Lt. Surge of Vermillion City

please, imagine Guile's theme playing in your head as you read this.


Actually, this one pretty much gets it all right on the first try. Spiky yellow hair, because he uses Electric-types, muscles, cocky grin, military commando uniform, it's all here.

I don't really like this on as much, even thought its like exactly the same design. I think it's his stance, reminds me of Giovanni or something. Can't see his muscles, looks more like a crafty battle tactician than the dude who will lead the charge jumping out of helicopters. But like I said, that's all in the pose. The design itself is still good, and the lightning badge on his arm is a nice touch.

Okay, if you weren't humming Guile's theme in your head, you should probably start now. Because as George Washington is my witness, this is literally just Guile with slightly different hair. The cockiness is back, and he definitely looks a lot less formal while still being a badass who is in control, but really... I can't look at it and NOT just see Guile with a haircut.


His gym is the start of interesting gyms, though. The electric wall "puzzle" is certainly more complex than just walking past a few assholes and battling the leader. And his badge looks kickass.

I think I actually liked his gen 1 design the best, thought 3 is good, too (just copycat). But he exudes a definite persona, which is a good thing. He still isn't as flashy as some of the leaders that will come later, but simple works just as well.


Overall: 7/10

Misty of Cerulean City

Now, Misty was a cute little spitfire who dressed like a less-well-endowed Tifa Lockheart in the anime, but again, none of that matters now.


Fortunately, she's still a hottie in the games. though one of her legs appears to be melded into the shadow realm. She looks like a swimmer, which makes sense, but not much of a "leader" honestly...


Notice that Misty has much more dynamic poses that convey personality than Brock? this is partially because Brock has the personality of, well, a rock, but also because Misty is clearly a energetic young lass, who at least in the games is devoid of that acidic tongue.

A few years later, and she's grown up a bit, changed her hairstyle, and in general looks a lore more... mom-ish. Still the same bright smile, though. And I like how this time around she actually looks in charge of things. For some reason swim instructors wear jackets over their swimsuits, because I guess they don't get in the water themselves? but it's working.


Misty's gym is alright, it's guys and gals in the water, what you'd expect. But as easy as she is on the eyes, she really doesn't look like one of the Top 8 Trainers in the country. She looks like a different version of the regular Swimmer trainers. Though if you see her as just a competent girl who somehow got handed control of the whole gym for some reason, she makes more sense. I don't know, I just feel bad giving Misty a bad score, but... she's really not that good.

urgh... see, here's a little secret: while I disapprove of sexualizing Pokemon, I definitely have no problem thinking the trainers themselves are babes. which makes it hard to view their designs in an objective way, you dig? anyway, I'll try to keep it on the down-low, but I'm really acting like the wolf in that Tex Avery cartoon over here. so, keep that in mind and forgive me if I'm mysteriously lenient with my scores for all the ladies.

With that said, here's where I'm putting my foot down - Misty is too generic, even if she does have a nice midriff.


Overall: 4/10

Brock of Pewter City

let's kick this gym leader thing off in the only way that makes any sense, the beginning.


Man, Brock looked like a little punk back in the day. Super generic, just a no-fun-allowed sort of asshole. Moving right the hell along.

In the remakes, Brock apparently decided to spruce up his wardrobe a little. Look how reinforced those knees are, that's a man who knows he's going to be kneeling in the gravel looking for rocks and shit all day. way to plan ahead. Nice grey/brown/orange color scheme, looks solid. Nothing exciting, but he's the freaking ROCK trainer, what do you expect?

But for the remakes of Gold/Silver, Brock again changed it up. Now he's sporting more of a "wise college Junior" sort of look, as opposed to the "I hike in mountains" look. maybe he even lost some weight? kept the colors, though, that's good. I think I kinda liked the other one better, though. This is almost TOO plain.


Now, our friend Brock is a fan of Rocks. Which means he can get beat down by 2/3rd of your potential starters without much hurry, especially since he lives in Kanto, which means he is also a fan of Ground by default. Because every Rock-type in Kanto was also Rock/Ground, which means 4x weakness to getting splashed or throwing leaves at it.

makes him a minimal challenge, appropriate for the first boss. Even his big Pokemon, Onix, looks cool but has sucky stats. maybe Brock's just such a nice guy he goes easy on all the little tykes, who knows.


That gen III design is the sweet spot of subdued design yet sticks with his theme and placement in the game, but the first is just awful and the latest falls a bit short as well. Also his gym is as boring as, well, a rock. I'm gonna go ahead and give him a baseline score to set the standards. Anyone who is cooler than Brock will score higher, and anyone who doesn't even match up to Brock will score lower. I think that makes a lot of sense.

