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Fun Club Which Pokémon, in your opinion, didn't need an evolution?

PT Fan

PT Fan

Aipom
There might be a handful of reasons as to why a Pokémon wouldn't necessarily need an evolution, but I want to focus on the design one only this time. Yes, there's always that one Pokémon you really liked that's got an evolution that came straight out of hell to ruin its beautiful design, forcing you to keep an Everstone on it until the end of times. Hit me with your best examples and reasons as to why that one Pokémon didn't need an evolution design-wise!

I'll start with 3 examples:

Magmar and Magmortar
Magmar is one of the most iconic Gen 1 designs in my opinion. Simple. Sleek. A little bit edgy but not too much. On the other hand, we've got Magmortar, which is clearly part of the attempt at making Gen 4 the edgiest generation in all of Pokémon. The huge cannons its got for arms are a huge no no in my book.

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Hattrem and Hatterene
Hattrem is just perfection. Perfectly cute and small Pokémon whose only downside is not having the Fairy type, which to be fair, it's probably one of the greatest robberies in all of the franchise's history, as it would've made 100% sense for Hattrem to be part of the select Fairy type group. Then we've got Hatterene because... I don't know. It's an absolute downgrade in my opinion.

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Aipom and Ambipom
This one was just criminal. Aipom is my favorite Pokémon ever since I played Crystal back in the early 2000s. I was excited when I read it was getting an evolution, only to get punched in the face by Ambipom. To this day, I don't know what they were thinking with its design. The bangs and nose will forever disgust me.

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There are other evolutions I consider equally guilty as the ones I mentioned, such as Ursaring and Ursaluna, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z; and most of the Gen 4 cross-evolutions, but I want to hear your candidates.
 
As much as I love the concept of expanding upon evolutionary lines in Pokemon, Gen IV has a lot of 'mons that could have used a little more time in the oven. Lickilicky feels like a lateral move from Lickitung at best.
 
Mekanos said:
Ambipom rules sorry
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Corim said:
As much as I love the concept of expanding upon evolutionary lines in Pokemon, Gen IV has a lot of 'mons that could have used a little more time in the oven. Lickilicky feels like a lateral move from Lickitung at best.
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Lickilicky is so guilty of this. Gen 4 is probably the biggest offender in this category as well.
 
Rhydon's evo to Rhyperior is one I'm always a bit disappointed by - I guess it kind of needed it due to power creep but I can't stand the design.

I also think Slakoth > Vigoroth would have been fine as is, really don't like the design or concept of Slaking.

PT Fan said:
Magmar and Magmortar
Magmar is one of the most iconic Gen 1 designs in my opinion. Simple. Sleek. A little bit edgy but not too much. On the other hand, we've got Magmortar, which is clearly part of the attempt at making Gen 4 the edgiest generation in all of Pokémon. The huge cannons its got for arms are a huge no no in my book.

375px-0126Magmar.png
375px-0467Magmortar.png
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Also not a fan of Magmortar, but I don't think we live in a world where Magmar can ever be classed as 'sleek'.
 
Oh no, I disagree with all of those in the OP. Magmar needed an evolution just not that evolution, Hatterene as end stage justifies the whole line, Ambipom gets a double fist bump from me, and even an ugly evolution means the beautiful design you like gets the Everstone buff which means it's better of than before.

Of original final forms my biggest disappointments - ranging from "was maybe interested in catching one until I saw this" to "get out of the party NOW" - have been Crabominable, Grapploct, Spidops and Baxcalibur.

Of those who got an extra stage added on later, the already mentioned Rhyperior is the undisputed champion of How The Fuck Did You Arrive At This Lamo Design With Such A Perfect Jumping Off Point.

But also the last time a starter pokemon had a great final evo was all the back in Gen II.
 
Farfetch’d. I know it’s only a regional evolution, but I liked it’s rarity in the original game and think they should’ve continued with that idea that it is rarely seen.
 
Corim said:
Gen IV has a lot of 'mons that could have used a little more time in the oven
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Yeah most of the cross gen evos are subpar.

PT Fan said:
Magmar and Magmortar
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I wouldn’t consider Magmortar one of those, though. Magmar is already a bit awkward looking itself, Magmortar just adds cannon arms to the molten mix. It’s not that egregious, considering the whole design.

PT Fan said:
Hattrem and Hatterene
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I disagree with this too. Hatterene is a fitting final form for the line.

PT Fan said:
Ambipom
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Ambipom is an annoying snub-nosed monkey, it is great.

9-Volt said:
Rhydon of course.
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doodlewhizz said:
Rhydon's evo to Rhyperior
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Now this I agree with. Rhyperior looks like a mess of a mascot costume. I honestly don’t understand how they screwed up making an evolution to a kaiju.

