>>32939080I think its designs like this and the multiple choice evolution routes that really messed Digimon up in the long run.
Pokemon designs are so much more simpler, and while you might get one or two wearing clothes, or another holding an item its not born with or an excessive amount of detail, usually the designs stay pretty basic. Minimum color palette, a lot of simple shapes and a really easy to understand evolution concept. Not every single person who picks up a pokemon game is a vper or a smogon/competitive freak, lots are just there for the simple aspect of an adventure with a team of magical animals.
Digimon is sort of all over the place, with mecha designs, varying artist designs and a lot more bat crazy shit like chains, zippers guns and junk.
Its choices and world lend it a lot more interesting of a story line which is why the anime wasn't strictly a pure advertisement. And while some designs could be considered a lot more bad ass in design, its not often what people are exactly what your common gamer might be looking for. Pokemon keeps it simple and mostly carries a friendly atmosphere, while digimon takes darker more dynamic atmosphere which might make it harder to take seriously considering you'll usually start off with a pink fluff ball of some kind.
Pokemon just gave the more straight forward monster collecting feel and its probably why it ended up dominating the monster catcher market. Which for me is actually a bad thing, since it means that GF is unchallenged and basically doesnt need to put as much effort in its games, instead of having to compete with other titles and really buckle down to deliver a solid, finely tuned product.
