Pokemon is home to almost 800 different creatures who all have their connection to a certain typing, or pair of types. Many of them are based on or inspired by real-life animal counterparts, while others are unique creations never before conceived.
Their evolutionary lines often followed an understandable path of growing and transforming, but you can see the connective tissue between them. That isn’t always the case though, and even through Pokemon Sword & Shield, there are plenty of Pokemon who look nothing like the base form they evolved from.
Updated April 23, 2022, by Jerrad Wyche: With the recent announcement of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet fans are wondering what the ninth generation of Pokemon games have in store. Though the base forms for the starting Pokemon have been revealed it’s still unclear what their final forms will look like. Those games are set to release in late 2022, so fans don’t have to wait long to see all of the new Pokemon entering the fray. It’ll be interesting to see if any of the final forms are a big departure design-wise in comparison to their likely adorable base forms.
15 Samurott
Starter Pokemon tend to follow a pretty understandable path when it comes to their evolutionary lines. It’s easy to identify how it grows and evolves and many of the design elements stay consistent throughout. With Samurott, the final evolution of the Water-type starter from the fifth generation of games, that’s not the case. It ditches the lighter blues and round shapes for a more angular navy blue design in its final form.
The other two starters in Pokemon Black & White don’t suffer from this issue, but that hasn’t stopped Samurott from being a fan favorite of this generation.
14 Escavalier
On the surface, it’s clear that Escavalier looks nothing like its base form named Karrablast, but investigating the Cavalry Pokemon a little more reveals a sneaky resemblance.
From a distance, Escavalier looks like a knight in shining armor, but upon closer inspection, you can see what appears to be a Karrablast, or at least something similar in appearance hiding underneath the armor. This visual detail isn’t something most observers are going to notice. This means that in some ways the main difference between Karrablast and its final form is that it puts on a layer of protection via its silver jousting knight armor.
13 Bronzong
A flat bronze plate of metal turning into a giant bell is a weird jump to make, but that’s exactly what happens when Bronzor evolves into Bronzong.
The 400 lb Bronze Bell Pokemon is a dual-type Steel/Psychic Pokemon who is a defensive stalwart on the battlefield. Outside of the vague similarity between Bronzor and Bronzong’s eyes, the only real design details that connect them are the circular elements surrounding the framing of the top of their heads. It’s odd that both are assumedly made of the same bronze metals but the coloring on the two ranges from a bright blue to something closer to a subtle teal.
12 Venomoth
Ever since the release of Pokemon Red & Blue, the fanbase has talked about the Venomoth/Butterfree theory. It states that there must have been a last-second change at the Pokemon Company that swapped the two Pokemon in their respective evolutionary lines.
Venonat from a design perspective very much resembles Butterfree and the same can be said for Venomoth and both Caterpie and Metapod. It’s never been explained why this is the case, and the Pokemon Company has never admitted to this happening. Most people who see the evidence for this theory find it hard to disprove as the evidence is so damning.
11 Chesnaught
The sixth generation of Pokemon games, Pokemon X & Y, are considered by the fandom to be the series’ low point. Despite their many issues, the games did provide some fun starter Pokemon final evolutions by way of Chesnaught, Delphox, and Greninja.
Chesnaught is a Grass and Fighting-type that sports a beige and green suit of armor. This white-furred rodent ditches the brown fur of its previous forms and morphs its mostly green secondary colors to a tertiary role in favor of the previously mentioned beige armor.
10 Gyarados
Gyarados and its base form Magikarp share a slight connection in that they’re both Water-type Pokemon that resemble underwater creatures. That’s where the similarities stop as one is a simple looking orange carp while the other is a giant sea snake that’s partly Flying-type for some reason.
The original beta version of Gyarados was an orange sea worm without a face, but its colors at least matched those of Magikarp. At the end of the day, it seems the whole reason for Magikarp’s existence is to result in a surprising evolution.
9 Politoed
After Pokemon Red & Blue released to unrivaled success and the Pokemon franchise became a pop culture mainstay, fans were curious how the sequels would do.
