Pokemon Top Ten: Best and Worst of Generation V

As we grow closer and closer to the release of the seventh generation of Pokemon games (and apparently someone hacked into the demos and pulled out the entire Alolan Pokedex?), I've been doing listings of my top ten favourite Pokemon for each generation. This time, it's for Generation V, arguably the black sheep of the Pokemon family. While opinion of the fifth generation had grown far more favourably over the years, Generation V tries to shake up the formula... a bit too much. Featuring the introduction of way more Pokemon than any individual single generation before, the new region of Unova had absolutely none of the older Pokemon. No Pikachu. No Zubats and Geodudes in the caves. No Magikarp in the water. It's a bit of a shocking move, and while ultimately a great move that moved Pokemon in a fresher direction, the fact that a fair amount of the new Pokemon felt so similar in typing and abilities and place in lore as many previous Pokemon, and arguably uglier designs, including an abundance of Pokemon designed after inanimate objects, caused a huge rift with older fans.

Personally, I played Generation IV and V in one big marathon slightly before the release of VI, and while I kind of felt the strange oddity of not being able to meet any of the old faces, I was a bit excited to see the 200-300+ new creatures that I missed during my absence as a Pokemon trainer, so it wasn't that big of a problem. Besides, Generation V has a lot of good designs along with the bad, and this list is to celebrate ten of my favouties.

Previous listings: Gen I, Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4


#10 Serperior
My starter of choice in my journey through Unova is Serperior, and it's a choice that I made almost entirely based on design. I have never liked Emboar's design, with it looking more like a walking furnace than a pig warrior, and Samurott, while cool, felt a wee bit over-designed and I never liked otters anyway. I've warmed up to those two over the years, but they still won't make it if I ever did a top ten starters list. Serperior, on the other hand? I've always liked reptiles, and Snivy just looks so hilariously snobbish! It's also a very cool, simple design. Just sharp angles, greens and yellows, and turning into Serperior he just looks like a freaking sir. He just looks so regal, looking down on the enemy, and he's a giant king snake. It's a very cool concept that shows how much Nintendo researches the creatures they base the Pokemon on, with Serperior embodying constrictor snakes or tree snakes that aren't poisonous. Most games just go with the common conception that "snake = poison", and it's a nice nod to the variety in nature.

Sadly, Serperior... isn't very powerful. My journey through Pokemon White was absolutely painful, and I relied less and less on my Serperior as my heavy hitter and more on the other partners that I made throughout the journey. She actually became a bit of a dead weight around the middle and later stages of the game, with very little that a pure Grass-type with a very restricted moveset can do. I still love my Serperior (who I nicknamed Nagini) but I also remember the hours of frustration as Serperior failed to perform in the way that my previous badass starters like Venusaur, Torterra and Swampert did. Oh well. Fighting is for peasants anyway. My Serperior is a fucking queen.

#9 Scolipede
I like bugs, and I cannot lie! Scolipede borrows his name from the Latin family/genus of centipedes in taxonomy, Scolopendra (his Japanese name is Pendra, taking the back half) and is a very awesome-looking centipede. Some centipedes actually do the 'raise my front body' posture that Scolipede is permanently stuck in, so it isn't so much as making a silly centipede-centaur as being an actual adaptation of a real-life animal. And it's been so, so long since we got a badass bug, with the last genuinely powerful bug-type being Heracross all the way back in Generation II. Generation IV had a couple of decent ones like the speedy Yanmega and the bulky Vespiquen, but none that are actually a powerhouse. Scolipede is a starter bug, so he isn't as powerful as some of the other badass bugs introduced in Generation V, but damn, Scolipede is a pretty powerful centipede. He's a physical monster that poisons anything that touches it (in Generation VI he even gets the ability Speed Boost, what the hell!) while launching devastating Megahorns, Earthquakes and Poison Tails at anything that looks at it funny. There is a reason that the BW anime had Scolipede took over Beedrill and Ursaring's duties as the local 'scary Pokemon that chases people around'. He's a 2.5 meter tall centipede monster that is vicious and poisonous.

