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.

Espurr. Bow before the perfection of Sugimori, etc etc. 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.

The cunning male Meowstic.

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 destructive female Meowstic.

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…

Furfrou

Official art by Ken Sugimori of the trashy, pedestrian 'Natural' Furfrou. Some people just have no class at all.

I have a long history of bitter feuds with gimmick Pokémon – Pokémon apparently designed to show off some manner of unique mechanic. This is not because I have problems with the gimmicks themselves; things like Spinda’s seven zillion and one unique spot patterns or Chatot’s ability to interact with the DS’s microphone (an ability now obsolete, incidentally) certainly add something to those Pokémon. The trouble is that often the designers appear to think that one gimmick is all it takes to produce a finished design and that these unique Pokémon don’t deserve anything else, with two results: 1) their combat abilities generally border on ‘completely unsalvageable’ and 2) the gimmicks are often the only interesting thing about them. It is therefore with no small amount of trepidation that I go into my analysis of Furfrou, the show poodle Pokémon, whose main distinguishing feature is his broad selection of fur trims, which can be styled in Lumiose City’s fantastically popular Friseur Furfrou salon. Is that all there is to Furfrou? Is it worth the attention Kalos gives it? Can we find anything else to like about him? Will I make it through this entry without suffering an aneurysm? Tune in to find out… right now!

For the people of Kalos, and of Lumiose City in particular, owning a stunningly coiffed Furfrou is among the most vital aspects of the elusive and wondrous state of being that is True Stylishness. Lumiopolitans (for so I have arbitrarily chosen to call them) are ardent connoisseurs of style in all its manifestations – stylish dress, stylish battling, stylish transportation, stylish personal grooming, even stylish diet – and there is no other channel by which their respect and adoration may be more quickly won or lost. The exquisitely stylish tourist can expect to be admitted to exclusive establishments and offered choice discounts; the unkempt hitchhiker… can not. One of the qualifications for the life of style is having a well-groomed Furfrou, and one of that life’s benefits is access to ever more exclusive and extravagant cuts and dyes: an ordinary customer will be offered only the frightfully plebeian ‘Star,’ ‘Diamond’ and ‘Heart’ trims, while those who have demonstrated their superior taste can request ‘Pharaoh,’ ‘Kabuki,’ or ‘La Reine;’ the truly elegant, as a badge of their absolute class, can have their Furfrou done in the coveted ‘Matron,’ ‘Dandy’ and ‘Debutante’ styles – these last three appear to have had the fur on their heads somehow pressed into a variety of crisply-outlined hat shapes. It goes without saying that trainers sporting lesser Furfrou trims should be regarded with haughty disdain, reserving true respect for those whose Furfrou are maintained in the highest of styles. Take careful note, however: be cautious when dealing with the trainer of a ‘Natural’ Furfrou. Such a person may be an utterly philistine no-hoper who wouldn’t know stylishness if it walked up and offered them a designer handbag, or they may be may be an ultra-classy fashion ninja making a richly satirical comment on the nature of mainstream Kalosian style that operates five or six degrees of irony beyond anything you can even comprehend, much less mimic (much like Jim the Editor’s appreciation of certain rap artists). Be sure to observe carefully the shape and tint of the individual’s sunglasses before jumping to any conclusions.

The more socially acceptable Heart (pink), Diamond (orange) and Star (blue) Furfrou trims. I suppose these are okay. So, as you might have guessed, what persuades me to tolerate Furfrou’s gimmick – even though all nine styles look utterly ridiculous – is that it makes a lot of sense in the context of Kalos’ broader themes. It’s silly and pretentious, just like the Kalosians; Furfrou, unlike Spinda and Chatot (to stick with the examples I used earlier), is a part of the underlying atmosphere of the region in which X and Y take place. They’re the French, turned up to eleven; of course they have an otherwise-useless Pokémon based on a poodle whose complicated fur styles act as an esoteric status symbol for his fashion-conscious trainers. It would almost be unrealistic to expect them not to. Furfrou himself is not all that interesting, particularly when you consider that his most unique power is apparently the ability to sit still and be groomed by human hairdressers in a variety of increasingly frivolous ways – I think that needs to be put out there. Kalos’ cultural obsession with him, though, is at least amusing, and apparently goes back centuries, since Furfrou were traditionally used as the bodyguards of the Kalosian monarchy. Honestly I have trouble imagining any of the available styles as appropriately imposing royal bodyguard attire (well, except maybe the Pharaoh…) and am compelled to wonder whether Pyroar might have been a more appropriate choice, though perhaps ancient Furfrou trims were a little more imposing. I think this is probably a reference to Louis XVI, the king who was deposed by the French revolution, who had a particular fondness for poodles and is actually credited with responsibility for the creation of the first miniature breeds. He is unlikely to have used them as bodyguards, although I confess that the mental image of the King of France staring down the Third Estate from behind the protection of a pair of savagely yipping miniature show poodles does fill me with a curious shade of joy. I can find little to like about Furfrou as a Pokémon; he’s really rather generic. He makes a neat cultural fixture though.

The elegant and sophisticated La Reine (pale blue), Kabuki (red) and Pharaoh (deep blue) Furfrou styles. Can you feel the waves of envy washing over you as you behold their beauteous forms?

Despite much anticipation and speculation by players prior to the games’ release, Furfrou’s various trims have no effect whatsoever on his battle qualities: all Furfrou are pretty much the same (in spite of the Pokedex’s groundless assertion that Furfrou become more agile when their fur is kept trimmed). This is rather a shame, because Furfrou could do with some extra tricks, as we’ll see. As a Normal-type, he fights an uphill battle for relevance; having only one weakness is nice, but one immunity and no resistances isn’t exactly ideal for a defensive Pokémon, which is what Furfrou tries to be. This might have made a sensible effect for different trims, actually; give each style one or two associated resistances (or even immunities) to bulk out his somewhat lacklustre resistance profile and allow players to tailor their Furfrou (literally) to the needs of their teams. Jim wants to give Furfrou a ‘Hair Strike’ (like an Air Strike but with hair… or something) attack that shakes off a cloud of loose hairs, which then turn rigid and fly at the target like Jolteon’s Pin Missiles; different coat styles would give the attack different elemental properties. Because of Furfrou’s support predilections, I’m more inclined to want something in the fashion of Secret Power, with constant type and damage but variable secondary effects. Anyway. As it is, Furfrou’s principle assets are high speed, good special defence, and a lovely ability – Fur Coat – that roughly doubles his normally weak defence (just watch out for Mold Breaker Pokémon like Haxorus, who will shred Furfrou’s luxuriant coat like tissue paper… I mean, Haxorus can also do that by, y’know, being Haxorus, but you get the idea). Furfrou’s physical attack stat is passable but no more, so ideally you’re going to need to find one or two solid support options to mix in if you want Furfrou to contribute.

