>>52203159Sceptile was a major character on Ash’s team during the Hoenn era, but even without that the Sceptile line as a whole was well-received (Blaziken was popular but controversial while Swampert was was loved but not quite as much as the other two)
And your right, Gen2 had no true “shillmons”. During Gen2 Game Freak has no idea how to handle new generations so Gen1 mons still got nearly all of the attention and merch. By the time they realized “oh shit Gen2 is supposed to be A WHOLE NEW WORLD and people actually like seeing the WHOLE NEW Gen 2 Pokemon in the rare instances we show them” it was Gen3’s turn. So Gen 3 started getting love, leaving Gen2 as the perpetual overlooked middle child. Any popularity a Gen 2 Pokémon managed to get is completely organic.
