>>48957578Some of them DO look like Digimon. They have stripes and spikes and a clutter of details that aren't needed. Charizard doesn't have his legs stripped as a different color with a swirly on his belly and polka dots on his wings like Emboar. And I'm saying this as someone who really likes Emboar's design, but I can still recognize how Gen 1 - 3 had a more, "It's a real thing but slightly monstrous" design philosphy while some modern Pokemon look like RPG enemies.
There is an objective design difference between early and later mons. Their proportions, the lack of synergy between design elements where some things feel like they don't belong, the overdesign with tiny details as mentioned above in larger mons. If Psyduck were made today, he would have blue stripes on his arms, his hair tuft would be more exaggerated, he would have some pattern on his belly, his hands might have defined claws, and his tail would be changed to a platypus tail. His body would also be smaller.
I'm not saying they all look like that or even that this is inherently bad, but there is a difference. I still love a lot of designs, I think variants are great, all the ghost mons hit it out of the park, I like a lot of the starters, I really enjoyed Gen 6.
But if you're gonna look any of the legendaries from Gen 3 and onward and try to convince me those DON'T look more like digital monsters instead of pocket monsters, then I just flat out disagree. I hate the Ultra Beasts design philosphy, I don't give a shit about them being from another dimension. Eternatus is garbage. Most of the dragons are cluttered, confusing pieces of crap that somehow look more like abominations than Mewtwo. The Regis are cool. Latios and Latias are fine. Shaymin shouldn't be a legend and it's flying form destroys it completely.