On a related note, I also hate Coalossal. We were denied a full coal engine mon!

Gabev said:
Tangela
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I would like Tangrowth a lot more if it had a few more of the bigger, primary tentacles
 
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Sheldon said:
But also the last time a starter pokemon had a great final evo was all the back in Gen II.
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Gonna have to hard disagree with you there. I agree that Gen II's starters end up looking great, but there are plenty of later gens with fantastic fully-evolved starters. Swampert, Empoleon, and Samurott are killer water Pokemon and I adore Sceptile, Decidueye, and Rillaboom as final-form grass types. Most of the fire-type starters end up looking great as well.
 
Lickitung. I like all the other Gen 4 evos though, yes even Rhyperior.
 
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Corim said:
Gonna have to hard disagree with you there. I agree that Gen II's starters end up looking great, but there are plenty of later gens with fantastic fully-evolved starters. Swampert, Empoleon, and Samurott are killer water Pokemon and I adore Sceptile, Decidueye, and Rillaboom as final-form grass types. Most of the fire-type starters end up looking great as well.
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Swampert is close if it the fins looked 7.6% less derpy, Empoleon would have lose 2 out of 3 of either face trident / necktie / too obvious white vest, Samurott should have stood, Sceptile is great except for the unsleek tree tail, Decidueye is ever so slightly too human, and Rillaboom fails at finding a non-stupid conclusion for the stick gimmick which its previous two stages naturally integrated into their design.

Torterra, Serperior and Infernape are my stand-out among post-Johto starter lines. Infernape does a lot of stuff I dislike, but it's consisently executed across all stages, so you can see what's coming, which is important for starters, rather than getting thrown for a loop on the final evo.
 
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Gen 4 just went ham with ugly evolutions for Pokémon that don’t need them. Electivire, Rhyperior, Tangrowth, Magmortar, Licklilicky. I’m kind of amazed they resisted the temptation to make some awful Jynx evo to complete the set.
 
I will shout this from the rooftops, Crabrawler to Crabominable is my personal biggest disappointment with the entire series. You have a beautiful, elegant look of some bloke about to box your ears for looking at him funny while walking down the street after a long day of squatting on the corner smoking a cigarette right near the pub to... an ugly coconut crab themed yeti. It's a crime I will see Game Freak punished for. Maybe.

I don't agree with your assessment of Magmar as simple or sleek at all. The pinata arms, the weird flame body, the butthead on fire? Magmortar isn't a paragon of good design but I do think it's more cohesive to itself at least.
 
Lickilicki is one of the worst designs of the franchise all around in my book so I'd vote for it. Literally "Lickitung again, but worse".
 
It's a hard question to answer for me, because even if I prefer the previous evolution, it having an evolution allows it to use the Eviolite item, which is awesome.

Crabrawler is a great answer though, I love that little guy and Crabominable is terrible.

I also quite like Incineroar, but Torracat is a perfect little guy as it is:

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9-Volt said:
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Rhydon of course. It looks badass enough already, why mess with the perfection. Rhyperior looks slow and lame, I only evolve Rhydon for dex filling purposes.
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Took the words right out my mouth.

Rhyperior would look 100x better if only it wasnt for the helmet covering the ears. Something like this.
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Giving Rhyperior the flat round head took something away from Rhydon's coolness.
 
I love the Gen 4 evolutions to old gen mons, specially since Honchkrow is one of my favorites.

If I had to pick one

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WHY?
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Also what happen here:

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Rhyperior's kind of grown on me since its introduction. I like how it leans more into the construction/mining aspects of the design, and given how polarizing the Ground/Rock typing is, I think the upgrade is justified for it to keep up. The implementation of that leaves some to be desired (its 50 BST increase is spread equally to each stat except Speed), and if it were BW they probably would've just made Solid Rock a HA for the whole line, but it's hard to strike a balance when you're evolving a Pokémon that's already pretty good (just look at Kingambit).