Furfrou’s staple attack will probably be the Normal type’s universal go-to, Return, unless you want to try to flinch-spam stuff to death with Headbutt and Thunder Wave. Sucker Punch is good for getting the drop on really fast Pokémon, and also gives Furfrou something to do against Ghosts, though it can be a trifle inconsistent since it will only work against opponents who are about to use direct attacks. Electric damage is useful but Wild Charge, with its unwelcome recoil, is not a great attack; probably a better option is U-Turn, eternally valuable more for the free switch it entails than for the actual damage it does. Furfrou doesn’t get a lot of support options, but considering that his greatest strength is not dying, we should take a look. He’s one of the few Pokémon with access to Cotton Guard, the most powerful physical defence buff in the game, so if you want to really work with that ability and turn him into a total brick wall, you have the option – it’s not a brilliant option, mind you, since a great physical wall ideally should be able to switch into physical attacks at will, but if you have the opportunity to set up, Furfrou will be damn hard to take down (unless, y’know, something wildly implausible like a critical hit happens). Packing Toxic to capitalise on that survivability might be your best option for actually hurting things – alternatively, carry Thunder Wave to sting the special attackers who will inevitably switch in to bypass Furfrou’s monstrous physical defence. The trouble is that Furfrou doesn’t have any rapid healing moves, so any damage he takes tends to stick. A Rest/Sleep Talk set could be interesting, though status moves tend not to mesh well with those. If you have someone else to set up Stealth Rock and the like on Furfrou’s behalf, Sleep Talk would allow Furfrou to bypass the negative priority of Roar and use his high speed to shuffle opposing Pokémon through your entry hazards without giving them a chance for reprisal. It’s a bit of a ridiculous strategy, is complicated by the fact that Furfrou’s not that fast, and isn’t even a terribly unusual thing to be able to do, but I’m running out of ideas here (and, in fairness, few Pokémon as fast as Furfrou can match his toughness). If you’re feeling particularly brazen you could even try Swagger and trust in Furfrou’s ridiculous hair to protect you from any boosted attacks that get through the confusion effect. This is not a good idea, but again, I’m short of them at the moment.

The divinely fantastical Debutante (cream), Dandy (green) and Matron (purple) styles. Their trainers must be at the very cutting edge of fashion; I am practically orgasmic just being in the presence of such radiant class! Oh. Um... hang on... gotta go get some paper towels...

Furfrou’s special movepool is actually a lot more appealing than his physical movepool, but he just doesn’t have the stats to back it up. A Charge Beam set, including Surf, Dark Pulse and Grass Knot, would allow him to boost up to potentially viable levels and would certainly bring a surprise factor to the battle, but his initial special attacking power is just so lacklustre that it’s hard to see why you’d bother, and it’s also unfortunate that Furfrou has no strong Normal-type special attacks. Snarl is an odd choice, but will lower the target’s special attack as well as doing Dark damage, and might be a good way to take special attackers by surprise if they switch in on you. That’s… honestly about it; I think I’ve covered practically every useful thing Furfrou can do. For a Normal-type, his movepool is almost obscenely small. Perhaps move tutors in the next sixth-generation game will give him a new set of tricks, but I’m not holding my breath…

So that’s Furfrou – a Pokémon who tells us more about Kalos than he does about himself. As walking, breathing accessories go, Furfrou isn’t bad, but he suffers from a severe lack of ability to… like… do things, and that comes through when you try to use him in battle. I have trouble understanding why any self-respecting monarch would pick Furfrou, of all Pokémon, as a bodyguard (other than having a totally unashamed preference for style over function, which… in fairness is probably exactly what the reason was), and that’s a problem here. What makes this Pokémon suited for that, either in the past or today? Does their plethora of classy trims have any connection with this ancient role? Do I even care? No. No I do not. Next!

Litleo and Pyroar

Official art of Litleo by Ken Sugimori.

We should probably talk about these ones next. I didn’t use Litleo for very long, because my Fletchling unexpectedly evolved into a Fire-type and I didn’t want two of them. Still, I had one on my party for a little while, and I feel like I got to know her, so it makes sense. So, these Pokémon are lions. I am notoriously ill-disposed to Pokémon that are just animals, because I want more. Granted, of course, these are lions that breathe fire, but hey, Beartic is a polar bear that shoots icicles and just look how well I got along with him. That was three years ago, though; I’m being nice now. Well… okay, ‘nice’ is a bit much. I’m being marginally less irritable now. Let’s give these two a shot and see what I can make of them.

So let’s start with the obvious: gender differences. Pyroar is one of only two Pokémon in X and Y with major sexual dimorphism, the other being Meowstic. In Pyroar’s case, it obviously mimics one of the most famous and recognisable examples of sexual dimorphism in the real world: lions have manes, lionesses don’t (although female Pyroar get that long flowing crest so that they don’t seem too boring). Sort of an predictable choice for a lion Pokémon, but major gender differences are something that Pokémon underexploits, so I’m hardly going to complain about seeing more of it. The way the pattern of red-and-yellow stripes on a male Pyroar’s mane recalls the distinctive shape of a Fire Blast attack – the Japanese symbol for “large” or “great” – is also a nice touch. The divergences between male and female Pyroar also come through in their behaviour, which is nice – you can compare Nidoking and Nidoqueen, or contrast Jellicent and Unfezant, who draw attention to gender but don’t make much of it. Male Pyroar, specifically the male with the most impressive mane, are said to be the leaders of their prides, which obviously draws on the male leadership of real leonine social structure. It’s also worth noting that only ¼ of all Pyroar are male, reflecting the composition of real prides, which will generally include only 1-2 males and perhaps 5-6 females. Interestingly the Pokédex chooses to emphasise the females’ role in raising cubs, when in fact real lionesses are generally responsible for hunting (something for which the stronger but slower males are less suited) and tend to leave the males to protect the cubs in their absence; otherwise the males and females are equally involved. I suspect the reversal comes from the fact that the activity of raising children tends to be gendered ‘female’ in most human societies, while hunting is more likely to be gendered ‘male,’ and the designers attributed a standard feminine activity to female Pyroar without thinking about what lions actually do. It’s a little disappointing that Pyroar should be made to conform to human gender stereotypes in this way when there exists such an obvious reason for them not to (I always thought the role of lionesses in literally bringing home the bacon was fairly well-known, but perhaps not…).

