Why am I suddenly reviewing
Yu-Gi-Oh monsters? I mean they’re very nice Yu-Gi-Oh monsters but wasn’t this
about Pokémon last entry? Whaddaya mean these ARE Pokémon and were in fact the
box Legendaries for Pokémon X & Y and I know this and I’m just dragging it
out to make a point? The point is that is that I find the pair – two thirds of
the Aura Trio, we’re dealing with Zygarde separately for reasons that will
become obvious later – exceptionally jarring in terms of design and feel
which really can be summed up as ‘they look like they’re from another series’
with Yu-Gi-Oh being the closest stylistically and for me that sore thumbness is
what defines them, especially Xerneas (Zer-Ne-Ass)
As a monster design I do
find myself rather liking Yveltal (Evil-tul), and it’s certainly a fit for the
concept of a bird of destruction, it’s kind of like the bird version of Lord
Zedd and that’s no bad thing, and I like it’s tail is also a hand, the whole
thing not only looks like a Y (as it was the Box Legendary for Pokémon Y) but
also like a huge thing grabbing at you – when all it’s doing is flying, ‘if
it’s that menacing when benign’ it says ‘imagine what it’s like when it’s
pissed off’. Xerneas I don’t much like and never have, I like the concept of
jewelled stag horns and it’s nice that the first pure Fairy type Legendary
isn’t a typical fairy, which would be obvious as all fuck, but the design as a
whole I just don’t dig. There’s too many bits where there shouldn’t be – too
many markings, too many colours and the whole thing is incredibly segmented,
feeling less like one animal and more like a kinder egg toy (again). And I hate
its feet, this is really petty but they’ve bothered me since reveal – how the
bleedin’ hell does it stand up? They look like apple corers, how does it stand
up on blades? It’s just…they piss me off.
The legend behind these is
that they’re basically Ragnarök which if you ask me makes them terrifying, the
idea of the world ending and restarting really bothers me for whatever reason
and it’s another thing that puts me off the two. I’m serious I don’t want to
think about that shit when I’m playing Pokémon (god, I’m a child). Xerneas
gives life with its horns, Yveltal sucks life with its wings, Yveltal will end
the world, Xerneas will rebirth it, Zygarde monitors the two little shits. Of
course it’s Pokémon so this all could be bullshit, but I still don’t like it - don’t
give me existential crises Pokémon!
Zygarde is indeed part of
the Aura Trio with Xerneas and Yveltal and I normally do legendary trios
together yes but because it has a whopping five forms (well technically it has
two forms that make up the other three) and because of its ties to the belief
that at one point a Pokémon Z existed we’re doing it separately - cool? Tough.
When it was finally allowed
to show off its whole gimmick, Zygarde is awesome. In X & Y it was just a
big, albeit cool looking, snake in a cave with little fanfare of backstory but
in the anime and then in Pokémon Sun & Moon, that was where it shone and
why I like it so much. You see you need
to build Zygarde, by collecting Zygarde Cells and Zygarde Cores around the
region, both are almost offensively cute for what they are and both look like
little adorable cartoon snakes (or more like the snake-like cryptid tsuchinoko,
the same thing Dunsparce is based on). These aren’t actually Pokémon, you can’t
use one on your team, but one was a character in the anime, rightly called
Squishy. Instead you put them into a machine and gradually build yourself a
Zygarde – which comes in 3 Formes because Formes, Game Freak WILL make you like
Formes and… actually, this does an ok job of convincing me, it’s a very fitting
use of them if you ask me, it just makes sense to me that the ‘mon would have
different forms as it became more and more complete and it allows you use the
Pokémon while you’re still building it.
Zygarde 10% Forme is a
Doberman, it keeps the pixelated look but ultimately it’s just a cartoon
Doberman and very uninteresting, and also it’s one green paw bugs me. The
theory is it represents Fenfrir (as Yveltal and Xerneas both represent Norse
legends too) but… it’s just a Doberman and very random, what is with Japanese
‘mon franchises and random Dobermans? Do you remember the random Doberman from
Digimon? The one that as there solely because it won a fan competition? That’s
both of the big two in the genre - did Yokai Watch just have a Doberman Ghost
what showed up for one episode too? And It’s really not a very good flow to go
‘snake, dog, snake’, even for Pokémon’s wonky version of evolution.
