I missed the discussion by like a month, but it bears bringing up again:
I really like Dipplin and (blurred for those who want to avoid The Indigo Disk spoilers) Archaludon. Not really because of the designs themselves, but for what they represent: cross-generation evolutions of a recently released generation.
Game Freak seems to have taken a lot of criticism on the decision to extend so many evolution families in Gen IV and relegating a bunch of formerly fully-evolved Pokémon into mid-evos, which may be seen as just "stepping stones" on the way to a final evolution. Many fans of Magmar and Rhydon, for instance, were disappointed to see them being "replaced" by even more powerful forms that were, let's face it, butt-ugly. Someone at Game Freak must have thought the same, because after Gen IV, no existing Pokémon families were extended again. Sure, Eevee's evolution tree was allowed to sprout a new branch, but Sylveon was merely an equal side-grade to the existing Eeveelutions. Generations V, VI, and VII all came and went without new cross-generation evolutions, and some of us feared they would never come back. Instead, new Pokémon seemed to be designed to be "perfect" right out of the box, as it were, or at least have a viable battling niche. Once an evolution family was designed, it was stamped, shipped, and never again altered.
Then along came Gen VIII, and Game Freak decided to loosen the restrictions a bit: new evolutions to old Pokémon were fine, as long as they were evolutions to alternate forms of the base Pokémon. Now they could make a snazzy new Linoone evolution, without spoiling the legacy of existing Linoone. A Farfetch'd evolution that didn't involve existing Farfetch'd. And so on for Corsola and Mr. Mime too.
The problem was, though, that certain existing, underwhelming Pokémon seemed doomed to forever stay underwhelming. Gen IV had been generous with evolutions to Gen II crapmons, but there were still tons of them left, and they didn't get any better over the years. And rather than help bringing those crapmons out of obscurity, the alternate-form-evolutions appeared to make the obscure, old Pokémon obsolete instead. I mean, when faced with the choice, would you rather catch and train the original Corsola whose stats will always be terrible, or the new Corsola that evolves and grows strong? Original Corsola remained a Pokémon you'd only catch for Dex fodder.
So I was really stoked when Legends: Arceus came out and we got a pair of good, honest, no-nonsense, straightforward-upgrade, cross-gen evolutions in Wyrdeer and Ursaluna. Not alternate forms, not branched evolutions, not evolutions to the regional forms (although we got a few of those too), but regular evolutions to the old, obscure base forms. And they rocked in my eyes. It changed the way I looked at their base forms. Instead of being a somewhat sub-par Pokémon that evolved once into an OK-but-not-exciting Normal-type, Teddiursa now is a must-catch early in the game, because it will turn into a really powerful Pokémon in the late-game. One issue remained, however: Game Freak seemed to be set in their decision that Pokémon designed from Gen V onwards didn't need and shouldn't have cross-gen evolutions. The concept was still limited to Pokémon from the first two generations, showing some hints of early-gen favouritism.
But then there was Gen IX, with even more cross-gen evolutions. Old favourites like Primeape, Girafarig, and Dunsparce were granted evolutions. But also Bisharp, a Gen V 'mon. One designed after the "ban" on cross-gen evolutions. Granted, not much after, so the scent of early-game favouritism still lingered. The evolution families from the 3DS era on remained untouched, as they had been designed without cross-gen evolution in mind. But now that ban is broken.
So yeah, hooray for the SV DLC. The designers went back only as far as the previous generation, picked up a couple of 'mons, and said: "You know what? Let's give these some attention again, instead of treating them all as perfect." This has implications for pretty much all the underwhelming Pokémon out there. It shows us that Game Freak haven't "frozen" their evolution families forever, regardless of when they were designed. It means there's still hope for modern crapmons like Aromatisse, Thievul, or Spidops. We can reasonably expect treats on par with Ursaluna and Annihilape in the future, not only from old Gen II crapmons (of which the number is dwindling almost as drastically as for Gen I, I might add), but from Pokémon from all over the generations. I really look forward to discovering what overlooked Pokémon will turn into game breakers in the generations to come. How I missed cross-generation evolutions.
I really like Dipplin and (blurred for those who want to avoid The Indigo Disk spoilers) Archaludon. Not really because of the designs themselves, but for what they represent: cross-generation evolutions of a recently released generation.
