The Pokemon franchise features almost 900 creative and adorable pocket monsters for players to encounter, collect, and battle. Many of these creatures are featured in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but reactions are mixed regarding how well some Pokemon were implemented. One Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl player recently shared a video criticizing the follow animation for the Pokemon Milotic.
Milotic, known as the Tender Pokemon, is a Water-type Pokemon that was introduced as the evolution of Feebas in the Gen 3 Pokemon games. Both Feebas and Milotic can be found in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, where they can be set to follow the player around using the Walk Together option.
In the Pokemon anime, Milotic is shown to be an aquatic Pokemon with a long, serpentine body and a very streamlined swimming style that allows it to breach like a whale. Like other Water-types, Milotic is occasionally depicted as "swimming" by floating in mid-air, much like it is on the battle screens of classic Pokemon games. Reddit user KankerLul035's video demonstrates that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl also has Milotic floating, but unlike in previous games, the Pokemon appears to be mostly paralyzed rather than swimming smoothly.
This isn't the only questionable animation players have discovered when assigning Pokemon to follow them around the overmap. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl depict Ekans as being completely frozen and dragged after the player as though it's sitting on a skateboard. Milotic's follow animation does have some movement, but the motion is restricted to the Pokemon's broad tail and seems to be unaffected by the player's speed or direction. This version of Milotic is also not shown slithering from side to side or bouncing up and down the way it does in Pokemon Sword and Shield.
As of writing, it appears that other fans are quite disappointed in the apparent lack of effort put into Milotic's follow animation. One user compared it to Garchomp's creepy follow animation, which at least resembles a way the Pokemon has been shown moving in the anime. Several other users mourned Milotic's slow pace and listed other Pokemon that are easy to accidentally leave behind. A second user brought up the fact that Golem has a unique and fitting follow animation, which seems to suggest that other Pokemon could also have similarly detailed animations if the developers had a little more time to work.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available now for the Nintendo Switch.