"Is Maushold a lazy evolution?": Pokemon Scarlet and Violet community debate new Gen IX Pokemon design

With the Pokemon franchise boasting multiple sequels over the years, there have always been players who feel that the designs of certain Pocket Monsters aren't particularly inspired. It appears as though this has been occurring again since the release of the franchise's latest titles, Scarlet and Violet.

A new Pocket Monster named Maushold is the evolution of Tandemaus, where the two mouse Pokemon holding hands have become a burgeoning family. Although most species change their overall appearance during evolution, Maushold appears to just add more mice to the group. This has members of the community wondering if the decision isn't somewhat lazy compared to many other evolutions that seem far more robust.

The debate raged on Reddit, with Pokemon fans discussing the merits of considering Maushold's overall design a lazy choice by the developers at Game Freak.

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Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Redditors discuss the design of Maushold

In a post by Redditor LogicalAd6394, players spoke about whether they considered Maushold's design to be lazy. Interestingly, many fans were quick to agree that Maushold certainly wasn't Game Freak's most brilliant idea. However, some also pointed out that adding extra individuals to a group has been part of the Pokemon series since the very beginning. For instance, Dugtrio is made from multiple Digletts and Magneton is simply three Magnemite bonded through magnetism.

Public opinion fluctuated wildly between appreciating the design and hating it, but this is certainly not the only topic that has divided the Pokemon community's views.

In this particular Reddit thread, most of the opinions that were upvoted appeared to trend positively towards Maushold's design. While there's no groundbreaking design change for Tandemaus, it just adds a few more members to the small family unit, making it quite cute in general. However, some Pokemon fans wondered exactly how Maushold operated; was it a group of individuals or a collective hive mind?

Whatever the case may be, there's no denying that Maushold is the latest in a series of Pocket Monsters who are comprised of multiple entities. It isn't difficult to find them, and even a quick glance at the National Pokedex will confirm this fact.

The examples are incredibly varied, ranging from Dugtrio and Magneton to Vanilluxe and Klingklang. Maushold is hardly the first of its kind to come along, and its design philosophy is likely steeped in Game Freak's willingness to bond multiple individual Pokemon together instead of making every evolution a matter of modified appearance and stats.

This debate may likely rage on in subsequent months as Scarlet and Violet continue to operate, receiving updates and new content. However, the current discussion around Maushold is an interesting piece of discourse to inspect. What exactly makes a creature's design lazy? What does that entail? Is there a way to quantify it in some form?

For the time being, it seems that players who consider Maushold's design either great or lazy are simply expressing their own subjective views. At the end of the day, that may be the only way to gauge creature designs, as their creation and appearance is ultimately an art form that can be broken down and interpreted in many different ways. Ask 100 trainers what they think of Maushold, and it's likely that one would receive 100 different answers to the topic.