Pokémon at this point has almost created 900 Pokémon of varying designs, typings, and personalities. That’s quite a feat and they somehow manage to surprise fans with new and exciting creatures with each passing generation that’s introduced.
They’re not perfect and even through Pokémon Sword & Shield, we’ve seen Pokémon that feel like their assigned type or types don’t feel right. Some of them are more egregious than others, but it’s important to highlight which Pokémon deserve some retroactive corrections.
10 Lucario
There’s a handful of Pokémon that have natural connections to the human spirit and can connect to the human psyche in strange and mysterious ways. Lucario is one of those creatures and because it has a connection to auras you’d assume it could navigate the world of Psychic-types. It happens to be both a Fighting and Steel-type, with the latter feeling like it can be substituted for Psychic-type, instead. This one isn’t a terrible miss, but rather a case in which a different dual-type setup has a case for itself.
9 Minccino
The Pokémon franchise has a track record of making small mammals either Pikachu clones that are Electric-type, or tiny little cuddle buddies that are Fairy-type. Minccino happened to receive neither of these paths and was simply left to exist as a forgettable Normal-type. Making a Pokémon just Normal-type limits its potential and greatly hampers its overall move set. The Chinchilla Pokémon is based on one of the world’s most lovable rodents and Pokémon didn’t even have the kindness in their heart to give it a secondary Fairy-typing.
8 Milotic
We’ll be talking about Gyarados shortly, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t also cover its feminine counterpart, Milotic. Now, Milotic is simply just a Water-type, but there’s a case to be made that it deserves a secondary typing of either Fairy or Dragon. As a sea creature, the Dragon-typing makes too much sense and adds to its mysterious and grand reputation as a beast of the sea. Since it happens to give off so much feminine energy and its evolution is partly based on the beauty trait, a secondary typing of Fairy makes a lot of sense.
7 Gyarados
When looking at Gyarados many fans like to joke that it is simply the Water-type variant of Charizard. On top of both being well-designed intimidating reptilian creatures, they have another similarity. Each of them features the Flying-type as their secondary typing despite it needing to be Dragon-type.
Gyarados’ makes even less sense than Charizard having the Flying-type considering it’s a giant ocean-dwelling sea creature that has no wings. Whoever made this decision back in the day must not have been familiar with the term “leviathan.”
6 Mew
Sometimes when looking at Pokémon designs you realized that the design itself can override in your mind what the Pokémon’s capable up. For instance, Mew looks like an adorable flying cat Pokémon, but in reality, it’s a legendary Psychic-type that’s capable of producing catastrophic power from within. Based solely on its design it feels like it should in part be Fairy-type to some extent, which is only bolstered by the fact its mostly light pink and gives off strong feminine energy.
5 Dunsparce
If something is named the Land Snake Pokémon you’d assume that it has some sort of connection with the land, right? Dunsparce is unfortunately one of the franchise’s punching bags as it hasn’t been gifted an evolution of any sort and was labeled as a Normal-type. So on top of being mediocre in terms of power, its move potential is limited and lackluster. There’s no reason why this thing should not be a Ground-type of some sort, but maybe that will happen in a million years when it is finally allowed to evolve into something promising.
4 Noctowl
There are more than a handful of Pokémon fans like to point at as clear signs of wasted potential. One of the best examples of this has to be the nighttime predator Pokémon from the Johto region, Noctowl. Not only did the Owl Pokémon have a much cooler Beta design, but its typing also feels like it doesn’t match with its design or personality. It is a Normal and Flying dual-type that very clearly should be a Dark and Flying dual-type. How are you going to design an owl-inspired Pokémon and not make the nocturnal hunter a Dark-type?
3 Chansey
If you asked people to name a Fairy-type Pokémon from the Kanto region their answers would likely be Clefairy, Jigglypuff, and Chansey. All three seem like perfect candidates to change from Normal-types to Fairy-types retroactively once the latter was introduced into the series.
Funnily enough, both Clefairy and Jigglypuff’s evolutionary lines were gifted this change while Chansey was left high and dry. Oddly, it didn’t get the same love, but the assumption is that they still wanted to keep a fair number of Normal-types in the set.
2 Psyduck
You would assume that a Pokémon whose name is a combination of the words psychic and duck would be a Psychic-type Pokémon. Not only does its name make that case, but Psyducks are known for getting migraines and having issues controlling the things going on inside their head. To this day it seems odd that they haven’t retroactively gone back and given it the secondary typing of Psychic. Through leveling it up it learned some of the more powerful moves in that typing despite being relegated to just a Water-type.
1 Charizard
Imagine designing a vastly popular Pokémon that resembles a dragon in almost every way and deciding that it isn’t a dragon-type. That’s exactly what the Pokémon franchise did with Charizard, its most popular starter Pokémon and one of the mascots of the brand. It’s a shame really that nothing’s been done to change its typing, considering many other Pokémon from the Kanto region have had their typings changed or have morphed into Pokémon with dual-types. One day Charizard will see some typing justice.
NEXT: 15 Pokémon Still (Desperately) In Need Of An Evolution, Ranked
