I’ll probably talk about this in my next entry, which is going to be on Froakie, Frogadier and Greninja, but thanks for pointing out the video to me! I think I lean more towards your view of the matter, but I’ll have to meditate on it as I’m writing.
Category: Not yet categorised
So in the Persona series, some bosses (like the final bosses and super bosses) have the ability to act twice during all of their turns… this is to make those bosses much harder. Do you think the Pokemon series could benefit from giving some of their “bosses” such as elite 4 members, legendary pokemon, and the champion, that same trait? Despite their levels, even the Champions look like pushovers compared to competitively trained pokemon.
That would certainly make things more interesting! I think there is a sense with the games at the moment that players should be able to do anything the AI opponents can do, which is fair enough in principle, except that players can also do some important things the AI can’t do – we can use items more freely, our Pokémon gain effort points, we get free switches after knocking opponents out, we actually make switches to gain the advantage and not just to escape completely hopeless situations, that sort of thing. Partly this is just to do with the limitations of what the AI can handle – knowing when to switch, for example, is often built on having an intuitive understanding of a Pokémon’s general capabilities in totality – given that I don’t know my opponent’s moveset, what could it do to me if I stay in, and what could it do to me if I switch out? That’s not really an easy thing to program an AI with. That being the case, I think it makes a lot of sense to let powerful enemies have extra advantages, the trouble is that it’s easy to go overboard – Cynthia’s Garchomp with two moves every turn would be a nightmare, sub-par moveset notwithstanding! Maybe a feature like that would work well in a sort of ‘challenge mode’ setting like what Black and White 2 had? Personally I think a single player difficulty setting was an awesome idea and I’d hope to see it return in future games, just without the aggravating nonsense of Black and White 2’s key system. Increasing opponents’ levels is great, but it also causes your Pokémon to level up faster in response, so the step up in difficulty isn’t as significant as it should be; giving certain opponents special ‘powers’ like this would go a long way towards making a run like that more interesting. What else might you do? Gym Leaders could have thematic advantages like damage bonuses with their favoured types; some trainers might be able to use Pokémon with both their abilities… there’s a lot of cool stuff you could mess with, if we lose the idea that the players have to be able to do it too.
Pancham and Pangoro
So, our next Pokémon is a literal kung fu panda. Sure, why not?
With Ursaring and Beartic in the back of my mind, I’m beginning to wonder whether Game Freak are capable of doing a bear Pokémon that isn’t a bipedal hulking brute with a bad temper and tremendous physical strength. Pandas are such different creatures from grizzly bears or polar bears that I’m a little disappointed Pangoro turned out to be so very similar, type notwithstanding. There’s some neat stuff in there as well, though. Teddiursa and possibly Ursaring have some kind of weird lunar imagery going on that doesn’t really tie into anything at all (except maybe for the fact that there are constellations called the Great Bear and Little Bear), while Cubchoo has magic ice snot or something ridiculous that I never fully understood and doesn’t carry over to Beartic at all, but Pancham and Pangoro appear to be trying to tell a story through their designs and evolution. There’s something there, and I’m going with it.
Bulbapedia posits that the principle source of inspiration for these Pokémon is a stereotypical depiction of a male Japanese juvenile gang leader, or banchou, from certain manga genres – particularly visible in Pangoro’s ‘cape,’ possibly a representation of a long coat, and in the sprigs of bamboo they hold in their mouths. This being well outside my normal area of expertise, I naturally turned to the universal wellspring of all pop-cultural knowledge, TvTropes.org (obligatory warning: TvTropes will ruin your life), which confirms the prevalence of these clichés, among others, as a visual shorthand for juvenile delinquency in Japanese fiction. The real giveaway seems to be a pompadour hairstyle, something Pangoro easily could have had and I’m glad he doesn’t, but constantly chewing on a twig, a blade of grass or a stalk of wheat (something which tends to signify ‘country yokel’ in Western fiction) is another big one. A long coat, typically worn over the shoulders – leading to the appearance of a cape that we see on Pangoro – is similarly widely recognised. Whenever a character who matches the banchou archetype is actually important in a story, it will often be because his callous exterior conceals a warm, caring soul or some bullsh!t like that. This makes a great deal of sense in the context of Pangoro’s personality as it is described to us: violent and quick to anger, but ultimately motivated by a sense of justice. It also has personal appeal to me because it fits the way I like to characterise the Fighting type, namely that I believe the common thread uniting them is a preoccupation with honour as much as aptitude for martial arts; banchou characters, from what I’m given to understand, certainly like to think of themselves as being in some sense honourable. The tension between theoretically noble goals and the use of ‘dark’ emotions or underhanded actions as a source of strength makes a lot of sense for a Dark/Fighting Pokémon. This contrasts strongly with Pancham, who typically wants to be seen as tough and dangerous, but is really just mischievous and playful, lacking a true Dark-type’s readiness for anger and deception.
What’s neat about the transition is their unusual evolution method – Pancham can evolve into Pangoro starting from level 32, but only if there is a Dark Pokémon in the party as well. Evolution influenced by another Pokémon is pretty rare, and all the other examples I can think of are pretty closely tied in with the nature of the Pokémon’s powers – Shedinja splits off from Ninjask, Mantyke needs Remoraid to become Mantine, Karrablast steals Shelmet’s armour – so it seems reasonable to think the designers meant something by making Pancham evolve in this way. The obvious answer seems to be that a Dark-type companion can mentor Pancham in ruthlessness, in much the same way as parents fear the ‘influence’ their sweet children could be exposed to by hanging out with delinquents. Where the analogy breaks down is that this process is not only perfectly natural for Pancham, being the only way for them to reach maturity, but is probably facilitated in the wild by the parents themselves, the adult Pangoro who surely provide the Dark-type presence that allows most wild Pancham to evolve. Pangoro’s berserker rage supplies the great physical strength with which they defend themselves and put a stop to unfairness wherever they find it, and of course evolution in general tends to be depicted as a positive thing on the whole (Ash and Pikachu’s neuroses on the subject notwithstanding). Still, both Pancham and Pangoro have interesting personality traits, and the development from one to the other makes sense, and I’m prepared to chalk that up as a victory.