A lion and a lioness.

Litleo and Pyroar don’t subdue prey with claws, teeth, and brute strength like real world lions – why bother with any of that when you can breath fire? Probably because of the sunburst shape of the males’ manes, there’s a long-standing association between lions and solar imagery going back to the Near Eastern Bronze Age, which male Pyroar are happy to accentuate. That does make Fire something of an obvious choice, granted, but not as obvious as Ice on a polar bear. I sort of wish they had played up the solar idea a bit, maybe with a sun-related ability (goodness knows none of Pyroar’s current abilities would be missed). Another critical aspect of what these Pokémon are about is also drawn from real lions – their roar. Lions roar; aside from the males’ glorious manes, their fearsome roar is probably the most iconic thing about them (for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, think of the crest and motto of House Lannister: respectively, a golden lion and the phrase “Hear Me Roar”), and Litleo and Pyroar have two skills related to that: the relatively rare Hyper Voice attack, and their signature move, Noble Roar. This, I think, is the reason they’re Normal dual-types and not straight Fire, which would otherwise make just as much sense; they rely as much on their explosive vocal range as on their fire, and sonic abilities remain among the ‘miscellaneous’ powers still associated with the Normal type (compare Jigglypuff, who became Fairy/Normal in X and Y while Clefairy is now pure Fairy).

The other interesting thing about Pyroar is that the male seems almost made to be Lysandre’s signature Pokémon (and Lysandre is, to my recollection, the only NPC in the game who uses a male one): the bright red mane is reminiscent of Lysandre’s extravagant hairdo, the species designation “the Royal Pokémon” matches Lysandre’s royal Kalosian heritage, lions are a common symbol in Mediaeval heraldry, perhaps furthering the ‘royal’ associations, and they are traditionally associated with pride (to the point that the word even became the collective noun for a group of them), which is probably Lysandre’s most significant flaw – the pride that led him to believe he had the right, indeed the duty, to decide who would live and who would die all around the world. Even the fire abilities recall the name of Lysandre’s organisation, and Lysandre himself is regularly described metaphorically as ‘burning’ with passion. This wouldn’t be the first time a human character has taken certain cues from a Pokémon – Wake’s lucha mask is modeled on a Swampert (though he doesn’t actually have a Swampert, in any of his incarnations), Chilli, Cilan and Cress match the distinctive hairstyles of Simisear, Simisage and Simipour, Alder’s hair seems to be styled after Volcarona, and I believe Gardevoir inspired Diantha’s dress. The intended implication may be that Pyroar was Lysandre’s first Pokémon (Gyarados is now his strongest, but seriously what kind of troll Professor starts a kid off with a Magikarp?) and the one with whom he has the deepest relationship. Can you push that even further? Maybe – Pyroar’s ‘royal’ designation might come from being a traditional starter Pokémon given to children of the Kalosian monarchy, and even today given to their descendants.

Male Pyroar, with his distinctive mane.

Pyroar seems intended to serve as a special sweeper. Although her defences are poor and her physical attacks not worth the effort, she’s very fast, and her special attacks pack quite a punch. Defensively, Normal/Fire is a mixed bag – six resistances (including Fire, Ice and Fairy) and a Ghost immunity (something which is shaping up to be quite valuable in this generation) are nothing to sniff at, but Pyroar’s four weaknesses are all to powerful and common offensive types: Ground, Rock, Fighting and Water. Offensively, though, Fire Blast and Hyper Voice are a pretty solid combination, even if they leave her in a bit of trouble against most Rock-types. The neat thing about Hyper Voice is that sound-based attacks have been improved in X and Y and can now bypass Substitute, which makes Pyroar very dangerous to certain Pokémon who rely on Substitutes to stall for time. Beyond that, options are sadly limited – there’s Dark Pulse on the side, and if you’re planning a sun team, Solarbeam is an option, though bear in mind that weather in general is substantially weaker now that the effects of Drought et al. have limited durations. The usual package of alternate Fire moves is available – Flamethrower for greater reliability and Overheat for single-shot power. Other than that, you’re probably looking at either Hidden Power or a support move for the final slot. Hidden Power is easier to use now, since its power rating is always 60 rather than randomly determined for each individual. A Grass-type Hidden Power is probably the best complement to Pyroar’s main attacks, if you can get it, but a move with 60 power is not exactly a brilliant deal. The signature move, Noble Roar, seems like more of a flavour thing than something that would be especially useful in battle – it reduces the target’s attack and special attack, which is irritating, but can be shaken off by switching out and won’t protect Pyroar from critical hits. The nice thing about Noble Roar is that it’s good for catching Pokémon as they switch in, since it doesn’t matter whether the target favours special or physical attacks. Still, it might be better suited to a somewhat tougher Pokémon. Burning incoming opponents with Will’o’Wisp is probably a better option if you’re looking to give Pyroar stronger defensive capabilities. Yawn could also be interesting; most people will switch out after being hit by Yawn rather than let a Pokémon fall asleep the next turn, so that could be good for keeping Pyroar’s most dangerous opponents off her back. Finally, she’s fast enough to make good use of Taunt, and can more effectively break defensive Pokémon that way by denying them access to their support moves.

Female Pyroar, with her impressive crest.

