So i herd u liek Mudkipz?
…eheh. Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
…caelicolae immortales, I hate that meme…
Today’s cute little bundle of utter nonsense is Mudkip, the… swampy… fishy… thing. Now, as for me personally, I’m sorry to say that, no, I don’t liek Mudkipz. His evolutions, Marshtomp and Swampert, belong to an archetype that I’m simply not very fond of. However, that doesn’t mean this is a bad design. Maybe Game Freak realised on their own how boring Feraligatr was, or maybe someone pointed out to them, or maybe (far more likely) Mudkip just happened to get lucky, because he is anything but a simple cartoon of an ordinary animal. He’s probably based on something like an axolotl – a curious species of salamander that, although it does have an ‘adult’ form, never actually metamorphoses under natural conditions, and retains the gills of a larval salamander for its whole life (you can force an axolotl to metamorphose and become a land animal, but the stress will either drastically shorten the poor thing’s lifespan or kill it outright – I’m sure there’s a metaphor in that somewhere…). Axolotls are fully aquatic, but Mudkip is more an amphibious creature; he has fins to help him move through the water, but his legs can support him on land, and while he still has functioning gills, he seems to have air-breathing lungs as well. He retains this mixture of traits as he evolves into a veritable ‘creature from the black lagoon.’ Well, eventually. I’ve always thought Marshtomp looked a little bit gormless, and to be honest Swampert does too, in Sugimori’s art, but most of his sprites are much better, and it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination anyway to picture this froglike behemoth as a pretty terrifying opponent. As I said, I don’t liek Mudkipz – in general, I’m simply not a fan of brutish, physically imposing Pokémon, which is what he eventually becomes (Mudkip himself, I admit, is pretty cute). As brutish, physically imposing Pokémon go, however, Swampert is a keeper. Pure boulder-crushing power isn’t all there is to him; the whole line also has impressive sensory abilities. Mudkip, Marshtomp and Swampert can use their fins to detect pressure differences and ‘feel’ objects and Pokémon moving around them – most effectively in water, but in air as well – and have extremely good vision, allowing them to see through murky water with ease. Swampert can even predict storms well in advance by sensing air currents, and will pile up boulders to protect his coastal territory. I find it odd that they apparently live on beaches, since they seem to be based on a freshwater animal and are linked with swamps and marshes; in particular they like to dig burrows in mud and damp soil, not sand. I think they must live in estuaries, mangroves and salt marshes, intersections of terrain types, which implies a fair degree of hardiness and adaptability – and, to look at these Pokémon, I can certainly believe that.
Swampert is a great big bulky physical attacker, and in that respect he does a pretty good job of stealing what little of importance Feraligatr ever had to his name. Like Sceptile, he shows that Game Freak did, in fact, learn from their mistakes with Feraligatr, but unlike Sceptile he takes every possible opportunity to rub Feraligatr’s face in it by being better at everything ever. Both of them were mainly reliant on Earthquake in Ruby and Sapphire, but Swampert was by choice and Feraligatr by necessity; since Swampert is a Water/Ground dual-type his Earthquakes are significantly stronger than Feraligatr’s and actually make a good primary attack. Swampert got just about every important attack Feraligatr did except for Swords Dance, and was better at all of them. In fact, his stat distribution makes him better than Feraligatr at pretty much everything. He’s slower, but Feraligatr isn’t fast enough for speed to matter a whole lot anyway; all his attacks are more powerful, he’s significantly better at taking special attacks, and thanks to his higher HP they’re actually pretty similar in terms of physical bulk. To cap it all off, Swampert’s type combination doesn’t just make his Earthquakes stronger; it also grants immunity to Electric attacks, leaving him with only one weakness (Grass – a type not exactly known for its powerful attacks or formidable sweepers). He also steps on Wooper and Quagsire’s toes a great deal; they have very different design aims, since Quagsire is clearly supposed to be cute, but they’re both big amphibious swamp-dwelling Water/Ground Pokémon that act as physical tanks, which Swampert is much better at doing than poor Quagsire. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that Swampert is effective; it just hammers home how much of a lottery Pokémon’s ‘game balance,’ if you really want to call it that, can be. The differences between Feraligatr and Swampert appear to suggest that Game Freak knew, by this point, that a Water-type couldn’t be a top-notch physical attacker under the rules of Ruby and Sapphire without some kind of extra sparkle, and the combination of Quagsire’s excellent typing with Feraligatr’s high stats provide Swampert with just that. Kind of a shame about his predecessors, though. In general, my stance is that making a new Pokémon that totally supersedes an old one, when you could just make the old one good, is Bad Design. They did eventually start being nice to the older Pokémon; Feraligatr’s a sweeper now, and Quagsire is potentially useful if oddly specific, though at the time of Swampert’s introduction, Quagsire could practically have evolved into Swampert. In the end, I want to forgive Game Freak this time – in Feraligatr’s case, anyway – because I think Feraligatr is an unimaginative gob of mindless sputum hocked up by a dying frog, and that Swampert is a far superior design anyway.
