Too Many Legendaries?

[Therian]

I looked and couldn't find a post about this anywhere else.

Basically, the percentage of Pokemon which are deemed legendary goes up and up with each generation.

In Generation 1, 5 out of 151 were deemed legendary, meaning 3.3% of all Pokemon were legendary.
In Generation 2, 11 out of 251 Pokemon were deemed legendary, meaning, 4.4% of all Pokemon were legendary, growth of 1.1% (But that's nothing right?)
In Generation 3, 21 out of 386 Pokemon were deemed legendary, meaning, 5.4% of all Pokemon were legendary another 1% of growth in the legends proportionally.
In Generation 4, and I don't include Phione, 34 out of 493 Pokemon were deemed legendary, meaning, they were now at 6.9% the biggest jump ever.
In Generation 5, 47 out of 649 Pokemon are deemed legendary, meaning legendary Pokemon now represent 7.2%, the smallest growth so far.

But although the growth rates individually may seem small, we now have a jump from 3.3% to 7.2% of the total Pokemon being legendary. I'm not arguing for a stop in the creation of Legendaries, but just to lower the proportion so either create a larger number of normal Pokemon, or ease up on how many legendary's get made.

To isolate individual generations to make the point clearer, of the 107 Pokemon Gen 4 introduced, 13 were legendary, that's 12.1% of all Pokemon in that gen are legendary.

Are legendaries becoming a little too common?

 

[Infinity Mk-II]

They should be split in different groups. Simply deeming a pokémon you only catch once "legendary", or throwing everything that affects plot in the same bag, just doesn't cut it anymore.

Though WHAT should they be split into is nebulous at best... still, the likes of Deoxys or Lugia are clearly distinct than things like Latios or the Kami Trio.

In any case, it's the "minor legends" what rack up the numbers mostly. And I don't think anyone should really have a problem with plenty of these, right?

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

It's become a staple for GF to release this number of legendaries each gen:

- 3 legendaries to form a trio
- 2 roaming legendaries
- 3 endgame legendaries
- 3 event-exclusive legendaries

Also, their status of being legendary does not mean their number from each region and combined all together. It's usually their backstory, their rarity compared to other Pokemon, and their strength.

 

[Articwolf10]

Considering it's only 7% out of over 650+ Pokemon isn't that much and Gen VI was very good about cutting down on the random legends...

 

[Faye Scarlet]

There can never be enough legendaries in my opinion. They've been getting more and more interesting as the series went on.

 

[voicerocker]

No, there aren't too many. 47 Legends compared to 602 normal Pokemon isn't a lot. As was pointed out, that's only 7.2%, which in-game is even lower since several Legends are version exclusive. Gen 4 and 5 both introduced 13 Legends. Gen 4 may have only given us 107 new Pokemon, but there were plenty of Gen 1-3 Pokemon available too, while Gen 5 gave us an entire world of new Pokemon of 156 until postgame. If the total number was over 10%, I might agree to the point, but the Legends number didn't increase at all between Gen 4 and 5, so I think it's safe to say they know when to stop adding Legends for a new Generation.

 

[Therian]

No, there aren't too many. 47 Legends compared to 602 normal Pokemon isn't a lot. As was pointed out, that's only 7.2%, which in-game is even lower since several Legends are version exclusive. Gen 4 and 5 both introduced 13 Legends. Gen 4 may have only given us 107 new Pokemon, but there were plenty of Gen 1-3 Pokemon available too, while Gen 5 gave us an entire world of new Pokemon of 156 until postgame. If the total number was over 10%, I might agree to the point, but the Legends number didn't increase at all between Gen 4 and 5, so I think it's safe to say they know when to stop adding Legends for a new Generation.

Actually it did increase but only by a modest 0.3% which is pretty much nothing. It was still above average, 8.3% of Gen 5 were legendaries.

I'm interested about you saying over 10%. I'd like to ask everyone a second question, if you said no the amount is fine, what amount would you be unhappy with, Gen 4 had 12.1% legendaries, so if that number is ok, what number would you say is too high?

 

[voicerocker]

Actually it did increase but only by a modest 0.3% which is pretty much nothing. It was still above average, 8.3% of Gen 5 were legendaries.

I meant we got 13 Legends in Gen 4 and 13 Legends in Gen 5. Same number, so there was no increase in the number, only in the overall percentage.

I'm interested about you saying over 10%. I'd like to ask everyone a second question, if you said no the amount is fine, what amount would you be unhappy with, Gen 4 had 12.1% legendaries, so if that number is ok, what number would you say is too high?

