The final part of my coverage of Pokemon designs in both Generation VIII and as a whole for the foreseeable future! The future's uncertain, and whether Nintendo will pull another Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and add Pokemon #891 onward in a hypothetical third game in the generation is up for speculation, or if we're jumping straight into Generation IX after this. Hopefully after they take a break and actually get a big enough team to make the huge large-scope game that they originally promised and clearly wanted to make.
This was originally split into two parts, with the fossils through legendaries on a single page... but I completely forgot that this generation had very little legendaries. I then slapped the non-Galar Gigantamax forms alongside the legendaries... but the resulting article still felt too short, and felt like it sort of wasn't the most ideal one, so I moved all the Gigantamax forms into that Obstagoon-to-Runerigus article so all the regional forms and Gigantamax forms are in the same place. Let's just say that this generation took a bit of shuffling around to make it feel really good.
Still, overall this generation has been pretty dang great. I'm way too lazy to do the statistics myself to rank the generations against each other (or to figure out how to separate the scores for evolutionary families or members that debuted in other generations or whatever) but I'm pretty sure Generation VIII has a fair amount of designs that I like and love.
Click here for the previous part.
Click here for the next part, covering the DLC designs.
Click here for the index.
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#868-869: Milcery, Alcremie & Gigantamax Alcremie
Pokemon is a game that caters to as many subsets of fans of monsters out there, so for every extremely anthropomorphized humanoid animals like your Inteleons and Zeraoras, there's someone out there who likes references to real-life obscure weird animals (me), there's someone out there who really likes cute Pokemon that resemble foodstuff. Okay, then! Continuing a trend with Swirlix, Milcery is a pure-Fairy little blob of cream that looks like a baby-stage Digimon, just a cute little blob with a crown that looks like someone's splashing the cream, an adorable face and cute little nub-arms. The Sugimori artwork doesn't really do it justice and makes Milcery look kinda dull, but I do really like its in-game 3D model bouncing around that little dollop of cream across its horns. Milcery is noted to be born out of sweet-smelling particles in the air, making it sort of like, a sweetness-elemental or something? Milcery is apparently like a helper fairy in patisseries and restaurants, and in the game they show up in Cafes, presumably being able to produce non-living cream from their body. Hopefully, unlike Kingler, they don't get turned into human food in this region!
Milcery's claim to fame is how you evolve her to her final form, Alcremie, which is by making her hold a little item -- one of seven possible sweets, and then your character has to spin around. That doesn't mean that there are seven possible forms, however -- there are SIXTY, as this guide shows. The held decoration will swap out Alcremie's eye colour and 'hair' decorations, while just how you spin around determines the colour of Alcremie's body. The direction you spin your Milcery, the time of day, the length of time that you spin... this means that there's nine separate Alcremie body variations (vanilla, ruby, matcha, mint, lemon, salted, ruby swirl, caramel swirl, rainbow swirl). A lot of Alcremies to collect! And you thought Vivillon and Unown were reaching it with alternate forms! The Pokedex even gives some explanations for this, noting that this is caused by the "cells that compose its cream spontaneously shifting during evolution".
The sheer absurdity of this and the fact that you quite literally spin around unprocessed cream to make whipped cream is hilarious, and Alcremie herself is... a pretty cute humanoid dollop of whipped cream. It's not particularly innovative and would've been forgettable if not for the hilariously large amount of forms. Alcremie and Milcrey are one of those species that's 100% female for no real reason. Anyway, depending on your Alcremie base, they secrete different tasting cream and sweets. S'neat.
Alcremie gets a Gigantamax form and it transforms into a giant wedding cake, which understandably only comes in a single variant -- it's all of the colours, after all! I do really love just how the 'real' Alcremie body is actually situated on the top of the whole thing like a cake topper, and how among the giant building-sized dragons and dinosaurs and general giant monsters, one of these mighty kaiju is a fucking cake. That's just glorious. Apparently Giga Alcremie produces a whole load of cream that hardens upon impact, which makes it, uh... cake lava or something? One of the dex entries insists that Giga Alcremie launches swarms of cream missiles, each of them "loaded with 100,000 kilocalories" that will "make your head swim". That's a gloriously goofy little description.
Anyway, Milcery and Alcremie aren't my favourite designs from the region. They're all right, but like Wooloo and Nickit, they just feel that they're lacking a bit of an oomph, and the three dozen Alcremie variants ain't it.