None of Pyroar’s abilities are much use, sadly. Rivalry gives a damage bonus against Pokémon of the same gender, but a corresponding penalty against Pokémon of the opposite gender – certainly flavour-appropriate for a Pokémon with strong gender differentiation, but too unpredictable to plan strategies around, since there’s no way to know the gender of Pokémon you’ll be facing ahead of time. Moxie is an attack boost every time you knock out an opponent – great, except Pyroar doesn’t use physical attacks. If for some reason you do want to focus on Pyroar’s physical side, well, get used to disappointment, because her strongest physical Fire-type attack is Fire Fang, and her coverage options basically extend to Crunch and Wild Charge. Flame Charge lets you do damage while increasing your speed, and is generally a good secondary attack, but speed isn’t really high on Pyroar’s list of concerns anyway. Her final ability, Unnerve, prevents opponents from eating berries. Whoop-dee-f*cking-doo. In short, Normal/Fire is actually pretty solid and Pyroar certainly has the stats to back it up, but she’s just not a versatile Pokémon, and her lack of relevant, useful abilities makes it difficult for her to sparkle.

I think overall I lean a little on the ‘meh’ side with Pyroar. On reflection I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with her; as far as the whole ‘being a lion’ thing goes, she does a solid job, and the focus on her roar as a weapon makes sense with the design while giving her a pretty good combination of primary attacks. I come away from this one feeling like there’s room for more, though. Playing up the royalty aspect somehow might have been more interesting, and Pyroar would be an excellent Pokémon to give a sun motif and solar abilities, which would also make a good combination with a royal theme, particularly in Kalos (given the presence in the background of Louis XIV, the ‘sun king,’ as a historical model for the Kalosian monarchy and the Parfum Palace). Drawing on the heraldic associations of lions, maybe going for a more stylised look, might be a good way of doing that. I like Pyroar well enough, particularly the female form which makes an effort to match the male form in overall majesty while still creating a very different impression of her nature, but I feel just a little underwhelmed.

Flabébé, Floette and Florges

Official art of Flabébé by Ken Sugimori.

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: I have no idea how to pronounce this Pokémon’s name. Under standard French orthography, Florges would be pronounced… Florj? That doesn’t sound right. Florjé? Florjéz? Florjis? Florghés? I don’t know; just imagine me mispronouncing it in the most ludicrous way you can think of whenever I type the name. Flogress… Florgos… Florg…

Anyway. Flabébé. When I first met this Pokémon I assumed she was a Grass/Fairy dual-type, which I don’t think is unreasonable given the dominance of flowers in her design and their importance to her lifestyle. Actually, I still have trouble believing she’s not a Grass-type, seeing as most of her level-up moves are Grass attacks, and her offensive movepool certainly seems to have fallen prey to the curse of Grass-Types Don’t Get Nice Things. Flabébé, Floette and Florges probably come closest to emulating Xerneas’ conception of the Fairy type, which sees them as guardians of nature and nurturers of life, but in this case specifically of flowering plants. Flabébé and Floette possess symbiotic relationships with single flowers, which they keep for their entire lives, presumably using their Fairy powers to keep them from wilting and dying. There’s a minor little gimmick here which is not particularly interesting but deserves to be mentioned; their flowers come in different colours – red, white, orange, yellow, and blue – with certain colours being more or less common in different flower beds, Flabébé’s natural habitat. The colour carries through when she evolves into Floette, and then Florges. All three stages are said to draw energy from blooming flowers specifically, which may be the key to why they’re not Grass-types, thematically speaking; their powers are drawn not from plants as such, but from the beauty of plants, flowers in particular, and may be related to the symbolic meanings of different types of flowers. I’m not sure whether beauty and the appreciation of beauty are attributes of the Fairy type, but they certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent with it, so perhaps that’s what Flabébé gets out of the deal. Or at least, that’s the spin I’d put on it if I were Game Freak.

Floette.

Florges becomes something quite rare and interesting – a Pokémon who actually manipulates terrain type, creating beautiful flower gardens for her territory, and even being invited by humans to do the same for grand estates and castles. Notice the verb, “invite,” which is exactly what the Pokédex says; what’s happening here is being glossed in very different terms to a trainer/Pokémon relationship. It seems like we’re being told about wild Florges being asked (contracted, even?) to perform specific services for human nobles, possibly before the invention of Pokéballs (“in times long past”). One might ask what the Florges gets out of it, and the simplest answer seems to be that she would be permitted to live in the garden indefinitely, providing her and any family members with a long-term home that would be isolated from most predators – this makes sense with the idea that Florges are “invited;” they normally want to create gardens anyway, independent of any human incentive, and there is a mutual benefit to having them do it in a specific place. My over-active imagination, however, can’t help but wander to the idea of particularly skilled and powerful Florges gaining a reputation for truly fantastical flower gardens and travelling from one great estate to another in order to practice her art and receive pampering, adulation and luxuries in return (I am rather fond of the idea of Pokémon just doing their own thing in the world of humans). Either of these views of Florges is particularly appropriate to Kalos, with its major background theme of the excessive wealth and luxury of the old aristocracy that alludes to the proverbial decadence of the French ancien régime. This Pokémon, to me, represents what Kalos itself is all about: precise, studied expressions of elegance that nurture and exalt natural beauty through the imposition of order.

AZ's Floette, the Eternal Flower. In addition to her unusual flower, this Floette is also shiny (note the purple body).

Given that, perhaps it’s fitting that one particular Floette gets to play a critical role in the backstory of X and Y: AZ’s Floette, instantly recognisable by her unique black tulip-like flower whose shape seems to have provided the model for AZ’s Ultimate Weapon. This Floette, who answers to “The Eternal Flower,” fought and died for AZ in the war against his brother and was subsequently resurrected, at the cost of several hundred other Pokémon’s lives, using the Ultimate Weapon. This puts her right at the centre of the game’s primary conflict of change and stasis (AZ’s refusal to let go of what he had lost eventually brought ruin to Kalos), which also has relevance to Floette’s nature as a Pokémon who preserves and enhances beauty through order. What AZ did, and what Lysandre wanted to do, are ultimately an extension of what Flabébé, Floette and Florges do throughout their lives: preventing what is beautiful about the world from fading and dying. As always in Pokémon, the villains are villains because they take it too far, and because they believe that the ends justify the means – something Floette cannot accept, which is why she abandons AZ. We know from those talented people who specialise in hacking Pokémon games that AZ’s Floette likely to be available to players at some point through an event, because she has her own stats, completely different to a regular Floette or Florges’ – she’s a fast special attacker – and even her own signature move: Light of Ruin. This move seems to be, effectively, a special Fairy-type equivalent to Head Smash (complete with that painful 50% recoil), and narrowly edges out Xerneas’ Fairy Aura-boosted Moonblast as the most powerful Fairy attack in the game. It seems likely that this move draws on whatever power was imparted to Floette by the Ultimate Weapon to make her immortal, a power encompassing both life and death – the heavy cost of using it serves as an ever-present reminder that the weapon has always been a double-edged sword.

