“What a superb design”: Community delighted with new Indigo Disk Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet

Despite only being out for a little over a week now, fans cannot get enough of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's The Indigo Disk, a chapter of the title's expansion pass. While many players are gushing over the story, or the returning characters, or the fresh features added, some cannot help but deeply appreciate the monster designs.

Though not many new creatures were introduced alongside the new Blueberry Academy, one particular monster has stood out from the rest according to the community; this being the new Pokemon, Hydrapple. It is the awaited evolution of Dipplin, a creature introduced in The Teal Mask.

Many trainers on X have flocked to the site to show their respect for this daring creature design, with one user SoulSilverArt saying:

"I haven't seen anyone speak a bad word against it & it's well deserved. What a superb design."

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X reacts to Hydrapple in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet The Indigo Disk

Hydrapple is a new Dragon and Grass-type, much like other members of its family line. However, one shortcoming of this creature is that it complicated the Applin evolution line way more than any other species in the game. Applin can now evolve into three different creatures in The Indigo Disk: Appletun, Flapple, and Dipplin. Earlier, a player would evolve it into whichever form they liked.

With the addition of Hydrapple, players now have no real reason to catch and use Flapple nor Appletun since their stat totals of 485 are way lower than the fully-evolved Hydrapple's 540. This has disappointed several fans of the evolutionary family since The Indigo Disk practically made the original evolutions pointless.

Outside of this small inconsistency, Hydrapple overall is a collectively appreciated creature heavily due to its creative design. As the lore originally started out, the concept of Applin was the cliche of a worm in an apple, which is commonly seen in cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants and The Busy World of Richard Scarry for example. The concept was altered just slightly by presenting a wyrm, a type of dragon, in an apple instead.

Where Appletun and Flapple take a synergistic approach to their designs, experimenting with the concept of "what if the worm became the apple," Hydrapple sticks to the design inspiration intended for the species. This makes the simple choice of putting more worms in the apple, rather than completely altering the idea.

This simplicity and the implementation of dragon-esque aspects makes for a very satisfying final evolution for the species.

The only real complaint many players have had about Hydrapple are made in regards to Game Freak practically making the other evolutions for Applin obsolete since their stats are significantly worse than the other choices. As some players have said, a great way to fix this would be to add evolutions for Flapple and Appletun as well, but this is not likely to happen.

Overall, the concensus on Hydrapple is incredibly positive among trainers online who have had the pleasure of encountering and having one of their own. While it is a bit unfortuante that the other forms were hung out to dry, players still have a great choice for a Dragon-type in Hydrapple in The Indigo Disk.