One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
And Game Freak said “let there be Klefki,” and old school Pokémon fans around the world cried out “the $#!t is this?” and “why is there a f@#%ing keyring Pokémon?” and “OMG Pokemans ruined 5evah.” And Game Freak said “YOLO,” for they felt that it was good.
Continue reading “Klefki”
Right; I’m going to leave Carbink for now and do her with Diancie at the end, by which time I’ll hopefully be clearer on how they work, so that leaves only one Pokémon in the Coastal Kalos subregion: Hawlucha, the… lucha libre Pokémon… which is another one stricken from the list of phrases I never thought I would live to say. Game Freak are responsible for a disconcerting number of those. Funnily enough, though, Hawlucha’s been making more and more sense the more time I spend on this entry, and may even be one of my favourites of this generation now, which I didn’t really expect. Let’s have a look.
Continue reading “Hawlucha”
Now that I think about it, it’s kind of strange that there aren’t really many Electric Pokémon based on real-world methods of electricity generation; for the most part they just conjure up electrical energy through – one presumes – a similar kind of biochemical process to that used by the electric eel, only turned up to eleven. Well, either that or magic. Let’s be honest; for at least some of them it’s probably magic.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Helioptile.
Continue reading “Helioptile and Heliolisk”
I’ll be honest here; I’m not wild about these things. My first impression of Skrelp during my X playthrough was ‘so, it’s a diseased Horsea?’ and I’ve not really moved past that in any major way (the fact that Dragalge is equally, at first glance, ‘a diseased Kingdra’ didn’t exactly help). Nothing about them really offends me in any sense, but they’re not particularly ones for the ‘favourite’ pile either. Still, may as well see what we can turn up. Here we go.
Continue reading “Skrelp and Dragalge”
Well, this one’s just weird. Don’t get me wrong, though – sometimes weird is really good, and this, I think, is the case with the latest additions to the stable of Rock/Water Pokémon, Binacle and Barbaracle. I have to admit, when I idly dreamed in the lead-up to X and Y about what kinds of animals or plants I would have liked to see Pokémon based on, barnacles were not exactly top of the list. But hey, whatever works.
Continue reading “Binacle and Barbaracle”
…
I’m going to close my eyes and count to three. When I open them, I will be reviewing a Pokémon who is not Dedenne.
One… two… three.
…
F@#%nuggets.
Continue reading “Dedenne”
DID SOMEONE SAY MORE DINOSAURS OH BY THE GODS I HOPE THEY DID
F#$% YES
*Ahem*
…where were we?
Continue reading “Tyrunt and Tyrantrum”
DINOSAURS
YES
I think everyone has a dinosaur phase, right? Mine was… longer and more educationally rigorous than most, put it that way (my parents claim to this day that my first words as a baby were not the traditional ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ but the often tongue-twisting names of dinosaur species). There actually aren’t all that many Pokémon who seem to be based primarily on dinosaurs, funnily enough, although several of the big superstar ones are represented: we have ceratopids (Shieldon and Bastiodon), pachycephalosaurs (Cranidos and Rampardos), sauropods (Bayleef and Meganium, Tropius), and of course the famous birdlike theropod Archaeopteryx (Archen and Archeops). There are also a bunch of Pokémon that are probably influenced by dinosaurs, like Tyranitar, who seems to be a tyrannosaur via Godzilla, Charmeleon, who has shades of a small theropod, Torterra, who owes as much to ankylosaurs as to tortoises, and Bulbasaur, who… well, to be honest I don’t think even Game Freak really know exactly what Bulbasaur is but the –saur suffix definitely strikes a particular note. X and Y give us two more fossils: the brutal tyrannosaurs Tyrunt and Tyrantrum, and these two loveable goofs. I probably wouldn’t have chosen another sauropod, myself – I kind of want to see a hadrosaur – but I’m not about to complain about more dinosaurs, so here we go.
Continue reading “Amaura and Aurorus”
I’m not sure what to think of these two. Clawitzer, beyond a doubt, is an extraordinarily badass name (he has a howitzer claw; what more could you even want?) for an extraordinarily badass creature. He has a metre-long cannon shaped like a dragon head for an arm, for heaven’s sake, and I suppose for many purposes that should really be more than enough. The question I’m left asking of Clauncher and Clawitzer, though, is this: what do we do when a Pokémon is based on a real animal so astonishingly badass that even awesome elemental powers fail to make a comparable impact on my jaded psyche? “Real animal?” you cry. “What is this sorcery?” Well, I’m glad I pretended that you asked…
Continue reading “Clauncher and Clawitzer”
One of my companions for much of my X playthrough, Malamar is one of the more eccentric Pokémon out there. Inkay has one of the weirdest evolution methods yet – reach at least level 30 while holding the 3DS upside down (heaven knows what that means from an in-universe perspective – possibly that Inkay’s evolution is, appropriately enough, completely unpredictable). Add to that several unusual and subversive skills, a unique type combination, and a personality midway between Niccolò Machiavelli and Oscar the Grouch, and this Pokémon is anything but typical. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading “Inkay and Malamar”
Pokémaniacal 