Florges.

A normal, fully-evolved Florges is a very different Pokémon to AZ’s Floette. Her greatest strength, instead, is her monumental special defence. Being a pure Fairy-type doesn’t hurt either, since they have a pretty cushy deal with three resistances and an immunity (to, need I remind you, Dragon) against only two weaknesses. Her HP and physical defence are relatively poor, though, so either invest heavily in both or keep her far away from physical attackers; this fair maiden is without question a special wall and a supporter. Florges seems designed to function best in double or triple battles, with two unique abilities and a very rare move which all benefit her allies – if she actually were a Grass-type, two of them would benefit her as well and make her much stronger, but she’s not and they don’t. First, the move: Flower Shield raises the defence of all Grass Pokémon in play, meaning it’s useless in a single battle, and even in a triple battle with two Grass-type allies (which is just asking for a Sludge Wave to the face) it’s questionable. This technique really makes a lot more sense on Cherrim, who also learns it. Florges’ first ability, Flower Veil, is likewise nothing special; it prevents allied Grass Pokémon from having their stats lowered, which basically amounts to granting an ally the Clear Body ability (and before you ask, no, it doesn’t negate Leaf Storm recoil). I really have to question whether it would have been so bad to let Florges benefit from this as well. The hidden ability – Symbiosis – may actually be interesting. Again, it can only be useful in a double or triple battle: if one of Florges’ allies consumes an item (including through the use of Fling or Natural Gift), she will pass her own item to that Pokémon instead. Being able to transfer items to a partner without spending a moveslot and a turn on something like Trick or Bestow is such a unique thing to be able to do that it seems like it would have to be useful somehow, but I’m at a loss as to how exactly that might be. Perhaps using a Toxic Orb to activate Poison Heal on Gliscor, Flinging it away, and then replacing it with a Life Orb? Or something similar to get Leftovers on a Guts Pokémon to help compensate for burn damage? Once elemental Gems are available on X and Y, maybe they could be combined with Choice Specs or a Choice Band for a single, enormously powerful attack (since the Gem is consumed before the attack, and the new item is transferred immediately)? I leave this as a puzzle for those more ingenious than myself.

Florges' other colours - orange, yellow, blue and white - on parade.

While Florges’ special attack pales in comparison to her special defence, it’s actually really high as well. She also gets a strong offensive type and a powerful primary attack, Moonblast, which will leave a hell of a sting on anything that takes her for set-up bait. There’s even the option of Calm Mind if you want to make a bulky attacker-style Florges. Unfortunately, other than Moonblast her offensive movepool is awful. She only learns Grass attacks, which do almost nothing to supplement Fairy attacks (all the types that resist Fairy resist Grass as well), and Psychic, which is at least good for Poison-types. It’s pretty clear that Florges isn’t supposed to be an attacker anyway, so consider Psychic, but focus mainly on her support skills – she has plenty to choose from. Wish and Aromatherapy can be used to heal the team of both regular injuries and status ailments (you’ll need train Florges’ HP heavily to get the most out of Wish, but you should probably do that anyway). She learns both Grassy Terrain and Misty Terrain, the new Grass- and Fairy-themed field moves, both of which are fairly exclusive (and she happens to be the only non-Grass-type to learn Grassy Terrain). Light Screen rounds out her options – Florges herself would benefit much more from Reflect, which she doesn’t get, but team support is always good. I’d hesitate to call her a great support Pokémon, but she can take most any special attack that isn’t super-effective and some that are, hit back with a very strong attack that relatively few Pokémon resist, and heal the team while she’s out. Although her abilities may be useless in a single battle (and not even all that exciting in doubles, to be honest), she has everything she needs to contribute to her team.

Florges has her shortcomings, but she’s good at what she does, and I think the important thing about this line is that they can, in a way, be seen as mascots for the entire Kalos region. What they do and what they value in their regular lives have special significance in the context of the plot of X and Y, making Floette a perfect choice for the starring role she has in AZ’s story. I might still think they would make more sense as Grass-types, and I might wish they had an ability choice that’s actually useful in a single battle, but I wish for things I can’t have for almost every Pokémon. This one (as anime Bonnie would say) is a keeper.

Fletchling, Fletchinder and Talonflame

Official art of Fletchling by Ken Sugimori.

I didn’t do the Unova Pokédex in order, and I’m not going to do Kalos in order either (more for variety than anything else). I’m planning to start with Central Kalos, then the Coastal Pokémon, and then the Mountain areas, but beyond that, I’m just going to play it by ear – starting today with the second Kalosian Pokémon to join my main party, Fletchling. For obvious reasons, Fletchling didn’t exactly move me to excitement when I first met him: “oh, here we go again; another Normal/Flying fast physical songbird-to-raptor progression with wind powers and no other remarkable traits to eat the local obligatory caterpillar.” One of the things I was particularly interested in decrying with my Unova reviews – something I’m still very easily annoyed by – is ‘template’ Pokémon, Pokémon who start not with an actual idea but with a principle that every game ‘should’ have a sequel to Pidgey, or Caterpie, or Pikachu. It’s lazy, it’s boring, and most of all, it doesn’t actually provide any benefit. There is nothing about these templates that makes the game better, except maybe that they provide an easy introduction to the concept that some Pokémon are just bad. Part of the reason I’ve always been so irascible about these things is that, although all generations have them, Unova was particularly obnoxious about it, needing stand-ins for things like Geodude and Machop in addition to the usual suspects, which made the absence of any older Pokémon feel like nothing so much as an irritating charade. Kalos is something else. Kalos has the templates, but it tries much harder than previous generations to play with them. On principle, we ‘needed’ a Normal/Flying songbird Pokémon for the early game – so Kalos decided to make one that was as badass as possible.

It’s a simple idea, really. Take the standard songbird-to-raptor pattern, and set it on fire. What could possibly go wrong?

Fletchinder.

