No. 989: Sandy Shocks

I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.

No, see, this is where I draw the line. What do you mean, there's an ancient Magneton? The Pokemon that's not only overtly a modern creation, but also the combination of three other Pokemon? You're telling me it used to be one thing, who just so happened to look like a modern-day screws and magnets, and then split up and developed a new baby form?

That's ridiculous. Go home. You're drunk. Why would you even consider Magneton, among all the possible options, to make an "ancient" version of. And it doesn't even float, but walks around on big bendy legs???

 

Overall: 1/10 

No. 983: Kingambit

 Fu Rin Ka Zan

I hate that Kingambit sucks. I wish he was good. But he's not. He looks like a Mega Evolution, and I mean that in the most derogatory way possible. Gigantic crest and mustache that make him look unbalanced, and impractical protruding rib-blades. (although they're arguably more convenient than Bisharp's, since they act as a cage but allow him to keep his arms at his sides)

And then there's the stupid freaking hair-chair. I know he's modeled after a samurai general, specifically Takeda Shingen, squatting on his stool as he surveys the battle, but the fact that he doesn't even get his lazy ass up to walk around, but floats on it is insulting. Some people will tell you that he's moving like a chess piece, as if that makes it any better. It's still dumb as shit. I hate that his hair becomes the stool, too. It makes him look like one of those early Amiibos where they had random plastic chunks to prop up the figures.

If you size-down the crest and 'stache and ribs, take away his hair stool, and let him stand up, the underlying body construction isn't bad. But we don't live in that reality, and that makes it hurt all the more.

 

Overall: 1/10 

No. 982: Dudunsparce (for real)

Maybe Pokemon was a mistake.

I decided Dunsparce was my least-favorite Pokemon a long time ago, and since then Gamefreak has tested my patience every generation by introducing some new freak to despise. They finally won in Generation 8, with Calyrex, who dislodged Dunsparce from his throne of failure and assumed the role as my official Least-Favorite Pokemon of All Time.

But don't for a second make the mistake of thinking I've forgiven Dunsparce.

No, I still hate that blind cave bastard, and when I look at this misbegotten evolution I admit to taking a sick pleasure from all the idiots who thought this was a Feebas situation, that the ugly duckling would evolve into a beautiful swan. Bitch, you're not even a duckling. 

Dunsparce does not deserve happiness, it does not deserve to be "saved" with a cool evolution. What it deserves is to be forgotten, but if we must revisit the dunce, I think this is the best possible outcome. Double down on its ridiculous stupidity. Dunsparce cannot be redeemed or improved, it can simply be increased. Now there's twice as much Dunsparce. Does this make anyone happy? I doubt it.

 

Overall: 1/10

 

P.S. it has come to my attention that there exists a three-segment version of Dudunsparce. I think this is highly perverse, and will not be acknowledging it.
 
 

No. 973: Flamigo

 How many shrimps do you have to eat before you make your skin turn pink?

Yeah, Flamigo sucks. I think we all knew this was coming. Some say it's supposed to look like a boxing glove, but I think it looks like a flamingo. Not like it "punches" with its body, anyway. Doesn't even learn any punching moves. It just does flamingo shit.

Maybe if it had proper bird feet instead of flat little paws, there could be some salvaging this? But as it stands, if I saw Flamigo in somebody's yard next to their little gnomes, I'm running them both over with a lawnmover.

 

Overal1: 1/10 

No. 965: Varoom

Parooooomba

What exactly am I looking at, here? An internal organ from some mechanical beast? Spare parts for Fred Flintstone's car? Some sort of AI-generated hallucination? Whatever it is, it sucks, and I want it to go away.

 

Overall: 1/10 

No. 928: Smoliv

smol uwu bean

With all due respect, fuck Smoliv. Go back to your garden and bring me some breadsticks. When I'm driving my 500-pound legendary motorcycle from another timeline around Paldea at 100 mph, hauling ass with my hair in the wind, the last thing I want is to slam to a complete halt because some tiny little baby wants to battle. I should be able to crush Smoliv under my wheels. I should be legally allowed to crush Smoliv under my wheels.

Design-wise, yes, it's a little olive with a face. Not much more to say. What, are you gonna cry? Go ahead, then. Cry.

Overall: 1/10

No. 913: Quaxwell

must work out at the library

When the starters were first revealed, I saw Quaxly and thought, "Oh, it's a Don Quixote reference, he'll probably evolve into Ducky-xote and be a proud knight or something". Cuz of the name, and the fact that Paldea is Spain, right? Wrong.

Instead, Quaxwell is a big-noggin unibrow doofus wearing a crop top and crocs. I've heard of the ugly duckling, but this is taking it too far. Especially since that story ends with a beautiful swan, and Quaxwell is destined for... well, that's for another day.

