check this guy out, it's bulbasaur

wow. that's the product of years of bulbasaur design evolution right there. i'm gonna peel back the time crust a bit on this one.

there we go, there's the bulbasaur. i think the main differences here are the rounded vs pointed ears, the more frog-like construction, and the less simplified bulb. the back sprite has always looked like it's had big bulgy bug eyes to me also. i gotta be honest, a lot of pokemons' designs have changed for the better over the years, and this is one of them. i'm honestly not sure if this is a super boring take or a hot take.

i think the gen 1 pokemon in general have a design that's really more "monsterous" than the following generations. gen 1 bulbasaur looks more like a weird mutant frog than a friend. it looks angry too although i know that's not really part of the design. maybe weird mutant frog monsters are some peoples' thing but i like friendly bulbasaur.

i do feel like modern bulbasaur loses some of its animal grounding, though. the original one definitely looks like a frog to me, but i'm not sure what bulbasaur is supposed to be anymore. its back legs especially have lost a lot of their character and seem pretty useless in the modern design. i feel like it's definitely not supposed to be a dinosaur despite having a -saur name. i like the shape of the new bulbasaur and it would be a good animal if it existed, but i think a lot of the appeal to me of a plant/animal hybrid is... having a plant and an animal part. although i think it's best if the two parts aren't really separate parts also, they should mix together. anyway the modern bulbasaur really feels mostly-plant, so it loses some of the appeal that, say, leafeon or shaymin have to me.

it's worth noting that bulbasaur got this redesign really fast, and basically looked like a modern bulbasaur by the time it first appeared in the anime, iirc. modern bulbasaur definitely feels like the bulbasaur of my childhood. part of the reason for that might be that i didn't use bulbasaur much in the games so i saw it mostly through supporting media.

i forget where i was going with this. anyway, bulbasaur gets a solid 3/5 from me. it's good, but there's nothing that particularly draws me toward it.

evolution corner

i'm too lazy to include pictures of these ya'll know what they look like. a lot of gen 1 second evolutions feel like awkward teen versions of their cute first evos to me. ivysaur is a little bit of an exception because i think its leafs and bud look a lot better than the other two members of its family. actually i lied check out this picture:

what's this cute little white underbelly and standing-on-hind-legs! wow, this ivysaur is great actually. it feels rabbity to me and i like it a lot. ivysaur is 4/5 in gen 1 red/blue only.

venusaur is fine. it really reminds me of the pokemon tcg jungle set, even though it apparently wasn't ever on a booster pack for it for some reason and instead flareon was. its flower looks like the set symbol, though:

i wish it felt less "jungle"-y to me, since the pre-evos don't really give me that vibe at all. they're just little walkaroundshrubs, and all of a sudden it's like a jungle tree. venusaur is a 2/5, it's a 3/5 in general but it gets a -1/5 for being an evolution.