More legendaries. The fifth generation followed in the fourth's footsteps at introducing a literal metric fuck-ton of legendaries, but I've honestly always felt like the fifth generation's legendaries felt far more bland and boring and underwhelming compared to the fourth, as even my least favourites in the fourth felt like they had some business being a legendary (except Heatran). Not so here.
So overall, the fifth generation had a lot of huge swings as far as Pokemon designs go, honestly. There were some that are just brilliant designs, and I can safely say that at least some of my all-time favourites came from the fifth. There are some really unambiguously badass designs here too, like Hydreigon and Haxorus, and honestly a lot of the "universally reviled" Pokemon like Klinklang, Garbodor and Vanilluxe aren't all that bad.
Unfortunately, some of them are that bad, or at least just straight-up don't work out for me. The fifth generation has so many high points that I'm definitely willing to not damn the entire batch for a few bad eggs, but by god, when the fifth generation drops the ball, they drop it and they stomp it into the ground and then set off an explosion next to it. I don't like to give 0/5 ratings wily-nily, but I've given most of it in this generation.
Still, overall the fifth generation honestly probably ranks pretty high at the sheer amount of ingenuity and fun designs it manages to pump out. It's the generation that perhaps takes the biggest risks, gets the best reviews... and sadly, whether intentional or not, this is the last "super-big" expansion to the Pokemon population, with the next two going for a more careful selection of quality over quality, tending to just introduce way less than 100 creatures.
Oh well, let's peel the band-aid right off. I'll try my best to outline why I dislike many of these instead of being immature and go "fuck 'em" most of the time.
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First up is this generation's legendary trio, trying to harken back to a similar system to Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres by being a trio that share a common type, but has a different secondary type, found in specific dungeons located throughout Unova. Having the shared type be Fighting is unexpected and cool, and Steel/Fighting, Ground/Fighting and Grass/Fighting are all solid typing choices. And then you add in the fact that these are apparently based on the Three Musketeers... and they're based on... hoofed, four-legged mammals? Yeah, suddenly they lose a lot of their luster. Four-legged mammals can be majestic, regal legendaries. Xerneas and the three Johto beasts proved that. But throw in the Three Musketeers deal to randomly glue these together, rather poorly in my opinion, and the so-called Swords of Justice always felt underwhelming in my books. They're supposedly these ancient pokemon that are disgusted at humanity's treatment of Pokemon, which would've worked in so well with the fifth generation's plotline of having humanity's treatment of pokemon be the main focus, but in practice they just show up for you to catch. Oh, and in most of their appearances in the manga and movies, they end up being reduced to generic mentors for Keldeo.
And it's kind of an odd idea to have swordfighters be represented by a llama, a bull and a deer -- unconventional for sure, but in practice, it genuinely looks impractical. Their shared signature move, Sacred Sword, apparently just manifests as a giant glowing unicorn horn, which is just absolutely dumb-looking. These don't look like particularly strong swordsmen, they just look like shoddily-drawn unicorns.
#638-640: Cobalion, Terrakion & Virizion
- Types: Steel/Fighting [Cobalion], Rock/Fighting [Terrakion], Grass/Fighting [Virizion]
- Japanese names: Kobaruon, Terakion, Birijion
- Categories: Iron Will [Cobalion], Cavern [Terrakion], Grassland [Virizion]
And it's kind of an odd idea to have swordfighters be represented by a llama, a bull and a deer -- unconventional for sure, but in practice, it genuinely looks impractical. Their shared signature move, Sacred Sword, apparently just manifests as a giant glowing unicorn horn, which is just absolutely dumb-looking. These don't look like particularly strong swordsmen, they just look like shoddily-drawn unicorns.
