>>51423885Ironically it would have been more popular if it was just one more pokemon in the adventure with a pre-evolution.
Even the anime forgot about it being just the "kid-friendly legendary in-turn" in a movie and an AU pikachu in a regular anime episode.
But their biggest flaw was the same mistake they made with Zoroark, not giving easy access to the pokemon during your adventure, if you want the players to have a greater attachment to this pokemon, you need to expose it from the beginning of the story and not relegated to an event that few would get.
