Does Not Obey the Laws of Physics

...time to take a look back at the previous 8 generations. Why? Because the newest generation is UGLY. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and everyone will differ, but I think there's been a general consensus that the Pokemon design have been going downhill pretty much since Gen 5 and haven't been able to recover.

Now, here are some criteria I'm using to count how many aesthetically pleasing Pokemon have been delivered each generation:

1. Only the final evolution counts. This is because the game incentivizes you to use the final evolution and you will be intentionally handicapping yourself if you don't.

2. Exceptions to rule one: G-max. Where pre-final evolutions can G-max but final evolutions can't. In this case G-max forms will be considered a "final" evolution.

3. Final evolution is based on the generation it's released in. So if the Pokemon gets another final evolution in a later generation, the pre-final evolution still counts for the generation it appears in.

4. Only aesthetics are considered. Game mechanics tend to favor the ugly 'mons.

With that over, let's get down to the breakdown.

Gen 1: 23
Gen 2: 32
Gen 3: 22, Plusle/Minun and Latios/Latias have been consolidated into a single entry due to them being palette swaps of each other
Gen 4: 23
Gen 5: 17
Gen 6: 16 (11 original + 5 Mega-evolutions of previous 'mons)
Gen 7: 20 (16 original + 4 Alolan variants) ¹
Gen 8: 29 (16 original + 3 Galar variants + 3 Hisui variants + 7 G-max of previous 'mons)

¹ I counted Oricori twice. Oricori has 5 forms with different typing and are more than just color palette swaps. As such, I consider them to be acceptably different Pokemon designs. I liked the Baile and Sensu designs while the others left me feeling meh, hence counting Oricori twice.

So, I'm actually a bit surprised, because I always thought I enjoyed Gen 1 Pokemon designs the most, but it seems Gen 2 actually delivered aesthetically the best for me.

In terms of pure original Pokemon design that isn't adding a little extra to or variation upon the already pleasing base design of previous generations (and not to mention some actively made the original 'mon worse, such as Lopunny, Persian, Lucario, Charizard etc.) Gen 6 was the least satisfying, with only 11 generation specific Pokemon that looked good.

Other interesting bits of trivia is that Gen 4 is the only one one where all three of the final evolution starters appealed to me, making the starter choice genuinely difficult. Follow that, Gen 2 had two starters where I liked the final evolution. Gen 3, Gen 6, and Gen 8 have the distinct dishonor of having zero starters with final evolutions that I would want to keep on my end game team.

Interestingly, Gen 4 also had the most number of Legendaries that visually appealed to me (3), while Gen 1-3 had two appealing Legendaries, Gen 5 had one appealing legendary, and Gen 6-8 had no Legendaries that appealed to me despite the increasing amounts of generation specific Legendaries.

Finally, Normal type was predominantly my favorites with fire types dying a slow miserable death as the generations proceeded (5 in gen 1 and basically 1 in each latter generation with a slight uptick in gen 5, but only because of secondary fire-typing). With the introduction of Fairy type in Gen 6, normal dominance gave way to fairy dominance, partly because most of the normal types I liked got a secondary fairy or swapped to fairy type.

My least favorite type is a toss up between steel, dark, rock, ground, poison, and fighting. Like...just why are those types so ugly?

Meanwhile, I think Gen 9 introduced...two (?) final evolutions that I find remotely appealing. Man...Pokemon really need to reassess their designs.

So, to add to my previous retrospective, I'm covering how I feel about Pokemon Gen VIII, Sword&Shield. Yeah, there's going to be spoilers, but hey, c'mon, it's Pokemon. The anime already spoiled everything for you.

Likes:
Camping/Cooking
Friendship
Watts
Soccer theme

Dislikes:
Dynamax/Gigantamax
Wild Area

Ambivalent:
Raids
Move Reminder revamp
Brilliant Pokemon
Resource balance

( OK, let's break this stuff down a bit )

So...there you have it. My first impressions. I think I liked the Sun&Moon edition better.

So, my story with Pokémon Ultra Sun:

About two years ago, I started playing Ultra Sun. Never got to finish it despite the game being fairly easy because of the bonus boss. See, it wasn't because of the difficulty of the bonus boss, but rather because I wanted to be able to beat the boss on my terms, aka no deaths. However, having played the game blind, I had no idea what to expect and my poor Bewear (who has a 2x weakness to one of the attacks) gets smeared into smithereens. Ultimately, my Goodra tanked a super-effective attack, due to Goodra's ridiculous special defense, and took the boss out with dragon breath.

So, with revenge in mind, I wanted to reset and try a different tactic. However, I had saved after the point of no return, which, of course, is terrible. That's like...nearly 70 hours. (I was trying to catch everything as I go, which meant running around in grass for hours at a time to make sure I've encountered everything, including the 1% a-holes that this stupid game insist on putting in for some reason.) Point is, realizing there was no way to go back and defeat the boss in a satisfactory manner, I decided, fuck it, I'm gonna restart.

About 15 hours into my new run (with a new starter, of course), I got distracted by other things and that was kind of the end of that.

Recently, I finally finished my first no-cheat completion of Pokémon. (I usually use item cheats because I don't like the idea of jumping through hoops when my strategy requires multiple hold items or be limited in TM usage because breeding is a pain in the butt and not really viable until after the game has been completed due to limited resources.) Having to plan and search and look through Bulbapedia so that I can plan my time and investment into the game without feeling like I've wasted experience leveling certain 'mons was kind of annoying and painful, but also strategically challenging. Anyway, it made me appreciate the quality of life updates that the later games give such as having EXP Share without taking up a hold slot, easy access to money so you're not carrying an Amulet Coin all the time. That appreciation, of course, made me decide to go back to Ultra Sun to try to complete what I did before: Run a team that can defeat the bonus boss without dying.

So, for this run, my personal goals would be:

1. SOS chain a high IV Pyukumuku

2. Toxic + Soak, then sustain to cherry tap the bonus boss into oblivion

3. SOS chain high IV Dittos for breeding purposes

4. raise another Goodra, b/c Goodra's are love

5. breed Moonblast onto a Ribombee so that it can sweep dragons for the luz

6. get a speedy ground type to cover the Poison/Dragon and Steel/Dragons that Ribombee can't sweep

At the moment, I've cleared the first island and have been running around capturing Smeargles for part 1 of the plan. I'm going to be in for the long haul...