SwSh Gen8 fossil discussion thread

[Astro Pantherion]

Yeah, these things are total eye vomit. I like the idea of hybrid fossils, but to make them so horrifying and make it look like they're in constant pain instantly puts me off to them. If you want to make them look like mistakes, then fine, but at least make it look like they won't flat out die in 5 seconds.

I really have to wonder how these designs even got greenlit. Game Freak has spoken about their process in creating and approving Pokemon designs, and they've said that the designs need to be endearing enough to be appealing to kids. So how do these designs qualify? If even the older fans are horrified by these designs, you can only imagine how the kids will react to witnessing these abominations. They'll probably be mentally scarred for life.

Eh, normally I have nothing against posts made by you, not to say, I often tend to agree with your standing on matters, but saying these fossils are "total eye vomit" and "mentally scarred for life" is hyperbole at its best. I have read scarier Pokédex entries that is more likely to "scar kids for life" than what these Fossil Pokémon bring to the table.

They are more weird and cutesy than outright monstrous to the point they'd scar people mentally. If you ask me, the Fossils are a combination of weird, cute and monstrous....like most Pokémon tend to be.

 

[Poke Dragon]

For these fossils, I kind of want to see something like the bottom half of -vish and -zolt as well as the top half of Arcto- and Draco- to see what combinations can be made.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I mean I think they're pretty dopey and cute. "Mentally scarred for life" over some silly cartoon monsters? That's pretty beyond a wild exaggeration.

Eh, not really. Just because they're cartoons doesn't mean they're silly or not scary. Mishmashing two halves that doesn't belong can have sort of an uncanny valley effect that could really scare the younger children that Game Freak likes targeting.

And the Pokémon in your own avatar is an unholy hybrid of two creatures, a janky limb, awkward proportions, functionless wings, plastic tubes everywhere, and hazy ethics. So like...

The difference between the Kyurem fusions and the Gen 8 Fossils is that Kyurem is more organic. Kyurem is integrated into Reshiram/Zekrom's body in a way that makes it feel more like it belongs together. The fossils are pretty much just copy/pasting two halves of completely unrelated creatures together with no attempt to make them look like they could actually survive. In fact, the dex entries pretty much imply that they can't by pointing out all of the evolutionary disadvantages they have.

I like the idea of hybrid fossils, but either they or potential evolutions (as some people have suggested) really need to be designed/conceptualized in a way that the two halves can realistically function as a living species instead of something that would probably just die in 5 minutes.

 

[Poke Dragon]

I have to agree with Bolt's point on this one even though I like the potential of these fossils, the Kyurem forms are more putting the pieces back together rather than combining halves without some change. So really, the union between the Tao trio is not unholy at all.

 

[Zweilous]

Eh, not really. Just because they're cartoons doesn't mean they're silly or not scary. Mishmashing two halves that doesn't belong can have sort of an uncanny valley effect that could really scare the younger children that Game Freak likes targeting.

The way the parts are put together are more goofy then offputting though, especially when you take into account details like -Zolt's constant smile. I highly doubt the majority of kids are going to look at them and then get 'mentally scarred', at worst they'd just think they're ugly and move on to using other Pokémon.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Therapists in 2029: Arctozolt isn't real, it can't hurt you

 

[Bolt Strike]

The way the parts are put together are more goofy then offputting though, especially when you take into account details like -Zolt's constant smile. I highly doubt the majority of kids are going to look at them and then get 'mentally scarred', at worst they'd just think they're ugly and move on to using other Pokémon.

I don't think they look goofy at all and it doesn't look like it's smiling (more like it's roaring), but whatever. It doesn't matter how goofy they make the individual parts look, if they don't look like they belong together it can still look unnatural and cause a sort of uncanny valley effect (not sure if this would actually count as uncanny valley since it's cartoons that aren't realistic, but it seems to be similar). So I could definitely see younger kids being freaked out by these designs. Maybe "mentally scarred for life" is somewhat of an exaggeration (but then again, the phrase "mentally scarred for life" is typically used to exaggerate in the first place, I mean how many people are literally traumatized by something they saw in a random video game for decades?), but probably more than just saying it's ugly and ignoring it. I could see things like kids not wanting to play the game anymore, a nightmare or two, things like that.

