No. 941: Kilowattrel

or in America, Poundwattrel

 

 Kilowattrel looks like one of those classic Pokemon designs - take a recognizable animal (bird), tweak it a bit (big throat sac), and then add something cool (electric powers). But it turns out, the frigatebird is an actual bird that already looks exactly like this, except red. It even has the throat sac. So all they did was copy an existing animal and make it yellow.

So I guess I'll have to credit Mother Nature for the design, but it looks pretty cool anyway! aside from the eyes, those are Gamefreak originals and still pierce into my soul and weird me out. But the black-and-yellow color scheme looks sharp.

Kilowattrel is the odd Sp. Atk focused Flying-type, and combined with skyhigh Speed, it felt very strong to me and was almost on my final team.

Overall: 8/10

No. 940: Wattrel

Watt's the deal with airplane food?

While Squawkabilly shat up the joint with its boring typing, Wattrel brings it home as an Electric/Flying type. I'm a fan of taking regular birds and just making them somewhat elemental, like Talonflame.

Wattrel's eyes and slight smile makes him look like he's about to star in a mediocre 3D animated film by Illumination, but overall the design is nice. Sensible colors immediately set him apart from other regional birds, especially other region's waterfowl. I've got nothing bad to say here, just that it's a solid bird.

Overall: 6/10

No. 939: Bellibolt

 my eyes are up here

Bellibolt doesn't even look like a final evolution. It's gotta be the awkward middle stage, right? We've got a badass electric Poliwrath coming up next, right? No? Ah, well shit.

The elephant in the room is the eye-cheeks situation. See, you would think that its eyes are the big eyeballs on the sides of its head where a frog's eyes normally go, but actually it's the goofy little face in the middle! Those aren't nostrils, they're eyeballs! Don't you feel tricked?

Well, yep, you really tricked me, Bellibolt! I almost didn't realize you're just a green Lubba from Super Mario Galaxy 2. idk, it just makes me wonder what the point is. To give little kids and annoying adults something to "um, actually" their friends about? It doesn't make the actual design better, in fact it just confuses what ought to be a decent electric Chansey pastiche.

See? isn't that just better? The shape is fine, it's a round bouncy friend. But we get rid of the weird eye-cheeks, and make the actual eyes more alive, instead of looking like the real face is a flat decal sticker. Now I dislike the original even more, because I've had a glimpse of what could have been.

Overall: 3/10

 

P.S. what if the belly is the REAL eyeball???

No. 938: Tadbulb

light up the night
 

Another tiny little guy who gets in my way a lot. But I have to admit, a light-bulb tadpole is clever. There's some issue of "why isn't the frog Pokemon at least part Water?" but I actually kinda like it when Pokemon just commit to their element instead of bringing over real-world expectations of how that animal should exist. Not really a fan of Tadbulb's face, though.

Overall: 6/10

No. 923: Pawmot

Pawmot Patrol

Speaking of throwback elements to older gens, Pawmot carries the tradition of being an ambiguous creature instead of a twist on a specific real-life animal. It's kind of a teddy bear, but listed as the "Mouse Pokemon", and also resembles a hamster? With Popeye arms and Iron Man repulsors blasts? I'm not sure why it's part Fighting-type, but... hey. hold the phone.

This is an evolution of Pawmo? Are we sure it evolved? Or did it just step closer to the camera? Wait, it changed its fur color back to Pawmi's. Why is Pawmo desaturated, then? And what's the difference between Pawmo and Pawmot, larger hair tufts???

Probably the worst case of "it just gets bigger" evolutions, except it still doesn't even look fully-evolved. Maybe just skip from Pawmi straight to this thing, then. But I'm not gonna give it a good review cuz I already spent that goodwill on Pawmo.

I think they maybe planned a proper evolution, but accidentally copied the model for Pawmo over the space where Pawmot was supposed to go, and couldn't figure out how to restore the intended version so they just made Pawmot bigger and called it a day.

Overall: 2/10

No. 922: Pawmo

Pawmo Patrol

Speaking of throwback elements to older gens, Pawmo carries the tradition of being an ambiguous creature instead of a twist on a specific real-life animal. It's kind of a teddy bear, but listed as the "Mouse Pokemon", and also resembles a hamster? With Popeye arms and Iron Man repulsors blasts? I'm not sure why it's part Fighting-type, but Fighting/Electric is a dope typing so hey. It all kinda sorta works.

Also I wanna give it props for actually evolving, all the Pika-clones have just been meaningless single-stage losers but Gen 9 shakes it up. You can say it's a blatant Pikachu ripoff, but I'd say it's an artful homage to the buckwild design ethos of Gen 1.