The only cross-gen evolution I don't really care for is Tangrowth, but I think Tangela definitely deserved an evolution. I guess Chansey is a Pokémon that I don't think needed an evolution? Blissey doesn't feel like it brings much to the table design-wise, and the white frills don't really work for me in the context of what it's about. Statistically it's kind of a lateral move from Gen I Chansey, with even more special bulk but less offensive capability, and I feel like a 500-520 BST Chansey that didn't take such a huge cut to SpA wouldn't have been much worse than Blissey ended up. (Really, a 510ish BST works pretty well for all of the RBY Big 3 post-Special split.) Part of me wants to see an alternate evolution that takes that path, though I don't know how you'd justify it at all.
Corim said:
I was tempted to mention Tangrowth, but I can't imagine any other possible evolution for Tangela. Compared to some of the other designs in Gen IV, I'm willing to accept it.
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hologram said:
Less? How so? I'd grant you "equally useless offensively", but it's certainly not worse than Chansey
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Gen I Chansey has base 105 Special, which would translate as base 105 Special Attack and Special Defense in modern games, while Blissey has base 75 Special Attack. The special split in GSC nerfed Chansey by taking its Special stat as its Special Defense but cutting its Special Attack down to base 35, which is so bad that it has to use Seismic Toss in order to deal direct damage, while RBY Chansey can opt for Ice Beam or Thunderbolt.
 
Apopheniac said:
Gen I Chansey has base 105 Special, which would translate as base 105 Special Attack and Special Defense in modern games, while Blissey has base 75 Special Attack. The special split in GSC nerfed Chansey by taking its Special stat as its Special Defense but cutting its Special Attack down to base 35, which is so bad that it has to use Seismic Toss in order to deal direct damage, while RBY Chansey can opt for Ice Beam or Thunderbolt.
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Ah, gotcha. It's been so long that I forgot the introduction of Blissey coincided with the SpA/SpD split
 
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Arboliva is not a bad design, but it's way too plantlike compared to its much more expressive predecessors.
 
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Dundunsparce, farigiraf, and palafin. Dundunsarce is a mildly amusing joke at best. Farigiraf just doesn't do enough for me. I would've liked it if the tail head became more independent instead of fusing/taking over. Hero form Palafin is one of the ugliest Pokémon and has such bizarre requirements to evolve and change forms it's just a neat idea executed poorly
 
While Kingambit is a fun concept and a natural progression for Bisharp, in terms of competitive Bisharp is already quite sufficient so it felt like the least-needed evolution.

I do wonder if the Pawmi line needs to be a three-stager. It's not like the other Pikachu derivatives who stick to one Pokemon since it's known that Pikachu (and to a lesser extent Pichu) are the ones that got the most attention while Raichu is ironically treated similarly to a middle-stager: often ignored in favour of the other members. In this vein, I wonder if Pawmi (or Pawmot) would be better as a single stager.

Thank you for reading.
 
I don't tend to agree with the "overdesigned" complaint against some Pokemon designs, I typically like things that have a lot of design elements going on

The Gen 4 cross gen evos are the exception. I love Gen 4 but man those evos are dumb (except Mammoswine, who's alright)
 
I kinda wonder if Solid Rock replacing Rock Head on Rhyperior was done as a way to leave a niche for Rhydon if the line ever got Head Smash. It's one of those moves that would fit their flavor well if they got it, and it'd be pretty good on them. Rhydon would be the strongest Rock Head Smasher in the game if it learned the move, and while Rhyperior would hit even harder, it'd have to shoulder the full recoil. They even gave the line Reckless as a Hidden Ability, which would let Rhyperior demolish things even harder at the cost of its longevity and Solid Rock. Every other Reckless Pokémon learns a high-powered STAB move to abuse, but it's a real pain just to get Double-Edge onto a Reckless Rhyhorn. I guess Game Freak thought it might be a little over the top, but it feels unfair.
hologram said:
Ah, gotcha. It's been so long that I forgot the introduction of Blissey coincided with the SpA/SpD split
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Another Pokémon that get nerfed hard by the special split to make way for a new evolution was Seadra. Seadra had base 95 Spc in RBY and got base 45 SpD in GS, but evolving it into Kingdra would bring that stat back up to base 95. Kingdra has 100 BST on Seadra, half of which is the SpD that Seadra lost in GS, with the other stat gains split between HP and Atk.

Meanwhile, Tangela was planned to be extended with both a baby and an evolution a la Roselia, but even though those were scrapped, it still took a huge nerf, going from base 100 Spc in RBY to base 40 SpD in GS. The modern equivalent would be going from Toxapex's BST (495) to Misdreavus's (435). Like Seadra, Tangela gains 100 BST when it's finally able to evolve, and a lot of the increase goes toward HP and Atk — 80 BST, even more than Kingdra's bump from Seadra, but the rest of the increase is split instead of being concentrated into SpD, so Tangrowth still takes more damage from special moves than Tangela used to.
 
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The Gen 4 cross-gen evos basically salvaged Gen 2, as it was totally overflowing with mediocre single-stage Pokemon

Rhyperior, Probopass, and Lickylicky are the only outright bad ones. Magmortar isn't great, but Magmar isn't exactly a prize either.

