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Pokémon Form "Xerneas" is not default.

Open Utar94 opened this issue 4 months ago • 4 comments

  1. Go to file https://github.com/PokeAPI/api-data/blob/master/data/api/v2/pokemon-form/716/index.json.
  2. See that "is_default": false.

Utar94 avatar Aug 11 '25 18:08 Utar94

Hi! Thanks for finding it out! Would you be able to modify the CSV file?

Naramsim avatar Aug 13 '25 14:08 Naramsim

Would this also mean that the "neutral" form would need to changed too? https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon/xerneas reports 2 forms:

  • https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon-form/716/ which has "is_default": false
  • https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon-form/10132/ which has "is_default": true

If all that needs to happen is for these to be swapped I can make a PR for that (unless it's intended for the "neutral" form to be the default?)

jonbarrow avatar Aug 17 '25 20:08 jonbarrow

Hi! I did some research and found out that in pokeapi the default form for pokemon 716 is neutral. Online I don't find any reference on which form should be the default. I don't even know if default are a thing for forms.

Naramsim avatar Aug 18 '25 08:08 Naramsim

I don't even know if default are a thing for forms.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what a "form" is, I think having a "default" form makes sense in a lot of cases. Arceus for example has a form for every type in the game, but it also has a "default" form that it's in when not in one of those states. I think the API might have a bit of an issue with consistency in this regard though, since sometimes a "form" is treated like an alternate form of a base Pokemon and not a dedicated Pokemon (such as with the aforementioned Arceus), but then some Pokemon like Deoxys has all of it's forms treated as wholely individual Pokemon despite each form being in the same dex slot

That being said, there are cases where a "default" form may not make sense. Such as Deerling, which doesn't really have a "default" form the way Arceus does, the form you find it in depends either on the season (for gen 5) or where in the map you encounter it (for gen 9), making none of the 4 forms a true "default" (though you could probably still argue that the "spring" form is a sensible "default" form since in gens 6-8 you could only find that form)

I think the concept of a "default form" is still useful enough to have though, though it would still be helpful to normalize things so that forms are either always forms or always treated as individual Pokemon

jonbarrow avatar Aug 18 '25 19:08 jonbarrow