Gotta Review 'Em All, Part #34: Tapu Koko to Melmetal

The final part of the seventh generation, and, at the time of writing, the final part of the "Gotta Review 'Em All" series until the eventual eighth generation. I thought about dividing up this article to 'normal legendaries' and 'Ultra Beasts', but decided against it. I mean, Ultra Beasts are just weird-ass legendaries anyway, they just actually have a fancy backstory to justify why there's a lot of them.

See, if you've been reading my reviews, you'll see my disdain about the huge blobs of legendaries on the third through fifth generations, and I really do feel that it cheapens the whole 'Legendary' moniker, something that shouldn't really feel cheapened. And the fact that so many of them are so... samey.

So in the seventh generation, the seemingly fun-and-happy tropical paradise of Alola turns out to be besieged by a particularly powerful force, an otherworldly group of beings that defies common logic and comprehension from another dimension... the Ultra Beasts. These Ultra Beasts quite literally come from rifts in space-time, and end up being one of the final villains in both Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. And while it ends up being glorified "aliens, but from another universe", the concept is really sound and makes these uber-powerful, strange creatures pretty special. I really ended up liking the fact that after all the happy animals and some wacky concepts in this generation we end with a series of some of Pokemon's most insane-looking monsters.

Best of all? These Ultra Beasts are fucking weird. Not all of them are to my liking, but the sheer effort in trying to make these Ultra Beasts look wrong and otherworldly, yet still retaining that Pokemon charm, is a neat little balancing act.

And, and, AND! We've got Pokemon #808 released less 24 hours before this article was supposed to go out, causing me to take it back down and put in a bunch of new stuff for the newest member of the Pokemon family. I think it's a genuinely awesome coincidence that they released a brand-new Pokemon just as I was about to wrap up my own Pokemon coverage. I'm not 100% sure if this is supposed to be a preview for Generation VIII, or if this is just one final lengendary and one final hurrah for Generation VII... but man, I'll talk about him when we get to him.

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#785-788: Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, Tapu Bulu & Tapu Fini

• Types: Electric/Fairy [Tapu Koko], Psychic/Fairy [Tapu Lele], Grass/Fairy [Tapu Bulu], Water/Fairy [Tapu Fini]
• Japanese names: Kapu Kokeko, Kapu Tetefu, Kapu Bururu, Kapu Rehire
• Categories: Land Spirit [all four] 

I tend to group legendary trios together, but in Alola, we don't have legendary trios. We have, instead, a quartet -- one for each island in Alola. Each of these Tapus can transform into the top part of a totem pole, resembling a certain real-life animal, but are actually capricious guardian fairies who coexist with humanity. And they way they're quite literally treated as primal deities by the characters in-game, with characters noting about fighting festivals designed to please Tapu Koko, or the fact that Tapu Bulu laid waste to an entire village for building a mart on hallowed ground, really makes these Tapus feel more like actual legendary protectors instead of "just a bunch of strong dudes" the way that the musketeers were. Yet, at the same time, the Tapus do live in relative peace with mankind, even protecting them from the Ultra Beasts generations ago. I think this Pokedex entry for Tapu Koko from Ultra Sun sums their characterization the best: "Although it's called a guardian deity, if a person puts it in a bad mood, it will become a malevolent deity and attack."

And alongside Type: Null, the Tapus are the first to receive two-word names, with the first word, Tapu, being Hawaiian for holy, and the second word describing what they're based on. All the Tapus have a special Z-move where they transform into the totem head of a gigantic humanoid body of energy that will proceed to crush the enemy. Oh, and there being four of them sort of implies that the four Tapus are loosely based on the four Hawaiian Great Gods. I'm... I'm not sure how racist this is? I'm not overtly familiar with Hawaiian mythology beyond the brief read-up I did for these Pokemon.

The first guardian Tapu, Tapu Koko, is the guardian deity of Melemele Island, the island you step foot on, and the one that'll be the most relevant to you, being the typical great-being-who-sees-potential-in-you. Tapu Koko's totem head form is based on a rooster, and he's an Electric/Fairy Pokemon... which, well, I'll just shrug. While I didn't quite like Tapu Koko when it was first revealed, in motion it's really cool, with those weird stabbing arms, the gigantic mohawk and the generally humanoid-but-not-quite fairy body. I absolutely love the detail where Koko's pincers end up forming a beak when the mask halves close. While I'd normally harp on how over-detailed the design is, I feel that the nice blending of yellows, oranges and blacks really makes Tapu Koko's design look very cohesive and decorated as opposed to cluttered. In the games, anime and manga, Tapu Koko is a curious and wildly aggressive character, and well-known for its blinding speed and hair-trigger temper. So the Electric-type might be referring to its characterization and its temperament as opposed to it embodying electricity the way that the likes of Raikou or Thundurus do.

Considering its penchant and love for battle, as well as being based upon the Ruins of Conflict, Tapu Koko seems to be based loosely on the Hawaiian god Ku, or Kuka'ilimoku, a god of war who's often represented with red-feathered figures. Tapu Koko's neat, overall. It's stylish and really manages to make its wacky anatomy and relatively large amount of detail work really well into an organic, cohesive design... and comparing the design aesthetic of Tapu Koko with other wacky-anatomy Ultra Beasts below, it really is a credit to the designers how Tapu Koko still manages to evoke an organic living creature of sorts in stark contrast to the artificial/unnatural body shapes of most of the Ultra Beasts. 

 3/6 for Tapu Koko.

The second Tapu is the guardian of Akala Island, Tapu Lele, who's a typical little happy pink fairy girl with huge locks of hair and oh it just looks adorable and cute and innocent. It's not my favourite design of the Tapus, but this Psychic/Fairy does look pretty charming. Interestingly, when Tapu Lele retracts, it actually is supposed to resemble a butterfly head, with those two long hair ending up as antennae, and those markings on her lower body becoming the bug eyes, and the black piece on her bottom even ends up being a weird proboscis-esque extension. 

Tapu Lele, despite her adorable cute fairy girl appearance and her ability to restore good health to anyone who she spreads her glowing scales to, is "guilelessly cruel" and is "devoid of guilt about its cruel disposition". So yeah, it's definitely playing up the evil-fairy part of the lore. While the likes of Bulu and Koko might just love to fight, according to the official website, Tapu Lele's straight up happy to heal soldiers on both sides of a war, to have them "fight to their final breath" (the English version found this so disturbing that it was censored to a simple ending the war deal). Tapu Lele would honestly be a bit forgettable without this sinister detail, so good on them for doing that. Bulbapedia notes that Tapu Lele seems to be based on the god Kane, associated with creation, the sun and the sky, but that seems to honestly be tenuous and might just be due to process of elimination.

 4/6 for Tapu Lele. Was going to be 3, but her lore won me over.  


