I get that it's a form that originated from the anime and has no reason to be in the games. But I just find it weird that despite that, they made it compatible with Pokemon Home, and decided to bring back the Battle Bond ability in recent games, but just make him not transform.
The fact it also got ignored in the anime around a similar time period makes it seem like it was definitely an intentional decision BTS.
But that makes it weird because in this case why even add him on Home in the first place? He could have been made incompatible and stuck on the 3DS. And they also didn't need to ever bring back an ability and modify it, considering it's exclusive to that specific Greninja that (to my knowledge) isn't even breedable.
Things that make it a bit weirder is there was also a painting in Scarlet and Violet that vaguely ressembles the Hero Greninja form, with the red on the forehead, the big shuriken, and the yellow on the chest having a shape slightly similar. Tho you could always argue it's just a regular Greninja painted abstractly, and nothing could prove you wrong. But the small similarities are there.
The form is also apparently not going to be in Legends ZA, a Kalos game, which is gonna make this form a Kalos Pokemon form that was never usable in an official game set in Kalos. Only available in Alola of all things.
I feel like if it doesn't appear in Pokemon Champions that is gonna use Pokemons from Home, its just never gonna be acknowledged again. Which isn't the end of the world of course, but I just can't understand why TPC is trying to forget about it, considering how popular it used to be. Id understand if they cared about wanting every starter to get the same treatment, but we all know that's not true. And if that was the case they could have just given something to the other 2 starters in the games.
by Sufficient-Cow-2998