3/6. #870: Falinks
Falinks is a Pokemon that you really need to see in the game to really appreciate. Initially appearing to be a long old-school-game segmented worm in the vein of 2D Zelda's Moldorms or Lanmolas, particularly when you see how its default sprite looks, they sort of weave in and out of little tunnels in the ground. And then you fight them and the two giant concentric bug-eyes move around to reveal that they're actually spike shields concealing the most adorable little set of glowing eyes inside a void of darkness, and what I thought was a long, segmented worm turns out to be five little chibi troopers with stumpy legs, little mohawks and tiny little shields they wave around. It's adorable, and I've always thought that actually trying to the 'colony organism' concept that Exeggcute is based on is a neat basis that Exeggcute doesn't really capitalize on that much. Falinks is a straight-up five-man phalanx of little buddies that function as a single Pokemon led by the 'Brass', the head Falinks with the fancier head gear and shields that can make fake worm-eyes. Honestly, just making it a worm or a colony organism alone isn't going to be super-interesting, neither is making a "squad of troopers" Pokemon that interesting, but the combination of the two has resulted in easily one of the more memorable designs in the region.
Falinks is pure-Fighting, and he does have a neat self-buff move called "No Retreat", but I kinda wished they had given him something a bit more unique. Fighting/Steel, because he's got those shields? Fighting/Bug, since it pretends to be a worm? Not a huge complaint, though. Falinks is a creature that works pretty dang well conceptually, and while in-game we don't see actual stat-changes outside of the move No Retreat, the idea that these five boys can just swap out their strategy based on their formation is pretty dang neat. You'd think this is the Pokemon that Nintendo would give 60 different forms to.
Anyway, Falinks is great. I love Falinks. They are a bunch of cute little buddies, and is easily one of the cutest and most adorable thing to come out of this generation.
4/6, could be a 5/6.#871: Pincurchin
Pincurchin is another single-stager out there, and everyone keeps being confused why this isn't a 'regional Pyukumuku'. They're completely different! Pyukumuku's a sea cucumber, and Pincurchin's a sea urchin! They're different sorts of echinoderms! One looks like a turd and spits out its innards, and the other has spikes! Pincurchin's kind of an interesting sea urchin, least of all the fact that it isn't even water-type, but is pure electric, joining the likes of Stunfisk, Inkay, Eelektross and Grapploct in being creatures that are based on aquatic life that apparently isn't aquatic. I guess it's meant to represent the stinging, burning sensation when you get stabbed by a sea urchin? It's a relatively simple design and I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this be a hazard enemy in like Mario or Zelda or Mega-Man or something, but I'm genuinely not sure why he has a butt for a mouth. Most sea urchins have like these tiny toothy jaws! The dex notes that just like real seaweed, Pincurchins feed on seaweed, and otherwise just talks about how its spines emit electric current.
A solid design, and I've sort of had 'sea urchin' on my 'man I wish they made an Pokemon out of this animal'... and I guess I just sort of expected more? Pincurchin's neat for what it is, but considering how spoiled I was by how creative the past two regions were with their marine-based Pokemon, Pincurchin's just sort of there.
3/6, could be a 2/6.#872-873: Snom & Frosmoth
While Falinks and Milcery and Sobble might be cute, everyone's darling in this generation, like Joltik three generations back, is the amazingly named Snom. A fat grub with little dot eyes and two fat lumpy mouth-parts, with its fat grub baby being encased with spiky ice, Snom is an adorable little grub baby, and you can clearly see both in the official art and the 3D model that Snom's real body is the white grub body, whereas the spiky ice bits are all generated from it. Any entomology fan would easily identify Snom as a neat homage to jewel caterpillars of the family Dalceridae, a group of moths well-known for having caterpillars that cover themselves with visually stunning gelatinous covering that resemble a coat of spikes. Except instead of translucent gel, Snom covers herself with ice! Real-world Dalceridae caterpillars don't actually use the stunning display as a warning that they're poisonous, but rather as a distraction. Predators like ants are actually repelled by the stickiness of the gelatinous covering, while larger predators like wasps go for the spiky projections instead of the caterpillar's main body.
I do appreciate that Snom still manages to go full-in on the 'adorable' look instead of just copying its base animal and going for a pretty, colourful one -- and there's nothing wrong with that, but I do really like how much it ties in into Snom's own concept as an ice monster. Apparently Snom even disguises itself as an icicle with its little ice jacket! Snom's adorable. Just look at that face.
Instead of going through the traditional caterpillar/cocoon/adult stage for most Lepidopterans, Snom joins the small club of Venonat and Larvesta in just going straight into its adult moth stage through some neat happiness evolution. Thanks to this game's mechanics, it means you have to play fetch with your Snom (who moves so slowly but looks so pleased when it brings the ball back) and feed it curry (Snom eats around three times as much as your player, which is accurate to how much food real-life caterpillars eat relative to their size).
