I kinda wish that starters stopped being based on humanoid roles. You can see a trace of it in Gen III with Blaziken's humanoid appearance, a little bit more in Gen IV with Infernape's basis on Sun Wukong and Empoleon having design traits of a literal emperor with a trident beak (honestly they're not too bad because while Sun Wukong and emperors are a human creation, one is an actual monkey in its source material and emperor penguins exist). But it does it more in Gen V. Emboar possibly being based on Zhu Bajie isn't too different from Infernape being based on Sun Wukong apart from the fact that once was enough with Infernape. But it being based on Zhang Fei might be too far because Zhang Fei is a human, not a pig like Zhu Bajie. And then Samurott is a samurai, a human role. Serperior resembling western human royalty doesn't work as well as Empoleon being based on an emperor penguin.
Gen VI goes full human roles with Chesnaught as the Paladin, Delphox as the Mage, and Greninja as the Rogue. You cannot give them these roles without anthropomorphizing then further, and that was happening in Gen V too.
Gen VII has an archer, a heel wrestler, and a siren, all human creations, but they're not even tied together thematically like Gen VI. I mean is it enough to ask for a a plant dinosaur again?
