Pokemon of the Week #15: Turtonator

#776: Turtonator, the Blast Turtle Pokemon

Oh, hey, a single-stage evolution Pokemon for once, so I don't have to talk about two or three Pokemon in the same article! Maybe I should make these things about evolutionary chains? I dunno.

Anyway, I did this particular week's number randomizer only on Generation VII Pokemon in order to familiarize myself with them, because a couple of months after finishing Sun and Moon, some of the less prominent Pokemon just kind of... fell through the cracks. One of them definitely being Turtonator, which you'd think would be memorable, what with his awesome sounding name. Turtle and Terminator! How can that go wrong?

So, yeah, this dude. You get Turtonator if you play Pokemon Sun as the rare single-stage dragon Pokemon, whereas you get Drampa in Pokemon Moon. Turtonator's found on Blush Mountain, and while not quite as ridiculously rare as Mareanie, it's still pretty hard to find, and to my knowledge no prominent trainer in the game uses it, and certainly not the common enemies. 

Put your god damn hand down, Ryuki, I said prominent trainer, not a glorified easter egg.

Which is a bit of a shame that he's such a nobody, because Turtonator's actually a cool dude. Like, I'm not sure why I don't like him more. Maybe it's his ugly-looking face? Maybe it's the fact that he looks more awkward than cool? I dunno. Turtonator had a lot going for it in regards to his design. He's based on a Mata mata turtle, which is this wacky turtle with a spiked shell, a long neck, an equally spiky head, and the beak of a snapping turtle. Oh, and he's also apparently based on a land mine as well, hence his explosive abilities. And for additional measure, the beak-and-spiky-head deal is modeled after a kappa. And I think it's them trying to do too much with Turtonator that might lead to its design looking kind of... weird? It's his face in particular that I just kind of dislike.

Turtonator always stands with its spiky shell facing the enemy, because that's where, y'know, his spikes are. The Pokedex entries state that his spikes have unstable chemicals that will explode violently if struck, and it has a hole in his stomach (visible if you rotate his model in Sun and Moon) that is its weakness, because that's what a turtle's weakness apparently is. Also, its shit is explosive.

No, seriously. It's moon Pokedex entry reads, and I quote, "its dung is an explosive substance and can be put to various uses." So yeah, all that talk about Pokemon Wars and nitty-gritty stuff? They're probably using turtle shit as explosives.

And something I genuinely forgot about before writing this article is the fact that Turtonator is a Fire/Dragon dual type, the third of that typing after Reshiram and Mega Charizard X. And it... doesn't even look like a dragon. Which, okay, unlike the Goomy line, which at least evolves into something resembling a dragon and has a French folktale about a snail-dragon, Turtonator just kind of doesn't make that much sense. But it is a good typing, especially considering what Turtonator tries to do.

Chest hole! Why is Arceus so cruel?

Turtonator is a very defensive Pokemon, with a base Defense stat of 135 and Special Defense of 85. Naturally, it's slow as all hell since it's a turtle, and has slightly more Special Attack so it can spit out them Flamethrowers and shit. And the Fire/Dragon dual type actually allows it to resist a fair amount of things, because the Fire typing neutralizes the already multi-resistent Dragon-typing's Ice weakness. It's not perfect, though, and it's still weak to Dragon, Rock and Ground, but then Turtonator's not meant to be the BEST.

Unlike Reshiram and Mega Charizard, Turtonator's movepool is... definitely lacking. He learns Explosion, of course, being a landmine turtle and all, and learns all your basic fire-type moves. Flamethrower, Overheat... and the one lone Dragon Pulse as the only dragon-type move he normally learns (he gets Dragon Claw and Dragon Tail from TM's). He also has the move Shell Trap, which is kind of like Counter with STAB -- it damages anyone who attacks Turtonator with a physical move. Shell Trap's a really powerful attack with a base damage of 150, though, so at least there's that. 

His TM learnset is pretty decent, though for some reason a lot of it is physical moves which doesn't play off his stats very well. You can slap Charge Beam and Solar Beam for coverage, though honestly, for Turtonator you really just want him to tank physical attacks and Shell Trap them to death.

I dunno. I guess it's just not quite that interesting? Like, maybe with a different physical appearance (his FACE), or a differently executed gimmick, Turtonator might've been more memorable. But I don't think we can close this article without mentioning Torkoal from Generation III, also a fire turtle, but I really think that comparing Turtonator to Torkoal isn't entirely fair. Torkoal's gimmick was shooting smoke and spinning around. Turtonator's gimmick is standing still and hoping people will run themselves into his exploding spikes. 

Here's hoping future generations will be kinder to Turtonator, otherwise he runs the risk of being forgotten like many other single-stage evolutions, and while some Pokemon I'm perfectly happy to just leave bheind to obscurity, Turtonator actually has enough going on for him that I really hope he gets some prominence -- be it as a gym leader's signature Pokemon, or an evolution, or a Mega, or something -- because he's honestly got enough going on to be cool, just... not quite there yet.