 

[Phosphene]

Mishmashing two halves that doesn't belong can have sort of an uncanny valley effect that could really scare the younger children that Game Freak likes targeting.

In no universe would any young child find this scary

unless it was specifically used in a horrifying way, but it is not used that way in-game. The fossils don't really have any spooky uncanny valley effect except for maybe Dracovish, but even then it looks more like a goofy creature.

No kid is going to be spooked by these fossils.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Building sets like Legos let kids mismatch halves all the time, too, and there was a Skylanders game with swapping halves as the whole gimmick.

 

[Sakuraa]

Okay after seeing them in camp, I changed my mind. Dracovish and Arctovish are total cuties too. A happy Dracovish is an adorable big baby.

I also finally got around to checking out their Pokedex entries and I'm pretty surprised. I thought these guys were all mismashes of different Pokemon to create new ones, but apparently that's how they always looked even back in prehistoric times. Weird, but interesting at the same time.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Okay after seeing them in camp, I changed my mind. Dracovish and Arctovish are total cuties too. A happy Dracovish is an adorable big baby.

I also finally got around to checking out their Pokedex entries and I'm pretty surprised. I thought these guys were all mismashes of different Pokemon to create new ones, but apparently that's how they always looked even back in prehistoric times. Weird, but interesting at the same time.

That opinion only holds up if you take the Pokedex as truth. I see the dex entries more as myths or little things parents might tell their children (e.g. storks delivering babies) so when I see the dex entries for these fossils, I see them more as things Cara Liss wrote herself as speculation about the things she recreated incorrectly. She thinks they actually lived like this, and writes the dex entries to justify.

 

[Esserise]

It doesn't matter how goofy they make the individual parts look, if they don't look like they belong together it can still look unnatural and cause a sort of uncanny valley effect (not sure if this would actually count as uncanny valley since it's cartoons that aren't realistic, but it seems to be similar).

The goofy effect comes from the outrageous contrast between the two parts. They so plainly don't belong together and yet there they are, wrapped in bright, simple colors and walking around in camp with these over-the-top animations. It's meant as the same kind of grotesque humor that was used for some of the Ultra Beasts, particularly Buzzwole (big, daunting, impossibly muscular mosquito that makes Hulk Hogan poses) and Blacephalon (a colorful clown that blows up its own head to attack).

The -vish side's signature move is called "Fishious" Rend, for god's sake. Fishious! Clearly these are meant to be laughed at.

Will kids find it scary? I mean there's millions of kids that'll be playing these games. I'm sure there'll be an mild edge case here or there where yeah, some squirt is a little spooked by the big upside-down fish head or Mr. Loceraptor von Thiccthighs, but frankly I'd think there's plenty of straightforwardly, more intentionally creepy Pokémon in these games that would accomplish that first, like Runerigus, CORSOLA'S FUCKING DEAD Cursola, Gigantamax "You can hear your dead loved ones calling to you from hell through it's gaping maw" Gengar, or maybe Eternatus. And that's just within Pokémon. Lots of kids frequently play games with far scarier shit and get along fine. Like, in Minecraft, you can travel to basically-Hell and hang out with these bad boys:

Spoiler

 

[Sakuraa]

That opinion only holds up if you take the Pokedex as truth.

Which is exactly what I do.

 

[Kyuu-Tales]

Okay, so I FINALLY got the fossils I wanted in both versions. I thought I was doing 'zolt and 'vish a favor by settling for Draco- and Arcto- respectively, but BOY WAS I WRONG. While they seem to be suffering less, Dracozolt looks a bit unsettling in motion (but better than quivering Arctozolt). And poor Arctovish! I should've known there was a catch... Everything was fine and dandy until I shared curry with it and saw its mouth was on the top of its head. I can't believe its head is upside-down.