The third guardian Tapu, Tapu Bulu, guards Ula'ula Island, and is perhaps my least favourite of the four Tapus from a design standpoint. I'm not sure why I don't like him when I harped on and on about Tapu Koko, but I guess it's the weird shape of how the cow-head totem splits apart on his head, combined with the weird wasp-cow body? Tapu Bulu just looks really awkward. Being based on a bull, Tapu Bulu is Grass/Fairy, and it's noted as the laziest and easiest-going of the Tapus... until it gets mad, upon which it will unleash devastation by lifting up trees and using them as clubs, and causing vegetation to grow, and then absorbing energy from the growth. Notably, while Tapu Bulu's shrine is the only one you don't visit as part of the main story of all the seventh generation games, located deep within a mirage-filled desert (was the desert all that's left of a region whose energy Tapu Bulu absorbed?), Tapu Bulu's handiwork is clearly seen on the ruined Tapu Village and the ruins of the Abandoned Mart. While design-wise Tapu Bulu's pretty bleh, from a lore and story perspective I do like this dude.

Tapu Bulu's based on the Hawaiian god Lono, a god of fertility, abundance, music and peace. And, well, Tapu Bulu's based on the Ruins of Abundance. While the themes are there, there's nothing really tying Lono to bulls or going on a sudden rampage, so... yeah. I suppose it's less disrespectful for the Tapus to not be one-on-one counterparts of real gods?

 1/6 for the Bull. 

The final member is the guardian of Poni island, Tapu Fini, a Water/Fairy Pokemon that looks like a mermaid within the head of a swordfish or a narwhal that opens up like a bivalve. It's slightly more boring compared to Bulu and Koko, but the combination of purples, light blues and black really ends up resulting in a very pleasant colour scheme. Tapu Fini's distrustful of most humans, and uses a fog as defense and to 'test' humans asking for her favour. Oh, and there's the whole "purifying healing water" deal that so many Water-type legendaries are able to do. Tapu Fini, like Tapu Bulu, roughly corresponds to the god Kanaloa, the god of underworld and magic that's also associated with the ocean... although Kanaloa takes the form of an octopus or squid as opposed to the mermaid/swordfish deal Tapu Fini has. So yeah, ultimately, while it's neat that there are four Tapus and four Hawaiian gods, only Tapu Koko really seems directly based upon one of these gods, turning the rest into having a more... original totem-tiki guardian deal.

 3/6 for Tapu Fini.

Ultimately, as a set, the group ends up averaging at a decent 3/5, and a good part of it is thanks to how they function as a set and a backstory for the Alolan region. The designs themselves (other than Koko and Fini) aren't particularly impressive, but the backstory they help form and the way that they are presented in the games is really well-done, and I kind of want to give them an extra ball out of effort for that. 

#789-792: Cosmog, Cosmoem, Solgaleo & Lunala

• Types: Psychic [Cosmog/Cosmoem], Psychic/Steel [Solgaleo], Psychic/Ghost [Lunala] 
• Japanese names: Kosumoggu, Kosumoumu, Sorugareo, Runaara
• Categories: Nebula [Cosmog], Protostar [Cosmoem], Sunne [Solgaleo], Moone [Lunala]

This generation's two mascot legendaries feel... decent the first time they were shown. They didn't wow me as much as Xerneas and Yveltal did in the sixth generation, because Lunala looks a bit like a moon-themed bat version of Yveltal and Solgaleo looks like Ligerzero. And neither of those were meant as insults, because I do love both designs! They just weren't super-spectacular. How these legendaries were integrated into the story of Sun/Moon was pretty great, though! Whereas every single game that involved a legendary pokemon as its central plot device essentially reduce them into a powerful McGuffin to fight over, the seventh generation games put way, way more focus into characterization -- sometimes to the detriment of actual gameplay experience. But one of these things is the implementation of Cosmog, a Pokemon that one of the main characters of the Sun/Moon story, LiIllie, befriends. The enigmatic Cosmog (nicknamed Nebby) was the subject of desire of the evil organization, sure, but this time around he's his actual character of sorts, defined by his friendship with Lillie and his constant sneaking out of Lillie's bag to explore stuff. 

The pure psychic-type Cosmog is also the only legendary Pokemon that permanently evolves from one Pokemon to another, which is pretty huge -- one of the 'soft' rules about Legendaries was that they're always stuck in that form, that even things like Phione and Manaphy can't evolve to and from each other. Cosmog, the first stage of this evolutionary line and the one that we spend the most time with, is a blob of space nebula cloud thing with cute little bunny ears and a very pleasant expression on his face. Taken on its own, Cosmog isn't particularly special, but considering his relatively huge role in the games and his eventual evolutionary lines, it's a neat precursor to the game's two legendaries. See, while you aren't able to capture a Cosmog and see the dex entries until the post-game, Cosmog's dex entries note how it's mysterious and doesn't seem to be of this world. Cosmog's evolutionary line straddles the line of what counts as "Pokemon" and what counts as "Ultra Beast". None of Cosmog's evolutionary lines have the unique stat-raising Beast Boost ability, but at the same time, it's explicitly stated to come from the same dimension that the Ultra Beasts come from.


Cosmog (who can't learn any damaging moves) eventually evolves into Cosmoem, sort of an inactive 'pupal' stage. In-story, Cosmog ends up being transformed into Cosmoem after it has all its energy drained out of it in order to open a portal to the Ultra Beast dimension, and it's... it's okay. It's meant to be evocative of a cocoon (explicitly called "Cocoon of the Stars" by the ancient Alolan people), if galaxies and stars have a cocoon form, and I do like its sleepy face and whatnot, but I do really feel that Cosmoem is a bit redundant and could've been rolled together as an alternate form of Cosmog. 

 2/6 for Cosmog and Cosmoem. It's a decent gimmick and the portrayal of Nebby elevates the two above the forgettable territory, but I feel pretty m'eh about their designs. 

Now, depending on the game you play, Cosmoem will evolve into either Solgaleo (Sun) or Lunala (Moon) over the course of the story as you channel the power of the sun and/or moon to return Nebby into its true, original form of the Pokemon of the Sun/Moon. And it's pretty interesting how both Solgaleo and Lunala, despite being wildly different from each other, do have hints of their common ancestry. First is the nebula motif (that gets zoomed in whenever they do their signature moves) on Solgaleo and Lunala's respective heads, and then just how the golden 'frame' of Cosmoem ends up forming the frame of Solgaleo's sun-shaped mane and Lunala's bone-like outer wings. Also, interstingly, due to the fact that they're tying everything to the Cosmog/Cosmoem line, Solgaleo and Lunala are both Psychic-type, with Solgaleo being Psychic/Steel and Lunala being Psychic/Ghost, extremely atypical typings and not really what I'd expect from seeing the design, but considering the Cosmog/Cosmoem backstory, I guess it sort of makes sense? I do like the subversion of using neither Fire-type for the Sun Pokemon nor Fairy-type for the Moon Pokemon. Not sure if I'd prefer it another way, but eh. 

