Would you like to know my
reaction upon first seeing this?
“Well that’s disappointing”
Would you like to know my
reaction now?
“Yeah, still disappointing”
And I say that as a person
who considers turtles to be amongst his favourite animals. And yes I know that
turtles go back to the time of the dinosaurs and yes I suppose that when you
put it like that an animal that is still alive today but was alive then is
pretty perfect for a Fossil Pokémon, y’know a Pokémon that is still around
today and was alive in prehistoric times (just like Lileep and Cradilly) and
there were some awesome prehistoric turtles. The problem is that Tirtouga and Carracosta
are just turtles, they’re no more or less prehistoric than Squirtle, Turtwig or
Torkoal and decidedly less prehistoric than Turtonator, these aren’t Archelons
or Carbonemys, they’re just turtles (well ok, Carracosta is just a turtle
that’s also a member of The Shield). And they’re fine turtles and fine
Water/Rock types, turtles with rocky shells, completely sensible and
Carracosta’s shell incorporating elements of stab vests is clever but there’s
nothing about them that makes them Fossil Pokémon other than having a Rock
typing, in which case Roggenrolla could be a Fossil ‘mon. It’s especially
glaring considering all of the other Fossil ‘mons before it and it’s Fossil
counterpart this generation, which is a straight up prehistoric lizard that
most people think is a dinosaur. I think maybe they were going for an air and
sea counterparts thing? But in that case someone should really have shown them
pictures of a Mosasaurus, Liopleurodon or Ichthyosaurus before their brains
defaulted to ‘turtles are old, right?’.
This is much better, you
could say that Turtouga and Carracosta are more creative, and you’d be right,
they’re a far cleverer set of concepts than ‘cute cartoon Archaeopteryx’ and
‘scary big cartoon Archaeopteryx’ and they certainly do a better job of showing
their rock typing (these are Flying/Rock) but Archen is far less disappointing
as a Fossil Pokémon, as well being based on an actual prehistoric thing and not
their ancestors (seriously, Turtouga is like making a Pidgeotto a Fossil ‘mon)
these two feel old AND they give some love to the Archaeopteryx. The Archaeopteryx
lives in a strange grey area when it comes to prehistoric animals, it’s
certainly one of the ‘standards’ for your dinosaur thing, not quite in the
‘must have’ category but still a very common sight in dinosaur parks and
cartoons, but it never seems to be anyone’s favourite, a distinction it seems
to share with Diatryma and Titanis and
holyshititwouldhavebeensomuchcoolerifArcheopswasaTitanis! As it is we get a
kind of pleasing, theoretical design that, as someone who genuinely likes the Archaeopteryx,
I’m still pleased to see. For you see, while it may look pretty cool in
pictures, Archaeopteryx is basically the chicken of the Jurassic era, it’s even
roughly the same size, it is not going to be bothering no Allosaur any time
soon. Archeops is the Archaeopteryx if it was upgraded to full dinosaur status,
an Archaeopteryx that would be big enough and powerful enough to bother than
Allosaur - that’s cool.
I don’t care what you say,
there is one way to describe these:
But lets see if we can’t
squeeze some more words out of ‘em anyway.
I liked Trubbish from the
moment I saw it, not just for its undeniable cuteness, nor because it kind of
reminded me of Trash Bag Bunch, not Trash Bunch, these were different but the
dissolving bags they came in really do bring to mind Trubbish:
But because I recognised it
as a counterpart to Grimer and Koffing and an incredibly sensible one at that
– Grimer and Koffing make sense as
pollution Pokémon for Kanto because their types of pollution are major issues
for Japan, and for Unnova, the region based on New York with its historic trash
problem, Trubbish and Garbodor are the perfect local equivalent (because these
are as much equivalent Pokémon as Timburr, Roggenrolla or Audino). I was
utterly shocked when seemingly the whole fandom decided that the two were
crimes against god Arceus. And I still don’t get it, Trubbish is an
adorable, utterly loveable little loser of a rubbish bag with cute little ears
which, according to the Pokedex at least, has the origin of ‘The combination of
garbage bags and industrial waste caused the chemical reaction that created
this Pokémon’ while Garbodor is a huge, awesome rubbish monster, a giant Totoro
of trash with a poison gun for an arm that grows bigger the more trash it
consumes like The fucking Blob – what’s not to like?
