Top 10 Laziest Pokemon designs.

So one of big issues debated by many pokemon fans is where Nintendo just stopped trying when it came to creating new Pokemon....after all, there are 721 (counting the 2 that as of yet exist only as code in X and Y) and no one has that many good ideas.

Now where most fans go wrong is they assume the designers of Pokemon ran out of ideas at a fixed date, usually the release of a new generation, with everything before it being inspired and everything after sucking ass. This is far from the case as you are about to see.

Now one more quick clarification I'm not saying these pokemon are bad to use....hell just look at the #10 entry and you can see thats not true.  And I'm not even saying these pokemon designs are bad (one of them #4 is actually one of my favorite pokemon designs).

All these are are the designs that most clearly seem to have created with the least amount of effort put in to them...I assume most of these were created right before it was time to clock out for the day.

So with that in mind, here we go.    


#10 Ho-oh.

Ho-oh is unique among the entries on this list....not only for being the only legendary, but also being the only pokemon, who if you only happened to see his picture, is pretty well designed.

So why is he on this list? because he totally fails at what he is suppose to be. Ho-oh is the Rainbow Pokemon. And his pokedex entries tend to read like this  "A legend says that its body glows in seven colors. A rainbow is said to form behind it when it flies.". That entry happens to be from Silver, but its seven color wings are mentioned in Gold, Crystal, Pokemon Stadium, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Leaf Green, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Black, White, Black 2, White 2, Y, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire.

Yet when I look at its wings, I count 3 colors...Red, Green, White. Thats it....Whites not really a color either, so we are still 5 colors short of the Rainbow....you know the thing Ho-oh's named after and supposed to be.

Now as you might have noticed, I didnt quite name every pokemon game, Fire Red, Soul Silver and X contain a slightly different entry "A legend says that its body glows in seven colors. A rainbow is said to form behind it when it flies."

So that allows us to add Indigo and Yellow....but we are still just few colors short of a rainbow...and this is taking the interpretation from a small minority of its Pokedex entries.

Now I realize Ho-oh's relatively uncolorful color scheme is likely due to the limitations of the Game Boy Color when he was first released. Still thats no excuse for totally failing to live up to his gimmick, and the fact that Nintendo still pushed him out the door without either redoing him or his gimmick reeks of lazy design....especially when they havnt even bothered to change his pokedex entry to make his shortfall less noticable.

#9 Pichu

So imagine you take the most popular and widely known pokemon in the franchise....and then intentionally decide to design a version that is worse looking that it is.

Thats basically what Pichu is. Now to be fair, this is pretty true for all pre evolved forms, they are intentionally designed to look inferior in some way to their evolved form.  But usually the evolved form doesnt predate the unevolved form.   Now granted this is true of all baby pokemon....but most baby pokemon look somewhat to very different from their evolved form.

This thing IS pikachu, just with slightly different ear colors, a different tail and a black collar.

So yea, even by baby pokemon standards, this thing is just flat out lazy.

#8 Plusle and Minun

So take everything I just said above....remove the evolutionary collection to Pikachu, then double it, and you have these two. Basically these really are nothing other than differently colored Pichu with variant tails....making them a knock off of a knock off....and there are two of them, so its doubly lazy.  

#7 Dedenne

So the good news is, by the time 6th Gen rolled around Gamefreak got tired of making Pikachu knockoff's. The bad news is, they gave us this thing. Which as near as I can tell, is a knock off of Pikachu's evolved form, Raichu.

Raichu, AKA a properly cared for Dedenne

But, its not even a good knock off. As it just looks like an abandoned homeless Raichu, or like this is what happens if you dont groom your Raichu.

Seriously, if i'd never played the game, you could easily convince me Dedenne evolves into Raichu...which is usually a sign one is just a lazy copy of the other.

#6 Dugtrio

So what do you do when you have a, shall we say "uniquely designed" pokemon like Digglett, that doesnt really look like anything and you need to evolve it?

Apparently you just draw it multiple times.  And while there are a couple of other pokemon who use this gimmick, they have an excuse as it fits their design....IE magneton/magnets attract, Vanilluxe/ice cream melts, Klinklank/that is how gears work,

But with this guy (these guys?) its just kinda random....you know.....because logic. I guess hotdogs with faces flock together or something....