Both of them are really cool! Solgaleo's very well-designed and pleasant looking, being a far, far cooler lion than Pyroar. It could stand do look a bit more metallic, I suppose, and Solgaleo's Steel-typing is apparently a reference to the alchemical lion, sort of a weird motif in alchemy where lions are described to "swallow the sun" (a description that Solgaleo himself is referred to by) and being connected to metals. And since the Sun is really just a hunk of super-heated super-dense metals... I guess it sort of makes sense, if it's not apparent? It's a cool design nonetheless, and I really love the fact that Solgaleo's claws are retracted in its 'base' form seen in this official art, but it's able to deploy those claws to slash and murder people. Solgaleo's signature move, Sunsteel Strike, has him transform temporarily into a "Radiant Sun Phase", which essentially means that it glows like the sun before surrounding itself in a flaming sun-like ball of flame and then striking the enemy.

 4/6.

Solgaleo is explicitly stated to be Cosmog's "male" evolution, whereas Lunala is stated to be the "female" form, so maybe the big difference in the Sun/Moon worlds is Nebby's gender? Lunala is a goregous ghost-bat, and while it still boggles my mind that Lunala isn't a Flying-type, she's a beautiful moon-bat. From the way that the crescents form her head, to the ghostly bones and the golden crescents, and to how the beautiful shades of purple ripple across her cloth-like form in the 3D models, Lunala just looks majestic, and I honestly feel that the animations for Lunala in the 3D games' cutscenes have always looked far more interesting than Solgaleo's. Like Solgaleo, Lunala's got her own signature move, Moongeist Beam, where she temporarily enters a "Full Moon Phase" where she glows like the moon. 

Lunala's a pretty awesome, graceful bat-ghost, and while not as downright cool as her twin, Lunala's just a pretty gorgeous design. There's a whole lot of debate as to what Lunala's based on. The endangered Australian Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas); the mythological multi-eyed bat Pe'a-pe'a-makawalu from Hawaiian legend, a foe of the demigod Maui; Mayan god Camazotz who takes the form of a bat and is associated with the night... I don't think Lunala's meant to specifically reference any of these, but she's clearly a beautiful bat god in her own right.

 5/6.

Anyway, in the story of Sun/Moon, after Nebby achieves his/her final form as Solgaleo and Lunala, they end up being able to open portals into the Ultra Beasts's dimension and you can take the fight to the otherworldly beings. In the Ultra games, Nebby gets captured by fellow legendary pokemon Necrozma instead, who we'll cover later on. But in both games, Nebby eventually ends up joining you because it apparently has a desire to battle. Not the best sort of character development (although it's better in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon) but you gotta have the legendary mascot Pokemon in some way or form, so... 

Overall, while these mascot legendaries aren't my favourite Pokemon from the seventh generation, Solgaleo and Lunala are amazingly and pleasantly designed to be memorable and pretty awesome (I prefer Lunala slightly over Solgaleo, but holy shit, that said, I do really like Solgaleo), whereas the story behind Nebby makes the otherwise cute-but-forgettable Cosmog and Cosmoem really memorable. 

#793: Nihilego (a.k.a. "UB-01 Symbiont")

• Types: Rock/Poison
• Japanese name: Utsuroido
• Category: Parasite

Oh yeah, here's the very first of these wacky Ultra Beasts, and... admittedly, taken out of the context of how she's presented to us in-game, Nihilego is a very underwhelming design. We haven't had a jellyfish Pokemon since Jellicent, so it's definitely welcome to have another one... but Nihilego isn't just a simple jellyfish. It's an otherworldly, eldritch being from another dimension. It's also the only jellyfish Pokemon that, unlike Tentacruel or Jellicent, to truly embody what's so hauntingly beautiful about the faceless jellyfishes. Oh, and since it's an incomprehensible being from another dimension, instead of being the expected Water-type, Nihilego is Rock/Poison (incidentally, this means that Cthulhuoid over here is our very first Poison-type legendary). Nihilego was so mysterious that it is continually referred to as simply "UB-01 Symbiont" all throughout the promotion leading up to the seventh generation, and in-game until you actually capture one. Nihilego looks insanely strange, being otherworldy and weird in a way that no Pokemon -- not even intentionally-villainous ones like Giratina, Darkrai or Kyreum -- ever looked. It looks less anime monster and more of some weird creature you'd see as an enemy from a sci-fi game.

And unsettlingly, Nihilego's often described as acting like "a young girl", leading many people to initially speculate that the character Lillie (the aforementioned girl that befriends Nebby the Cosmog and you, the player character) is meant to be the "human form" of Nihilego or some Digimon Frontier style of nonsense like that. But it turns out that Lillie's mother Lusamine, who, in addition to being an abusive control freak who forces Lillie to dress like Nihilego, is so obsessed with these otherworldly jellyfishes that she devotes her entire existence to try to commune with the Nihilego from Ultra Space. And it's this obsession that causes pretty much every single thing that happens throughout the events of Sun and Moon. Without recapping the plotline of the entire game, let's say that Lusamine does manage to make contact with the Nihilegos in their dimension of Ultra Space, some sort of eldritch location later given the designation 'ultra sea' by the sequel games. It all boils down to something pretty different, and honestly, other than the fact that Ultra Beasts have pretty high stats, they're clearly pretty different from normal legendaries. You can catch multiples of them, for one. They always have stats referring to prime numbers. They always have the ability Beast Boost. It's neat.


Lusamine, in her insane trance to be one with the beautiful Nihilego, even fuses with one and becomes that horrifying abomination you see there. (No you can't capture one in-game). Yes, it just leads to a glorified trainer battle, but the presentation is pretty damn awesome. But the thing is... as emotionless and as much as the Nihilego might appear to be just wacky space beasts, their dex entries and their Rock/Poison typing, as well as their designation as "Symbiont" (Parasite in the original Japanese) implies something far more interesting. See, a lot of Lusamine's actions? Those aren't because of her madness alone. Nihilego's toxins intensifies the negative emotions and violent tendencies that Lusamine has, and it's implied that it's these Nihilego's neurotoxins that ends up causing Lusamine to go off the deep end. It's sort of all the fancy shit that the Cthulhu mythos is so popular for -- otherworldly ancient beings, tentacles, madness, but done in Pokemon fashion. And the fact that they pick a jellyfish for this role? Jellyfishes are such weird fuckers that some of them do create weird-ass neurotoxins and some are even immortal, so yeah, why not?