 

[Esserise]

Which is exactly what I do.

That's fine, but in context, I think these entries are meant to be fabrications. It seems very likely that these fossils are references to early paleontological depictions of dinosaurs that were riddled with inaccuracies, and that the researchers of Galar are working off of incomplete information. The Pokédex talks about how these species drove themselves to extinction, but how would they have even existed in the past if they are the result of scientists merging two unrelated and incomplete fossils and putting that combination through the resurrection machine? These permutations are a result of modern science - like Mewtwo, or Silvally. The plesiosaur-like bottom half of Arctozolt/Arctovish is "supposed" to have a more organically fitting front half, but for whatever reason, those fossils haven't been discovered. Or, consider the fish head of Dracovish and Arctovish. How could that same head exist on two completely different species with totally different body types, joined to the tail-end of a stegosaurus back-half as well as the front end of a plesiosaur back half? I'm not trying to police your headcanon, but just asking, isn't it more likely that what we have are incomplete remnants of four separate creatures that have been unnaturally juxtaposed, rather than four natural species that happen to share identical halves of their anatomies despite those anatomies having paradoxical survival needs and environmental adaptations, and that produce fossils that can be seamlessly used as substitutes for the other species that had those identical body parts?

Also note that, unlike every other fossil Pokémon, these four cannot breed.

 

[RK9]

Everyone shaming my poor babies.

Smh.

 

[Lanstar]

Another thing about the fossils: I find the science of them in the context of Pokemon rather absurd.

Aren't the body parts a fossil is composed of completely arbitrary on how they are brought back to life? Like, Anorith's fossil is merely a claw, and many dino-based fossil like Cranidos and Tyrunt only are parts of the head. Heck - Aerodactyl came solely from DNA in fossilized tree sap!

Also, to require 2 fossils to bring a franken mon back to life assumes loosely that,

a) The DNA itself is damaged for whatever reason inside the fossil,

b) Each fossil's 'supposed' form isolated its DNA into its individual body parts, so that only the physical body parts of the fossil get brought to life, and

c) The 'forgotten' parts of the fossil must have been impossible to find to actually use, or they somehow don't have extractable DNA.

I mean, I know Jurassic Park will remain a fantasy fiction for the years to come. But this is all blatantly inconsistent with the way the previous generations of Pokemon did fossils. And the curcumstances of making the frankenfossils without even knowing their original forms just sound hilariously ridiculous and improbable.

 

[prog rocker]

Then again, the person reviving those fossils has a name that is a pun on "careless", so maybe she just didn't care...

 

[Sakuraa]

That's fine, but in context, I think these entries are meant to be fabrications.

I just don't see any reason to believe that these entries wouldn't be as factual as all others, unless Gamefreak ever says otherwise of course, then I'll definitely have to change my stance on it. But until that happens, they're all official to me.

I'm not trying to police your headcanon, but just asking, isn't it more likely that what we have are incomplete remnants of four separate creatures that have been unnaturally juxtaposed, rather than four natural species that happen to share identical halves of their anatomies despite those anatomies having paradoxical survival needs and environmental adaptations, and that produce fossils that can be seamlessly used as substitutes for the other species that had those identical body parts?

Not to me. The Pokemon world is strange. There are plenty of things that seem unlikely if we put them in a real world context. As for the second part, Plusle and Minun look nearly identical with the only differences being their colors and the plus/minus markings. If we can have these two extremely similar, natural Pokemon species that aren't associated in any other way, I don't see why it's so out of place for each pair of the fossils to have similar body parts to one another.

 

[Lanstar]

Spoiler: This explains a lot.

View: https://imgur.com/a/2fZAMpf

Pretty much the only plausable reason for the frankenfossils: This person must have intentionally did this. >.>