Honchkrow, Mismagius, Mamoswine, Yanmega, Gliscor, Weavile, and Ambipom were all sorely needed. And the rest are fine, I've always liked Magnezone and Electivire.
 
I'm baffled to see how many people don't like the Gen 4 evos, I think they belong to best they've designed until now.
I do also like the more animalistic approach to Pokemon Designs, not the abnormalities like gholdengo or Throh.
I also have this horrible imagination when u breed Pokemon and a Throh comes out... where do it's clothes come from??
 
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Dewott to Samurott is one of the big question marks for me

like here's one of the few mons thats actually perfectly suited to being bipedal being based on a dope ass human samurai design.... yeah let's make this one have four legs

like what even
 
I think there's a difference between worst evolutions and unneeded evolutions. For unneeded evolutions, the gen 4 set are hard to beat. Rhydon -> Rhyperior is the worst offender for me. Rhydon was perfectly designed. It didn't need any improvement. Same for Tangela.

If we counted mega-evolutions, a lot of those would be up there, especially something like Mega-Venusaur. Just obvious they didn't have any good ideas for that, but had to make it anyway.

In terms of the "worst" evolution, it's going to be hard to ever top Torracat -> Incineroar for me. Incineroar might be the worst pokemon design of all time. Crabominable is up there, though.
 
Lickilicky is completely forgettable, which is kind of damning by itself. It really feels like they had no ideas on what to do with it. The design and lore aren't much different from Lickitung, and while usually the evolution method gives you some idea of what the new Pokémon's whole deal is, Lickitung evolves by leveling up while knowing Rollout, which doesn't make any sense for Lickilicky. Lickitung's stats are really bad and the stat increase is +30 Atk and +20 everything else, which gives Lickilicky a good BST of 515 without a real direction, and it doesn't get any neat moves or Abilities. Did they think base 85 Atk would be enough for STAB Wring Out and Explosion? It can take a hit, but without good support moves, it's yet another bulky Normal-type that would've done well on the Game Boy who is out of place in the age of the phys/spec split. I'm all in favor of giving weaker Pokémon evolutions to beef them up, but when the evolution is a dud like this, I can see the case for not bothering and letting Lickitung stay a joke Pokémon. While I don't know what they would've done with Nameeru if it'd been implemented in GS, it couldn't be much worse than Lickilicky, and at least that had a more interesting design.

Dudunsparce is kind of similar to Lickilicky in that it's a slow, bulky cross-gen evolution of a bad Normal-type, though it's done a bit better than Lickilicky. I don't know if the design is good, but it's at least funny, so it gets points for that. They at least gave more thought to the stat spread (+25/25/10/20/10/10), which gives Dudunsparce a decent base 100 Atk and base 125 HP, and between Hyper Drill and Boomburst, it's got some good STAB moves it can use. I don't think Dudunsparce is going to end up being that much more useful than the other bulky Normals in modern games, but it's better executed than Lickilicky.
 
Honestly I think the Babymons (Pichu, Azurill, Igglybuff, Happiny etc.) were completely unnecessary despite being cute as heck

Not because there's anything inherently wrong with them, but because they introduce a neotenous/juvenile stage of development that now hundreds of other species are lacking, and additionally because they limited several species' evolutionary lines, since they seem to be fixed on three stages maximum
 
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I can't believe no one likes crabominable. Not only is he a cool boxing crab who climbed all the way to the top, he's really fun to use in game.

Lickilicky is my answer. Lickitung is a a pretty great pokemon, design wise. Nice and monstery, with a clear gimmick with his tongue. I don't think either are strictly required for a pokemon, but it's a clear vibe. Lickilicky's vibes are just totally different from his predecessor, while at the same time not being different enough to seem like a new concept. It's no longer "monster-y," and it's tongue is still there but no longer as prominent visually. I hoped for more, especially with the tongue concept, which hasn't really been repeated since.
 
Was always dirty that Pinsir never got an evolution as he was my guy in Gen 1. But then after seeing some of the Evos of the Single Gen 1 I was secretly glad.
 
I'm gonna be a hundred with y'all

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Mareep's line should have happened in reverse, where Ampharos is the first form and Mareep is the last
 
Crawbrawler is genuinely an s-tier Pokemon design and Crabominable will always be the single biggest disappointing evolution to me.
 
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Me running to defend all the cool evolutions everyone dislikes in this thread.

Honestly though, that whole thing about "every Pokemon is someone's favorite" seems to be true. My favorite Pokemon usually are more on the "dopey" side. (Sudowoodo, Munchlax, Wobuffet, etc.) So I was predestined to love Lickilicky.
 
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