What Is Your Opinion On Formes?

[Wolf Sage]

With the unveiling of Mewtwo's Awakened Forme came lots of backlash. Most fans who found distaste in the new design also found a general distaste for forme changing altogether, or deemed it to be a tired, overused concept. In your opinion, is such a sentiment well-founded, or are you in support of forme changing? Moreover, are you looking forward to seeing even more formes in the future?

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I, personally, find formes to be an interesting concept, even after all this time. In my opinion, it allows the designers, as well as the developers, more leeway in regards to plot and gameplay mechanics. The best examples are legendaries. Most of us are aware (or rather, should be aware) by now that legendaries cannot evolve. However, with the introduction of forme changing came a new solution to what some would deem a fault. Take for example, Shaymin: it's base concept revolves around the large-scale proliferation of flowers and purifying the polluted areas by converting said pollutants into clean energy (Seed Flare).

However, being such a small ground-based Pokémon seemingly prevents such large-scale employment of its abilities. Solution? Evolution. In other words, make it so that Shaymin could evolve into something that enhances its ability to purify and increase plant growth over large-scale areas. Oh, wait... yeah, legendaries cannot evolve. And this is where forme changing comes in. This provides leeway for the designers/developers in a variety of ways. For one, it allows for the breaking of the "legendaries cannot evolve" rule by providing a means for them to change when needed and revert once their task is done, which brings me to point two.

Forme changing allows for more story options. Returning to Shaymin's case, its Sky Forme seems well-aligned with its base concept of purifying and aiding in large-scale plant growth. Like pollen in the real world, Shaymin's Sky Forme gives it a means of spreading flowers over vast areas—flight, use of the air. That being said, I find its forme changes to be a well-warranted addition to the series given the way it contributes to its plot.

Conversely, there have been times when I, too, thought of forme changing as a bit excessive. The Kami Trio is the best example I can think of at the moment. While Shaymin's forme changes made a lot of plot-related sense, the Kami Trio seemed kind of...well...forced. I found virtually no reason for their transformations other than those of aesthetic origin. Perhaps their Therian formes were previous proposals for their original designs that Game Freak did not want to scrap altogether, so they came up with a means of throwing them in via formes? AI dunno. You know, now that I think of it, that might have been the case with the lot of the formes, inculding Shaymin, no less. If so, then I guess that sort of emboldens what I mentioned about how formes give designers/developers more plot/gameplay options. Whatever the case may be, while I am in favor of forme changing as a concept, there are some things about it that even I dislike—forced, non-plot-enhancing forme changes being the biggest one.

Mewtwo's Awakened Forme appears to be an example of the latter. As of now, it seems forced. As Xinnamin mentioned here, the next installment in the Pokémon movie franchise had better provide a pretty darn good, plot-based explanation to justify Mewtwo's new forme. Quite honestly, I have my mind set on the notion that it is solely aesthetic...

 

[Vaati101]

Though they are starting to get annoyingly repetitive, I don't particularly mind formes in General, as long as the reasoning behind it makes sense. So far Game Freak has given fair enough reasons to why said Pokémon can change formes and I'm interested to see Mewtwo's reasoning. Overall I don't indorse the idea of formes, but generally I have no problem with them if they become official.

 

[Xinnamin]

My problem with formes is that, while on an individual basis most of them seem like good ideas, there's getting to be too many of them, and the originality is wearing off. When it was just Castform and Deoxys, it was new and cool. It was Castform's "thing", what made it unique, and with Deoxys, it was still pretty cool having some space creature with mutating DNA that allows him to change formes and stat specialization, the design was very coherent. We still have new non-legendaries that can change forme, like Burmy, Cherrim, Rotom, Deerling, Darmanitan, those are just a few each generation and it keeps things interesting because there aren't too many and they, for the most part, make sense. But then with the legendaries...oh boy.

We have now Giratina, Shaymin, Keldeo, Kyurem, the Kami Trio, and Meloetta. All of those with the exception of Meloetta have had their formes added in after the fact, which suggest to me that it's all just gimmicks to keep the story interesting. My problem with that is it's unnecessary and I feel like it's getting to be a story-telling crutch. Breaking it down:

Giratina makes kind of sense to me because the whole different dimensions causing distortion things I guess, but it still wasn't needed. Giratina could have easily had only one forme and the whole Distortion World plot would have still made perfect sense. Why give him a forme then? Because it's cool.

Shaymin seemed completely pointless to me. Regarding Wolf Sage's point in the OP, if all that is true, why couldn't Shaymin just have the Sky Forme and forsake the Land Forme? Why does it need both? Because it's cool.

Keldeo too. His forme is supposed to be some physical representation of him growing up and learning the true art of the Sacred Sword or something. Why then don't the other three musketeer pokemon have formes? Why can't he just have inner strength shining through instead of a physical representation none of the other three have? Because it's cool.

Kami Trio....none of them have any reasoning at all and I still think it was just a marketing ploy for Dream Radar.

Meloetta is fine I guess.

Kyurem...I can see how it makes sense because the Tao Trio were originally one singular entity that got split into three later, so it makes sense that Kyurem, being the "husk" that was left behind, can take one of the other dragons back into him, but then why not both? Why is there not a forme for the combination of all three? Plot wise that would make perfect sense, but right now his whole formes shtick is inconsistent because of that plot hole. I also feel like, seeing as how the entire plot of BW2 revolved around the formes thing, that it was just a ploy to drag the other two dragons back into relevance, hence the story-telling crutch thing I mentioned previously. I will say though that if I could get rid of every legendary forme save for one, I would keep Kyurem, because the story rational behind it actually makes a decent amount of sense once you get past the fact that it's super gimmicky.

And now Mewtwo who I've already ranted about in the post Wolf linked to. It's just more retconning in of formes for story purposes, a story-telling crutch, and I'm starting to fear Nintendo can't come up with any new story ideas that don't involve some forme or another. I'm worried that the Kami Trio is setting a precedence that new legendaries may have formes literally just because, and I'm worried Mewtwo is setting a precedence that old legendaries, whose stories have already been told and wrapped up, can be retconned at any time for the sake of making something "cool". I'm trying to avoid slippery slope thinking here, but Nintendo has already been increasing legendary numbers with every generation, and now increasing forme numbers with every generation, and all in all I just really do not like this new direction.