Wednesday 15 May 2019

Quick Crappy Pokemon Reviews: Generation 4 Part 4 - Shellos line to Stunky line






Geez, these feel really Gen 3 don’t they? Oh wait, that’s because they WERE Generation 3 mons! The line was intended for Ruby & Sapphire but they were supposedly held back, only to be tweaked and released upon a world that would hopefully see weird alien gastropods that look like you can ride them like ponies and give a standing ovation.
I never see anyone talk about these two/four other than in the context of that above fact. Which is such a shame because, I repeat, they’re weird alien gastropods that look like you can ride them ponies. They also did regional variants before it was a thing (they have different forms depending on where in Sinnoh you catch them)! That said I can’t say I really like Shellos’ goofy faces all that much, I suppose they fit, what with these being weird creatures so give ‘em weird faces, but they’re a little silly for me, not enough to make me loathe them, just enough to keep me from loving them. I easily prefer the blue (East Sea) version - I find the blobby ‘hairdo’ and spikes of the pink (West Sea) one just look a bit…off, and while the spikes are probably anatomically correct for a type of Gastropod of some kind they seem out-of-place on such a round ‘mon.
Both Gastrodons are magnificent though – three eyed, horned, mouthless alien things. I like Pokémon that look completely alien, and just by obeying the animal they’re based on, Gastrodon manages just that, they’re cute, they’re freaky, nothing really stands out on them as looking odd, awkward, ugly or unnecessary, they’re a win. AND very helpfully Water/Ground, meaning their only real weakness is Grass and Electric Types - the go-to type for one hit KOing Water Types - are completely useless against them. So I get to feel all smug when some scrub tries to Raichu my ass and my Gastrodon, probably called Flippy, laughs in their faces – metaphorically, they have no mouths of course.







For Ambipom go here




These guys are great! Weird ghostlike balloons that steal kids while being utterly adorable yet ever-so-slightly unsettling were destined to jump into my favourites list, and why wouldn’t Game Freak design creatures solely to please me? I’m a Pokémon fan dammit – all new ‘mons must be designed to suit my personal tastes!
Sadly this was another set of great Pokémon that were a pain in the arse to catch in Diamond & Pearl while not really being any better than much easier to catch equivalents – with only ONE being available in one location and only on Fridays – fuck that. I hear less people moan about this though, so I guess less fans held a grudge against Driftloon than they did against Combee?
GOOD! because I love these two – we know I’m thoroughly biased toward the Ghost Type but even if they…nah, I can’t finish that, I love ‘em cost they’re adorable, freaky, child napping balloon ghosts - such a great idea for Ghost/Flying cos balloons sure are ghostly aren’t they? Driftloon is just super-super cute - in design and super cute in backstory, I always find little things that try to be evil but really suck at it (like kidnap kids) adorable, Pain & Panic could come and live with me. Driftblim is just unsettling, people make all those jokes about Espurr seeing some shit but Driftblim’s eyes are way worse,, especially as they’re attached to this abstract THING that just floats around AND IS A GHOST and not a super adorable kitty. It’s also a type of monster that totally works with Gen 4’s too much designing issue, as the team’s need to put far too many markings on Pokémon only serve to make Driftblim look more like a hot air balloon (and more circus-y) without making it look less like a Pokémon (cos the markings are the same style, get me?).
I would maybe have dropped the red on its ‘feet’ but I go back and forth on that.









Fun fact, I have only owned one rabbit in my entire life and it was called ‘Owl’ completely unironically because I was a stupid and strange child. I now however call every Buneary I catch ‘Owl’ because it evolves into a fighting type known for kicking things in the face and that name is totally appropriate cos it sounds like ‘ow’ – I’m so clever. I’m talking about this because I want to put things off.
Lopunny is another Gardevoir you see, if you’ve missed ALL THE PORN you may not know this, but the defining thing about a cute, curvy, feminine bunny is that a sizeable portion of the fanbase wants to do horribly sexual things to it in every position you can name (and has drawn all of this and posted it online). If you do know this then all you want to know is, again, if I personally want to shag it or not. Eh, I find it more attractive than Gardevoir, but I can’t say I want to have sex with any animal, real or imaginary, it’s worth remembering this for when we get to Tsareena and Salazzle, ‘k? HOWEVER without getting too far into things about me you don’t need to know about, bunny girls = yes in my mind, I may not want to shag animals but…well I have a FurrAffinity account (that I’ve neglected for years), lets leave it at that and go on our way with the review shall we?
GOD Buneary’s cute, is it supposed to look like chocolate? Because it really looks like it’s made out of milk and white chocolate? Chocolate bunnies are a well-known thing, so maybe? This isn’t a complaint, the only thing that can really improve a rabbit in my eyes is a rabbit that’s also a Kinder Egg (or, I guess a Cadbury’s Marble bar as I’ve never seen in the inside of a Buneary, nor do I want to). I would personally have made its feet brown though just to give the overall design more balance:



Lopunny? I love the idea of a bunny that kicks your arse while also being adorably clumsy and completely cute…yeah that’s it’s personality, this was clearly aimed at the section of the fandom that took to it wasn’t it? it’s a fucking anime girlfriend bunny. I have no real issue with this, liking for bunny girls aside, Game Freak pull in all kinds of things connected to an animal or concept when building a Pokémon and bunny girls are a thing that existed long before Diamond & Pearl, Pokémon and indeed Game Freak so it’s as viable an inspiration/element for a new rabbit ‘mon, especially as Nidoran went in the completely opposite direction and became a Kaiju, more original but I’m happy it wasn’t repeated. Or maybe as someone who grew up with Bunnie Rabbot and the Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny I just expect female rabbits to be bangable. Actually, that reminds me, Lopunny doesn’t have tits, not even the vague shape of them like Mismagius:



Likewise I find Mega Lopunny to be a completely understandable design – Megas are over the top, so the sexualized rabbit becomes an over the top sexualized rabbit! Yeah it’s completely ridiculous but no more ridiculous than any other Mega and far too ridiculous to dislike, and there are a lot worse things to evolve into than Chun-Li.






For Mismagius go here

For Honchkrow go here




Prior to doing this project I would have been unlikely to populate a least-favourite Pokémon list because I dislike least favourite lists and like making them even less but the few times I contemplated it, Purrugly and Glameow were amongst those that I picked.
But now, after hating them for so long, I have to explain why and I’m really having trouble, I just want to shout ‘LOOK AT THEM!’ look at how their design fail in every aspect! look at Glameow’s ear shape! it’s weird rounded tuffs of hair, look at how many times its tail curls and where it starts curving! Look at Purrugly’s awful markings! Look at it's ears! look at it’s horrible fluffy bits! Look at theeeem! But that doesn’t really do a good job does it? I do feel better now though.
Basically these are Pokémon that, in design terms, fail for me in every aspect and end up looking repulsive. “but it’s called Purrugly, isn’t it supposed to look, well, ugly?” you’re not wrong strawman, but something can the physically ugly without being an ugly design, Ursula isn’t a pretty woman but she’s a lovely design, Purrugly is an ugly design, a mishmash of  things thrown together and joined with horrible whatever-the-fuck markings, it’s an ugly design, not a design that conveys physical unattractiveness. Kike Prinplup but even more so, they’re designs that should have been left in sketchbooks after having been reworked and redesigned until they were far, far better. The only way to improve them as far as I’m concerned is to redesign them completely around the same theme and colour-scheme (which I actually do like, the random purple ears on Purrugly aside) of a thin snooty cat and a fat ugly snooty cat with curly tails and then improve their stats, movepools and just everything else about them - or just use Meowth and Persian instead and not shit out more and more cats that never look as good as those two.    




  
For Chingling go here




I’ve warmed to Stunky’s goofy arseface and honestly have come to be quite fond of it in a strange way, I mean I still wish we’d got a skunk that wasn’t a giant arse joke and instead had, y’know, been made to look appealing and not like an buttfaced Real Monsters background character but I do find myself far, far less hostile to it than I once was - maybe I’ve just got used to it, maybe it’s 3D models just help it look better (they do add a roundness to it that really helps it’s bring out the gag of having a bum face). Skuntank (good name) has never grown on me, I thought it looked unimaginative then and I think it now, it’s an exceptionally boring Pokémonized skunk with bloody triangles and THAT ONE THING syndrome, this time, THAT FUCKING HAIR TAIL. I know skunks really do have those, but there has got to have been a better way to abstract it that this, it makes the Pokémon look fucking silly – and I know the whole line is basically a joke line, it farts for a cry, it has an arse for a face, I get it, bums, farts, skunks smell, lol, funny, but I really don’t think that excuses THAT FUCKING HAIR TAIL, you can be a joke character without looking this shit-awkward (shikward?) of a design, I know it, I’ve seen it done, I don’t know how to explain it, but I know it and someone should have done it because THAT FUCKING HAIR TAIL *devolves into a screaming, useless, bad Poketuber who can’t explain why he doesn’t like anything and uses criticisms that can be levelled at his own favourites while frothing at the mouth and kicking Eeveelution plushies around the bathroom* and why are only parts of the markings outlined, Sugimori?





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