Overall: 1/10

No. 905: Enamorus

Oh baby. What is going on here.

I've never been a fan of the genies, and while at least Enamorus isn't another palette swap, that doesn't make her any good. There's too much sassy-ass tomfoolery going on in this design, and I refuse to spend another word on it.

Incarnate Form: 1/10

Like all the others, Enamorus also has a Beast Mode, which completes the "Four Cardinal Beasts" quartet that nobody even noticed was going on. It's a Chinese mythology thing, with a Tiger, Phoenix, Dragon, and now - Turtle. Since the others got their Therian Forms all the way back in BW2, a full decade ago, I have to wonder... was Enamorus planned from that long ago, and just never implemented until now? Or was it a coincidence that the others took on the forms of a Tiger, Phoenix, and Dragon, and then somebody said "wait a minute... we can work with this!"

Either way, the end result is a garish pink turtle that not even Barbie would be caught dead with. Yet somehow, still better than the base form.

Therian Form: 2/10

I'm going to be mean and round down the average, because I think this Pokemon is fucking awful.

Overall: 1/10

No. 904: Overqwil

no I know where it was now, this is a Donkey Kong Country boss

Overqwil has a cool name, and that's the most positive thing I can say about it. I can't stop thinking about certain toys I would get as a kid, which never stood up because they were sculpted in an action pose, or designed with a weird bottom like this. Always pissed me off, when something only functions as a keychain. I want to stand it up with my other toys!

and in a similar vein, Overqwil pisses me off because of how ridiculous it looks out of the water. The idea of a big floating mine could work, but holy shit why did you have to make the top and bottom spikes so large?

Overall: 1/10

Hisuian Avalugg

God of War type boss fight 

Hey, it's Avalugg! Everybody loves Avalugg, right? Well, would you love Avalugg even more if we made his legs dirty and stuck a snowplow to his face?

...no? you'd still respond with the same indifference you've always shown to Avalugg?

......oh well, I suppose it can't be helped! Hope you enjoy being 4x weak to Fighting and Steel!

Overall: 1/10

No. 901: Ursaluna

IT'S OVER 900!!!!!!!!! 

Whereas Wyrdeer opens the game up in a big way, Ursaluna just feels redundant. it's an Item Finder on legs, offering no additional mobility. So it won't win any goodwill that way.

And as for the design... I mean, it's a bear with poop on its face. What do you really expect me to say, here? Dude has a turd draped across his nose, I can't see it as anything else. I know I'm supposed to see it as "clouds in front of the moon", but even if that were the case, how freaking coincidental that every single Ursaluna gets the same bits of mud stuck on its forehead at exactly that location. Or if they're eyebrows, then it's doing an eternal Dreamworks smirk.

No, there's not really any good options here. Sorry, dookie-bear. Please don't get near me, I just washed the stink off.

Overall: 1/10

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. 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

Galarian Weezing

and an epic bacon mustache waffle to you too, good sir! *tips hat*

Gamefreak has this idea that when you make something really tall, it gets really funny. Except I'm not laughing. It was dumb as hell for Alolan Executor, and Galarian Weezing is dumb as hell, too.

I don't appreciate this Doug Dimmadome (owner of the Dimsdale Dimmadome) looking bastard and his smoggy mustache, which you must realize is just putrid gas hanging around his face. Think about that. Euugh.

I think the literal stovepipe hats don't have to be a silly concept, and you could probably design a whole Pokemon line around that. Some sort of Poison/Steel factory robot mech? instead, we have British Cosplay Weezing, who is part Fairy because who knows anymore

Overall: 1/10

No. 898: Calyrex

There's nothing scarier than a poorly-designed Pokemon.

I can't quite believe what I'm about to write, but I can't quite believe what I'm seeing, either.

I have a new least-favorite Pokemon.

Dunsparce was awful, we've been over that. I'm not coming around on it or anything. But Calyrex is just so offensively terrible in every single way that it's overpowering my two-decades-long feud with the Dunce.

Where to begin? How about at the top, with this ginormous oversized bomb fruit braincel noggin. Maybe it's supposed to be a crown, but it looks like a swollen egg sac from a Metroid enemy. Then below that, we have the most serious face in the world, a real Princess Mononoke deer-god snuggled right in between the aforementioned balloon and what appear to be Akuma's prayer beads but with the Triforce on them.

Already this sounds nightmarish, but it gets worse. Basic stubby body, basic bitch arm flaps, then LONG ASS SLENDERMAN TOOTHPICK LEGS. No feed, just thigh-highs. And this royal piece of shit has the audacity to pose with one arm out like "whoosh" like he did something. There's a little cape or wings or whatever but NO, fuck you dude.

