>>51116309You nostalgia-goggled motherfuckers can't seem to comprehend that BOTH columns suck, both upper and lower designs are horrible and things have always been this way.
Sugimori himself dictated multiple times that they deliberately choose tone down the "coolness" aspect of each pokemon design to balance out the advantages and disavadvanges of each monster, so each creature has to compliment all the others in the final product. These pokemon in question are the consequence of applying that same design philosophy to creatures that have no "coolness" aspects of their own, they're either always these archetype "parodies" (Like Electrode and the typical JRPG mimic monster) or just plain boring animals (Like the stupid fucking penguin pokemon) that don't have an individual "spark" and can't stand on their own when compared to other series. They stopped adding that differential factor into most recent mons, which considerably changed things around but every single generation has had it's fair share of horrendous pokemon that should have been sent directly back to the drawing board, it's not just a recent thing or an exclusive "nu-pokemon" problem.