Pokemon Top Tens: Best and Worst of Generation VI

Cutting it close to the release of Sun and Moon, here is the final installment of my top ten favourites (and top five least favourite) Pokemon in Generation VI. The sixth generation is a bit of a different beast due to the... very little Pokemon that we got. Technically we got a crapton of Mega Evolutions, but I already did a Mega Evolution list a while back, and this is more about the species that are truly native to Kalos... of which there really aren't a lot. Add that to the fact that a lot of earlier-generation Pokemon are so common in Kalos... my team throughout Y certainly was made up partially of older faces like Venusaur, Aerodactyl, Blaziken and Zoroark... hey, I can't help it! I want to use those fancy-ass Mega Evolutions, and handing me a Generation I starter just isn't the way to really promote the new dudes.

I don't really have much to say, so let's just go with it.

#10 Fennekin

Come on, foxes are adorable.

My starter for Generation VI is Fennekin... and honestly, as much as I tried to like Fennekin, he's just a bit overshadowed by... well, the far-more-awesome Greninja from the same generation, for one, but also by other Fire-starters. See, in XY you get a Speed Boost Torchic for free thanks to an event, and you're also handed a Generation I starter about a quarter through the game, so the Kalos starters honestly feel a bit pushed aside. And while Fennekin is possibly one of my favourite basic-level starters, his evolution kind of leaves something to be desired. A fox wizard is cool in some way, but Delphox's huge, gigantic ear-hairs just puts me off, and his in-game model really could've looked better. Also the fact that he's a bit of a one-trick pony in terms of being a huge glass cannon, and while I normally enjoy these kinds of fragile-but-powerful Pokemon like Chandelure, Zoroark or Espeon... Delphox just isn't as impressive as any of those dudes. Out of the starters I've ever used, I am quite sad to rank Delphox as the lowest among them, and I definitely used Venusaur a lot more than him.

Fennekin, though? Fennekin is adorable. The nice contrast between orange and red, the cute little flame ear-hairs that aren't quite as randomly huge as Delphox's, and generally being adorable as all hell. And while I like nine more Kalos Pokemon more than Fennekin, I still really like him and he's still the Generation VI starter that impressed me the most. (Mine is called Kurama because I have no creativity in giving nicknames)

#9 Noivern

He's got the sonic and the boom.

Noivern is just a badass monster, isn't he? He's a Dragon/Flying, which isn't something new, but he's this gigantic dragon bat that looks like a wyvern, like a gargoyle, and the black main colour is accentuated very well with teal and purple, and the little sound gimmick, with two giant speaker-ears on Noivern's head, makes Noivern just a very cool monster. I honestly genuinely thought that Noivern was going to be the pseudo legendary of the region, either the middle or final evolution. Noivern's still pretty fucking awesome, though, and it's a shame that he gets relatively little spotlight in the game, only really being used by one of the Elite Four members. And beyond looking pretty awesome, I really like how Noivern is a nice variation of the bat design, focusing on a sleeker hunter than the stylized, more cartoony Zubat line, or the furry and cute Woobat line. Noivern just exudes power, with a more realistic, predatory look, and incorporating the supersonic echolocation as a part of Noviern's abilities to use sound-based attacks. Certainly a lot cooler than Exploud's gigantic and gross mouth.

#8 Goomy

<3

Goodra is a bit underwhelming, though I don't exactly hate him... I just feel that it's a bit weird that a huge slug dinosaur is pure-Dragon instead of, oh, Dragon-Water or something. Goomy, though? Goomy is just a cute little purple slug blob! Goomy is just adorable, just this cute little goop that's adorable in the cartoon, in the fan arts, in the games... He's just this little blob that is also a fucking dragon by the way, eat your hearts out, Charizard, Gyarados, Lugia, and all of you. Goomy is this little adorable blob that you can just imagine just plops on your head and just hang out and just be happy about everything that's happening. Goomy's cute. Also he's a slug-dragon. How can you not love him?

HE IS FUCKING ADORABLE, OKAY

God of Venison

#7 Xerneas
I got Pokemon Y, but Xerneas is very awesome. I wasn't sure about his design at first, but I've grown to be really impressed by him. He's a powerful and majestic looking deer, with the metallic blue and the golden sword-legs, as well as a very impressive antler that when activated looks absolutely regal with those pretty-ass rainbow glowy stuff. As far as legendaries go Xerneas isn't the most creative, just turning a deer slightly more metallic and giving him a pretty awesome rainbow antlers. And while I really wished they had made the antlers not quite so insanely large -- Xerneas must get a crapton of neck pain -- he's still a pretty majestic Pokemon that higlights the more regal and powerful side of this brand-new Fairy type, and Xerneas is just a beast, arguably the most powerful among the Kalos Life/Death trio. Geomancy isn't a joke! It's a Pokemon that I genuinely just love because of his design.