And I do mean shoddy. Look at Cobalion. This Steel/Fighting Pokemon has absolutely nothing on his design that really informs to us that he's Steel or Fighting. Even if we pretend that the Musketeer backstory is supposed to inform us that Cobalion's a Fighting-type, the Steel part isn't apparent. Cobalion's just a goat who happens to wear human boots, has a random Gandalf mustache stapled around five inches lower than his actual chin, and he's got random black dots on his neck, a bunch of artificial-looking golden and silver bits taped onto his front limbs and back. Supposedly the leader of the group and having a stern look that could calm the angriest pokemon, Cobalion doesn't really exude any sort of gravitas from it.
1/6.
Terrakion, the second member of the group, supposedly representing the character Porthos to Cobalion's Athos, ends up being far more interesting. It's a bull with horns that are jagged downwards, and a pleasant combination of grays and browns that communicate its Ground type reasonably well. It's got these random orange... things glued onto its shoulder, though. Terrakion actually looks like it could actually be some sort of legendary pokemon, although it's honestly still pretty bland-looking. Terrakion's at least pleasantly designed, though, and while a design that could certainly be improved on, isn't one that I dislike.
3/6.
Virizion also communicates his typing of Grass/Fighting well, and is clearly based on the vain Aramis from the Three Musketeers. I kinda get where they were trying to go, but I really found Virizion's weird high-heel boots to be silly looking, and the design is so cluttered and confused, with the very strange head that is pulled to the side that just looks unpleasant. The general silhouette still looks graceful, like some sort of forest guardian that flits around rescuing people or some shit, but when you take a closer look at Virizion's design it just ends up like it could've been revised to actually be so much sleeker. At the end of the day he's not terrible, but I just can't muster any enthusiasm about him.
2/6.Overall, definitely not a fan of these three. They're rather boring designs for Pokemon, and honestly, compared to many of the more impressive designs in the Unova pokedex, they don't even look legendary. Their silly Three Musketeers storyline, while neat and shows some amount of effort at making the legendaries have a backstory, ends up honestly falling short and impractical because at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of concepts that don't mesh together particularly well.
#641-642: Tornadus & Thundurus
- Types: Flying [Tornadus], Electric/Flying [Thundurus]
- Japanese names: Torunerosu, Borutorosu
- Categories: Cyclone [Tornadus], Bolt Strike [Thundurus]
Tornadus and Thundurus form the "Forces of Nature" trio with Landorus, listed separately from his two younger brothers in a very weak and pathetic attempt to try and "subvert expectations" (emphasis on the sarcasm here) like putting Victini as #000 on the pokedex. It doesn't work if the legendaries themselves are underwhelming. Ask me two or three years before, and I bet I'll complain very, very loudly about how utterly stupid and lazy these are. The idea of legendary pokemon based on Fujin and Raijin, the Japanese gods of wind and lightning respectively, isn't in itself a bad idea, even if it's slightly questionable to do so in the American-themed generation. But the fact that the design between these two are so utterly lazy, and are just glorified palette swaps of each other? Yeah, sure, the number of horns change, and the design of the weird... ring-tail bullshit changes, but a palette swap is a palette swap no matter how you sell it.
Tornadus is our very, very first pure-Flying type, which is appropriate, I guess, for a god that personifies wind, although, again, I really wish that Tornadus actually makes an attempt at personifying wind. Tornadus and Thundurus are the 'roaming' pokemon of the fifth generation, being version-exclusives as well, and while the idea that you can track them down by looking at the weather is neat... everything else about Tornadus and Thundurus is just underwhelming. I'm just going to read about the actual Raijin and Fuujin, who's fifteen times more interesting than their minimal-effort pokemon knockoffs. I would readily say that out of the three genie-bros, Thundurus is the neatest-looking one, but that's because of its tail. I still heavily dislike all three.
0/6 for their Incarnate forms. 