I want to mention the anime episode that focuses on Pancham and Pangoro, since I watched it last night and it was really quite silly. Normally I love the anime because it gives Pokémon a chance to show off what’s unique about their abilities, but this episode… Well, in this episode, damage to Pangoro’s bamboo sprig caused by a panicked Pin Missile from Chespin causes him to experience an instant and catastrophic collapse of all willpower and fighting ability, leaving him a miserable, unresponsive wreck, even in the face of capture by Team Rocket, until Ash is able to replace it. This change is so rapid that it can even happen mid-attack, completely cutting off a charge Pangoro was directing at Chespin! I don’t know about you, but personally I think it’s a bit of a pathetic weakness to have. What if someone attacks Pangoro with a Fire attack and burns the twig to ashes? In some ways, this total and ludicrous dependence makes a strange kind of sense as a reference to the real giant panda’s laughable inability to survive on any sort of food other than bamboo (or at least, it would be laughable if it weren’t one of the factors driving the ridiculous things toward extinction). It also might reference the importance of the twig to the ‘tough guy’ image of the stereotypical banchou character, essentially suggesting that Pangoro just can’t imagine himself as a powerful and competent fighter without this ‘charm’ of sorts. Luckily, Pangoro in the games suffers from no such mind-blowingly stupid flaw.
Dark/Fighting, formerly an exceptionally powerful attack combination resisted only by Toxicroak and Heracross, has lost a good deal of its lustre following the introduction of Fairy Pokémon, most of whom resist both types. Fairy attacks also sting Pangoro with a nasty double-weakness. However, it’s still a reasonably powerful combination, and since Fairy-types are really the only major hole in what you can hit with those two moves, it shouldn’t be hard to find room for Poison Jab, to at least make it more difficult for Fairy Pokémon to switch in. Pangoro sadly lacks the extra-powerful attacks that characterise Fighting-types – no Superpower, no Close Combat, and no Hi Jump Kick – so your main options are instead Sky Uppercut and Hammer Arm, both of which, luckily, get a 20% damage bonus from Pangoro’s Iron Fist ability. Hammer Arm slows you down, but honestly Pangoro isn’t in much of a position to outrun anything important anyway, so that probably doesn’t matter as much as it might for some Pokémon. Crunch is a slightly lacklustre secondary attack, which most Dark-types just have to deal with, though he’s slow enough that Payback could be a reliable alternative. If you go for a straightforward Choice Band tactic, which is the sort of thing Pangoro seems to be built for – powerful, slow, tolerably resilient – there are plenty of options to fill things out, the most important being Earthquake and Stone Edge, which are always great for scoring super effective hits. X-Scissor and Dragon Claw are mostly inferior, but it’s nice to know they exist. On the other hand, since it apparently works for Ursaring, you could try Swords Dance with Pangoro; it’s a dangerous thing to try on a Pokémon so slow, but maybe you’re a scary badass who lives fast, dies hard, and can’t be happy with an attack stat less than 700, so whatever; your funeral. I would avoid Bulk Up myself, since Pangoro doesn’t have any effective ways of healing – Drain Punch seems like it should be a no-brainer on a Pokémon like this, particularly with Iron Fist, and Slack Off would surely be appropriate for a panda Pokémon, but neither is accessible to him (Drain Punch is high on the list of moves that are likely to show up through tutors in later sixth-generation games though, since it’s been a TM in the past, so watch this space). Sucker Punch is another move that would be awesome for Pangoro and make perfect sense but that he doesn’t get (this one doesn’t actually get an Iron Fist boost, despite the English name, but for a slow, physically powerful Dark-type it would be a godsend). Also strange that no non-Fighting-type punching attacks feature. Really there just seem to be a lot of attacks missing from what this Pokémon wants to be able to do.
Pangoro’s other abilities are worth mentioning, because they both happen to be excellent ones; it’s just unfortunate that Pangoro isn’t really the best candidate to use either of them and probably needs Iron Fist more, to keep his Hammer Arm competitive. Mold Breaker is great for anything that relies on Earthquake a lot since it bypasses Levitate, though Pangoro is unlikely to get much else out of it. Scrappy, his hidden ability, makes it possible to hit Ghost Pokémon with Normal or Fighting attacks, which is obviously great for a Fighting Pokémon, but since Pangoro is a Dark-type as well, they aren’t really the biggest threat to him. Still, given how much Pangoro loves his Choice Band, it’s easy for him to get locked into unfavourable attacks. Give Scrappy some thought if you’re using a Choice item. Otherwise, stick to Iron Fist. Other weird things you could use on Pangoro include Taunt for messing up support Pokémon (great, but he’s probably too slow to do so effectively), Rest for healing (he’s no pushover defensively, but he’d need to be tougher to use Rest and Sleep Talk properly – maybe a Bulk Up set with Scrappy and a Fighting attack would be fun?), and Power-Up Punch (could work with Leftovers, I guess?).
The real reason to use Pangoro over any of the other perfectly good slow, powerful Choice Band-type Pokémon out there is his nifty signature move, Parting Shot. This move is a godsend for fragile sweeper-type Pokémon who have difficulty switching in safely – like U-Turn, Baton Pass, or Volt Switch, Parting Shot causes Pangoro to leave play, but rather than doing damage or transferring buffs to a recipient, Parting Shot reduces the attack and special attack of its target. In some cases, this may force your opponent to switch as well on the following turn by making their attacks ineffectual, netting you free time to entrench your position. Pangoro’s poor speed has mixed implications for this attack, depending on what you’re using it for; on the one hand, it’s likely Pangoro will take the full damage of an incoming attack on the turn it’s used, whereas a faster Pokémon would be able to offload a diminished attack onto your incoming Pokémon, but on the other hand, if you’re using Parting Shot as a way of getting a Pokémon with mediocre defences into play, maybe you want Pangoro to soak the attack first. Like all moves that switch you out after you use them, Parting Shot is a perfectly respectable option to use with a Choice item. Because the attack is based on shouted insults (appropriately enough for a gangster-inspired Pokémon), Pokémon with the Soundproof trait are immune to it, but since all the Pokémon who get Soundproof have much better abilities to choose from except for (arguably) Electrode, that’s probably not going to come up very often. With that caveat out of the way, have fun with Parting Shot!
I am on the record as disliking Pokémon based on modern clichés, subcultures or stereotypes, although I have to admit the way Pangoro does it is a good deal more subtle than Gothitelle or Scrafty, the Pokémon who first prompted me to articulate that dislike, and manifests in ways that don’t seem altogether incongruous for a bear Pokémon. I honestly don’t find him all that interesting, and he’s rather lacklustre as a battler, although I suppose in both respects he outdoes Beartic quite handily (not that that’s saying much). In a word… meh.
Skiddo and Gogoat
Hmm.
Have we done goats before?
No, I mean, it’s fine if we have; I just want to know if there’s something I should be comparing-
No? Really? Huh.
