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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
So: why is Mega Sharpedo overdesigned? Well, he has about eleventy billion spikes on him. If you removed these spikes, would it significantly change the theme of his design, a play on a shark being a torpedo? No. It would, in fact, improve it, given that neither sharks nor torpedos are known for having spikes.
This is what people mean by overdesigned: it's when details unnecessary to the composition of a design are added. Gen 1 Pokemon often suffer from having boring themes - Golden is literally a goldfish, and that's it. But they're almost never overdesigned - nobody stucks about twenty zillion spikes on Goldeen, or extra frills, tufts, stripes, bands or whatnot. So when they're not being boring, they're rather good. Diglett is clever - ridiculously simple design, but makes a neat visual allusion to the whack-a-mole games; there's something going on there, something to add that extra layer.
Gen 5 Pokemon have the other problem. There's lots of "Digletts", lots of overlapping themes - Swadloon is a larval stage insect, but the leaves form the impression of baby swaddling, as befits a larvae/child. That's great, that's clever. I really like it, it's one of those designs that gets overlooked because it doesn't have the Lucario cool factor or whatever but just has quietly good design you don't notice until it is missing. But, say, Beartic? Why does it have that crotch fuzz? What did that add to the design? Why does Swanna have the earmuffs either side of the head? What did that do?
So I think "overdesign" criticisms are definitely pertinent to Pokemon as a series, and they're something that definitely affects the later generations, especially Gen 5. This isn't to say that Gen 5 doesn't have some great designs - it absolutely does, just when they're not great, the fault is usually overdesign. Conversely "boringness/blandness" criticisms are definitely pertinent to the earlier generations. Again, not to say that Gen 1 doesn't have some great designs, but when they're not great, the problem is that the Pokemon in question is literally just a drawing of X animal with nothing visually distinguishing.
If we're looking at Megalutions specifically... the vast majority of them have waaaay too much going on. Not all - Mega Camerupt is clever, as you can see Camerupt's powering up caused the volcano to erupt, which visually creates a sort of shag that you see in real life bactrian camels. But sadly, that's a minority of Megas. Most can be summed up as "added an extra spike or three" - even Mega Charizard Y fits into this category.
This is what people mean by overdesigned: it's when details unnecessary to the composition of a design are added. Gen 1 Pokemon often suffer from having boring themes - Golden is literally a goldfish, and that's it. But they're almost never overdesigned - nobody stucks about twenty zillion spikes on Goldeen, or extra frills, tufts, stripes, bands or whatnot. So when they're not being boring, they're rather good. Diglett is clever - ridiculously simple design, but makes a neat visual allusion to the whack-a-mole games; there's something going on there, something to add that extra layer.
Gen 5 Pokemon have the other problem. There's lots of "Digletts", lots of overlapping themes - Swadloon is a larval stage insect, but the leaves form the impression of baby swaddling, as befits a larvae/child. That's great, that's clever. I really like it, it's one of those designs that gets overlooked because it doesn't have the Lucario cool factor or whatever but just has quietly good design you don't notice until it is missing. But, say, Beartic? Why does it have that crotch fuzz? What did that add to the design? Why does Swanna have the earmuffs either side of the head? What did that do?
So I think "overdesign" criticisms are definitely pertinent to Pokemon as a series, and they're something that definitely affects the later generations, especially Gen 5. This isn't to say that Gen 5 doesn't have some great designs - it absolutely does, just when they're not great, the fault is usually overdesign. Conversely "boringness/blandness" criticisms are definitely pertinent to the earlier generations. Again, not to say that Gen 1 doesn't have some great designs, but when they're not great, the problem is that the Pokemon in question is literally just a drawing of X animal with nothing visually distinguishing.
If we're looking at Megalutions specifically... the vast majority of them have waaaay too much going on. Not all - Mega Camerupt is clever, as you can see Camerupt's powering up caused the volcano to erupt, which visually creates a sort of shag that you see in real life bactrian camels. But sadly, that's a minority of Megas. Most can be summed up as "added an extra spike or three" - even Mega Charizard Y fits into this category.