Speaking of, its not actually clear what these are in relation to each other, some pokedex entries read like this: "These Diglett triplets dig over 60 miles below sea level. No one knows what it's like underground" . Which suggests this really is just 3 digletts chilling.....

But some read like this: "Its three heads bob separately up and down to loosen the soil nearby, making it easier for it to burrow." Which suggests its a single 3 headed animal....

Oh and then youve got this: "Dugtrio are actually triplets that emerged from one body. As a result, each triplet thinks exactly like the other two triplets. They work cooperatively to burrow endlessly." 

So it used to be one thing, now its 3 things somehow. This suggests that even Dugtrio's designers had no idea what the fuck this thing was and just drew diglett 3 times cause they had better shit to do.

Or I suppose Diglett and Dugtrio are actually the deepest pokemon in the game, and are supposed to be a metaphor for the Holy Trinity.....being both 3 and 1 at the same time....bug I doubt it.

#5 Foongus and Amoonguss

So yea, not only is it basically just a real world thing...its stealing another pokemon's gimmick, looking like a pokeball is voltorb's thing.

And while Voltorb misses this list due to his existing first, and the not hard to imagine idea that Pokeballs are based off Voltorb and not the other way around, these two got to the party late.

And while Voltorb kinda looks like a Pokeball (and shiny voltorb a great ball)....these two beat you over the head with that comparison. So its a case of taking a gimmick one step to far...including copying the color of the shiny form.

At least voltorb isnt really a real thing, just a random round thing.

#4  Krabby and Kingler

Oh look...its a crab! Well actually in fairness,at least they gave this pair some cartoony/anime eyes, and a mouth and Kingler does look bad ass.

Krabby on the other hand tends to look like he just wandered in off the shortbus if you follow me. Not exactly threatening or intimidating.

But at the end of the day, both of these are just crabs, with some shell spikes and eyes. Not exactly super inventive.

Plus doesnt help that a couple generations later Corphish and Crawdaunt came along and showed how to do a very similar idea so much better.

#3 Wingull

It's a seagull. With blue on its wings and tail. Thats really all I got.

Although I do have to give Wingull credit for one thing....you can put him in the background of any childrens cartoon as a seagull and he wont look out of place at all.  So if your looking for the most generic cartoon version of an animal....now with BLUE! theres Wingull. At least Pelipepper shows some originality of design......

#3  Finneon

Oh look, its a fish!......Woo........

We had fishtanks in the basement when I was growing up, I remember going to the fish store and buying dozens of fish that looked just like Finneon.

Exactly the same fish

Now I considered giving this spot to Goldeen Lovedisc, Basculin or Stunfish, as they are basically the same thing...but Goldeen has the horn, Lovedisc looks like a heart with is kinda cool,  Red Basculin looks like hes tripping on acid, an Stunfish has a face that suggests they at least attempted to make him look cartoony and cute (even if they failed)

Christ, this fish couldnt even get the Krabby style anime eyes...

This thing is just a fucking fish....sure its got two tails, but thats not enough to save it from being the worse of the fish pokemon who are basically real fish that Gamefreak keeps coming up with.


#1 Ducklett.

You know whats worse than being a pokemon who is basically an unaltered real world animal? Being a cheap knock off of a pokemon who is basically an unaltered real world animal.

So way back in Generation 1, Pokemon introduced Farfetch'd, a pokemon only obtainable by in game trade...which is actually the one reason anyone has to remember him.

Farfetch'd

Now what do you think would happen if we stole his stick from him and dumped him in blue paint?

Now with blue paint

Oh hey look its Blue Farfetch'd....err Ducklett.

Now I get that generation V had a lot of homages to previous pokemon (ironic as the whole sales pitch of Gen V was that none of the old pokemon would be available.), but a pokemon who is basically a pallet swap of an older pokemon....especially a shitty, and often forgotten older pokemon, and happens to remove the one sort of not lazy thing about the original (the stick)?

Come up thats just fucking lazy as all hell.

  

So there you have it folks, the 10 laziest pokemon in existence. Oh and for those trying to find the point "pokemon just stopped trying" when it came to designs, please note Generation 1 contributed 2 entries to this list, as did Generations 2 3 and 5. Generations 4 and 6 meanwhile contributed only 1 each.

So yea point is, there is no generation where Pokemon just stopped trying...every generation eventually phones it in on design.  Which sucks, cause it means when Gen 7 comes out at some point in the future, I'm going to need to clear some space on this list......