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This is because they are no different mechanically or (for the most part) visually from battles above water, in spite of how illogical this often is.
The humor comes not just from the sameness and the absurdity of the situation, but also from the few visual changes they did make to add flavor to underwater battles and being underwater in general. For instance, you get scuba gear, but apparently even Pokémon who aren't adapted to live underwater can breathe just fine. Or, the special Poké Ball throwing animation that plays when you send a Pokémon out, where the ball just kinda drifts forward for a second before releasing the Pokémon inside. Which then promptly falls to the seafloor as though buoyancy doesn't exist. Something like sending out my Gallade, watching it sink like a rock after the slow drift of the ball, then ordering it to use Close Combat and watching it run through the water like it's air to beat down the opponent is very funny to me. As is seeing a submerged bird Pokémon like Skarmory or Swellow casually flying around like nothing's different, or a Fire Pokémon just. Existing at all underwater and throwing out Fire Blasts like the ocean isn't even there.
On the other hand, I feel like there was a lot of missed potential for a special underwater battle format - especially considering that XY had introduced Sky Battles, another kind of battle in a novel environment with unusual constraints and interactions. And there seems to be evidence in the games that there were plans for such a specialized battle format: the aforementioned Poké Ball animation, possibly, but more convincingly, the fact that all of the underwater trainers will only battle you if you interact with them first, as though the game didn't want to force you to partake in underwater battles you weren't prepared or equipped for. This is somewhat similar to how Sky Battles were treated in XY; all of the Sky Trainers were off to the side and would ask you if you wanted to do a Sky Battle when you interacted with them. But if such plans existed, then clearly they were scrapped, either because of time constraints, technical constraints, or because the devs thought adding a whole other set of battle mechanics would overcomplicate the game too much (they're designing these games with young, inexperienced children in mind, remember), especially given that a) you need to go underwater at least twice in a normal playthrough (once to enter Sootopolis and once to enter the Seafloor Cavern) and there are both Trainers and wild Pokémon down there, and b) a semi realistic set of rules for how underwater battles would work would be far more involved and complicated than the relatively minor tweaks needed to make Sky Battles work. Moving through water and moving through air/on the ground are very different, after all. Or possibly, the devs decided that devoting resources to such a complicated thing that would only play a minor role in the game wouldn't be worth it.
The humor comes not just from the sameness and the absurdity of the situation, but also from the few visual changes they did make to add flavor to underwater battles and being underwater in general. For instance, you get scuba gear, but apparently even Pokémon who aren't adapted to live underwater can breathe just fine. Or, the special Poké Ball throwing animation that plays when you send a Pokémon out, where the ball just kinda drifts forward for a second before releasing the Pokémon inside. Which then promptly falls to the seafloor as though buoyancy doesn't exist. Something like sending out my Gallade, watching it sink like a rock after the slow drift of the ball, then ordering it to use Close Combat and watching it run through the water like it's air to beat down the opponent is very funny to me. As is seeing a submerged bird Pokémon like Skarmory or Swellow casually flying around like nothing's different, or a Fire Pokémon just. Existing at all underwater and throwing out Fire Blasts like the ocean isn't even there.
On the other hand, I feel like there was a lot of missed potential for a special underwater battle format - especially considering that XY had introduced Sky Battles, another kind of battle in a novel environment with unusual constraints and interactions. And there seems to be evidence in the games that there were plans for such a specialized battle format: the aforementioned Poké Ball animation, possibly, but more convincingly, the fact that all of the underwater trainers will only battle you if you interact with them first, as though the game didn't want to force you to partake in underwater battles you weren't prepared or equipped for. This is somewhat similar to how Sky Battles were treated in XY; all of the Sky Trainers were off to the side and would ask you if you wanted to do a Sky Battle when you interacted with them. But if such plans existed, then clearly they were scrapped, either because of time constraints, technical constraints, or because the devs thought adding a whole other set of battle mechanics would overcomplicate the game too much (they're designing these games with young, inexperienced children in mind, remember), especially given that a) you need to go underwater at least twice in a normal playthrough (once to enter Sootopolis and once to enter the Seafloor Cavern) and there are both Trainers and wild Pokémon down there, and b) a semi realistic set of rules for how underwater battles would work would be far more involved and complicated than the relatively minor tweaks needed to make Sky Battles work. Moving through water and moving through air/on the ground are very different, after all. Or possibly, the devs decided that devoting resources to such a complicated thing that would only play a minor role in the game wouldn't be worth it.