Pokémon: 5 Harsh Realities Of Preventing Evolution (& 5 Perks)

Preventing evolution isn’t inherently a bad thing as it can have its benefits, but it also brings more than a few challenges.

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In Pokémon, evolution is when a Pokémon changes into a completely new form after reaching a certain level, being exposed to a special item, or some other stimuli. Having Pokémon evolve can grant new levels of power and versatility that they might not have had before, but not every trainer is so keen on letting it happen.

Some trainers would rather keep their Pokémon from evolving for one reason or another, and there are many ways to prevent it. Preventing evolution isn’t inherently a bad thing as it can have its benefits, but it also brings more than a few challenges.

10 Harsh Reality: Everyone Expects Trainers To Evolve Their Pokémon

Evolution is actually so common and natural, that there’s a certain expectation among trainers and fans of the series that Pokémon should and must evolve to reach higher pinnacles of strength. While it’s been proven in the franchise (particularly the anime) that evolution isn’t mandatory, those expectations can feel daunting to those who choose not to evolve their Pokémon, even making them feel a lot of unnecessary pressure.

9 Perk: Trainers Don’t Have To Force Their Pokémon To Change

Sometimes Pokémon themselves don’t want to evolve either. Whether it’s because they’d rather be strong as they are or just that they don’t really want to change, a Pokémon can reject the notion of evolving, even resisting the process on their own. So if a trainer and their Pokémon don’t want to change, then the good news is that they don’t have to force it onto them. Some trainers and Pokémon are united in believing they’re great just the way they are.

8 Harsh Reality: It’s Almost Like Not Letting Them Grow Up

While sometimes evolution is triggered by exposed to certain items, more often than not it’s a natural part of a Pokémon’s life cycle, just as caterpillars eventually turn into butterflies. So with that in mind, preventing a Pokémon is almost like forcing them to never grow up.

Now to be clear, Pokémon unevolved or not can still age (such as Tracey’s Scyther for example). It’s just instead of growing into their strong and more mature form, they’re basically trapped in a weaker and immature state.

7 Perk: Their Personalities Don’t Radically Change

A Pokémon’s appearance isn’t the only thing that changes as they evolve, as a Pokémon’s personality can change drastically when they evolve too. Sometimes the change is something small, while other times the newly evolved Pokémon is completely different from their pre-evolved state.

The worst part is, depending on the trainer, evolution sometimes runs the risk of a Pokémon’s personality becoming more irritable (Ash’s Charizard, for example). Another perk of preventing Pokémon evolution is that a trainer never really has to face this problem, keeping their Pokémon and their personalities the same as before.

6 Harsh Reality: The Movepool Will Be Limited

With evolution comes new strength, new typing, and, of course, a brand new movepool for Pokémon to learn from. To an extent, a Pokémon’s pre-evolved form can share a good amount of moves that their evolved form can learn. Sadly, by not evolving that Pokémon, there are powerful moves that they’re excluded from learning.

Granted, this problem can be mitigated by the use of TMs. However, a Pokémon’s evolved form will also have a wider range of access to what they can learn from TMs too. No matter how you slice it, unevolved Pokémon have a more limited movepool.

5 Perk: Some Moves Can Be Learned Earlier

While the movepool for unevolved Pokémon is a lot less broad, there is actually one strength that comes with it. Unevolved Pokémon can actually learn some strong moves much earlier than their evolved forms can. For example, Bulbasaur can learn Solar Beam at a much earlier state (level 36) than Venusaur (who learns it at level 58), and there are many other cases like that across the wide array of Pokémon.

For some reason, preventing evolution gives Pokémon access to power that would’ve taken much longer to have, which could quite possibly be the difference between victory and defeat for them in battle.

4 Harsh Reality: Unevolved Pokémon Will Always Be Trying To Catch Up

While trainers are free to pass on the option to evolve their Pokémon if they don’t want to, doing so comes with challenges in their development. One such challenge is that unevolved Pokémon have to train twice as hard just to keep up with evolved Pokémon, as their stats gain fewer boosts from leveling.

On the plus side, unevolved Pokémon level up a lot faster than their evolved forms. Unfortunately, because their stats will always be a little behind, they have to keep leveling a lot more and pretty much play catch up indefinitely to stay ahead of the curve.

3 Perk: Evolution Doesn’t Always Equate Strength

Evolution can come with greater stats and abilities, but this doesn’t always mean that a Pokémon is inherently strong only because they evolved. A skilled trainer can make a fully evolved Pokémon a force to be reckoned with, but by the same principle, a skilled trainer can also use an unevolved Pokémon’s strengths to the fullest.

While it takes a lot of hard work, special training, and the right strategy, an unevolved Pokémon can even beat their evolved forms in a battle. This is especially evident in the anime, particularly when Ash’s Pikachu beat Lt. Surge’s Raichu and when Ash’s Torracat beat Kukui’s Incineroar.

2 Harsh Reality: Unevolved Pokémon Never Reach Their Full Potential

An unevolved Pokémon can still be strong if they’re trained right, but there are some things that they can never overcome and that’s being held back from their full potential. On top of automatically boosting stats and access to new moves, evolving in some cases gives the Pokémon a new or secondary typing that provides them with new advantages against certain Pokémon. By preventing a Pokémon from evolving, they never get that any of those things that could’ve made them way more effective and will always have the disadvantages that they started with.

1 Perk: Unevolved Pokémon Stay Cute Forever

Evolving a Pokémon can make them big and strong while giving them a striking new appearance to match. However, sometimes those new forms can be a little too different or off-putting for some trainers, possibly even making them long for the days when they were smaller and cuter. Fortunately, preventing evolution can do just that.

Not only do those Pokémon remain adorable and cuddly, they also stay travel-sized, meaning trainers never have to worry if they’re going to be too big to bring out in small spaces. Being cute may not be everything, but it is an undeniable positive to preventing Pokémon evolution.

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