The only saving grace these two have are their "Therian" forms, shapeshifting into animals, introduced in the second pair of games in the fifth generation, Black 2 and White 2, where they are able to assume these... true forms or some shit when exposed to a mirror? I don't care enough to look up the specific mechanics and what changes, to be honest. Tornadus's Therian form is a giant bird who looks pretty unwieldy, is coloured puke green, and has a sports bra and a weird red dot on his crotch for some reason. It looks pretty ugly as sin. Adding new forms to make an incentive to buy the next game is perhaps one of the most irritating features that the fifth generation embraced wholeheartedly.
1/6 for Therian Tornadus.
Thundurus's Therian form is genuinely cool, some sort of ambiguous monster with giant cloud-claws, a far more pleasant head, a proper tail made up of the incarnate form's beads, ridiculously tiny legs, and a general outline and silhouette that is the first pokemon so far that actually looks like it's a legendary, semi-deity creature. I actually like this thing now that I took some time to properly analyze it. It's dumb-looking for sure, and I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I actually find it ridiculously charming in the same way that I find Stunfisk or Slowpoke charming. Overall, though, a bunch of legendaries that fail to capitalize on their basis and fail to deliver anything interesting -- something that's an oversight for normal pokemon, but kind of inexcusable for what are supposed to be legendaries.
3/6 for Therian Thundurus.#643: Reshiram
- Types: Dragon/Fire
- Japanese name: Reshiramu
- Category: Vast White [White Yang in Japanese]
Reshiram and Zekrom's story is that they were once one whole being who, during a Civil War in ancient Unovan past, split into two dragons to side with the two kings of Unova -- Reshiram embodied truth, and Zekrom embodied ideals, both being rather abstract concepts that could be copy-pasted into any situation with some hand-waving. I do like what they represent, though -- two different good guys in different circumstances with equal amounts of conviction that they are doing the right thing/following their ideals (both are applicable to every single major character in the series), which means that depending on the game you're playing, you'll earn the respect of one of the dragons, while the misguided-but-well-meaning leader of Team Plasma, N, will get the other dragon. I've always found this backstory to be far, far more entrancing than the ambiguous "oooooh these guys are space and time made flesh" nonsense of the last generation's mascot legendaries.
That said, though, I'm not the biggest fan of Reshiram, who I've always found cluttered. So many spiky feathers pointing at different directions. Fromm the thigh! From the chest! From the head! From the wings! From the crotch! Add that to the hilariously ugly giant turbines with a massive amount of detail given to both Reshiram and Zekrom, and both end up looking pretty messy. Reshiram has far more moving parts thanks to all the flowing feathers and wings, and that might contribute to how cluttered Reshiram is, really. Of course, there are some great bits to Reshiram's design -- throwing some mammalian and avian features into Reshiram's features is a laudable effort, and it always looks ever so slightly less messy when animated or drawn in the manga. Maybe that's because Reshiram's tail-turbine and ponytails actually glow red? This glowing is apparently an actual mode called "Overdrive Mode" by the franchise, which is honestly just Nintendo's current team really loving the idea of slapping an "[X] mode" for each and every one of their legendaries. It's just Reshiram activating her butt-engine-tail and channeling her power, jeez. We don't have a Raichu: Thunderstorm Mode or Typhlosion: Conflagration Mode or whatever when they activate their elemental attacks, right?
Reshiram, surprisingly, is our very first Dragon/Fire Pokemon, and I'm genuinely surprised Pokemon held off for so long. Reshiram's design somewhat communicates this, I guess? Oh, and the fifth generation legendaries went to town with signature moves, with Reshiram having two -- Fusion Flare and Blue Fire. Overall... Reshiram's fine, I guess? I hate the clutter, but at the same time Reshiram feels a lot more organic and majestic than most of the legendaries here or in the generation before it, so it gets an extra point for effort. Definitely way, way better than the five before him, for sure. I know Reshiram has a LOT of fans out there, and even moreso than any other legendary, I feel that as a set Reshiram and Zekrom really tries to reach for as wide of an audience, with their vastly contrasting design philosophies.
