Yeah, I'm just doing this slowly and in my spare time. Have another Infinite Fusion article! Again, I haven't gotten quite bored of the randomizer to commit to a theme yet. If I do, expect it to either be Grimer/Muk, Duskull, the Solosis line or the Porygon line.
Again, a quick copy-paste of what this is about... Infinite Fusion is a fan-game that features fusions of Pokemon as the gimmick, and often times this includes some excellent sprite-work by artists.
I did a more in-depth explanation of the fusion process in the first review. Basically, the Infinite Fusion calculator has two different combinations, with one Pokemon as the body, and the other Pokemon as the head + colours, and vice-versa. But the most interesting ones are the crowdsourced custom sprites for the fusions, the bulk of which is what we'll be talking about here!
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I just find this Nidoking + Corsola fusion really pretty. I'm a huge fan of the Regigigas-esque green covering on Corsoking's lower body, and real coral reefs do have a lot of these plants and plant-like organisms grow on top of each other. But the pink and white, even the dot patterns, all work pretty well on Nidoking. It doesn't hurt that Nidoking himself already inherently has a bunch of stubby spikes not too dissimilar from Corsola's design, making the colour scheme feel a fair bit more natural.
Hell yea! Not uch to say about the Smeargle + Doublade fusion, but I like that the two swords have became two... uh... paint-swords? They're not exactly paintbrushes. And I hope those dripping red/blue fluids are paint, not blood. The end of Doublade's tassel does resemble Smeargle's brush tail.
Skarmory + Pinsir results in... a handless Pokemon! Instead, Pinsir gets coated entirely in metal, and the two most prominent features of the two base Pokemon are fused together. Pinsir's mandibles and Skarmory's metal blade-wings. The result looks surprisingly cool, like it's some kind of an elaborate enemy in a Metroid or Mega Man game. Love the more mechanical-looking mouth on Pinsir, too.
Look at the god bear here. Arceus + Ursaring results in the typical 'oh this Pokemon is a god now' vibe that all Arceus fusions appropriately have, but God Ursaring here doesn't just inherit Arceus's holy colours, but also has split Arceus's hip ring into a pair of spiky knuckledusters. Other gods smite heretics, God Ursaring here will beat them to death.
Kingler + Tangrowth. A lot of the automatic-generated Tangrowth fusions already work pretty well since Tangrowth's body really does lend to just a couple of random extra appendages and faces popping out here and there. But the fusion with Kingler keeps Tangrowth's enigmatic-looking eyes-in-a-black-void (IMO a great decision), but has Kingler's claws pop out of the mass of orange vines, as well as a mass of crab legs arranged like a monster spider. It's a bit more subtle, but Kingler's "crown" also pokes out of the mass of vines.
Holy shit, what's going on in this one? Golem + Victreebel is just... kind of insane. We use regular Kantonian Golem's colours, but we import a bunch of Alolan Golem features. In particular, the leaf that covers Victreebel's bell-mouth is now holding Golem's railgun cannon, and I'm not sure how that works? How does the lightning-rock railgun cannon fire without some mechanisms? Although I suppose maybe the Victreebel mouth serves as a place to 'put in' ammo? Alolan Golem's hair also surrounds Victreebel's eyes, and has replaced the leaf at the end of its vine. Finally, Victreebel's leaf-arms have replaced Golem's reptilian arms.
Mimikyu/Magneton! This one's cute. Like the original concept of Mimikyu, the real blob-ghost is hiding under a rag at the bottom, this time with an adorable >< eye expression. It's holding up what's basically a scarecrow, with scavenged parts made to mimic a Magneton... and I kind of like the fact that everything seems to be held together with random bits of wire. My favourite detail, however has to be the fact that Mimikton here only found enough red and blue paint to do one pair of magnets, and did it on the two topmost ones. Cute!
Mimikyu/Golbat is how I thought most Mimikyu fusions would be, with Mimikyu making raggedy-ann dolls that resemble their basis. But this one clearly had much more effort put into it than the regular Pikachu-doll Mimikyu. Love that the core body now resides in the yawning hole of Golbat's eyes, love the button eyes, the slightly ripped-up wings and even little green patches that Mimikbat here has used to attempt to patch up the bat doll's wings.
A lot of the "Mimikyu as a base body" Mimikyu fusions are just adorable, and honestly what I really wanted from regional variants or alternate forms of Mimikyu. Just... just pick some of the cutest Pokemon out there, like Hoppip/Mimikyu and Mudkip/Mimikyu here, and remix the regular Mimikyu's "doll" to fit their aesthetic. These two are just some of the more adorable ones I can find, and theoretically it even makes sense for a Mimikyu to go around scrounging materials to make new disguises for itself, right?