#6 Klefki

Jingle Jangle Motherfuckers

A lot of people hate on Klefki. Either because of his uninspired design ("oh, a keychain Pokemon?") or because of his absolutely irritating Prankster ability that allows it to paralyze all of your team before they can do jack shit. But I love Klefki's design! He's not a keychain, he's a little fairy that looks like a keychain, going around stealing keys. Klefki's just the silver portions. And the combination of 'kleptomaniac' and 'key'? Brilliant! Klefki taps into the more mischievous side of fairy lore, and adds a nice reminder that not all fairies are just cutesy Flabebes and Clefairies that just want to hang out and dance and play. Some of them are outright glorious dicks, and Klefki is one of those.

I never raised a Klefki, but my friend raised a very, very irritating and competitive one, who had been the bane of my existence. Steel and Fairy, as it turns out, makes a pretty deadly combination that cancels out a lot of each other's weaknesses, with nothing short of Earthquakes (eliminated with an Air Balloon) and Flamethrowers able to cleanly take a Klefki out. Being fairy type means that this keychain is a dragonslayer, and being steel type means that it's as toxic to other anti-dragon fairies. Jingle jingle, motherfuckers, this adorable little keychain can fuck up Pokemon gods. What do you have to say to that? I absolutely love Klefki. What an insane fucker. I just imagine real-life Klefkis being supreme shit-eating trolls.

#5 Greninja

Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu!

Greninja's just awesome, okay? Yeah, the anime focuses on him too much and made that stupid Ash Greninja thing, but man, Greninja is hands-down the coolest of the three Kalos starters. A sleek frog ninja with long arms? Its dark blue colours is supremely cool, as is its head horns. The tongue scarf is honestly a bit gross, but whatever. I also absolutely like how Greninja's eyes can swap out between being half-asleep if he's in amie, and serious mode in battle. He's not just a master ninja, he's also a very chill frog dude in his downtime. And he's actually fucking terrifying in battle, too. Greninja's hidden ability is Protean, which literally changes his type depending on the attack he's using. Uzumaki Naruto, get out of the way, Greninja is a true master of ninja arts!

Water Shuriken is an absolutely cool attack, too, and it's extra awesome in the anime when he goes full, well, Naruto-style Rasen-shuriken with water. And his other signature move, Mat Block, just has him hitting down the floor and summoning two ninja mats to block attacks for both him and his buddy. Greninja is Water/Dark, which is a very appropriate typing for a frog ninja, but like a true ninja he's utterly unpredictable, able to launch a barrage of surprisingly diverse attacks. His fragility is almost of no consequence because Greninja will swoop in, strike hard, strike fast, swap between his multiple attacks to always hit for STAB damage, and absolutely wreck an unprepared team. My competitive Protean Greninja... actually came from a Trade and he has a Japanese name. In my head I call it Koga after the Generation I gym leader (Jiraiya is too obvious of a nickname).

Let's ignore the existence of Ash Greninja, shall we.

#4 Talonflame

The Bane of Smogon

Talonflame is another one that's rendered annoying by competitive play, because it's a bit silly, to be honest. He gets priority for all Flying-type moves, which he already deals huge damage due to his respectable Attack stat, STAB and the ability to hang on to a Life Orb. But in addition to Brave Birding every single living thing on earth, Talonflame is also able to Roost, meaning he can heal upwards to half his health before the enemy can react. Talonflame is just a beast, and he's a very, very cool-looking starter bird, possibly the coolest among them now that I think of it. He's also the first that actually breaks the Normal/Flying mould by being Fire/Flying. He's got a very cool name despite it just slapping two words together, he's got a very cool design, and, I dunno. I just really like Talonflame's design, okay? I don't even care that he's irritating as all get-out in competitive games, basically far worse than Big Game Hunters and Dr. Booms in Hearthstone. I don't give a fuck, mostly because I don't really play competitive games, and in all the competitive games I play seeing a Talonflame run smack dab into a Ferrothorn and killing itself, or crippling itself by attacking an Aegislash is hilarious. I just kinda love Talonflame. Mine is called Mockingjay because of Hunger Games. It's a bit obvious, really. Girl on fire, bird insignia and all that. Nothing much to say about Talonflame. I really like Fletchling, too! What an adorable little robin he is.