Gen 2, 3 and 4 didn't cut off all previous Pokemon like Gen 5 did. We got 107 new Pokemon, but plenty of older ones were in the games from the start too, unlike the completely new Pokemon story from Gen 5. It's a little different.

I say 10% because it just seems like a good limit to me. I don't think anyone would want 20% or more of the Pokemon to be Legendary, but under 10% is a good place to leave it.

Gen 1 was 3.3% Legendary.
Gen 2 - 4.4%, a 1.1% increase percentage wise.
Gen 3 - 5.4%, 1% increase.
Gen 4 - 6.9%, 1.5% increase.
Gen 5 - 7.2%, 0.3% increase.

Gen 5 brought the smallest percentage increase in the number of Legends because of the large number of Pokemon introduced as a whole. 13 Legends and 143 normal.

 

[Weedul]

I just wish that they didn't make a lot of them just Psychic and Dragon types.

 

[dig]

For the next games I'd be quite happy if there was under 5 legendary Pokemon. There are far too many legendarys, I'd be fine if there was just a trio and two box legends.

 

[Otika]

I think my main gripe is that with so many legendary Pokémon in existence, all caught in pretty much the exact same way in every game, combined with the advent of hacking and action replay, the term 'legendary' has sort of lost its meaning. The only Pokémon we can really consider "legendary" anymore are the ones that are rarely distributed over WiFi. Every other legendary can be caught and imported at masses, including the once-elusive Mewtwo.

Of course, I'm aware that people have always used action replay to bring in rarer Pokémon, but a lot of people I know avoided it like the plague because they were so attached to their game that they didn't want to ruin it, which I heard (but never confirmed) that Game Boy action replay had a tendency to do on a much more regular basis than, say, an N64 action replay. However, hacking is a much more recent trend. Now that everyone has a computer and internet, everyone has the technology to do what used to require a super-advanced computer that wasn't readily available on the local market.

But sadly, there really isn't much Nintendo or GameFreak can do about action replay and hacking (not suggesting that they should even if they could), but the least they can do is make the catching method different. Every game, it's the exact same thing. At least Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald tried to mix it up a bit by adding in braille where you catch the Regis, which I'm a little mixed on. On the one hand, I like that it's so cryptic, so assuming you've never heard of the internet (or you're like me and try to avoid walkthroughs and things like that because it takes out the mystery), it's a really good way to hide a group of legendaries, on the other hand, it would be nice to have a cryptic puzzle that you can actually solve without seeking the aid of someone who knows a whole different written language. If it weren't for the internet... well, I'd probably would have bought a strategy guide, but assuming I didn't get a strategy guide, then I would never have figured out the whole Regis thing.

So yeah, the term 'legendary' is really a bit cliché now, but I would like to see some harder to catch Pokémon with different methods of catching.

 

[Lord Clowncrete]

There are just too many. Legendaries should be rare and exclusive not hogging up 10% of an entire generation. I would say they went overboard in Gen4. A God Of Pokemon, sheesh.

 

[BabyBichu]

No feelings about it,it doesn't matter.

 

[Saiga]

I think 5-6 Legendary Pokemon is a good amount to introduce each Generation, otherwise it's too much.

 

[Almonds]

Legendaries are valuable when they are rare. Too many legendaries make them less legendary-ish.


Personally, although I like the Latis, I don't know why they were ever created. What does the Eon pokemon have to do with being legendary?

 

[Anser]

YES. There are way too many. They're less special every generation that passes, because there are so many already... I mean, they got overexcited with creating legendaries in Generation IV... 13 LEGENDARIES?! Come on... I'd like the next generation to have only three or four...

Or none if possible...

 

[Dragonfyre]

There are far too many. I think we can all agree that we catch legendaries simply for the bragging rights (since we don't really use them in our teams), and having too many legendaries lessens that weird prestige.

But yeah, might be that it can't be helped; GF has to release a few legendaries every generation.

 

[Faerie]

I've always considered that question, however, I think there's just an abundance of random legendaries, and the legendaries that really contribute to the storyline are few. I mean...Victini? Its cute and all, but...legendary?

 

[Anser]

I still can't understand why Heatran is legendary. That thing does not look like a legendary Pokémon at all. When I first saw it, I thought it was Torkoal's evolution or something like that.

 

[Pyrax]

Not necessarily.
If you think about it, every culture on Earth has tons of legends (which involves a lot of legendary figures and mythical creatures).
Pokémon is more or less doing something similar with the high number of legendaries.