Yes. That entire paragraph was only in there so I could bash Feraligatr some more.
Let us move on.
So, like I was saying, Swampert is tough. Unlike Feraligatr, who by this point had Swords Dance and was pretending to be fast enough to be a sweeper, Swampert’s buff of choice was Curse, which acts to turn him into a slow but powerful behemoth of a Pokémon capable of taking, and dishing out, physical attacks ‘til the Miltank come home. To back up his terrifying Earthquake attack, Swampert picked up Rock Slide with the release of Leaf Green and Fire Red – not a powerful attack, but good for punishing Flying-types. Surf and Ice Beam worked off his weaker special attack stat, but he was still better at them than Feraligatr, and didn’t actually have to rely on them, thanks to Earthquake. If you like paralysis, Body Slam was an option, and he could turn his bulk and lack of weaknesses into formidable weapons with Counter or Mirror Coat. Roar, finally, is a handy toy for a tough Pokémon to have; Swampert can often afford to wait for his opponent to attack first if it means throwing a spanner in the works by forcing a switch. In short, Swampert was a highly effective physical tank from the moment of his release, and Diamond and Pearl only made things better – the introduction of physical Water attacks, obviously, being the main benefit. With them came Hammer Arm, a strong and reliable Fighting attack, and eventually Ice Punch. His support options also expanded to include the time-delayed sleep attack, Yawn, but for all practical purposes Yawn is mostly for forcing switches, since switching out a drowsy Pokémon will keep it from falling asleep, and Swampert can already force switches very effectively with Roar. Finally, of course, Diamond and Pearl gave Swampert the oh-so-delightful Stealth Rock, so now he can damage whichever Pokémon comes in to replace one he Roars away. And that… well, that is pretty much the end of Swampert’s development. Black and White didn’t really change him at all. His Dream World ability, Damp, prevents Pokémon from using Explosion or Selfdestruct – amusing, but ultimately very situational, especially since Black and White drastically reduced the effectiveness of both attacks. Like most Water Pokémon, he can now burn opponents with Scald to weaken their physical attacks, but Scald is a special attack, and Swampert isn’t exactly bad at taking physical attacks anyway, so sticking with Waterfall is fine too.
Although Black and White seem to have largely forgotten about him, Swampert is still a perfectly solid Pokémon with a small but useful support movepool and wonderful all-around endurance. Be careful of Black and White’s sleep mechanics if you want to use him – switching a Pokémon out now resets the number of turns it will take to wake up, which means that Rest is no longer a reliable form of healing, and Swampert doesn’t have anything else. Don’t expect him to take too many hits… and, as always, avoid Grass attacks like the plague. If you can find it in your heart to love a monstrous swamp-thing, though, you could do far worse than Swampert.
Our next starter is a chicken? Really, Game Freak? A chicken?
