Precedent includes Beldum-->Metang, Magnemite-->Magneton, Diglet-->Dugtrio...
Not exactly a new phenomenon.
Even though that's true, I always thought of it as a really lame route with the evolutions, even dugtrio and dodrio, (even though I love those two pokemon), the beldum family line and hydregon pulled it of nicely though.
I don't know, maybe I'm just nitpicking, but I expected a bit of soul caliber feel to it.
I think we can argue all day what the color of the middle section of the cloth is and what it represents, but I don't think anyone can deny that the tip of the cloths and the eyes are 100% pink, and that's enough to make it look stupid.
If they're going for 'royal' then the 'purple' should be in a more cooler tone and the pink should be golden. If they're going for the 'dark' well first thing is they'd redesign the blade part to make it more sinister, like turning them into scimitars, giving the 'cloth hand' some claws, and/or give the sheaths some curved spikes or something to make it more menacing while still exotic in the heraldic way. Then well I don't know shouldn't you be using 'darker' colors if you want to make it 'darker'?
What we get here is an evolution made far less intimidating from its previous form, the Dugtrio, Magneton, whatever scheme may hardly be new but for flip sake this is the 6th generation, I'd like to see more visible enhancements than "let's attach an extra identical clone body to it and call it an evo".
At the end of the day, it's still a pair of swords that can fly around and cut things up. I'd say that negates whatever negative points it gets for the pink spots. I should also note that it's eyes have the whole "demonic slit pupil" thing going on.