Bellossom. Hmm...

[Amp]

So what's the deal with Bellossom? Doesn't it seem a bit out of place? I have a theory...

I think Bellossom was originally designed as a standalone Pokemon for GSC. You standard Grass type special attacker, you know 'haylookitsadancingflower'.

But then I think something happened: the Sun Stone. Some genius at GameFreak created this Sun Stone idea, and somehow it got approved. Everything is moving along dandily until the Gamefreak team comes to a realization: only one Pokemon uses it. At this point they've brough tSunkern into the game, and had it evolve with the Sun Stone. It's a sunflower. Makes sense. But it's the only Pokemon in the game that does it. Gamefreak has brought in a new Evolutionary Stone, the only new one for this Generation, and its only use to to make a weak Grass Pokemon into a less weak Grass Pokemon.

So now I think Gamefreak was scrambling. They didn't have the time or the resources to add any more Pokemon, so they set to retrofitting this stone to another species. The first one that comes to mind is Espeon. It would be brilliant, Espeon evolves with the Sun Stone, Umbreon with the Moon Stone. But there was a problem with that. The Moon Stone existed in the last generation, and it didn't do anything to Eevee. Besides, Umbreon and Espeon are supposed to show off two new game mechanics: happiness and day/night cycles.

So Eevee's out. Gamefreak really doesn't have much to work with here. It wouldn't make much sense for Hoppip, a 3-level evolution family. There aren't too many Fire types, and some of them already evolve with Fire Stones. What are we gonna do?

Answer: that new little Pokemon Bellosom. If you squint and turn your head to the side, it kinda looks like an Oddish. It would make nice contrast, adding a new split evolution line to an already existing 3-level one. And there really aren't any more options. That settled it. They quickly retrofitted Bellossom as an alternate evolution of Gloom, using the sun stone. It doesn't really match gloom:

, but they fixed that with it's shiny form:

. What I don't understand is why they didn't reverse the sprites. The blue Bellossom makes much more sense to evolve from Gloom.

Just look at all the evidence. Bellossom totally wasn't designed to evolve from Gloom. For one thing, it loses the Poison type, which to this day is the only recorded incident of a dual-type evolving into a single-type. Bellossom is also SMALLER than Gloom. Gloom isn't all that big, either. What sort of Stage-2 Pokemon gets off being just over a foot tall? And the dancing, too. Bellossom is a dancing Pokemon, but have you ever heard it mentioned that Oddish/Gloom/Vileplume are dance inclined?

Like I said, this is simply a theory. Anyone have thoughts?

 

[Motsuko Live]

Sounds like you put a lot of thought into this :> I'd believe it. It's only one possibility, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was correct.

 

[skyterra]

Glooms yucky. They needed a nice Pokemon to make it a more viable choice to "pretty" trainers.

Plus, think of the pros, not the cons.

Bellossom loses its weakness to psychic and neutrality to ground.

Its got great special attack and makes a great sunnybeamer.

 

[TheNewFireEagle]

Yo man, I agree with you, when you have an Oddish evolves into Gloom, and you evolve with a Sun Stone to get a Bellossom, your right about the shiny Bell. When you evolve Gloom to a Bell, the blue Bell looks way more into the Gloom color.

 

[Azonic]

I certainly do see the point you're coming from. But I must say they have fixed Bellossom up quite a bit in the sprites after the Metal / Color Generation. Bellossom became looking a lot more like the rest of the oddish family. For one thing, they're around the same size, and they have the same blueish skin tone.

So Bellossom does fit in with its bluish skin tone. Also, it fits in with the flowers on its head (I have no idea where the hula skirt came from).

However, I still think that Bellossom was just scrambled in. Vileplume can relate to Gloom much more than Bellossom can. For one thing, Vileplume and Gloom both give off a poisonous stench, while Bellossom gives a pleasant aroma. Another thing is that the leaves on Gloom's head look like they're going to turn into Vileplume flowers, those big red ones, not two different small flowers. Bellossom is the only one in the hula dress too. Oddish, Gloom, and Vileplume all have no pants. ._.

There is a lot more evidence that Bellossom was scrambled than evidence for it wasn't/

Glooms yucky. They needed a nice Pokemon to make it a more viable choice to "pretty" trainers.

Plus, think of the pros, not the cons.

Bellossom loses its weakness to psychic and neutrality to ground.

Its got great special attack and makes a great sunnybeamer.

rofl, XDD. No, not really. D:

 

[Amp]

I certainly do see the point you're coming from. But I must say they have fixed Bellossom up quite a bit in the sprites after the Metal / Color Generation. Bellossom became looking a lot more like the rest of the oddish family. For one thing, they're around the same size, and they have the same blueish skin tone.

Say what? Bellossom's still Green and yellow. Here's the FR/LG art:

Compared to oddish and gloom:

 

[Fire Eagle 2010]

Hey, man I agree with you, they should redo Bellossom and make her the same as Oddish and Gloom. Her normal sprite is way suckier than the shiny sprite.

 

[Mitchman]

I say your theory is good but the eevee thing plain wrong. If they wanted to they could have made eevee evolve to umbreon/espeon with the stones. You use the moon stone in the day to make your eevee to realize its dark side for umbreon and during the night the sun stone to make your eevee's goodness shine for espeon.