#3 Hawlucha

LUCHA LIBRE

Oh man, I don't really watch a lot of actual wrestling, but I absolutely love super-hammy, exaggerated parodies of wrestling shows and the sheer hammy energy that goes into crafting these colourful luchadors. Bleach's Mask de Masculine is easily one of the best and most hilarious part of its meandering and ultimately truncated final arc, and Hawlucha is just... this absolutely ridiculous, brightly-coloured wrestling bird that goes around punching and kicking people and doing insane suplexes, and I really am sad that this isn't better represented in the games. Hawlucha is 100% the only reason I bothered to look up anime episodes after missing out on everything between Hoenn and Kalos, just to see the ridiculousness of this fucking bird pulling off a wrestling takedown on things like Ursarings and Machamps, and in every single goddamned scene he is in the background of, Ash's Hawlucha is just posing and posing and doing all sorts of hammy flexing moves. Hawlucha is just awesome! His wings form a cape, his facial marks resemble a luchador mask and he's even got a FLYING PRESS special move that allows it to jump into the air and press the motherloving hell out of anything unfortunate enough to face it. Oh, and Hawlucha has access to the very first dual-typed moves ever, which is awesome as all hell. Yeah, I really like Hawlucha. I named mine El Masculino.

#2 Yveltal

All will BURN beneath the
shadow of my wings.

Yveltal truly blew me away when I saw the XY trailer. Xerneas is a fancy-ass deer, and it's a regal legendary Pokemon, and then this thing just flies through the skies, this majestic death bird that's all black and red, with claws at the ends of its wings and huge tail, a very badass looking beak and those two cool curved horns. Yveltal is just very cool looking, and his lore? He is literally the embodiment of death. If he's alive, he's going to lay destruction to everything on the world, killing everything and all. If he dies? He sucks all the life in a huge radius to itself, leaving people around it dead anyway. There's no fighting this thing unless you're Xerneas. And honestly it's what makes Pokemon Y's story flow so much better -- weaponizing Yveltal makes so much more sense than weaponizing Xerneas.

Yveltal can do a kame-hame-ha style laser beam that tears apart the ground like a space laser, appropriately named Oblivion Wing in one of the best animations in the entirety of the Generation VI engine. (Tangentially, Palkia's Spacial Rend is also very awesome in the Gen VI engine) And, yes, he does look a bit like a bacon bird, but he's still awesome. And have you ever played with a Yveltal in Pokemon Amie? Despite being a monstrous demonic bird that is the flying embodiment of death, he just has the cutest bwaaaa expression when you're patting his head or feeding him macaroons. I just really like Yveltal. Mine is called Deathwing after the Warcraft dragon of death, and Deathwing is coincidentally Oblivion Wing's Japanese name.


Honourable mentions!

• Trevenant: It's not what I would make if I was told to design a demonic ghost tree -- for one, I would use slightly less bottom-heavy proportions -- but man, Trevenant is an awesome thing nonetheless. From the root-legs, to the single glowing eye, to the ghostly black... stuff... in-between the wooden pieces, and the pretty inspired Grass/Ghost typing makes Trevenant a cool Pokemon in my books. 
• Tyrunt, Flabebe and Inkay: They're all so adorable that they fall into a category of Pokemon that I never want to evolve. Tyrunt is an adorable, adorable baby tee-rex that transforms into an overdesigned dinosaur that really could've used a lot less weird random details glued onto it. Flabebe is an adorable little buddy hanging on to the petal of the flower, and while Florges is cool, I like Flabebe a lot more. Inkay is an adorable floating baby squid that's Psychic/Dark for some reason, that evolves into a pretty disturbing-looking calamari witch. 
• Sylveon: Big fan of the Eeveelutions, and Sylveon is actually a very well-designed Pokemon in my opinion, being the right amount of cute and cool. Even if those ribbons are, like, flesh-ribbons or some shit. Her eyes are particularly adorable.

#1 Aegislash

BANKAI!

