Note: just to clarify, these
Pokemon don’t evolve into each other, they’re the first instance of a ‘Legendary
Trio’, a group of three Legendary ‘mons who are connected but not by evolution
(usually they’re connected by their story or by their region).
I like me some Legendaries.
Some don’t, they’re use in competitive play often makes them not worth the
effort for people who care about that, while others (like Bogleech) are just
apathetic to them or have become overdosed on them. Not me though, I was all in
on them from the start. I like old things, half-understood and half-remembered
remnants of the past, I like derelict buildings, old stories, old heroes coming
back for one last battle, old toys and I like things with legends and stories
behind them and the Legendaries generally have the most lore for me to get my
teeth into and to build them up, making them seem ‘more’ even if Aegislash can
kick all their arses with its shield tied behind it’s back.
Funnily enough that isn’t
true of the Legendary Birds – Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres – it was Mewto and
Mew that got all the lore while the birds really got little more than ‘they’re
old, powerful, and birds – you know you want ‘em’ but it still got them across as big, powerful, revered, rare and this all rubbed off on me and made me think more
of them. Them being in the best Pokémon Film (Pokémon: The Power of One) - which gave them some (non-cannon in the
game universe) more lore and tied them to the awesome Lugia - just made me like
‘em more. My favourite has always been
Zapdos, not only because it looks the coolest and is, in retrospect, the most
original execution of the concept of ‘element + bird’, I mean it’s clearly
lightning bird but not a bird that’s just lighting coloured or has lightning on
it like the other two are, but I feel it was the best presented. This old
monster perched in the dark of the Power Plant, old meets new, an ancient
creature lurking in modern technology.
Moltres’ home is also
really appropriate - it’s a phoenix that lives in Victory Road – but it’s
probably the least creative, it’s literally a bird that’s on fire and it’s a
Fire Type bird, it’s cool, but it’s not that creative. Articuno, who I’d like
to thank for being awesome in Stadium is completely different again; a cute,
fluffier songbird type whose only overt ties to it’s element (Ice) are its
colouring, it’s a very ‘pretty’ design, something you’d find on an expensive
Christmas card – the one start have the glitter don’t fall off or silver or
gold ink. This leaves us with a very diverse Legendary Trio which frankly is no
bad thing, as the Lake Trio and Kami Trio would go on to prove. Each one is an
elemental bird but each one a different take on executing that idea.
I got quite serious in this
one, um…farts!
The first
Pseudo-Legendaries! Hell yeah! The first Dragon types! Hell Yeah! The first
base-breaking Pokémon? Probably.
I need to tread carefully
here because Dragonite is the favourite Pokémon of a friend of mine and she
will make me pay if I slag off her baby, but it’s ok as I don’t dislike
Dragonite at all, I’m just not convinced that Dragonair was created to evolve
into it.
Dragonite is a very early
Pokemon, not one of the original 31 but not much younger, probably dating from
the latter days of 1992-1993, it predates evolution but is the first overly
dragon-like ‘mon designed after Elemental Types were added, meaning (at least
to me) it was probably just created to be a Dragon type dragon. Dratini and
Dragnite come from a later period and from a large batch of 2-stage evolutions
knocked out by Nishida. This, combined with the fact that there are other cases
of Pokémon who were thrown into an evolutionary line together (Exeggutor &
Exeggcute, Gastly & Gengar and Blastoise) later on in development leads me
to suspect that Dragonite was tacked onto the Dratini line later for whatever
reason. There is some evidence against this, notably that Nishida said she
liked to make evolutions notably different from each other but none of her
designs really support this bar, maybe, Sandshrew and Sandslash.
