Ironheart S01E02 Review: The Ethics of AI Impersonation

Ironheart, Season 1, Episode 2: Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?

This was a much stronger introduction to essentially both the premise and cast of Ironheart, mostly because the show takes time to actually focus on Riri instead of having her bounce everywhere and meet random amounts of characters. It also helps that for a significant amount of the episode, Riri spends time on a one-on-one with N.A.T.A.L.I.E. and trying to process the strange AI ghost-recreation of her dead friend; as well as with the enigmatic 'Joe McGillicuddy'. The two interactions really helps to ground Riri's character and actually show us who our main character is. 

This makes the climax of the episode, where Riri finds herself roped up with the bad influence of the Hood's gang and realize that she might be a bit in over her head, actually feel like it means something now that I'm invested in her characterization. (Actually giving the Hood's crew a proper 'heist crew' person-by-person introduction also allowed me to really get the faces and roles instead of the name-vomit we got in the first episode). 

Still, I do feel like the main storyline here is N.A.T.A.L.I.E., who I'll be referring to as just 'Natalie' throughout the rest of this review because typing that is a mite bit annoying. It is kind of odd that Riri isn't freaking out a bit more about her, but I suppose she just thinks Natalie is 'merely' an AI that got a bit too advanced and is now a strange perversion and mirror of her dead friend. Natalie herself tries to barge around like a proper helpful sidekick would, admittedly causing much more problems for Riri than helping her. I did like the moment when Natalie ends up bonding with Riri's mother (who after a moment of trying to exorcise a ghost, accepts that her child is a genius enough to make a sentient AI). However, it seems that the magical elements of this show also extends to Natalie, since she's displaying memories that not even a 'brain scan' of Riri could've granted her. I really did feel like we should've and could've focused more on the Riri/Natalie dynamic instead of taking a detour halfway through the episode, but it's not terrible. 

I also think the little sub-plot with Riri's mother bonding with Natalie and noting how stubborn Riri can be, and the moment of vulnerability at the end as they discuss the strange AI, to be a pretty great little moment, and again, a much stronger introduction to this supporting character than the first episode. 

The detour is... interesting. Joe McGillicuddy is a weird black market arms dealer who somehow has a 'wholesome bunker' filled with a lot of super-tech stuff, and Riri spends the episode... kind of bonding with him and teaching him to grab his own fate and be a bit less of a doormat or something? And the episode ends with Joe finally getting fed up with his neighbour's dog pooping on his lawn, and decides to take revenge by vandalizing her flowers? It's odd. Unless 'Joe' comes back as a sidekick or a villain down the road, all of this feels a bit random, if we're being honest. I felt these scenes went for a bit too long. 

And then, the final one-third of the episode shows off Riri in her Ironheart suit being a full part of the tech heist team, where they attack the CEO of a high-tech tunnel system called TNNL, but the Hood's gang convinces Riri that it's totally okay to rob her because she's unethical. The scenes are framed to make the audience feel uncomfortable with the robbery, with scenes of Ironheart happily zipping around through the tunnel like a superhero intercut with her allies brutalizing guards. But the huge moment comes when Riri's armour and AI glitches as she's held at gunpoint by a security guard, and the Hood comes up and shoots the guard. Not fatally, but enough to get Riri to start asking questions. 

Natalie also notes that there are some strange energy readings from Parker, and the audience gets to see the weirdness going on with him. We've already seen Parker use the Hood to teleport, and to magically bend his bullets, but while alone with only his cousin and right-hand-man John King around, Parker starts seemingly hearing demonic voices and dark vein-like markings begin to extend on his body. Parker's grim and accepts this as the 'price to pay', but John isn't particularly happy with it. 

Overall, though, the show is still not Disney/Marvel's best work, but this one is a much stronger showing than the first one; and at least some themes are being built up in a way superior compared to some other recent Marvel shows. I just hope we go upwards from here, becuase with only six episodes to go, there really isn't much time. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• MCU's Slug is established to originate from Madripoor, a fictional island-state that primarily features in Wolverine comics. Madripoor first appeared in the MCU in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, around the time that the X-Men movie rights reverted back to Disney-Marvel. 
• When Riri questions Clown about how Parker got his hood, one of her theories mentions that he wrestled it off a demon, which is his comic-book counterpart's origin story. 
• 'Joe' mentions a biometric retinal scanner and snarks about wanting to keep both of his eyes. During the opening of The Avengers, Loki tears out the eyeball of some unfortunate person to break into a vault with such a security device.

Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Volo's Guide to Monsters, Pt 4 (Morkoth to Slithering Tracker)

Well, we don't get too much of an extension of my little coverage of Volo's Guide to Monsters. I did have to push some entries from the previous part to this one, which ended up ballooning this part ever so slightly, which is why it's split into two. Compared to my revision of the Monster Manual, I thought I did a decent job not ending up being too verbose. But then again, that's the whole point of doing these reviews, right? To talk about the monsters. 

I really do find writing about fresher, newer monsters to be a lot easier than a lot of the classics, though. There's generally less lore and 'in other settings' baggage to them and I can talk about them a lot more easily as a standalone monster design. This is something that really does make it a bit harder for me to go to the edition-opening bestiaries for other editions of D&D.

• Click here for the previous part.
• Click here for the next part.
• Click here for the index.

[Originally published in April 2020, revised in March 2026]

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Morkoth

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 11

A personal favourite monster from Dungeons & Dragons' history is the Morkoth, which has a fair bit written about them. Standing at a respectable CR 11, the Morkoths in 5E are given a new identity as aberrations that focus a lot on collection. The artwork shown of the Morkoth has its body filled with a mass of random clutter of civilization... which also functions as the Morkoth's treasure. 5E Morkoths are described as being formed from fragments of a dead deity of greed and strife, whose body was transformed into floating extraplanar islands. And in each of these islands, a Morkoth was born out of the flesh of the dead forgotten god. 

The Morkoths in 5E are actually rather simply-designed, with a design that's basically a monster octopus. Sure, it's got some extra insect-like legs, and a beak and eye that protrudes and gives it a less bestial face, but it's still quite distinctly 'just' an alien octopus. Which is a bit disappointing considering how weird 5E makes them... 5E did a great 'reboot' for the Morkoth in everything but its visual design, I feel. Morkoths are highly intelligent, but are driven by greed and selfishness. They desire anything and everything, and collect everything from the multiverse. They're like collectors who only wish to acquire more and more and more and more, and this goes from anything to ancient civilization to treasure to captives to knowledge. Critical Role did a particularly awesome depiction of this monster in Vokodo, who essentially 'collected' an entire civilization with its powers, rendering them all amnesiac members of a civilization on the remote island it claimed as its lair. 

A Morkoth itself is a powerful spellcaster, being treated as the equivalent to an 11th-level spellcaster with abilities like Dimension Door, Chain Lightning, Geas and Evard's Black Tentacles. They also innately have the ability to hypnotize people and charm them to run towards the Morkoth. They are also able to reflect and redirect spells, causing your party's Fireballs to bounce off its body and hit your friends. That's neat! 

But the coolest part of the Morkoth is its lair, something that the 5E Morkoth shares with its predecessors. A Morkoth's extraplanar island is noted to be particularly dream-like and chaotic, being a jumble of the Morkoth's collection and unstable darkness. The only real constant is the environment's wetness and warmness, which the Morkoth finds comfortable. This 'pearl-like' island could be found anywhere from the Astral Plane, floating above the Lower Planes, or the bottom of the ocean; the latter being a nod to the traditional Morkoths which we'll briefly talk about below.

Within their little bubbles, Morkoths maintain a collection that is often as ageless as the Morkoths themselves, which could contain even civilizations that worship the Morkoths as a god. Morkoths are also not unreasonable, willing to trade information or even their treasures in exchange for something that they are missing in their hoard. And of course, the focus on a Morkoth's mobile pearl lair is ripe for regional effects. Morkoths always know the location of people that have entered their domain, as well as every item within. Anyone who enters will slowly lose items as they get supernaturally taken and incorporated into a Morkoth's collection, and Morkoths have an enchantment on their lairs that compel creatures to move towards its lair and beeline towards it. 

And let's talk about the Morkoth's previous incarnations. The Morkoth debuted in 1E's Monster Manual, rather surprisingly, and looked like a weird 'tokusatsu villain' with a fish-squid head, and a body like a man with noodly arms. Almost the entire focus is on the Morkoth's strange hypnotic lair. 2E gives me probably my favourite Morkoth design, giving the Morkoth a fish-head on an eel-like body; long insectoid (crustacean?) 'hands' and a body that tapers off into octopus limbs. It looks the most like a weird undersea creature, and focuses still on their strange lairs, although it also characterizes the Morkoths as being malicious and cruel. The 3E version plays on the 2E design but emphasizes the 'monster fish' part so much that it just looks like a weird fish with tentacle-tails and some prawn hands. A lot of the 3E lore is a repeat of the previous one... and while I don't like the 'fragments of the dead god' bit, I do like giving the 5E Morkoths the motivation and characterization of obsessive collectors, and using their hypnotism to charm those who wander into their lair.

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Neogi

• 5.5E/5E: Tiny Aberration; Lawful Evil; CR 1/8 (Hatchling)
• 5.5E/5E: Small Aberration; Lawful Evil; CR 3 (Neogi)
• 5.5E/5E: Medium Aberration; Lawful Evil; CR 4 (Neogi Master)

The Neogi are best described as 'eel-spider' monsters that are sentient, with the main thing about their culture is that they're slavers. I am actually surprised to learn that they were introduced in 1st Edition's Fiend Folio instead of what I associate them the most of, Spelljammer. The Neogi were very strongly featured in Spelljammer content, and they really do have this pulpy 'space' vibe to them. Even their 5th Edition art really leaned into this, giving them space-esque armour. I am not the biggest fan of their 4E/5E artwork, though, finding them a bit too mundane as a 'fusion' monster. Notably, Volo's Guide to Monster reuses Neogi artwork from 4th Edition, and this artwork was used not only in Multiverse, but when new Neogi stats were introduced in 5E's take on Spelljammer. Odd. Both the 3E and 2E artwork really made for far weirder-looking and alien-looking designs, I feel. 