Eventually Snom evolves into the gorgeous Frosmoth, and one of my older articles in this site did talk about how a potential Bug/Ice Pokemon would probably draw from Gynaephora, a genus of Arctic-dwelling moths thematically, but instead of being dull-coloured like their real-life inspiration, Frosmoth is ice-themed! I do love just how chunky its center body is, like a person wrapped up in thick winter clothing, a neat exaggeration of how fluffy some moths can be -- and in Frosmoth's attack animations, we can see that the massive shawl does hide a bunch of bug legs within. Also a huge fan of her wings, which look like it's actually patterned and cut out of fabric. Also, while Snom eats a whole ton, just like many real-life moths and butterflies, Frosmoth only eats a teeny-tiny little spoonful. Frosmoth's massive antennae as well as its glorious eyelashes are a neat homage to how pretty moth antennae can be. It's a pretty cool ice moth critter, and while it's fragile as all hell it didn't stop me from using one on my team. Frosmoth's a pretty cool moth that goes for a completely different way to convey how a cool bug looks like, although Snom's a lot more memorable.
6/6.#874: Stonjurner
Yeah, this one's weird. It's a Pokemon based on the Stonehenge, and it's literally just a bunch of rocks arranged into the vague form of the Stonehenge with a bunch of cubical rocks slapped on as its crude arms, and a cartoon face drawn in. Okay? It's got a really weird-looking set of proportions, and judging by how it shifts around when it enters a battle, it tends to spend its time as a pile of rocks that unfolds into this bizarre long-leg-rock man form. Yet its lower-legs are the only ones covered with dirt? I dunno. Stonjurner's got a couple of interesting points in its dex entry. It delivers great kicks (of course), it likes to stand in grasslands to observe the sun, and once a year the Stonjurner gather together around to make a massive circle. And you'd think this would have something to do with... with something enigmatic, but I feel like Stonjurner is one of the most poorly-utilized Pokemon out there in the game -- the game has an area, Turffield City, where the city has such a neat point of "standing stones used to be here, there's a massive geoglyph and it's the Stonehenge equivalent in the Pokemon world" but Stonjurner isn't even mentioned or involved in any way, it's a version-exclusive rare encounter in some random icy mountain, and very few trainers in the game use it. It looks so weird and has such weird lore that I do hope that some piece of fiction, whether it be the anime or the Adventure manga would find something to do with Stonjurner, but otherwise it's just this bizarre looking anomaly that looks pretty out of place next to many of the other Pokemon. I don't hate it, but I sure don't like it.
1/6.#875: Eiscue
We've had a penguin pokemon line in the past with Piplup, and we've had the arguably-not-a-penguin Delibird, and Eiscue is a new pure-Ice penguin. It's, uh... it's one of the weirder, goofier attempts at a Pokemon gimmick Pokemon's done in a long while, and I'm not a big fan. Eiscue's default form, "Ice face", is basically just a straight-up penguin with a gigantic ice cube with a bird face carved on it. And a weird looking antenna for some reason. Apparently it drifts around on the flow of ocean, which is a neat mental image, at least, and apparently that single strand of hair is, uh, a fishing line? Okay. Not a big fan.
The extra form happens if Eiscue is hit with an attack that breaks its ice-cube face, revealing its utterly weird looking face underneath, known as the "Nice" face... or, in the English localization, the admittedly hilariously tacky sounding "NOICE", get it? 'Noice', 'no ice'? Anyway, the Pokedex notes that Noice form has a worried face that people likes, and that the hair somehow causes water to freeze around the head if it has something on its mind. A bizarre concept for sure, but I'm definitely not a fan of how the actual designs ended up being. It's not terrible, but it's just... it's sort of there, y'know? I'm not a big fan of the Noice form face, or the weird single strand of hair. I just don't like this one. I just find it bizarre, and for the longest time I debated giving it a 0/6.
1/6, almost 0/6.#876: Indeedee
Do we have enough of these "medic" style Pokemon like Chansey and Audino and Comfey to actually call it a trope like 'early bug' and 'early bird' and 'pseudo legendary' and whatnot? Because Indeedee is yet another single-stage, non-evolving Pokemon with a movepool that's vaguely centered around defensive and healing moves, but doesn't quite commit to it. Indeedee is a Normal/Psychic dual-type that has different appearances, stats and learnsets depending on the gender -- but unlike Volbeat/Illumise and the Nidorans, they still share the same Dex slot. Okay, then. As far as I can tell they're just generic humanoid creatures that are modeled more towards an occupation -- the male Indeedee is meant to be a butler, valet or waiter, and the female Indeedee is meant to be a maid or housekeeper. Which I suppose is sort of British-inspired, but it's not a concept that strikes me and they really don't do much with Indeedee other than have it show up in restaurants and Pokemon Centers and stuff.
