No. 941: Kilowattrel

or in America, Poundwattrel

 

 Kilowattrel looks like one of those classic Pokemon designs - take a recognizable animal (bird), tweak it a bit (big throat sac), and then add something cool (electric powers). But it turns out, the frigatebird is an actual bird that already looks exactly like this, except red. It even has the throat sac. So all they did was copy an existing animal and make it yellow.

So I guess I'll have to credit Mother Nature for the design, but it looks pretty cool anyway! aside from the eyes, those are Gamefreak originals and still pierce into my soul and weird me out. But the black-and-yellow color scheme looks sharp.

Kilowattrel is the odd Sp. Atk focused Flying-type, and combined with skyhigh Speed, it felt very strong to me and was almost on my final team.

Overall: 8/10

No. 940: Wattrel

Watt's the deal with airplane food?

While Squawkabilly shat up the joint with its boring typing, Wattrel brings it home as an Electric/Flying type. I'm a fan of taking regular birds and just making them somewhat elemental, like Talonflame.

Wattrel's eyes and slight smile makes him look like he's about to star in a mediocre 3D animated film by Illumination, but overall the design is nice. Sensible colors immediately set him apart from other regional birds, especially other region's waterfowl. I've got nothing bad to say here, just that it's a solid bird.

Overall: 6/10

No. 939: Bellibolt

 my eyes are up here

Bellibolt doesn't even look like a final evolution. It's gotta be the awkward middle stage, right? We've got a badass electric Poliwrath coming up next, right? No? Ah, well shit.

The elephant in the room is the eye-cheeks situation. See, you would think that its eyes are the big eyeballs on the sides of its head where a frog's eyes normally go, but actually it's the goofy little face in the middle! Those aren't nostrils, they're eyeballs! Don't you feel tricked?

Well, yep, you really tricked me, Bellibolt! I almost didn't realize you're just a green Lubba from Super Mario Galaxy 2. idk, it just makes me wonder what the point is. To give little kids and annoying adults something to "um, actually" their friends about? It doesn't make the actual design better, in fact it just confuses what ought to be a decent electric Chansey pastiche.

See? isn't that just better? The shape is fine, it's a round bouncy friend. But we get rid of the weird eye-cheeks, and make the actual eyes more alive, instead of looking like the real face is a flat decal sticker. Now I dislike the original even more, because I've had a glimpse of what could have been.

Overall: 3/10

 

P.S. what if the belly is the REAL eyeball???

No. 938: Tadbulb

light up the night
 

Another tiny little guy who gets in my way a lot. But I have to admit, a light-bulb tadpole is clever. There's some issue of "why isn't the frog Pokemon at least part Water?" but I actually kinda like it when Pokemon just commit to their element instead of bringing over real-world expectations of how that animal should exist. Not really a fan of Tadbulb's face, though.

Overall: 6/10

No. 937: Ceruledge

 Swordsoul of Mo Ye

Ceruledge was largely the deciding factor in my choice of Violet over Scarlet. Because as cool as Armarouge is, Ceruledge is even cooler. Twin flaming ghost blades? Sign me the hell up!

Again, I have to stress, this isn't a Pokemon design. And it's not a Digimon, either - it's a Medabot, or a Net Navi, or the star of an indie metroidvania game. But once again I will stress even harder, it's so damn cool I drop any pretense of having standards for stylistic unity. Ceruledge would have changed my brain chemistry if it existed when I was 9 years old.

Aside from everything I said about Armarouge (because most of it still applies), what makes Ceruledge so good is how the swords are done. They flare out when in battle like a lightsaber, and have a cool curve to them instead of just being straight blades, not to mention the way the cross-guard looks like flames itself. The trail of fire rising from its eye is just the cherry on top.

 

...bit weird how Charcadet is clearly meant to evolve into Armarouge, and hardly has any purple at all to justify a Ceruledge connection, but hey. We're ignoring a lot of faults, today. (I know they evolve with items, but in that case how come Armarouge looks like the "default"? Shouldn't Charcadet look unlike either of them, until an outside force interacts with it?)

