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Looks like no one here understands how marketing and character design interact. The ONLY reason why Samurott is stuck being a quadruped is being of Emboar.
I'm guessing GF was really pushing for Tepig to become bipedal, so the Oshawott line got hit with the quadruped stick. They can't have to 2 straight back bipedal, bearded, humanoid starters that battles using some kind of fighting decipline. It's all about contrast. If Samurott was an on the nose Samurai than it would be more difficult to distinguish Samurott from Emboar besides color scheme.
Now they could have easily made Emboar the Samurott of the gen and let Samurott be the bipedal mon since it makes since with it's basie. But we can chop this up to GF being retarded as usual.