And besides, while Nihilego's perhaps the most organic-looking and least exciting of the Ultra Beasts, she's still pretty neat looking. There's just something appealing about her weird human-like legs and the hat-like head, and I've always found Nihilego particularly charming in Pokemon Refresh. Its design is even pretty neat when you think about it, with Nihilego's weirdly positioned tentacles making so much more sense when you think of it as a parasite that latches on to a target's head, and its Rock/Poison typing hints at perhaps its composition being made out of crystal or some shit? Overall, while perhaps not the most interesting design out there, Nihilego's relatively simple for a space jellyfish monster, but there's an undeniable charm to it that I'd argue I don't find in many of the previous generations' legendaries. The fact that it kicks off perhaps the best story in the Pokemon games (now, the actual games themselves is... there's a lot I can write about them;, but the story is great) doesn't hurt either.

 5/6.

#794: Buzzwole (a.k.a. "UB-02 Absorption")

• Types: Bug/Fighting
• Japanese name: Masshibun
• Category: Swollen

If there was ever a Pokemon that makes me really glad for the Pokemon Amie/Pokemon Refresh feature of being able to pet your Pokemon and feed them beans and macarons, it is Buzzwole. You see, mosquitoes are one of the most quintessential insects in the world, and I'm genuinely baffled it took them so, so long for them to even consider putting in a mosquito Pokemon in any shape or form... but I am so, so glad that we're getting Buzzwole as our very first mosquito. You see, in addition to being an Ultra Beast, Buzzwole is a gigantic Bug/Fighting muscle-bound wrestler with pecs bigger than my head, four insectoid legs that spread out in a tripod, gigantic biceps, beady mosquito eyes, a huge drill-sucker and...  and, wow. I liked Buzzwole when I laid eyes on her, but I fell absolutely head-over-heels in love when I actually interacted with her in Pokemon Refresh. He flexes in response to... to everything. Feeding a bean? FLEX! Pat on the head? FLEX! You drop a bean? FLEX! haven't seen Buzzwole in a while? FLEX! Attacking? FLEX! Fainting? FLEX! If there was a Pokemon that epitomizes the Fighting type, it is Buzzwole.

Also, yes, her. Buzzwole may be genderless, but only female mosquitoes suck blood and that's the pronoun I'll use for this big bad bug monster.

And in one of the most horrifying scenes in Pokemon anime, Buzzwole's first appearance is heralded by her charging a Snorlax and quite literally sucking the poor, poor Snorlax dry. What the shit, man! It's not enough that her muscles are gigantic and she's a giant bug, all the vampiric tropes that apply to mosquitoes also apply here. Look at what the anime does with her and it's pretty amazing, too!

We get an extra dose of hilarious morbidity with the fact that Buzzwole's glowing muscles are actually filled with the blood it sucks from her victims, something that's made apparently clear in the 3D animation. How awesome is that? Honestly, the sheer existence of Buzzwole is just so hilarious and well-executed. It could've been pretty dumb, but no. The subversion of the common tropes of mosquitoes as either blood-suckers or pests and turning this dude into a flexing bug bodybuilder is just so well-done, and the descriptions noting that it's "unclear" if Buzzwole's flexing is a display or a threat is hilarious. What more can I say? She's a blood-sucking mosquito bodybuilder from space! Definitely a well-designed Pokemon that looks both cool and hilarious, and quite easily my favourite of all the Ultra Beasts.

 5/6.

#795: Pheromosa (a.k.a. "UB-02 Beauty")

• Types: Bug/Fighting
• Japanese name: Feroche
• Category: Lissome 

Buzzwole's an Ultra Beast exclusive to the Sun games, whereas Moon players get Pheromosa -- note that they're both considered UB-02, since the opposite-game version never show up in the storyline of the other game, so they're never given a designation there. Pheromosa, like Buzzwole, is a Bug/Fighting Pokemon, and like Buzzwole, she's based upon a commonplace insect that's really overdue to be turned into a Pokemon... the humble cockroach. And just like Buzzwole's subversion of tropes of what you'd think a roach pokemon would be like, Pheromosa is a graceful, ladylike figure instead of the disease-spreading, trash-eating pieces of shit that the commonly-found-in-human-homes members of the Blatella genus are. Pheromosa does have one thing in common with her cockroach inspiration -- she's blindingly fast, ranking very highly among the world's fastest Pokemon, in stark contrast to the bulky-but-slow Buzzwole.

Pheromosa's actually the inverse of the common stereotypes that the cockroach genus is associated with, because Pheromosa is actually a cleanliness freak! She straight-up refuses to touch anything, apparently because our dimension is "unclean". And it's not even subversion, either -- cockroaches are actually very particular about the substances on their body -- they just consider what's dirty to us humans as food, and vice versa. They'll actually spend a decent amount of time self-grooming.  And there are white-coloured cockroaches out there, like the awesomely-named Death's Head Cockroach. And honestly? While Pheromosa isn't my favourite design among the Ultra Beasts, I do like the effort they put into her design, incorporating the antennae and distinctive wings of a cockroach and adapting the cockroach's spindly body into a lithe, feminine dress. Cockroaches aren't an animal you'd associate with any of these things, but Pheromosa manages to make a cockroach look pretty damn badass. Pheromosa's design veers away from what I find pleasing in a monster, but overall I definitely do lean towards liking her. 

 4/6. I genuinely went back and forth many times between these.

#796: Xurkitree (a.k.a. "UB-03 Lighting")

• Type: Electric
• Japanese name: Denjumoku
• Category: Glowing

After Nihilego, Pheromosa and Buzzwole are all based on animals -- albeit weirdly-drawn animals -- we finally go into the realm of madness. See, the pure-Electric Xurkitree is a weird-ass bunch of wires held together by Christmas lights, with three legs that end in socket plugs, and fingers formed from those copper bits inside wires. And its body is so fucking weird, with a central 'head' made out of a spiky crystal, and its tentacles tapering down to form this utterly strange body. Oh, and it's also a tree, because at rest it embeds all five of its limbs into the ground like a Christmas tree. When we finally get the opportunity to go into Xurkitree's world in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, we get to see that the world of lightning actually has a fuck-ton of Xurkitree trees dotting the landscape, and apparently there are straight-up tower-sized Xurkitrees in the background that we sadly can't interact with. 

And Xurkitree learns a lot of Grass-type moves, but apparently the world where Xurkitree grows, what passes off as 'plant' to us is actually electricity, and that's pretty cool. Again, while the Ultra Beasts might be truly different from what we normally think as Pokemon, that is what their design aesthetic is meant to evoke -- the sense of wrongness yet still having the charm of wanting to catch one and pet it and generally just be nice buddies with it. Overall, Xurkitree's a pretty insane and weird design, being this huge mass of cables and wires that acts so much like a tree... yet it's an electric type. Definitely a fan of Xurkitree -- and honestly, so many of these Ultra Beasts just end up feeling so goddamn weird that I can't help but like them -- such a nice breath of air compared to retreaded tropes as far as legendary or unique pokemon go. Plus, his name is Xurkitree. How hilarious is that?  

