Sunday 26 May 2019

Quick Crappy Pokemon Reviews: Generation 4 Part 8 - Regigigas to Arceus





The Pokémon that pulled the continents into place and built the Legendary Golems in its image, Regigigas a) has the best English name of the four and yet b) has the hardest English name to spell of the four, it’s not like I’m thick or anything, I can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious without looking (and you’ll never know if I’m lying or not) but that’s just too many g’s and i’s in one place for me to get right with any kind of regularity.
So Regigigas reminds me of a play mat, you know the big vinyl mats that have towns or whatever drawn on them for kids to play with their trucks and stuff on? That might be why I like it now I think about I, cos I do like Regigigas even though I think that objectively it’s a bit crap? It’s Ability is Slow Start which means that it always hits last and design wise it’s a weird set of things all put onto this big faceless white Pilsbury Dough body. We have green shrubbery, yellow-gold and raised black patterns and traffic lights and it really feels like a bunch of stuff were all stuck on it -  like that time in Power Rangers when Squatt and Babboo tried to make a monster for Rita Repulsa and ended up just throwing all kinds of things they found around Finster’s lab onto a turtle? Funnily enough that monster was called Shellshock and he’s a favourite of mine, in fact I think only The Pudgy Pig beats it for me. What was I talking about? Oh yeh this weird golem that ultimately ends up being better than the sum of its parts design wise because it should work but damn if it doesn’t look pleasing (and minty).
Fridge logic: Regigigas is the weakest design not because Gen 4 was like that but because it made the other three golems and so of course improved on its own design, you wouldn’t replicate previous design flaws if you were any kind of good designer, would you?







So basically Darkrai is the bogeyman and Cresselia is the thing that keeps the Bogeyman in check, sadly Darkrai has never been voiced by Jude Law but that’s about the only thing wrong with it, well that and the time my mate Richard sweeped everyone with one and made his whole peer group loathe him and his bloody bogeyman.
How would you describe Cresselia? A rainbow watering can swan dolphin? Bulbapedia suggests Sarimanok as a potential basis but I don’t think it’s actually supposed to be anything except Cresselia, a lot of Gen 4’s Legendaries are just things that are supposed to represent or fill a myth in Sinnoh – time, space, god, the devil etc – and I  reckon Cresselia is one of these. It definitely looks like the sort of thing that you’d see bursting through your nightmares to save the day, it looks like a burst of light in the darkness and it certainly looks regal and legendary, it’s also a lovely set of colours. Sadly I typically prefer the darkness and so Darkrai is my man.
Just look at that bastard; it is the big daddy of scary monsters (he’s actually pure Dark, not Ghost Type despite looking like one), without it’s legs it’s just about perfect but then it grows thin legs and becomes Slenderman’s Goth Rock cousin. It’s just…it’s just…I can’t, I cannot think of ways to express my devotion to a Pokémon made of nightmares that’s such a monster it has to have a Legendary look after it (Darkrai isn’t a Legendary, it’s a Mythical Pokémon), that’s like being a superhero that’ so badass a New God has to be your babysitter.
Also, those who’ve played Gen 5 will know what a scary bastard Darkrai can be, ‘m not spoiling it here though. And it has no mouth, why does having no mouth make something look cuter sometimes but more terrifying others? Why? It also has the best hair in Pokemon, not Mega Ampharos, not Alolan Dugtrio, not Mismagius, Darkrai - Darkrai has the hair every lead singer wishes they had, in fact he has the outfit a lot of ‘em wish they had too.
Dakrai is beautiful.