No, really, lets look at
this a bit more in-depth: Trubbish is a cute stage 1 Pokémon that’s slightly on
the odder side, but other ‘mons from this generation that fall into that
description – like Darumaka or Elgyem – don’t get the hate. Garbodor (seriously
it is Gar-bo-DOOR or Gar-BOW-da, as it’s theoretically based on a combination
of ‘garbage’ and ‘odour’ it should be the latter, right? but I hear it both
ways) is a monster, it’s not one of the cute or sexy Pokémon, it’s supposed to
be unsettling and unpleasant, but this isn’t new in the series nor exclusive to
Garbodor.
Is it because it’s made
from Garabge then? But it’s not like creatures made from living trash are new
in fiction or even new for Pokémon (Burmy’s trash cloak is made from literal
trash to): Bogleech (another Garbodor fan) likens them to Hedorah from Godzilla
but Hedorah was a pollution monster so closer to Muk, Trubbish and Garbodor are
really closer to something like Muckman or The Heap (especially Todd
McFarlane’s reimagining of it):
But really it just shows
how awesome these two are that we can compare em to multiple cool monsters AND
it proves my point, garbage monsters are a thing, Pokémon doing it is no odder
than them making many other ‘standard monster types’ and they managed to make a
little cutie and a very unsettling big monster out of it, and I KNOW that
Hedorah and Muckman are popular in their respective fandoms so it’s not like
garbage monsters are always instant fails.
And it’s not even like the
two are drawn particularly grossly or detailed, their trash parts look like
cookies!
I just don’t get it.
It’s a twofer equivalentmon
line, acting as both Gen 5’s Riolu and Lucario and Gen 5’s Vulpix and
Ninetales, and another line that’s just really well designed, although I could
be a little biased because it looks like a Sonic the Hedgehog villain but no,
no I’m not being biased just because Zoroark looks like it could hang out with
Fang the Sniper Zorua and Zoroark are really well designed, they’re a gorgeous
colour scheme and every part of them feels just right, like it’s placed in just
the right place, everything flows, everything is just right and Zoroark is damn
stylish too, taking elements from folklore and ancient art, Kabuki theatre and
good old fashioned werewolves to make this lovely what amounts to the Loki of
Pokemon, a smiling, stylin’ trickster. The only thing I’m not taken with is the
scrunchie, but it’s brilliant blue compliments Zoroarks’ colours so well that
it’s hard not to forgive it having a random manufactured thing. Zorua meanwhile
manages to be cute but still have that air of deviousness, of menace, to it, I
wouldn’t trust this little bastard as far as I can throw it, although according
to Bulbapedia it’s only 27.6 pounds so I
could probably throw it fairly far and thus regret using that phrase.
These two also have a cool
gimmick, inherited from kitsunes and other trickster fox types in myth, it’s an
Ability called ‘Illusion’ that means that when sent out into battle, the Zorua
or Zoroark appears as the last Pokémon in your party in all ways except level,
so your opponent thinks it’s facing a Weedle or something, it wears off after
taking damage but it’s still pretty useful in temporarily fudging someone’s battling
strategy and maybe getting an extra turn or two out of your Zorua.
So all ‘round awesome then?
Yup.
