>>29583010>>29583040Owls and most other animals can be creepy and horrifying. The thing about it is ghosts aren't just shadows and stealth and darkness. They are also inherently spiritual, and almost every single one of them has some kind of design cue that emphasizes that. All the lore, speculation and ghostly movesets in the world will never make this owl look like a ghost type. It has very strong flying type elements (stealth, dexterity, accuracy, arrow attacks that mix well the flying theme), and a few grass elements (leaves). That's it. There is literally NO way to tell it could be a ghost until the lore is brought up and people start justifying it in ways that Gamefreak didn't think to put into the design. Ya know, consistency.
Noctowl does a better job of being a spooky ghost bird. But yet it wasn't made a ghost bird. Decidueye looks no more like a ghost than Dartrix or Rowlet, which is the main sticking point with it. Give it a semi-spiritual lore and slap a ghost move on it, but that will never make it look and feel like a ghost type in the animations, which is a trait almost every other single ghost type can claim.
That is a problem whether you want to realize it or not. Not big enough for me to hate it, and there are much worse issues with this Gen. I just wish they had saved the Ghost owl for a non-grass type, so they could make it RIGHT. Or at least not emphasize the flying type aspect so much and made it less of a normal everyday looking owl with a grass cowl.
>>29583421I disagree with the last bit. I don't think this is them being creative, I think it is them wanting to have their cake and eat it too, by designing a really cool grass/flying forest guardian owl but then trying to keep it interesting at the cost of consistency by slapping it with a ghost typing and saying the lore and moveset make it fine. It's not fine, but at the same time I'm actually glad it's not grass/flying so I will tolerate it all the same.