I mocked up some suggestions that don't completely save this wretched thing, but are at least improvements on whatever bullshit concept they had going on. Version 1 just downsizes stuff so he's still a weird little serious gremlin, the second leans into the "what the fuck" factor for maximum weirdness. I would still hate both of these, but I wouldn't feel the outright revulsion I do when I look at actual Calyrex.

And then, to make things even worse, this Little Lord Fuckleroy has the nerve to mount those glorious steeds Glastrier and Spectrier, and ride them like he thinks he's Napoleon.

I despise this with every fiber of my being. It's a sin and a crime. I'm going to fly to Gamefreak's house and beat them up.

Overall: -1/10

No. 890: Eternatus

BEWARE MY POLYGONAL FURY 

This guy sucks majorly. He's so clearly designed to be a "boss" first and a "Pokemon" second, and while you want a little of that for your Legendary, the end result is something that looks like a Kingdom Hearts boss. or the villain from a Digimon movie.

Besides, didn't they kind of do this aesthetic already with Necrozma? All sharp angles because that's easier to model than something with curves, and becomes an unreadable mess unless you're looking at a fully rotating 3D model? I know the games are 3D now and they take that into account when designing, but I think it's a sign of bad design when the end result is such a jumbled mess like this.

Overall: 1/10

No. 883: Arctovish

 okay, now they're just being silly.

The head is clearly on upside down. I'm not mad this time, because Dracovish took it all out of me, but I really think we need to revoke someone's PhD. Either that or make reviving ancient Pokemon illegal until we figure out how to not screw it up so badly. Either way, Galar's archaeological society ought to be ashamed of itself.

Overall: 1/10

No. 882: Dracovish

 "I was not meant to live..."

This one is maybe the most horrifying. Why would you stick the head at the end of the tail? And just leave the cauterized stump of that dragon half out in the open? I know real-life archaeologists got stuff wrong sometimes, swapping arms and legs or thinking a claw was a horn. But you have to be absolutely deranged to think this was a good idea. Look at the poor thing, it lives in agony and struggles to hold its head up because otherwise its own spikes will stab itself. At the very least, recognizes that the spikes go on the OUTSIDE!

Some genius made this edit and I think it speaks for itself. The worst part is that this dumbass symbol of man's hubris to play God was actually meta-relevant in the competitive scene.


Overall: 1/10

No. 867: Runerigus

killlll meee... 

Runerigus looks like shit. I'm not gonna beat around the bush, I'm just gonna come out and lead with the conclusion here. Cofagrigus is one of my favorite Pokemon, and I'm extremely glad normal Yamask don't evolve into Runerigus.

It looks like when you accidentally break your mom's vase so you have to try and glue it back together and hope she doesn't notice, except the glue is an evil shadow monster or something. What bothers me so much about this sort of design is that it looks haphazard and ramshackle, except EVERY Runerigus is exactly the same. The same shattered pieces being held together in the same "random" way. Perhaps I've let other Pokemon slide for similar crimes, and I'm being too harsh on the ol' broken art project, but being a hypocrite is just one of my many virtues.

What stings as well is that the completed slab isn't even cool looking - it's just kind of a worm that was drawn in crayon. I'd rather see a design where this is used as the base (ala Spiritomb or Cursola) and then the ghostly dragon rises from the lines as if summoned, but that's not what we got.

I'd also be okay if this was the payoff for collecting all the Unown or something - going back to what I said about Yamask, imagine if each one held a different chunk and you collected them all to get this Legendary Pokemon. it would still look dumb, but the method of finding it would be cool. As opposed to the completely arbitrary method you actually use - I won't repeat it here, just look it up yourself and think about how anyone would ever discover that on their own. Sirfetch'd has a weird requirement to evolve as well, I'm not saying that sort of thing tanks a Pokemon. But it certainly doesn't help Runerigus here.

Anyway, to make a long story short - Runerigus looks like shit.

Overall: 1/10

No. 866: Mr Rime

 No rhyme or reason to this disaster.

If I was British, I would be offended somehow. I don't think a dapper little dipshit, tap-dancing and twirling a cane, is the sort of image I'd want to project to the world. Mr. Rime seems to have forgotten that Mr. Mime was supposed to have clown hair, and instead has developed wings of a sort. Attached to his hat, which is also part of his head, naturally. Because everything must be a nightmare.

I'm not even going to comment on his Poirot-ass mustache, or his icy clown shoes that must leave him slip-sliding all over the goddamn floor, but I do need to question what in the hell is going on with his stomach. Is that a second face, trying to form? It looks a little bit like Mime Jr. Does Mr. Rime sprout Mime Jrs. from his stomach like a sponge, reproducing via budding? That's horrific.

Overall: 1/10