The question here is, how far does a different type go? Fletchling, Fletchinder and Talonflame still share a lot of traits with Pidgeot et al. – does the fact that they also have fire powers make that okay? And what does that say about how we look at elements in Pokémon? Most Pokémon have supernatural powers of one sort or another, and as I’ve recently discussed, it is to an extent the powers that make the Pokémon, but if the essence of Pokémon design is just giving elemental traits to an animal, the Normal-types who mostly lack such traits are damned from the start. Part of designing these things is matching up the powers to the creature in a clever way. Birds with wind powers are very straightforward as Pokémon go, since wind and flight ‘go together’ intuitively, while birds with fire powers are a little more interesting, and Talonflame doesn’t just take the obvious phoenix angle, which Moltres and Ho-oh have already done to death anyway. On the other hand, what makes attaching fire-related abilities to a falcon particularly insightful? The most interesting Fire Pokémon aren’t just “this animal, but on fire;” they’re ones that play with the idea of fire, either by combining it with another element (like Magcargo, whose body of lava hardens into a stone shell, or Chandelure, whose ghostly lights lead wanderers into another world), or by focusing on an unusual aspect of fire (like Torkoal, who mines and burns coal for energy). If I like Fletchling and his evolutions, then I’m going to have to dig a little deeper than “new type” – I need to find the flourishes. Let’s have a look at them.

The hoopoe, the bird Fletchinder reminds me of (it helps that I named my Fletchling, Tereus, after a mythical Greek king who gets turned into a hoopoe).

Fletchling, obviously enough, is a robin, while Talonflame has made the transition to peregrine falcon, while keeping the distinctive red colouring of his juvenile form that also evokes his fire powers. There doesn’t seem to be any consensus on exactly what Fletchinder is, but he reminds me very much of the hoopoe, a medium-sized bird common throughout most of Eurasia who shares the red colouring of his head, as well as the striking black-and-white striped pattern of Fletchinder’s tail. The hoopoe is also a larger and more powerful bird than a robin, but not a major predator like a falcon, so he’d be a sensible intermediate. All three stages incorporate arrows into the design as well, in the form of the distinctive shape and stripes of their tails, like the fletching of an arrow – perhaps making their beaks serve metaphorically as the arrowheads. The swept-back posture of Talonflame’s wings in the official art might even be meant to recall the shape of a bow, with an ‘arrow’ nocked and ready to fire, formed by the line from his beak to his tail… but maybe that’s getting a little far-fetched. The famed 310 kilometer per hour dive of the peregrine falcon (which Talonflame insistently one-ups, at 310 miles per hour) is reminiscent of a falling arrow too, particularly in its effects on the health of whatever stands at its destination. As generic bird Pokémon go, this is already quite a good one, without even mentioning the fact that it’s on fire. What’s more, Fletchinder and Talonflame’s fire powers do relate in some ways to the rest of their design, adding a little depth to them. Fletchinder supposedly flies faster the hotter his fire burns, for instance (linking the Fire and Flying elements, the way I talked about with Chesnaught), which makes a good tie-in to the presence of Flame Charge on his level-up set. The assumption of fire abilities as the Pokémon ages could also be linked to his taking on a more predatory ecological niche as he becomes more powerful, and indeed Fletchinder hunts by starting fires to drive his prey out of hiding. Flaming arrows, of course, were also a staple of a wide variety of ancient and Mediaeval armies, so giving fire to a Pokémon whose name and appearance are intended to evoke arrows makes good sense. I actually would have liked to see a greater focus on the arrow motif, which is neglected in the English and French translations of Talonflame’s name, because that’s one of the cleverest things in terms of tying the whole design together. In balance, though, I think it works. Talonflame is far from a masterful Pokémon, but I can certainly appreciate the effort to do something unexpected with a highly standardised form, in a manner which integrates the new and different features with the common traits of the traditional early-game Flying-type.

Talonflame.

Another common thread with Pokémon from the Pidgeot mould is that they are not normally very powerful. Staraptor excepted, none of Talonflame’s predecessors have ever been important Pokémon for the competitive scene, though Swellow is a persistent dark horse. The difficult thing about Talonflame, of course, is the double-weakness to Rock associated with his otherwise strong Fire/Flying type combination, because Stealth Rock is showing every sign of continuing to be a thing. Like all Pokémon with this trait, Talonflame needs diligent Rapid Spin support to keep him from dying painfully, and also needs something pretty special to make him worth that support. Good news: he’s got an amazing hidden ability. I don’t want to knock Flame Body, because the combination of Flame Body and Fly makes Talonflame one of the best solo Pokémon to keep with you while hatching groups of eggs, like Volcarona on Black and White (Flame Body causes eggs in your party to gestate at twice their normal rate), but Gale Wings is where it’s at. This ability gives all of Talonflame’s Flying-type attacks priority, which means, combined with his already excellent speed, that almost nothing will ever be able to outrun his devastating Brave Bird attack – he can beat higher base speed, he can beat Choice Scarves, he can beat Agility, and he doesn’t even care if you paralyse him (but he can’t beat Extremespeed, so watch out for that). In flavour terms it’s an odd ability because Talonflame doesn’t really have wind powers (‘Gale Wings’ sounds like something Pidgeot should get), but it also happens to make him one of the game’s best revenge killers – Pokémon whose job is to take advantage of the free switch you get after losing a Pokémon to come in and destroy a powerful aggressor – as well as just a frightening thing to face in general. Flare Blitz provides a secondary attack just as powerful which turns out to combine quite well with Brave Bird; stay away from Rock-types, Heatran, Lanturn, certain legendary Pokémon you shouldn’t be tangling with anyway, and toasters, and you’re golden (you can always take Steel Wing for the Rock-types, but the low power combined with Talonflame’s merely average attack score may disappoint). Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Talonflame still enjoys the one really spectacular feature shared by most bird Pokémon: U-Turn, which has been called ‘the best move in the game’ for allowing a player to postpone a switch until after seeing whether the opponent will switch that turn, and even doing damage into the bargain.

Pidgeot actually gained +10 base speed in X and Y. Pretty sure it hasn't helped. I'm holding out for Mega Pidgeot, though.