Overall: 5/10

ps - I guess he's in the anime too but I don't even want to open that kettle of fish with this. The anime is pretty much fanfiction for the games in my opinion, and I'd only be able to use it as argument points for like 5 characters anyway. I'm just not going to even bring it up, okay?

What Next?

Now that my life has calmed down, I've taken some time to think about what to do with this blog for the next few months. As you are no doubt aware, the next generation of Pokemon will hit NA and Japanese shores this October, in a simultaneous release. This is super exciting, not only because they are new pokymanz in threeDEEEEEEE, but because for perhaps the first time since RBY, we won't have any spoilers from Japan.

You can go into this game fresh as a newborn babe, with no idea who's lurking in that grass, who will be a cool dude, and who will be ugly and lame. it's a neat idea, and it'll be a lot of fun.

but, that still leaves us with June, July, August, September, and probably half of October. and I'm out of Pokemon. So, after asking a few times and reading comments and such, I have a few ideas:

1. Review the gym leaders and elite 4 members - with 40 gym leaders, and around 25 elite 4 members, that should keep me busy for a while.

2. re-review controversial pokemon - sometimes, the people, they don't like the things I say and do online. if anyone feels strongly that I unjustly harpooned their favorite, or maybe that I overlooked the grievous flaws in their least-favorite, let me know! maybe I'll give them another look-over.

3. sit around and bide my time - this is going to happen at some point, no matter what. updates will hopefully happen more often than they have in the past month, but I'm certainly not aimed for update-a-day. I just won't have enough content.

4. romhack - I'm working on a romhack for Emerald. I might post some stuff about that, I don't know, it depends on how good I end up feeling about the thing.

5. something else? - or is there anything else you peeps would like to see me do with the site? I'd like to keep it Pokemon-related, please.


remember, wherever you post a comment, I get notified. so if you ask me something on a post that was a year ago, I will still see it, and might reply! I've replied to quite a few such comments, so go ahead and check back if you honestly were expecting a response.

The Worst Gen 5 Pokemon

have no fear, I'm not dead. I just moved to a new apartment, took a week to get internet hooked up again, and had a little thing called "final exams" going on.

but enough about my fantastic life, let's talk about some utterly shit-tastic Pokemon. My list here is going to look a little different from most other people's, because I didn't get offended at the brazen concept of Pokemon inspire by ice-cream cones. But with over 150 Pokemon, there were bound to be more than a few bad apples. and here they are:

10. Pidove
9. Tranquil
8. Alomomola
7. Klingklang
6. Palpitoad
5. Druddigon
4. Sigilyph
3. Unfeazant
2. Kyurem
1. Garbodor

If you'll notice, Trubbish barely escaped the list. That's because I really, truly thought about it, and I realized that I hate generic birds more than I hate literal bags of poop. It doesn't mean Trubbish isn't awful, it just means I have a severe problem with avian creatures and should probably seek professional help.

Now how about you, out there in reader-land - what are your despised ones of Unova?

The best Gen 5 Pokemon

holy poo, there were a lot of amazing Pokemon in this generation. I feel like I'll be coming back to Black every once in a while just to run a different team of cool dudes. And I can do it, too, there's a lot of type diversity to be found. anyway, the very best Unova has to offer as as follows:

10. Gigalith
9. Reuniclus
8. Simisage
7. Darmanitan
6. Genesect
5. Scolipede
4. Timburr
3. Chandelure
2. Galvantula
1. Cofagrigus

and if I integrate this with my cumulative top 10...

1. Haunter
2. Heracross
3. Scyther
4. Cofagrigus
5. Machamp
6. Blazekin
7. Galvantula
8. Pinsir
9. Cacturne
10. Typhlosion

yeah, I really, REALLY like Cofagrigus. I also like how aside from Cacturne and Typhlosion, my top 10 is comprised entire of Ghosts, Fighters, and Bugs.

Now, it's your turn! according to your own (flawed) opinions, who are the shining stars of the 5th Gen?

5th Gen Summary

One thing I love about the Pokemon series is that each game improves on the mechanics of the last.

2nd Gen added a Sp. Def stat and fixed some of the bullshit from Gen 1.
3rd Gen added double battles, and made the Box system bearable.
4th Gen finally added a Special/Physical split among attacks.
5th Gen threw in rotation and triple (my new favorite) battles, and made HMs optional and TMs reusable.

Throughout this, there's been a Day/Night/Seasonal system that's come and gone and hardly ever really mattered at all. I'd like to see Gen 6 take this concept and do something useful with it, for once.

