Poliwrath. Poliwrath’s
design has become far more unique over time, you may not always have noticed
but a lot of Gen 1 ‘mons have been tweaked throughout the years, even Pikachu.
Poliwrath has become less and less of an angry Poliwhirl with bigger arms as
time has gone on, getting a more unique body and spiral, but it still remains
one of the least satisfying evolutions in Gen 1 for me, in fact I actually
prefer its early design where it was King Snorlax Poliwhirl instead of Not
Taking Your Shit Polywhirl:
Which is a bit odd really
because it’s way less badass and actually far closer to Polywhirl but somehow
to me it just feels more like Polywirl evolved rather than just went to the gym
and got the ‘ump. Similar I suppose to other ‘Just Got Bigger’ evolution
designs like Clefable or Muk feel like the Pokémon ‘grew into’ something when
it evolved, rather than just beefing up or putting on weight.
Polytoad I like a lot more,
but I’ll get to that in a minute. First let’s chat about Polywag because
Polywag is superb, it is a super-cute tadpole with hypno guts, yes those are
it’s guts, it’s based on a real thing from real life too, though I don’t think
real tadpoles with visible intestines can use them to hypnotise you. It then
becomes a super-cute frog but still with those transparent guts and thus not
quite fully evolved, as it shouldn’t be, it’s a midvolution. Bogleech makes the
good point that faces become cuter the more you simplify them and thus the lack
of moth probably really helps Polywirl’s cutenesss. I see no reason to disagree
with this.
Another issue with
Polywrath is that it keeps the visible guts, meaning that it still feels like
something that isnt’ quite a final evolution, Polytoed – introduced in Gen 2 as
branched evolution from Polywhirl – doesn’t have that issue, it still has a
spiral but it’s clearly markings, not guts, it’s Polywag all grown up into a
complete frog but still with what made it special – hypno-belly, and it’s still
super-cute. Polytoed is the evolution Polywhirl should always have got.
(Oh, there’s a Space World
Demo version of Politoed – above – where it looked far closer to Poliwhirl,
which makes sense in theory but in practice it’s a very basic, very unoriginal
little design if you ask me, it could be any bath toy, any soft toy, any
bubblebath container, any logo for any cheap brand in any Poundshop or
Poundstretcher)
FUCKING TELEPORT!!
Of all the things that
Pokémon Let’s GO Pikachu and Eevee carried over from Pokemon Go!, the removal of
Abra’s bullshit gimmick of teleporting away the first chance it gets is quite
frankly the best choice. I can now catch one without first praying, stroking a
lucky rabbits’ foot and then hitting ‘Sing’ so hard the handheld screams in
pain.
Anyway, what are Abra, Kadabra
and Alakazam? Like as in, what animal? Are they foxes? Wolves? Dogs? They’re
psychics. Kadabra, the first of the three to be designed, was created at the
dawn of elemental typing in Pokémon, an idea that was added during development
and wasn’t around at the start (see here),
it comes alongside various creatures that are nothing more than monsters
designed for their typing – Chansey (Normal), Machoke (Fighting), Graveller
(Rock) and Arbok (Poison) amongst them. Later it seems that GameFreak would
look to legends to base these sorts of ‘mons on (like Golem for Ground, Magmar
for Fire or Eletabuzz for Electric) but here they just seem to be a bunch of
things.
I think KAdabra’s the best
of the bunch design-wise, it looks more like a final evolution than Alakazam to
me, though I think I ‘get’ Alakazaam, and it sure does look like an old psychic
man – something that would be even more apparent to the point of bllndingly
obvious it got it’s Gen 6 Mega Evolution, an obvioslyness that kind of puts me
off Mega Alakazam a little bit but again it’s hard to criticise a lot of Mega
Evolutions when ‘ridiculously over the top’ was the point, and turning Alakazam
into Merlin with a Five-Aside team of spoons and a prehensile beard is
fulfilling that brief without a doubt
Abra’s cute, the end.
Oh and the line is the tool
of the devil and this is why Uri Geller thought it was ok to sue for a harmless
homage to him in the form of spoons (and in Japan a name, Kadabra is called
Geller), I may just give Kadabra a higher score just for pissing off lunatic
Fundies and that prick charlatan Geller. If you’d like more info on how the
Abra line was used as proof that Pokémon was satanic and why this led to Geller
taking legal action, please check out Bogleech’s much better and much funnier
review page.