Yeah, I think Mimikyu definitely is one of those Pokemon I can use for an entire article all on its own. This Hoothoot/Mimikyu one goes for a far creepier design compared to the previous two more whimsical one, with two ghoulish arms cracking apart the 'shell' that is the Hoothoot doll. Mimikhoot here didn't even care to make the head resemble Hoothoot, instead still importing the jagged mouth with cheek blushes that the regular Pikachu-doll Mimikyu has.
The other Natu/Mimikyu fusion is just the regular Mimikyu puppet-doll, coloured like Natu. This one is the most creative, though, with the Mimikyu ghost peeking out of a seam of the side of... a tennis ball. This Mimikyu mimicked a Natu by using a tennis ball as a basis, before attaching a bunch of what I assume is random trash to approximate the shape of a Natu. A lot of 'just a cute doll' Mimikyu variants are adorable, but I really love it when they go for something a bit more creative like this.
Oh, this Zubat + Sandile fusion is really cool. The main Sandile body loses his eyes, and then gains Zubat's features -- which looks a bit more 'natural' on a fully mapped-out body like Sandile's. Having Zubat's giant ears and cute bat fangs makes for a pretty cool blind cave troglodyte vibe... and of course, you can't forget the wings.
A lot of Bidoof fusions aer just 'lol Bidoof's meme face', but this fusion with Kabutops takes the cake for looking rather deranged with the two sickles and the spikes on his 'backpack'. Love the little, subtle scar over Kabudoof's left eye, too.
I try not to do doubles of the same fusion, picking whichever is cuter, but Dusknoir + Ariados here are both winners. The one on the left is probably the simpler design idea... take Ariados's already creepy-badass spider anatomy, and slap Dusknoir's ghost reaper cyclops demon parts to it. Dusknoir's creepy single eye and the gray/black/yellow colour scheme works amazingly on Ariados's body, and I love that they interpreted Dusknoir's giant belly-mouth as splitting apart Ariados's large abdomen. Very cool, I could see this as a creature from a more whimsical horror-themed game.
But the much more interesting design, which just screams 'Kingdom Hearts enemy' to me, is the other fusion. This one takes Dusknoir's body as the basis, but it just looks so weird with Ariados's brightly-coloured poisonous animal colours. We get a combination of Game Boy Zelda enemy eyes on the inside of the 'hood', and a purple Ariados eyeball on top. This thing looks like it's a reinterpretation of a Zelda enemy like a Wizzrobe or Agahnim; or like a twisted evolution of Phantomon from Digimon. And, of course, I haven't gotten into the fact that it's got four bug legs, and that the huge Dusknoir mouth opens up to spit out webbing that Duskriados here uses as a sinister tongue to catch unsuspecting prey like Pidgey. Oh no!
Oh yeah, this Gabite/Growlithe fusion just looks pretty cool! You can't really go wrong with a four-legged canine with a shark head and tail, and I love how slapping Gabite's 'head-with-stubby-limbs' body and replacing Growlithe's entire head with that works so well. The blood-red accents of Growlithe's fur, all combed up to look more threatening, is a nice little icing on the cake.
I really didn't want to use so many Gen I fusions, but this Vileplume/Tentacruel fusion is just too good not to include. I love how the fake martian eyes on Tentacruel is substituted with the giant 'diaphragm' of Vileplume's rafflesia flower, while lumpy petals replace all other parts of Tentacruel's 'cap'. But of course the creepiest part has to be the Tentacruel body's lower part, his 'face' and tentacles, all being reduced into an interconnected black glob with Vileplume's ominous red-dot eyes. Spooky!
Another rather cute one! Deino/Beedrill isn't a fusion I'd ever have thought up about, but I do really like the Deino colours and the interpretation of a bee and a cave-dwelling dragon into something more akin to some kind of a digging insect, like a mole cricket or a ground beetle or something. The two stubby Beedrill hands look neat, and... I'm not sure what's going on with the red parts, but I think this Deidrill creature actually has visible, creepy bug eyes or something. Pretty cool, either way!
This little blob is Spearow/Hoppip. Somehow, during the fusion, Hoprow here has lost every part of its anatomy that can fly. It's missing Spearow's wings, and Hoppip's helicopter leaves. No, what it has is Hoppip's quasi-cat body, with Spearow's beak and colours and forehead feathers attached onto it... but it keeps Hoppip's adorable creepy yellow eyes. The end result is some kind of wacky cat-bird blob that reminds me of the baby stages from Digimon. Not what I expected from these two, but okay!