But back to the 5th Gen. Black and White contained all new Pokemon, which made the game feel fresh and exciting. No old standards to rely on, it's time to make new friends. And I definitely found a lot of new dudes to hang with. At the same time, it also gave a reason to create new Pokemon to fill existing niches that were suddenly empty, which is a casus belli that the previous generations didn't have.

and then we got Black2 and White2, which for the first time actually introduced enough "new" things to justify their creation. I know people expected a Gray, and perhaps they could've just made one new game, but I'm glad for the remixed Pokedex and new routes. also that battle tournament thing is badass, triple battle tournament with the gym leaders from all previous games? it's as fantastic as it sounds.

But let's return to what you came here for, and the true heart and soul of any Pokemon game - the roster itself. The 5th Gen Pokemon averaged out to 5.4/10, and I have to say I'm a little surprised it's that low. because, I totally thought I loved this generation, but apparently I actually like it 2nd least. I think what it was, is there's a high amount of 5/10s in here. Not as many absolute stinkers as Gen 4, and a few gems, but most of them just sort of hover around the middling range.

I think a lot of the designs were good, but more than a few were just not designs suited for a Pokemon game. compared to Gen 4, with many designs not suited for even a modern art gallery. But enough about me, what do you peoples think?


other regional scores, for reference:
Gen 1: 6.2
Gen 2: 5.8
Gen 3: 6.1
Gen 4: 4.8
Gen 5: 5.4

No. 649: Genesect

it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down...


well, we've at last made it through the end of the 5th gen, the largest of all the generations, and at the time of this writing, the most recent generation actually existing in our current reality. And what is our reward? who is the monster at the end of the book?

none other than that mother-loving Neon Genesis Evangeli-bug himself, Genesect. hopy SHIT do I love this guy. you don't know how long I've been waiting for a Bug-type legendary, and Genesect doesn't disappoint.

Let's start with that wonderful, delicious name - Genesect. An insect of genocide. but not just that, it's also a mecha genocidal bug. with a big-ass laser canon on its back and and insane grin on its face. The purple coloring is pretty swag, and the Char Custom red shiny sprite is also neat. It's a robot, yet doesn't look like it has too many moving pieces, which keeps the design complexity down.

you can make it hold different Drives, which makes its unique attack have different types, which is a cool enough idea. But with stats like that, it really doesn't need any gimmicks in wrecking house. also those don't really count as alternate forms. Neither does its flying-saucer form that it apparently takes in the recent anime movie, but that ain't in the games so fortunately I don't even have to acknowledge it exists.

basically, Genesect is a mean bastard who'll cut your throat and turn your family into tang. and he's coming to get you. It's not that you mustn't run away, it's more like you can[not] escape.


Overall: 10/10

No. 648: Meloetta

we're almost there... almost at the end...


but first, here's a singing nymph or something, I don't even freaking know anymore. Is a girl who sings really that legendary, Gamefreak? think about you life and your choices here. I dig how her hair is musical bars, complete with dots for notes, though. and then its arms are musical notes, and it has a treble cleff in its hair. so they definitely did a good job of creating a Musical Sprite creature.

I just question whether or not it's really that much of a Pokemon. I dunno. The design is good, but it just feels so tacked-on, like most of the Gen 5 legendaries. meh...

Aria Form: 5/10


That's not all, though. As well all know, every Legendary Pokemon needs an alternate form, and if you use the move Relic Song in battle, Meloetta changes to a Fighting type, and gains Atk and Speed instead of Sp. Atk and Sp. Def.

Now, I like this. it's a transformation that might actually have some use, and you can control when/if it happens. Compare to Darmanitan, who only changes if he's below half health, and then moves too slow to do shit anyway. The design isn't as focused, and I think it would've been find just as a musical fairy, but a dancing fairy with a head wrap is fine, too.

Pirouette Form: 5/10


Overall: 5/10

No. 647: Keldeo

I'm dragging my feet here because I'm scared of what happens when I run out of Pokemon. I don't want the dream to end just yet.

anyway, here's another little pony thing. the first think I notice is that its horseshoes are on backwards. THe second thing I notice is that it looks like they drew a butthole on it, which is unsettling to me.

If those other legendary deer were the Three Musketeers, then this is D'Artagnan, the guy who is actually the protagonist and makes the novel Four Musketeers but by that time it was too late to change the title or something. and just like D'arty, Keldeo isn't nearly as experienced or badass, and mainly gets through with luck and bullshit.

I don't know, what was the point of this guy even? he looks like Tezuka drew him.


Ordinary Form: 3/10

but wait - there's more! because everything has to have multiple forms these days, here's the Resolute Form! it... has a bigger horn? and feathers in its hair? and that's it? I don't even know what this form DOES. it has the same type, do its stats increase? again, what is the goddamn point?

I guess I like this one more, because it looks more like a legendary unicorn thing. but I still can't say I care about it.

Resolute Form: 4/10


Overall: 3/10