Again, a Neogi's culture is all about slavery, and they consider all other creatures that are weaker to be only good for slavery. This sentiment extends even to other Neogi, as long as they are weaker. A Neogi wants to subjugate and enslave their prey both physically and mentally, and in fact adult Neogi innately have an 'enslave' ability as well as a mental fortitude, keeping with their space-y psionic theme. The stronger 'Neogi Master' has access to a bunch of spells, which they have obtained from warlock-like pacts with dark elder-god star beings. 

Volo's Guide to Monsters presents the Neogi as not only being exclusive to the Astral Sea (i.e. space) but also in locations like the Feywild and Shadowfell, although they retain their older edition lore of being invaders from 'a remote location on the Material Plane' (i.e. another planet). This bit of being aliens with psionic abilities is probably why they are classified as aberrations. The Neogi are particularly associated with the Umber Hulks, subjugating them and using them as a slave race. They're not fussy about who they claim as slaves, marking them with dyes, magic and tattoos. 

A Neogi's mentality is that slavery and subjugation is just normal to them, because their mind-control powers are natural. This leads to their strange culture where individuality isn't really a thing other than a hierarchy where 'naturally' whoever is stronger becomes a master. Somehow, despite all of this, Neogi are also devious profiteers, engaging in many shady mercantile activities, while at the same time planning to enslave any customers or patrons that are weaker than them. Due to their penchant of treachery, however, Volo's does note that most other species tend to band together to drive away the Neogi caravan; and only powerful or desperate individuals really try to barter with Neogi seriously. 

In addition to all this, Neogi have a weird life cycle. As the elder ones among the Neogi grow old and weak, the younger ones will swarm it, inject it with venom, and transform the old Neogi into a mass of flesh called the 'Great Old Master' which becomes a repository for younger Neogi to lay eggs on it. When the eggs hatch, they devour each other and the Great Old Master until only the strongest ones are left, and then they get immediately subjugated by adult Neogi. 

Around halfway through its 5E lifespan, Dungeons & Dragons is noticeably moving away from having slavery be part of a species's culture... which I don't think is the right way to tackle this sensitive topic. The Monsters of the Multiverse book removes mentions of slavery from a bunch of species like the Grung, but notably not the Neogi. The descriptions are cut down slightly, but it's still there and the abilities are still called 'Enslave'. Considering how the flavour of the Neogi is meant to be the most repulsive and reprehensive species out there, however, I think it's okay to have it be the defining feature of a species that was written to be hated. 

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Neothelid

• 5.5E/5E: Gargantuan Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 13

A huge fan of this one, particularly with the 5th Edition artwork. The Neothelid is a gigantic worm with a starfish-shaped mouth, and a mass of tentacles bursting out of a lamprey-like maw. Despite its appearance, however, the Neothelid has nothing to do with a Purple Worm! That was my first instinct when I saw it for the first time. Instead, the Neothelid is the result of a Mind Flayer's reproductive cycle gone wrong. As mentioned in the previous bit when we were talking about Elder Brains, Mind Flayers use little larval stages called 'tadpoles' and inject them into humanoids to transform them into adult Illithids. Normally, a given colony has a clutch of these tadpoles. 

Sometimes, however, a colony and its Elder Brain is wiped out and the tadpoles, with no one to care for, and the tadpoles grow wild, cannibalizing the other tadpoles in the little pool. The disconnection from their hivemind probably has something to do with it as well. Only one will survive out of a thousands that a normal Mind Flayer pool... and this survivor will mutate into a massive Neothelid.

The Neothelid mutates into a gigantic, gargantuan size and this is due to the lack of the structure of a donor (heh) brain. Normally, Illithids kill any tadpole that grows too big before ceremorphosis, and feed it to the other tadpoles... specifically to prevent the creation of the Neothelid. It's really an interesting facet of Mind Flayer culture, especially since they normally don't care much about anything but world domination. 

The Neothelid is particularly terrifying to the Elder Brain because of its extremely low intelligence of 3, essentially making them invisible to the Elder Brain's intelligence-dependent psionics or other Mind Flayer minions like Intellect Devourers or Mindwitnesses. The Neothelid itself simply rampages through whatever it can, constantly hungry and constantly slaying everything in its path. In addition to being a giant worm, Neothelids have the Illithids' "Creature Sense" that allows them to sense intelligent creatures (including Illithids), plus a scattering of psionic powers. Interestingly, the Neothelid possesses a blast of tissue-dissolving enzymes that rather cutely melts all flesh... except for brain tissue. That's very specific, but very on-brand for these creatures. 

I find the existence of these things to be quite interesting and frankly refreshing. Neothelids are anathema to the Mind Flayer culture and they will organize raiding bands to get rid of them, meaning these giant worms are alien even to the alien species. Creatures like the Neothelid really do increase the possibility of your party being caught between two adversaries that are mutually attempting to destroy each other, and it is also nice to see an 'elite' Mind Flayer boss that isn't just part of the 'Mind Flayer did experiments on their captives' genre. 

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Nilbog

• 5.5E/5E: Small Humanoid; Chaotic Evil; CR 1

To my genuine surprise, we don't get any new Goblin statblocks in Volo's Guide to Monsters despite a huge chunk of the goblinoid culture coming from there. We do get two new Hobgoblins, but it wouldn't be until the 2024 Monster Manual that we really get new goblin statblocks. Considering we got like a half-dozen for each variant of giantkin, just saying...

Anyway, Volo's Guide to Monsters emphasizes how the goblin god called Maglubiyet conquered and 'made' the races of the hobgoblins, goblins and bugbears under his own, subjugating all their gods and forcing them to all be 'goblinoids'. This explains why the three goblinoid races are so different visually and thematically. I don't really like answers to how a species behaves to be 'because the cosmic war in the backstory says so', but in this case I feel like they did some nice things with it. This explains why the goblins and hobgoblins in particular work together despite theoretically not liking each other: the base fantasy for goblins are sneaky, cowardly little scrappers that utilize traps and sneaky tactics to fight enemies; while hobgoblins are essentially a disciplined army. 

In this backstory, after Maglubiyet conquered the goblin pantheon, the essence of one of their gods, a trickster god, somehow survives in the form of powerful spirits that arrive whenever goblinoids create a marching host. When such a host is formed, the hobgoblins would subjugate the goblins and force them into regimented minions, cannon fodder for the more powerful hobgoblins and bugbears. But this possessing spirit will arrive and cause chaos for the goblins' sake. 

This spirit, this fragment of a god, is called a Nilbog. Nilbog, if you haven't gotten it, is 'Goblin' spelled backwards. A Nilbog arises particularly when Goblins are mistreated by their more powerful cousins, and the Nilbog is transformed into a powerful force of nature, The Mask style, that forces others to do the opposite of what they desire. They've got a trait called 'Nilbogism' that forces creatures that attack it to praise the Nilbog, and they have a 'Reversal of Fortune' ability that transforms damage dealt to it into healing. Not reflected in the statblock is that if a Nilbog is killed (since all those abilities are just checks in-game), the spirit just possesses a new Goblin. I like the fact that this led to a practice that Hobgoblins and Bugbears would appoint a Goblin as a jester, and even if they aren't a Nilbog, the presence of one Goblin Jester that's allowed to go around and be a dick to everyone wards off the Nilbog spirit, supposedly.

The lore is a bit too tied to the specific way that the Forgotten Realms goblinoids work, but I do like it. This is a fun little gimmick and the potential social encounters that you may present your party with this. Of note is that Nilbogs appeared all the way back in the 1st Edition's Fiend Folio, regrettably one of the creatures there that did not receive artwork. The Nilbogism lore, sans the hogboblin/goblin dynamic, was all there even from the original Fiend Folio! Even the contrarian effects, which is described multiple times as a 'spatio-temporal reversal'. Notably, the Fiend Folio notes that the Nilbog can't be harmed normally, and only curative actions (like 'force-feeding it healing potions') can harm it. Interesting!

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Quickling

• 5.5E/5E: Tiny Fey; Chaotic Evil; CR 1

We've got another violent fey, which is a nice addition considering so much of the fey in the original Monster Manual tend to lean on the non-hostile or neutral side. Quicklings look like little elves with exaggerated features and super-long hair, and the whole gimmick that they have is their insanely fast speed. Quicklings move at a highly accelerated rate compared to what most beings would consider normal, and they appear mostly like a blur moving through the air. Translating this to statblocks, this means that the Quicklings can far more easily dodge attacks, and any attack towards a non-incapacitated Quickling is always on a disadvantage. They're just bouncing and zipping around the place all the time. 

However, this also translates to their extremely short life. Due to their nature, the Quicklings' "internal clock" is sped up. Their lifespan, therefore, is vastly reduced to what they originally would have had, and Volo's notes that Quicklings only live up to fifteen years. This is a nice contrast to how so many other beings in D&D tend to have their long, immortal lives emphasized (elves, giants, dragons, treants...) and the Quicklings are an interesting subversion of that. They view the world similarly to how fiction depicts super-speed (particularly in superhero movie): everything in the world moves super-slowly to the Quickling, and even lightning bolts and rain look lazy to them. 

