No. 771: Pyukumuku

sea cucumbers are proof that God didn't really know what he was doing

I think Pyukumuku is supposed to be cute, but it just looks like one of those shitty stuffed animals you find at craft fairs. Is it supposed to be a rabbit? A hedgehog? Some sort of aggressive pebble? Hard to tell, but the stuffing is already coming out of a burst seam! Quick, buy it before the vendor gets insulted.

But no, it's supposed to be a sea cucumber, which means it throws up its guts as a defense mechanism. Now, me, I'd keep my guts inside, because I've always been taught those are important, but what do I know? Nature is disgusting and cruel, is the lesson here.

And the Pyukster here has another weird foible - it steadfastly refuses to learn a single damage-dealing move. This makes it very awkward to use in-game, though I'm sure it has some niche in the competitive scene. Not my jam, though.

The one redeeming feature of Pyukumuku is that instead of innards coming out its mouth/anus, a big beefy arm comes out Trogdor style. This is intensely hilarious and almost makes up for everything else. I am in love with the idea of a useless little lump who spits punches at people. I don't like anything else about this wretched puke, but the hidden muscular arm is JUST SO AWESOME, I gotta compromise.


Overall: 5/10

No. 770: Palossand

Oh tell me why, do we build castles in the sky? oh tell me why, are the castles way up high?

Man, I just love this guy. Big droopy fortress sand-trap spook. The towers acting like hands is a neat touch, and I love how the little shovel spins. Another example of a good Pokemon made great by strong animations.

It's also neat to run something with high Physical defense, but high Special Attack. You don't see those paired that often, it seems. I kinda wish the Water Compaction ability nullified the damage as well, or affected both Defensive stats, but maybe that would be too good.

It reminds me of making sand castles on the beach and then stomping on them, except Palossand is the one who does the stomping now, sending phantom regiments out on sortie from its garrison, and discharging volleys of spectral cannon fire from the turrets. Then it drags you down and curses you for eternity or something. NOW DO YOU FEEL SORRY FOR STOMPING ON ALL THOSE SAND CASTLES


Overall: 10/10

No. 769: Sandygast

and so we go carefully forward in this way
watch out for the sandcastles they will get in your way
sometimes there is a roof over your head you do not know
where does the future go but forward

Haunted sand? I'm down. That's all I needed to hear. I've always been a lowkey fan of the slime monsters, so having a sandy cousin to Grimer is welcome. I really like how the mouth goes all the way through, it reminds me of that one Secret in Super Mario Sunshine in Gelato Beach. Which I was stuck on for like a month because of those freaking crumbling sand blocks.

Okay, before I get mad, let's focus on the positives again. Sandygast is neat! Fun typing and movepool. Only thing I'd change would be the shovel - it seems kinda dumb that EVERY Sandygast somehow gets a shovel stuck in its head. Unless it's one of those things where the shovel is the true body, and the sand is just the stuff accumulated and manipulated by it?

...NAH, that would be too lame and confusing for a Pokemon game. I'm sure no Pokemon will ever use a similar conceit. *foreboding music plays*


Overall: 9/10

No. 768: Golisopod

Be careful who you make fun of in middle school.

Golisopod is a lot of visual over-stimulation. It's got more pans in the fire than Gordon Ramsey, juggling a dozen design elements. The hunch, the claws, the samurai armor, the extra arms, the purple stuff, the up-turned flanges, etc. But somehow, it makes it all work. Almost.

It reminds me of Enkidu, from TTGL, or at least the Revoltech figure version. And that's a good thing! Muted colors avoid it looking like Garchomp, and the lower body has the sense to just look moderately cool and then stay outta the way. I think the problem is those flanges, and the extra arms - pick one, and drop the other. There's just a little too much going on, pointing in every direction.

But can we talk about how great it is, that they re-branded the ability from being a wimpy coward to a strategic retreat? Same exact effect, but Golisopod makes it seem smart. First Impression, its signature move, is a big part of that. See, normally the big bug is slower than slow, but it learns a bunch of first-attack moves. The goal is to come out, hit with First Impression or whatever, then get hit in return and bounce back to exchange for a fresh 'mon. And when he switches in again, he can use First Impression again! It's a neat strategy that makes you use it in a totally different way than a regular beatstick, and that's cool. Compare/contrast with Wishiwashi, who simply becomes a liability at low health and forces you to switch, as if you wouldn't already. Not nearly as interesting.

Fun to use, and a design that's almost perfect, it's no wonder why ya boy Guzma rolls with this homie.


Overall: 9/10

No. 767: Wimpod

we all got that one friend who is outta there the second trouble happens

Let's just get this out of the way first - Wimpod sucks. He sucks in a major way. Bailing just because things got rough? Bitch move. I don't like it when my Pokemon shuffle themselves around without my say so. I wanted you in the fight, so STAY THERE. No, don't come running scared to mommy. Mommy can't help you now, this is real life.

But the design is okay. Actually, it looks like Wimpod would do far more damage running into opponents, thing has a razorblade mustache on the front. That somehow curls up around its eyes from both sides don't worry about it

Actually, you know what? Wimpod looks like a sharp, metal pineapple, lying on its side. Pineapples are great, so I'm gonna give it points for that. A shame about the quitter attitude.


Overall: 5/10

No. 766: Passimian

If the Washington Redskins really get forced to change their name, I think it should be the Washington Lemurs. has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Okay, so I've secretly wanted Football-inspired Pokemon for a while now, but I'd rather get a line that goes RB to LB to QB or something, or maybe branching paths or something, than just a single dude. But!

