Key Examples of Why Pokémon Creators Ran Out Of Ideas... During Gen I - Guest Post by Tim Hutton

Today's Guest Post is by Tim Hutton:

Of all the people I consider my close friends, Lizzy King is one of the only who really doesn’t give a flying hoot about Pokémon.  Therefore her blog is, of course, lacking in Pokécontent and this is a terrible shame.  A terrible shame that I intend to rectify with my post:

Key Examples of Why Pokémon Creators Ran Out Of Ideas... During Gen I:

People on the internet give later generations of Pokemon a lot of flack because the creators have “run out of ideas” for new Pokemon. 

Vanniluxe is often considered the point at which Pokemon jumped the shark.

With Pokemon X and Y coming out this week, and with me unable to purchase a copy for at least 10 days, I thought I would cause a bit of an internet shitstorm by putting forward the theory that Pokemon, in fact, ran out of ideas all the way back in Gen 1 (Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow for those playing at home but not down with the cool kids’ lingo).

Example 1: Voltorb and Electrode

Voltorb is literally a Pokeball with a frowny face.  That’s it.  In the anime it’s most distinctive feature is that it explodes.  Hell, they didn’t even bother drawing a mouth on it!  Small children draw competent smiley faces.  And when you look at Voltorb’s evolution you don’t get much better:

Wow an upside-down Pokeball!  Much finesse.  Such sophistication of design.  Many... actually it looks a little too enthusiastic to be exploding there.  Never pick a fight with a man who has nothing to lose.  I would not pick a fight with an Electrode.

Example 2: Pidgey

Pidgey you are literally a pigeon.  I’m surprised your attacks aren’t “Fleas!”, “Fracking hell is that bread?!” and “Rummage through garbage.”

Example 3: Mr. Mime

Mr. Mime is the creepy malnourished clown who lives in your roof and sometimes knocks and you can hear him in the night but nobody would ever believe you.  His fingers are long with pads on the end.  Suitable for touching you.  Suitable for touching all of you.

Example 4: Magnemite & Magneton

 

Magnemite is a magnet.  Magneton is three magnets.  And they actually paid someone to come up with this.

Example 5: Diglett and Dugtrio

 

Diglett is... a mole?  A mound of dirt?  Nobody is quite sure.

Dugtrio is three... whatever Diglett is.

I sense a pattern.

Example 6: Jynx

Jynx is the unintentionally racist Pokemon.  Jynx’ original design featured a completely black face with big oversized red lips.  Yeah.  Oops.  Though actually Jynx was designed to poke fun at a fashion trend in Japan where women would bleach their hair but tan themselves really dark, it had an unfortunate resemblance to blackface. 

Despite all this, Jynx falls into Mr Mime’s camp of Creepily Proportioned Humanoids.  Not exactly a design revolution is it?

In Conclusion:

There are actually plenty more I can go on about here.  For example:

Squirtle?  Wow a turtle!  Caterpie/Metapod/Buterfree?  Holy shit it’s actually just a caterpiller.  Poliwrath?  More like Frowning Poliwhirl.  Bulbasaur?  What even are you?!  Seel?  They didn’t even bother changing the effing name.

What is my point?  Is it that I hate Gen 1 Pokemon?  No.  Of course not.  My point is that each generation has some stellar designs and some not so stellar designs.  Pokemon is, unfortunately, heavily subjected to nostalgia goggles and this is a huge problem in the gaming industry.  We want everything to be the same because it harks back to some time when games were pure, or some such nonsense like that.  The problem is that these games were objectively much worse than the games we have now!  It’s like the person who looks back and romanticises Medieval Europe but ignores things like the feudal system, or the lack of medicine. 

Tim Hutton was that kid in Grade 5. You know, the one who knew literally everything there was to know about Pokemon. Currently he is traveling the globe with not a care in the world! Except, you know, worrying constantly about missing flights and running out of money.