Are those teeth, or just a funny mustache? Ooooooooooo......

169: Crobat

Crobat here is setting a precedent for Gen 2: in that Gen 2 was largely and initially intended to more or less be an "expansion pack" for Gen 1. As such, a large amount of Gen 2's Pokemon add evolutionary steps to several Pokemon that previously had none. Crobat here being an evolution of Golbat.

That said... in a bubble I can respect Crobat as a cool bat creature design. I like how it has four wings, which give it a unique silhouette as far as bat creatures go. Beyond that, it's not a super adventurous design. Its egg-shaped body plus pointy ears and a vaguely upset face isn't that unusual for bat designs. Though... that's almost exactly why I feel, as an evolution of Golbat, Crobat completely fails. It has almost nothing in common with its pre-evolved forms, especially not in flavor. Zubat was neat because of its distinct lack of facial features, and Golbat was at least interesting in being a bat that's pretty much 80% mouth. Crobat looks like it's from a different evolutionary line of bat Pokemon entirely, especially if you were to change its colors. I feel like one of the easiest "fixes" in the world of Pokemon would be if Crobat didn't have actual feet, but instead, its second pair of wings was its "feet". It wouldn't completely fix Crobat for me, but it'd at least feel a lot more in-line with the previous two stage's energy of "bats with weird, unconventional body parts."