…huh.

You know, I didn’t specifically have Lord English in mind when I wrote that, but I suppose, now that you mention it, that there are some marked similarities in concept.  They are also both green.

(Sorry about taking so long to get around to this; have been very busy lately)

Cherubi and Cherrim are… meh.  You might recall my general distaste towards Sunflora for being a Grass Pokémon whose thing is that she likes sunlight – a characteristic shared by all Grass Pokémon – and this bugs me about Cherrim as well, but at least she can claim to have a unique mechanical and thematic quirk that shows her association with sunlight is stronger than it is for most other Grass-types.  The design is not particularly inspired, but the choice of a cherry is admittedly a nice touch, since the shift from cherry fruit to cherry blossom allows for a dramatic change which still makes intuitive sense and is easy to comprehend (especially for a Japanese audience).  I don’t think they really needed to be in the game, exactly, and it’s clear that they don’t have much of a battling niche outside of doubles, but… I guess I’m not that upset that they exist?  Uh.  So yeah.

…huh.  Okay.

Because it’s still a bad idea.

The confusion isn’t even really the worst part of moves like Petal Dance, because you can always just switch out.  The trouble is being locked into those moves, and unable to switch out, while they continue.  Dragon-types can get away with using Outrage because so few Pokémon resist Dragon attacks, and even then it’s kind of a gamble.  If you’re using Petal Dance, your opponent basically has a free switch to any of the seven elements that resist Grass attacks (and if Petal Dance keeps going for a third turn and gives the switch-in a chance to set up, you might really be in trouble).

I mean, it’s not useless, but it’s not really good enough that it becomes a better option than Chlorophyll.

What did I actually say about Swadloon?  I’m not sure I even remember.  I’ll look it up.

Oh yeah.  Yeah, that’s right.  I didn’t really get it, but I still liked it.  Hmm.  Well, I have no idea what a hikikomori is, but I’ll take your word for it that it makes sense.

Well, I don’t really like speculating on this stuff, because I just don’t see the point of that.  Any of those ideas could be used well or badly. None of them are ‘safe,’ and none of them really set off alarm bells in my head.  I like that they appear to be doing something new with an old Pokémon, especially one as iconic as Mewtwo, and the possibility that, after all these years, there really is going to be a Mewthree is, if nothing else, amusing.  If they plan to work with the idea of Mewtwo going back to the technology that created him and using it for his own ends, that could be interesting.  Not sure how else I’d do it.

Well, personally I assume they do have mouths (at the centre of the spiral, since that’s where their Water Guns originate in the anime) but that they’ve become smaller and less obvious, so we can’t actually see them in the art and sprites.  Alternatively, they may adapt to absorb nutrients directly from the water around them, although this seems unlikely to me, since Poliwhirl is supposed to be more suited to life on land than Poliwag.