I think goats often get overlooked for being part of the usual farmyard menagerie we all learn to list in primary school, but the truth is they are actually pretty badass animals! Goats can live in all manner of terrain types, will eat just about anything, often have big, elaborate, dangerous horns, and are in many cases perfectly capable of seriously messing you up with a good kick or headbutt. They’re also among our earliest companions in this great epoch-spanning clusterf%ck we call ‘civilisation,’ having been domesticated around the beginning of the Neolithic period, possibly earlier than any other animal besides the dog (whose relationship with humanity is a bit more complicated), and at the very least contemporary with sheep, cows and pigs. Isn’t it odd, then, that we’ve only just gotten around to having a domestic goat Pokémon?
I cannot help but admire the weirdness of choosing a goat to be Kalos’ primary riding animal. In all the time goats have been domesticated, I don’t think they’ve ever been used primarily as mounts; in fact looking for information about riding goats on Google mostly turns up some very strange references to some kind of esoteric Masonic initiation ritual involving riding a bicycle that looks like a goat around a room while blindfolded (something which I don’t think is relevant to our interpretation here, though you never know…). The choice is all the more interesting when you consider the lack of emphasis placed on riding by the Pokédex’s descriptions of Ponyta and Rapidash; it seems to be common sense that they would be used as mounts, and the anime testifies to that, but does so in amongst a slew of other riding Pokémon, some more appropriate than others (ranging from Dodrio to… Electrode…). Certainly the thick, soft moss of Gogoat’s pelt would seem to make him a very appropriate choice for a riding animal, while Ponyta’s mane of fire is perhaps subtly less appealing to the discerning equestrian. Skiddo and Gogoat, in contrast to Ponyta and Rapidash, really push the riding angle. We’re told that, because of their naturally calm temperament, they were among the first Pokémon to live with humans (or has long domestication made them tamer?) and that Gogoat possess a kind of empathic sixth sense that allows them to judge a rider’s feelings and intentions, so that they “run as if one being.” This sense functions through the touch of a rider’s hands on Gogoat’s backward-sweeping horns, which bear a slight resemblance to the handlebars of a bike. The Kalosians do not hesitate to make use of this unique ability, employing Gogoat for environmentally friendly travel around Lumiose City, and a Skiddo ranch near Coumarine City affords players the unprecedented and unmissable opportunity to jump up ledges, a dream that has entranced our imaginations since the days of Red and Blue. Gogoat is something of a gimmick Pokémon in that way, but like Furfrou’s it’s a gimmick I don’t really mind because it’s used for world-building. Skiddo and Gogoat aren’t the only Pokémon ridden by the player in X and Y – Mamoswine also offers a lift through the snow, and of course Mother is a famous Rhyhorn jockey – but they are the mascots of a way of living and working with Pokémon that, as obvious as it might seem, the games haven’t been able to show us before.
The domestication theme brought up in Skiddo’s Pokédex description is further stressed by the fact that Gogoat is only the second Pokémon ever to learn Milk Drink, the move that signifies Miltank’s ability to produce the most nutritious milk in the Pokémon world. Gogoat milk may not be the universally beloved panacea that Miltank milk is, and the availability of Moomoo Milk in parts of Kalos suggests that Miltank are pretty highly thought of in this region as well, but you don’t just hand out a move that’s been exclusive to a single species for four generations without meaning something by it (especially when Synthesis already fulfils a similar function Gogoat’s movepool, and we’re told that Skiddo can photosynthesise to obviate the need for food). This Pokémon is an ideal mount and maybe the second-best milk-producing animal in the world (…even the males… which I’m suddenly going to stop thinking about…); it sounds like a godsend to an emergent civilisation, although presumably some of its more desirable qualities have been drawn out and emphasised by millennia of selective breeding. It’s hard to say; wild ones seem to have the same traits as domestic stock, but they could easily be feral populations. I privately like to believe that the very first Pokémon ever partnered to a human was a Fire Pokémon, largely because of the symbolic associations between fire and civilisation, but I’m certainly tickled by the notion of giving credit to a Grass-type for being one of the first, and not just because of personal predilections – domesticated animals are nice, but it’s the cultivation of plants that creates sedentary societies and, eventually, cities. Skiddo happens to be both animal and plant, an unassuming but loyal companion on the road to the cultivated order of modern Kalos.
To top it all off, Gogoat is actually pretty powerful as well! With a colossal HP stat, decent special defence and excellent attack and special attack, this goat is every bit as much a tank as a real one. What’s more, thanks to Milk Drink, she doesn’t depend on calm weather for healing as most Grass Pokémon, reliant on Synthesis, do. She can even augment that healing with Horn Leech. Gogoat’s weak point is her comparatively poor physical defence, though she has a few potential workarounds to that. Access to rapid healing is certainly helpful. Her hidden ability, Grass Pelt (more on which later) can also contribute. For now, though, let’s look at Bulk Up, which is a natural choice for a Pokémon with easy healing and can make her attacks more dangerous as well. The difficulty with putting together movesets for Gogoat is that her primary attacking type is Grass (in the form of either Horn Leech or Leaf Blade), which is such a bad offensive type that it’s almost impossible to come up with a single complementary move that will give you decent coverage with it. Gogoat really wants at least three attacking moves, which is a problem for anyone wanting to use both Bulk Up and Milk Drink. Earthquake, for example, is a great move but combines with Grass pretty poorly, leaving you wide open to Bug-types, Flying-types, other Grass-types, an assortment of Levitating Pokémon, and goodness knows what else. Rock Slide is pretty solid, and probably the best option if you want to go with two attacks, though its relatively low power is disappointing. Payback is only properly effective against faster Pokémon, but Gogoat is slow enough that that shouldn’t be a huge problem, and Dark goes okay with Grass. Brick Break and Wild Charge are just luxuries. Losing either Bulk Up or Milk Drink will give Gogoat better attacking options at the cost of either power or survivability. Choice Band or Choice Scarf sets could be interesting, but I suspect Gogoat should really be focusing on her durability, since that’s her biggest selling point.