I always forget how much I
like the Machop line and that sucks because I like the Machop line. Just break
it down with me (again): you get a cute little dinosaur that turns into a
wrestling Godzilla with…I mean those ARE stretch marks on it’s arms right? Or
are they fins? I seem to remember them being ridged on some old toys and some
of the plushies, what ARE those red things? Whatever. Then finally you get a
four armed flurry of pain and supplexes that is Machamp, the Action Figure
Pokémon (and thank you Bandai for finally giving us a proper Machamp action
figure). I will maintain that Machamp’s odd face (which does indeed look like
he stole it from King Dedede) is inspired by Kinnikuman, a manga, anime and
toyline about a dumb-ass superhero wrestler which was incredibly popular in the
80’s in Japan (and indeed in the west as M.U.S.C.L.E.), tell me you don’t see
it:
I like Machamp, you may
have got that, I think what did it was the Machamp card in the TGC had Ken
Sugimori artwork:
Even then when I didn’t’
know who he was or why he was superior, I knew Sugimori WAS the superior
Pokéartist regardless, and so even though it was stock art and probably a quick
and lazy choice for the people producing the card, I gravitated toward it and
saw it as superior - other cards like NIdoking, Mewtwo, Charizard, Hitmonchan
and Chansey had this going for them too, all of which were great cards (in fact
Base Set Hitmonchan is still banned right?) which further cemented ‘Sugimori
art = superior’ in my mind AND it had a really trippy background, AND Machamp
looks like a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure - make things look like chrome Zapp lollies
and/or mini-figures please world. It could also be because I’m not confused by
any red things. However I do respect that Machoke (the first to be designed of
the three) is the objectively coolest, they really could have done with
swapping the head designs of Machoke and Machamp over, Machamp’s Kinnikuhead even
looks like it an evolved form of Machoke’s. though it’s earliest sprite makes
it more saurian I think:
I’m still not sure about
cloths on Pokémon though, I’m used to it now and but they’re just…head tilting.
This line is one of the bigger offenders – sure a belt and pants are pretty
unobtrusive and I can live without seeing Machamp’s dingaling but apparently
the belts are there to regulate their strength for everyone’s benefit including
the Pokémon, this would imply they’re man-mad, but Emerald says “Because it is
so dangerous, no one has ever removed the belt.” Which would imply they’re
naturally occurring or made by the ‘mons themselves, and I really don’t think
they’re that smart. All of this being muddied by gameplay and story segregation
and the belts appearing automatically when you evolve your Machoke, no matter
how far from a hypothetical Power Save Belt manufacturer. I suppose the ‘never
taken one off’ thing could be a case of that fan theory postulated idea that
the Pokédex exaggerates and/or includes local legends and hearsay because it’s
being written by kids but it’s still unclear without that, bleh.
What a clever set of
choices for an evolutionary line, we’ve got three visually similar but
different plants that go from harmless to carnivorous making up the basis for a
three-stage evolutionary line that goes from harmless (and adorable, Bellsprout
you are so cuuuute) to vicious. These were one of the few Gen 1 evolutionary
lines that were designed together and it shows.
But I’ve always been of the
opinion that Weepinbell lets the line down a little, it just seems to lack that
something that Victreebell and Bellsprout have, it’s just kind of…goofy, it’s a
very Japanese goofy, they seem to like this style of goofy as we’ll see in
later generations but I personally don’t. I do appreciate the lack of
anthropomorphism in the line though, while I’m not one of those people who
dislikes humanoid Pokémon (I like things like Delphox, Gardevoir and Lucario just
fine) I do think that a world of fictional animals is only enhanced by its
variety and completely plant-like plant-based animals help with that.
Weepinbell was originally due to get a split
evolution just like it’s version equivalent (and all-round cooler ‘mon) Gloom
in Gen 2, the Space World Demo for Gold & Silver that was leaked includes
it, it was gonna be called Tsubomitto and would have effectively been a
Belltower. While – like Bellossom – it’s nowhere near as cool as Victreebell I
REALLY wish we could have got this, it would have served so many purposes: it
would have pleased those who’d wanted Bellsprout’s evolutions to remain closer
in design, it would have pleased people who like cuter final evolutions (or
‘Dragonite fans’), it would have fit perfectly with Bellsprout Tower that was
introduced in this generation AND it would have kept the symmetry, my
undiagnosed OCD would be so much more content if Weepinbell and Pinsir had got
new evolutions (like they were going to)
to match Gloom’s and Sychther’s.
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