 5/6.

#797: Celesteela (a.k.a. "UB-04 Blaster")

• Types: Steel/Flying
• Japanese name: Tekkaguya
• Category: Launch

The Steel/Flying Celesteela is definitely not my favourite Ultra Beast, but god damn does it win points for the most creative backstory. See, it's clearly based on a rocket. but also on bamboo. And a Japanese folk-tale. And in the Ultra games, it lives in this weird-ass realm of craters where the Celesteela are grown like plants and then blast off into space for some reason. Moreso than honestly everything else on this list, Celesteela gets my vote for the straight-up most bizarre and ephemeral design. Celesteela is a gigantic 9.2 meter tall monster whose main body is a weird rocket that vaguely resembles a humanoid in a kimono (and that white 'spine' running down its upper body is somewhat humanoid) while its two arms act as weird rocket blasters that also double as gigantic laser bazookas that can "burn down a forest by expelling gas". 

Let's break down this bizarre motherfucker's origins, shall we? Celesteela is partly based on the Japanese Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, in which an elderly bamboo cutter finds a mysterious little girl  while cutting bamboo shoots -- and the little girl ends up being actually the rightful princess of the moon (naturally, Celesteela is exclusive to Moon). That explains the bamboo and kimono stuff, but its also a reference to the SELENE, a Japanese-launched space probe meant to impact to the moon. It was fondly referred to as the Kaguya by the Japanese media in homage of the princess in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. So Celesteela is a combination of the bamboo, the princess and the spacecraft in an insane hodgepodge of references that somehow works together to create this insane design. 

And honestly? It's a shame that the dex entries for the Ultra Beasts feel so generic, with things like "they are common in the world they came from" repeated over several different Ultra Beasts. Really, now? Celesteela's head, not seen seen quite as clearly in the official art, actually does have a gloriously awesome look to it -- the combination of the weird "hair ornaments", the thin line of a mouth and the glowing maybe-eyes really give Celesteela such an otherworldly quality to it. Overall, Celesteela is a wee bit too cluttered for my liking, but this insane dude does end up getting my vote as the weirdest-of-the-weirdos among the Ultra Beasts.

 3/6. bordering on 2 or 4. So undecided! I really do like that these Ultra Beasts really make me think hard about just the grade I am giving them.

#798: Kartana (a.k.a. "UB-04 Blade")

• Types: Grass/Steel
• Japanese name: Kamitsurugi
• Category: Drawn Sword

Celesteela's opposite-version counterpart, Kartana, is another Japanese-inspired Ultra Beast, but it's just such an insanely different beast from Celesteela altogether. While Celesteela is a gigantic steel behemoth, Kartana is a teeny-tiny little living origami man with blades for arms.  And since it's made out of paper, it's Grass/Steel. Yeah! The tiny little Kartana is just such a cool design, with little blade-arms and such an adorable quality to it. From its folding-paper faceless face (which actually opens and closes as it emotes, and is based on those 'fortune teller' origami deals) and its two weird chopstick-like sword-horns on its back, Kartana's a pretty damn cool design. It's not quite as complex as Celesteela is, but I really do like Kartana a whole lot. It's so freaking cool! I think my favourite part of Kartana is the animations they gave him in Pokemon Refresh, where those antennae actually detach and form some sort of floating eyebrows as the face opens and closes. 

And while Kartana's pretty simple in both design elements and backstory (it's just a little paper doll samurai), Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon gives us an unexpected slew of backstory for Kartana. While with all the other Ultra Beasts we're just content to see the otherworldly realms they hail from, Kartana's giant oriental forest (with flowers suspiciously resembling Kartana) is one of the few places in Ultra Space to have humans in it -- the Ultra Forest Kartenvoys, who are these strange monks that worship Kartana, I think? Who are they? Are they from our world, since they actually have the skin tone of "our" humans? Do they just exist alongside Kartana, or are they the subjects of the Kartana? So many questions that will probably not be answered. Anyway, I do quite like Kartana a fair bit. It's perhaps my favourite outside of the non-Bug Ultra Beasts.

 4/6 thanks to personality.

#799: Guzzlord (a.k.a. "UB-05 Glutton")

• Types: Dark/Dragon
• Japanese name: Akujikingu
• Category: Junkivore [Allotriophage in Japanese]

Guzzlord is the final member of the original batch of Ultra Beasts introduced in Sun/Moon, being the final monster you fight alongside the International Police as part of the post-game, located in an underground cave suspiciously similar to the cave you find Zygarde in back in XY, and I've always thought that this implied that Guzzlord defeated the Zygarde protecting Alola, which is the reason that Zygarde is scattered into a hundred cells in that game. Anyway, Guzzlord over here is a weird looking design that, while perhaps not quite feel as creative as the other Ultra Beasts to come before him, does feel alien in its own way. It's this huge walking giant spherical maw with a smaller maw inside it, two serpentine tentacle-tongues that end in fangs, two tiny T-rex arms on its 'head', and another 'main head' above its huge Pac-Man head? It's also Dark/Dragon, because... yeah, why not? It's a pretty neat-looking design, I guess, with the black, yellows and blues working well together, but I feel that the combination of so many details like the spiky flail-tail, the teeny-tiny dragon wings, the stubby feet, the dragon tongue and the extra head all end up making the design feel way too cluttered and not cohesive the way that Celesteela, the Tapus or Necrozma are. And if I did this review before Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, I probably would've shrugged Guzzlord off with a 1/5 or 2/5 rating of "nice concept, shit execution", and called it a day. 

Because, well, the concept's pretty neat. Guzzlord is constantly eating, and the dex notes that "for some reason, its droppings have never been found", meaning that Guzzlord essentially functions like a living black hole, able to devour mountains without a trace. And... that's about it. Sure, it's apparently responsible for the death of Looker's partner in the Sun/Moon backstory, but that's never particularly relevant. Guzzlord does have a charm to it thanks to being a huge waddling humanoid of sorts with a stomach that also happens to be a weird black-hole-dragon, but it's not really to my liking. What I really do like about this Pokemon is its dimension in the Ultra games, known as Ultra Ruin... and it's implied that this Ultra Ruin was what remains of an alternate-universe's version of Hau'oli City. It's not that noticeable, but we get to see remnants of some landmarks from Hau'oli City, including a rusted sign that corresponds to the City Hall. There's only one person left there, a dude in a hazmat suit left to check on Guzzlord, who tells us that humanity's gone and left to the stars after Guzzlord presumably destroyed everything in its path. Or maybe it's a nuclear explosion -- the game's vague about which one caused the destruction. Best of all, the overworld music for this area is a distorted and reversed version of Hau'oli City's cheerful music. And that encounter really increases my opinion of Guzzlord by a fair bit. Ultimately, Guzzlord is still my least favourite of the Ultra Beasts (and ironically easily the weakest one competitively considering its huge stat dump is in HP) but I do respect it a fair bit more than I did before. 

