Beta No. 198: Bellboyant

Sailor Moon called, she wants her cat back

well too bad, she's not getting her! Bellboyant is ALSO a very good cat that I wish was real.


You could say that it doesn't seem like much of an "evolution", or that its eyes are radically different. But I don't care. They perfected the Cat Pokemon way back in 1997, and spent the next 20 years mucking about with poor man's imitations. We could have been dining on the finest of feline designs, but we were denied.


Overall: 10/10

Beta No. 197: Rinring

let's keep this cat train a'rolling, shall we?

I'm legitimately angry that Rinring didn't make it into the final game. I understand if they thought they already had a cat in Meowth, but Rinring is SO MUCH BETTER. In fact, better than any of the subsequent kitties they've developed - though it's not hard to be better than Glameow and Purrugly. I'd say Rinring and its evolution trump Purrloin, Espurr, Skitty, Meowstic, Litten, Velazquez, Monster Mash, Zoomacroom, Tony the Shrimp, Facer, Yellow, Otter Pop, the lot of 'em!


It's funny how often kittens are associated with bells in Japan. Not that nobody puts bells on their cats elsewhere, but how often do you see that as part of the generic Cartoon Cat Ensemble, right? Meanwhile, Japan brings out the catgirls with bells on. Rinring is hella cute and they need to make it canon!


Overall: 10/10

Beta No. 196: Mewosy

*insert Mario coin sfx*

Now, don't freak out on me... but I think I actually like this baby, for once. And it's not like Meowth needed a prevolution, but I just like cats and think this design is super cute.

Levitating coins in the air (throwing them?) is weird, but neat. And I love its sleepy eyes. Reminds me that I wish Persian was more of a cartoon cat than a realistic one. Can we just get a do-over for that whole line, with Meowsy -> Meowth -> Meowmers, where Meowmers is a big fat cat just throwing poke-dollars all over the place, really making it rain on them poke-hoes?


Overall: 8/10

Beta No. 194: Girafarig

straight outta Dr. Doolittle


Between these two and Rayleep (beta-Mantine), there must been one guy at Gamefreak who thought it would be the coolest thing if you saw an entirely different image of the Pokemon from the front or the back. I bet he went on to design Mawile, too.


And I like this design MUCH more than what we got. Fully mirroring the halves is more interesting than just having a weird bitey tail, and it makes the palindrome name make more sense, too. I wonder why they changed this one? The weirdness about Twinz aside, this is just a solid design. Did the "evil" one scare kids so they removed it?


Overall: 8/10

Beta No. 193: Twinz

oh shit, now there's TWO of them

You'd be forgiven for thinking these guys are some sort of weird Haunter variation. They also look a bit like that Ghost haunting Lavender Tower. But amazingly they aren't intended to be either - this is a Girafarig prevolution, of all things!


Crazy, right? It seems like a reach, but it'll make a bit more sense once you see what they had planned for Girafarig tomorrow.

And while I think cutting Twinz was a good move (due to them not being goddamn giraffes in the slightest), I admit I like the look of them. Just not their intended function. Again, as like a variant evolution of Haunter, this is a cool design! And I love the personality that artwork gives them. Two rowdy ghost boys, ready for some catdog-style shenanigans.


Overall: 7/10

Beta No. 191: Trunpet

I would pay upwards of $30 to NOT see that new Dumbo remake.


Hey, remember Phanpy? Well, here is is except slightly different!


But, I thought it was different enough to be worth covering.



uh...

it's a lil' elephant, that's for sure.






okay, maybe this one wasn't worth doing...


Overall: 5/10

Beta No. 190: Sunee

You idiot! In this world, it's kill or BE killed.


Sunflora was originally going to be a stand-alone Pokemon, and Grass/Psychic. They eventually decided to give it a prevolution, make it stay purely Grass-type, and let it walk around. Since Sunflora ended up fairly lame anyway, I can't say they did the right thing.


Of course, as I ranted about in the past, inventing a Light type would have fit like a glove on Sunee. Or retroactively giving it Grass/Fairy would have been an attempt. ah well, it was not to be.

Somehow, I like this version more, though.


Overall: 6/10

Beta No. 189: Chiks

three heads are better than two, or maybe it's the other way around

Yet another baby (we're not done with them, not by a long shot) that I'm instantly biased against, but honestly Chiks isn't that bad. Doduo has two heads, Dodrio has three, so I guess you can count backwards and give it a prevolution with only one hea- wait.


okay, why does this bitch have three heads!? So it loses one upon evolution, only to gain it back? That's so stupid! And it's a shame because imagining a birds nest as a singular entity isn't a bad idea, three noisy little bitches demanding food 24/7 from their nest-like feathers can totally work. Unfortunately, Chiks has to fit in their line, and they don't!

hold on... maybe Doduo had three heads this whole time? that would explain everything, but has some... unsettling implications.


Overall: 5/10

Beta No. 188: Animon

On this day of Thanksgiving, let me just say I'm thankful for my readers, who stick with me even when I disappear for weeks at a time!

I'm also Thankful for this screaming condom!

Actually, Animon is supposed to be an evolution of Ditto, while holding the Metal Coat. despite that, it remains a Normal-type. I think they might have been thinking of Dragon Quest's Metal Slime, a rare monster that isn't overly strong but yields TONS of exp for beating it.


But how would Animon have functioned, would it get a new version of Transform, maybe where it takes the stats and moves but remains Steel-type? That's kinda like a T-1000, huh. Would have been cool to see where they were going with that, but from the design alone, I'm afraid I can't score it very high.


Overall: 3/10