There is a backstory to these guys. At one point, the race that would be the Quickling were lazy and arrogant, and they make the mistake of answering the summons of a powerful Unseelie archfey called the Queen of Air and Darkness. This constant lateness caused the Queen to cast a curse on the entire Quickling race, shrinking them and speeding their time up. I would also like to note that 4E Quickling, which looks positively demonic. I get the idea of wanting to make the evil little fey look most threatening, but that one goes a bit too far from the concept, I feel. 

Quicklings are also noted to find it difficult to speak to other beings since they actually need to deliberately speak slowly... much much more slowly, and they would rather not do that. And due to how differently they view the world, their 'mischief' tends to often be laced with just a bit of malice. The line they won't cross seem to be murder and maybe maiming, but it is noted that Quicklings 'enjoy causing suffering that transcends mere mischief', making use of their small size and fast speed to steal important letters, planting stolen items here and there, and generally wrecking havoc in discord's name. 

These guys are interesting little buggers, if a little one-note. I know I used them a fair amount of times as quick, simple Fey-themed enemies, and the other nice option for a simple Feywild hostile encounter is the following entry... 

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Redcap

• 5.5E/5E: Small Fey; Chaotic Evil; CR 3

I've always been a fan of the Redcap, even if they are a rather obvious 'look at this conveniently always violent enemy' for the Fey. Creatures like the Redcap and Meenlock do fill in a gap in the original Monster Manual where there really aren't a lot of openly antagonistic Fey other than the Hags, and they are more of a scheming type of villain. Redcaps are simple villains, looking like angry, mean old men with giant sickles and massive iron boots.

Redcaps are born out of specifically blood lust, which ties to the pseudo-throughline in 5E Fey where most of them are associated with some kind of powerful emotion. Similar to the origins offered to the Boggles and Meenlocks in Volo's, the Redcap is born out of a Fey-touched location where someone acts on an intense desire for bloodshed, and the Redcap are born from where the blood of a slain person soaks the ground. In a whimsical bit of detail that's a nice contrast to the rest of the creature, Redcaps appear as tiny bloodstained mushrooms, before moonlight causes them to properly 'pop' out and attack. 

Redcaps just go for instant violence and mayhem, and they are simply incapable of doing anything subtly or stealthily. The iron boots that are part of their anatomy force them to take massive thunderous steps... but they aren't actually slow all the time. One of their abilities is 'Ironbound Pursuit', where they suddenly charge in a burst of speed and does a kick with their iron boots. They are also deceptively strong despite their wizened looks, counting as a 'medium' creature instead of a 'small' creature in grappling checks.

In Volo's, the Redcap is described to always need to soak their hat in the fresh blood of its victims, and they need to replenish every three days or they will vanish. This doesn't seem particularly sustainable, especially with the descriptions in the subsequent passages noting that Redcaps find employment with Hags and dark mages... although I suppose they could just keep spilling blood and not killing their targets? Redcaps doesn't seem to be the type to show restraint. Redcaps can also supernaturally sense the being whose murder led to their birth... and depending on how bloodthirsty their 'parent' is, the Redcaps will either pick their creator as a victim, or as a potential kindred spirit and master. 

Always liked the vibe of the Redcap as a simple enemy, and even if you don't want to deal with all the origin story about the Redcap, simply having it be a violent Fey employed by other more powerful creatures (one of the Hag villains in Witchlight grows Redcaps in her garden) works quite well. 

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Rot Grub

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Swarm of Tiny Beasts; Unaligned; CR 1/2

In Volo's Guide to Monsters, the Rot Grub (or rather, 'Swarm of Rot Grubs') is just a little monster in the appendix of the book, and is essentially an accompanying stat block for the Kobold Inventor. One of the Kobold Inventor's abilities is to launch one such swarm of Rot Grubs at you. How fun! In Monsters of the Multiverse, the Swarm of Rot Grubs got their own entry and a brand new art piece, featuring a half-dead unfortunate soul screaming alive as grubs burrow out of his bloody flesh and drop out of his arms and face. 

The trope isn't that far off in real life, where myiasis happens with regular maggots. Rot Grubs, being part of a fantasy setting, takes all the horrors associated with maggots parasitizing your flesh and takes it up to eleven. Rot Grubs burrow into a creature when disturbed, and chew their way into vital organs. The grubs, being inside the poor soul, are essentially immune to most abilities to get them out. Even magic that stops poison only slows down the infection but would not remove the grubs. Per the flavour text and the ability box, the host needs to take fire damage (i.e. be set on fire) for the Rot Grubs to panic and move out of the body. 

Rather interestingly, while Rot Grubs prefer to infest corpses and carrion, they can also survive on vegetation, meaning that they don't even have to do all this nasty mess about burrowing into flesh and killing their host. This isn't even an obligate part of their parasitic life cycle, nor is it like real-world flies that opportunistically lay their eggs on what it thinks is rotten flesh. No, these Rot Grubs just casually attack whoever disturbs them while they're munching on carrion. 

One last note is that the Rot Grub is one of the monsters introduced all the way in the original 1st Edition Monster Manual, and I'm happy to see them make their way to 5th Edition. Just like many other 'gotcha' monsters in 1E, they can cause instant death the moment they burrow to your heart. 

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Sea Spawn

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Humanoid (5E), Monstrosity (5.5E0; Neutral Evil; CR 1

Where the Deep Scion is a more intelligent infiltrator and one with a monstrous but still 'workable' design, the Sea Spawn is a bit more wretched looking. It's got a stilted gait, and random features of underwater animals growing out asymmetrically from its body. He's got webbed hands, fish fins growing out of his cheeks, gills on his necks, and random clumps of barnacles on his torso and arms. That asymmetry is what really sells it.

The visual vibe of the Sea Spawn reminds me the most of Davy Jones's cursed crew from Pirates of the Caribbean, who were transformed by the curse and slowly merge with undersea creatures over time. Volo's also includes a short blurb about a location called the Purple Rocks, where the community sacrifices all babies to a local Kraken, who transforms all the children into beings that resemble humans, but transform into Sea Spawn when they reach old age and rejoin their master in the depths... very much based on Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth, including some with more advanced transformations that have to hide themselves from outsiders. 

The origin of the Sea Spawn can be anything related to the ocean, as the flavour text notes that even in-universe there are many tales on where these beings come from. There are many in-universe stories like 'be wary of falling in love with a merfolk' or 'honour the sea gods, but never give them your heart', while above the table the book lists Krakens, Sea Hags, Marids, Morkoths, Dragon Turtles and even Storm Giants as all being powerful underwater beings that can 'mark' mortals to claim them as their minions. Whether by a bargain or a curse, once warped into a Sea Spawn, they are bound to the sea, unable to leave the ocean for more than a day before suffocating to death. 

The prose mentions that Sea Spawn comes in a wide variety of horns, which is carte blanche for the DM to get creative. This also extends to their abilities, with the statblock having a random 'piscine anatomy' to select from one of three features: 'bite' (sharks or other bite-y fish), 'poison quills' (sea urchins, stingrays, etc) or 'tentacles' (octopi, squid, etc). It's a simple statblock since the Sea Spawn are just CR 1 minions, but I do wish that we got just a bit more out of them. This is one monster where I wouldn't mind having multiple variations of, just saying. I do appreciate them, though. Along with the Deep Scion introduced in this same book, that's two brand-new 'aquatic Lovecraftian horror' monster that 5th Edition gave to us. 

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Shadow Mastiff

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Monstrosity; Neutral Evil; CR 2 (regular), 3 (Alpha)

The Shadow Mastiff is another 'evil dog', thrown into a monster trope that D&D has an abundance of. By my quick count, the Monster Manual has around six of these monster dogs/wolves. These Shadow Mastiffs are associated with the Shadowfell, and they cross over to the Material Plane where the veil between planes are thin. They are pack hunters, so the moment one of these Mastiffs find a breach, it is likely to bring in the rest of its pack. This behaviour is honestly not particularly special; it's just that normally it's fiends that try to breach the veil between dimensions. That's honestly the whole plot of Stranger Things season one,  except some shadow dogs aren't exactly as memorable as the Demogorgon from that show.

As you'd expect from a Shadow Mastiff, they can meld into shadows, and are sensitive to sunlight (but are okay with regular light). They are also incredibly good hunters, having the keen senses of a hunting dog while also having the bonus ability to see ethereal creatures. Volo's Guide to Monsters make a lot of mention about the 'Alpha' of the pack, which was just a tiny sidebar in the original entry but graduated into a full, proper statblock in Monsters of the Multiverse. These Alphas have a terrifying howl that strikes fear into their prey, and also summons the rest of the pack. 

I do like the look in the 5th Edition artwork, which really emphasizes the Shadow Mastiff's body flickering off into the shadow. That face still doesn't look like a proper mastiff, something only the 2E art really got right, but at least it looks like a monstrous dog now instead of the weirder faces that 3E and 4E gave it. 

When not randomly roaming the Shadowfell or sneaking into the Material Plane, it is noted that some faiths devoted to deities of the night will perform rituals to summon Shadow Mastiffs as guards. That last bit really does seem like a last-minute detail to give us a little plot hook, because ultimately there's nothing particularly interesting about this critter. It is notable that this entry is one of the few that Multiverse cuts down a lot on, but we really don't lose much information from the original printing. It's just a basic monster from the Shadowfell, and that's fine, but with the lack of many other Shadowfell creatures introduced in Volo's it feels a bit of a random addition. 

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Slithering Tracker

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Ooze; Chaotic Evil; CR 3

The Slithering Tracker is another monster that debuted in the 1st Edition Monster Manual, and I do get the feeling that one of the stated missions of Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordekainen's Tome of Foes is to update to 5th Edition as many monsters in the original Monster Manual as possible. Which is a task that they mostly managed quite well, I would say. The Slithering Tracker is one of those early-D&D monsters that feels created to fill in a role, not too dissimilar to beings like the Invisible Stalker. Without much artwork given to it other than a lone 2E art and being a lot less iconic compared to other oozes and water elementals, the Slithering Tracker kind of fell into obscurity. So I'm quite happy to see it given new life in a... rather grotesque manner. 