No, it's not the most powerful Pokemon out there, but I did have a fairly fun time with a Scolipede during my runs through Generation V. I nicknamed my Scolipede "Scolopendra" based on the latin word that it's derived from, because I'm a geek that way.

#8 Excadrill
I never really cared for Excadrill until a randomized Nuzlocke of Black 2, where an Excadrill was one of the big MVPs of my team. Rumble, my Excadrill, was an absolute beast. At the end of the game, Rumble was Swords Dancing to power up his horrifying retinue of Earthquake, Metal Claw and Rock Slide, basically dropping in and taking names of anything that isn't a Fighting, Fire or Water type. Excadrill is just an awesome design, definitely a far cooler mole Pokemon than Dugtrio. Drillbur is a bit derpy, but Excadrill just screams business. From his three gigantic metallic blade-claws, to the angry mouse face he has, to the gigantic metal stabby thing on his forehead, he's just scowling, ready to rend the enemy to shreds with his gigantic metal claws. Before I used him, I just brushed him off as 'cool looking metal mole', but man, he's definitely grown to be one of my favourite Pokemon thanks to the Nuzlocke run. I absolutely love his animation of his Black/White sprite, too, where he's just opening and closing his blade-claw-fingers, like he's just itching for a fight.

#7 Volcarona

Remember three paragraphs above about how I said that Generation V introduced a lot of badass bugs? Volcarona is the epitome of that. Volcarona is a supremely powerful monster that I was surprised to discover that she's not a legendary. Really could've fooled me. She's got a very high base stat total that rival some legendaries and pseudo-legendaries, she's placed near the end of the Pokedex, she's located at the end of a dungeon on a throne similar to most legendary encounters, she's supremely powerful, the true champion of the game uses one and she's got a signature move to boot. And look at her! She's like this sun moth goddess, just looking so regal and powerful despite being, y'know, a fucking butterfly. Volcarona is just a fancy-looking design, incorporating the orange-red shading of the wings very well, and its very insectoid and alien-looking eyes and those... weird.. collar things on the sides of its head makes it look truly like a monster. It's one of the highest-level encounters in the game, at the end of the mysterious Relic Castle, and wow, what an absolutely awesome beast it is. Between burning people to death with Heat Waves and Flamethrowers, to destroying people with Bug Buzz, launching Hurricanes and Solar Beams, or buffing herself to insane power levels with her signature move Fiery Dance... Volcarona is absolutely a beast to face on the battlefield, and woe betide you if you don't have access to Rock-type moves when you face this monster. She also evolves at an absurdly high level, though, IIRC the highest level (or the second-highest) that a Pokemon can evolve. My Volcarona in White is named Inferno, and I think the one I raised in Y is named Mothula.

#6 Hydreigon

Hydreigon is just awesome. Deino looks goofy as all hell with its weird awkward emo hair and patchy fur, but Hydreigon? Fucking hell, Hydreigon is just a badass looking monster. It's the type of complex-yet-simple designs that I absolutely love. Only three colours -- black, dark blue and dark purple -- which I guess is appropriate for a three-headed dragon, but all three synchronize very well together to just scream "EVIL DRAGON RUN!" And Hydreigon is an evil dragon. It's dark and dragon type, it's used as the most powerful Pokemon as the main villain, and all its Pokedex entries focus on just how destructive and powerful it is. And it's got these very cool legs that just taper off, and giant wings that... aren't traditional bat wings, just these rows of protruding... things, and the cool flower-rim around its dragon heads... even its lore is creepy, with a bit of a focus on how the two Zweilous heads used to fight each other for dominance, Hydreigon's central head has taken over, reducing the two smaller heads to, well, hands, basically. It's a three-headed hydra monster, and one of the most powerful Pokemon out there. I mean, it gets absolutely wrecked by Moonblasts, but fuck that, Hydreigon looks awesome. I've never really trained one, just captured one for the Pokedex, but damn. Hydreigon is cool.

