Disappointing Evolutions

[Adam Levine]

I'll get this out of the way.

On paper, Silvally is a really neat Pokémon. It's based on a chimera, and has an ability similar to Arceus's. Sadly, as an evolution, it's really lacking. Boosting your Speed from 59 to 95 isn't exactly what I think an evolution should strive to be like.

I'm still somewhat angry with what Game Freak decided to do with Coalossal. Carkol was supposed to be a minecart, right? Why couldn't Coalossal have been some sort of steam train, instead of just being a Galarian Rhyperior?

 

[Saиdmaи]

There are quite a few but these came to mind..

King of disappointing designs has to be Electrode. I could live with Voltorb but why the unnecessary
evolution?

Makuhita looks quite promising and his design has a lot of potential for creative stuff. In the end we got
Hariyama. After all those years I'm still not used to the design. His belly looks like it's part of its face and
my brain can't seem to get over that.

 

[budube]

Pokémon like Coalossal are the reason I dislike Rock as a type in general. Except for the fossils almost every Rock-Type is either a floating rock or some kind of gigantic bipedal dinosaur. They had the chance to do something different with Carkol and although I like Coalossal, it's still disappointing. I dislike Carkol too, it's just a minecart with a turtle head copypasted on it.

Crabominable and Greedent are... well, Crabominable and Greedent. I think Crabominable is supposed to be an abomination so it's more acceptable imo, but Greedent is just ugly. I didn't think you could make an squirrel ugly but well, Greedent proved me wrong.

Muk represents what it was supposed to represent so I wouldn't call it a bad design, it's just plain and boring. Alolan forms proved that you could do something cool with a slime that is supposed to be bigger than another slime.

Electrode is unnecessary to explain imo because the entire Voltorb line is a lazy design.

 

[FeraligatrMaster]

Alolan Persian is perhaps the biggest offender here. It has a big head and loses every bit of edge Alolan Meowth has.

Probopass is too goofy for its own good. A shame, considering I like most of the Gen 4 cross evolutions.

Vikavolt should've gotten high Attack and high Speed. Instead, it got high Special Attack and low Speed.

I second Silvally. I don't like Type: Null to begin with, but when it evolves, none of its stats change except for its Speed.

EDIT: Also Pignite and Emboar. The third Fire/Fighting starter in a row, and the only Gen 5 starter to get a secondary typing.

I agree with Boltund as well. It looks too much like a real dog.

 

[moon]

Garbodor is just an ugly silly entity when they could have made an actually imposing trash monster who makes you think twice before you ever littet again.

 

[Palamon]

Quillidan, and Delphox are still the most disappointing evolutions for me. Also, all of the Unova starter's evolution as well. Never have I ever been so let down by evolution before. It's wild to me.

 

[Nanusmightyena]

So for me the biggest letdowns are Fennekin and Sobble. I loved both of these Pokémon for pieces before I saw their final evolutions. I just can't with either final evolution.

 

[moon]

So for me the biggest letdowns are Fennekin and Sobble. I loved both of these Pokémon for pieces before I saw their final evolutions. I just can't with either final evolution.

Whoa wow. Talk about unpopular opinion. I feel like 98% of people absolutely love Inteleon :) me included.

Less keen on final Fennekin (wow I've even forgotten its name) but I get the thematic still and appreciate it.

 

[Fairy]

Boltund.

 

[Zeostar]

I had a Greedent and put it in the nursery for the entire game after realizing it wasn't evolving again.

Boltund.

I agree with this. I kept it on my team the whole time, feeling it was a middle evolution.

 

[faf]

I definitely agree with Coalossal, Boltund, and Electrode. I like Rolycoly and when I saw the leaks, I wasn't happy with how generic the evolutions looked, especially Coalossal scrapping almost everything that made its first form unique and turning it into some duck billed dinosaur thing with coal just slapped on. I loved Yamper and I'm so glad they made a Corgi so I was hoping its evolution would be a bigger Corgi. Turns out, we got a generic Disney dog with such tacky markings. So disappointing. As for Voltorb, I'm actually fine with it because it's supposed to be based off a Mimic, a creature that disguises itself as a treasure chest and attacks if opened. You know what Electrode does? Turns bigger, flips upside down, gets an appealing face, and doesn't even attempt to look like a Pokéball treasure chest. A quick fix would be to add a creature (similar to Pikachu) inside the ball, have the ball opened, and maybe give it some extra wiring and teeth.

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I was always disappointed with Scizor. Scyther is such a cool looking scythe wielding dino mantis creature and it then turns into a plain pincer bug. At least the faux eyes on the pinchers are cool.

 

[Bellsprout]

I have always LOATHED this thing. I'm all for making a Pokemon relevant again, but they did Rhydon dirty with this design.

Others include Exploud, Grumpig, Emboar, Toxtricity, and the derp unicorn that is Galarian Rapidash.

 

[Sheep]

Ugh yeah... Coalossal was a disappointment. I didn't like Carkol either, its teeth/mouth look so weird when the 3D model moves on encounter and it's ehhh. :x

also chesnaught and quilladin why

 

[Ninetales]

So for me the biggest letdowns are Fennekin and Sobble. I loved both of these Pokémon for pieces before I saw their final evolutions. I just can't with either final evolution.

I agree wholeheartedly. Fennekin is my favourite of the pre-evolved starters and when Delphox's design was revealed I was extremely disappointed. However, I've come to love the psychic and fire wielding kitsune as time has gone on.