The dex gives both male and female Indeedee different lore. Basically both versions of Indeedee use their fluffy hair-horn things to detect the emotions of those aroud them and share feelings, and some of the dex entries imply that they feed on positive emotions which is why they so readily commit to manservant tasks in order to get high on the happy feelings that humans give out. S'kinda weird, and I won't lie, and while I won't be ranting about being 'offended' or 'enraged'... I'm just a wee bit skeeved out on the concept of a Pokemon whose whole deal is that "it's a servant". The rather explicit gender dimorphism based on human culture isn't helping either. Taking all of that away... and Indeedee's still a pretty boring design all around. I don't hate it, and at least it picks a different colour than a shade of pink for a 'healer' Pokemon... but like Eiscue, this is another one I very nearly gave a 0 score to.
1/6 teetering on 0.#877: Morpeko
Our Pikachu clone this generation also doubles as our premiere Electric/Dark typing, and it's... it's a weird one to debut this typing on? Regular Morpeko's kind of charming if forgettable, with a neat set of colouration that's split in half, like Two-Face or Malekith in PIkachu form or something. It also apparently has literal pouches where it stores foods, which isn't super exciting but still kind of neat. Apparently, Morpeko uses its storage of food to both satiate its hunger and also to fuel its electricity generating organs... but because of this, it keeps getting hungry again and again. Based on its colouration, I guess it's a guinea pig? Or a marmot, based on its name? They are hungry, mean little bastards that also look cute, so I guess it fits for Morpeko's inspiration?
Which means it alternates between the happy-looking yellow Morpeko into the purple-and-black one with glowing red eyes, which looks a lot more cohesive, I feel, and that supposedly 'evil' face is still pretty adorable. The pokedex insists that this one is up to all sorts of 'evil deeds', but we're assuming this is more 'mess up your garden' sort of evil as opposed to 'slit people's throat in the night'. This "Hangry" (groan) mode doesn't really change anything, it's not a type change or stat change, and the only thing this affects is the typing of Morpeko's signature move Aura Wheel, which is electric-type when it's in regular mode and dark-type in hangry mode. Anyway, Morpeko's kinda neat, and has a bit more going on for him than Dedenne and Togedemaru.
3/6.#878-879: Cufant, Copperajah & Gigantamax Copperajah
Taking the slot as being the first Generation VIII Pokemon you actually see in-game, Cufant is a cute adorable little elephant with tiny legs and a long trunk ending in a shovel-like shape with a cute little orange-and-dark-green colouration. It has all the hilarious awkwardness of what an elephant baby looks like and I love it. It's called the "copperderm" pokemon, and it's an elephant made entirely out of copper, I guess, because both Cufant and its evolution Copperajah are pure-Steel types. We've had elephant Pokemon before (the Phanpy line and Mamoswine, arguably), but Phanpy and Donphan are highly stylized and Mamoswine's, well, a mammoth-boar thing. It's neat that elephant fans finally have an elephant Pokemon that actually looks like a proper elephant. Cufant's neat, even if I really don't have much to say about it beyond that it's cute. I do like the little detail that Cufant's copper body becomes vibrant green in the rain, just like real copper ions.
Cufant evolves into Copperajah, which is, uh... it's a very boxy elephant. From the shape of its body and its tusks, it's just hard edges and just looks so dang boxy, and I'm not sure if I like it all that much. I do like the little exaggeration of its trunk being like basically an excavator without actually straight-up being one, like it's some sort of organic appendage that had somehow evolved to shovel up things from the dirt, sort of like Diggersby's ears. I'm also a fan of the markings on its body, which honestly implies that Copperajah might be inspired less by elephants, and more by elephants in Indian artwork. Copperajah is noted to have arrived from another region (Poke-India for Generation IX?) and while my Britain/India history knowledge isn't that much, presumably the fact that apparently Galar imported Copperajahs from another region to become working animals is a neat little detail. It's noted that Copperajah's green skin is now resistant to water. Okay! Bit of an uncomfortable-looking elephant, but not a terrible one.
