>>52062778I liked Garchomp from the start. It's such a well-rounded design and screams "apex predator". The specific thing people disliked about Garchomp, and the complaint lodged at what were considered modern Pokémon at the time were that they were overdesigned. For Garchomp, that amounts to the superfluous spikes on its thighs and upper arms, having black sclera and yellow irises, the orange-red torso and jaw, and the yellow accented head and waist. Some people even complained about the head, even though it's intentionally reminiscent of a hammerhead shark and jet turbines. It is a land shark that moves through sandy environments at jet speed. But the supposed fix for Garchomp is to change all the red and yellow to white except for the head one which is removed outright, change the eyes to normal colors, and remove the spikes. I think you remove a lot of the intense elements from its design if you do that, and that it's not meant to look like Dragonite or Charizard, it's meant to look fearsome and bright colors on reptiles warn potential predators. Garchomp is intentionally made to look cool and fearsome, it's the Champion's ace, and it does a better job at giving Cynthia a reputation than Dragonite ever did for Lance. In fact, the only thing that gave Dragonite any reputation was its type and stats, everyone called it Barney and thought Charizard was cooler.
What I dislike about Scarlet and Violet's designs are the faded colors and simplicity bordering on toy-like abstraction. A number of them look like they belong in Splatoon, but without the bright colors.
