>>42356893This.
This right here.
This is what people need to understand when criticism is levied against Pokémon designs. Honestly, most of them are great designs on their own, and if you put them all in different games, there most likely would be no issue. The problem comes when you realize what the series is meant to be: monsters that can fit in your pocket. This is why you can't just make a Pokémon that's just a cat like Persian or just a bird like Taillow, you have to add something more to it that makes it look truly monstrous. "Ambiguous Monsters" is not a buzzword, it's the intended goal of a Pokémon design. They don't even have to be kaijumon every time, like Nidoking or Tyranitar; Pikachu is a perfect example of this. It's meant to be a mouse, but it incorporates aspects of rabbits and chipmunks, and it's mostly focused on it's electric theme anyway. However, they also have to shrink down to shrink in your pocket, so it can't be too cramped with a bunch of bits and bobs (imagine this as the miniature sprites in your party menu). This is why Kyurem and its different forms are objectively bad Pokémon, despite them being really good as monster designs, because there are so many little details like the ridges in its wings or the retarded cords that go into its tail. Tiny details are fine, but Kyurem just has too much, and that makes it impossible to translate into a space as small as a Pokeball. Nu-Pokémon aren't bad because they have more detail than one or two geometric shapes, and they aren't bad because they're made to sell toys. They are bad because they just don't follow the design principle of a Pocket Monster.