I bring that up because I
don’t have much to say about these that hasn’t already been said ad-nuseum,
Dratini it adorable, Dragonair is elegant and easily deserves the popularity it
gained back in the day (I hate that saying) and Dragontie is a cute stereotypical
dragon that doesn’t feel in any way like it should evolve from Dragonair. This would
have been a disappointment had I not been introduced to Dragonite before Dratini
and Dragonite thanks to the anime and Dratini’s late-game availability (and
thus in turn Dratonite’s late game availability), by the time I got Dragnonite
I always already used to the idea that Barney the Dinsoaur evolved from Sexy
the Sea Serpent. Looking at it from a distance (so to speak) I don’t think
Dragonite is a disappointing evolution to get from Dragonair overall, just a
jarring one, it IS a big and powerful dragon that looks like what you’d expect
from a big and powerful dragon while being different enough from Charizard to
justify its existence and that’s a satisfying thing to get for your hard work
and for the first fully evolved Dragon Type - but I do thoroughly agree that
something like Milotic or Drampa would have been a far better fit.
Mew and Mewtwo are the
evolutionary line that doesn’t – and won’t ever – evolve into each other. One
comes from the other but one will never become the other. Sad? Probably not if you're Mew.
If you missed the best part
of Red & Blue, Mewtwo is a clone of Mew, made on Cinnabar Island under
orders from Giovanni and Team Rocket – the Pokémon Mafia – and augmented and
weaponized to be the ultimate Pokémon for battling and criminalling. But it got
out, designed to be a weapon, given the best stats in the first generation,
even its hiding place showed off how badass it was, it went and hid in Ceruelan
Cave (aka the Unknown Dungeon), a place where the most powerful Pokémon in the
region dwell and is so dangerous that only trainers who’ve beaten the Elite
Four – only Champions – are allowed to enter. And all of this story is told you
via what TV Tropes calls ‘apocalyptic logs’, the remnants of diaries and
reports found in a burnt out mansion, it was a survival horror level in a Pokémon
game (the series’ first but not last) and it built up Mewtwo perfectly and made
him work in his role as the ultimate Gen 1 ‘mon effortlessly and, almost by
accident, made Mew so desirable that it would easily be able to fulfil its role
too – as the first event only Mythical Pokémon. It made you want to bother to
go out and get this thing from an event, and Mew’s success was crucial to
Pokémon’s success in Japan thus it’s export to the rest of the world.
And this Is all before the
first Pokémon Movie, which is where I feel in love with Mewtwo FOR LIFE. But
first a recap of Mew: Pokémon Red & Green (the first games) were very
tightly packed, which is one of the reasons they’re so glitchy, 40 Pokémon of
the planned 190 had to be scrapped due to space (before debugging), but when
the debugging tools (a programme of a sorts for, basically, checking for bad
shit in the game, they obviously weren’t very good tools) were taken out there
was room for one more. Instead of putting one of eh scrapped ‘mons back in, they
put in Mew instead, as much as I love Omega and Gyaasu this was ultimately a
great idea, Mew had been mentioned in-game (though it was only supposed to be a
mention and to a catchable Pokémon when that was written) and as I said this
made you want it, especially as it as talked up in the game as possibly the
original Pokémon. Mew is exceptionally cute when you figure it’s pretty much a
cat foetus and it’s ‘ancestor of all Gen 1’ concept is beautifully realised in
gameplay by it being able to learn any HM & TM (so any move) and by being
the strongest type in the game (Psychic) but still having notably weaker stats
than Mewtwo, realising that plot point in gameplay perfectly as well. Mew is a success on every level really.
Then Pokémon: The First
Movie came out (god that was exciting) and Mewtwo became the a dark, brooding,
anguish and resentment filled anti-villain who was going to destroy humankind
for the sake of Pokémon but only because it had never been loved and knew nothing
but abuse and pain and had this relationship with the true ultimate Pokémon Mew
and turned good and OH MY GOD I LOVED
IT. The Power of One is a better movie but Mewtwo is the greatest villain that
show has ever had and still, STILL my favourite Legendary.
BUT, our story is not done,
because by the time of Gen 6 Mewtwo, while still as popular as ever, needed a
boost in stats to make his viability on combat (and competitive play) catch up
with other, slightly less popular, Legendaries and indeed many Pseudo-Legendaries
and regular Pokémon. So, being as popular as it was it got two Mega Evolutions.