The Slithering Tracker is a rather rare ooze monster with a lot of the stealthy abilities of some of the more advanced elementals like the Invisible Stalker and Water Weird, being able to turn essentially invisible in water, and having advantages when it is tracking prey. It has a bunch of other traits that make it great at hiding, ambushing, and transferring damage to its victim when it's grappling it.

The lore behind this thing is one of vengeance, where those who desire vengeance undergoes a ritual where they transform into 'semiliquid sentience'. They die in the process, and the froth and moisture that bubbles out of their body coalesce into a Slithering Tracker. As Slithering Trackers, they can flow and squeeze into places where a normal creature can't go, and kill its prey. As the new 5E artwork shows, their 'Life Leech' ability is flavoured as them latching onto their prey and sucking all the blood and bodily fluids out of those that they are angered towards, which is why the Slithering Tracker is dripping red where it is attached to its victim. Love the screaming face on the end as well. 

This monster is a rough tie-in to one of Volo's spotlight monsters, Hags, which is listed as one of the possible beings that have access to the ritual to create a Slithering Tracker. Liches and cultists are also able to do that, but I imagine that when a Hag transforms someone into a Slithering Tracker, it's out of malice and a misinterpreted request. "Please, Hag, give me the ability to track down my enemy and give me the power to kill them!" Only instead of becoming a cool warlock, you become a semi-sentient ooze.

What happens after a Tracker has finished killing its prey? It depends on the DM. Some Trackers just go mad from the desire of blood and attack indiscriminately. Others continue to kill any allies of their targets, regardless of the full awareness of the original mind that became the Tracker, which would be the more interesting plot hook. Perhaps a crime syndicate or police force keeps finding their members killed and drained of blood, but instead of a regular sadistic killer, you have a half-crazed being just slithering around, intelligent enough to know who belongs to the organization but not enough awareness to stop. I like this plot hook quite a bit, and the focus on being obsessed with vengeance is a nice plot hook for this otherwise redundant creature. 

Ironheart S01E01 Review: Gangs and Ghosts

Marvel's Ironheart, Season 1, Episode 1: Take Me Home

I didn't have time to watch this show when it came out last year,  and when I did, I just... never gotten the time to review it. But here it is, now, finally taken out of the mothballs to cover the blog while I'm off traveling. I do intend to get through the MCU catalogue at some point, so better late than never, right? 

Running six episodes after being delayed since forever, Marvel's Ironheart explores the character of Riri Williams, a super-genius who appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as a bit of a plot device character that the second Black Panther, Shuri, and the antagonistic Namor are fighting over. Unlike her comic counterpart, Riri doesn't actually have anything to do with Iron Man (and is unlikely to meet him, considering the character is deceased in-universe), which does make the idea of her being Tony Stark's successor a bit unnatural. 

Throw in the massive delays that impacted this show, and general audience fatigue at giving (and announcing) spinoffs to characters seemingly over more popular characters gave Ironheart a bit of a steep climb to deal with. And casting the Hood -- a magical crook -- as the villain for this tech-y story feels like a really strange formula, especially for Ironheart's first big debut series. 

The first episode also really rushes through her decisions, throwing a lot of characters and situations at us without really taking time to develop who Riri is. Wakanda Forever establishes her as being a genius, but she was also a bit over her head in that movie. In a very quick rapid-fire series of scenes, we establish that Riri doesn't have enough money to fund her big dreams of making an Iron Man suit. And while I do understand the fact that the educational and funds-granting system isn't always on the side of talented people, I felt like the show should've spent some time highlighting Riri being screwed by the system instead of handwaving it to the wayside. It also really glosses over the real objective of Riri's goals beyond a vague 'it's the way to get noticed' and some stuff about it being able to help people.

(The show also doesn't do a particularly good job at justifying why Riri, who was established in Wakanda Forever to be one of the only people able to create the Vibranium-detecting plot device, wasn't like immediately scouted by Stark Industries or Wakanda or like a dozen different acronym super-spy organizations).  

Instead, the show seems to focus more on her breaking university policy to sell projects to every other student in the area; not delivering any of her project and causing a fire; showing attitude to her teachers; and steal the Ironheart suit and flies back to Chicago. I get that the idea was supposed to show that Riri is being oppressed by the big people in the university. But the show rushes through this so fast that until sitting down to do this review, I didn't realize that I was supposed to feel sorry for her instead of going 'okay, she's a bit of a reckless rulebreaker'. 

Instead, the show spends a bit too much time showing Riri moping around dragging the broken parts of her suit back home, and getting harangued by her mother's friends. We get to see a bunch of the people living in Riri's neighbourhood, most notably with slow hints of Riri's old best friend Natalie who's implied to have passed away at some point. The bits with Riri dealing with Natalie -- whether listening to the mixtape made by Natalie's brother Xavier, or the eventual shock at seeing Riri's AI manifest in Natalie's image at the end of the episode -- gives actress Dominique Thorne perhaps the biggest scenes to really act, something that I really do appreciate since in these scenes, I felt like the show gives Riri chance to breathe and show us who she is. 

Because for the rest of the episode, poor Riri is very reactive towards everything that happens to her, being generally irritated to everything going on. And what's going on is that a random gang made of obscure Marvel villains, led by the Hood, spies on Riri when she crash-lands in her Ironheart suit. One of the Hood's minions, John King, shows up when Riri tries to haggle for spare parts to fix her Ironheart suit, and Riri gets put through a 'trial-by-fire' deathtrap where she's supposed to disarm a gas bomb inside of an elevator. Riri finds a different way out of the test, reactivating the elevator instead of looking for a mask, but very understandably refuses to join the gang of clear criminals. However, the assurance that she won't be made to hurt anyone on a heist, and the promise of money makes Riri reconsider. 

And again... I don't know. Riri does have the whole speech with Xavier earlier in the episode talking about how making the best Iron suit better than anyone would get her noticed and everything, but I really don't get the sense of urgency why Riri needs to make this now now now that made her break all the rules at MIT, and especially not to join this batch of hooligans. I don't really find her vague handwave of making response time faster, or that this is going to be her big ticket, particularly convincing. It all feels a bit too clunky, that this has to happen because we only have six episodes left, and we need certain other things to happen. 

It doesn't help that the Hood and his goons (of which there are a bit too many) aren't particularly impressive. There are a couple of jokes like the guy who constantly wants to be called Rampage, but other than the manipulative side, and the ominous demonic sequences when he hangs up the Hood, they kind of just seem like... like thugs. Not crass or violent ones that make them instantly unlikable... but I really didn't vibe with them, you know? Maybe they'll be a bit better in the second episode? 

The end of the episode has Riri patch up her broken-up suit, but then she gets a flashback to the night that Natalie died (it's not shown but basically confirmed that she and Riri's stepfather died during a tragic shooting). This happens right as Riri is about to do some sci-fi mind-sycnhronization thing, and she wakes up with the AI avatar taking the form of Natalie. That's the big cliffhanger to the episode. 

And... I don't know. This really feels like a clunky start to the series, and while I do like the brief moments that our lead actress got to show her acting chops, I also felt like the movie jumps from one minor character to the next without really bothering to introduce them, which is unlike how other shows like Ms. Marvel or Moon Knight or Hawkeye or the Netflix-Marvel shows had handled their respective large cast introductions. But those shows, I feel, really 'got' their respective central characters, whereas Riri is just being pushed in all directions without showing the audience just who Riri is and why we should root for her. They're not trying to do an Iron Man legacy story, they're not trying to tie this to the Black Panther movie that introduced Riri, and they're trying to set up their own thing, which I respect... but they can't do that without properly telling us who our main character is. And I felt like they should've maybe spent more of the first episode doing that before dropping a whole lot of other side characters that Riri pinballs back and forth with. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Riri Williams and her little sojourn in Wakanda happened during Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. 
• In the opening sequence, Riri name-drops Hank Pym and Tony Stark. Thor is also mentioned by Natalie. 
• Riri uses a copy of Scott Lang/Ant-Man's book, 'Look Out For The Little Guy', seen in Quantumania, to smuggle USBs and money in the opening sequence. 
• Wilkes, the male MIT faculty member, previously appeared in Civil War trying to get grant money from Tony Stark. 
• One of the random people in the streets is yelling about Thanos. 
• The Hood (Parker Robbins) is a supervillain that originated as a Daredevil enemy, but would menace various superheroes based in New York. Originally a petty criminal, the Hood managed to chance upon a demon summoned to the real world, killed him, and robbed him of his magical hood and boots, allowing him to gain an edge over other criminals in the New York underworld. 
• The robber gang in the comics, most of whom don't have much in common with their live-action counterparts. Clown, Slug and one of the Blood Brothers are gender-flipped. 
• Rampage (Stuart Clarke) is a minor supervillain who created an exo-skeleton suit, and upon reforming eventually became an ally of the Punisher. 
• Clown (Eliot Franklin) is a member of the supervillain team called the Circus of Crime, normally associated with Hawkeye and the Avengers. Not to be confused with a different Hawkeye villain called Clown (Kazi Kazimierczak), who had appeared in the Hawkeye show.
• Slug (Ulysses Lugman) is a mutant whose ability allowed him to have immense weight more than a human body should physically handle. He works as a drug boss, and has faced various superheroes like Captain America and Spider-Man. 
• The Blood Brothers are a pair of ape-like alien twins in the comics working for Thanos that menaced the Avengers. This incarnation turns them to a brother-sister duo, renaming them as the Blood Siblings. 
• John King was the Hood's cousin and loyal lieutenant in the comics, having discovered the demon that Parker would kill to gain the Hood. 
• In the comics, Riri had a friend called Natalie who passed away thanks to some drive-by shooting. Natalie would serve as the inspiration of Riri's suit AI, N.A.T.A.L.I.E.