Gogoat’s special attack stat is actually almost as good as her physical one, although she doesn’t really have the movepool to be a pure special attacker – Surf is really all she’s got aside from Grass attacks (although the fact that she can swim too is worth mentioning just to further emphasise how awesome she is). You could try a mixed attacking set, throwing in Hidden Power: Fire if you can snag it, since Fire is one of the few attack types that actually does combine very well with Grass. If nothing else it’ll keep people on their toes. Leech Seed is probably worth mentioning for the extra healing it affords, but faster Pokémon have traditionally done Leech Seed better by combining it with Substitute, and Gogoat doesn’t really have any business trying to do that. Finally, let’s look at those abilities. Gogoat’s standard ability is Sap Sipper, a perfectly respectable ability for turning incoming Grass attacks into extra attack strength. Gogoat resists Grass attacks anyway, but immunities mean free switches, and Gogoat can always use more power. The hidden ability, Grass Pelt, is unique to Skiddo and Gogoat and therefore much more interesting – it triggers off Grassy Terrain, the new Grass-type field effect (there are three such moves – Grassy, Electric and Misty Terrain – which act like and stack with weather effects), and grants Gogoat a boost to her physical defence, which is exactly what she needs. The standard effect of Grassy Terrain also powers up Grass attacks and provides gradual healing to all Pokémon touching the ground, which is just more great news for Gogoat (careful, though – it also reduces the power of Earthquake, one of Gogoat’s favourite attacks). Furthermore, the effect is far less likely to be overwritten by another Pokémon than Grass’ traditional preferred field condition, Sunny Day. The difficulty is that Gogoat can’t use this very exclusive technique herself, even if she had the moveslots to spare; only a handful of Grass Pokémon, plus Florges, can set it up, and unlike weather effects it has no handy item like a Damp Rock that will lengthen its duration (yet), so after taking time to switch, you’ll basically get three full turns of Grassy Terrain for Gogoat, and probably have to have two Grass Pokémon on your team to do it (if not more, in order to ensure you’ll be able to take advantage of the effect). Gogoat on Grassy Terrain is a heck of a beast, but probably not worth the hassle, ultimately (at least, not in singles).
You know, I was totally underwhelmed by Skiddo and Gogoat when I first came across them playing X, but the more I look at them the more things I find to like about them. I guess I’m so used to half-assed Grass Pokémon that I started to expect them without even thinking about it! This game needs more badass Grass-types, and I have every intention of making sure this one enjoys a moment in the sun – maybe in that Rototiller triples team I keep promising myself I’ll put together…
*cough*omegarubyandalphasapphire*cough*
All right, all right; I get it already.
(This counts as my answer to ALL readers, past and future, asking about Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby)
So, I’m not that excited, I guess because Ruby and Sapphire just don’t have the same nostalgia value for me as they do for younger players, but I am very interested to see how they handle the story. A somewhat expanded treatment is surely to be expected, and they’ll probably draw on material and dialogue from Emerald, but they can’t lean too heavily on Emerald either because the paired game structure dictates that Team Aqua have to take the lead in Alpha Sapphire and Team Magma in Omega Ruby. Hopefully we can expect to see a slightly more nuanced portrayal of both teams’ motivations and plans (as well as of some other characters, like Steven – speaking of which, who will be the Champion, I wonder?).
I’m also curious whether contests will return, and in what form – will they give contest statistics to all the 5th- and 6th-generation moves that never had any, or create something completely new that has more in common with, say, Black and White’s musicals? Ruby and Sapphire were the generation that introduced the idea of interacting with Pokémon in that kind of way, so it seems only fitting that a return to those games will result in something fairly spectacular in that department.
In any case, seeing Hoenn on the 3DS is going to be a pretty huge deal – I can’t help but wonder whether some of the cities will look a little bland next to the varied and often eccentric settlements of Kalos, like Laverre with its fairytale aesthetic or Anistar with its… big-ass sundial whatsit… In fact, X and Y have just been such a huge step-up from their predecessors in such a wide variety of little ways that bringing Ruby and Sapphire up to speed with them seems to me like quite a daunting prospect!
Oh, and secret bases? Hell yes.
Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby strike me as odd titles to go with. I think probably the reference is to the logos of Team Aqua and Team Magma – Team Aqua’s would pass for a capital alpha as easily as a capital A (which looks exactly the same), while I guess Team Magma’s kinda looks like a capital Ω? If you squint a bit? Alpha and Omega placed in opposition like that tend to represent “the beginning and the end,” particularly in Christian iconography (come to think of it, Alpha and Omega would have made way better titles than X and Y for two games themed around life and death, but what’s done is done). Maybe the titles hint that the games will play up the importance of Mount Pyre and the Cave of Origin?
Probably I won’t do a playthrough journal in the style of what I did for White 2 or X, because honestly that $#!t’s getting kinda old for me and it’d be a little weird with a game where I already knew at least the outline of the story. I’ll probably think of something fun though. We’ll see.
Bunnelby and Diggersby
Tradition is tradition is tradition, and tradition dictates that no Pokémon generation is complete without an evolutionary line of exceptionally mundane Normal-type rodent Pokémon. [EDIT: correction for my phylogenic carelessness; rabbits and hares are not rodents but belong to a closely related group of their own, the lagomorphs – for our purposes, though, the distinction is probably academic] As with Talonflame, Game Freak seem to feel that they are in quite an odd position; if the Pokémon they design is not sufficiently banal and inconsequential, it will not fulfil the implicit requirements of Tradition, but if they go too far… well, is there really anyone out there who wants more perfectly generic rodent Pokémon? Pokémon are weird creatures with a penchant for doing the impossible, but they are also a representation of the variability of life in the real world, variability that includes the animals we see all over the place and get, frankly, a little bored with – how should that conflict be handled?
History lesson time.
My difficulty with Raticate is that, although larger-than-life as all Pokémon are, otherwise he is a rat and does rat things: gnawing and chewing and infesting and breeding and surviving everywhere it has no right to be. That’s great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also just about the only Pokémon I can think of that has no supernatural powers whatsoever – even the ability to gnaw through concrete is something actual rats can do, which I suppose in a way is just testament to what a badass animal the Norwegian rat is. Similarly, Furret’s most significant power, as far as I can make out, is being long and bendy, while Linoone… can run in a straight line, I guess? Bibarel represents an early experiment in the same kind of encouraging dual-typing as we see in both Talonflame and Diggersby, but Water is a type that tends to get splashed around (pun most heinously intended) rather liberally, normally on the grounds that a Pokémon lives in or near water, and I’m shadowed by the question of what it actually adds to Bibarel. Don’t even get me started on those creepy Unovan hell-beasts. Linoone’s Belly Drum shenanigans notwithstanding, none of these are particularly effective Pokémon either, because if there’s no flavour reason for a Pokémon to have useful abilities, it often won’t get them (although it has to be said that many of them make amazing HM whores in generations three and four, particularly Bibarel with his access to water-related abilities). Bland designs make bland strategies; the two can’t be completely separated. With that in mind, let’s go to Bunnelby and Diggersby.
