Patrat is average and I
hate Watchog completely.
The end.
Okay, okay.
So Patrat doesn’t do
anything particularly wrong, I like that its tail is standing to attention,
good little design feature, and the line as a whole is very good to use in
battle for one of the ‘common rodent’ Pokémon, as anyone trying to Nuzlocke
Black and White will know, Watchog can go
fuck itself as an opponent - in fact it ended up being the new Zubat more than
Woobat ever did – but those sort of ‘mons are great when they’re on your team.
Speaking of Watchog and going fucking itself, Watchog can go fuck itself in
every other way also. I hate everything about it, it hate it’s Looney Tunes face
(and I like the Looney Tunes!), I hate the ‘slapped on’ look of its yellow
markings, I hate the colours scheme and if it had shoes those’d piss me off
too. “But it’s wearing a hi-vis jacket you say” or maybe “its supposed to look
like a traffic cone! Those yellow markings aren’t ‘slapped on”; no I know
they’re not, but they look slapped on, and that’s a flaw with a design
if you ask me. They could just have easily joined them up to its muzzle and made
it look a million times better – or better yet, made the whole damn thing
high-vis! (I have literally just thought of this) make the whole Watchog
luminous except for the stripes, Patrat’s even a light colour so it
transitioning into a neon meerkat would have felt MORE natural than turning
into a hamburger coloured one with slapped on feeling markings.
Am I missing something?
This line is based on Yorkies right? Yorkshire Terriers? Yorkshire, as in Yorkshire?
For a region based on America? A country where over half the population can’t
even pronounce Yorkshire (York-shy-er my arse)? Are Yorkies really big
in America and I just never knew this?
Lillipup’s design has
always bothered me just a little bit, I think I’ve narrowed this down it’s face
fuzz, that cream fur looks really… separate, like it’s been glued on, like a
fake moustache if you will and how appropriate is that because moustaches MAKE
the rest of this line. If it wasn’t for Herdier’s neatly designed (and I
assume, neatly groomed – every day) facial hair it would be just a drawing of a
dog, wouldn’t it? which is quite odd given that it was designed by the annoyingly
attractive Mana Ibe, who also created the likes of Victini, Jellicent, Kelfki and
Haxorus, all of which most certainly cannot be summed up us ‘just a drawing of
X’, perhaps that’s why Herdier does have that extra element of design going on
it’s mush, perhaps Ibe is just the sort of designer who can elevate ‘just a
drawing of a dog’ by doing something so simple? Or perhaps I’m just saying this
because I quite fancy her and she designed the almighty Stunfisk. There’s a lot
of personality going on with Herdier too, he sure looks like the firm but fair
general of the Pokémon world, but then Ibe also designed Stunfisk, who is 100%
personality, so that’s defiantly part of her skill set.
And it all adds up to the
most glorious moustache in the Pokémon world, Stoutland, the grand old duke of Pokémon,
a dog and with facial hair that breeds only respect. Though I don’t think
Sugimori’s current art for it does it justice, so I’ve included this ride-on
Stoutland render get the full effect across, please ignore the pink saddle, it
only wears it to please it’s human pets:
That is a dog with goddamn
presence (and size, a normal person can ride on the bastard), if I could be a
Pokémon I’d be a Stoutland just because for once I’d be as manly as I’ve always
want to be.
It’s the Gen 5 equivalents
to Meowth and Persian, a house cat that evolves into a jungle cat and Liepard’s
markings bother me of course, they have that just drawn on anywhere then
knocked off for a wank in the toilets that bugs me so much I bring it up all
the time. I don’t know why it bugs me so much, I mean it bothers me because I
think it looks crap and I bring it up because I’m reviewing them but I don’t know
why it’ SUCH a big thing that it guarantees a terrible score to whoever has
this issue that I’m sure other people can’t see, maybe it’s because I know the
team are capable of better? Anyway the rest of Liepard doesn’t do too much for
me anyway, I like it’s silhouette, it’s overall shape but it’s colour are gross,
that’s just the wrong colour of yellow for me, it’s the colour of gross, of
cheap European cakes and drunks’ vomit. Still it does look like it evolves from
Purrloin so if you’re not bothered by shit markings and horrible yellows and like
liked Purrloin you’d find Liepard a suitable finale to training your Purrloin.
I don’t mind Purloin, I like how it’s markings make it look like a space alien
or a Power Ranger (why not both?) and as a feminine counterpart to the very
masculine feeling Meowth it’s ok, and is hadn’t got any puke yellow on it, just
pleasing pink.