One Piece 1175 Review: Lightning Dragon

One Piece, Chapter 1175: Niddhoggr

A pretty simple chapter, this one, due to the two-page spreads, and how a lot of this is chapter is action scenes. For the most part, the chapter takes care of just getting rid of Summers, but the last couple of chapters have been excellent at making Summers really hateable!

We start off with a brief recap on the 'B-team', with Sanji freeing Robin from her thorn bindings. It is a bit annoying that the rest of the Straw Hats haven't tried to do anything productive just yet, even though the tension is slowly winding down with how we're very quickly running out of threats not named Imu. 

We get a brief showcase of the giant children and their wounded parents recovering from the fall, while giant dragon Loki is going around chomping up the dream-monsters. Luffy and Zoro hvae a brief catch-up and note that they basically have things under control... until Summers shows up with several thorn-vine-dragons with cannons in their mouths, firing thorns at the wounded Oimo and other parents.

Summers rants and demands they give back his 'emotions'... but then the kids line up in front of their parents, ready to take the blows in their stead, and Summers essentially hate-gasms one more time as he realizes the kids dying is going to be as sadistic as he wants to. But Zoro zips in and knocks away the thorns, while Luffy does a badass pose of jumping into the sky and grabbing a lightning bolt, and we get a 'Gomu Gomu Dawn Thor Rifle', unleashing a gigantic lightning punch. 

Being an immortal enemy, we get a particularly brutal shot of Summer's head being torn in half with his teeth falling out. It's comical and brutal, and a very much needed shot after all the nonsense Summers has been pulling. Summers falls down... and gets swatted and stomped on by Loki almost like an afterthought. Ripley and the other giants react at Luffy's Nika form, and the thorns around the children falls off. 

Gaban gets a brief flashback as we learn about the fruit, which is the mythical Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Nidhoggr. Jarl explains to Gaban and Shanks that the mythical dragon fruit has a different maximum size depending on who eats it, explaining why an ancient giant is noted to be able to use it to its maximum potential. There's a nice little graph comparing the dragon sizes for a human, giant and ancient giant, too, which is cute. 

Jarl also gives some backstory about how this fruit was wielded by their Warrior God (which might just be the titular Elbaf himself) who wielded Ragnir and was accompanied by his ice squirrel Ratatoskr. Ratatoskr is from the real-world Norse mythology! Jarl notes that Ratatoskr chose to inhabit the Warrior God's weapon Ragnir, waiting for his return, and I'm not 100% sure if this is just the process that Vegapunk artificially embeds Devil Fruits, or if this is something completely different. 

We then continue on for a couple of large panels as Loki unleashes 'Thorheim', a gigantic lightning nuke that vaporizes all of the Mumas. Luffy and Ragnir celebrate... while Imu reacts, floating in Gunko's form but also 'seeing' the events from her room in Marie Geoise, recognizing Nidhoggr and narrowing her eyes. Yeah, I do think Imu might want to make Loki/Nidhoggr a deal he can't refuse, otherwise this arc really does feel like it's otherwise so overwhelmingly in the good guys' favour. 

Pretty nice action chapter with some context and explanations. Simple and sweet.

Random Notes:

• Will be traveling for the next couple of weeks, so no live One Piece updates. I have a bit of a backlog of D&D and Marvel-TV stuff to talk about, though. 
• Gear 5th Luffy is in his 'giant' form throughout all these scenes, something that I don't think really registered with me until this chapter. Loki is just so big that I keep forgetting the scale until we see Luffy looming above Zoro. 
• 'Thorheim' isn't a real realm from Norse mythology, so I guess Loki's realm attacks don't have to correspond to the Nine Realms of Nordic myth. 
• 'Nidhoggr' is written with the kanji for 'thunder dragon'. 
• The official translation parses it Niddhoggr, but I've been calling the mythical dragon 'Nidhogg' or 'Nidhoggr' for years now, so.
• This chapter also confirms that Imu's main body is still in Marie Geoise, and she/he didn't actually physically arrive in Elbaf. 

Gotta Review 'Em All, Part #51: Mega Evolutions, Part 3

2025 saw the release of the 'main series spinoff' Pokemon Legends ZA, surprising everyone not only with the sudden return to Generation VI's Kalos (instead of any of the many other regions people were expecting for this generation's spinoff/remake game) but also the surprising real-time combat system. The game feels experimental in all the best ways, and while there were some mild complaints, I did find the main game of Legends ZA to be probably one of the better Pokemon gaming experiences I've had. 

The same cannot be said for the gigantic grind-fest and excuse plot storyline that was the Mega Dimensions DLC. I think I've made my feelings towards that perfectly clear in my 'let's play' blog posts, so I won't repeat myself here. 

But the most important part is that the game re-introduces Mega Evolution, the first time that one of the per-generation gimmicks got added to instead of it just being a one-time fad in a single generation. I really do think that Mega Evolution is the one that the design team puts the most effort into, and the fact that it results in new unique forms does make them a lot more 'hype' compared to something like the Terastral forms. 

I had prepared a version of this article with the 25+ new Mega Evolutions from the base Legends ZA, but when the DLC introduced around 20 more, I decided to just wait until I've done most of the DLC, and then again for the official artwork to appear. The end result did end up taking a bit longer for me to finish writing these articles. 

Again, as with my previous reviews for Mega Evolutions and Gigantamaxes, I'm also considering the fact that these are 'super' forms, and not just reviewing them as standalone designs, so just how much (or how little) they deviate from their original forms will matter in my evaluation. 

Click here for the previous part.

Click here for the next part. 

Click here for the index.

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#026: Mega Raichu X / Y

• Types: Electric
• Japanese names: Mega Raichu
• Categories: Mouse

To the relief of many, Pikachu didn't get a brand-new Mega Evolution. Which was definitely in the realm of possibility! But it is a relatively hard rule that the game has established of only fully-evolved Pokemon being able to Mega Evolve. So Raichu finally gets another chance to be in the spotlight now, getting two Mega Evolutions in the DLC, an honour previously only reserved to Charizard and Mewtwo. 

Rather oddly, they decided to make the gimmick be to have Raichu physically resemble the letters of 'X' and 'Y', which... is an odd design choice, but okay. Both mega evolutions draw a bit from PIkachu, which unfortunately does mar them a bit. Some of the Mega Evolutions in Legends ZA do have the theme of bringing back features from the pre-evolved stage, but when your pre-evolved stage is the poster child Pikachu himself, it's hard not to feel disappointed that these mega forms aren't celebrating Raichu more than Pikachu. 

Mega Raichu X has Pikachu's yellow-body-and-red-cheeks colour combination, as well as two gigantic Pikachu lightning-bolt tails that form an 'X' alongside the ears. The gimmick for Mega Raichu X is actually quite clever, though, because Mega Raichu X flies, horizontally, like Superman. The Pokedex flavours this as Mega Raichu X unleashing electricity through its ears and tail like electromagnetism or something, and that little detail makes Mega Raichu X really fun and feel like the more memorable Mega Raichu to me. 

In addition, Mega Raichu X fights by punching people, since its tails and ears are there to help it keep itself afloat. Having a Raichu fly around thunder-punching people like Superman isn't on my radar, but here we are. Lastly, a feature on both Mega Raichus is that they've got tiny little vampire fangs that people think are a reference to the 'lost' Gorochu evolution. Not sure if it's intentional, but it does give the two Mega Raichus a slightly different face from the rest of the family. 

Mega Raichu Y has regular Raichu's orange-body-and-yellow-cheeks colouration, and part of Raichu's whip-tail...  but probably is the one that feels a lot more like Pikachu to me. It doesn't help that the general design feels like someone slapped a couple too many accessories, with the two pairs of ears being particularly ugly and messy to me. Mega Raichu Y has a pair of bunny-like Pikachu ears, and two pairs of flattened ones that resemble an exaggeration of Raichu's. That just looks really unnatural, and if we had just kept the Raichu ears, it would've done the dual job at making this form feel a lot more distinctly Raichu and make the 'Y' silhouette better. 

Mega Raichu Y doesn't really have much of an interesting gimmick other than that, basically being an electric rat that shoots lightning bolts. They form the letter Y, which isn't actually depicted in-game by either a move or a unique animation. With Mega Raichu X flying around, this makes Y a bit more forgettable to me. They could've done something more interesting by giving the two of them additional types. Even if Y remained a pure-Electric and X became Electric/Flying, it would have made the two forms feel a bit more unique. 

As it is, while they are all right, inoffensive designs, and I'm happy that Raichu is getting something... I can't say I'm particularly enthused with these two. 

 3/6.

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#036: Mega Clefable

• Types: Fairy/Flying
• Japanese names: Mega Pikushi
• Categories: Fairy

Clefable, the Fairy Pokemon, has been representing the Fairy type five generations before the type was even introduced. And so it is appropriate as we return to Kalos, the generation that introduced Fairy-types and Mega Evolutions, that we give Clefable some attention. I've always felt like Clefable needed to be part-Flying as well, since her design has some prominent spiky wings, so in one of the few typing changes in this batch of Mega Evolutions, Mega Clefable becomes a Fairy/Flying Pokemon! I like that a lot. 

Now, design-wise? I think I had a very strong reaction to Mega Clefable and how she ended up looking. The wings are okay, even if they do look like stiff plastic pieces stuck onto Mega Clefable's back. Not pictured in the artwork is an aura of glitter that surrounds Mega Clefable in the game model. But they changed Mega Clefable's pointy ears into a set of... odd details. She's now got a mound of flesh that resembles a hat, and those ears now droop down and become... pipes? The end result elicits an 'uhhh' reaction from me. It is a bit oddly irrational, I know, but that initial reaction to Mega Clefable hasn't really subsided, and I still find that new head shape odd. 