Zygarde 50% Forme is the
one you’ll recognise, the big awesome pixelated snake and the nicest looking of
the Aura Trio if you ask me, it’ still seems a little bit of a departure from
Pokemon’s regular style but much of that an optical illusion caused by its
pixel-like design, I think it’s supposed to represent it being segmented rather
than pixelated by the way but it certainly looks like it’s made from pixels or
a low-polygon count CGI model from the 32-bit era and that’s what I like about
all three forms, I have a weird love for that blocky polygon look. It’s also
relevant here to bring up that Zygarde is jut a lovely pair of colours and ever
noticed that they colour one of it’s segmented eyes white to represent the
‘shine circle’ in segmented polygonal form? I like that, a clever little touch
to keep the style of design absolute, I thank you for the extra effort whoever
designed this (Sugimori probably, he usually does the Legendaries). The theory
is it represents Jormungandr.
And then Zygarde becomes
Zygarde 100% Forme and of course it’s a fucking Gundam! I never knew I wanted
Pokémon to do Beast Wars until Zygarde but now I’m so glad they did, look at
this bastard? They clearly sat around and thought “what would be a satisfying
reward for all this work” and then realised the answer was “A humongous mecha,
duh!” and they were right. also you’ll notice the red and blue on either side
of 100% Zygarde’s streamers and chest mouth? Zygarde is the balance between
Xerneus and Yyvetal remember? And ti’s one of many things about Zygarde that
add fuel to the conspiracy theory fire that is Pokémon Z.
What is this shit? Well
Generation 6 didn’t get a third version, this is the only time a duo of main
series Pokémon game up to this point (well it depends how you count
Pokémon Let’s Go, I count them as remakes so as far as I’m concerned I’m right
about this) had not received a third ‘definitive’ version (Pokémon Yellow,
Pokémon Crystal, Pokémon Emerald, Pokémon Platinum, Pokémon Black 2 & White
2 and Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon fyi) but there’s enough in the games
and spin-off media to imply that this wasn’t originally the case: Zygarde is a
major part of this, the full Zygarde gimmick wasn’t implemented until the first
games of the next generation where it had nothing to do with anything and after
it had been a plot point in the anime, an anime that used the name Pokemon XYZ
during it’s second half while focussing on story elements (like Zygarde) that weren’t
covered in Pokemon X & Y. There
there’s AZ’s Eternal Flame Flabebe and other dummied out things like the Kalos
Pokedex, the fact that Ash-Greninja was also dumped into Gen 7 (in the Sun
& Moon downloadable demo) despite being a Gen 6 Pokémon, the fact that
Hoopa’s story was put into Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire despite being a Kalos
Mythical and various other things in X & Y that seemed to be begging for a
follow-up and it just all points to a third version being cut, especially as
2015 was the only year without a Pokémon game since Gen 2 and if the usual
release schedule was adhered too (main games, remakes, third version) it would
have the year Pokémon Z came out.
There are various theories
as to why and probably it was a case of a mix of some or all of them: Pokémon X
& Y was heavily criticised and is generally considered one of the weakest
main series Pokémon titles so Game Freak might’ve just have been keen to get it’s
generation over with; Pokémon Omega Ruby
& Alpha Sapphire weren’t planned but added to the development schedule due
to overwhelming fan demand, possibly taking up the time, people, resources and
money planned for X & Y; Pokémon’s 20th anniversary was coming
up (in 2016) and work needed to go into developing something that would feel
like a celebration, which a third version of an unpopular game wouldn’t but,
say, a new generation doing all kinds of new things might; the Switch was on
the horizon and Game Freak were keen to get another Generation of games out of
the Nintendo 3DS (Sun and Moon’s development overlapped with ORAS). Whatever it
was it left Gen 6 feeling somewhat incomplete and meant that there was no
chance to ‘redeem’ X & Y to it’s detractors the way Platinum had done for
Diamond & Pearl, sadness.