(Yeah, this list is just going to be filled with super-powerful cool-looking monsters. Sorry, but Black and White did introduce a lot of cool-looking powerhouses.)

#5 Haxorus
Haxorus is a Tyrannosaurus rex dragon with a beak, armour plates, and two gigantic sickles strapped onto the sides of its beak. I'm not sure which one among Hydreigon and Haxorus, the two big final-evolution dragons in Generation V, I like better. I think Hyrdeigon has a cooler design due to the hydra concept, but Haxorus is awesome mostly because I raised one as a member of my party in White. It's golden and black, just this armoured dragon, with red on the edges of its sickle-fangs and claws. Like it's blood caked on them or something. I didn't get Haxorus as high a level as I would've liked and he kind of sat out a chunk of the final legs of the game simply because of level differences with the rest of my team, but I still love Axe the Haxorus. I'm not very keen on either Axew or Fraxure, but its sudden evolution into Haxorus, losing the weird banana-sideways-fangs and green colouring and being this super-powered armoured dinosaur dragon is just awesome.

In Black 2 and White 2 they basically give you a shiny Haxorus for free, and it's jet-black and absolutely looks awesome as all hell.

#4 Galvantula
I love, love, love Joltik and Galvantula. Joltik is just this little fuzz-ball that's smaller than your hand, just hanging out with you and it's easily the cutest bug of all. Galvantula is it all grown up into a four legged spider (those things in front of his head are pedipalps), and holy shit Galvantula is adorable. This from someone who used to have a fear of spiders. Galvantula is mainly yellow, with a bit of blue and purple fur around, and it's got two big eyes in addition to a bunch of smaller ones, four big chunky legs and it's just so adorable! I loved Galvantula even before a bunch of pretty cool Nuzlocke comic artists made him adorable, and its ability of Compound Eyes makes every single fucking Thunder that comes off of this fuzzball hit its mark every single time, allowing me to see the very cool Thunder animation all the time. It's an electric spider! It's a pretty cool thing.

Sadly, competitively Galvantula is a bit of a glass cannon, having relatively shitty defense and HP (and the fact that Rock, Ground and Fire are all very common offensive types), but when it strikes and murders things, it does so still being an adorable fuzzy spider with goggly eyes. My male Galvantula in White is called Tobi (after Tobey MacGuire, the actor that played Spider-Man in the older movies) and my female Galvantula in Y is called Emma (after Emma Stone, who played Gwen Stacy in the newer Spider-Man movies).

#3 Zekrom
Zekrom is awesome. Reshiram always felt like the artist was trying to cram too many feathery wings into the design while having way too spindly arms, trying to look feminine yet still super-tough at the same time and not quite approaching a good balance. Kyurem is weirdly cool, but not enough to reach top ten. (Black/White Kyurem are messy shits, though). But Zekrom? I just love Zekrom. From the powerful jawed face, to the cool different shades of black around its armoured body, to the powerful, edgy and kinda robotic wings, to the wing-shaped gauntlet-things above it claws, to its actually cool-looking drill tail engine... there is a reason I picked Pokemon White over Pokemon Black.

Zekrom is just pure badass, and in Generation V, with its abundance of weirdly proportioned, overdesigned legendaries, Zekrom is one of the few that I genuinely love. Genesect is kinda good, basic Kyurem is cool (ha!), Terrakion and Therian!Thundurus are okay, and I really like Victini for some reason, but Zekrom is the one that simply blows me away. It's just cool looking, this powerful jet-black electric dragon that will lay waste to your enemies, either by clawing them to death with Dragon Claw, or surrounding himself with a ball of blue lightning and just ramming the opponents. It's just a weird shame that neither Zekrom, Reshiram and Kyurem are able to learn Earthquake despite being the three most powerful dragons of ideals and justice or whatever in Unova. Yeah, some game balance and all that, but Zekrom and his two siblings are supposed to be like powerful dragon gods! And they can't shake the Earth? They give Earthquakes to non-ground-type legendaries, so that's no excuse. You know who can make Earthquakes? Fucking Ekans, who is a little baby snake. (Rant over)

Anyway, Zekrom is awesome. I dunno. He just looks consistently awesome in all the games he appears in.