Bunnelby’s thing is his ears. Rabbits’ long ears are of course among their most distinctive characteristics, but they don’t really do a whole lot other than… well, hear things. Presumably help to radiate heat in species that live in hot climates. Pretty standard stuff for ears to do, really. Not so Bunnelby’s ears. They are the largest organ in his body and are also his primary manipulative appendages, with ends almost like paws that he uses to scoop earth and dig the warrens that rabbits are famous for; the anime also portrays him as using his ears for most of his attacks. The tips are brown, as though stained by mud, but a ruff of brown fur around his neck, the same shade, suggests that this is their natural colouring. Diggersby continues to create the same impression with a speckled pattern at the edge of the brown portion; it’s a nice way of bringing his Ground typing into his physical appearance. His mighty ears, even more potent than Bunnelby’s, can pummel through bedrock or lift and carry heavy loads. How they can do this, tethered as they are to his body by the relatively slender and probably hollow parts of his ears responsible for hearing, is something of a mystery; in a real animal it would be difficult to understand how they can even be held up, let alone swung forcefully without simply ripping them off. Then again, many Pokémon are in the habit of doing six impossible things before breakfast, and anatomical plausibility should probably be low on our list of criteria for evaluating them (although, having said that, this is one of the harder ones to overlook since Diggersby doesn’t have a lot of explicit special powers that could be used to justify it). Ground Pokémon are known for being especially solid and stable, so maybe their flesh and bones can take a great deal more weight than we are accustomed to putting on our various appendages? The information about Diggersby presented to us by the Pokédex focuses on their uses in the human world, where like Machoke and Gurdurr they are regularly enlisted as construction workers – like the comedic stereotype of construction workers, they are also lazy and like nothing more than lounging around once their work is done. I’d actually be more interested in how they work ecologically, though; Bunnelby only dig into soil like ordinary rabbits (albeit rabbits with prehensile ears) but Diggersby can go much deeper and presumably can only navigate larger tunnels as well. What might their ‘warrens’ start to look like? The purpose of a burrow is surely defeated if something much larger than a Bunnelby can easily get inside, so the resulting structures could end up looking quite complicated, with the Diggersby-sized entrances protected carefully from smaller predators.
The thing about my relationship with Diggersby is that I can’t help but think he looks a little bit like a mouldy potato. A damning assessment, one might think. I’m pretty sure Diggersby isn’t meant to be a particularly elegant or awe-inspiring Pokémon, though; in fact I’m pretty sure he is meant to look fat and lazy, and he does that remarkably well. He doesn’t exactly look like he could crush bedrock (although he certainly could – see below for the reasons bludgeoning power is at the core of Diggersby’s skill set) and is a little out of place in the traditionally ‘tough’ and ‘badass’ Pokémon crowds; to be honest, I’m not sure who he’s supposed to be appealing to. The unkempt lazy bastard demographic, I suppose (you know, now that I put it like that, I’m really starting to empathise). In a way, strangely, the fact that Diggersby is so shamelessly unappealing is actually what I like about him. Rabbits are cute and cuddly; making a cute and cuddly rabbit like Buneary – or, to an extent, Bunnelby – is just a little bit cliché and predictable. Making a muscular but pudgy rabbit who looks kind of like he needs a shave is much more out of left field, while still tying into a well-known trait of actual rabbits via the construction worker aesthetic: they’re good at digging. This Pokémon has undeniable personality – not exactly an attractive personality, but nonetheless a much clearer one than his normal and Normal rodent predecessors have tended to exhibit… with the possible exception of Watchog, who, again, scares me. Some unorthodox ideas went into this Pokémon, and I think on some level they kind of work.
If you want to use Diggersby, you’re going to want one with the hidden ability, no ifs, no buts. As truly entrancing as Diggersby’s Cheek Pouch bull$#!t is (I mean, who doesn’t want to get bonus health back for eating any kind of berry? That thing is gold, am I right?), there is simply no passing up the ridiculousness that is Huge Power. To make clear how big a deal this ability is, I should clear up a common misconception about it – a lot of people seem to think Huge Power doubles the abstract ‘base attack’ score generic to a Pokémon’s species, which would effectively move Diggersby from an abysmal 56 to a fairly convincing 112. In fact, it doesn’t; what it doubles is the Pokémon’s actual concrete attack stat with training, level, nature and individual variation factored in – for a level 100 Diggersby, this is likely to be somewhere in the low 200’s if he’s been trained for physical attacks (which he should be!) and will double to about 440-460 – equivalent to a base attack score around 160, approaching the likes of Slaking and Rampardos. This Pokémon is a blunt instrument of epic proportions. Earthquake is, of course, the key move here, backing up Huge Power with similarly dramatic bludgeoning force. Either Stone Edge or Wild Charge is practically mandatory to punish Flying-types who seek to take advantage of their Ground immunity. Normal attacks are, as always, mainly useful for being able to do neutral damage to most things, which isn’t that great an asset on a Pokémon like Diggersby, who has a fairly solid array of offensive types to choose from, but since he is a Normal-type, Return is probably worth checking out. Hammer Arm and Power-Up Punch add Fighting-type options to round out the spread of dangers Diggersby can present. Power-Up Punch is probably the smarter option unless you’re looking at a Choice Band set, since Diggersby can’t really afford to lose speed using Hammer Arm, and the power you sacrifice on your Fighting attack (which isn’t going to be your main one anyway) is relatively easy to justify when you can get a boost for your other attacks by using Power-Up Punch. Always worth consideration, especially in conjunction with Choice items, is U-Turn; with Diggersby’s doubled attack stat, even this relatively weak move will leave quite a sting as he flees the scene.
The bad news for Diggersby is practically everything else about him: his defences are reasonable, but nothing to write home about, and he’s not the fastest thing on two legs. The former, he mostly just has to deal with; the latter, on the other hand, can be at least partially alleviated by his access to Agility and Quick Attack – you probably should use one or the other, since, again, Diggersby is great at dishing out hits but not so good at taking them. Being a Normal-type with such a colossal attack stat actually makes Quick Attack reasonably solid – after all, Aqua Jet always worked for Azumarill, who functions on the same basic principles. As an alternative to Agility, Diggersby also gets Swords Dance (you know, just in case that 460 attack stat starts to bore you); you definitely want Quick Attack available if you pick that option. He can also learn Flail, and a Focus Sash set with Flail and Agility might be sufficiently amusing and destructive to be worth a shot if you can keep him from taking any passive damage that would break the sash – it helps that Diggersby is immune to Sandstorm damage, but with entry hazards as popular as they are it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth (still… as Epic Flails go, Diggersby’s would be pretty impressive… maybe the AI trainers in the Battle Maison would fall for it…). There aren’t really any other compelling options for this guy, which is sort of a weakness – he’s fairly predictable. Almost nothing can absorb his attacks with impunity, but he’s naturally slow, not all that tough, has only a passable defensive type combination, and is very likely to be carrying a Choice item that will restrict his tactical options further. Reliance on Normal and Ground attacks is also a big welcoming invitation to any of the many Levitating Ghost-types out there. Diggersby is a sledgehammer – use him as such, but remember to bring your chisels along as well.