I still like the fairy wings, and I like the dex entry noting that Mega Clefable's flight is actually using moonlight to 'control gravity' within a radius around it. That's quite cool, but I just can't bring myself to like this one. 

 2/6.

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#071: Mega Victreebel

• Types: Grass/Poison
• Japanese names: Mega Utsubotto
• Categories: Flycatcher

It has been almost 30 years since Victreebel originally debuted in Pokemon Red/Blue, and while its counterpart Vileplume had gotten an alternate evolution since then, poor Victreebel is just left, for a while, as one of the first-generation Pokemon to not have any kind of alternate form or super mode of some sort. As a huge Victreebel fan, I was simultaneously excited and confused to see this Mega Evolution. 

The concept is that upon Mega Evolution, Mega Victreebel's acid is now so corrosive, powerful and numerous that Mega Victreebel needs to use his vines to wrap its own 'neck' to avoid the poison from spilling out. Didn't quite realize it until much later, but this does make it resemble an actual pitcher or gourd. During attack animations, the vines actually loosen up and Mega Victreebel belches and shrinks down as it shoots out its acid, which is cool. The leaves around him change as well, with the 'hand' leaves shrinking down and the 'head' leaf blossoming into a very pleasant trio of crown-like autumnal leaves. 

I really don't like the puffy lips, though. I find regular Victreebel's yawning mouth with the two little vampire fangs to look so cool, and they kind of warped that feature into a air of unpleasant chubby baby lips. That does bother me quite a bit. Still, while this more comedic bent isn't what I had expected for Mega Victreebel, I still can't really bring myself to dislike it. More comedic Megas are okay, and I find him okay. 

 4/6.

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#121: Mega Starmie

• Types: Water/Psychic
• Japanese names: Mega Sutami
• Categories: Mysterious

Ah, yes. The poster child of the 'why' Mega Evolutions. Mega Starmie became a very fast meme for derision and mockery, as the design really is just them stretching the front star of Starmie into a ridiculous,  human-like proportions with long legs. It looks silly, it looks goofy, I daresay it even looks stupid. I do agree on those points, especially since Starmie's original design intent has it be sharp and angular. 

But then the game comes out, and Mega Starmie is one of the mandatory boss fights... and people get to see just how ridiculous this thing is. Mega Starmie is designed to be running around like a tokusatsu suit actor, which is... most certainly a choice, but they really committed into making Mega Starmie the most ridiculous animation ever. The attack animations in the boss fight also involves Mega Starmie launching really high kicks, or charging at you with exaggerated running. I do feel like that sheer ridiculousness in animation does save Mega Starmie a fair bit, making it a lot more lovable-goofy instead of stupid-goofy. 

I am also a fan of its dex entry, in a sea of bland new mega evolution dex entries. "Its movements have become more humanlike. Whether it's simply trying to communicate or wants to supplant humanity is unclear." Supplant humanity? Hello? Starmie has always been characterized as 'maybe an alien' all the way back in Generation I, and that's a nod to the classic Japanese 50's sci-fi movie Warning from Space. Which features star-shaped aliens with a single eye in the middle... but while I agree that this is a nice lever to push for Starmie's mega evolution, I wished they had done more with it. 

That's neat. Judging Mega Starmie on its own merit, I don't think I agree with the masses that it's the stupidest mega out of this game -- it's nowhere that bad. I still don't like it, though, and any time I try to be a bit kinder to Mega Starmie, I take a look at a design like the excellent Mega Falinks as a 'joke' mega that still works as a proper design and exaggeration of the original concept. Sorry, Mega Starmie. 

 2/6. 

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#149: Mega Dragonite

• Types: Dragon/Flying
• Japanese names: Mega Kairyu
• Categories: Dragon

Dragonite getting some sort of super or alternate form is a matter of when, not if, considering that he's the original pseudo-legendary. And the design they gave Dragonite for his Mega Evolution is...  interesting. Infamous for the jarring leap from the serpentine Dratini and Dragonair into the huge, chubby mascot-like Dragonite, this Mega Evolution tries to marry Dragonite's regular anatomy and attach some traits of Dragonair into it. Most relevant to this silhouette is extending Dragonite's tail and placing one of the dragon orbs at the end. Most prominent, however, are the two gigantic angel wings that sprout from Mega Dragonite's head. 

There are other smaller, more subtle features. Dragonite's regular wings have degenerated into an adorable pair of tiny devil-wings, coloured blue. Mega Dragonite also has a bunch of additional feathers on his shoulders and at the back of his knees. I generally appreciate that the designers tried their best to combine features from Dragonair and Dragonite, not upsetting either one. The head-wings... are weird. They do most certainly stand out, and are a bit less boring than if they sprouted from the shoulderblades, but I'm not sure if the subversion works for Mega Dragonite. 

I really like the hilariously contrarian pokedex entry, noting that Mega Evolution has powered up Dragonite's feelings of kindness... leading it to finish off its opponents with mercy in its heart. Mega Dragonite's going around mercy-killing its enemies with Hyper Beams!

 4/6.

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#154: Mega Meganium

• Types: Grass/Fairy
• Japanese names: Mega Meganium
• Categories: Herb

As with its predecessor, Legends ZA has three starters plucked from older generations, and to the surprise of no one, all three of these starters got Mega Evolutions for their final forms. What is surprising, I think, is the fact that two of the three starters came from Generation II!

I always have a bit of a soft spot for Mega Meganium, who was my starter in Legends ZA, and, to be honest, the first time in 25+ years that I have truly, properly appreciated Meganium. In that aspect, Mega Meganium does the Mega Venusaur mentality of just making the flower bigger. Meganium gets a four-layered flower, all of which are coloured slightly different, and has some additional changes as well. She's got little 'flare' pants made up of leaves for her legs, and the antennae are more curled up. It's not the most elaborate design, but I appreciate it for its simplicity. 

One of the most important parts, however, is that Mega Meganium becomes a Grass/FAIRY type, a much-needed buff to the mono-typed Meganium. The dex doesn't acknowledge this in any way, instead just talking about her Solar Beam attacks... but I really like it! I genuinely don't have much to say here beyond the fact that Mega Meganium is a simple and nice upgrade to the base Meganium design. 

 5/6, could be 4. 

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#160: Mega Feraligatr

• Types: Water/Dragon
• Japanese names: Mega Odairu
• Categories: Double Jaw

TBA

Mega Feraligatr is another one that received a lot of scorn during the release dates similar to Mega Starmie, but the sentiment towards Feraligatr has died down a fair bit more as people began to appreciate its animations. Which... which doesn't make Mega Feraligatr's default pose (in both the art and game) any less stupid. People have unfavourably -- but understandably -- copmared that giant hood to a toilet seat, and it does look like one. 

The main gimmick here is that Mega Feraligatr will swing that giant fang down and it's actually the upper half of a fake large Totodile head. Feraligator then interlocks his arms together, and those red spikes on his arms form the lower jaw's 'teeth'. It's something that looks a lot better when animated smoothly, but ends up just looking very goofy in a static, non-transformed image. I'm not sure if this is something that's practical in terms of speculative biology, but apparently it gives Mega Feraligatr 10 times the biting strength. The Totodile head is also apparently an organ to dissipate excess Mega Evolution energy? ...sure? 

I do really like the general tightening up of the details on Feraligatr's body. The addition of a bunch of red and dark blue really does make the design feel like it's a lot less bland. Most importantly, though, just like his Johto friend, Mega Feraligatr gets a secondary typing -- Dragon. Which... crocodiles are kinda draconic? Again, the dex entry is frustratingly unhelpful with explaining any of these, but I am very happy that the Johto starters got some spotlight, and it just took them two sets of spinoff games to get alternate forms. This does mean that poor Typhlosion is missing out on the new power surge of having a Mega Evolution as opposed to a differently-typed regional form, but that's what he gets for debuting before his two siblings. 

 3/6.

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#227: Mega Skarmory

• Types: Steel/Flying
• Japanese names: Mega Eamudo
• Categories: Armor Bird

Mega Skarmory! Skarmory is always a Pokemon that I felt was super cool despite its relatively simple concept. It's just a steel bird whose feathers are metal blades! Mega Skarmory takes this concept and makes it even cooler, by gilding Skarmory up in bright gold. The gold and black colour scheme looks genuinely impressive, and Mega Skarmory has gotten a bit more feather-blades jutting out from the back of his head. 

Mega Skarmory's most prominent features, however, are his talons, which has extended a lot. There are actually birds like the Jacana who have super-long talons disproportionate to the rest of their legs, but they are waterfowls while Skarmory is meant to be mostly based on birds of prey. I can't say I dislike it, though! The fact that it's not just a lengthening of its regular talons, but also adding a second set under it? It's weird enough but also makes sense, I feel, because this is a temporary super-form meant to quickly take down an enemy before Mega Skarmory reverts back to its original form. 

This one grew on me a lot, particularly the talons. There is also a 'Gold and Silver' joke there somewhere, too, considering those were the games that Skarmory originally debuted in. 

 5/6.

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#358: Mega Chimecho

• Types: Psychic/Steel
• Japanese names: Mega Chiirin
• Categories: Wind Chime

Mega Chimecho is another one that debuted in the DLC, and it's... an interesting one. The main body of Chimecho is still retained, but the little golden metal part on Chimecho's head has expanded into a massive frame -- essentially having the look of a Chingling. The golden frame looks like the Chingling's body, and we even get the two giant ribbons on top. And hanging from the golden frame are six smaller wind-chimes that look like smaller Chimecho. It's an interesting look, and alongside Mega Raichu, Mega Feraligatr and Mega Dragonite, we're starting to see a bunch of mega evolutions that are visually referencing their pre-evolved forms. That is interesting. 

