>>52411625I think the issue was not Blaziken itself, but the shareholders being souless 50+ y.o. business people who have never played a videogame in their life. GF stopped being a smarr indi kompany during Gen 3 and the franchise started its Disneyfication at around that point.
They understood that Blaziken was popular and mistakenly thought it was due to its fire/fighting type, so they recyled the formula with Infernape, which proved to be even more popular.
They did it again with Emboar, who was not nearly as popular.
So they just made all gen 6 starters into jobmons, which was a popular and exciting concept, but the designs were meh at best, so they shilled Greninja hard and it worked a bit too well, overshadowing CHARIZARD.
From that point onwards they made EVERY SINGLE STARTER a jobmon, with a designated shilled one that was meant to be popular for its debut generation and quickly swept under the rug after its role was over.