3/6.#644: Zekrom
Zekrom has always appealed to me more, having a far more streamlined design, with the turbine on his tail looking far less busy and cooler and more drill-like than Reshiram's. Zekrom's head is definitely also far more masculine-looking, and I've always loved how his claws are drawn, with sharp claws being the 'main' art of Zekrom's hands, and a pair of three flat claws covering it. Zekrom is all sharp angles and almost-mechanical-looking parts, and so it is the franchise's first Dragon/Electric. Zekrom's neat, but like Reshiram, there really are parts where he feels way too cluttered. Like Reshiram, though, Zekrom always felt somewhat sleeker, even if it does have to trade off by kind of looking like it has seams and artificial joints. I used to think it's pretty cool when I played through the fifth-gen games, although that might just be because it was the new hot thing and it's so relevant to the plot so it's the shiny new thing. I've mellowed out a fair bit on Zekrom over the past few years, especially after comparing its busy design to other legendaries. It's cool, but not as cool as I used to think it is. It's all right. I still like it, but not as much as I did when I first adventured through Unova. Like Reshiram, when he's attacking, Zekrom's butt-engine lights up and it's his Overdrive Mode or whatever. I'm not sure if I would really like the yin-yang dragons more or less if they didn't have butt-engines. I'm genuinely not sure.
Like Reshiram, Zekrom has a couple of signature moves, being Fusion Bolt and Bolt Strike. Eh. It's a pretty cool thunder-shooting dinosaur-dragon with a neat backstory. I don't dislike either Reshiram or Zekrom, they're just not my favourites is all. Zekrom's all right.
4/6.#645: Landorus
- Types: Ground/Flying
- Japanese names: Randorosu
- Category: Abundant [Fertility in Japanese]
Oh yeah, after feeling somewhat nice and fuzzy with the well-designed Zekrom and Reshiram, Landorus is... sigh, why did we need so many of these again? Landorus is a Ground/Flying deity, the Pokemon form of Inari, god of fertility, apparently appearing to drive off Thundurus and Tornadus, blessing the lands it passes with bountiful harvests. The original Landorus was just... Tornadus and Thundurus with some details changed. While in the manga and anime Landorus shows up any time Thundurus and Tornadus fights, trying to ape Rayquaza, Landorus in the games is actually a deadbeat that will only show up in the Abundance Shrine if you brought along Tornadus and Thundurus with you -- which means, yeah, you need some trading shenanigans to even get Landorus. With B2W2, Landorus also gets a Therian form, but if anything, it feels fairly more forgettable than the other two, just being a generic random four-legged tiger thing with Landorus's incarnate form's accessories glued onto it. I don't care for Landorus that much. I really don't have much of an opinion beyond "don't like him".
2/6.#646: Kyurem
- Types: Dragon/Ice
- Japanese name: Kyuremu
- Category: Boundary
The concept of Kyurem is pretty cool. Original Kyurem, at least. Original Kyurem is a weird chicken-like dinosaur with appropriate Tyrannosaurus rex style tiny arms, and a neat set of icy armour that gives him a cool-looking head, and two large wing-like structures, one of which is noticeably shorter and stumpier than the other. Oh, and it's also got that stupid turbine-tail that Zekrom and Reshiram have, but it's a lot more subdued on Kyurem. Kyurem is a monstrous being that stalks around the Great Chasm in the original fifth generation games, where people erected a giant wall to keep it out. It's initially presented as an eldritch alien-like dragon, seemingly arriving on a meteor, that has such a strange physiology that its own cold energy has leaked out and frozen parts of it. But apparently poor, poor Kyurem is actually a broken shell of a creature -- the original body of the dragon that was once whole, but split apart into Reshiram and Zekrom. This even has basis in Taoism, where Kyurem ends up symbolizing wuji, the state of absence of both yin and yang.
