Character designs: THE SUBJECTIVITY THREAD :'D

[Kriven]

I think it's inevitable that you're going to have salt with such a large roster... because only so much of that roster can be represented in side material or available at the early stages of the latest generation. Just as an example, somebody partial to generation 2 Pokemon might feel pretty jaded about how little representation they have in either the Smash Bros. games or Pokken Tournament. Their only historical representation in the former franchise is a clone character that hasn't been around since 2001, and in Pokken Tournament all they have is Suicune (when, given the game's premise, you'd think Heracross would be a sure thing...). Compare that to Gens 1, 3, and 4 (which I feel are probably the most divisive generations) representation in Pokken, and 1 and 4 again in Smash Bros., and you can see why some portions of the fanbase might feel ignored. There might be a Pokemon for everybody, but not everybody's Pokemon can be in everything. So when people see that the characters they don't like being more prolific than the designs that they do, they might just decide "Well, I don't like Pokemon as a franchise" because those are the associations being made.

For my part, I think there was a radical transition in the design philosophy of Pokemon beginning with Generation 3... Pokemon in the first two generations were designed in a very simple manner in order to better convey what they were in smaller, two-dimensional images. After that point I feel like the Pokemon were designed with more dimensions in mind... they were designed to be striking when seen in 3D as opposed to 2D. As a result, the 2D images can make the newer Pokemon look cluttered, but seeing them in 3D can make them more endearing.