[Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.

[u/mp3help]

1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.

2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.

[u/First-Shallot947]

Baxcalibur - pokemon scarlet and violet

They gave this thing everything, its a godzilla reference with its signature attack being the godzilla slide meme. It got an excellent signature ability, its a competitive beast, and, its a pseudo legendary, and it even got a mega

No one talks about baxcalibur outside of competitive viability, when it comes to gen 9 popular pokemon, it got utterly mogged by tinkaton

[u/Frustrella → u/First-Shallot947]

The "Looks like Godzilla" attention already got it Tyranitar so maybe people weren't too excited for a second one, even if Baxcalibur looks more like Godzilla than Tyranitar does

[u/Reborn1Girl → u/Frustrella]

Tyranitar conveys the feel of Godzilla much better. Baxcalibur looks too derpy, especially with his hands in that pose.

[u/StePK → u/Reborn1Girl]

Tyranitar conveys the feel of Godzilla much better.

I mean, T-Tar is probably the most successful competitive Pokemon on average, being a load-bearing pillar of the singles competitive scene every generation since it was introduced in Gen II. Definitely worthy of the Godzilla comparisons.

(Other GOAT Pokemon are Doubles Satan Incineroar, for absolutely warping the official competitive format forever, and Gen II Snorlax, who has a winrate a rounding error away from 50% - because 100% of teams use him).

[u/SavageNorth → u/StePK]

T-Tar is a fundamentally cooler design, it just looks powerful

It's a lot simpler, it doesn't have a stupid fin on its back or whatever is going on with the mask thing, I appreciate the fin is a reference to Godzilla but it looks completely ridiculous here

Kids like using Pokémon that look cool, Baxcalibur just looks a bit silly which is the antithesis of cool

[u/wazeltov → u/SavageNorth]

I think T-Tar instantly becomes mid design-wise if you remove the thigh plates/holes and the chest plates/holes and have the body be flat textured instead of jagged, which exactly describes Baxcalibur.

Bax is literally just an ice dinosaur with a sword on its back. I feel like they're afraid of doing anything too complex with the vector graphics that they made for 3D, and everything suffers for it. Lots of old Pokémon got visually downgraded because of it too.

[u/Independent-Size1028 → u/Reborn1Girl]

Well, when you look at the older Godzilla…

[u/Sadcelerystick → u/Reborn1Girl]

This looks just like Old Godzilla though…

[u/Downtown_Injury_3415 → u/Frustrella]

I thought Baxcalibur was supposed to be a mecha-godzilla type to rival tyranytar

[u/Mr-Christie → u/Downtown_Injury_3415]

Nah that's Iron Thorns.

[u/Own_Philosophy8190 → u/Downtown_Injury_3415]

Isn't that the description for Duraludon? The fact people don't talk nearly as much about their supposed beef, as opposed to Tinkaton robbing Pawniard and trying to punt Corvinknight out of the sky, says a lot about how well that went (not really big deal, but still...)

[u/Mysterious_Month4792 → u/Frustrella]

I think looking more like Godzilla may actually count against it.