And my favourite Pokemon... is Aegislash! What an awesome dude. Honedge and Doublade were honestly cool on their own, these poltergeist Ghost/Steel swords that suck out the life force from their owners if you try and wield them like an actual swords. But Aegislash? Aegislash is this gigantic broadsword with two sash-arms and a huge, ornate golden shield. And he alternates between crossing his arms and holding the shield in front of him, or revealing the sword, ready to attack. This manifests in the very awesome Stance Change ability, which allows Aegislash to swap around his (tremendous) defense and attack stats around depending on whether the move he's using is an offensive move or King's Shield -- a variation of Protect that debuffs the enemy if they come into contact with Aegislash. Aegislash is both a tank and a monster in attacking, with his very awesome Ghost/Steel typing allowing an insane range in the Pokemon it can hit. My Aegislash, Kenpachi (named after my faovurite character in Bleach, a manga all about powerful swords), is a monstrous tank that debuffs enemies with King's Shield, buffs itself with Swords Dance while hiding under huge defenses, then one-shots people with STAB Iron Heads and priority Shadow Sneaks. You can even teach it a variety of other elemental powerful physical moves like the Fighting-type Sacred Sword and the rock-type Head Smash, the Dark-type Night Slash. It's a shame you can only get four moves and King's Shield is basically mandatory.

But Aegislash really earned by love when I dabbled in competitive. While I had to bred most of my team -- Talonflame, Rotom, Greninja, Azumarill, Mega Kangaskhan, Ferrothorn and a whole bunch of others I probably talked about before -- Aegislash is the only member of my competitive team that made the smooth transition from being part of my in-game party straight into the competitive scene, partially because of his already appropriate nature and somewhat-decent IVs, but it's definitely brings a huge smile to my face when I use a partner I've traveled and relied on during the story mode to challenge these hyper-competitively-bred Pokemon.

Plus Aegislash is just super-cool! He's a Pokemon that attends kings and secretly manipulates them. What an evil fucker! And I really like how the entire Honedge line has different animations in Pokemon Amie when you touch their sashes. A freshly-caught Honedge won't give a shit and is actually happy when you touch his soul-sucking sash, but be buddies with your sentient ghost sword and it will actively admonish you for touching the soul-sucking sash. Aw, it doesn't want to eat your soul anymore!

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Here are my top five least favourite Kalos Pokemon. It's a bit of a difficult choice because I just can't work up the energy to talk shit about any of these five the way that I talked about Bouffalant or Throh or the elemental monkeys or Jynx or Unown, and honestly these are the worst simply by process of elimination.

#5 Furfrou
I really expected Furfrou to evolve, or to have something going on for him beyond just having customization of his hairdo in a very irritating concept that forces you to go to the salon multiple times. Yes, it's a take on poodle dogs and all, but Furfrou's alternate forms don't even look good, other than the pharaoh one which made me laugh. I dunno. Being pure-normal and a very boring moveset and sub-par stats make raising one honestly a bit pointless, especially when you can customize your trainers in the same game. Who's going to bother with this messy-haired dog?

#4 Quilladin
Chesnaught is my least favourite of the three final evolutions of the Kalos starters, but I don't hate him. Quilladin, though, is just weird. I dunno, maybe it's because he looks a bit too much like a balloon? Chesnaught is supposed to be the 'warrior' to Delphox's 'mage' and Greninja's 'rogue', and their middle forms -- Braixen and Frogadier -- both reflect this change from cute baby animals into warriors. Quilladin turns from a cute squirrel into... a balloon.

#3 Avalugg
I just don't really like Avalugg. He's just... this big chunk of ice... that's shaped like a tortoise? With a very, very flat back? A table, perhaps? Avalugg's head looks like he's either smouldering in anger or in pain all the time, and he's just this weird chunk of ice. I dunno. Bergmite's very cute, but Avalugg's just kind of ugly.

#2 Diggersby
Kudos for making Diggersby not a pure normal-type, but holy shit, did they have to make Diggersby so ugly? I don't hate Diggersby as much as I do Patrat and Watchog, but I still dislike him. The ear-shovels are taken to a ridiculous extreme, and he's got a huge donut wrapped around his fat fat belly. But perhaps the most disturbing thing about Diggersby is his in-game cry, that sounds like a bulldozer's death throes. It's just painful

#1 Aromatisse
I really liked Spritzee. She's this cute little pink bird with a plague doctor mask, and her in-game model makes her look even cooler than her artwork. I expected her to evolve into a larger bird, or maybe a cloaked plague doctor -- a Fairy/Ghost type? But no. Instead, we get... Aromatisse. Who's this big plump thing with a boa and a provocative leg shown and it's supposed to be, what, a cabaret dancer? I dunno. Swirlix turning into Slurpuff makes sense, but Aromatisse just looks like a bit of an abomination.