Sometimes it’s good to have trends within a Pokémon type. They add a sense of identity, a feeling that these Pokémon are defined by more than just an arbitrarily assigned set of elemental powers. Of course, half of the joy in having trends and stereotypes is in finding fun ways to break them, and so it is that the third Grass-type starter was something quite unusual indeed; a highly mobile, aggressive Grass Pokémon. Treecko, Grovyle and Sceptile belong to the inherently badass jungle fighter archetype, which is appealing because Grass Pokémon don’t normally go for ‘badass’ – their power is typically of a very understated sort. Ruby and Sapphire were the beginning of a shift towards more diversity in that respect, introducing Grass-types like Shiftry, Cacturne, Breloom… and these guys. They’re geckos, of course, and as geckos their padded feet can grip onto just about any surface; they can climb walls and walk on ceilings, no problem, which means they can come at you from any direction they damn well please. They’re also difficult to spot in their natural habitat, so they can come at you from any direction they damn well please without you knowing about it. Unlike geckos, they’re also ridiculously agile; so they can come at you from any direction they damn well please without you knowing about it and then be back in the canopy again before you even know what you’re fighting. The sharp-edged leaves that sprout from Grovyle’s wrists are the icing on the cake. You can’t beat these Pokémon in the jungle, short of burning the jungle down (the major tragic weakness of the jungle fighter archetype, as revealed time and again throughout history). In short, they’re very unusual among Grass-types for exploiting speed as their greatest asset; the only older Pokémon with comparable speed was Jumpluff, who’s a supporter through and through. Accordingly, while Venusaur and Meganium channelled ‘wise forest sage’ and ‘gentle natural healer’ in their designs, Treecko, Grovyle and Sceptile take on far more militant roles as the guardians of the forest. Treecko is said to nest deep in the heart of old forests and protect them from intruders, while Sceptile uses his powers to grow and nurture trees. These are good things to know; ultimately, “this Pokémon is fast and good at stabbing things” is something we should be able to figure out from the way Sceptile handles in a fight, so telling us about their role in a forest ecosystem is far more valuable to developing a complete and detailed picture of what they’re really like.
Cyndaquil has never caught my interest. I’m not sure why; maybe I’m just prejudiced against mammals (Cyndaquil is, believe it or not, the only mammalian starter Pokémon of the first three generations; the vast majority were reptiles). In principle, though, she’s based on a fairly neat idea; take a spiny mammal like a hedgehog or echidna and set its spines on fire, because fire is awesome. A lot of Fire Pokémon earn their place in the ranks of their element purely by virtue of being able to breathe fire, so she’s clearly off to a good start in the creativity stakes by integrating her element with her design base in a pleasing way. Personality-wise, although Cyndaquil herself is very shy and timid, her evolved forms, Quilava and Typhlosion, are stereotypical hot-headed Fire-types. That’s not especially bad; there’s no point to Pokémon that defy the stereotypes without Pokémon who conform to them, and if you need to do something like that, the starters are the place to do it. If there’s one place in the game where you want Pokémon to be exactly what players expect, this (arguably) is it. On the other hand, Charizard did it so well that it becomes difficult to expect Typhlosion to live up to that standard. I’m uncertain exactly what kind of animals Quilava and Typhlosion are based on; their colour scheme reminds me of badgers, but their general attitude makes me want to call them wolverines. Either way, we’re looking at a feisty, tenacious animal that can be a terror when it’s cornered, but as far as “burn ‘em all, and let Arceus sort them out” goes, there’s just no contest when you pit them against a fire dragon. Accordingly, those traits – stubbornness, defiance and the like – might have been better ideas to emphasise, especially since they would also make a more natural progression from Cyndaquil’s timid nature. One of Typhlosion’s more unique tactics is her fondness for obscuring herself and distorting her opponents’ vision with heat haze. This is one of Game Freak’s less clichéd ways of ramming down our throats just how hot a Fire Pokémon can get, but it feels like an intimidation tactic more than anything else, a way of avoiding fights, and not entirely consistent with the explosive rage that seems to be thought of as Typhlosion’s defining characteristic. Again, I think Typhlosion would actually have made more sense and presented a more interesting take on Fire as an element if she’d been a far less aggressive, more reactive Pokémon.