#2 Zoroark
Zoroark is in a pretty exclusive club with Lucario as non-legendary Pokemon that starred in a movie at the tail-end of the previous generation. Previous "preview" Pokemon that starred in movies have been legendaries, like Lugia and the Latis. Zoroark is this badass Japanese fox mama demon that stars in one of my favourite Pokemon movies. The plot's a bit weird that involves some douchebag human forcing her to commit atrocities to frame the three legendary dogs so that he can... get... Celebi... somehow? Poke-Quidditch is involved in a way or whatever. Okay, maybe it's not the best movie out there, but the Zoroark scenes are awesome. See, Zoroark is the master of illusions, which, in addition being pretty fucking awesome, also ties in with the fact that fox spirits are very common stories in Japanese, Chinese and Korean myths in a way that is probably similar to how vampires are in Western myths. Zoroark's design was a bit weird at first, with that huge blob of hair that's larger than Zoroark's body, but I've grown to love him a lot.

I actually associate Zoroark more with the sixth generation due to not having a Zoroark in my playthrough of Pokemon Black -- you need some event-exclusive shit to catch him, making him an event-exclusive non-legendary Pokemon until Black 2 and White 2. But Zoroark is a rare encounter, very appropriately, in the lost woods in XY, and quickly became the sixth member of my Pokemon Y party. He's called Loki, and he shoots powerful Night Dazes and Shadow Balls and Flamethrowers to one-shot people in Wi-Fi battles. In-game Zoroark isn't as badass as the movie version, taking on Entei, Raikou and Suicune and still surviving, and he's not as durable and powerful as Lucario, but I still love him. He hits hard, and has the defense of a paper hat, but his illusion abilities lets him appear as the sixth Pokemon in your party. The trick is to bait people to hit it with a Psychic move, which Zoroark is immune to, while Zoroark launches powerful special attacks to destroy them. My Zoroark in Y is called Loki, cause he's a dude that casts illusions. And I absolutely love him. He just looks so cool!

Honourable mentions before we get to number one...

• Ferrothorn is probably number 11 on this list. I dismissed him as a weird thing until I realized he's supposed to be this weird plant flail thing. I think partly it's his Gen V sprite with the tendril-spikes pointing upwards that makes him look weird, whereas his Gen VI sprite has the tendrils point downwards like spider legs, making him look infinitely cooler. But I like Ferrothorn. He's this Grass/Steel tank that is one of the Pokemon I bred for competitively, and I named mine Caesar (after the salad, and after Terry Crews' character in Expendables) and he's an absolute tank. Just throwing him out in battles and laugh as the enemy lose half their HP by running their Pokemon into Caesar, who barely loses any health, is hilarious. He dies at the slightest hint of a fire move, but he's an absolute spiky tank. In addition to being able to heal himself with Ingrain, Ferrothorn is the perfect user of Gyro Ball, being slow as hell and thus dealing a crapton of Steel damage to those pesky Azumarills. I love Ferrothorn. He really is #11 in my heart.
• Eelektross is another Pokemon I briefly used in White before I decide that Galvantula is 100% cuter and cooler. He's this monstrous hybrid of an electric eel and a lamprey, with that horrifying fanged leech-mouth. In Generation V he waddles on two weird fins that makes him a lot less scary, but in Generation VI he levitates in the air. He's also got no weaknesses, because he's a floating Electric-type.
• Whimsicott is adorable. I used one named Joaquin, during my run of White 2, and he's just this happy cotton ball fairy thing. I'm not sure just why I like Whimsicott, but I just do.
• Cofagrigus, Reuniclus and Golurk are all very weird, creepy yet awesome Pokemon. One is this sentient grinning Egyptian coffin with ghostly hands that spreads a zombie disease, one is a giant adorable fetus-cell psychic thing, and one is a robot ghost who can retract its limbs to fly around like Superman.  
• Scraggy is a Pokemon that I hated the design of until I saw it in the game, where its animation had its pant droop, and he pulls it up to his chin, and he lets go and the pants drops almost immediately. Also his face is hilarious! I'm not to fond of his voice in the anime, but I've grown to like the ridiculousness of Scraggy.
• Archen is a cute little Archaeopteryx Pokemon. Archeops is ugly as hell, but Archen is cute and based on an obscure dinosaur.
• Genesect is very cool, a robot insect resurrected from the past, like Jurassic Park meets the Terminator, but in insect form. He's got a huge laser cannon on his back that changes types, and can transform into a UFO. Shame his movie kind of sucks.
• Bisharp is a cool Steel-Dark warrior based on a chess piece. Also he's 90% sharp sickles by volume. And he's got cool elbow-blades. Bisharp's just awesome.