Kyurem's shuddering gait, its dead eyes, its cracked horns and smaller wings really give the impression of an incomplete creature that manages to shamble on through life, and giving it the less-obvious Ice type instead of Ghost actually gives Kyurem a unique theme that contrasts well with Reshiram and Zekrom's energy-filled elements. Kyurem, of course, gets yet another signature move, Glaciate (or Frozen World in Japanese, a far cooler name). Plus, y'know, we've never had an ice dragon yet. I've always loved how, unlike the genies or the horsies, Kyurem's role in the games is actually acknowledged by the NPCs around the Great Chasm, and of course he stars in the Black 2/White 2 games. Honestly, looking more at this skeletal ice dragon creature, I am actually somewhat surprised by how much I like Kyurem! He might actually be my favourite of the tao trio.
5/6 for base Kyurem. 
See, in Black 2/White 2, actual sequels to Black and White, a new revived of Team Plasma under the head of the psychopathic Ghetsis captured Kyurem and actually weaponized him to freeze entire cities of Unova, trying to lure out N -- who has, during the climax of Black/White, befriended one of the two dragons (the one you didn't represent)... which, in turn, ends up in a pretty neat battle where Kyurem is sent to battle N's dragon, eventually fusing with him through the power of SCIENCE, forming one of two forms -- Black Kyurem when fused with Zekrom, and White Kyurem when fused with Reshiram.
Now let's be clear -- the concept of fusion isn't troubling me, unlike how some people do dislike. The way that it's represented in regards to Kyurem is also pretty neat -- the shell of what was once whole wanting to be whole again, and absorbs the creatures that has gained their own sentience into itself? That's a neat story and concept. It's actually something I wanted them to do more, with the likes of Mantine or Slowbro, who also have lore reasons to do so. The fact that Reshiram and Zekrom are "consumed" temporarily has always been pretty cool, even if the movies ignored this completely and has Kyurem transform wily-nily between all three forms.
Like Reshiram and Zekrom, the two Franken-Kyurems have "Overdrive Modes" where random tubes snake out of their back and power up their butt-engines, and other parts of their anatomy glow. As if you needed the design to get even more cluttered.
In execution, however... Black and White Kyurem are just a horrifyingly piss-poor amalgamation of Kyurem's anatomy with either Zekrom and Reshiram, with gigantic turbines, silly-looking haphazardly combined chunks of anatomy that just straight-up looks like nightmarish Frankensteined monsters. They're just batches of random anatomy stuck together without much care as to how the end result looks -- which ends up just straight-up being fucking ugly. They're still Dragon/Ice, but they can do Reshiram and Zekrom's signature moves, Fusion Flare and Fusion Bolt. And they also get more signature moves, Ice Burn and Freeze Shock. Overkill much? Overall, I really like regular Kyurem a fair bit. The two fused forms, however, are a neat concept that absolutely fails in execution, rounding out two of the absolute worst and cluttered designs ever to grace the franchise. Props for the concept, but seeing that future generations would actually do the 'fusion' thing a lot better...
0/6 for both fusions. #647: Keldeo
- Types: Water/Fighting
- Japanese name: Kerudio
- Category: Colt
The fourth member of the Swords of Justice is Keldeo, based on d'Artagnan from the Three Musketeers. And Keldeo is a Water/Fighting Pokemon, and he's water due to being based on the kelpie, a water horse. Being based is a lose term, of course, since Keldeo doesn't have much in common beyond being a baby pony associated with water. At least, though, the combination of unicorn and kelpie means that there's something that's genuinely legendary behind his origin compared to the silly disconnect that Cobalion and buddies have. Keldeo is a pretty weirdly cluttered design, being a little baby unicorn with two gigantic blue eyebrows and a gigantic tuft of orange hair, to remind us, that, yes, this fucker is supposed to be a generic anime protagonist. Keldeo's got this neat gimmick where it shoots water out of his hooves to hover, and it's apprenticing under the three Swords of Justice to surpass them or some shit. I don't particularly ccare for Keldeo's design. It looks artificial and toy-like, as if someone just kept pasting extra accessories. Which they probably had in mind, because Keldeo has a second form that debuted in Black 2/White 2... the Resolute form, achieved when he learns the signature move "Secret Sword". Which is not a move any of his teachers can learn, because Keldeo is oh-so-special.
