Gigantamax no. 25: Duraludon

closing the year out with the last Gigantamax form in the base game

Vanilla Duraludon already looked kinda dopey, and Gigantamax Duraludon looks even worse. Bitch turned into a skyscraper, because that's a tall metal thing, right? Imagine having to commute and go to work in an office on the 35th floor of a goddamn Pokemon. I'd be sick. I would quit my job.

It's a damn shame they went this route, because so far none of the Gigantamaxes have leaned into the "giant mecha" niche, and this would have been a prime opportunity. But instead of Mechagodzilla we got the Burj Khalifa. Is that even the tallest building in the world anymore? Depends on when you read this blog, I suppose.

Overall: 200/1000

Gigantamax no. 24: Copperajah

uh

what happened here? Cufant was cute, Copperajah was a bit blocky but fine, and now Gigantamax Copperajah is this Super Paper Mario looking dipshit. Useless arms, immobile legs, body like a building block. Meanwhile, its trunk looks like one of those giant excavation machines, which would be cool but it's attached to this Thwomp of a pachyderm.

This shouldn't have been a hard one to get right! Elephants are known for being big, that's kind of their entire deal. Just build off everything that makes an elephant iconic and go from there, but instead it's an awkward bipedal suitcase with a waterslide stuck to the front. Why didn't they at least extend the back out further and get its other legs on the ground? Why did it have to be so TALL instead of also allowed to be LONG?

Unbalanced, unaesthetic, undesirable, unbelievably stupid.

Overall: 100/1000

Gigantamax no. 23: Alcremie

How come ladies don't jump outta cakes on your birthday anymore? And how'd they get in there, anyway?

It's neat how Gigantamax Alcremie takes elements from all the various Alcremie flavors and toppings, to combine into a giant ziggurat of a cake, upon which the main body is perched. From upon its altar, the icon of frosted sweetness metes out judgement upon the righteous and sinful alike, smothering them in sugary cream.

I can't tell if I just made myself scared, or hungry.

Overall: 900/1000

Gigantamax no. 22: Grimmsnarl

bow down before a true mon ami

Gigantamax Grimmsnarl is absolutely awesome. Let's get that out of the way first. Those proportions read like Lordgenome's Lazengann, and I think it's really neat how the red linework stands out with his black hairy body.

To make it even better, did you know he has a freakin' drill kick? Reminds me of a Skullgirls character,it's beyond sick. His special attack animation is this smug "begone with you, tiresome worm" gesture that he's doing in the artwork. It's a ton of personality conveyed via animations, when most Gigantamax Pokemon just kinda... stomp around and roar. But Gigantamax Grimmsnarl is too cool for that.

Somebody put this guy in Pokken 2, I don't care if you have to scale him down. In fact, I'll just rip off his design and put him into my own fighting game, with even more shape-shifting moves using that coat of hair.

Overall: 10/10

Gigantamax no. 21: Hatterene

remember earlier in this year when everyone was deliriously horny for the big vampire girl in Resident Evil 8?

Doesn't that seem like an eternity ago, now? What the hell was this year

anyway, Gigantamax Hatterene may LOOK like a big soft mommy but her actual body is quite small. Well, the whole thing is huge, so maybe her true body is now just regular-Pokemon sized? Point is, everything else is some sort of hair/tentacle/shell apparatus.

I kinda like the triple-tentacle style as an evolution over a single "hand", though.

Overall: 600/1000

Gigantamax no. 20: Centiskorch

fruit by the foot

I loved Centiskorch. and Gigantamax Centiskorch is just the same, but longer. Which also makes it awesome. When you scale up a "long" Pokemon like this, it makes sense to increase the length more than would be proportional. The red-hot underbelly is sick, but really there's not any new design ideas here.

Still, this is another one I would have been fine to see as the final evolution of the line (although not as large, obviously), and it looks like a terrifying road of flames come to life. Elder Centipede up in this bitch!

Overall: 1000/1000

Gigantamax no. 19: Toxtricity

Merry Christmas! Your present this year - THRASH METAL

looking like a monster from a Studio Trigger anime, Gigantamax Toxtricity has some big shoes to fill. Toxtricity was one of my favorite from the generation, and its kaiju form kinda fumbles the bag. I don't like it when they go back to quadrupedal, and while I understand that its tail is meant to look like a radio tower I don't think emphasizing the diaper is the element you should still be carrying from Toxel.

