Oh, hey, it's my main source of video game nostalgia!
It's easy to see why they switched Blossomole's design. It really looks nothing like the rest of the family. Interesting that its name references moles, since most people seem to consider that line apatasaurs of some stripe.
The Flambear's family is basically just "bears, but on fire," so I'm glad they switched to an animal line that fit the fire into the real world biology more cleverly. These bears designs are pretty dull.
I'm not sure if the Cruz family is meant to be pinnepeds or plesiosaurs/Loch Ness creatures. If plesiosaurs, I can understand the change to keep Typhlosion/Dynabear from being the only non-ancient organism in the fully evolved starters. Cruz and friends look all right, though, so I'm surprised they didn't get revisited in a later generation.
There seems to have been a mix-up. Why was the objectively inferior Noctowl design published in the final game? Might be because they felt this unused design would look Dark-type, and wanted to communicate its actual Normal-type better, especially in the games that introduced Dark. It still saddens me, though.
I don't see why the manta ray used to look like a bird. That's weird. Unless it wasn't a manta originally?
Old Pichu is definitely dumber looking than actual Pichu. Although maybe Super Smash Bros. Melee would have gotten a different character in that slot, since this version of Pichu looks like it can barely move its limbs? I actually like the Cleffa and Igglybuff designs, though. Cleffa communicates the hinted alien nature of its line better with that antenna, and the published Igglybuff design always looked too busy to me, with that huge poof of hair. A perfect sphere is a much better starting point for the Balloon family.
I was always bothered that Politoed strayed so far from the rest of its family, so I think I would have liked this version better.
At least we finally know why Ledian is the "Five Star" Pokémon. I can see why they changed it, though; it does just look like "angrier Ledyba."
I don't know why Remoraid is weirdly fat, but I love the older Octillery! It communicates the design intent so much better, and matches the name.
I like Tyrogue better here, too. The actual design is such a generic anime aesthetic, but this little fellow has elements of both Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, and maybe Hitmontop too, if I squint.
Skiploom, Elekid, Blissey and Kingdra could have worked as shown here, though I do like the final Elekid design better.
I guess the joke with Porygon2 is that it switched from rigid to round? Weird that it goes from duck-like to lion-like, though.
Ugh. The legendary beasts look like they were designed by a preteen boy on deviantART trying to be edgy. Vastly inferior to the final versions.
I know it's just coincidence that they've wound up next to each other, but it gives the impression that Sneasel traded the Normal type to Aipom for its Dark typing before the final release.
Gosh. I like Tangela's family members, but a lot of the others here are pretty uninteresting. "Grimer but smaller," "Vulpix with fewer tails," "baby Goldeen but it's Seaking instead," "baby Doduo except it has three heads like Dodrio so where does the third head disappear to during the Doduo stage," and "Ditto with teeth" are not winners in my book. I'm glad most of those got scrapped.
I guess Quilfish was originally Electric-type, or gained it when evolving? Maybe the Qwilfish and Chinchou lines started as a single concept, and got separated later. I actually like the Farfetch'd evolution, and I think I like this Leafeon a bit better than the one we got in Generation 4. It fits in with the original three designs better, I think.
For the "new" set, I particularly like the Bombseel, Kurstraw, Wolfman and Sunmola families. It also makes a weird kind of sense that Girafarig was originally Dark rather than Psychic. Maybe it was too good against Ghost-types? But then, there were only two Ghost-type families back then (three if we count Kurstraw). I'm also confused how Turbann would work in relation to Slowpoke, but maybe there was no mechanical interaction, and it was just world building to have the mollusk also around.
—doctorlit, out of time
