originally when i saw people calling this gen's designs lazy, i was kind of :/ but now that i've seen a lot, if not most, of them, i'm more inclined to agree. the futuristic paradox pokemon feel particularly egregious; they're largely the same just if dr. robotnik got to them. imo they just don't look like alternate forms/evolutions. i mean...
all mechas? that's pretty uninspired. it's as if someone just said futuristic = shiny metal and rolled with it. even cyborg-esque forms would've been a step-up, especially in terms of gardevoir/gallade. (sorry, i've already forgotten which one of them it is rip.) the prehistoric ones are slightly better but, for the most part, seem to have minimal/simple design changes. i feel like donphan is the only one they really tried with, and probably because mammoth was the obvious go-to. (also... i feel like jigglypuff and delibird should've been swapped? idk, but jigglypuff as a pokemon doesn't even remotely give me past vibes lol whereas delibird could at least easily be passed off as a prehistoric bird or descendant of dinosaurs.) big sad since i still chose violet for the clothes, rip, but again, these forms feel like they should've been shown off way in advance considering they're still shoving two identical games on us.
even some of the new designs are... meh. like the flamingo pokemon, for example. obviously we've had pokemon that are literally just, like, dog, cat, bird, etc. but this one is literally just a
regular flamingo from what i can tell
y'all couldn't even put a swimming ring around its neck/body because flamingos are often in water and spain has nice beaches? the new quagsire is... a choice. i'm hoping the mouse pokemon we have is more than just pure white as per its sprite, because that... is a hard one to justify as not-lazy otherwise. haven't seen the third bisharp, so can't comment on that one rip.
obviously no hate/shade to people who like these designs !! they're just not doing it for me personally.