Pokemon Power Creep: Have Pokemon Gotten Stronger?

Let's look at the data. I'll compare average Base Stat Total (BST) across all nine main generations.

Your instinct is right. Gen 1 Pokemon averaged 413 BST. By Gen 9 (Scarlet), that jumped to 456 - a 10% increase. The big shift happened at Gen 4 (Diamond) which spiked to 448, and the average has stayed elevated since.

Sharp observation. Let's check the legendary density per generation.

You're onto something. Gen 1 had only 3.1% legendaries. Gen 7 (Sun/Moon) exploded to 27.6% - over a quarter of new Pokemon were legendary tier. That's definitely pulling up the average.

Let me rerun the analysis excluding all Legendary, Mythical, and Sub-Legendary Pokemon.

Power creep is still real, just not as dramatic. Non-legendary Pokemon went from 407 (Gen 1) to 443 (Gen 9) - about a 9% increase. Gen 4 still shows that same spike (424), and Gen 9 is clearly the strongest era for regular Pokemon.

Good thinking. Here's a box plot comparing early generations (1-3), middle (4-6), and late (7-9) for non-legendary Pokemon.

The shift is clear across the entire distribution. Early gens have a median around 410, middle around 435, and late around 475. The whole curve moved up - it's not just a few outliers. Even the lower quartile (weaker Pokemon) increased over time.

Let's look at the top 5 non-legendary Pokemon from each generation.

This tells the story. Dragonite (600 BST) was Gen 1's only 600-club member - a true outlier. Gen 9 has multiple Pokemon at 590-600 as standard. Gen 1's #2 strongest (Arcanine at 555) would barely crack Gen 9's top 5. The power ceiling didn't just rise - it became the new baseline.

Exactly. Game Freak has been gradually inflating stats over 25+ years. Whether that's good game design is debatable, but the numbers don't lie - a "strong" Pokemon from Gen 1 is merely "average" by Gen 9 standards. Dragonite is still viable because it was exceptionally strong for its era. Most Gen 1 Pokemon weren't that lucky.