>>39104021Obviously no longtime fan is gonna confuse even color swaps, but I'm sure you're aware of some very lazy rehashes they make, which is what I had in mind with the comment. There are some pokemon which have design similarities with older gen ones enough for new players to question/confuse, even if they're clearly not the same pokemon.
You can assume Gossifleur is a prevo of Liligant if you aren't a longtime fan, because its design shares similarities with Liligant's motif. Same way if you don't go searching for a pokemon's design/species inspiration, you can wonder if petilil and eldegoss are a line
Cherubi and Bounsweet look pretty similar design-wise as well. Once again, if you don't know wtf a mangosteen is, you may assume Bounsweet is a big single cherry too
I'm not saying the "gf ran out of ideas" meme, I'm questioning Masuda's claim because evidence of the opposite exists when the claim contains "never want to"
>>39104025I was thinking of lazy color swaps like Lycanroc that exist as a separate evolution despite the line having 2 clearly differently designed ones originally. (Literally, Dusk is just orange day with its mane flipped up, no memeing here, it really is the design choice they went for)
Also things like drednaw seem very similar to turtwig's line and especially grotle
I'm aware pokemon's case isn't as severe as others, but I don't agree with masuda making such bold claims with the word "never" when it's just not true since it still sometimes happens that even if 2 pokemon aren't identical, they resemble older ones enough for players to think of the older pokemon when looking at the design (obviously not outright confuse it with the older one but still)