Since we’re here, let’s talk about Fire. Fire traditionally has a wide range of symbolic associations that are consistent across many cultures; fire is destructive, but also creative because it provides the warmth that nurtures life; it symbolises passion – even today we talk about strong emotions ‘burning’ inside us – as well as invention, because of its importance to the development of civilisation, and purity, because it burns away the impure. With a few notable exceptions, Fire Pokémon are a lot less varied. Fire (in stark contrast to Grass and Water) is one of the more underrepresented elements in Pokémon, with fewer than fifty species (still a lot more than Ghost or Dragon, though), and most of them tend to place a lot of weight on the destructive aspect of fire, both in their powers and their personalities, some of the most notable examples being Charizard, Typhlosion, Magmortar, Entei, Houndoom and Camerupt. Fire Pokémon also tend to be very fast, though not all of them are, by any means (Magcargo, for instance, is one of the slowest Pokémon in the game). Pokémon that deviate from the idea of fire as a swift-spreading force of destruction are much fewer. A few, like Ninetales, Arcanine and Rapidash, actually have little to do with fire in terms of their flavour; they just happen to breathe fire on top of everything else they do. Magcargo and Torkoal are weird and clever and creative and really deserved to be much more powerful than they are, but in any case they have very specific associations with particular manifestations of the idea of fire, so they aren’t really a part of this. The only Pokémon I know of that really embrace different symbolic meanings of fire are Ho-oh, 
Typhlosion’s base stats are actually identical to Charizard’s, so she’s basically fast and likes blowing things up. Her big draw over other Fire-types in Gold and Silver was her ability to learn Thunderpunch (which, remember, was a special attack before Diamond and Pearl) to smite Water Pokémon. She also learned Earthquake but was held back somewhat by her lower physical attack stat. She was a relatively simple point-and-shoot Pokémon, but by the standards of the time she was pretty good at it. Ruby and Sapphire took Thunderpunch from her, but she got it back in Emerald, and like most Fire-types she was delighted by the introduction of Lavaridge Gym Leader Flannery’s signature move, Overheat, a move more powerful and accurate than Fire Blast which came at the tiny, tiny cost of half of the user’s special attack stat. The third generation didn’t change her much, though. Diamond and Pearl, on the other hand, shook things up considerably. Thunderpunch was now a physical attack, which, combined with its relatively low power, took it off Typhlosion’s list of favourite moves. In its place, along with most of the other Fire Pokémon in the game, she got Solarbeam, a very fun move for smacking around Water-types but one to be used with caution because of its reliance on fine weather. Like many of the older starters, she also gained Focus Blast; it may be inaccurate but a strong Fighting attack is nothing to sniff at, even if you already have a way to break Steel-types as Typhlosion does. Those aren’t the big changes, though; the big change to Typhlosion in Diamond and Pearl was the addition of Eruption to her list. This highly exclusive move deals damage based on the user’s current health; an uninjured Pokémon with Eruption is capable of tremendous destruction. The other Pokémon that get it are all either too slow to fire off an Eruption without getting hit first or physical attackers anyway, which gives Typhlosion a unique niche as the only truly competent user of this devastating attack. This remains Typhlosion’s main draw in Black and White, which have so far brought her little of interest. Flash Fire, Typhlosion’s Dream World ability, will make an awesome bonus once it’s available; immunity to Fire attacks is merely amusing when you already resist them anyway, but actually boosting your own Fire attacks when you absorb them is, as Rapidash and Houndoom will gladly attest, something else, especially for a Pokémon whose biggest draw is her ability to make one single massive Fire attack.
Yay; more Grass-types! Like Bulbasaur, Chikorita was part of my childhood (less so, since I started to splash out a little on Silver and actually picked one of the other two starters from time to time) so, of course, I love her to bits. However, I must be strong. I have to talk about what these Pokémon mean for me personally, but I’ll do my best to discuss them objectively too…
