Pokémon Artist Reportedly Designed Blaziken To Test Fan Reception. Did you shove it in a PC box?
Anonymous No.52372387 View ViewReport Quoted By:
According to YouTube channel Did You Know Gaming, Blaziken was the very first Pokémon designed for Ruby and Sapphire's Hoenn region, with Sugimori using its design as a test for players to see whether they would keep it in their party or simply shove it in a PC box. In a translated interview with Sugimori from a 2003 issue of 'Nintendo Dream' magazine, he states:
"I thought about how wide the variety of Pokémon could be and wanted to push the envelope of what would be accepted. So the first one I made was Blaziken. I wondered if people would go for such a humanoid Pokémon, I was intentionally testing the waters. Over the years we've developed an image of what a Pokémon looks like, but this time we decided to push those boundaries and weaken the idea of what can't be a Pokémon. Ruby and Sapphire was [about] taking on new inspirations for Pokémon unlike anything we used before."