 2/6. Sorry, Guzzlord.

#800: Necrozma

• Types: Psychic [base Necrozma], Psychic/Steel [Dusk Mane], Psychic/Ghost [Dawn Wings], Psychic/Dragon [Ultra Necrozma]
• Japanese name: Nekurozuma
• Category: Prism

I initially thought that I was going to split this seventh-generation legendaries into two sections, because there's a fair bit to talk about Necrozma here. See, Necrozma is a weird fellow that's obviously the third member of the set with Solgaleo and Lunala, if previous generations are anything to go by. It's also Psychic-type, it's found post-game in Ten Karat Hill -- a weird off-the-books location, and it looks like the sort of weird-ass otherworldly creature like the Ultra Beasts. But it doesn't come out of the Ultra Wormhole, it shares the battle theme of Solgaleo and Lunala, and it doesn't have Beast Boost as an ability. So what gives? The pokedex even classifies it as a legendary Pokemon... but makes note that Necrozma is "reminiscent of the Ultra Beasts", and sort of gives the backstory that Necrozma was buried deep underground, and "thought to have come from another world in ancient times". It's definitely implied that the likes of Necrozma and the Cosmog line all hail from Ultra Space, but have somehow adapted to become relatively indistinguishable from normal Pokemon. Necrozma's a Pokemon who's based on light, and is noted to be particularly vicious and continuously shoots laser beams. Speculation about Necrozma's true nature ended up being the hot topic. Is it related to the Cosmog line, a different evolution perhaps? Is it an ancient version of Type: Null, a Pokemon designed to fight Ultra Beasts? Is it connected to the Tapus? 

Necrozma himself doesn't look super interesting at first glance, a mass of crystals forming a weird robot-like figure. It's cool, I guess, with a very weird-looking face and very imposing arms with those stylishly drawn crystals jutting out of the lower arms... but ultimately it's sort of boring until you realize that Necrozma's not just a humanoid. It's a bunch of parts that are plastered together, with its weirdly stunted torso actually being an upside-down dragon head... and the official character model actually identifies Necrozma's torso as a "head", its humanoid head as a "tail", and so on. Is it just strange anatomy at work, or is Necrozma so ill-tempered because it's not in the right configuration?

 4/6 for regular Necrozma. It's just so weird. 

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon would arrive with the answer, showing us that, yes, the base-form Necrozma we're familiar is is actually the remnants of Necrozma's form after it was depowered. In anger, Necrozma then seeks to devour all light, eventually turning its direction towards out dimension... specifically to Solgaleo/Lunala. Taking over from Lusamine as the big bad of the games, Necrozma shows up when we, the player, returns Nebby into his/her true form of Solgaleo/Lunala, and Necrozma essentially pulls off a Nihilego, and hijacks Nebby parasitically. And it does this by ejecting its rainbow-coloured prism brain, while its black armour components splits apart as some sort of add-on armour to take over either Solgaleo or Lunala. With Solgaleo, Necrozma becomes the Psychic/Steel Dusk Mane Necrozma, and with Lunala, he becomes the Psychic/Ghost Dawn Wings Lunala. 

And... there's really not that much interest here. Necrozma's role as a parasite and a set of 'armour' that takes over the cover legendary isn't super-interesting in my books, although it does make for a neat little cutscene. Dusk Mane Solgaleo has some neat bits, like the weird beard it gets and the very cool configuration that it has on the claws... but the big Necrozma head-halves and arms hanging off its back just looks really dumb. Dawn Wings Necrozma looks even worse, and while the 3D model makes the design a little less silly by having Necrozma's arms trail below like bat legs, the end result really doesn't look appealing to me at all. It is sort of meant to be evocative of the sheer wrongness of the parasitism, I suppose, with Necrozma's takeover of either Solgaleo or Lunala being a mid-way phase to its true form...

 1/6 for the fusions. I don't like them, but they're meant to not actually fit together well, y'know? The forms are better put-together than Black and White Kyurem, which is why they avoided the 0/5 rating.

Its true form is Ultra Necrozma, a Psychic/Dragon creature and only achievable after Necrozma assimilates an adequate amount of light -- i.e. either Solgaleo or Lunala. And we get to see the true form of Necrozma, where the armour plates are just part of its anatomy, which is mostly comprised of light. What was once Necrozma's arms are actually the legs of Ultra Necrozma. What was the regular Necrozma's chest is Ultra Necrozma's head. Its spindly arms and legs turn out to be the 'skeleton' of its four wings, and its long, tapered crystal head is Ultra Necrozma's chest armour. It's actually a very pleasant surprise because I wasn't spoiled about Ultra Necrozma's existence, and while it's sort of forgettable to me, not being particularly impressive after so many other dragons we've seen before, it's still pretty damn cool. The lore behind Necrozma and the combination of so many aspects of past Pokemon gimmicks -- fusion from the fifth generation, mega evolution from the sixth generation and Ultra Beasts from the seventh generation -- does end up resulting in one of the coolest legendaries without being needlessly complex like Zygarde or Kyurem felt like. 

The whole "light" stuff is pretty decent, even if it does feel generically-anime in some way. Necrozma is this strange entity that feeds on light, stealing all the light from the Ultra Megalopolis dimension, and, after you defeat Necrozma, you actually get the chance to properly befriend it and allow it to fuse with Nebby consensually, turning the fusion and eventual Ultra Necrozma form into some sort of a three-way Mega Evolution style deal. Which... sounds a lot dirtier than I intended, but whatever. Necrozma's a pretty cool concept, and while aesthetically it's not quite there for me... from a conceptual and lore standpoint it definitely wins out.

 4/6, bordering on 3/6.

