No. 799: Guzzlord

Its ya boy, Guzzlordma!

oh boy. Where to begin with this fat, pointy tub of sin? It seems like he was designed by a committee, and that committee consisted entirely of 8-year old boys, so each one added something he thought would be super-cool and scary and awesome. That's how Guzzlord ended up with a gaping trash compactor mouth, converyor belt tongue, spiked mace for a tail, battle-axe wings, piranha plant arms coming out of his mouth, and a secondary head that looks like the Black Knight.

Guzzlord looks like he eats the souls of children, then shits out nightmares and centipedes. He looks like the final boss of a JRPG, when the big bad fuses with the recently-awakened Ancient Evil. He looks like the end product of that one dad who draws really detailed character/monster designs based on his kid's doodles.

Now, I keep saying this, but I expect a good deal of insanity from the Ultra Beasts. They should look like weirdo demons from another dimension. But does Guzzlord go too far? I say not far enough. The proportions are off - I like the idea of a bottomless maw, but it dominates the design so that all the other shit look like T-rex limbs, vestigial and useless. I would've made an entire secondary torso up there, maybe give him a wicked sword or something, too. And badass pauldrons. And another pair of legs, so he doesn't have to waddle everywhere.


Ultra Grade: B

No. 798: Kartana

John Romero's about to make you his bitch.


Every evil team needs that one little guy. The Monstars had Nawt, the Ginyu Force had Guldo, and the Boston Celtics have Isaiah Thomas. Kartana is that guy for the Ultra Beasts.

I think it's a hilarious contrast to how stupidly huge most of his compatriots are, but being so small and cutting through anything is actually pretty terrifying if you think about it. Imagine this guy just flying around, almost undetectable, slicing cleanly through walls and necks and trees and stuff. He reminds me of the origami dudes from Spirited Away, so I'm also picturing like a swarm of them.

It's slightly odd that he's Grass/Steel - I know paper comes from trees, but it's so far removed from the concept of vegetation at that point, especially if it's just like a sharpened steel blade. I guess it's just so he can get STAB Razor Leaf and Leaf Blade, which I admit is kinda neat. And I suppose the combo makes him super vulnerable to Fire, just like actual paper, so in the end it checks out!


Ultra Grade: B+

No. 797: Celesteela

Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess

First off, bitch be tall af. Second off, bitch be actually THREE bitchin' rockets. Third off, I don't know. Third base.

Celesteel is based on a Japanese folk-tale about some princess who's found in a shoot of bamboo, then flies to the moon. Honestly, she looks a helluva lot like a Persona. Which is fine, because that's what the Ultra Beasts should be, MegaTen-style entities from beyond the ken of mortal man.

And despite being a lunar bamboo rocketship princess, it somehow ends up looking rather elegant? I don't even mind the needle-thin neck, because the hair acts to smooth out the silhouette and provide weight.

Ultra Grade: A

No. 796: Xurkitree

People thought this one would turn into Guzma. I don't know.

Living electrical wires honestly aren't too out-there when it comes to Pokemon, really. But Xurkitree is kinda cool, even if he has a dumb name. Yeah, I get it, it's like "circuitry" except you say it with the world's worst accent, that's not clever or interesting.

I think this guy would be better if his "limbs" were interchangeable, instead of being dedicated arms/legs/tail. Especially if he could walk around on 3 legs, that's such a weird thing that nothing in the natural world does. But going around like he is, seems more goofy than unnerving.

The biggest problem, though, is that his head appears to be literal spikes, instead of a sparking ball of electricity. We've got animated models, why do they keep missing obvious places to put particle effects and stuff? Happens with Magmortar's shoulder flames, too.

Ultra Grade: B-

No. 795: Pheromosa

"Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars!"

Pheromosa looking like Lusamine really only helped fuel those Lilie-Nihilego rumors, but it turns out they're utterly unconnected! Pheromosa isn't even remotely related to the plot, so it's unclear if Lusamine even knew what it looked like so she could model herself off it! strange.

But this one is like the female counterpart to Buzzswole - slim and trim instead of big and brolic. Also she's some sort of Lady Gaga cockroach? Who runs around at light speed and kicks things in the face? Sure, why not. Unlike the two box legendaries, you can't really go wrong here. I prefer Buzzswole, but Pheromosa is cool, too. Striking color scheme, fun hair/wings, and more eyelash than Tammy Faye Bakker. I don't see any problems here.

In closing, I'd like to motion that we make it canon that Buzzswole and Pheromosa are happily married in whatever hell-dimension they came from. Any objections? No? Then the motion passes.


Ultra Grade: A

No. 794: Buzzswole

mad natty EV gains brah

Let's not think about how those "muscles" are actually probably sacs filled with blood. Instead, consider that Buzzswole has an excellent name and looks like a Street Sharks character. He looks like he could flex the bark off a tree. My guy is beyond ripped or shredded, he's torn to goddamn pieces of confetti.

Buzzswole didn't even skip leg day, you see those calves? And he's got FOUR legs, too, which means he has to squat FOUR TIMES AS HARD as the rest of us. Wait, I mean twice as hard. How does math work again? Who cares, what's important is that this bulging blood bug poses like Hulk Hogan and looks like he's about 3 seconds away from cutting an impromptu promo on his opponent at all times.