Overall: 8/10

No. 921: Pawmi

2X PIMPY 3X BAPE

Pawmi looks like one of those intensely inbred pit bulls, or maybe an over-inflated Pikachu. Every aspect of it looks puffed up. Bro is the size of a jelly donut and likely to be squished like one.

I'll give it props for bringing back that type of glossy eyes, though. Feels like a throwback design element to the older gens, which is appropriate for a Pika-clone.

Overall: 4/10

Hisuian Electrode

The Orb

nah but this one just looks like dogshit. I was stunlocked by Hisuian Voltorb, but Hisuian Electrode makes me think maybe the whole concept is dumb as hell. Why does it still have a cartoony mouth, but its eyes look like they were carved into the wood?

And if your concept is "ye olde Electrode" then surely the way to go is make them look like those round ninja explosives? It's hype to get the first Grass/Electric type, but I still think that should go for a solar-energy Pokemon, not these woodblock bitches.

overall: 2/10

Hisuian Voltorb

ballz

Before we get to the evaluation, can we unpack something first? Apparently, Pokemon aren't turned into pure energy and stored in Pokeballs as data. No, they're actually literally shrunk down and captured inside. Despite their ability to be stored in the PC and traded via network connection, apparently the canon truth is that there's literal tiny Pokemon sitting in each ball. And the ball itself... teleports?

To make matters worse, this shrinking is actually an inherent ability of the Pokemon, not something done via technology to reduce the space between their atoms or whatever. At least, according to Pokemon Legends: Arceus. That's right, every Pokemon just possesses the ability to shrink itself when in danger, and we exploit that reflex to put them in Pokeballs.

now I don't know about you, but I find that information wildly upsetting and changes basically everything about how I look at these games. What a nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares, it was generally understood that Voltorb is based on the Pokeball, right? It's like a mimic, and that's its camouflage. But then Hisuian Voltorb predates the Pokeball, they're a recent invention and Voltorbs/Electrodes have lived in Hisui for ages already. Which suggests that the Pokeball is actually based on the Voltorb, not the other way around.

This is too much for me, I can't even do a rating right now

Overall: mind blown/10

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. 3: Pikachu

I'm doing all the Gigantamax Pokemon from the base game first, THEN the ones included via DLC, in case it wasn't clear.

They finally heard you! All those Gen-wunners, nostalgic for old Pikachub artwork where he was a fat lil' bean, your wishes have been heard. And for once, I like this joke. It's a fun way to acknowledge the change in design for one of the world's most iconic characters. I even like how his tail becomes an accordion of zig-zags, echoing every 7-year-old tasked with drawing Pikachu from memory, using only crayons and construction paper.

Orienting the clouds around his tail almost works this time, too. That thing is clearly generating intense electric currents, makes sense storm clouds would be gathering around it. A shame that when it moves, the clouds stay the exact same shape and size and tilt in their orbit to match the tail, instead of acting like, you know, clouds.

But yeah, this is honestly one of my favorite Gigantamax forms because it's a fun joke that gets to STAY a fun joke - I can rest easy knowing it's not gonna stick around. I think I would have been more receptive to the jokier Mega Evolutions if I knew they weren't going to be a forever-thing.

Overall: 900/1000

No. 894: Regieleki

 I feel sorry for any blind person who tries to read the Braille on this sparkplug

So, since the Eeveelution well is apparently run dry, we now turn to the Regis. Remember them? Ancient golems of various hard materials? Well, now here's one made out of fucking lightning.

What really gets me is the name - before, the English translation adapted the Japanese names literally, except since Regiice would look weird, they removed the i, so it's "Reg-ice" instead of "Regi-ice" like in Japanese. That breaks the pattern of the others and I hate it, but what did they do here? The opposite! Instead of "Reg-eleki" it's "Regi-eleki".

As I said about Regice, why not Regifrost or something? And here, how about Regivolt? You didn't even use the actual type's name anymore! "Eleki" is already different from "Electric" so why not go all the way and change it to something that flows better!?

The design is fine, like a big light-bulb with electricity coming out of it, but I'm too tilted by the name and bastardization of the original Regi concept to care.

Overall: 2/10

No. 881: Arctozolt

 Get that boy a tissue and a warm blanket!

Electric/Ice is a cool typing, reminds me of one of the best powers from Kirby 64. But Arctozolt looks more like one model is clipping into the other than the surgical nightmate of Dracozolt, and somehow I don't like that as much? Maybe the fact that it's walking on flippers bugs me too much.

But clearly the Electric half is suffering. I think that archaeologist who mixed up such a pitiful creature should be put in jail.