#801: Magearna

• Types: Steel/Fairy
• Japanese name: Magiana
• Category: Artificial

We have a couple of extra legendaries not connected to the Ultra Beasts, Cosmog line or Tapus, and... Magearna is the first of these, an event legendary. She's a Steel/Fairy Pokemon that's meant to be a clockwork doll that can collapse into a Pokeball-shaped figure. It's a Pokemon that feels a lot at home in the Kalos setting (and actually stars in a movie with Kalosian legendary pokemon Volcanion), being an ancient clockwork doll designed with an ancient Soul-Heart, and it attempts to synchronize its consciousness with others to understand their feelings. It originally was coloured like a Pokeball (called "Original Color Magearna"), before time wore away the reds and whites and turned it into this more drab design. Magearna's dex entries emphasize that this robot princess body isn't actually its real body, but merely a shell controlled by Magearna's true form, the artificial Soul-Heart, that, according to its backstory, was created by collecting souls life energy from other Pokemon... something that Magearna ends up using in the present day via her ability, Soul-Heart, which buffs her any time an ally pokemon faints. She has a signature move, the Fleur Cannon. 

She's cute enough, I suppose, with that clockwork face and the creepy backstory, but at the same time after the really wacky and unique designs that we've had this generation as far as legendaries go, Magearna seems to just be a rehash of Diancie and the Kalosian Ultimate Weapons mushed together. That's sort of kind of harsh. She's solid, but she really doesn't do a whole ton that's fresh, particularly compared to the rest of Generation VII's legendaries and quasi-legendaries. Honestly, I don't dislike its design at all, but one of the criteria for the 1-2 scores is 'forgettable' and I genuinely forgot Magearna exists most of the time. It's got a cool concept on paper, though. 

 2/6. 

#802: Marshadow

• Types: Fighting/Ghost
• Japanese name: Mashado
• Category: Gloomdweller

The final Pokemon on the Pokedex at the time of Sun and Moon, Marshadow was... another pixie-style event legendary Pokemon. He does have the unique typing of Fighting/Ghost, with its origin being tied to the Nightmarchers, warrior ghosts in Hawaiian culture, and also, y'know, a whole pun on shadowboxing. While normally just a completely-black shadowy pixie with glowing red eyes, Marshadow's hair, collar and arm-flames will glow green when it attacks, giving a somewhat more dynamic state to it that Nintendo has dubbed "Zenith Marshadow". Marshadow's whole deal is that it hides in shadows and likes to copy the movements and powers of others, eventually becoming stronger than the ones its imitating. It's a neat concept, being this Spirited Away-esque "shadow of your true self" creature, which is why it ends up being an antagonist in the I Choose You movie... but at the same time, there's really not much about Marshadow himself that appeals to me. Marshadow's at least unique, I guess, compared to previous legendaries? There's really not much for me to talk about here. It's... it's okay, but it does feel very redundant in the way that many other legendaries in previous generations did. We've seen pixies before, we've seen shadow monsters before... Marshadow just doesn't do anything really unique, honestly, and compared to either shadow Pokemon or other 'pixie' style Pokemon, Marshadow is genuinely forgettable. I debated putting him at 1/6 a lot, honestly.

 2/6. 

#803-804: Poipole & Naganadel (a.k.a. "UB-Adhesive" & "UB-Stinger")

• Types: Poison [Poipole], Poison/Dragon [Naganadel]
• Japanese name: Bebenomu, Agoyon
• Category: Poison Pin [both]

The Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon games brought with it a half-dozen brand-new Pokemon, which is unprecedented. Most generations do introduce brand-new forms with their entries, but US/UM are the first to introduce straight-up brand new Pokemon tacked onto the tail-end of the Pokedex. The first one is this cute little purple alien imp, Poipole, a pure-Poison Ultra Beast who's extremely weak compared to its compatriots...  but it's apparently given out as a starter Pokemon for the members of the Ultra Recon Squad, blue-skinned humans (humanoids?) who hail from Ultra Space. Poipole is adorable, this weird alien-like creature with needles on his head, and apparently it "cackles wildly" as it sprays sticky poison to murder people. It's a very pleasant feel  to it, looking alien and adorable at the same time. Definitely very pleasant looking, if nowhere as weird as the other Ultra Beasts to precede it.

Poipole evolves when leveled up while knowing the move Dragon Pulse, evolving into the Dragon/Poison Pokemon Naganadel, and I do really like the wackiness of it essentially flipping upside-down. Why didn't we get a repeat of the Inkay/Malamar gimmick? Regardless, Poipole's hypodermic needle head ends up becoming the abdomen of this wasp dragon, and Poipole's tail ends up being Naganadel's new serpentine neck. It's also sprouted a bunch of extra spikes and a pair of draconic wings, which looks pretty damn cool! An alien wasp-dragon might not be the most novel or weird of ideas, but at the same time Naganadel is pretty well-drawn. I'm not sure if it needed to be an Ultra Beast or not, but it's still a very neat design. I do really love the coolness of its head, and I do like the detail that Naganadel's abdomen still houses its brain, a neat little bit of alien biology there.

 4/6. 

#805: Stakataka (a.k.a. "UB-Assembly")

• Types: Rock/Steel
• Japanese name: Tsundetsunde
• Category: Rampart

Stakataka, like many other Ultra Beasts in this list, is a Pokemon I didn't really care about much until I actually captured it. See,  the idea of a walking wall Pokemon is... okay? But the fact that Stakataka is actually a hive-mind made out of bricks with eyeballs? And when it rests, those four legs actually retract up, turning Stakataka into nothing but a four-sided chimney? And the eyes just constantly rotate in and out? And they glow red while angry? Yeah. I do like this. Stakataka is definitely one of those designs that really really work better when animated (check this out for his Pokemon Refresh animations), and the idea of a hive-mind wall that's made out of individual bricks is pretty cool. Every single brick is apparently an individual entity, continuously blinking and rotating in and out, and I do find it a bit of a shame that Stakataka doesn't actually reconfigure to other forms beyond "inactive wall" and "wall monster".

Stakataka is Rock/Steel and highly defensive, which is neat. I don't think we ever had a legendary or quasi-legendary Pokemon that's straight-up defensive, did we? It's just a shame that its typing does lend to a fair amount of weaknesses, although I'm to gather that he's a horrific menace in the competitive scene? I'm pretty much blind about the competitive capabilities of these newer Pokemon, nor do I honestly find a reason to care. Stakataka is apparently inspired by the yokai Mokumokuren, creatures who live in walls and tatami mats, and manifests as multiple eyes on the walls. After writing Stakataka off as dumb the first time I saw it, I ended up actually not minding it after seeing it in-game. I like it a bit less than most of the other Ultra Beasts on this page other than maybe Guzzlord, but I definitely don't hate it. 

 2/6. Bordering on 3/6, I guess? It's a concept I've sort of joked about before, so it's surprising that they actually did make it, even if it's not what I would expect.