Mega Chimecho is a Psychic/Steel dual-type now, which makes a lot of sense considering the giant metal frame around it. Very happy to see more type changes. Mega Chimecho has the ability to vibrate its whole body to attack in multiple directions using sound waves, and the sound waves confuses anyone who hears it so much that they get amnesia. It's a cool little ability, and apparently based on the legends around the shakujo staffs whose ringing noises can ward off evil spirits. Adding to the slight creepy vibes around Mega Chimecho, the mini-Chimechos will move around even if there isn't wind. 

Did not expect Chimecho to get a mega evolution, but very happy that it did! I wasn't feeling this mega too much, but it has definitely grown on me. 

 4/6.

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#358: Mega Absol Z

• Types: Dark/Ghost
• Japanese names: Mega Abusoru
• Categories: Disaster

Oh yeah. You know, I like my subversions... but sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade. And you have to call a cool, sick-ass design a cool, sick-ass design. Mega Absol gets a Z Mega Evolution, which is a small group of alternate mega evolutions introduced in the DLC that has a shorter duration but a higher increase in stats. I'm not sure how this will be translated to the mainline games, but I definitely like it. 

And Absol, of all Pokemon, ends up being the first Z-Mega we get... and probably the only Z-Mega you get for the majority of the playthrough. While regular Mega Absol is a nice subversion of the emo, edgy vibe of regular Absol and goes for a more angelic look, Mega Absol Z dispenses with all pretenses and turns itself jet-black, has his head-horn turn jagged, his hair all shaggy and emo, and his claws all pointy. Most importantly, instead of two angelic wings, Mega Absol Z has a gigantic, single wing with its tips ending up in red, and the wing looks like a claw and acts like a claw. Of course. To top it off, Mega Absol Z gets to become Dark/Ghost. 

It's so edgy. It's so cool in all the best ways, and I think Mega Absol Z is explicitly enhanced because regular Mega Absol exists. The contrast is cool! Mega Absol Z's giant wing-claw is noted to be sharp, twisted fur similar to Grimmsnarl, which I thought was interesting. I really love the dex entry having a very emo final line about how Mega Absol Z's strikes are 'acts of kindness to keep [foes] from suffering'. I unironically like this. 

 6/6.

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#398: Mega Staraptor

• Types: Fighting/Flying
• Japanese names: Mega Mukuhoku
• Categories: Predator

Oh, okay! Staraptor gets a mega evolution in the DLC, and I also appreciate that they embraced everything about regular Staraptor and enhanced it. Its pompadour has become even more pronounced, which is expected, but I think the vibe of Staraptor is particularly enhanced by the plumage around his head and 'beard', as well as his chest. Honestly, regular Staraptor suffered a bit from the Gen III-IV art style favouring a lot of sharp, angular shapes, and Mega Staraptor's more natural-looking feathers really does make it look much more imposing. A huge fan of the detailing around its talons and tail as well. Mega Staraptor's main colours also change from a darker gray to a light gray, which works very well? I'm not sure why, but I think it's just because it works better with the red hair accents, the white secondary colours, and the random bits of yellow it gets. 

Mega Staraptor also gets a type change, going into Flying/FIGHTING, which is a type change that is undoubtedly because Staraptor was notorious in its debut generation for working particularly well with Close Combat. The general design of Mega Staraptor is still essentially just a bird and doesn't 'scream' Fighting-type to me, so this typing is a bit more because of the fandom reputation more than anything. Not the biggest fan of that, but I guess the pompadour kind of gives the impression of a scrapper? 

Mega Staraptor is a top-class flier. It can easily soar through the sky while gripping a Steelix that weighs more than 880 lbs.

 4/6.

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#445: Mega Garchomp Z

• Types: Dragon
• Japanese names: Mega Gaburiasu Z
• Categories: Mach

Garchomp also gets a Z-Mega-Evolution, which at the time of writing is only available from limited-season online play (which is a whole rant I won't get into here) and it feels like Mega Charizard Y in that parts of the design evokes the regular Garchomp a lot more than how regular Mega Garchomp looks. Mostly, it's the head. Mega Garchomp Z gains a pair of jet-wings, but otherwise keeps the silhouette of the head. Mega Garchomp Z's arms have also turned into a pair of scythe-blades, but these look a lot more aerodynamic, with tooth-like spikes on the outer side of the wings. There are also a bunch of minor differences in yellow highlights and the positioning of the smaller fins, but otherwise it's a neat little variation. 

Most importantly, Mega Garchomp Z actually becomes a pure Dragon-type, which again feels more of a gameplay thing than a flavour thing. The game communicates this -- barely -- by having Mega Garchomp Z constantly floating above the ground in all its animations. Nothing in Mega Garchomp Z's anatomy would indicate why this is happening, and it's not like Mega Garchomp Z has gained the Flying ability. It's a very gameplay-driven change (both Dragon/Ground and Dragon/Flying would have a 4x weakness to Ice) and unlike Mega Staraptor, I find there to be a less in-universe justification to this choice. 

I don't have much to say about it because at the end of the day it's just a variation on the Garchomp design, but the Garchomp design is really cool so I can't really complain. 

 4/6.

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#448: Mega Lucario Z

• Types: Fighting/Steel
• Japanese names: Mega Rukario Z
• Categories: Aura 

Yeah, I don't like him. I'm not the biggest Lucario fan, but I really do find that Mega Lucario fixes a lot of the visual aspects of regular Lucario that I'm not the biggest fan of. Due to the Lucario-using Korrina being a major character in Mega Dimensions, we get a Z-Mega-Evolution for Lucario... and it's a lot. 

Using the shiny colours is neat, and having a 'graceful dancer' version to conceptually contrast the 'bloodstained berserker' of regular Mega Lucario is neat. But the execution... I'm not a huge fan of. There's just so much going on here that the design looks messy, and a lot of it has to do with how many things sprouting out of Mega Lucario Z's head. He's got his regular ears, two long hair-fringes, and two giant ponytails that have three colours, are shaped like odd blobs, and with a zigzag pattern... I really don't get what they're going for with the larger ponytails, I really don't. And that's without adding the extra bit of yellow 'skirt' fur, and Mega Lucario Z's tail becoming a shark tail randomly? 

I don't know. I don't like this one all that much.

 1/6.

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#478: Mega Froslass

• Types: Ice/Ghost
• Japanese names: Mega Yukimenoko
• Categories: Snow Land

Glalie got a Mega Evolution all the way back in Generation VI. It took more than a decade, but his sister Froslass joins him in getting a Mega Evolution, and it's a very cool design. Still remaining Ice/Ghost, Mega Froslass goes full-in on the yuki-onna theme, extending its original body and arms down to form a proper slender body and long, tapering arms. I love how slender the arms are as well, and how they extend from the 'monster head'. Mega Froslass also has extended part of its head to form a huge chunk that resemble hair, and tops off the bibe with a pair of icy devil horns. 

I like this design quite a bit, and particularly the simple but effective kimono-like details on the bottom of her skirt. Also love the mass of snow that sprouts out from under that 'dress'. Lest we forget, regular Froslass's 'body' doesn't actually contain anything humanoid under it, so presumably all that slender body is just filled with snow. Mega Froslass's ghostly ice powers have grown so powerful that she can freeze even insubstantial things like flame or wind... which is something a lot of Pokemon are shown doing in the anime or manga due to, well, anime logic. But Mega Froslass has it as a special ability, apparently. 

Pretty neat design! No real notes from me, it's a great expansion of the yuki-onna inspiration for sure while still keeping it distinctly feeling like a Pokemon. 

 5/6

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#485: Mega Heatran

• Types: Fire/Steel
• Japanese names: Mega Hidoran
• Categories: Lava Dome

A lot of people don't like Mega Heatran because it's 'ugly', but for me, this fixes one of the major problems with what's easily the most boring legendary Pokemon from Generation IV. Spotlighted quite heavily in the DLC due to an in-joke thanks to an urban legend about Heatran being available in Lumiose City in Pokemon XY, this mega evolution of Heatran is a well-executed design, looking like Heatran has finally cut loose and become a primal elemental being that is out of control. 

The original Heatran design was unimpressive to me due to the odd, teardrop-shaped body and the random rice-crispies-like details that are the DS spriting team's attempt to depict different colours of slag. Mega Heatran does away with all of that, giving us a body that is entirely made up of molten metal slag, and a giant over-bloated frog-like throat sac. Mega Heatran's mouth is now expanded into an always-open cannon with the teeth of its lower jaw bordering this hole. Metal vents on his back eject smoke, and Mega Heatran's two remaining legs drag it around the battlefield. 

This design really feels like a legendary Pokemon unshackled, its sheer power actually melting its body with how hot it is... but it's still functional and moving around. An out-of-control legendary walking volcano is a lot more impressive than the original Heatran, that's for sure. 

 6/6.

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#491: Mega Darkrai

• Types: Dark
• Japanese names: Mega Dakurai
• Categories: Bad Dreams

Acting as the final villain of the DLC story is Mega Darkrai, who was exposed to a particularly high concentration of mega energy and ended up causing a massive dream-dimension that is... very poorly handwaved and explained by the game script. But suffice to say that Mega Darkrai is powerful enough to warp reality itself.

Its design is... an odd choice, and not one that I'm sure I like. The main silhouette isn't a spectral ghost-man anymore, but a huge... spaceship? With tendrils trailing behind, and two on either side as 'wings'. When Mega Darkrai first transforms, we actually get a really cool eyeball marking made with bright pink colours, but then Darkrai's regular head glorps out of the eye, with its normal form's collar acting almost like a 'bud'. This is... most certainly a choice. I don't dislike it, it looks creepy and weird in all the ways that a nightmare should be. And a lot of Mega Darkrai's animations revolve around the creepiness of this head, which can retract and extend like a turtle's head. Only more...  fleshier. It's a neat feature.