The wild eyes and tongue are fun, and it does a good job incorporating the yellow and blue from both forms of Toxtricity. It's not bad. Just not as awesome as it could be.

Many of these Gigantamax have another piece of artwork, depicting them in action, and I've ignored them because I don't think Gigantamax as a concept deserves that amount of respect. But I'll make an exception for this, because Gigantamax Toxtricity smashing shit with its electric guitar is so radical that it kinda redeems the whole thing for me.

Overall: 700/1000

Gigantamax no. 18: Sandaconda

And a viper in a sand tree!

Regular Sandaconda sucks. Gigantamax Sandaconda is much better. I like the connection between gunslinging rattlesnake and Texas tornado. And a snake-tornado with a gun? Brother, there's nothing scarier.

I just think it should have been a normal evolution, even replacing Sandaconda, because at that size the gun-nose is kinda pointless. How can it shoot anything on the ground, it can't even see down below that ring of dust! Didn't really think this one out, did they.

Overall: 800/1000

Gigantamax no. 17: Appletun & Flaaple

Two apple drakes

Both Appletun and Flaaple have the same Gigantamax form, and that feels kinda lazy. Isn't the whole point that they're different? I guess they get different G-Moves, but I don't care.

I think you could take this version, scale it down, and use it as a base form instead of Applin. That's neat, but not a very good look for something that's supposed to be this big monster super-form. But it's actually different from its other forms, instead of just "gets bigger", so points? 

Overall: 500/1000

Gigantamax no. 16: Coalossal

Three king coals

Gigantamax Coalossal looks like a Super Mario Galaxy level. The kind that's also a boss fight, where you climb up the monster's mountain body hitting weak points until you defeat it and claim the star at the peak.

And it just feels thematically right to have this giant, coal-powered fortress belching smoke into the sky. Turning the precarious pile of embers into hardened magma really works, too. I like this one!

Overall: 800/1000

Gigantamax no. 15: Drednaw

Four chomping turtles

yeah this one sucks. Surprisingly, not many Gigantamax forms are outright embarrassments, but Gigantamax Dreadnaw is embarrassment enough for all of them. its pathetic legs can't even touch the ground, and its face has withdrawn so far into that foreskin of a neck it can't bite anything anymore. Usually I like to see jaggedy elements like its rocky shell, but I hate Drednaw so instead all I feel is scorn.

I can't believe they thought this was really good enough to make the signature Pokemon for one of the Gym Leaders. Nessa deserves much better.

Overall: 100/1000

Gigantamax no. 14: Orbeetle

FIVE GOLDEN ORBS

It's weird that the U.S. Navy basically confirmed that they've seen UFOs (or UAPs as they're apparently called nowadays) and the president got so spooked he created a Space Force, and the general response from the public was "ok"

like, I know we've been busy with a lot of terrible shit lately, but it feels a bit like that should have been bigger news? Or at least more worth questioning why we need to put astronauts with guns out there?

Gigantamax Orbeetle is an extension of Orbeetle's design, but while I liked that one I think they needed to fully abandon the "body" to make this work. Simply use Orbeetle's face on the front of the UFO body, and leave it at that. Having useless limbs dangling in front just looks silly.

And I still think they could just make a dedicated UFO Pokemon instead of merging concepts like this...

Overall: 400/1000

Gigantamax no. 13: Corviknight

Six crows a-cawing

I feel bad for crows, their scientific name of Corvidae kinda got dragged through the mud by a certain lethal pandemic. I'm glad I did my review of the original Corviknight before that went down, so I don't have any cringey jokes to look back on. Instead, I'm making this cringey joke now. anyway

I can't tell what happened to justify this as Gigantamax? It's bigger and has pink highlights? it has Bits/Funnels like a Gundam, which is kinda cool, but that doesn't seem like it's worth becoming giant for. Just do a homing projectile attack.