#1 Chandelure
Yeah, I have a lot of favourite Pokemon from Generation V, and I actually had to trim down that 'honourable mentions' list a fair bit. I think compared to Generation I and III (which isn't fair because they have nostalgia power), Generation V has the most favourite Pokemon by volume. It also has a lot of Pokemon I hate, of course, but let's talk about the good ones first. And my faovurite? Chandelure. If my older top ten lists are any indication, I really like Ghost-types. And chandeliers and candlesticks are a staple of most horror settings. Litwick is an adorable sentient candle, and it evolves into Lampent, which is... a streetlamp. But it evolves into Chandelure, which is this very awesome-looking chandelier, glowing with blue flames. It just looks so creepy and awesome, just floating in the air with those two blank eyes, and a mouth that's made up of the chandelier's grooves, but looks like a scarecrow-style mouth stitched together.

He looks freakin' fancy in 3D tho

His lore also makes him look awesomely creepy. He burns souls with his flames, and sometimes eats them! Chandelure is a supremely cool-looking design, and one of the biggest reasons that people should give Pokemon based on inanimate objects a chance. Sure, there are some failures like Probopass and Garbodor, but then there are awesome shit like Chandelure and Rotom that came out of it. Artworks of Chandelure abound that make great use of his glass-and-flame combination out there, and the way he looks you can just believe him to be like a butler-type Pokemon, or a scary soul-eating deathbringing demon... Chandelure is a straight-up glass cannon (see, he's made of glass, oh ho ho I'm so hilarious) with powerful Special Attack, launching Shadow Balls, Flamethrowers, Psychics and... Energy Balls? How does a soul-eating ghostly lamp able to launch grass balls oh never mind I don't care, it helps him deal with Water types. Chandelure is a supremely creepy Pokemon that looks cool at the same time, and it's got a great, unique typing. My Chandelure is called Fiendfyre, and he kicks ass. Chandelure is easily my main fighter in Pokemon White, moreso than my Serperior, and I like to imagine that Chandelure is some sort of battle butler to the regal Serperior, fighting her battles because my starter can't be bothered to fight like all you damn peasants.

Also, Chandelure is one of the few Pokemon that is included in the Pokken fighting game. This fucking ghost chandelier is in a fighting game. Over actual Fighting-types like, oh, Hitmonchan or Infernape or Medicham, or other sorts of iconic Pokemon. They put Chandelure in.
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I keep talking about how Generation V has a lot of bad in addition to it's good, so it's time for my...

Top ten least favourite Generation V pokemon! Yes, usually there are only five names here, but with Generation V there are ten that I hate. Some will come to no surprise as the 'Top Ten Least Favourite' that I did a fair while back is dominated by a lot of Generation V Pokemon, but man, there are a lot of ugly designs in Generation V.

You know what, we can even make a bit of a dishonourable mentions list.