Out of all of the new Pokemon, most people didn’t expect Poliwag to get an alternate third form that looked like a frog. The tadpole Pokemon was mostly blue with an iconic white and black belly it kept up until its final form. That’s why the alternate form named Politoed was so off-putting since it was a green and yellow frog that kept the spirit of the belly spiral, but is such a departure from its base form.
8 Exploud
One of the funnier things the Pokemon franchise tends doing is turning adorable little creatures into the most vile-looking beasts. In the third generation of games, they pulled a perfect bait and switch with the Normal-type Pokemon known as Whismur.
It’s a rabbit-like little pink mammal who ends up turning into a noisy ogre-like purple menace named Exploud. It’s the type of night and day transformation you experience when your friend who grew up in a strict household moves out to college and dyes their hair and entire fashion sense.
7 Milotic
Milotic in many ways is the feminine equivalent to Gyarados, and both of them are the final forms of some very ugly fish. Like Gyarados, the only thing Milotic shares with its base form, named Feebas, is that it’s also a Water-type.
Other than that you’d assume they were completely different creatures. Feebas looks like a deep-sea fish they capture with night vision cameras at the bottom of the ocean. Milotic, on the other hand, looks like an ethereal being who spends most of its days in a hidden cave lake behind a giant waterfall.
6 Toucannon
Toucannon is a toucan-inspired Pokemon hailing from the Alolan Islands that happens to be both Normal and Flying-type. Its middle form called Trumbeak looks like what you’d expect a younger toucan to look like, but its base form seems like a wild departure.
Pikipek comes across more like a young robin or cardinal and if you didn’t look up the Pokemon in Pokemon Sun & Moon you’d be shocked it turned into Toucannon. Thankfully it quickly evolves and you don’t have to spend too much time being confused.
5 Huntail/Gorebyss
This is the first of two branching path evolutionary lines to make the list. The special thing about this entry is that both of Clamperl’s Water-type final forms look nothing like it.
Huntail is acquired by trading a Clamperl holding a Deep Sea Tooth and morphs the clam and pearls into a spotted blue eel. If trainers trade Clamperl with a Deep Sea Scale instead they’re gifted with Gorebyss. This pink eel may look cute, but it uses the long thin snout on its body to suck out the intestines of the prey it hunts deep in the ocean.
4 Froslass
Pokemon does some interesting things with evolutions and a go-to in the series is a base Pokemon having branching evolutions to choose from. Snorunt is an Ice-type that can do this and despite one of its final forms, Glalie, looking similar to it, its other choice is a complete departure.
Froslass is the more feminine final form of Snorunt and looks nothing like the living triangle it’s born as. Froslass’ design comes across like a frigid ice witch who lives deep within the snowy mountains of the Sinnoh region.
3 Octillery
Octillery is a bright red octopus that’s native to the Johto region and is the final form of a silvery fish called Remoraid. Both of them are Water-types and happen to enjoy living in the ocean, but having a fish turn into an octopus was a strange choice.
The latest generation of games,Pokemon Sword & Shield, has an evolutionary line of octopus that evolves from a smaller one to a larger one. Since those now exist it makes the transformation Remoraid has into Octillery feel even more out of place and odd.
2 Flygon
The third generation of games was home to many new fan favorites and introduced the Pokemon fandom to a curious evolutionary line. The line in question started with a Ground-type Pokemon that resembled an orange turtle of sorts and is named Trapinch.
This creature eventually evolves into a giant green beast that’s a mix between a dragonfly and an actual dragon and is called Flygon. It keeps the Ground-type it had in its base form but adds the Dragon-type as a secondary typing now that it has wings and can fly.
1 Dragonite
If someone showed a person who wasn’t familiar with Pokemon an image of Dratini and asked them to guess what it turned into their answer would likely be similar to what Dragonair looks like.
The first two forms of Dragonite are these blue elegant wingless dragons that exude beauty and grace. That doesn’t line up with the goofy orange dragon it is that looks like it was plucked out of a children’s cartoon. Thankfully they’re all Dragon-type, so at least there’s a single thread of connective tissue between them.
NEXT: Pokemon That (Still) Desperately Need An Evolution
