The problem I have with all that is that it runs the risk of paring it down too much for a game relying mostly on text. It would probably improve performance and definitely reduce the game's size, which I ordinarily have no problem with, but it comes at the cost of easily IDing what you're looking at. And that's kind of a big deal, 'cause again, game's text-based.
What pops into your head when I say 'avian' versus 'owl-morph'? 'Feline' versus 'tiger'? And if you've got a rodent with a fat ass, you could be looking at a standard capybara or motherfuckin' Biggie Cheese.
Like I kind of skimmed over in the reptile part, ideally this would be smoothed over by referencing the colors and names of some of the body parts (which the game can already do). Examples off the top of my head for my daydream revamp:
Describing a capybara specifically would admittedly be a little odd because they're not really physically distinctive animals with recognizable parts, it's their demeanor and behavior that anyone remembers them for. So for a randomly generated street mugger NPC with the same copy-pasted dialogue as everyone else, yeah, not so much. Your capybara mugger would just be another unmemorable blob of generic rodent, unless any given player knows that what sounds like a tailless beaver is probably a capybara instead. On the other hand, though, if you can meet the pre-written NPC Sheila Lastname in the public baths in the evenings, there's nothing stopping the writer from saying "you see a brown rodent-morph with a thick body, vestigial tail, and webbed feet relaxing in the water; you recognize her as resembling a capybara." Or alternately, "Oh, yeah, my family takes after capybaras. We just can't get enough of the water. You wanna join me?"
And having interacted with Miss Sheila Lastname, the player then might go "oh yeah, that mugger was another one of these I guess." It's not perfect, and not all possible animals would be immediately obvious (like a white bear is an obvious polar bear, but a generic alley ringtail and generic alley raccoon would only be distinguishable by the player picking specific furry art to use) but I think it could be handled more or less okay, maybe.
(Again, though, admitting that I also just personally really, really want to take a hatchet to that species menu.
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