• Keldeo! Keldeo is a stupid-looking baby horse, and I can't believe he's a Legendary. He's stupid, his movie makes him look like an incompetent twat, and his special super-powered form is also stupid. I dunno. I just dislike Keldeo, and normally I like horse Pokemon. But the whole 'three musketeers' story just didn't work for me, and I just dislike him.
• Thundurus, Tornadus and Landorus: in their normal forms, they are just uncreative onis that are basically palette swaps with a bit of changes in their tails. They just look dumb, and there are three of them. A single muscular thunder god would be cool, but having three? On an America-based expansion? It just doesn't make sense, and the three of them look dumb anyhow. Thundurus and Landorus are redeemed with their Therian forms, which both look cool, but Tornadus becomes an ugly green bird with a bra.
• Cubchoo, Beartric, Amoongus and Alomomola are just kind of ugly looking. Special mention go to Beartric's utterly stupid frozen-saliva-beard and weird dorito body proportions.
• Druddigon: I don't like the design, especially the weirdly randomly-red head, which looks so ugly, and the stumpy spike-wings.

I actually don't hate Trubbish and Vanniluxe's line, by the way. Trubbish is actually kinda cute, and the ice creams never bothered me. They look weird, for sure, but they're just kinda there. And the goths are nowhere as disturbing as Jynx is, and felt more like a variation of the Ralts/Kirlia/Gardevoir line, only with goths instead of ballerinas. Gothitelle being a big christmas tree is a bit weird, mind you.

#10 Palpitoad
Tympole is... weird. But not ugly. Seismitoad is ugly, but ugly in a pretty cool, gross hulking toad-monster way. Palpitoad? I don't know where they are aiming with Palpitoad. He doesn't even look like a tadpole or a frog, just this big phallic mess of... organs and tumours, with a face slapped on it. It just looks so fucking ugly, like a Quagsire that was born with a congenital disease or some shit. Ugh.

#9 Basculin
Fishing is a bit abandoned in the fifth generation, and reportedly Basculin was hurriedly created to fill in the lack of Magikarps, Carvanhas, Woopers and Goldeens. Every single goddamned body of water that isn't the sea in Unova is filled with nothing, and I do mean nothing, but Basculin. It's a cool-looking piranha-esque green fish, but it just felt so gimmicky. No evolution, sub-par stat-line, and it relies too much on the 'oh, Black gets one variation as the common subtype, White gets the other' gimmick to force itself to be interesting. When I barely even want one of these stupid things, why would I want both red and blue variations? Really, how hard is it to drum up an evolution? It doesn't even have to be good (Seaking isn't the most valuable of combatants), but at least it'll be something instead of being entirely throwaway. Basculin is.

#8 Swanna

It's a very uncreative thing, really. Let's draw a swan, and add some additional features. Sometimes you can get away with that in Pokemon, but you give her a seashell bra, some weird hair-bun and you call it a day? Jeez. People complain about the inanimate objects, but look at the amount of work that went into drawing Klinklang and making him look weird and cool, and just look at Swanna. She just looks like someone's angry grandma, especially with that default 'hands over hips' pose. Like Ferrothorn, Swanna has a better sprite in Generation VI, with her flying, but the seashell bra and the general lack of effort in making Swanna even look interesting just makes me dislike her.  

#7 Beheeyem
Pokemon based on aliens used to be cool-looking like Deoxys. I get that they're going for the Grays style of aliens, and Elgyem is kind of cute, even if he'll never be a thing I like... but Beheeyem? He's just ugly as hell, with a squashed head, a weird skirt, bulging eyes and a name that's so weird to pronounce. And the fact that it's just so ugly and forgettable, and absolutely outclassed by Reuniclus and Gothitelle as Generation V's psychic types, and the whole alien thing not even being mentioned anywhere, makes Beheeyem just this dumb thing that came along and was forgotten.

#6 Garbodor
I don't want to be like all those haters and go 'uhh, the garbage pokemon and the ice cream pokemon is dumbbbb' but man, Garbodor is ugly. Not as ugly as the five Pokemon down this list, and the gap between Garbodor and the ones after this is a very wide gap, but Garbodor looks like a bit of a mess. They tried too hard, with a stupid-looking face, and a body that's just... what, a gray blob with some random little objects shoved in? The asymmetrical arms and the different fingers (toilet rolls and metal wire) is a nice touch, but they don't quite portray the 'walking landfill golem' thing good enough and he just looks like a mound of... blobs. And its painful-looking face is, well, painful looking.