The bottom line for me is that you can pretty much explain Raticate, or Furret, or Bibarel, by saying “it’s a rat Pokémon” “it’s a ferret Pokémon” or “it’s a derpy beaver Pokémon.” Saying of Diggersby “it’s a rabbit Pokémon,” while certainly correct, would clearly be missing the point. There should be rodent Pokémon in the game, there should be Normal Pokémon in the game, and there should be common Pokémon based on common animals in the game – indeed, some of these categories deserve, if anything, more attention! Bunnelby and Diggersby are a step in the right direction; they take something generic and everyday, and they twist it. It doesn’t necessarily make total sense, but it’s interesting, and it immediately suggests a battle role based on overwhelming physical force, giving this Pokémon something cool to do. Diggersby is far from my favourite Kalos design, but for once that’s mostly because of my own taste in Pokémon and not because the template has led to a half-assed creation.
Would you like to see a crossover with Pokémon with any other franchises such Nintendo franchises or others? Super smash bros don’t count.
Eh. Nothing really comes to mind. Not a huge fan of crossovers as a rule.
Fennekin, Braixen and Delphox
Probably one of the most popular commonplaces of fan-made Pokémon design for years and years has been the Pokémon with pyrokinetic abilities – the use of psychic power to manipulate heat and fire – and it looks like we’ve finally got one. I’ll be honest, though: when I first saw Fennekin I was not optimistic. A fiery fox Pokémon with a mystical streak? That… sounds awfully familiar. When all’s said and done, Vulpix and Ninetales are a lot more straightforward as far as their physical design goes; aside from the split tail thing they are basically foxes, and what’s interesting about them is mostly in their mystical powers and their obsession with vengeance. Fennekin develops into something a bit more complicated with more of a mixture of influences going on, eventually ending up looking more like Lucario or Zoroark than anything else (Japanese sure do like their magic foxes). That’s something we should probably talk about first, actually; let’s talk about the anthro-fox thing.
I know there are people who don’t like Lucario or Zoroark, or presumably Delphox either, because the anthropomorphism offends their sensibilities on some level, which is something I don’t quite ‘get,’ personally (now, whether we really need quite so many fox-like Pokémon is another matter entirely, but I spend enough time bitching about that kind of thing already). The concept of anthropomorphic animals is literally as old as civilisation, even if depicting them physically as human/animal hybrids isn’t quite so universal, and I think everyone recognises the apparent callbacks from Lucario to Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of burial and funerary rites. It’s not just some weird fetish thing of the last couple of decades, it’s actually kind of a millennia-old universal mythic archetype that resonates with people of radically different cultural backgrounds all over the planet. Just to prove my point, I would like to note that, in fact, if you Google the phrase “anthropomorphic fox,” the first result is the Wikipedia page for a mediaeval French trickster-hero named Raynard or Renart (so an anthropomorphic fox actually makes a great deal of sense in a region based on France), whose principal rival is an anthropomorphic wolf named Isengrim. It’s really quite amazing how much I learn from writing this bull$#!t. The trope also makes a lot of sense in the context of some of Pokémon’s core themes, like the desire for balance between civilisation and nature – anthropomorphic animals straddle the line and can symbolically act as intermediaries or go-betweens in much the same way as Pokémon trainers can from the other direction. Foxes in Japanese folklore are regularly depicted as shapeshifters as well, and are often quite fond of assuming human form for a variety of whimsical purposes, so it makes a great deal of sense that we should see fox-like Pokémon in particular filling this role (even if, again, I might wish for more variety in that respect, as elsewhere…). Basically what I’m saying is that any complaint that anthropomorphic foxes are just inherently a dumb idea will be met with several heavy and fast-moving books. Moving on.
My favourite thing about Delphox is probably her name, which evokes ancient Delphi in Greece, a place closely associated with oracular foresight – and, lo and behold, Delphox can see the future by staring into the flames at the tip of her wand, and also learns Future Sight (though of course among Psychic Pokémon this is far from an unusual attack; it’s much more interesting with respect to flavour when it appears on a Pokémon of a different element). Maybe it’s just me, but I also can’t help but see one of the ancient Greek words for fire, phlox, in there. In contrast to Ninetales, who is a very faithful rendition of, essentially, a purely Japanese kitsune spirit, Fennekin and her evolutions seem very keen to bring western ideas into the design – which, again, makes sense both in the context of Kalos as a French-inspired region and of Pokémon’s growing interest in portraying itself as an international entity. Braixen in particular, and Delphox as well to an extent, have a very strong east-meets-west thing going, combining the mystic foxes of Japanese folklore with the witches of European fairytale, whose signature broomstick is clearly visible in the shape of Braixen’s tail. Delphox, likewise, directs her fire powers through a wand which also acts as a focus for her psychic abilities. It’s a shame Braixen can’t use her ‘broomstick’ to fly, but then again, neither making her a Flying-type nor sticking Levitate on her would have been all that practical. Potion-making abilities or herbal lore might have been nice too, but similarly difficult to reconcile with the Fire/Psychic typing, requiring a mixture of Grass- and Poison-type powers.
I cannot get over this line’s majestic ear hair. I didn’t notice it at first because it just looks like they have big red ears at a glance, but when you actually look at them, it’s clear that those are huge bushy tufts of hair or fur sprouting from inside their ears, apparently meant to mimic the appearance of bursts of flame. It confuses me so much because, although a fennec fox’s large heat-dissipating ears are one of its most noticeable traits and are referenced in the fact that Fennekin emits blasts of heat from her ears to frighten attackers, their ear hair, while admittedly impressive if you look at it with that in mind, is not really anything special. In humans ear hair denotes age, so I guess you could say that it’s meant to be a sign of wisdom, but it’s usually in men that we think about prominent ear hair, and Delphox seems to very aiming at a feminine design. Also, ear hair tends to be grouped with the less desirable traits of old age, like senility. Maybe in Japan impressive ear hair is considered a good thing…? Where does one go on the internet for information about the symbolic associations of ear hair in different cultures, anyway? How has my life even gotten to the point where this is a question I am legitimately interested in knowing the answer to?
…yeah, I’m just going to talk about Delphox’s battle capabilities now.