#806: Blancephalon (a.k.a. "UB-Burst")

• Types: Fire/Ghost
• Japanese name: Zugadoon
• Category: Fireworks

The Fire/Ghost Blancephalon is exclusive to Ultra Sun, and, where Stakataka is a literal defensive wall, Blancephalon is a very fragile glass cannon. But holy shit, look at this thing! It's a humanoid jester clown made out of party favours, and its head is a giant disco ball! It's so colourful and bizarre, and its special signature move, Mind Blown has it pick up its disco ball head (those stars are apparently its eyes) and lob it at the enemy, causing it to explode... and dealing damage to Blancephalon himself since, y'know, he just threw his head as a bomb. It's a very clever reference to legends of the Headless Horseman and his weaponized, detachable pumpkin head, working in with both the ghostly and the fireworks theme, and a pretty unexpected and creative way to do it, too.

I do really like the weird, colourful and psychedelic theme that Blancephalon has, and I definitely really, really like the fact that this weird clown thing is a fiery ghost. It's a pretty unconventional design, and it apparently moves around by "slithering" and robs people of their vitality. While there's not much to go on about Blancephalon, it's got enough charm and enough wackiness for it to easily be one of my favourites from the new batch of Pokemon we got in the Ultra games. 

 3/6. Very neutral about this.

#807: Zeraora

• Type: Electric
• Japanese name: Zeraora
• Category: Thunderbolt

The final Pokemon on the Pokedex at the time of writing is another one that's datamined and not technically available in the game yet at the time of writing, and he's going to be the star of the newest Pokemon movie that's to appear some time later this year. I guess it's okay and pretty inoffensive, but just not my thing The fandom quickly latches on to this dude, because, y'know, cat-man... but for the life of me I just see it as an Electric-themed attempt at creating a Lucario variant. Maybe it's just a knee-jerk reaction? It's all right. Not my thing, but it's there. 

Its dex entries are insanely vague, just talking about its electrical capabilities, and it's got an exclusive move, Plasma Fists. Its lore talks about how he's able to move through the air by creating magnetic fields, but apparently unlike all other electric-type Pokemon, Zeraora doesn't have any electric-generating organs... okay, so how is this thing counts as a legendary again? That feels like a very weird detail to put into Zeraora's description, making him feel less awesome than he should be. Between its weird glove-like and impractical-looking fingers, and its tail that comes out of its back, Zeraora's just a design that doesn't appeal to me. And I guess Electric-themed Lucario is enough for some people, and that's completely fine -- there's way, way enough weird, wacky and creepy Pokemon in the seventh generation to appeal to me that I can look past a couple of uninspired legendaries. I don't hate this one, but I certainly don't like it. 

 2/6 bordering on 1/6. 

#808-809: Meltan & Melmetal

• Type: Steel [both]
• Japanese name: Merutan, Merumetaru
• Category: Hex Nut [both]

And lo and behold, just as I was bitching about how there aren't much of a chance of a sudden surprise in the Pokemon world due to how soon things are datamined and examined by the community, Pokemon manages to actually pull a fast one on us and reveal a brand-new Pokemon! And they did it through inarguably one of the most popular side-games for Pokemon, the mobile game Pokemon Go (and it will tie in to the as-of-the-time-of-writing upcoming sorta-main series Pokemon: Let's Go).

So at the original time of publishing this page, it was about less than a week before Meltan's official debut, and the speculation had been going on in the background -- I just wasn't paying attention to Pokemon Go news, you know? And I quickly went in to add a write-up for Meltan, being all excited about the sneaky "oh no we totally had an accidental leak" revelation of the Meltan model in the wild, first by having it show up in the game and all pretend to be Ditto and all that jazz, before being revealed to be the collaboration special Pokemon for Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let's Go. Since then, enough time's passed that the tie-in games have shown up, and for these two to be fully considered Gen-VII Pokemon. 

And turns out that this little dude is apparently a legendary? A mythical one, even? I'm not sure how that works, since both in the anime and the games, swarms of Meltan will gather around together in a bit of a thematic tie-in to how the evolution mechanic happens in Pokemon Go. Meltan himself is... it's neat, honestly, and while a lot of people bash it for yet being another inorganic Pokemon, and I must admit to going "okay, that's weird" when I first saw it, the animations and the revelation that Meltan's huge hex nut with a sphere within it is essentially a huge, giant expressive eye... Look at what the anime managed to do with it! I honestly never minded inorganic Pokemon, but I vastly prefer those that can emote. 

Meltan could honestly stand to look a bit less like a metallic ditto with accessories plugged on, but I honestly do find him pertty charming. Apparently it uses its liquid arms to corrode metal off of other things and absorb it into body? Meltan himself is a cute but ultimately weak little buddy, with a vastly limited move pool. 


And, of course, bring together a huge bunch of these little dudes together (until Generation VIII shows up, it's only available in Go) and the Meltans fuse together into the mighty Melmetal, which is... well, it's essentially kind of a huge blob of liquid metal with a bunch of giant hex-nut rings, and it looks a bit like Regirock? It's pretty neat, and definitely looks like it could fuck you up! Again, the revelation that Meltan can evolve into Melmetal did come as a bit of a surprise to me, and apparently it was one of the most ancient Pokemon that has been excavated or some such. I do really like the fact that the Pokemon Go gimmick of using a large amount of candies to evolve Meltan into Melmetal is meant to be evocative of a massive amount of tiny Meltans combining to form a big, badass giant metal titan golem creature, and I do kind of like its massive chunky hex-nut knuckles and the fact that despite being a big bad badass, it still has the same exact head as Meltan, which is just a hex nut with a floating eyeball. 

It's basically a huge, lumbering Pokemon with legendary-level stats, and... I still stand in the "too many legendaries" camp, although Meltan and Melmetal's status is honestly kind of disputable considering how easily you can farm them. They're pretty neat, though, and even without the wacky meta-plot around their reveal via Go, they're still pretty fun.

 3/6.

_________________________________________________________

But GUYS. We did it. 802 807 808 809 Pokemon. We went through it all, talked about every single one, went through a significant portion of their origins... and, wow. It's pretty fun and one hell of a ride, huh? Definitely one of the biggest undertakings I've ever done on this site, and judging by page views, you lot really do love your Pokemans. I do plan to have a couple of extra features down the line -- I'll definitely talk about types, although I'm not quite certain I'll ever do a "review 'em all" section for humans or moves or whatever. 

And... and yeah, that's about it for the main series of Gotta Review 'Em All! We'll be taking a brief break (there will be some 'special edition' reviews for shinies, types and whatnot) but as Meltan's existence proves, when, and not if, Generation VIII happens, you can bet that I will be here to review every single dang one of the new batch of critters they'll introduce. Pokemon is such a huge, huge love of mine, and I am genuinely pleased that my Pokemon commentary has ended up easily being one of the most popular features on this blog by a huge, huge margin. 

While we wait for Generation VIII, click here and here for some more Pokemon-related articles where I talk about cool animals that could be great basis for Pokemon, as well as the Generation II Beta Pokemon from the Spaceworld demo!