No. 806: Blacephalon

who's this clown?

I think I talked about clowns before, when I covered Piedmon in my Digi-tober event. Basically, I said that I tend to like Japan's take on the platonic ideal of "clown", since they wrap it up with harlequins and jesters and other fun stuff, instead of murder and hip-hop like America inexplicably does.

So does Blacephalon continue that trend? He's certainly not murderous or hip-hoppy. He throws his head around and it explodes, which is always fun. Reminds me of those guys from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, at the Festival of Fools. I'm not sure about the way it's rendered though - nothing else in the game escapes the hard outline, even fire and other effects are rendered with their own colored hard edge. So that's just weird, and not in an UB sort of way, more like a "did you accidentally delete the wrong layer before you saved the image?" sort of way.

Blacephalon is weird, and that's okay. His knees look like they should snap, and that head is irritating, but the concept is pretty good.


Ultra Grade: B-

No. 805: Stakataka

Jenga: the Pokemon

another reference that will be lost to non-Japanese, but Stakataka resembles not just a brick structure but specifically the base of a Japanese castle. It's a neat idea that it's a colony, too. I'm reminded of how the blocks moved around in Laputa, on that ancient technology shit.

but the thing I wonder is, what if you just capture ONE of them? can you take it home and have a lil' block friend? What if you only need like 4 blocks, so they can make tetris shapes? What if you have multiple entire Stakatakas (Stakataki?) and combine them together, can you build a modern-day Tower of Babel and rip the Pokegods from their thrones?

Clearly, future research is necessary.


Ultra Rank: B

No. 804: Naganadel

don't tell nobody, but I used to be terrified of needles as a kid.

So I'm still waiting for a Poison/Dragon type that looks like Magellan's hydra from One Piece, instead of a cybertronic syringe or whatever the heck Dragalge was. But, I suppose we'll make do.

Naganadel looks like a Yu-Gi-Oh monster, is the thing. I get that it's an Ultra Beast, and theoretically a Legendary, and maybe those look more Yugi-esque than normal Pokemon. But still, Naganadel looks like it has 1700 attack and 1100 defense, and is a 3-star Tuner Monster that has some weird synergy that involves sending your hand into your opponent's graveyard to banish spells from your deck so that you can summon 16 monsters in one turn or some bullshit.

no, I'm not bitter, what are you talking about.

Anyway, it's alright, but somehow not crazy enough to be a good Ultra Beast? idk, I don't get the "otherworldly" feeling.

Ultra Grade: C+

No. 803: Poipole

[WWE Eric Bischoff theme] I'm back... and better than ever!

So Poipole is a new Ultra Beast introduced in USUM. This is actually the first instance of sequel games introducing brand-new Pokemon not found in the previous game's code. That's pretty cool! I was relying on this sort of thing to make USUM worth buying!

Except... it's essentially a Legendary. It evolves, but you get it very late in the game, and the evolution requirement is to take it to the Move Learner at the Elite 4, which is right around the corner because again - you're late in the game. So any thrill of adding a Legendary to your party early and leveling it up as you adventure is lost. They may as well just hand you the final form.

All that aside, is this thing any good? Despite the name sounding like Curly from the Three Stooges saying Prince's favorite color, I kinda like the little bugger. The techno theme is unusual for a Poison-type, but somehow its head seems medical to me. Like injectors? So dealing in chemicals and stuff makes sense.

Ultra Grade: B+

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-