Pidove, one of the new Pokémon in Black & White, is very obviously based on pigeon or dove. I live in Toronto, Ontario and like pretty much every other large city in North America there are a shitload of pigeons living here. And I mean a shitload – I see at least twenty to thirty pigeons a day on my way to work and I'm only counting the ones I come within arms reach of. As such, I have a pretty good idea of what pigeons look like and I can say with absolute certainty that no two look exactly the same. These things come in variety of colours and patterns in shades of grey, black, white, brown, and sometimes even brilliant purple and green! Also note that I’m only referring to the generic variety found in most cities – the Rock Pigeon – and that other species have even more unique colour combinations and appearances.

Pidove isn’t a terrible looking Pokémon by any means – you might even say it's kind of cute – but every single one of them looks exactly the same. Even when Pidove evolves into its two latter forms, the only differences are those in gender. This is a nice touch, but when compared to earlier, less interesting Pokémon like Spinda (who has over 4 billion possible appearances!) it feels like a missed opportunity. I understand that memory and time are always an issue when developing new games, but even three or four different variations could have made a world of a difference with relatively little effort.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on the developers or do you wish there was a bit more variety too? Are there any other Pokémon that you feel deserved different variations?