I just find this Sudowoodo/Pidgeot fusion to look pleasant. I'm not sure which part of it does. Is it the Sudoowoodo face replacing almost the entirety of Pidgeot's face? Is it the fact that Pidgeot's 'eyeliners' remained? Is it the green and yellow highlights on its long 'hair' and wings? Sudodgeot just looks like a buddy. I like him.
Speaking of green plant birds, Turtwig/Fletchling here is just adorable! It's just honestly pasting Turtwig's head on a bird body -- it doesn't even have to be Fletchling -- but I do really like this. Turtwig's even got a beak, doesn't he?
Another pair of cute birds. Chinchou/Murkrow is probably the favourite bird I have here, with Chinchou's distinctively adorable face just entirely replacing Murkrow's bird-head. Unlike Fletchling above, Murkrow's hat makes for a rather adorable head. Chinchou's angler lures replacing Murkrow's tail is kind of unexpected, but a very welcome bit of detail!
Magikarp/Skarmory! I realistically shouldn't be so impressed with Magikarp fusions anymore, I've seen this stupid fish's dumbass face enough times over my entire life... but I find this one funny. I think it's the fact that the fins merge together and replaces Skarmory's normally badass blade-wings. I dunno. I just really like this design. It's so goofy.
Seaking/Wailord! They kind of cheated by just borrowing the white and black parts of Seaking's colour scheme, which is nowhere as widespread as Sealord here. But I get what the custom spriter was going for -- they wanted a narwhal, and Seaking's a sea animal with a horn. But what's glorious isn't the narwhal theme, no. It's Seaking's dumbass goldfish eyes and screaming fanged mouth on a whale's body. Why does Seaking have that mouth, anyway?
Slowking + Igglybuff. That is all. Just... just look at the adorableness of this squat, waddling head. The Igglybuff parts are reflected in the little swirl and lumps on the shell's head. I dunno. I just found this one adorable.
I felt I had too many goofy ones in this page, so I wanted to close things off with 'cool Pokemon'. Sandslash/Cofagrigus here looks positively insane, though, and from the way it looks, I kinda want to say it's a Cofagrigus that's manipulating random chunks of jewelry that's merely arranged to look like a Sandslash? Love the grinning face with the little sarcophagus forehad detail, and I always appreciate Cofagrigus's shadowy tentacles.
Arbok/Gabite. Arbite here just looks cool -- dragon-headed snakes (or, well, just 'monster snakes', I guess) is so common in RPG that it shouldn't feel special, but the spriting here and the colours just makes this one look pretty neat.
Skarmory/Tentacruel! Skarcruel! There's nothing particularly clever or creative they did with this. They just added all of Skarmory's angular designs to an already cool-spiky design in Tentacruel. Really love the detailing of his head, and the tips of the tentacles being tipped with Skarmory's blood-red feathers. Just cool looking!
That's kind of exactly what I expected from a Scizor/Tyranitar fusion, and it really is very neat -- this one is almost entirely Scizor, but I really like that Tyranitar's hollow... uh... holes or whatever get transplanted all over Scizor's limbs, making him feel a bit more creepier.
Kyurem/Rayquaza. I mostly really appreciate the monster head for this one, which integrates both legendary dragons well. It's overall a messy design, but purposefully so -- Rayqurem's right hand is actually encrusted in ice, not too dissimilar in design with the Black and White Kyurem fusions.
Flygon/Rayquaza. At some point I just randomly put in Pokemon I found 'cool', and, uh, I kinda love that the only custom sprite here uses Flygon's goofy-ass head and gave it a beard for some reason. Okay, I guess I'm back to doing goofy stuff.
Oh yeah, that's more like it. Dusknoir/Salamence! Salamence already looks cool, but add those Dusknoir details that make his face even more monstrous... I also really like how the Dusknoir grays and yellows translate into this form. But obviously the most striking deatail from Salanoir here is the fact that his underbelly splits lengthways, like the bay of a bomber plane about to drop bombs. Or, since this is a Dusknoir creature, probably eat something below it.
Alakazam/Hydreigon goes for a creepy vibe, too, taking Alakazam as the base, and adding a whole ton of Hydreigon details. A draconic lower jaw, equating Alakazam's giant beard with Hydreigon's ribbon-wings, and then fusing the spoons with Hydreigon's additional heads. The spoons look like skeletal dragon heads, too, wreathed with... uh... are those just demonic flames, or some kind of chains that subjugate the lesser Hydreizam heads?
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