Passimian looks cool, easily the most brolic lemur I've ever seen. Zaboomafoo ain't got shit on this guy. I'll quibble with the little details, though - the mark on the helmet is unecessary, and while I understand the shoulder markings are meant to emulate a jersey, they just look like randy food bits. Like it was eating some nice bamboo and then dropped some on its shoulders. (Lemurs eat bamboo, right?) I would've just gone with a while diamond or star or something. But aside from that, I love everything about Passimian.

Also got a neat ability, though it only becomes relevant in 2v2 battles. Which reminds me, it would've been nice to be able to call out a second Pokemon when the wild Pokemon calls for help. Even the odds, y'know?


Overall: 9/10

No. 765: Oranguru

Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!

We've got plenty of simian Pokemon already, but somehow Oranguru avoids treading on familiar ground. My main quibble is that the weird lines on the purple bits seem out of place. I think it's supposed to be like matted hair with strands of red or orange in it, but I'd rather they actually take the capabilities of 3D into account and just make a texture that glints in the light and stuff, I dunno. But I really like the design, I just wish that it had a fully evolutionary line instead of being trapped as a single-stage. There's a lot of single-stagers this gen, it feels.

But we gotta talk about that Zhuge Liang fan. Keepin himself cool and looking like a boss at the same time. I think he uses it because his big ol' brain gets so overheated during his epic chess matches with Slowking.

Speaking of, did you know that Oranguru and Slowking are known to match wits? They bring their gargantuan intellects to bear on each other like two super-heavy dreadnoughts, firing mental salvos in the world's greatest battle of the minds. Their ponderous brains groan and strain like twin John Henrys steel-driving their way through the mountain of their opponent's minds, and their intellectual stratagems are as overpowering and inscrutable to mere mortals as a descending boot is to an ant. The great thinkers of the past return as ugly ghosts - Einstein, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton - they all sit around like stupid children in the presence of such sheer brilliance. But, just as the empires of man must all eventually come to an end, so too does this contest, and the Oranguru and Slowking retreat to their respective abodes. Any spectators, if they hadn't been rendered blind, deaf, and mute by the display of brainpower, would surely break into a standing ovation for these two colossi of gray matter.


Overall: 8/10

No. 764: Comfey

top comf

Whew, finally back to just a regular Pokemon, without all the baggage the last few lines seemed to have.

It's another Fairy that is composed of literal flowers, but isn't part Grass, so that's kinda dumb. It's also essentially another "living object" Pokemon. I'm not as universally down on these as some people are, but something about Comfey bugs me. Not as badly as Klefki, but it's in that ballpark.

Just seems so artificial - if you're gonna make a lei Pokemon, couldn't you have put a lei ON a Pokemon? Or maybe do it like Exeggcute and each flower is alive, maybe with a creepy eyeball in the center? Or maybe forget about the lei, and just do something with the plumeria flower itself? Wait, now that I think of it, why isn't there a Bird-of-Paradise Pokemon? It's so damn obvious! Also, why the hell ain't there no Bellossm in Alola!? The goddamn hula dancing Pokemon??? Now I'm mad.

Comfey is better than Klefki, but in there end these single-stage hoop-shaped idiots still rub me the wrong way.

Overall: 2/10

No. 763: Tsareena

T  H  I  C  C

I don't really know what to say anymore. We clearly passed the point of no return a while ago, yet Gamefreak wanted to keep going. So here we are. A fucking dominatrix plant Pokemon, with boots that come up past the knee, bizarre fleshy lumps that constitute the most gratuitous hips since the mom in Dexter's Laboratory, and evolving only after learning "Stomp", so that it can learn its signature move, another stomping attack?

Tsareena is a Queen in multiple senses of the word, from the name (Tsarina is the feminine version of Tsar or Czar) to the little crown to the S&M connotation. Look, you've made a Digimon here, is what you've done. Call it Stompmon, or something else as equally obvious and banal. But don't call it a Pokemon.

Though more importantly, where the hell is all this shit coming from? What happened in the upper echelons of Gamefreak to make them decide to churn out Primarina, Salazzle, and Tsareena all at once, coming fast on the heels of Mega Lopunny and Mega Gardevoir? Did somebody over there discover Deviantart for the first time and realize they have a huge untapped audience of Poke-Perverts? Is it caused by sunspots? El Niño? Something Russia is doing? help me out here, people


Anyway, Tsareena's design motifs throw me for a loop, and it looks damn silly resting its hands on the flotation ring of butt-cheeks it's wearing. Ain't even no torso, thing goes right from the hips to the neck. Also, wanting to be stepped on is a shitty fetish. That's right, I'm kink-shaming. Tune in next week for Not All Kinks Are Created Equal.


Overall: 3/10

(ps - do not tune in next week for NAKACE because it doesn't exist)

No. 762: Steenee

Ye best start believin' in Waifu-mon lines, Ms. Steenee. You're in one.

So we ignored it with Bounsweet, but this is an all-female gendered line. And now it's got twin-tails, a feature that as far as I can tell only appears in anime, usually on tsunderes. Hell, it even has eyelashes, the international cartoon shorthand for "am girl", so I think we can definitively say that this is another one of Gamefreak's blatant attempts at attracting the skeevier members of the Pokemon fandom.

Or maybe I'm being too hard on poor little Steenee - she's got a good visual weight going on, the head and leaves are balanced by the "dress", which is positioned just low enough that the feet read like the needle of a top, implying perfect balance. Also she just has the cutest widdle animations in the Feel Up Your Pokemon mode (or whatever it's called).

You know, I'm willing to call this one a mulligan. Maybe it's just all innocent fun.


Overall: 8/10