Delphox has an unusual type combination, shared only by Victini and Zen Darmanitan (who, of course, doesn’t count): Fire/Psychic, which comes with quite a lot of resistances but also some very nasty weaknesses, particularly Rock, Ground and Dark. Offensively it’s a viable combination but not a brilliant one; Fire and Psychic share no weaknesses, but don’t cover each other’s weaknesses particularly well either. Overall, it’s sort of a mixed bag as far as type combinations go, and the rest of Delphox’s traits follow suit. The odd thing about this Pokémon is that her stats suggest a special sweeper – very good speed and special defence with excellent special attack, and poor physical stats – while her movepool and hidden ability are very much those of a supporter. Aside from her core attacks – Flamethrower or Fire Blast, Psyshock or Psychic – Delphox really only has Grass Knot and Shadow Ball for coverage. Grass attacks go great with Fire, but Grass Knot’s dependence on the target’s weight makes it a bit of a tricky move (the types that are weak against Grass – Ground, Rock and Water – do tend to have disproportionately heavy Pokémon, though, so it can work pretty well as a secondary attack). Ghost attacks are also moving up in the world now that Steel-types no longer resist them, leaving excellent neutral coverage, but that’s not really a huge priority for Delphox, who already has a pretty solid offensive type behind her. Calm Mind is difficult for a Pokémon whose physical defences are as weak as Delphox’s, although she’s pretty frightening with a special attack boost behind her. Her support movepool has some great stuff: Light Screen, Will’o’Wisp, Switcheroo, Hypnosis, hell, if you’re good at reading your opponents she can even muck around with Magic Coat (although, if you really want to reflect status effects back at their users, just using a Pokémon with the Magic Bounce ability is a lot easier, albeit predictable). Switcheroo could make for a neat Choice Specs set. It’s worked for other Pokémon in the past and Delphox certainly has the stats for it; act as a traditional special attacker with a nasty Choice Specs power boost until you see a support-oriented Pokémon who won’t deal well with being locked into a single attack, then swap items with Switcheroo and hopefully cripple them. The other moves are just universally useful, although it’s not exactly easy to see why you’d pick a relatively frail Pokémon like Delphox to use them.
Like Chesnaught and Greninja, Delphox enjoys access to a signature move, Mystical Fire. This attack looks decidedly underwhelming at first glance since it’s simply much less powerful than the traditional ‘gold standard’ moves like Thunderbolt and Earthquake. What’s interesting about it, though, is that on top of its damage Mystical Fire also reduces its target’s special attack, which is a surprisingly rare effect; only a handful of moves can do that, and many of them will not do so consistently (Moonblast only does so 20% of the time, Captivate only works on Pokémon of the opposite gender, and so on). Considering that Delphox can also partially neutralise most physical attackers with Will’o’Wisp, the ability to reliably dampen special attackers as well is pretty cool. In a similar vein, her hidden ability, Magician, is almost unique, shared only by the mischievous Klefki (who really has better things to do, since his other ability is Prankster, the greatest blessing any support Pokémon has ever received). Magician basically adds the effect of Thief to all of Delphox’s direct attacks for free – if she’s not already holding an item, she’ll steal whatever her target is holding. A lot of Pokémon rely quite heavily on their items, and being able to nab these reliably without taking up a moveslot is pretty cool, especially if you happen to gank something Delphox can actually use herself. Combine this with a consumable item like an Air Balloon or a Fire Gem (once Fire Gems actually exist in X and Y) and you could seriously mess with even Pokémon who don’t think Delphox can harm them. All in all, it’s probably best to think of Delphox as a special attacker whose greatest strength is actually not her special attacks, but her capacity to screw with people. Make sure to pack at least one nasty little spell, and spring it when your opponent is least expecting it.
Delphox might actually be my favourite Fire starter so far – and only partially because we have finally broken the curse of Fire/Fighting. She balances power and cunning in a way that’s quite rare in a Fire-type, and just being able to shrug off her attacks doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t leave your head spinning. Like mythological foxes the world over, she’s clever and possesses mystical insight into the world of spirits and magic, embracing the magical quality of fire like few of her predecessors ever have. You know, I think I’m good with that.
Your last question that was talking about attract made me want to throw in my 2 cents. I’m a big fan of the percy jackson series, which is a book series about greek demigods. one girl is a daughter of Aphrodite and has a power called charmspeak, which allows her to influence people’s decisions by talking. She could ask for free food at a deli or tell someone to fall asleep. I think attract works this way, so I don’t think it would force sexuality out of the target unless thats the user’s intent.
Hey, anything that involves Percy Jackson in the discussion is fine by me. Piper’s charmspeak is an interesting comparison to make; I think we can all agree that Attract obviously doesn’t compel sexual acts, even where the target’s species would allow it, but at the same time the imagery associated with the technique is clearly meant to make us think that romance or sexuality is involved somehow (same way as charmspeak, really, since it comes from the goddess of romantic love and sexual desire – although the way that series portrays Aphrodite, and that portrayal’s relationship to the original myths, is actually kind of complicated). It has similar versatility too; same way as Attract can work between Pokémon who would never breed, charmspeak can apparently work on anything that even approaches sentience, up to and including a robot dragon head. I think the important difference is that Piper can’t easily command someone not to attack her because charmspeak works best if she can phrase it in terms of something the target actually wants to do, or at least could potentially be neutral to. Attract seems like it’s maybe a bit more forceful in that way, which is weird. I think it may have a greater capacity to create desires rather than just manipulate existing ones.
Espurr and Meowstic
Coming to you from Los Angeles Airport as I wait for my connecting flight to Auckland! Isn’t that exciting? Well, no, not really, but this is my life apparently. Anyway.
We’ve just had a dog, so now let’s have some cats. We’ve had loads of cats before, but these ones at least have the decency to be weird, alien cats with mysterious powers. I’m torn between wondering why we needed more cats after Persian, Delcatty, Purugly and Liepard, and being relieved that Espurr and Meowstic are not just the pampered pets with few notable powers that we’ve come to expect from cat Pokémon in the past. These cats certainly have a few tricks up their sleeves… or rather, their ears (as we’ll see)… so let’s take a look and figure out what makes them worth our time.
Espurr and Meowstic are known as the ‘Restraint Pokémon’ and the ‘Constraint Pokémon.’ They possess absolutely devastating psychic powers, possibly the greatest of any non-legendary Psychic Pokémon described to date (though it’s hard to tell because any sort of quantification of psychic power is hard to come by in Pokémon) – the Pokédex credits Meowstic with the ability to disintegrate a heavy-duty truck with the sheer force of their telekinetic blasts. Unfortunately, their control over these powers is somewhat lacking. I’m not exactly certain how serious this lack of control is, but I think the implication is that actually unbinding that degree of power would mean subjecting everything in a 90-metre radius to the full force of their psionic wrath – this, in many cases, would probably be a bad idea. The idea of someone’s ‘true power’ being too wild and dangerous to use except in the most dire of circumstances is a fairly well-explored one in fiction about super-powered characters, particularly psychic ones because mental abilities are often associated with discipline and force of will; I think even Pokémon has had one or two designs before that draw on the theme, like Golurk, whose overwhelming power is kept in check by the seal on his chest. The weird thing about the way Espurr and Meowstic handle that trope is exactly how they keep their powers under control: they emit psychic energy from a pair of eyeball-patterned organs inside their ears, so they can apparently hold it in quite simply by folding up their ears to cover these glands. So apparently these are the kind of psychic powers that can be blocked by flimsy layers of fur and cartilege. Well, it makes sense that containment would involve something fairly straightforward – otherwise these Pokémon would surely have levelled Kalos long ago – but it does make the whole thing seem a little bit silly. On the other hand, Espurr’s art and in-game model do a good job of conveying the idea that she’s basically a walking bomb – her posture is stiff, her eyes wide and staring, as if constantly under stress and potentially about to explode (this also gives her a very different aesthetic feel to previous cat Pokémon). Meowstic appear, appropriately enough, to have grown a bit more comfortable with the whole thing; their movements remain understated and controlled, though, and they keep their ears firmly folded over, just in case. Training these Pokémon, unusually, is an exercise in getting them to unleash power they already have – very carefully.