Overall: 3/10

No. 880: Dracozolt

Thank you for waiting. NAPACE will now resume it's regularly scheduled programming.

this Dragon really do be draggin' that wagon. and is pretty much my favorite fossil this time around. (although that isn't saying much)

See, the gimmick is that there's two heads and two tails, and none of them match, but the dumbass Galarian archaeologist mashes them up anyway. Thus, you get 4 possible combinations. Each with their own typing, and none of them Rock! Which is nice, I was tired of every fossil Pokemon having to be Rock just because they're old.

Electric/Dragon is fresh, and Dracozolt still looks like a basic skeletal structure. Just with dummy thicc thighs and a dumptruck ass. Or, it looks like a reanimated dragon lower body with some smaller dragon parasite emerging from its guts, if you'd prefer that mental image.

Overall: 6/10

No. 877: Morepeko

AH↓HA↑HA↓HA↑HA↓HA↑

Time for another regional Pika-clone. This one has Doraemon pockets and a bifurcated colorscheme like Monokuma. Also it has the body shape of a Minion.

When its belly is empty it gets Hangry and changes form, but the only gameplay difference is that its signature move becomes Dark-type instead of Electric.

Last gen we had Mimikyu, who was the resident Pika-clone while also having a fun gimmick and a fantastic design concept. Morepeko is mildly gimmicky and that's better than not being anything at all besides a fruitless effort to capture the Pikachu Appeal, (the Pikappeal, if you will) but I still don't like it much. Attaching it to Marnie in an attempt to siphon some of her popularity didn't work, it's just kind of dumb and useless.

Morepeko? how about LESSpeko, thank you.

Overall: 3/10

No. 871: Pincurchin

N64 C-buttons for eyes

Probably the most forgettable Pokemon this generation, Pincurchin will be upstaged in the "little nugget" niche by Snom later down the line. I have no problem with making a sea urchin into a mono-Electric, but there's nothing exciting about Pincurchin to make me even care.

Also, its mouth looks like a butt.

Overall: 4/10

No. 849: Toxtricity

 FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK

I love how I can't really tell what sort of animal this is supposed to be. And it's clearly not just a "human" either. Sort of a frog, maybe? But I don't want to know, that's the charm. Maybe I'll write a longer post specifically about this aspect of Pokemon designs that has been lost to time.

Of the two forms, I have to say I prefer the Amped, because yellow/purple is exactly what I think of for Electric/Poison. But Low Key is good, too - the dual mohawks are better than one, and the arrangement of its chesticles is more streamlined. Maybe an idealized version would be the Low Key design but with Amped Up colors?

oh yeah, I should probably say something about how this guy strums those thingies on his chest like his torso is a guitar. It's weird and probably a sex thing, but that's just how Toxtricity rolls. how he Rocks and Rolls, to be precise.

Overall: 10/10

No. 848: Toxel

 baby boy. baby.

Look, I'll be upfront - Toxel and its evolution are my favorite Pokemon in Galar, hands-down. I really wasn't excited for the game, cuz most of the revealed Pokemon were underwhelming, then I saw these little psychopaths in the leaks and I fell in love. So you'll have to forgive me if I sound biased here, but actually it's my freakin' blog so you'll have to ask for my forgiveness if you disagree.

Anyway, Toxel is great because he's just a weirdo electric baby monster. Vaguely reptilian, but mostly an ambiguous monster that you rarely see in Pokemon anymore. Plus, he's Electric/Poison, which is a fresh and radical combination.

I'm on record for vociferous dislike of "baby Pokemon" but I'm okay with this literal baby because he's not a babified version of an existing concept. He's designed like this from the start, and he's perfect in every way. That white electric soul fire on his forehead, like Black Bolt or Tsuna Sawada, is the icing on the cake.

Overall: 10/10

No. 836: Boltund

Remember that Bolt movie from Disney? me neither

Unfortunately, Boltund doesn't manage to look badass enough to be truly "cool", or remain cute enough to work that way, either. It's got a doofy look on its face, and doesn't even resemble any specific breed anymore. It's just a generic dog, but with a crazy-go-nuts coloration pattern.

I think it's especially weird that the spots around its eyes now have hard lines, instead of the soft fade of Yamper.


Overall: 4/10

No. 835: Yamper

from the people who brought you Wocket in my Pocket comes Yamper in my Camper

another cutie! Corgis were a meme dog for a while, (though not as much as the legendary doge) but I'm not gonna take points away for that. While Electrike fills the same niche and aimed to be a generic weirdo dog-thing, Yamper tries to resemble a specific breed and does so pretty well. I like how its ruff sparks out when it attacks, too.

Not the goodest boy ever, but still a good boy.


Overall: 7/10