>>55069747The funny thing is that when Skeledirge IS standing on its hind legs, it suddenly becomes far more readable. It goes from this thing where you kind of squint and tilt your head to look at it sideways and don't really know what it is to, "OOOOOH, it's Pavaroti gator! I geddit!" It's all the extra details on the top of its head and on its back that are the real problem - trying to cram in too many different design inspirations at once.
Again, still not nearly as bad as Quaquaval in terms of being over-designed, but definitely up there.
As for expressiveness, highly unexpressive Pokemon DO work, and can become very iconic (see Magnezone and Aegislash for instance), but I agree it's a curious choice for a STARTER in particular. They should have broad appeal, and anything that can't make cute eyes at you is intrinsically more niche.
Honestly, I don't have a dog in the "jobmon vs beast" fight. Considering 'mons like Machamp, it's a pretty clear false dichotomy in my opinion - the series has always had both and there have always been fans of both. Both can follow the simplicity rule and both can look good and be iconic, and whether you like beastly or jobmon starters really comes down more to personal taste than anything else. Sure, GF could probably do a better job of ensuring there's both a jobmon pick and a beastly pick among the starters for each gen, but I definitely understand the impetus to lean more towards jobmons for gens 6-10 after the starters for gens 1-5 were mostly beasts. I don't think it ruins the series 5eva like a lot of people here seem to.