Game Freak seems to have taken a lot of criticism on the decision to extend so many evolution families in Gen IV and relegating a bunch of formerly fully-evolved Pokémon into mid-evos, which may be seen as just "stepping stones" on the way to a final evolution. Many fans of Magmar and Rhydon, for instance, were disappointed to see them being "replaced" by even more powerful forms that were, let's face it, butt-ugly. Someone at Game Freak must have thought the same, because after Gen IV, no existing Pokémon families were extended again. Sure, Eevee's evolution tree was allowed to sprout a new branch, but Sylveon was merely an equal side-grade to the existing Eeveelutions. Generations V, VI, and VII all came and went without new cross-generation evolutions, and some of us feared they would never come back. Instead, new Pokémon seemed to be designed to be "perfect" right out of the box, as it were, or at least have a viable battling niche. Once an evolution family was designed, it was stamped, shipped, and never again altered.
Then along came Gen VIII, and Game Freak decided to loosen the restrictions a bit: new evolutions to old Pokémon were fine, as long as they were evolutions to alternate forms of the base Pokémon. Now they could make a snazzy new Linoone evolution, without spoiling the legacy of existing Linoone. A Farfetch'd evolution that didn't involve existing Farfetch'd. And so on for Corsola and Mr. Mime too.
The problem was, though, that certain existing, underwhelming Pokémon seemed doomed to forever stay underwhelming. Gen IV had been generous with evolutions to Gen II crapmons, but there were still tons of them left, and they didn't get any better over the years. And rather than help bringing those crapmons out of obscurity, the alternate-form-evolutions appeared to make the obscure, old Pokémon obsolete instead. I mean, when faced with the choice, would you rather catch and train the original Corsola whose stats will always be terrible, or the new Corsola that evolves and grows strong? Original Corsola remained a Pokémon you'd only catch for Dex fodder.
So I was really stoked when Legends: Arceus came out and we got a pair of good, honest, no-nonsense, straightforward-upgrade, cross-gen evolutions in Wyrdeer and Ursaluna. Not alternate forms, not branched evolutions, not evolutions to the regional forms (although we got a few of those too), but regular evolutions to the old, obscure base forms. And they rocked in my eyes. It changed the way I looked at their base forms. Instead of being a somewhat sub-par Pokémon that evolved once into an OK-but-not-exciting Normal-type, Teddiursa now is a must-catch early in the game, because it will turn into a really powerful Pokémon in the late-game. One issue remained, however: Game Freak seemed to be set in their decision that Pokémon designed from Gen V onwards didn't need and shouldn't have cross-gen evolutions. The concept was still limited to Pokémon from the first two generations, showing some hints of early-gen favouritism.
But then there was Gen IX, with even more cross-gen evolutions. Old favourites like Primeape, Girafarig, and Dunsparce were granted evolutions. But also Bisharp, a Gen V 'mon. One designed after the "ban" on cross-gen evolutions. Granted, not much after, so the scent of early-game favouritism still lingered. The evolution families from the 3DS era on remained untouched, as they had been designed without cross-gen evolution in mind. But now that ban is broken.
So yeah, hooray for the SV DLC. The designers went back only as far as the previous generation, picked up a couple of 'mons, and said: "You know what? Let's give these some attention again, instead of treating them all as perfect." This has implications for pretty much all the underwhelming Pokémon out there. It shows us that Game Freak haven't "frozen" their evolution families forever, regardless of when they were designed. It means there's still hope for modern crapmons like Aromatisse, Thievul, or Spidops. We can reasonably expect treats on par with Ursaluna and Annihilape in the future, not only from old Gen II crapmons (of which the number is dwindling almost as drastically as for Gen I, I might add), but from Pokémon from all over the generations. I really look forward to discovering what overlooked Pokémon will turn into game breakers in the generations to come. How I missed cross-generation evolutions.
Honestly, after seeing so many Dragon- or Flying-type evolutions that generally look super epic, I'm glad the official Dunsparce evolution is still a fat "uncool" cryptid snake. 
turned out to overlap with half of Ash's team, so it's not like it was particularly unique or anything, but it had a Klefki on it, which wasn't the most popular Pokemon of the generation, and I have a fondness for Klefki because of it. :P
