What happened toLegendary Pokemon? Where did it all go wrong? We used to watch with excitement as the likes of Ho-oh and Lugia, Kyogre and Groudon, and Raikou, Entei, and Suicune graced each new game, butPokemonhas systematically sucked the fun out of Legendaries. Even Generation 4, one of my least favourite Pokemon Generations (unpopular opinion, I know) has Giratina. Gen 5 brought the Genies and the unique mighty morphin’ Kyurem.
Legendary Pokemon have lost a lot of their power. Some players think game modes like Dynamax Adventures are a problem because they devalue Legendaries. Legendaries should be great creatures of myth, beings intent on destroying the world or rebuilding it in their image. I don’t care that the Master of Time can be caught in a random Galarian cave. I can separate a gameplay mode intended to allow shiny hunters a good chance of getting a miscoloured monster from the creation myth of the Sinnoh region. What I do care about though, is how Legendaries look terrible now.
I understand that I might have my nostalgia-tinted glasses on now and I resemble an old man shouting at clouds, but do you remember when Legendaries looked good? The designs were interesting, the encounters were exciting, and the combination sold the fact that the monster you were fighting was bigger, better, and badder than the Rattata you beat on Route 1.
In Gen 9, theScarlet & VioletLegendaries leave a lot to be desired. I can take or leave Koraidon and Miraidon, but the dragon motorbikes aren’t the worst offenders. The Treasures of Ruin – Wo-Chien, Chien-Pao, Ting-Lu, and Chi-Yu — are uninspired, and aren’t helped by the four (four!) monotonous fetch quests that you have to complete in order to encounter them.
I’ll admit, the Ogerpon story was nice. But its design does nothing for me, and the Loyal Three look even worse. Again, I liked the narrative twist that Pecharunt put on the whole tale, but look at that design. Come on.
This isn’t about nostalgia, or even about Pokemon being designed for children and an adult not ‘getting it’ any more. I don’t know what kids would see in these designs, I don’t know what anyone would. They’re barely even creatures, they’re just animals with weird colour palettes. Or in Pecharunt’s case, it’s a sapient berry. We already have Cherrim!
Don’t get me started on the past and future variants of existing Legendary Pokemon
When was the last time we had a cool Legendary? A Pokemon that had both a cool design and great in-game implementation. You know, a cool encounter or whatnot. Zacian and Zamazenta had the latter, but not really the former. Mysterious forest cloaked in dense fog? Great. Dog with sword? Meh. However, when we go back to Gen 8, everything looks much cooler. Alola was a hotbed of excellent monster designs, and the Legendaries (and Mythicals, because I’m including them in this rant, too) were no different.
Once again, the box cover Legends weren’t great, and neither was Necrozma. However, the Tapus were all excellent designs, perfectly aligned with Alola’s Pacific island inspirations, and they were all exciting to catch, too. Housed in their own shrines but without tiresome minigames to access them, the Guardian Deities were the last time we had anything like a good Legendary Pokemon.
What went wrong? It’s impossible to say. But the follow-up to Scarlet & Violet, whether that beLegends: Celebior Gen 10, needs to introduce some banging Legendaries to get us back on track.
Next:Pokemon Legends: Celebi Should Be Set In The Future, Not The Past
