Samtendo09
Ability: Light Power
I’m not the only one feeling this way. I think the issue is that too many of the designs were trying to be plushie-like in appearance, thus hurting the variety of their designs and is what happens if you focus too much on merchandising in mind for the Pokémon design. While it worked for the design of Falinks and (to a point) Galarian Stunfisk, it backfired for too many for me to count.They really really really fucked up the Galarian Ponyta line which makes me so sad.
I remember everyone I knew thought Galarian Ponyta was really cute, and a good design, and I did too. The type was fine, if a bit oversaturated, as well.
Then the game came out. Its evolution is ugly as hell. The stats are horrid. Its type would be straight up better without the Psychic type.
Honestly, this line could have become an easy fan favorite, or at least a line that a niche subsect of the community fucking loved, if they just nailed the evolution, or let it do something in competitive play. Most of the regional forms at least have some sense of "We are going to make this Pokemon more modern, and give it a new chance in competitive!" Does it always work? No, but even amongst the ones that did not have some major success, they can still be cool in some ways. This was also the gen where they were straight up doing new evos, so honestly if they really couldn't find a way to make Rapidash cute, just make it a new evo entirely.
One thing I remember distinctly about the Galar hype cycle was that pre release I fucking loved all the Pokemon they were revealing, but post release I found that I disliked a good amount of the dex. It was really disappointing for me.
Say, which of the Galar mons stook out in the worst way possible in disappointment, ant?