I respect what they are doing here, trying to make Mega Darkrai a weird boss fight the same way they did with Eternamax Eternatus. But I'm a lot less a big of a fan about this weird shadow-blob spaceship. Maybe if it was more obviously wraith-like, or more tentacle-like, or if they committed and made Mega Darkrai a proper eyeball monster? I don't know. They most certainly tried with this one, and I don't dislike it... but I don't think I like it either.  

 3/6.

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#500: Mega Emboar

• Types: Fire/Fighting
• Japanese names: Mega Enbuoh
• Categories: Mega Fire Pig

I think I've gone on record on saying that I don't hate Emboar's design, but it is one of those designs that looks very... toy-etic to me, like it doesn't look like a proper organic living creature but more of a bunch of cylinders connected together. Mega Emboar fixes this a bit, by giving it more 'regular' animal-man proportions, but it also does make the design of Mega Emboar a bit too busy. 

I do like the head and the giant shoulder-chest cape of fire, as well as the fire 'rake' -- it looks a bit terrible in the artwork due to having a different shading compared to the chest fire, but it looks good in its in-game model. The general vibe is to make Mega Emboar a bit closer to its Zhu Bajie inspiration, which I appreciate. This translates a bit to Mega Emboar's personality, where it's a lot more hotheaded thanks to the excess mega energy, but it's still ultimately duty-bound. 

However, I think the aspect of Mega Emboar that makes me not like it as much is the random pinkish shade of red that appears on his 'pants', and on the rings around both his arms and legs. That's just one neon detail that I really didn't like at all and makes the whole design look a bit too messy. I get that the colour was there on the original Emboar, but it was more subdued and less... messy. At the end of the day, I'm not sure I like it more than regular Emboar, which looks a bit less natural to me but more cohesive, if that makes sense? 

 3/6.

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#530: Mega Excadrill

• Types: Ground/Steel
• Japanese names: Mega Doryuzu
• Categories: Subterrene

I get what they're going for here. Excadrill was a mole with metal parts that can transform into a spinning drill, so Mega Excadrill turns into a bigger drill. I like the spirit of the concept, even, changing the metal parts of Excadrill's arms and head into one-thirds of the drill shape. The animations are even kind of neat any time Mega Excadrill clamps together and spins around at the enemy. I even like the rusty/bloody red rings around the larger drill structure.  

In execution, though, Mega Excadrill... doesn't really work all that well for me. I'm not sure which parts bother me the most. Is it the fact that he's lost his fingers, and only has a half-melded thumb 'sculpted' into the inner side of his hands? Is it the random triangle on his chest? No, I think what bothers me the most is how Mega Excadrill's face just looks a lot more goofier and 'detached' from the large drill-horn, compared to the original Excadrill. The shortened neck and posture doesn't really help, either. 

Ultimately, though, I like the spirit of what they are going for here, and had the details and execution been a bit better I'd love this one, but as it is, Mega Excadrill just looks awkward to me. 

 3/6, leaning on 2.

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#545: Mega Scolipede

• Types: Bug/Poison
• Japanese names: Mega Pendora
• Categories: Megapede

Ohh? OHHH!!!! Look at how cool my boy is now. Scolipede always had a 'centaur centipede' vibe to it, and they leaned on that concept by giving the 'knight' part of Scolipede a set of armour. And not just a set of armour, it's a set of armour based on its armoured pre-evolution, Whirlipede. It's a lot more subtle than the more blatant Mega Feraligatr and Mega Chimecho, woo, which is much appreciated. We've got the colours and the more rounded features of Whirlipede acting as a 'breastplate' and a set of almost plate-like coverings. I like that this even covers Mega Scolipede's head section, and the additional black and teal markings make it look cool. 

But that's not all, because unlike Mega Meganium, Mega Scolipede's main body als changes There are teal neon lines running around both the armour and the inner body, but most vivid are the fact that the two 'antennae' on both ends have been transformed into really mean-looking dagger-like blades, with purple markings and two bright-green extensions on the front horns.

This wasn't what I expected from a Mega Scolipede, but I was very happy with the result. Maybe the teal highlights making Scolipede a bit more 'Tron'-y than I would've liked is one minor avenue of complaint, but it's such a cool palette at the end of the day that I can't really be actually mad at it. The dex notes that the teal glow is actually caused by the deadliness of Mega Scolipede's poison. Because everyone knows, the deadlier poison is, the more it glows. This poison also affects Mega Scolipede's mind, making it even more vicious. 

 6/6.

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#560: Mega Scrafty

• Types: Dark/Fighting
• Japanese names: Mega Zuruzukin
• Categories: Hoodlum

On paper, I like this design. White contrasts very nicely against Scrafty's orange and red details, as well as compared to regular Scrafty's yellow 'hoodie'. Being deathly white with actual tears and eyeholes makes it a lot more obvious that Mega Scrafty is wearing its own shed skin. 

That said... it really doesn't look like a mega evolution, does it? It doesn't even look like an evolution, but rather just an alternate form. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was introduced to me as an alternate regional form of Scrafty, or something similar to the various Wormadam or Castform forms. So while I do like this design -- and I like it more than regular Scrafty -- it gets some points deducted in my heart for not changing much. 

 4/6.

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#604: Mega Eelektross

• Types: Electric
• Japanese names: Mega Shibirudon
• Categories: EleFish

  

Eelektross is a personal favourite from Generation V, being a badass floating electric-eel-lamprey. And its mega evolution is... interesting, I'll give you that. Eelektross's main body has gotten a bit more extra details to freshen it up, but the most important part are the two arms, which end in additional ghostly-white Eelektrik. Mega Eelektross's tail is also covered in the same white, ghostly substance. And... well, trying to avoid the obvious crude jokes, the dex notes that the 'false Eelektrik' are made of mucus. Which means that we're adapting the defense mechanism of a completely different eel-like fish, the hagfish. Hagfishes are relatives of the lamprey that Eelektross is based on, which eject mucus to gunk up predator gills as a self-defense mechanism. 

And that's cool, even if a bit unexpected. Not seen in the static image is that the jaws of the false Eelektrik actually alternate between a 'plus' and 'minus' symbol, a neat nod to electrical currents... but it's also a nice bonus that both jaw formations also resemble actual proper jaws. The promotional website calls these two false heads 'Eeleftrik' and 'Eerightrik'. Okay. Eelektross is a Pokemon that has alternately been depicted as floating above the ground or waddling on the floor with its ventral fins as feet, but in its mega form, it can hover above the ground essentially indefinitely. 

There's also an additional reference of the koinobori, the koi-shaped windsocks, especially with how Mega Eelektross will spin around and move with all three eel-bodies arranged vertically in some of its attack animations. The end result is a rather creative design that I was a bit iffy about, but have definitely warmed up to a lot across playing the game. 

 5/6, could be 4/6.

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#609: Mega Chandelure

• Types: Ghost/Fire
• Japanese names: Mega Shandera
• Categories: Luring

I am a huge, huge Chandelure fan. And Mega Chandelure going into a more elaborate chandelier is... expected. What else could he mega-evolve into? We get a second layer of those curled-up candles; a crown-like upper piece, and a hanging crystal below Mega Chandelure. It's just over-the-top enough and still retains the essence of what Chandelure's original design is. Not the most clever, and kind of safe, but compared to some of the more experimental megas, I was happy to get a simple one for Mega Chandelure here.

There is interesting lore, though, which pushes Mega Chandelure's place in my heart. Interesting lore in dex entries is such a rarity in modern games with their minimalistic dex entries. Pointing out something that could be handwaved as just shading, the dex notes that Mega Chandelure has two different eyes. Mega Chandelure's right eye is yellow like the regular specimen, but the right eye has glossed over and turned transparent, showing the flames inside. This eye 'is a window linking our world with the afterlife', and it allows Mega Chandelure to draw in hatred and convert it into power. That's simple, but that's cool!

Again, it is a bit of a bias since I really do like Chandelure quite a bit, but I feel the combination of the visual exaggeration and the edgy 'my hidden eye is the gateway to hell' vibes from the dex entry makes me like this form quite a bit.

 5/6.

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#623: Mega Golurk

• Types: Ground/Ghost
• Japanese names: Mega Gorugu
• Categories: Automaton

We open up with Mega Golurk, a personal favourite as well as it actually builds up on lore from Golurk's Pokedex entry about how it has mysterious power sealed within it that the band-aid-like seal is holding within. With Mega Evolution, all that energy leaks out, and you can actually see the position of the band-aid seal having moved to the center. The dex notes that 'the Pokemon could explode at any moment'. Scary!

The design keeps almost all of Golurk's regular golem anatomy intact, but swirling glowing energy constructs surround Golurk like an anime power-up. In the game engine, it's actually translucent and glowing, which is normally not an effect I'm overly fond of, but it most certainly fits the idea of energy pouring out of the Pokemon's body. The energy most vividly takes the form of a swirling 'X' around Mega Golurk's torso, and two gigantic butterfly wings. I like that it curls up into more sinister purple spiky energy at the top. Also a bit more subtly, the bands around Golurk's arms and legs are glowing with the same yellow energy, and the runes, in fact, do not glow. It's like the energy has moved from being stored within Golurk's body to outside of it, enhancing its attacking powers. 

I really like this one! I've heard people not really being taken with Mega Golurk because perhaps they expected a bit more out of it, but I see Mega Golurk as being similar to Mega Banette, a nice little payoff to creepy dex entries translated into a super form. 

 6/6.