Empelt is actually starting to grow on me, miracle of all miracles. The one thing that really gets on my nerves however, is this whole 'the eyeballs must be deeply imbedded into the skull' thing these designers have going on. I've never been fond of that at all, and it doesn't look like that opinion is going to change any time soon. It makes the characters look a lot less natural imo. Sometimes it can work for the armor-clad pokémon like Aron, but not for Empelt.
Dotaitos looks worse than the sprite. What the hell is up with that lopsided shell? lol, the Naetle line fails at everything.
Goukuzaru looks as kickass as it always has. And I'm estatic that it does have those Sun Wu Kong sideburns!
I'm really liking the legendary mind trio now. I love how each of their expressions seems to mirror what aspect of the human mind they represent. Take Yukishi/Yuxie/the Yellow one, for example. It looks particulary wise and seems to be in a meditative posture. That reflects it's role as the Knowledge pokémon perfectly~
The grass type Gym Leader (stumbled right out of Sherwood Forest) and the Elite Four Champion have two of the coolest trainer designs to ever grace this series.