Making changes to existing Pokémon families

[Maruno]

I'm curious how many people have considered making changes to the existing Pokémon evolutionary families. I'm not talking about just changing evolution methods or adding a new evolution/prevolution. I'm talking about things like removing a species altogether (while keeping the ones that used to be related to it) or changing which species evolves into which, or splitting families up, or making two unrelated species related.

For example:

• Having Poliwag/Poliwhirl/Poliwrath in your game, but not Politoed. Alternatively, turning Politoed into an unrelated Pokémon by renaming it and slightly redesigning it (removing the belly swirl would be enough to make it look unrelated to the Poli family).
• Having Dratini and Dragonite, but not Dragonite.
• Having Cosmog and Cosmoem, but making Solgaleo and Lunala unrelated to them or to each other.
• Making Pawmi evolve straight into Pawmot, and getting rid of the former middle evolution Pawmo entirely (because it's basically just Pawmot anyway).
• Removing Pichu/Igglybuff/Cleffa/Azurill but keeping the rest of their families, because Pikachu/Jigglypuff/Clefairy/Marill look like they could come straight out of an egg so there's no need for them to have a baby prevolution.
• Removing Tyrogue, and having Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan/Hitmontop be unrelated single stage Pokémon (maybe they can produce each others' eggs when breeding, like Volbeat/Illumise can).
• Making Froslass unrelated to Snorunt/Glalie.
• Making Luvdisc evolve into Alomomola.
• Making Luvdisc evolve into Gorebyss, and renaming Gorebyss to Luvleel. Clamperl/Huntail are unrelated to these, and may not be in the game at all.
• Making Bellossom evolve from Oddish rather than from Gloom, since it makes more sense from a body shape perspective.
• Swapping Butterfree and Venomoth.

I would consider turning Mega Evolutions/Gigantamax forms/Paradox Pokémon into regular evolutions to be akin to adding a new evolution, which this thread is not about (even if you make them branched evolutions). Also, this thread is not about changing evolution methods/levels of pre-existing evolutions, or adding more ways to achieve the same evolutions.

Have you thought about doing anything like this? Have you actually done anything like this? What ideas have you had? What existing evolutionary families would you modify (not just add to) if you could? What would you think if a fangame made changes like this?

 

[LinKazamine]

Well, I think I saw a game that said they made Luvdisc evolve into Alomomola. Honestly, I didn't even bat an eye to this. I thought they added Luvdisc an evolution when I learned Alomomola existed all those years ago so it makes sense to me that someone would add this in their game.

About the Hitmon family, it wouldn't be that weird to take away Tyrogue at all, since it was like that in the first gen. And the thing of making them be born of each other's eggs like Volbeat and Illumise wouldn't be weird seeing how they share part of their names.

Swapping Butterfree and Venomoth would be okay, too. I think that by now, a lot of people have heard how those two Pokemon were swapped on Red and Green (and carried over by future games) so it wouldn't be weird for a game to "fix" it.

For Dragonite, I would give it another sprite (one more similar to the Dratini/Dragonair ones, maybe with some similarities to Rayquaza) and reuse the one it has actually for another, more occidental, dragon maybe. Don't know if this counts as changing the family (although I'm sure players would be surprised if they see Dragoair evolving into another blue, serpent-like dragon).

It is true that Froslass doesn't look much like Glaile but maybe, instead of taking away Froslass from the evolutionary tree, it should be Glaile. Snorunt looks like a little kid with a blanket over them (I'm talking from memory) while Glaile is like an ice ball with horns. So I think Snorunt will fit more as Froslass preevolution and have Glaile be a single-stage independent Pokemon.

 

[RTCanwind]

Although this change has creativity and certain reasons, it is an inherent cognitive challenge for players. On the one hand, Pokemon's veteran players have become accustomed to the original Families, and they may be confused about this change (perhaps this issue can be resolved through sufficient storyline guidance). On the other hand, for new players, this may be a "misleading" approach. They may think that this is the "original" design and may get into arguments with others as a result.

Personally, I prefer not to delete the original evolutionary relationship, but to add some conditional so-called "corrected" evolution as Easter eggs on this basis, and explain these to the players in the plot text. Or perhaps adding some regional forms (or convergent evolutions?) to reflect this idea.

 

[-FL-]

I personally only thought about putting megas/gmax as evos.

This reminds me fangames that change pokémon types (like giving Ampharos a secondary Dragon type. Some people didn't like because is hard to track/confusing (and annoying sometimes) but changing pokémon families is a even more radical change.

The fan favourite one is Butterfree/Venomoth (there was a hack that only does this), maybe second fan favourite is making Tauros/Miltank works like Volbeat/Illumise (connected in breeding). And maybe Luvdisc evolve into Alomomola is popular enough.

When gen 5 came, I see a lot of people thinking about some evolutions being scrapped, like Luvdisc>Alomomola, Tauros>Bouffalant, Karrablast>Heracross, Pachirisu>Emolga and some other that I forgot. Some I agree, specially Luvdisc>Alomomola. Some non-gen 5 that I like to see linked are Kangaskhan/Cubone families (they were somewhat connected in beta Red) and Clefable/Gengar (Gengar looks like a Clefable shadow).

I played a fangame where Dunsparce evolve into Drampa

 

[silentgamer64]

I've considered a triple evolution split for the Togepi line where in addition to Togetic evolving into Togekiss, it can also evolve into either Latios or Latias depending on the gender. As a kid I was convinced that the red and blue triangles on the Lati's indicated some kind of link between them and Togepi.

 

[West]

I believe in justice for Rhydon. Rhyperior is an abomination, Rhydon should have premium stats and free healthcare. It should evolve into nothing but the best version of itself.

 

[TreadingWater]

One idea that I had recently was to have Unknown evolve into Sigilyph, whether by determining if its Hidden Power-type is Flying or just level-up for a more simple solution.
They already look related in many ways and has similar inspirations, Unknown has Levitate which can easily translate into a Flying-type upon evolution, and it would make Unknown less useless.