Games and Stuff: New Pokemon! Hearthstone's New Adventure!

No mangas are released this week, and I don't feel like watching anything today, so I'll just talk a bit about Pokemon and Hearthstone! Hearthstone's new adventure, One Night in Karazhan, is out a couple of hours ago. I played through the preview wing and will complete the first wing after writing this post. It's fun! I always loved the Adventure Modes and honestly hope that one day Hearthstone will have a proper campaign mode the way that some other digital card games -- Hex TCG, for one -- have.

But I talked about Hearthstone enough, so let me talk about Pokemon. New trailers and new leaks were released a couple of days back. We get to see the villain team, Team Skull... who just looks like a bunch of punks, really. They honestly didn't impress me at all, and after the honestly disappointing Team Flare from generation VI... but I don't know, I didn't think I would love Team Plasma so much when I first saw their utterly stupid designs. We'll see.

WE ARE LEGION

But between Coro Coro scans and a new trailer, we got to see a lot of new stuff, both new Gen VII Pokemon and Alolan forms. I'm a bit bummed that all the Alolan forms we have are Generation I Pokemon... I definitely want to see some of the newer Generations get the Alolan treatment. Nostalgia is good and all, but Generation VI has put the first Generation in spotlight a bit too much in my opinion... and I'm technically a Genwunner. So. Anyway.

New Alolan Forms:

• Meowth: No Persian announced yet, but Alolan Meowth is basically... regular Meowth, just sassier and with gray fur. He's got a helluva backstory, though, being imported into Alola as a gift for the royalty and then forced to live as peasants after the royalty fell. When did Pokemon hvae such detailed backstories? I don't think ever? Meowth is a pure Dark-type in Alola, which is a very fitting type... Meowth line is one that really, really should've been turned Dark (or partially Dark) a long time ago, and I thought they were going to use the big type revision in Generation VI with adding Fairy to everything to stealthily change Meowth (or at least Persian). But this is fine. I don't care much for Alolan Meowth, though I'm happy a Dark-type Meowth exists.
• Marowak: No Cubone, but Alolan Marowak is a Fire/Ghost, is black in colour, and his bone weapon is lit on both ends like those fire dancers in Hawaii... which actually is pretty awesome on so many counts. The fact that Marowak ends up paying homage to Hawaiian culture without changing too much of the basic design is awesome in and of itself, but the fact that they made it tie in to Marowak's backstory and turned his typing Fire/Ghost? Y'know, Marowak, whose line was most remembered for being the one where 'the kid wears the skull of his dead parent'? And who hangs out in the ghost-infested Pokemon graveyard tower for no reason? Yeah. Alolan Marowak is an actual ghost-type, thus explaining, finally, how all those Cubones are able to have skull-masks even though their Marowak mother is in my party. Alolan Marowak's cool. Fire/Ghost isn't an entirely new typing (though it has been exclusive to Chandelure's line before) but it's a cool one to see. Hell, with Marowak, I think it's the first Alolan form so far that I think outright is better than her original counterpart, and not one that I love both forms equally.



The Marowak that Lavender
Town deserves

• Raichu: I love Raichu and I wish one day that Raichu will finally step out of its pre-evolution's shadow of popularity. An evolution? A mega form? Something? Well, I certainly didn't expect Alolan Raichu, who is Electric/Psychic of all things -- when I saw the design, I thought Raichu would be Electric/Fairy, but no. He's Electric/Psychic. I guess so he can surf on his now-oversized tail in the air? Alolan Raichu looks like a freaking balloon, and not at all impressive, honestly. I mean, props for the effort, but he's the only one of the Alolan Pokemon that I actually don't like. Though he at least has a unique typing (unless I forgot someone) so he's got that going for him, at least. 

New Pokemon:

Hello I'm cute and I will suck out
your life force tee-hee

• Sunabaa & Shirodesuna: We don't have English names for these two yet, but they are Ghost/Ground living sandcastles. Which look like just kind of stupid until you read their backstories... apparently they are the grudges that possess sand and then accumulate the life force of other Pokemon to reproduce... yeah, so basically quite in line with the sinister backstory for other Ghost-type Pokemon like Bannette, Phantump and Chandelure. I don't hate these. Probably won't own them in my party, but I don't hate them? Their concept as ghostly living sand at least sound cool.
• Nuikoguma: Again, another Japanese name... it's Bewear's pre-evolution. Can I say that I absolutely don't care? Because I don't care. It exists, it's not horribly ugly, but I don't care.
• Wishiwashi: Wishiwashi's base form is a very scared looking fish, but apparently somehow it can transform into that giant monstrous form above. It's based on the Moonfishes or whatever that move around in giant schools to scare off predators and whatever. Remember the school from Finding Nemo? Yeah, Wishiwashi basically summons an entire army and takes that giant fish form with a submarine vibe to it... it's really cool-looking, and a pretty nice concept. Whether it'll be usable in battle or will it be a disappointment of a cool concept (Castform, I'm looking at you) we'll see, but I think it's my favourite of this new batch. It's a pure Water type, and I for one love water-types.
• Pyukumuku: A sea cucumber! Man, as someone who lives near the ocean and a big geek in all things relating to marine life, seeing a sea cucumber made into a Pokemon makes me happy. And the fact that they reference sea cucumbers' really gross way of eating and pooping -- through the same orifice -- and their defense mechanism of jettisoning their organs at predators... it's cool! Pyukumuku kinda looks like one of the early-stage Digimon, and this is Pokemon so the organs take the form of a giant inflatable fist balloon, but I like that he exists! Pyukumuku is just a boring pure-water type and his ability (Inside Out) is basically a far more devastating version of Drifblim's Aftermath, but I like that he exists.
• Morelull: This is a cute little skinny mushroom that is a nice contrast to the squatter toadstool-style mushrooms that Pokemon like to use (Paras, Parasect, Foongus, Amoongus), and Morelull is a Grass/Fairy Pokemon that is still a freaking fungus, because she absorbs the life force of anything she plants her roots in. Also she's one of those bioluminescent mushrooms. A lot of people I see on Youtube or forums dismiss Morelull, but I actually like her quite a bit. The fact that she's a slightly more sinister Fairy-type (though still apparently quite friendly and all) is a nice variation of the norm for the type. Morelull is cute, too, come on.