Pokémon Spain Version: Pokédex Roundup

As promised, here’s all additional the Pokémon I’ve met in Paldea since my first post about Scarlet.

So, it’s sort of a grasshopper.  Have we got a grasshopper already?  I don’t think we do.  That’s rather nice.  It feels… kind of weirdly smooth and shiny, even in comparison to other Pokémon, almost like it’s made out of moulded plastic; I think the contrast of the metallic blue and off-white adds to that.  Not sure whether that’s going anywhere.

Oh, a storm petrel with storm powers; that’s neat, if a little predictable.  Apparently it has, I guess, little turbines in its bones that produce electricity as it flies, then dives into the ocean and blasts everything around it, which is a pretty cool image.  Electric/Flying is traditionally very strong as well.

Small charcoal child who is on fire.  Presumably this is where we eventually get Armarouge, who we already saw before the game came out.  Actually, on the basis of the blank spots I have in my Pokédex, it looks like Charcadet can evolve into either Armarouge or Ceruledge, presumably depending on which version you have (or maybe it’s like an Appletun/Flapple deal, where the items you need to evolve it are version-exclusive).

My cat is now a master of the rarest and most technical of all weapons: the battle yo-yo.  Are we going Grass/Fighting for the final form?  If that’s what’s necessary to protect Fuecoco from the Fire/Fighting curse, I’m okay with it.

A dolphin!  It’s about time; we’re only nine generations into this bull$#!t, and six since we had whales.  Apparently Finizen’s sonar lets it detect the emotions of other creatures, so it’s possible this is going in a Psychic-type direction.

Oh, okay, this one I actually love.  It’s salt.  Because of course salt falls under the Rock type.  And I love that it has an ability that gives it resistance to Ghost attacks as well, because salt is traditionally used to banish evil spirits.  I know this is an unbelievably nerdy thing to say, but salt is a really important rock in the history of human civilisation and I am unironically delighted to get salt representation.

As we all know by now, ALL is 🦀C🦀R🦀A🦀B🦀.  What’s exciting about Klawf is that it proves that even rocks, given enough time, will eventually evolve into crab.  This is (probably, somehow) further proof of my long-standing $#!tpost theory that Pokémon originally evolved from rocks.

I have it on excellent authority (my friend’s 10-year-old nephew that I met at lunch the other day and spent a full hour talking to about Pokémon) that Gimmighoul is extremely powerful later on, but at the moment it doesn’t really seem to do anything.

So is it like a spec-ops spider, is that the deal?  I kinda liked the yarn theme that Tarountula had, but oh well.  Weaving traps and snares is a respectably spider-y thing to do.  The Silk Trap move is a kind of Kings-Shield-ish Protect variant that slows the target; that seems okay in the abstract, but the bloody thing is so slow I doubt it will outrun much even after a -1 speed penalty.

I suppose I should have expected Paldea to have a black Tauros.  I fully expect one of my gym challenges to involve a herd of these things chasing me through the middle of a city. I have to say, as regional variants go, just changing the colour and making it Fighting-type doesn’t strike me as a particularly interesting angle, but I guess if we want to host the running of the bulls we need it to be here.

I think it’s… it’s like a parrot, but it’s Elvis?  Is that the deal?  It comes in multiple colours, so… y’know, that’s tremendous value.  I believe these are also the Pokémon that facilitate fast-travel in Paldea, so I suppose we have to thank them for that much.  There’s two empty spots after it in the Pokédex that it might use to evolve; if it does, I wonder what direction the Elvis aesthetic might go in.

um

no, wait, hang on, that’s just two Pokémon.  Using these in a normal battle is clearly a violation of the rules.  Like, with Slowbro you could at least claim that Shellder was just along for the ride, and with Wishiwashi you could plausibly argue that the school was made up of wild Pokémon who just happened to be fighting with you of their own accord, but this is… like… this is definitely two Pokémon, isn’t it?  I knew there was something shifty about these Paldean trainers. Cheating bastards.

Floating lightbulb tadpole is an… unexpected choice, but certainly not a bad one.  The visual of these things just suspended in the air, blinking and glowing, is an interesting one – especially because they seem to live in marshy areas, which brings to mind the will-o’-the-wisp of folklore. Is this supposed to be one of those Wiglett-style convergent non-regional-variants, from Tympole? Or is this just the perfectly ordinary kind of convergent evolution that always existed in Pokémon before anyone felt the need to hang a lampshade on it, because they’re based on real animals and convergent evolution is a real thing?

So is this going in a sort of “faerie smith” direction?  According to the Pokédex “the hammer is often stolen by Pokémon that eat metal,” which… well, okay, I get it, that’s frustrating, but like… there’s not that many Pokémon that can eat metal; if they’re giving you grief, go live somewhere else.

y’know what, I like the dirtbike lizard.  Dirtbike lizard may be inferior to motorbike dinosaur and space bike dragon, but it does its best.  The Pokédex claims that humans in Paldea have been riding dirtbike lizard for 10,000 years, which is an impressive number if true – that would predate the domestication of horses in the real world by some 4000 years.

We all met Smoliv on day 1, of course, but it’s nice to be officially introduced.  I wonder what the procedure is for extracting oil from this thing; I need some salad dressing for my sandwiches…

Oh, it’s a perfumed pig now.  I suppose that’s because pigs have a powerful sense of smell for finding truffles, so you’d imagine they’d like to smell nice so they can stand to be around each other.  Well, a scented pig is bound to be even more delicious than the basic model, right?