Keldeo's Resolute Form is honestly barely different, just having the eyebrows combine together to cover the unicorn horn to make a bigger unicorn horn. Also, he's got feathers from his three mentors to clutter up his design even more (how does Terrakion have a feather of that shape?). Even moreso than any other form change in this list, Keldeo's moronic Resolute Form looks like it's just there as padding. Considering Keldeo's our very first "mythical" or real-life-event-exclusive pokemon, yeah, that's probably the case. I used to really hate Keldeo thanks to his absolutely piece-of-shit portrayal in the movie, but I've mellowed out somewhat. He still really looks plastic-y and artificial, though, and I still lean more towards disliking this one. Overall, a competent design, one that I'm completely indifferent towards.
2/6.#648: Meloetta
Yep, there are more legendaries to slog through. Victini and Meloetta both share the spot of the 'Mew' of the region, although Meloetta is a fair bit more humanoid than Victini. Again, I don't really get the feeling of 'legendary' from this creature, not in the same "mysterious powerful pixie" feel that Mew, Jirachi, Hoopa or Victini has. Meloetta is just a little singing girl with a musical note for an earpiece, and a hair that looks like sheet music. In this form, Meloetta is called "Aria Forme" and is Normal/Psychic. It's... it's actually okay, and if I wasn't already overwhelmed by that gigantic chunk of underwhelming weather genies and silly llama swordsmen (and all of their alternate forms) I think I wouldn't be so grumpy at this point.
Meloetta can use her signature move, Relic Song (a song forgotten to time that a convenient NPC still remembers), to transform into her Pirouette Forme, where her hair turns orange, her earpiece becomes a hair clip, and she just dances around as a Normal/Fighting Pokemon. Honestly, as a concept Meloetta isn't the worst creature out there, and she makes the musical motif work a lot better than Chatot did. The problem is that, well, this lady doesn't really actually do much as a legendary pokemon beyond being ambiguously powerful and some generic feeling manipulation. Yeah, any old Psychic-type can manipulate feelings. Meloetta feels completely redundant as a legendary, to be honest. I dunno. Meloetta's just underwhelming, although I do respect what they're going for here -- it's pleasant looking after the clutter of the past 5 or 6 entries.
2/6.#649: Genesect
- Types: Bug/Steel
- Japanese name: Genesekuto
- Category: Paleozoic
Genesect isn't actually based on any specific insect (or Pokemon) and is more of an adaptation of various sci-fi tropes. The disc attached to Genesect's cannon will change the typing of his signature move, Techno Blast, which is honestly pretty impractical, but at least it's something. Overall Genesect's coolness factor stems more from simple design and the slight backstory we're given... but I still like it! And that's okay. We've had so many underwhelming legendaries in this generation that I deserve a couple that I really like.
6/6.____________________________________________________________
And... and we're done! Dang that was kinda painful. The fourth generation had more legendaries than the fifth, but as much as I deride the fourth generation's legendaries, they were never as boring as the ones I had to slog through here, and even the most underwhelming of them felt legendary. Thankfully, the rest of the Unova dex is extremely competent.
Next up... Pokemon goes 3-D in Kalos!
And... and we're done! Dang that was kinda painful. The fourth generation had more legendaries than the fifth, but as much as I deride the fourth generation's legendaries, they were never as boring as the ones I had to slog through here, and even the most underwhelming of them felt legendary. Thankfully, the rest of the Unova dex is extremely competent.
Next up... Pokemon goes 3-D in Kalos!
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