I’m fine with that, and it’s great that we finally got MewThree – an evolution
of Mewtwo or a bigger, badder clone of Mew that was one of the most common (and
commonly believed) pieces of bullshit during the PokéGod filled rumour mill
that was the original Pokémania but I’ve really wasn’t wowed with either. Mega
Mewtwo X is just armoured up Mewtwo, presumably scratching that itch of people
who wanted to play Mewtwo in his cool armour from the anime or thought that that was Mewthree but, well
it’s not that much different and certainly not the batshit over the top of many
Megas. Mega Mewtwo Y I like a little better, it’s much creepier, much more
alien and much more unique than MMX but it still doesn’t do very much for me.
Both are clearly ‘evolutions’, clearly a step-up but neither are better or as
good as Mewtwo itself IMO. Some of the biggest Mega let downs for me.
Before we go to the wrap up
section, a special review for a special Pokémon:
It wasn’t even an official
Pokémon but for those of us playing in Generation 1, when Pokémon as at it’s
biggest remember, Missingno was as famous as any Pokémon, as big as Pikachu and
far more useful. Only Mew seemed to be of greater interest. And it is genuinely
my favourite Pokémon. I think it is so scary, a completely otherworldly
completely unexplained thing lurking off the coast of an island, randomly appearing,
with a Typing that doesn’t exist that can break the universe (aka: your game).
It is so alien, it is nothing like anything we can associate with, you cannot
project anything onto it, it has nothing to latch onto and make it seem better
like say, Staryu’s limbs or Tangela’s eyes. it’s a wall of broken visuals,
because it is in fact a block of glitched graphical data. You COULD conceivably
design something like this on purpose but as people, can’t help but
anthropomorphise or animalise fictional monsters to a degree.
This is pretty easy to find
online but I reckon I’ll go into it just for convenience. Missingo is a glitch,
a mistake the game makes. Why it happens is fairly technical but, I think,
fairly easy to understand so I’ll tell you:
·
What happens is,
when the Old Man in Veridian City shows you how to catch a Pokémon, the game
has to replace your name with ‘OLD MAN’ for all of the text that’s usually only
used by the player (‘OLD MAN threw a Pokéball’ ‘OLD MAN caught a Weedle’ ‘OLD
MAN has as serious caffeine addiction and needs treatment’ etc etc) but it
needs somewhere to store your name so it can use it again once the Old Man is
finished.
·
The handy place
that was chosen to store this just happens to be the same part of the game that
tells the game what Pokémon should spawn in what location – this shouldn’t be
an issue, because every time you enter a new area where you can catch Pokémon
(including every route out of Veridian City) this information resets, so any
changes made to it Veridian City shouldn’t matter.
·
However the water
on the right side of Cinnabar Island doesn’t have a set group of Pokémon that
should appear programmed in – it was an oversight, there’s a couple of places
like it – so if fly straight then from talking to the Old Man and go straight
to that area, the reset doesn’t happen and instead the game brings up Pokémon
based the characters in your name, this is why you can get Mew here using this
method.
·
In Pokémon Red,
Green and Blue there are actually slots for 190 Pokémon, because that’s how
many were originally going to be in the game, but only 151 Pokémon fit, 3 slots
are used to store the generic ghost and the skeleton sprites used in the game
but the other 36 are empty and they are all missing numbers, or ‘MissingNo.’.
And as it turns out, these empty slots are – again by complete accident – tied
to very commonly used letters and characters so Missingno (and its variants,
like M’) turn up very frequently.
The end result is the
Pokémon series’ Old One. my favourite Pokémon, a bunch of garbled data that
shouldn’t exist and should never have been seen by anyone.
Holy shit that was a lot to
do! It’s all very well and good and sensible to start with the Generation 1 but
you’re not actually reviewing one hundred and fifty-one ‘mons are you? You’re
reviewing (according to Microsoft Access) 231 ‘mons (including Megas) all the
way up to Generation 7. I need a nap.
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