>>48863662I'm hesitant to call the bugs in Gen 5 "early bugs". Early bugs in older games were like route 2, basically some of the first Pokemon you'd be seeing past the rodent and bird, but you don't get access to Sewaddle and Venipede until after you beat the second gym in BW. If anything, Gen 5's bugs were the furthest removed from Kanto's bugs than any other bugs in the series from a gameplay perspective, you get them later, they evolve much later (Swadloon evolves with friendship), they're stronger, and share zero design elements.
>they still are "copies" in that a lot of them fill similar gameplay roles,This is completely wrong, Beedrill and Butterfree are Pokemon that evolve fully very early, at the cost of falling off and being weak overall. Beedrill has 375 BST and Scolipede has 475, Scolipede remains strong through the entire game, Beedrill does not.
This is just one example, but the same can apply to your Reuniclus example too, Reuniclus and Gothitelle are meant to be counterparts of each other as they have identical BST and both reach their final forms at lv.41. I think
>>48863032 put it best, you can't just say something is a "copy" because it shares a typing with something from Gen 1, because in that case Metagross is also an Alakazam copy, it even has the "barely usable first stage" thing going on too.
