Tag: Krakentoa

Mr. F asks:

So there are octopus, squid, and ammonite Pokemon. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a cuttlefish to complete the bunch? Maybe a vampyroteuthis as well? Perhaps even a nautilus if Omanyte is too divergent. Come to think of it, the blanket octopus is so strange it could deserve its own Pokemon (maybe one with some of that extreme sexual dimorphism). There could even be an alternate version of Omanyte based on nipponites for some real bizarreness.

Well, as luck would have it, you have – purely by coincidence and the alignment of the planets – come to the right place, because when I got my readers to collectively design a Pokémon one time aaaaaaaaages ago, they came up with a lava lamp squid that attacks with boiling oil, which we named Krakentoa.  To put it another way – yeah, I’m kind of a fan of this.  Cephalopods are just inherently fun to play with, thanks to their alien intelligence and highly unusual abilities.  Although Omastar, Octillery and Malamar are all pretty cool and interesting Pokémon, there’s still a lot of unexplored creative space there, so even if we arguably don’t need more of them, I think there would be room for an eccentric designer to find some way of making additional cephalopod Pokémon conceptually distinct from their predecessors.  Camouflage, shape-changing, deep-sea adaptations, “vampire” traits for the Vampyroteuthis… I think it might be fun to have a nautilus Pokémon that somehow referenced the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s submarine from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.  Not sure of the best way to go about that, though.

Anonymous asks:

Have you ever thought about running another of those make your own Pokémon projects?

Well, I’ve thought about it, but I’m not exactly short of things that I want to do, and I really don’t think there’s much that I bring to the table in a project like that.  Like, plenty of websites exist, and plenty of people populate them, that specialise in designing Pokémon.  There are also things like Smogon’s Create-a-Pokémon forum for communal efforts, which are run much better than I could hope to.  I’d rather focus on writing my Pokémon reviews and anime commentaries, and finishing that Nuzlocke story, and I have other things in mind for after I tackle generation VII.  It’s a very low priority, put it that way.

bold0727 asks:

Remember when you made Squiddy? Maybe you should ask your fans to make a rom hack with an entirely new region and Pokemon the community made! It would be a really great project.

Oh gods no.  I mean… not like it wouldn’t be kind of cool but no way do I have the time to coordinate something like that.  Besides, it’s not like there aren’t other people doing that.  What would me and my readers specifically bring to that kind of project?

Presenting: Krakentoa, the Deep Flame Pokémon!

Well, here he is: a Pokémon created entirely from submissions by readers of this blog, with the neatest ideas chosen by an interminable series of polls.  Credits for individual contributions are all at the end.

Krakentoa, the Deep Flame Pokémon

Height: 22’7" – 6.9m
Weight: 492 lb – 223.2 kg

Black ‘dex entry: It occasionally bites rocks and ignites them to scare prey. The explosions are often mistaken for underwater eruptions.
White ‘dex entry: It absorbs heat by latching onto underwater vents. This makes it glow brighter, in turn attracting prey.
Black 2 White 2 ‘dex entry: They gather in groups and spew hot oil at Wailord pods. Then, the group emerges to feed on the remains.

Stats:

HP – 65
Attack – 92
Defence – 41
Special Attack – 123
Special Defence – 55
Speed – 125

Abilities: Illuminate, Sniper, Insomnia (DW)

Base experience yield: 221

EV yield: 2 SpAtk, 1 Spd
Base happiness: 70
Time to hatch egg: 26 cycles
Catch rate: 30
Experience growth: medium slow (max. 1,059,860 exp.)

Art by Adam Dreifus
Stat spread and movepool by Thatswhatbradsaid
Concept by Chewiana Jones
Pokédex entries by Lucas
Name by crazedgamer111
Species designation by Random Access

So.  What do we take from this?

Well, personally, I felt the whole thing was really kind of a pain to co-ordinate and took far longer than it should have, but I suppose we did get a pretty cool Pokémon out at the end of it, right?  I’m quite happy that he came out as a deep sea Pokémon, since the deep ocean is just fun to think about – dark, mysterious, alien – and I think we could do with more deep ocean Pokémon that aren’t legendary like Lugia and Kyogre.  This guy does that quite nicely with the opposition to Wailord that we’ve got going.  The vaguely mechanical steampunk-y appearance is also a nice contrast to the typically more organic style of aquatic Pokémon.

As far as battling aptitude goes, I think this is probably a nice balance.  The ludicrous speed and multiple extremely powerful special attacks allow Krakentoa to fill a variety of offensive roles with gusto, but the Stealth Rock weakness, cardboard defences and uninspiring abilities hold him back from being truly ridiculous.  Well, in theory at least.  Goodness only knows how this critter would perform in practice.

I’m not sure I have much more to say here.  I think I’ll just get on with trying to wrap up my White 2 playthrough journal (which, let’s be honest here, is getting ridiculous; I actually finished the game weeks ago, it’s just taking me this long to write it).  Chris out.