Aside from the radical and dangerous psychic abilities, Meowstic’s other big thing is somewhat more obvious: pronounced sexual dimorphism. The females are white with blue trim and yellow eyes, the males blue with white trim and blue-green eyes. They also adopt very different battle roles – their stats are the same, but they learn very different sets of moves as they level; the males favour support techniques, while the females learn powerful special attacks. This seems to subvert the kinds of roles traditionally assigned to male/female counterpart characters in video games – when there is an explicit contrast, female characters will regularly have support powers and often healing abilities, while male characters tend to be the heavy damage dealers (the age-old domestic woman/warrior man trope). Nidoqueen, for instance, has a very similar selection of moves to Nidoking but is encouraged by her more defensive stat bias to favour their support options like Stealth Rock rather than going total-aggression like Nidoking tends to. I’m not sure what to say about Meowstic’s inversion of the typical arrangement other than that it seems to be there, but it’s nice to see and makes a pleasant contrast to many other male/female Pokémon pairs (Pyroar, for instance, who sticks to the stereotypes despite the fact that the real behaviour of lions gives her a very good reason not too…). Actually, the fact that Meowstic have a support archetype option at all is pretty odd considering the kind of things we’re told about them and the nature of their powers – maybe the thing to take from this is that the males are better at letting out very small, restricted doses of energy, while the females are capable of going to higher levels of intensity without losing control?
It’s unfortunate that Meowstic’s stats don’t quite reflect what we’re told about their tremendous capacity for destruction – one is rather led to expect phenomenal special attacking power, with relatively poor speed to represent the need for constant restraint. In fact, although Meowstic are very fast, their special attack leaves quite a lot to be desired, which I suppose is a testament to the level of control these Pokémon can maintain over their powers… a little too much, if anything. Either that, or reports of their might are greatly exaggerated (which, coming from the Pokédex, would admittedly not be a huge shock). An excellent special movepool – Psychic or Psyshock, Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball – means that Meowstic can at least bolster an uninspiring special attack score with strong type coverage. There’s also Calm Mind and Charge Beam to think about, if you want to take a more direct route to powering up; the female also gets Stored Power, which gets stronger with every stat boost the user accrues and can outdamage Psychic after two Calm Minds. Meowstic probably doesn’t have the defences to play that sort of game, especially without healing, but Stored Power is an unusual enough move to be worth looking into on anything that gets it. Me First (again, only for the female) is also interesting but tricky to use; it anticipates an incoming attack with more power, but fails if the user is slower than the target, and also relies on being able to guess what kind of attacks are coming at you. Really, Meowstic’s stat spread seems to belong more to some manner of supporter than a true focused attacker; passable but unremarkable in all areas except speed (and physical attack – don’t even go there), and with a respectable support movepool, this sounds awfully like a utility Pokémon – and, of course, Meowstic can do either, depending on gender.
The difficulty with Meowstic’s bifurcated movepool is that a lot of the best moves, particularly from the female’s list, are actually available to both of them anyway through a variety of TMs. What it all boils down to in terms of actually useful moves, as far as I can see, is that female Meowstic get Signal Beam, Me First and Stored Power while male ones get Mean Look and Misty Terrain (indeed, male Meowstic are at this point the only non-Fairy-type Pokémon to have access to this technique, for what it’s worth). The real distinction between males and females is their hidden abilities, which reinforce the battle roles outlined for them by their level-up moves. The female’s Competitive ability is a special attacker equivalent to Defiant, giving her a major special attack bonus whenever one of her stats is lowered by an opponent – kind of tricky to use, considering that lowering the enemy’s stats is not a particularly common tactic, but there are enough Pokémon with Intimidate running around that it’s worth a try, and Meowstic might actually do some serious damage if she could grab a Competitive boost. Infiltrator, one of the regular abilities available to both genders (which allows attacks to bypass Reflect, Light Screen and Substitutes), might end up being just as useful for an offensive Meowstic. The male’s ability, though, is far shinier (although in flavour terms it’s very difficult to see how it fits the ‘restrained’ Meowstic): the ever-delightful Prankster, which grants speed priority to all support moves. Being able to go first with his most important techniques means that a male Meowstic doesn’t need to focus so much on his speed and can afford to train his defences more instead, and even common moves like Reflect, Light Screen, Thunder Wave and especially Substitute have a lot to gain from an automatic first strike. The male also has access to a couple of unusual support moves the female lacks; the most notable ones are Mean Look, which could potentially make an interesting addition to a Calm Mind set if you manage to trap something with lacklustre special attacking capabilities, and Misty Terrain, the new Fairy-type field move (Meowstic is in fact the only non-Fairy-type Pokémon who can use this move so far). Misty Terrain blocks all major status ailments for Pokémon on the ground, and also dampens the effects of Dragon attacks – handy if for some reason you can’t have an actual Fairy or Steel Pokémon around.
More of a distinction between what these two Pokémon can do would be nice – the separate level-up movepools aren’t much good if most of the moves they contain are either not actually exclusive or kind of silly (Imprison and Miracle Eye, anyone?). I would have liked to see some more unusual stuff showing up, for both of them, like Gravity, Power Split and Healing Wish for the male, or Zap Cannon, Moonblast and Aura Sphere for the female. It’s also a shame the female’s hidden ability doesn’t really match up to the male’s Prankster, which is one of the best abilities in the game – I might have gone with something like Technician and stuffed her level-up movepool with really weird special attacks like Hidden Power and Silver Wind. The concept is pretty neat, though, if a little underdeveloped, and the gender differences add some spice; it certainly puts Delcatty to shame. Meowstic are the kind of Pokémon that live and die on their movepools, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens to them once we have some sixth-generation move tutors running around…
Pokémaniacal 