Tag: dunsparce

Regular Bidoof asks:

What are some of your favorite underrated/overlooked pokemon?

Well, I suppose it depends on what we mean by underrated or overlooked… some Pokémon are “overlooked” in that they’ve never been competitively viable, but nonetheless have a sort of cult following, like Dunsparce, whom your mega-evolved counterpart asked about recently, and if allowed, Dunsparce would definitely go on my list.  Pokémon that are genuinely overlooked in that they have no fans whatsoever, I mostly kind of think deserve it, like Qwilfish.  For some reason I’m very fond of Delibird, who is legitimately terrible, but I don’t know whether there’s a fan following for Delibird.  Carbink may not qualify as overlooked because of its link to Diancie, but I do have a weird soft spot for Carbink because I have a pet theory that it’s the oldest of all Pokémon (I reject Mew’s claim on the position, in what I realise is a conflict with established lore).  Druddigon is, frankly, my spirit Pokémon, because I too aspire to live in a dark cave and hate everybody, and Druddigon has definitely never had the competitive spotlight and I don’t think has ever been especially popular, so I think “overlooked” is justifiable here.  And lastly, my favourite Pokémon is Vileplume, who… isn’t really overlooked or underrated, I don’t think, but has never been, like, top-tier super popular either.

Mega Bidoof asks:

What do you think about Dunsparce’s enduring appeal despite it’s arguable uselessness?

I’m a big Dunsparce fan myself, and honestly it’s hard to separate how much of that is appreciation for a legitimately neat Pokémon and how much is purely a nostalgia thing.  Dunsparce was a cool Pokémon in generation II; it was really rare, and as a kid with no independent internet access in 2000, it was pretty easy to just not know about it until I found one, after I’d already been playing the game for weeks and seen most of Johto (I don’t think there are any AI trainers in the original Gold and Silver that use a Dunsparce; unless you find one by sheer chance, your first hint at their existence comes from a phone call alerting you to a swarm).  Almost every time I started a new game on Silver, I made time to stumble around Dark Cave until I found a Dunsparce to catch; sometimes I still do on Soul Silver for old times’ sake.

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Anonymous asks:

Not sure if you’ve done this before but it strikes me that there are a number of gen 2 pokemon that are severly lacking and in need of some love. Which design out of Sunflora, Dunsparce and Delibird do you think is most worthy of being saved and how would you make the one of your choice relevant again?

Well, I actually did ramble about Sunflora and Delibird long, long ago when I did a Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever list, the point of which was mostly to bitch about Pokémon who got the short end of the stick with respect to… well, everything, but partly also to try and fix them.  I actually love both Delibird and Dunsparce; my suggestion for Delibird was to rewrite Present into a sort of souped-up Fling, that would have made him into a bombardier Pokémon whose specialty was fighting with dangerous items like Iron Balls and Toxic Orbs (as well as just giving him a pile of extra attacks and better stats).  Dunsparce… well, Dunsparce seems like an obvious candidate to evolve into some huge derpy dragon-thing with too many wings and cool magical powers.  Dunsparce makes sense already and has a cool thing going with Serene Grace; better stats and access to Dragon attacks (especially some kind of signature move that works with Serene Grace – Dragon-type Ancient Power variant, anyone?) might just push him over into actually being useful.