Pokémon evolutions are a mixed bag of quality, especially nowadays, as you often get a really solid design for a ‘mon that gets progressively worse with each evolution.
Some of Pokémon’s colourful critters get an even worse fate though, no evolutions at all, or even worse just one evolution when there’s potential to go even further.
One such example is the humble Psyduck, one of my favourites back in the day, who evolves into Golduck. It’s not a very exciting evolution but it is a powerful one, I had a Psyduck/Golduck for my entire playthrough of Pokémon Yellow.
Given how beloved he is by fans like myself it’s about time he got a third-stage evolution and there have been plenty of concepts drawn up over the years.
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Take this post by ProfessionalGlove238 as an example. They suggested a third-stage evolution called Maladuck, which retains the Psychic/Water typing but with a new signature move as well as more powerful stats.
Going a step further is user EliDwebster, who shared some artwork for what an additional evolution could look like, as well as the evolution requirement, which is to level up a Golduck while it knows the Aqua Nebula move.
They’re all great ideas, the only problem is there are over 1,000 'mon nowadays and so many of them lack new evolutions. It's doubtful Game Freak is taking notes and even if it was I'd imagine more love for characters like Psyduck/Golduck aren't high on the studios priorities right now.
What we could see eventually though is a Mega Evolution, as Pokémon Legends: Z-A is coming out later this year and bringing back the popular evolution mechanic from Pokémon X/Y.
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With any luck the mechanic will stick around in future games, making it more and more possible that we’ll see some new evolutions for less popular or at least lesser used ‘mon.
Topics: Pokemon, Game Freak, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch