Pokémon Scarlet and Violet added 103 new Pokémon to catch, the most since Pokémon Black and White released all the way back in 2010, and that’s not even counting the admittedly small amount of Paldean forms. On the whole, the new cohort of Pokémon has been pretty great, but not every Pokémon can be a winner. In every generation, there are a few new Pokémon that really just don’t hit the mark, so we’ve gone through all of Generation 9’s new creatures to pick out the worst of what’s on offer.
If you’d prefer a more positive look at Paldea, then check out our list of the best new Pokémon instead.
Shroodle
Shroodle isn’t exactly what we’d call a bad design, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really have a whole lot going for it either. Its primary sin is that it feels a little bit like it doesn’t serve much of a point. Its evolution, Grafaiai, has an absolutely wonderful design, but it didn’t particularly need a pre-evolution.
Not only that, but Shroodle only barely even resembles Grafaiai in the first place, making it a pretty garbage pre-evolution all around. Again, there’s nothing absurdly wrong with it, but it’s not good enough to bother with when you can just wait a little longer and catch a Grafaiai anyway.
Brambleghast
It seems like just about every generation we get stuck with Pokémon best described as “inanimate objects with faces” and every generation they get criticized. Sometimes that criticism is deserved, as with Vanilluxe, and sometimes not so much, as with Chandelure.
Brambleghast just about crosses the line into being worth criticism. Granted, the design does try to make the face fit the Pokémon, but it really doesn’t do much to imbue the creature with any real personality. As much as it blinks and smiles at you, there’s no denying that it’s still just a tumbleweed.
Sandy Shocks
Paradox Pokémon are the newest category of Pokémon, and for the most part they’re great at playing their part. Future paradox Pokémon are unsettling and uncanny in their robotic transformations, while ancient paradox Pokémon are a little more unrefined, brutalistic, and feral. The ancient Magneton cousin, Sandy Shocks, doesn’t really fit in though.
It’s been long established that the ancient Pokémon world had some very futuristic-looking creatures, and we’re more than willing to accept that, but Sandy Shocks just looks so incredibly dumb. It doesn’t look brutal or feral or dangerous, it just looks like an awkward art sculpture that’s been vandalized by emo-punk enthusiasts.
Oinkologne
Lechonk took the world by storm when it was first revealed, and we can all agree that it’s a fantastic Pokémon, but its evolution really dropped the ball. It’s everything Lechonk isn’t, and that’s a big disappointment.
Oinkologne takes a cute, lovable Pokémon, covers it in makeup, gives it needlessly alluring eyes, and ruins everything we loved about its pre-evolution. Remember Wooloo? Remember how that turned out when you evolved it? This is that, but worse. It just goes to show that while you can put lipstick on a pig, that doesn’t make it a good Pokémon.
Toedscool
Everyone will remember their first encounter with Toedscool, when it sprinted out from behind a tree and caused tears of laughter. It’s by no means a terrible Pokémon, and its evolution Toedscruel makes a point of showing just how great this concept can be, but Toedscool just looks too silly to ever take it seriously. Its bulbous head perched atop two noodly legs will never fail to make us laugh, but rest assured we’re very much laughing at it, not with it.
Tinkatink
While Tinkatink isn’t quite as bad as something like Smoochum or Gothita, it still taps into that same ugly Baby Pokémon energy that makes it deeply unappealing. It’s got a great type combination with Fairy/Steel, and its evolutions make fantastic use of that typing, but we think it probably would’ve been better if Game Freak had left this one as a two-stage line and cut Tinkatink altogether.
Belibolt
Scarlet and Violet’s marketing cycle showed us the very best of what the games’ new Pokémon had to offer, with almost every Pokémon revealed being fantastic. Belibolt is the outlier here, and the moment we saw it, we knew it would be towards the bottom of the ladder for us.
To start with, there’s already so many different frog Pokémon around, and just about every other one of them is better. But even if that wasn’t the case, the game’s insistence that its big bulbous eyes aren’t actually eyes is deeply weird, and trying to pretend that the small dots in between them are actually its real eyes just feels a lot like trying to recapture the magic of the Ditto-face meme. It doesn’t capture that magic, and it makes the whole design look very silly.
Spidops
Early-game bug Pokémon can be incredibly hit-and-miss in any generation, but for the most part they tend to have at least some appeal to them, especially when fully evolved. Spidops decided to go in the exact opposite direction, taking a charming first form in Tarountula and completely destroying it in every possible manner. It’s supposed to look intimidating, but it doesn’t get even the slightest bit close to that.
Even worse than just completely failing to pull off any amount of “cool factor”, the shape and design of its face leaves it looking like a stereotypical Italian chef. It looks like it should be spinning dough in the back of a dodgy pizza shop, not hunting down prey with its webs.
Espathra
Every now and then, a base form of a Pokémon line is so promising that it almost has to turn into something cool or interesting. Flittle seemed to fit the bill, as a powerful early-game Psychic-type with huge potential to become a fantastic three-stage line like Hatterene or Gardevoir. Instead, we got Espathra, and what a disappointment that was.
Leaping from a tiny floating psychic bird to a gigantic metallic ostrich with nothing in between is just ridiculous, and its coloring leaves a lot to be desired. Its shiny form is significantly better, swapping out the pastel orange for a nice chocolate brown, but a palette swap can’t fix everything wrong with this Pokémon.
Gholdengo
Gimmighoul was such a brilliant Pokémon, but it destroys any goodwill it might have earned through its evolution. Evolving it requires you to painstakingly scour the entire region to collect 999 coins, and it might have been worth it if the end result was even remotely good. Gholdengo is absolutely not good.
You spend hours collecting these coins, seeing Gimmighoul’s fantastic design over and over again, and what’s the end result? An incredibly ugly golden surfer mascot that looks like it came from the installation wizard of a late-90s educational “game”.
Written by Ryan Woodrow and Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.
