Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have officially arrived to mixed responses from fans. Although the original Sinnoh games were well-received and fans have been looking forward to seeing remakes of them for years, the actual Gen 4 remakes are considered by some to be rather lacking. One fan recently shared a video of Ekans' follow animation, which features one of the most hilarious corners Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl decided to cut.
Ekans, the Snake Pokemon, was one of the original 150 Pokemon introduced in the original Pokemon games. It and its evolution, Arbok, were made famous as one of Jessie's Pokemon in the Pokemon anime.
In the anime, Ekans is shown slithering around on its muscular belly like many actual snakes do, but Reddit user UrFriendlySpider-Man captured video of the Pokemon doing something very different as a follower Pokemon in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Rather than giving Ekans a slithering animation when it follows the player around the overmap, these games show Ekans coiled up on itself like a cobra and mysteriously gliding after the player. Many actual snakes will coil up defensively because this position is considered safe for them, but movement generally requires a snake to uncoil and start slithering.
Why is no one talking about this hilariously bad ekans following animation? I can't be the only person who genuinely likes ekans and arbok and chose to have it follow me, only to be greeted by this from pokemon
This isn't the first time Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl botched a Pokemon's follow animation, but Garchomp's creepy follow animation at least takes inspiration from something the Pokemon could do in the anime. Ekans' follow animation doesn't look like something an actual animal could pull off. It almost looks like the developers didn't want to animate Ekans uncoiling, even if it made very little sense for the Pokemon to stay in such a defensive and seemingly immobile position. The result is a completely frozen model that makes it look like Ekans is being pulled along behind the player on a skateboard.
As of writing, it appears that other players are equally unimpressed with Ekans' follow animation. Several users joked that Ekans looked like a Roomba following UrFriendlySpider-Man's avatar around, while another stated that the Pokemon was refusing to slither even though Ekans has had a walk/run animation since Pokemon Sun and Moon. Even the Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee games had Ekans slither properly behind the player when set as a follower. One user also noted that several other Pokemon have similarly paralyzed models during their follow animations, including the equally serpentine Pokemon Milotic. This may imply that the developers didn't have time to animate Pokemon slithering.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl are available on Nintendo Switch.