Overall: 400/1000

Gigantamax no. 12: Melmetal

Seven metals melting

Okay this one goes hard. I'm a huge fan of big shoulders and big ol' punchy fists. I think you could slightly adjust the proportions and pass this off as a 3rd-stage evolution. Call it Meltyblud or something, idk

Gigantamax Melmetal would also work as a kaiju, I can imagine it attacking an Electric plant and hacking it to shut off all the power. And using its mercurial bits to ooze around people and absorb them. And then when they think they killed it... all the nuts fall to the ground, but the metal escapes, and re-forms using something else as its base!

Overall: 1000/1000

Gigantamax no. 11: Garbodor

Eight turds a-stinking

There's a precedent for gigantic trash monsters, look no further than Hedorah. Gigantamax Garbodor, though, confuses me. It's gigantic, but how come the things its sucked up are all toys? I can see the Substitute doll in there, even. But that makes the scale weird, because it's not actually big enough to have real buildings and cruise ships in it, but it's clearly too big for those to be toy-sized items. That ship has to be the size of a Subaru Outback. What's going on here?

They had an idea, but got too cutesy with it, and then forgot about how it would actually look in practice. Plus I still hate Garbodor, in general.

Overall: 200/1000

Gigantamax no. 10: Snorlax

Nine roads a-blocking

Like that island on the back of a turtle that Sinbad famously docked at, I imagine people get tricked by Gigantamax Snorlax all the time. They see a nice hill, with delicious berries growing from a tree, and climb it. Only too late do they realize they've just ascended the belly of a slumbering beast, who soon awakens to devour them all.

actually, where's my Gigantamax Torterra? That's the O.G. "walking garden". Now I'm slightly mad.

Overall: 700/1000

Gigantamax no. 9: Eevee

Ten foxes evolving

It's still a little weird to me that we all decided that Eevee was an icon and mascot for the series on par with Pikachu. I know it's popular (or rather, its evolutions are popular) and Gary used one in the anime, but really? Kinda feels like fabricated hype. On the other hand, Pikachu is literally just a random early-game Pokemon that got lucky, whereas Eevee feels "important" due to being unique in-game and its myriad evolutions can be seen as symbolic of the potential to train whatever Pokemon you want.

I'm talking about all this because there's basically nothing to say about Gigantamax Eevee. It's a big fluffy Eevee. The clouds are circling its ear, instead of acting as a halo? I'm sorry, I know I swore to stop talking about those clouds.

Overall: 600/1000

Gigantamax no. 8: Lapras

Eleven sea monsters surfing

Not much different here, is there? Just kinda a bigger Lapras with an icy barrier and slightly different shell. I think they definitely could have done more hear, like made icicles on the shell, or made the shell into a castle, something.

Do you think the ice crystals on that barrier are intended to look like musical notes? What melody would that be even, doesn't look like Megalovania or the ones from Close Encounters.

Nothing much happens here, but at least it doesn't ruin Lapras in any way.

Overall: 500/1000

Gigantamax no. 7: Kingler

Twelve crabs a-crawling

Gigantamax Kingler put on his Santa beard, how festive! Just don't think about how it's actually bubbles made from his own spit. Shoutouts to making your own beard out of shampoo foam in the bath as a kid, btw. 

Also disturbing - are those TEETH in its claws? like, just big freaking molars??? sweet Christ. and if they aren't teeth, the only other thing that occurs to me is that it's like raw crabmeat somehow poking through the shell. Which is also highly disturbing, it's like a giant enemy crab that grew its own weak spots you can hit for massive damage.

Big crabs could be cool, but this one has a silly beard and upsetting teeth/flesh inside its claws. I'm shuddering.

Overall: 200/1000

Gigantamax no. 6: Gengar

scary shit yo

What is it with these supplemental Gengar forms and clipping into the floor? Was that a key element in the original Gengar's charm that escaped my notice? I mean sure he's a ghost and floats through floors, but I always saw him as more "solid" and "bouncing around".

Gigantamax Gengar looks like an evil funhouse, where you walk through the mouth/door and enter a nightmarish mirror world of headless clowns. Or at least, that's my recurring childhood nightmare. Not sure about the rest of y'all.

but wait - if this form is already so tall, what about the rest of him? Does it work like an iceberg, is there more under the floor? We could be looking at the largest Gigantamax Pokemon ever, if his true size could be confirmed.

Overall: 600/1000