I can’t say I give a flying fuck about these two at all; I do like that Sea Slugs (specifically Sea Angels) are so popular in Japan that ‘mons based on them were just such an obvious thing that it had to happen but what we end up with is just another Mew, a cute little blue critter (Manaphy, the one with yellow eyelashes) that gives birth to a cuter, simpler little blue critter (Phione, the one with blue eyelashes). Meh.
They also feel like a complete waste of the concept of a Legendary/Mythical Pokémon that can breed, this could have been used for some creative or really secret shit – maybe Manaphy could have given birth to a super powerful sea-slug ‘mon, or a whole different line of Pseudo-Legendaries, or a different ‘mon (or a Pokémon with different Formes) depending on what Legendary or Psuedo-Legendary it bred with or who know what kind of special twist of the mechanic, instead it just makes another Baby Pokémon – Mantine can do that. Meh.








It’s…so…fucking...cuuuuuuute!!! Of all the Legendaries and Mythical Pokémon this is the one I’d want to own, I can’t imagine a day that wouldn’t be brightened by come down from the bedroom and seeing this adorable little bugger sniffing around my front room, I would sit and idly stroke its soft grass spines. We have another of those ‘so obvious I can’t believe I didn’t think of it’ ‘mons here – it’s a literal HEDGEhog (and it took until writing this review to get that they’re HEDGEhogs, they live under hedges and have hedge in their name, oh god I’m so fucking thiiiiick!).
Because it’s Gen 4 though Shaymin got a separate form, where it switches into a kind of…goat with its own natural neckerchief, it certainly has its own feisty little personality going on but it’s not close to the pure cuteness of it’s Land Forme. I don’t mind it.







It’s God. I get to review God. This was a good idea.
Hopefully pop-cultural osmosis means you’re not in any way surprised that I’m totally not kidding here, this is the Pokémon God, according to the Sinnoh myths first there was the void, then an egg, and from that egg hatched Arceus: Arceus built the Spear Pillar and created the Creation Trio (hence their name) giving them dominion over Space, Time and Reality and then from the Spear Pillar grew Sinnoh and from Sinnoh grew the whole Pokémon world. Arceus is God. Pity you couldn’t catch it or visit it’s thrown room the Hall of Origins because they dummied out the item needed to get it (they did give it away later mind you), so yes they made an event Pokemon and didn’t’ go through with the event (apparently they thought the method of getting to the Hall of Origins would be to confusing, which I found confusing). 
I honestly think they nailed it (unlike Lopunny, where people just want to nail it, though I suppose some people want to fuck Arceus, I mean it’s God, would you turn it down?), it certainly didn’t disappoint me.
It has this wonderful quality where it sort of looks like a real animal (maybe a goat?) but on further inspection it actually doesn’t which makes complete sense to me – it’s God, it really shouldn’t look like anything except itself because it it’s, well it’s God. Of course I could be overthinking this and it’s just a god goat with gold accents (I think it’s meant to be goat-like but it’s clearly not a goat, aren’t goats connected to god and stuff though? Or is that just lambs?). White and Gold is also THE colour scheme for God isn’t it? Just me? Surely not. AND Arceus also looks like it could kick your arse and I like that; I like that God is one of the most badass looking Legendaries because, well it’s GOD. Seriously my justification for just about everything here is ‘because it’s God’, which I think means that Arceus is a very fitting design for its’ concept? I think? I dunno, I’m hungry, there’s meatballs though…
Meanwhile Arceus has an interesting gimmick intentionally shared with only one other Pokémon (Sivally), it doesn’t have separate forms but rather you can load plates into it (because remember you can catch God, befriend God and send God out to beat up Weedle and Caterpie) which changes its Type (but not its form, it’s colours are just slightly different). Now I don’t think I’ve ever managed to find all of the plates in any game they’ve been available, which is a downside, but as a concept it’s a good ‘un for God, because it not only makes sense that God can become all the Types but it also puts it one above Mew, who was previously the ancestor of all Pokémon (now I think it’s the ancestor of everything but the Sinnoh Legendaries?): Mew can learn every TM and HM but it’ll always be one type and thus never have things like Same Type Attack Boost, Arceus goes one better. According to the engravings on them the Plates were formed from shards of the universe itself when it was created…that’s really awesome innit.
Of course God is getting six balls


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