Sobble, however, was done dirty. It had so much potential. It was a Pokémon full of personality. Inteleon, on the other hand, is absolutely atrocious. When it was leaked, I thought it was some sick joke. It looks like some grotesque creature from the deep, like something from a low-budget horror film. I think the generation 8 starters are the worst to date, with the exception of the fabulous Cinderace, that is.

I also think Purugly is quite disappointing, although I do adore it nonetheless. It isn't as glamorous as Glameow, that's certain.

 

[ARSOO_95]

It can be for any reason such as competitive or simply design. I'm going to say the oldest example I can think of in my experience, dragonite.

 

[icycatelf]

I adore Lickitung (probably my original favorite), but Lickilicky just looks so... awkward. It even lost its nose. Dx

They could've done something cooler with Magmortar, like bringing out more bird and/or dragon-like features.

Having a fluffy grey cat of my own, I was really hoping that Alolan Persian or Galarian Persian (which turned out to be Perrserker) would remind me of him. Not only did neither of them do the trick for me, but I was severely disappointed in their designs (especially the latter, which looks more like some kind of gremlin than a cat). I would've loved to had seen a majestic, long-haired Galarian Persian based on the Norwegian Forest cat.

I was also disappointed with every fully-evolved Fire-type Starter Gen. 6-onward. I'm cool with some anthros, but I don't like how they handled these. I personally would've rather seen a quadruped Delphox, Incineroar with an appearance closer to that of Zeraora, and Cinderace as something similar to King Kazma from Summer Wars. (I also wasn't big of Emboar, but it's okay for what it is.)

In terms of Shinies, Vanillish and Vanilluxe are pretty disappointing. Shiny Vanillite has a very cute pink/fuchsia hue, but it gradually gets closer to its non-Shiny palette as it evolves. :/

 

[Fairy]

It can be for any reason such as competitive or simply design. I'm going to say the oldest example I can think of in my experience, dragonite.

I love Dragonite but I can absolutely see how visually inconsistent it is with its prior evolutions can be iffy. That doesn't make it disappointing necessarily imo, but I can totally see why you have that opinion.

Another is Scizor. I love Scizor with a passion, but the fact that its Speed stat is lowered so much when Scyther evolves and it picks up a x4 weakness to Fire doesn't do it any favors either. :/ Again, not a bad evolution, just disappointing in one very specific way.

 

[Rynamite]

The Porygon evolution. The Lickitung Evolution

Look I get it Pokemon Company. You wanted to add more pokemon to the game, some ideas come quick and others leave you scratching your head so you have to go into the evolution barrel. But honestly, you had to evolve Porygon in Generation 2 right away. You couldn't just leave it. Base stats aren't a huge improvement category wise. You just bumped up the stats by 15-20 for all categories compared to the predecessor and I get the whole completely balanced stats ordeal, however you could of made it more useful by buffing up . 2 categories or so making it slightly more useful in battle. You had to go down further into the rabbit hole in generation 4 to come out with Porygon-Z. Compared to the previous designs you dropped Special D and D to below overall average on this poor soul. You bring up speed from low to average it was just mind boggling. The other thing you did right was trying to specialize it somehow with higher Special Attack.

Another gripe is the fact that you have not changed the typing at all, or even dualling it. It's a virtual pokemon with a real body, and you have it linked as a mineral egg group... To me that scream at least a soft dual. Perhaps steel? But then again what do I know.

You did one thing right with the original Porygon and that's the design. But you also had to make me dislike this line but making it as dull as the Windows logo... It looks like an Ice Sculpture that you continued to scrape down into Porygon 2, but then you scraped too much on Z so you had to disproportion the poor thing.

Lickitung purely on a design stand point. The original was fine to look at. It had charm considering that it's an OG poke. But now.... like... Were there fumes coming from your computer and office to make you hallucinate an uglier alternative to Lickitung??? It's more plump, has a goofy hair cut and wears a wifi signal on it's chest.. .Smh

 

[Mercurybro]

I realize these weren't evolutions when they were released, but I'm disappointed in the differences between Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee.

This disappointment comes from their stats and methods of evolution after Gen 2 was released. In Gen 2, it was ever more evident how Hitmonchan had a lower attack stat compared to Hitmonlee because Tyrogue needs a higher Defense than Attack to evolve into the boxing Pokémon. Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee are both fighters and neither of them look like one should have less Attack than the other.
As much as I like karate movies that glorify the Eastern martial arts over Western ones, Hitmonchan should have at least the same base level of Speed and Attack that Hitmonlee has. A more balanced method for evolution in my opinion would be for Tyrogue to evolve into Hitmonchan if it had higher Special Defense than Defense (boxers can train their mind and body to resist the elements), vice-versa for Hitmonlee (kickboxers, especially Muay Thai, toughen up their legs by kicking tropical trees), and both Defense and Special Defense stats balanced for Hitmontop.

 

[Pekin]

I have always LOATHED this thing. I'm all for making a Pokemon relevant again, but they did Rhydon dirty with this design.

Others include Exploud, Grumpig, Emboar, Toxtricity, and the derp unicorn that is Galarian Rapidash.

I don't have much of a problem with the last ones you mentioned, but finally someone shares my hatred of Rhyperior. Most Pokémon designs I can get behind, there aren't many of them that I genuinely dislike. I like Garbodor, Vanilluxe, all the weird ones. I like a lot of the Gen 4 evos, and I've even kind of come around to Magmortar. But Rhyperior is a sin. Rhydon has this cool dinosaur/kaiju-thing going on, and for some reason they decided to evolve it into some kind of obese troll creature with a bunch of rocks just sort of glued onto its weird body. I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't for the fact that Rhydon is so cool, but here we are. Rhyperior is garbage, and it might actually be the only Pokémon design that I truly, genuinely despise.