So, what’s the bad news? Talonflame’s other stats are mediocre all around; his attacks lack punch by the standards of offensive Pokémon, and he’s not tough either. However, these failings are not as significant for Talonflame as they are for most of his ancestors. The ease with which Talonflame can outrun his foes using Gale Wings, for instance, means that he doesn’t actually need the maximum possible training investment in his speed, and can afford to spend more time shoring up his defences than most offensive Pokémon (focusing on HP will make Flare Blitz and Brave Bird recoil sting less too). Furthermore, it’s worth bearing in mind that Roost enjoys Gale Wings priority too! This bird can be much tougher than his mediocre defensive stats suggest. He also has options to boost his own attack power – Bulk Up and Swords Dance – which Pokémon like Unfezant, Pidgeot and even Staraptor lacked. Talonflame really has to work for his power, though; a Choice Band makes Roost infeasible, and Life Orb recoil takes too heavy a toll when combined with Brave Bird and Flare Blitz, so things like a Sharp Beak, Expert Belt or Muscle Band will often have to do, supplemented by Swords Dance and the naturally high power of Talonflame’s main attacks. Remember that his attack stat is only average, and make sure you look for opportunities for him to switch in and scare something away for a free set-up turn. Other options… well, Taunt could be neat, to make Talonflame into a total nightmare for defensive and set-up Pokémon, especially with Roost to back him up in a more drawn-out fight, and Will’o’Wisp is weird on such an aggressive attacker but between the attack penalty from a burn and a potential Bulk Up boost Talonflame would actually be pretty hard for a physical attacker to take down. Talonflame’s special attack is actually not far off his attack, but sadly his special movepool sucks – it’s pretty much just Fire attacks plus Solarbeam and, critically, no special Flying attacks to spam with Gale Wings. In short, don’t go there. Finally, and bizarrely, Talonflame is said to prefer devastating kicks when striking finishing blows against its prey – bizarrely because Talonflame has no kicking attacks. A line like that seems tailored specifically to justify the inclusion of Blaze Kick on Talonflame’s level-up list, but the move fails to make an appearance, an odd lack of nuance for an otherwise quite carefully put-together Pokémon.

Talonflame’s effective movepool isn’t really very wide – basically everything he can do is variations on the theme of Gale Wings abuse – so finding something for your team that can take at least two of those Brave Birds and hit back is the key here. He’s not a subtle Pokémon, which makes sense for a bird of prey based on a flaming arrow, but he knows what he does, and he does it well. Talonflame makes me optimistic for the future. I feel like Game Freak is trying to say “we’re sorry for all the $#!t birds. We’ll make better ones in future, and we’ll even make them more than just birds! See?” Now, if only poor Pidgeot got Gale Wings, maybe he could feel slightly less miserable about himself…

Chespin, Quilladin and Chesnaught

All right; let’s get this catastrophic $#!t-show on the road. Grass-type starter time!

Official art of Chespin by Ken Sugimori.

Since I have shown no signs at all of becoming even slightly less infatuated with the Grass type in the three years since I started this blog, selecting Chespin as my starter was something of a foregone conclusion. The little tyke eventually found himself overshadowed in my affections by the return of my one true love, Bulbasaur, but he nonetheless remained a faithful companion throughout my playthrough of X version and has always been ready to pull his weight. Where else to begin but with my first Kalosian Pokémon?

I begin with the Kalos Pokédex’s inaugural silly quote. “Such a thick shell of wood covers [Chespin’s] head and back,” it faithfully explains, “that even a direct hit from a truck wouldn’t faze it.” It is unlikely anyone will ever attempt to test this claim, Chespin being as adorable as he is, so we shall probably have to take the Pokédex’s word for it, but his sturdy spiked ‘helmet’ should at least afford solid protection from threats his own size. I am a little readier to believe it of the human-sized Chesnaught, his final evolutionary stage – a bulky creature of uncertain mammalian extraction with a spiked tortoiseshell-like structure (presumably wood again) covering his back and shoulders, and spiny ‘gauntlets’ protecting the outsides of his forearms. This guy’s shoulder-barges would surely be lethal. So, Chespin nails ‘cute’ and Chesnaught nails ‘tough’ (particularly with the ‘come at me’ pose he adopts in both the official art and his battle stance), but as is often the case with Pokémon who have to make this transition, Quilladin is caught in a strange middle ground between the two; he seems to go for a little of both, mixed with a side of ‘impish.’ His long, pointed nose, the tuft of hair on his forehead, and his round sparkling eyes, together with his nigh-spherical body shape, all give me the disconcerting impression that Crash Bandicoot has seriously let himself go, and is disguising himself as a cactus to hide his shame and start building a new identity. In some ways he doesn’t seem to fit smoothly as an intermediate between Chespin and Chesnaught; he’s more rotund than either of them, with short, stocky arms and legs, and the transition from Chespin’s helmet to Quilladin’s all-over body armour seems to go backwards again with Chesnaught, who seems to be more reliant on his tortoiseshell plate and armoured forearms. None of that messes with the things I really like about these designs, though.

Quilladin.

The inspiration for these designs is the spiny outer shell of the chestnut. Nuts, berries and fruit have been underexploited by Grass Pokémon designs in the past, and chestnuts are distinctive and appropriate for a physical tank Pokémon. There may even be a cultural allusion in play, to the horse chestnuts or ‘conkers’ beloved of British schoolchildren in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries – in traditional schoolyard games, the hard nuts are hung from strings and smashed together until the weaker one cracks and must be discarded, with veteran conkers that survive multiple such battles being especially prized (Roald Dahl gives a characteristically whimsical account of the game and its strategies in the book My Year). Only the nuts themselves are used in the game, without the tougher but softer skins, but the nature of the game is so appropriate to Chespin’s physical bruiser battling style, as well as the habit Quilladin have of tackling each other in order to build their strength, that I can’t help but suspect a reference. Chespin’s ‘helmet’ also resembles the tough, warty outer skin of the horse chestnut more closely than that of a true chestnut, with its dense thicket of bristly, almost needle-like spines. What I particularly like about the way Chespin and his evolutions use chestnuts is that it ties together the Grass and Fighting elements. They aren’t ‘chestnut Pokémon’ although that could very easily have been a workable starting point, since there are basically two ways to do a Grass Pokémon: ‘plant creature’ and ‘animal with plant characteristics,’ all Grass starters being the latter. The Grass-type aspect of the design comes through in Chespin’s ‘helmet,’ Quilladin’s ‘armour,’ Chesnaught’s tortoiseshell plate, and their thorn shield signature move, which are also the things that convey their similarity to a human warrior or knight – in other words, the things that make them Grass-types are also the things that make Chesnaught a Fighting-type. The combination of the two elements isn’t superficial; they work together. It’s not always easy to make that happen, but I’m always fond of Pokémon who manage to pull it off.

