8. A Little More Time Spent on Design
With 649 Pokemon now in existence it's understandable that they won't all be right on the money. Sadly, though, Pokemon's fifth generation offered up some of the ugliest and perhaps laziest Pokemon designs that we have ever seen from the team. It wasn't all bad in generation 5, though, not by any stretch of the imagination. Personally I think Snivy and its evolutions are the best looking of any of the grass type starters and show that the design team at Game Freak certainly haven't lost the ability to create monsters full of personality and charm. Compare this to something like Vanilluxe, however, and the two just are just complete opposites. The most consistently appealing designs are those based on animal forms, but there have been success stories outside of this with Pokemon like Porygon and the Geodude family. Clearly examples like Vanilluxe demonstrate attempts to come up with something quirky or bizarre outside of animal or plant forms, but in this case it just hasn't worked. So for the future generation(s) we can only hope there's a little more experimentation with the designs that have worked, and less attempts to come up with something original. Though many of the points listed here are suggestions for innovations that break the old formula, this is a time where Game Freak should stay truer to the tried and tested traditions where design is concerned.