Overall: 10/10

No. 936: Armarouge

FireMan.EXE

During the lead-up to Sword & Shield, Gamefreak didn't reveal that many Pokemon. For some, this was cool - they wanted to jump into the game unspoiled, with a sense of exploration. For me, who prefers to plan my teams out ahead of time, this was frustrating. I couldn't get excited when I didn't know the whole dex, and the ones they showed were dumbass losers.

 

They did not make the same mistake with Scarlet & Violet.

Armarouge and Ceruledge (we'll get there tomorrow) are freaking awesome. These two kick inordinate amounts of ass, and almost single-handedly convinced me that maybe Gen 9 would cook after all.

No, it doesn't look like a Pokemon. But it's so cool, I don't care. Yes, I thought it's name was Armarogue up until writing this review, because I'm very stupid and always mix up those two words, but that doesn't matter either. The colors are great, the typing is strong, the silhouette and proportions are heroic, the way the pauldrons turn into an arm cannon is sick as hell!

 

Overall: 10/10

No. 935: Charcadet

Things are starting to heat up!

 

Charcadet is a decent little guy, he looks like he wants to be the mascot of some HobbyAni show very badly. Okay, I know Pokemon itself is a HobbyAni franchise, but I mean he looks like a Yo-Kai Watch or a Beyblader, or maybe something related to bicycles, judging by his big ol' helmet. Gotta protect that giant, sensitive noggin. And the tiny useless thumbs on the sides of his giant sawed-off mitten hands are funny to me.

It's not a bad design, in fact it's a pretty good one, but it's really not a Pokemon design. It looks more like the chibi form of a tokusatsu hero, that doesn't appear in the show but gets used in marketing and merchandise.

Overall: 5/10

No. 934: Garganacl

Nacl 3 baybeeeee 

Let it be known that I don't like Minecraft. I think it's an impressively ugly game, made by a weird loser, played by annoying children, and more popular than Jesus. If you were making a "build with Legos and walk around inside the things you build!" game, you could do a lot better than shitty voxel stuff. And the actual "survival" game of it, the fact that there's like a campaign you can do with bosses and shit? Not to mention the Story Mode spinoffs? It makes me sick. I wish kids were playing better games. I do not respect Minecraft, and I'm not a fan of the way everyone else has granted it some sort of nostalgic legitimacy. I guess it's cuz those kids grew up and are the taste-makers now. But I was there when it was just a java beta, I've seen it in diapers, and so I don't have to respect Minecraft.

(wew, good to get that off my chest)

Anyway, Garganacl is pretty cool! Finally, the blocky style works out, with sensible points of articulation for a fantasy rock monster. I dig the big shoulders that evoke a pyramid, and the striations on his limbs are neat. To me, this hits a similar appeal as Golurk. I want to play with the action figure version of it.

Overall: 8/10

No. 933: Naclstack

btw NaCl is Sodium Chloride, the chemical formula for "salt", in case you haven't had it explained 4000 times by now

Remember NakNacks? Those weird blocky dudes from the early 2000s, where you were supposed to stack them or collect them or possibly play some sort of game with them (it was never clear to me)? Well, Naclstack doesn't look like them at all, aside from having blocky parts. I just wanted to see if anybody else remembered those, or if it was my own imagination.

Naclstack is more animate than Nacli, which brings him up from "poorly-conceived" to merely "ugly". I just don't like his Minecraft ass.

Overall: 4/10

No. 932: Nacli

 shoutouts to Saltybets

The problem with Nacli is that it's not a Pokemon, it's clearly a powerup from Super Mario Galaxy 3. Turns you into Salt Mario, and you use it to kill slugs or something idk

I'm fine with Pokemon that don't emote, much less have any moving parts, like Minior or Lunatone. But I think those work because they're levitating. Nacli just kinda rocks back and forth on the ground. I can't barely even believe it's alive.

Overall: 2/10