Even though it already has
a Pikaclone, Gen V also has these two, meaning that it has its own PIkaclone as
all Generations must AND it has an equivalent to Pikachu and Raichu, one that
was even designed by Pikachu’s creator (Atsuko Nishida.) I think that might be
a bit too much pika for one Generation. Minccino is about as boring a Pokémon
can get, it’s a Pikaclone, it’s generically cute, it’s grey, it’s even pure
Normal Type, which is the Boring Type and it evolves (into Cinccino) by…not
cutting its hair. It’s all very, very dull.
THOUGH it is part of
something I wish Game Freak would commit to more readily: Pikachu in different
Elemental Types – sometimes they’re up for this with Waterachu (Marril),
Normalachu (Minccino), Flyachu (Emolga) or Steelachu (Togedemaru) but then
other Gens they’ll just dump another electric rodent on us. I find the idea of
each region having a Pikaclone of a different Type to be far more interesting
an idea than them just having their own Pikachu, like it was some kind of
branched evolution of the same rodent that adapted to each region different,
sometimes by electrocuting your ass, sometimes by drowning it, sometimes by whipping
with vines, sometimes by Cute Charming it.
Gen 5’s equivalents of the
Ralts line are here, now I gave Gardevoir a very high score and I stand by
that, it’s a great way to do a feminine humanoid Pokémon and one of the reasons Gardevoir is such a good
feminine humanoid Pokémon is because it doesn’t look like a woman in a funny
outfit and that Gothitelle is far more that and thus isn’t as good as Gardevoir
by my own standards. That said:
FUCK YEAH, THE GOTH POKEMON
ARE HERE! And why not? Fashion trends seem to have been an influence in Jynx’s
creation, we have Kabuki in Zoroark and Scraggy and Scrafty are just little
lizard gangbangers and Gothic Lolita is a big noise in modern Japanese
counter-culture, as big as Ganguro ever was, a completely sensible thing to
base some Pokemans on. And things like astrology, psychic and seances are, if
not actually big in the counter-culture, considered to be so and associated
with the Goth culture and all its sub-sets (I can actually attest to the fact
that astrology IS popular, but then it’s popular in every hairdressers in this
country) so it even makes sense to make them Psychic types rather than Dark
Types, especially as these three ARE based around astrology and palm reading
and the like and I didn’t’ just pull those things out of my ass. AND as Dark
Type is the Evil Type in Japan I’m rather glad they’re not Dark Types as in the
case of the source material, dark doesn’t mean evil. HOWEVER I’m a bit
concerned by Gothorita’s habit of leading people astray, hypnotising them and
being the ‘Manipulate’ Pokémon…what does that represent exactly? Do you think
goth teenagers manipulate other kids and lead them astray, game Freak? Astray
to what? To liking good music? Or is it just another case of Japan’s outlook on
women? Are girls who take part in countercultures seen as a bad influence in
Japan even if they’re still very feminine and not necessarily delinquent? Or
are Game Freak just all fucking preps?
Anyway we got three great Pokémon
out of it otherwise, Gothita is adorable (and creepy, it just stares, and
stares, and stares, it’s another creepy child Pokémon and that is great) and
oddly more animalistic than many of the humanoidmons, looking like a little Tim
Burtonesque penguin, that stares, and stares, and stares. Gothorita really
reminds me of cupcakes, as a design it has a nice alien like quality to it regardless
of what it’s pokedex entries possibly say about its creative team and Gothorita
grows out of being a manipulative shrew and being a possible case of
unfortunate implications and just becomes a cool Goth alien precog with a
wicked head design. Actually yeah can we just make this clear: Gothorita and
Gothitelle are how you abstract hair for your humanoid Pokémon, you can still
tell what it’s supposed to look like but you can still also clearly tell that
it’s not just a hairstyle but instead something completely separate, these are
the Shiftry’s shoes of abstracted hair.
See? See all the genuine
things I found to praise these three four? See how it isn’t just me liking them
because they’re part fo the same counterculture I am? See how unbiased I am?
See how I’m pathetically lying to make myself seem better at reviewing
creatures in video games? See?
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