Unlike just about the whole
Pokémon fandom I don’t hate the Elemental Monkeys, but mostly because I don’t care about the Elemental Monkeys, 2/3 of
this sextet just cause nothing but apathy – which is probably worse really,
surely it’s better to create a strong reaction than none at all? I like the
idea the Elemental Monkeys were used for, basically you’re given a ‘second
starter’ to help you out, one that’s the opposite Type to the one you picked
initially (so if you picked Tepig you get Panpour, very few received Panpour),
that’s a fine idea, a nice way to help newer or less competent players that
others can ignore just by sticking the thing in a box, and a completely new
concept for Generation V but, like the all-original Pokedex, the idea doesn’t
reach it’s potential in the execution - because the execution is a bunch of
unremarkable element + animal = Pokémon designs
The first stages of the
three lines – Pansage (Grass), Pansear (Fire) and Panpour (Water) – all leave
me completely meh, I would have added some kind of pattern to Pansage’s stomach
where the brown meets green similar to its siblings’ but otherwise they’re
completely functional cartoon monkeys that pale in comparison to the likes of
Mankey and Primape’s more original execution of the idea and veer far too close
to being palette swap characters, still at least they have different tails and
that’s alone puts them above the Lake Guardians. If I had to pick a favourite
I’d probably go with Pansear because I like it’s hair because it’s come to
that.
Their evolutions add a bit
more individuality and personality – while keeping the same face and ear
markings, something I have just this second noticed, have a look, it’s true.
This allows me to get a bit of a stronger opinion them, well except Simisear,
Simisear is just there, looking a bit goofy and like it’s wearing fingerless
gloves, but doing nothing to offend or delight me. Actually on that, have you
ever noticed that Simisage (Grass), Simisear (Fire) and Simipour (Water) look
like they’re wearing little clothes? Simisage and Simisear have jackets and
Simipour has a little swimsuit, it’s cute. Oh yeah, those stronger opinions; I
actually really quite like Simisage as a design, I like it’s ridiculous anime
hair that yet still looks like a tree (and not broccoli), the spikey bush-like
feel to it’s fur and it’s convincingly cool dude swagger, it’s a cool monkey. I
actually rather dislike Simipour, something about the design seems really bitty
and stuck together, I dislike it’s hair which looks like Play-Doh and doesn’t
really seem to connect to it’s prevolution’s (which had a splash for hair),
it’s swimsuit fur seems to finish too far up its body to work for me (and is FAR
too revealing, cover yourself up monkey!) but I do like that its tail looks
like a cartoon squirt of water coming out of a hose, that’s cool.
So yeah, sorry all, no hate
for the monkeys, just mostly apathy and bitchiness about hairstyles
I hope you enjoyed looking
at those monkeys, because the ‘second starters’ are the last original thought for
a while, now it’s all equivalents all the way to the bugs, that’s 10 sets of Pokémon.
It’s a dispiriting slog through the wasted potential of Gen 5’s ‘all-new
Pokedex’ concept as Game Freak decided that instead of doing something creative
now they couldn’t be relying on the same old ‘mons they’d been relying on they’d
just create a bunch of equivalents to those Pokémon and rely on them instead,
it’s the biggest flaw of Gen 5’s ‘dex if you ask me. Now some of these
equivalents are good, some of them I like as much or better than the Gen 1-3
Pokémon they’re standing in for but it’s still a massive let-down and wasting
the potential of an all new ‘Dex.
Munna and Mushana are our
blatantly obvious Gen 5 equivalents to Drowzee and Hypno, two dream-themed
tapirs based on Bakku, these are effectively the ‘feminine’ equivalent to the
very male feeling Gen 1 Bakku, which at least is something Pokémon has been
doing since Gen 1 and that fact does soften the blow (to be completely
over-dramatic) of such obvious Catain Ersatz ‘mons, I can just about convince
myself that these could have been added in any generation just like Gardevoir
or something – if I’m drunk.
Looking at them on their
own? Munna’s got an interesting bit of trivia associated with it in that back
in Pokémon Red & Blue, a girl wished there was a Pokémon with flowers on it
and some people took this to mean there was one (or once was one but it was
scrapped), there wasn’t, but now there is. Which is cute and nice but it’s the
flowers that do Munna’s design in for me, they have that horrible Gen 3-4
‘undesigned’ willy-nilly placement that looks crap, the same shit that brought Liepard
down to shitscoreland and ruin what is actually a neat little abstract tapir
design that, lacking these shit flowers, Mushana gets to show off. Mushana in
fact looks to me like a big, old soft toy and that’s pretty damn perfect for a
sleeping dream thing isn’t it?
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