pokemon into one category or the other. And quite frankly, I'm past the point of even caring what that difference is, if any.
     
    Yes. Typically never seemed that special in-game, in most cases. What did Moltres, Zapdos, or Articuno ever do in their original game? Shoved Mewtwo in a random cave. Hinted at the latter a little in Cinnabar Mansion, to be fair.

    Did better in some more recent games. Dropped some lore about the Treasures of Ruin in Scarlet/Violet, for example. Wanted to see the echoes of their influence, though. Apparently went berserk and destroyed a castle. Okay...where in Paldea was that? Scattered ruins everywhere, likely unrelated to the Treasures of Ruin. Why is it not one of the Ten Sights of Paldea?

    Blames a little bit of this distaste on taking up Pokedex space in newer games. Does not care about this annoying-to-catch thing. Would rather see Bidoof than Uxie.

    Elite Overlord LeSabre™ said:
    Call me old, but I still have no idea what the hell the actual difference is between a "legendary" and a "mythical" besides Game Freak arbitrarily throwing Pokemon into one category or the other. And quite frankly, I'm past the point of even caring what that difference is, if any.
    Click to expand...
    Requires you to do something outside the main game (downloads, special codes, limited-time events, own other games) to qualify as mythical, generally. Loosened that a little past their introductory generation.

    Some examples (maybe not the only ways):
    • Mew: Send your game to the company. Trades it to you.
    • Celebi: In-person tours and Mobile System GB
    • Jirachi: Pokemon Channel, Pokemon Colosseum
    • Deoxys: Aurora Ticket via Mystery Gift
    And so on.

    (Realizes you said you do not care. Might help others who do not know, though.)
     
    The Legendary count per region started to get ridiculous from Gen 4 upwards. It's made worse when so many have already outworn their usefulness in late-game and all they are good for is keeping in a Box. Gen 8 was supposed to compensate this expanded roster in the Tundra DLC which takes away some of the aura and mystique by being dumped in a region they didn't originate in.
     
    I don't mind, but it does seem excessive.

    Maybe if Pokemon put a cap on legendaries and mythicals, they could do something like created an official flowchart of the legendaries and mythicals power and ablities over the Pokemon world.
     
    The number of legendaries ramps up from Gen 1 to Gen 5, takes a break for Gen 6 (new legendaries would get in the way of the Gen 1 nostalgiabait) then goes completely off the rails with Gen 7 and Gen 9 introducing whole categories (Ultra Beasts and Paradox Pokémon) and DLC legendaries being consistently the most egregiously broken absurdity in the series.

    I don't mind them existing as something to do ingame like they were in Gen 1 (heaven knows the modern games need things to do - they've cut so much postgame content that there's very little to keep you coming back if you're not interested in competitive battling) but I feel like everyone should collectively have gone "we're not using these for actual battles between people" and they haven't.
     
    9.2%?? That seems like way more than I expected. Honestly though it doesn't feel like a lot to me - since I didn't notice at all that probably means we are comfortable in this regard, at least in my opinion. I guess I would prefer not having tons, AKA not more than maybe 10? legends or mythicals per game since that may be excessive, but the numbers they've been releasing per gen have honestly not been bothersome to me anyway since I enjoy their designs and lore. That includes UBs and Paradox mons. So yeah, I guess my response is eh, it's fine, shrugs haha.
     
    [PokeCommunity.com] Are there too many legendaries/mythicals?

    I'm surprised to see most people say yes to this question!

    It could be my Gen IV bias but after looking at the actual numbers myself tonight, I actually felt like newer generations didn't have a lot of legendaries. Though, depending on if you see Ultra Beasts and Paradox Pokemon as legendaries (which I personally don't) I think it's perfectly reasonable to argue Alola and Paldea would have too many legendaries. I enjoy seeing a lot of their designs and the theming or lore that goes into them, the legendaries always feel like they stand out more than the "common" Pokemon designs, so I think they're neat and wouldn't want to see less of them.
    I think it's fine to introduce different classifications of Pokemon such as UBs so everything doesn't just have the title of legendary slapped onto it. I think there's a gray area there that's interesting to discuss and doesn't just mean we have 30 or 40 legendaries in a single generation. What's really defined as a legendary has seemed a lot more like it's up to personal interpretation in recent years.

    I don't think the problem is that there are too many legendaries, I think the numbers are imbalanced because we've been getting less additional Pokemon in newer generations. Even if you don't consider those things like UBs or Paradoxes to be legendaries, something like 10 legendaries out of 70 new Pokemon is a lot higher of a percent than 10 legendaries out of 150 new Pokemon.
    It's also due to the fact that a lot of legendaries come in groups, things like trios or quartets, that could all be seen as copies of just one design. I think of things like Kanto's legendary birds, the Swords of Justice, or the Tapus. You could probably argue those are all basically the same design in just different types, and that would inflate the number of legendaries.
     
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