True chestnuts on the left; horse chestnuts on the right. Chespin and his evolutions, to me, are more of the latter.

Chesnaught handles in a similar manner to Torterra in battle, being a slow physical tank. Probably his biggest problem is that he has rather a lot of weaknesses for a slow, defensive Pokémon, including a dangerous double-weakness to Flying attacks, but he does resist the powerful and popular Earthquake/Stone Edge combination, so it’s not all bad. His biggest strength is the high power of his staple attacks, combined with a small but useful support movepool to keep opponents guessing. His strongest Grass attack is Wood Hammer, which retains its 120 power rating in a generation where many of the strongest attacks in the game are being toned down; the recoil hurts, though, and doesn’t mesh well with the standard Grass-type ability Overgrow (because once you’re injured enough for the Grass-type damage boost to kick in, one or two more Wood Hammers have a good chance of dropping you), so Seed Bomb is also an option depending on what exactly you want to do with him. Most Fighting-types have a wide selection of Fighting-type moves, but Chesnaught really only has two worth speaking of: Hammer Arm, which sacrifices speed for power (not that Chesnaught cares much about speed anyway) and Power-Up Punch, one of X and Y’s new moves, which boosts attack with every use (potentially a worthwhile choice for a more defensive Chesnaught who can afford to hang around for a couple of turns). Grass with Fighting is not a particularly strong combination offensively – well, okay, let’s be fair, Grass with just about anything is not a particularly strong combination offensively, but Grass with Rock is one of the less bad ones, and Chesnaught can do that too, with Stone Edge. Stone Edge is also important to make it a little bit harder for Flying Pokémon to walk all over him. On the support side, there are basically two moves you can build sets around: Leech Seed, the eternal Grass-type favourite which also works well with Chesnaught’s signature move, discussed below, and Spikes, which is just universally useful. Bulk Up and Swords Dance are both viable ways of increasing Chesnaught’s offensive presence, since he’s tough enough to take a neutral attack while setting up and scary enough to force some Pokémon to retreat. Don’t count on a sweep, though; Chesnaught is just too slow.

Chesnaught.

All three Kalos starters have been blessed with a signature move to emphasise what is unique in their styles of fighting, and Chesnaught’s is Spiky Shield. In mechanical terms, this thing is pretty neat. It’s strictly an improvement over Protect, the standard option available to most Pokémon for blocking an incoming attack to stall for time; the advantage to Spiky Shield is that it additionally deals a small amount of damage if it blocks a ‘contact’ attack. It’s a shame Spiky Shield damage can’t be stacked with the similar effect of a Rocky Helmet, because that would make Chesnaught a seriously daunting proposition for most physical attackers – perhaps not to the same extent as Ferrothorn, who can stack Rocky Helmet with his Iron Barbs ability, but then again, Ferrothorn actually has to take damage to cause recoil while Chesnaught doesn’t, so maybe that would have been too much ‘something for nothing.’ Besides, Protect is hardly a bad technique, particularly for Grass Pokémon who can use it to stall for damage and healing with Leech Seed, or in double battles where a Pokémon can potentially take two attacks in one turn, and Spiky Shield is, again, unambiguously better than Protect.

Some more typical users of Pain Split: Misdreavus, Litwick and Koffing.

Finally, you have two options for healing, besides Leech Seed. Synthesis is the one you should use if you’re serious, because the sixth generation’s nerfing of Drizzle, Sand Stream and Snow Warning makes it much more likely you’ll be able to use the technique unobstructed. I want to talk about Pain Split, though, because Pain Split is interesting from a flavour perspective. Most of the Pokémon who learn Pain Split are Ghost- or Psychic-types, and of those who aren’t, most are in the Amorphous egg group and lack clearly defined anatomy, like Weezing and Swalot (even when it was available more widely, via move tutor, it was most prevalent among Pokémon with overtly magical powers or indistinct anatomy). It seems to be implied that the attack normally functions on the literal sharing of pain with the opponent, usually through supernatural means, which makes it odd that Chesnaught can learn it at all, let alone as a level-up move. Probably the intention here is to stress the retributive nature of Chesnaught’s defences, in line with Spiky Shield; the Pokédex is adamant that these Pokémon don’t start fights, but are happy to finish them. This could possibly be pushed even further by suggesting that, since Pain Split is regularly associated with Pokémon who have mental powers, Chesnaught’s ability to use it stems from a deeply and firmly held belief in ‘eye-for-an-eye’-style justice.

Chesnaught also has an odd signature ability, Bulletproof, the in-game manifestation of his supposed ability to withstand bomb blasts, which grants total immunity to a select list of ball-, bomb- and bullet-themed attacks. The most important of these are probably Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb (which is super-effective against Chesnaught and more popular now that Poison attacks are strong against Fairy-types), Focus Blast and Aura Sphere, and to a lesser extent Seed Bomb, Energy Ball and Electro Ball (which Chesnaught resists anyway) and Gyro Ball (which does more damage to faster Pokémon, something Chesnaught is most definitely not). Most of the others are either too weak or too rare to be major sources of concern. Probably the main draw of this ability is that it makes him an unorthodox and somewhat risky but very interesting answer to Gengar, who relies heavily on Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball and Focus Blast. Aura Sphere immunity also makes him a good possible response to Clawitzer and Mega Blastoise – just watch out for Ice Beam – as well as special Lucario (though Lucario is more commonly a physical attacker).

In summary, then, Chespin and his evolutions have a pleasing design that take inspiration from an unusual place, and their most unique powers support that design well and create consistent characterisation. They also combine Grass/Fighting more fluidly than the other representatives of that pair, Breloom and Virizion (though Breloom, it should be noted, is a kick-boxing dinosaur). If I have complaints, they are mainly with Quilladin’s odd aesthetics – he could stand to be slimmed down, with more emphasis on his spines and perhaps more elaborate ‘armour’ to anticipate Chesnaught’s grand tortoiseshell plate – and with the more general problem that Grass is just a bad type and probably always will be. That’s a complaint for another day, though…