The only downside to this glorious beast is that he's only available in Sun, which means you'd miss out on Lunala.


Ultra Grade: A+

No. 793: Nihilego

Name reminds me of Ni'ihau

Yeah, I'm doing the Ultra Beasts. They're basically Pokemon, right? Just ones from another dimension? As such, I'm gonna make an exception to my normal grading criteria (which is a nebulous mental affair that's more exception than rule already) and think about them as crazy demon-spirit thingies. They weren't even trying to make them look like a proper Pokemon, so it's almost unfair to attempt to qualify them as such. These bastards are beyond even Legendaries, they have no place in the natural world at all.

And also because if I were to grade them on the normal scale, they'd all be 1's. And a month of that is just not fun.

In any case, we've got Nihilego up first, who looks a helluva lot like Lilie. I remember the theories that Lilie was secretly a Pokemon, but it turned out that she was actually raised to dress herself in imitation of Nihilego by her crazy mom oops, mind my spoilers.

It's got a weird ghostly quality to it, like a hollow girl - hat and hair, but no body. Creepy. Which makes it even stranger that it's Rock/Poison. Clearly this thing is jelly-like, or ectoplasmy. People have told me it's supposed to be glass, but the thing about that is, glass isn't rock. No other Pokemon interprets Rock-type that way. It feels arbitrary, like they just wanted to get a typing nobody had seen before. And I can't chalk this one up to being Ultra Beast-y, because the rest of them have pretty logical types.


Ultra Grade: A-

No. 792: Lunala

Moonstruck is probably the best Nicholas Cage movie, everyone should watch it at some point. Well, there's Raising Arizona, too. But this ain't NANCACE, is it?
 

heyyy now we got somebody who makes a bit more sense, even if he looks like something from NiGHTS. Consistency of color scheme matters, who woulda thunk?

There's a lot of fun crescent shapes in Lunala's design, from the tail to the wing-tips to the webbing of the wings to the headpiece itself. Perhaps a bit too busy, but it's a legendary, so we can cut it a bit of slack. I'd say like 4 inches of slack, roundabouts.

It helpfully justifies its Ghost typing by appearing to have an exposed ribcage and bones, so that's neat. (side note: we need more skeleton Pokemon) Of course, we have to ask why it's a ghost to begin with, and why Psychic is the default type for "uh its super special awesome we gotta make it stand out somehow", but that's neither here nor there.

Lunala is one of the best legendaries in a long time. I really wish its prevolutions were useable in-game, because I'd love to train my own Nebby from scratch.


Overall: 9/10

No. 791: Solgaleo

Another lion Pokemon without a literal mane of fire. Keep on refusing to swing at the easiest pitches, Gamefreak.

Now, it's pretty clear to me that nobody really had a good idea what to do with this guy. They had the idea of a cosmic-themed, 3-stage legendary, and the final logical stage of that Pokemon is Lunala. But, always two there must be, so let's make up something else. I guess lions are cool, make him look like a mid-2000's Power Ranger animal, that's fine. What about color scheme? Is it jarring to go from gold+purple/blue to gold+white/orange? Shouldn't maybe we have alternate versions of Cosmoem and Cosmog to lead up to this at all? Nah, just stick a dumbass little plate there, almost completely invisible in the gigantic confusion that is his general facial area, it'll be fine!

Well, it's not fine. Solgaleo sticks out like a sore thumb after you just freakin' walloped that sucker with a ball-peen. Blood everywhere, nail hanging on by a thread, Mom comes in screaming, Dad's trying to tell you not to cry, and it hurts so much it's looped over the threshold and back around and it doesn't hurt at all.

See, I could handle it if they both (Lunala and Solgaleo) did their own thing, but Lunala flows so obviously from Cosmoem, Solgaleo comes off as an awkward afterthought. Homie looks kinda cool, at least he doesn't fall into the trap that so many over-designed legendaries do. And honestly, if he was just a standalone Pokemon, I'd probably be really into it.

but that is not our reality, and I don't know if I can square with how much he's clearly the non-canonical choice. Oh, and don't even get me started on the typing. It's utterly arbitrary, and I don't wanna catch anybody getting out their "actually"s and writing a comment about how supernovas are made of liquid steel or meteorites are actual metal I DON'T CARE. Psychic is already stupid enough, but alas, we have no cosmic type to fall back on, so they make do with what they can.


Overall: 3/10

No. 790: Cosmoem

reminding me hardcore of Olympia from X & Y

so while I could jam with Cosmog, I don't really see the point of Cosmoem. It's still essentially unusable, like Cosmog, because despite the better stats it still doesn't learn any real moves. So why not just have Cosmog go right into Solgaleo or Lunala?

As for the design itself, it's a single-piece immobile floating Psychic hunk, as if we haven't seen enough of that. The colorscheme is nice, but then you get to the pink and blue lines that have been added for apparently no reason. Sure, the overall effect is that it looks like an eye, but I'd rather have a literal giant floating space-eyeball Pokemon than a sleepy, tacky piece of costume jewelry. Wake up and turn into something useful already, dipshit!


Overall: 3/10