Back to Zygarde, the reason
I like it so much, other than it’s a big snake that turns into a Beastformer is
because it’s such a good fit with Pokémon and something that really should have
been around long before this, between Vivillion and Zygarde Gen 6 really was
doing sensible and fitting gimmicks for the ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’ side of
Pokémon – and it was fun to do too, I spent more time on this than the main
Island Challenge and enjoyed it more too.
It had so many forms I had to give it an oveall score! There's more Pokemon scored there than a lot of the actual evolutionary lines!
For 
So, this one time, Hoopa
Unbound summoned Groudon, Kyogre, Regigigas, Reshiram and Zekrom and kicked all
their arses using just clever uses of its rings and it did this just to show
it can. This is how the movie Pokémon: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages
begins and was when I realised that Hoopa was great. The movie isn’t very good
by the way, it’s main draw and main success is a lot of fighting between old
Legendaries and that’s great but the story is holey and dialogue
average-to-annoying, Pokémon 2000 it ain’t. BUT it did its job, I think Hoopa
is awesome when unbound and adorable when bound. So yeah, I like it because of
the anime but that’s why I like a good half of Gen 1 and the reason why
everyone likes Bewear so who cares?
Hoopa is basically the
troll Pokémon, somewhere between Orko, Loki and the weasel from America Sings
(there’s some references for ya), the one in the movie meant well but generally
it seems that Hoopa in the games/as a species is just a mischievous little
thief in its ‘Bound’ form, zipping about via rings and stealing stuff and
messing with your doughnuts, bound it’s a little ‘toy’ like but a nicely
original design for a Djinn and a sensible combination of types too – this is
Ghost/Psychic the first of its kind and I get that, it’s a type of ghost that can
make wishes come true, makes sense to me. But then it transforms into its true
form, it’s Unbound form (using an item, the Prison Bottle) and becomes a Djinn
Kaiju and that’s just fantastic, it’s a fantastic concept and great execution,
it looses the plastic, segmented toy design of Bound and becomes exactly what
you’d think a Djinn Kaiju would look like really, only with more floating arms
for more ring-related teleporting badassery, the whole thing has a suitably
‘Asian’ feel to it without losing the Pokémon style with markings that mix
fancy and scary. Or maybe I just like it because it looks like Wizeman from NiGHTS
into Dreams… - my favourite video game of all time.
Basically Hoopa does
everything it needs to do design-wise and becomes a Kaiju, I like it lots - Alléhooparing!
Yeah I didn’t expect the
first Fire/Water type to be based around a heating system either.
But it does make sense –
combine Water with Fire and you get steam, steam goes in pipes, we get a
Pokémon that mixes steampunk, sci-fi and, um, foxes? Volcanion is one of the
‘just a thing’ Pokémon and I like it for that, this generation’s designs were
almost all very clearly based on something, staying a lot closer to the animals
they were inspired by when they were inspired by animals, so a nice ‘just a
thing’ design acts a balance and Volcanion sure is a nice looking thing with a
nice mechanical feel to it – an occasion where the segmented ‘plastic’ designs
people complain about works is the occasion where your Pokémon is supposed to
be a heater.
I think Volcanion suffered
the most from the truncating of Generation 6 though – it was a pure event ‘mon,
just dumped onto carts in events with little fanfare and very little backstory
and it’s movie Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel felt more like it was
using Volcaninon to get a Gen 7 Pokémon over. It’s a shame because Volcanion is
neat, it’s just hard to get into when very little was done to make me want to,
I think of it now as just a very determined Dog Lion Boiler.
Oh and that ring splits in
half and fires jets of boiling steam at opponents. That is coooooool (well
actually it’s piping hot but you know what I mean).
For 
Yep. All done. Quality of quantity indeed.
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