#5 Patrat & Watchog
These two. I generally never hate on the early-game rodent. They're meant to evolve quickly, to be easily dispatched of, and to be weak. Sometimes they get cool evolutions. Sometimes they're a bit doofy like Bidoof. But Bidoof's at least somewhat cute. Patrat is just disturbing with those eyes that stare into your soul. He just looks like he's in pain, and I just don't like him. Plus his cry is annoying, and he keeps spamming Detect like a little shit. Watchog is a bit better, but his expression and his tendency to Detect everything doesn't endear him to me either. Furret is a way better meerkat Pokemon than either Watchog or Patrat are, being far more adorable and fuzzy. Patrat just looks like something I'll call the exterminator to kill. For a longer talk about the ones from here down, click here.

#4 Gurdurr
Like Palpitoad, I hate Gurdurr, but not his pre-evolution and evolution. Sure, they are barely-disguised Machop-line expies, only with construction workers instead of wrestlers, and the silliness of having clown noses and having their block/girder/cement pillar thing evolve is kinda weird. It's a line that's honestly ranks pretty low in the 700+ Pokemon, but Conkeldurr looks kind of powerful, and Timburr is somewhat cool... but Gurdurr? His name itself is stupid. Durrrrr. His body proportions is dumb, with the legs being super tiny, his arms looking like balloons, his head looking like pulpy mess, his expression looking like he's in pain, his stupid, stupid arm veins... everything about this thing is stupid. There are three more I hate more on principle, but Gurdurr is easily the most stupid.

#3 Throh & Sawk
Man, these two ugly shits. They rip off Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan as a pair of similar-looking Fighting types representing a fighting style that are rivals but not related, but those two aren't even staples of Generation I you need to copy. And certainly not make them look so stupid. They don't make sense! Why do they wear clothes, why are their bodies rocky, what the fuck are those stupid black growths on their face, they look stupid, ugly and are absolutely badly designed. Not as deformed as Gurdurr is, but stupidity. One of them has Sturdy, but I can't be bothered to look up which one has them. They're both annoying.

#2 The Fucking Monkeys
Yeah, these three utter fuckers. I shoved my... Simi? Pan? Pour. Whichever is the smaller one. Into the box the moment it was dropped on my lap. What an utterly lame concept. A bunch of shitty-looking monkeys that represent the three main types, with only a bit of changes in their hairstyle and tail to represent their elements. No wonder an NPC had to give them out, no one of sound mind and health will want to willingly train one of these fuckers. Previous elemental trios like the original Eeveelutions, or the Elemental Dogs/Golems/Birds all have varieties in their designs. With the Simis/Pans, especially the pre-evolved forms, they just swap their colours and hairstyles. One of them closes their eyes. Big whoop. I'm not a big fan of monkeys, but these are ugly monkeys. Chimchar, Monferno and Infernape are such, such cooler realization of 'fire monkey' than these fuckers. It's a bit insulting to put this into the Unova Pokedex, really. They have so much good material already without having to pad out six slots with this fucking set of idiots.

#1 Bouffalant
Bouffalant is dumb. It's the Tauros expy in Generation V, and while I don't have much problems with the expies in Generation V (Gothitelle, Excadrill and Gigalith are different enough from Gardevoir, Dugtrio and Golem for me not to mind, and it's not like we've got expies before). Bouffalant copies Tauros as a rare, powerful pure-Normal type based on a bull. Tauros isn't the most creative Generation I Pokemon out there (it's a bull with three tails and a bunch of spots on its head. But just a bull). Bouffalant? He just slaps an afro onto his head, and puts rings on its horns. What a stupid shit! Who looks at this design and nodded, going 'yep, afro cow is a cool thing to put into the game!' And it's actually powerful, too. It's a monster. And I hate it when I get defeated by this utterly piece of shit. There's one thing to be defeated by Garchomps or Rotoms. Being killed by Bouffalant? It's annoying. Fuck this thing. Bouffalant is 100% the Pokemon I hate the most. I just hate this thing.