Copperajah has a Gigantamax form and he basically becomes a big Nosepass. Like, its blocky body becomes a big blocky tower and instead of being quadrupedal its forelegs have devolved into these silly-looking nubs while most of the Gigantamax transformation goes to its trunk, which is now spikier and looks like it could completely fuck over buildings and shit, and is noted by the pokedex to "level mountains and change the landscape." Overall I'm not the biggest fan of Copperajah and Cufant, but they're pretty solid additions to the pokedex. The Gigantamax form is hilarious if nothing else.
3/6.#880-883: Dracozolt, Arctozolt, Dracovish & Arctovish
So after having fossils in every generation except for Generation II and VII, we've gone from a trend of having obscure prehistoric animals as fossils to dinosaurs... and now we're doing something absolutely unique. It's something that did shock me a fair bit when I first saw the first member of this group (Arctozolt) but as I learned more about this set of four non-evolving fossils, the more I like them conceptually even if visually they still look like abominations. That's sort of the point, though, isn't it? Instead of competent Jurassic Park scientists found in all the previous regions, Galar's fossils are apparently incomplete and the one doing fossil revivification is a crazy lady called Kara Liss, who will combine two half-fossils into a full fossil Pokemon.. except they're not natural, they're obviously the upper half of a creature Frankensteined to another creature, and the pokedex makes it clear that these freaks of nature are not adapting well to being reborn into bodies that with organs and features that aren't meant to synergize with each other. Also, notably, these fossil Pokemon aren't part-Rock; like the fact at making them more naturalistic ended up also purging the part-Rock part of most other fossil types or something.
This is a reference to a lot of things, because, well, real-life paleontology is kind of interesting where we're trying to figure out how creatures who live millions of years in the past look like and behave, and sometimes we just have no concept of how these things look like. Like mistaking the Iguanodon's stabby fingers for a nose horn, or all the confusion that arose from the Anomalocaris. The freaks-o-nature fossils seem to draw inspiration from two things -- the Piltdown Man, a fake paleontological fraud of an early human fossil supposedly being the 'missing link' between ape and man, which is a long story but basically British scientists back in the day weren't willing to admit that the frankensteined fossils are a fraud to save face; and the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in London, which are sculptures of now-known-to-be-anatomically-incorrect dinosaurs. S'neat!
Arctozolt, formed out of the 'Bird' and 'Dino' fossils, slaps together the little skinny yellow Zolt-a-saur head onto... what is that thing supposed to be? It's an Ice-type lower body and it's got like a fishy structure, with flipper-legs and a structure that looks like half-melted ice. People have the consensus that this is a Pokemon version of Ichthyosaur, a dolphin-esque aquatic reptile that the aforementioned Crystal Palace Dinosaur thought behaved like a seal. And I guess those flipper-legs do look like how some Pokemon artwork depicts seals? Arctozolt's poor upper half looks so sad, its entire torso (which you can see in full in Dracozolt) is completely covered with the melting snow, its face is dripping snot and it's hands are barely able to poke out of the half-melted lower body. Arctozolt notes to be shivering so much from being cold, because that upper body just can't deal with the lower body's cold. It has a hard time walking around, and it's that shivering that's making it generate electricity. Arctozolt is hurting by simply existing, and you, the trainer, is weaponizing that hurt to get it to generate thunderbolts, you dicks. The Shield Pokedex is the one that insists that Arctozolt totally exists in the past and isn't a fabrication by a crazy Galarian scientist and an irresponsible child trainer, noting that it lived near seashores and went extinct because it moves slowly.
Now we swap out the 'bird' fossil for the 'fish' fossil, and it's where the creatures get absolutely fucked-up. The fish half is unmistakably based on the Dunkleosteus, an ancient fish from the Devonian era that's pretty popular in recent pop culture thanks to its distinctive badass-looking fangs. It's a creature that I've seen a lot of people champion to be a cool, non-dinosaur fossil Pokemon or even an alternate evolution for something like Sharpedo or Relicanth... and we get its upper half, at least? Dracovish is Dragon/Water and... and oh my god what the fuck.
Instead of slapping on the "Vish" head onto where the "Draco" abdomen would join onto a torso, the crazy scientist has attached the fish head onto the top of the tail, and the resulting abomination is like, dozens of times more interesting-looking than if we just had a fish head slapped onto a stegosaur's ass. Instead we get this completely fucked-up looking creature that looks like it stepped out of Spore, with the resulting creature somehow looking like a long-necked creature with a belly and legs or something. Look at this thing. It's so fucked-up looking, and its pokedex entries between versions really differ -- the Sword one is the fraudulent one, claiming that Dracovish is an apex predator who only went extinct through overhunting of prey, where the Shield one notes that "its mighty legs are capable of running at speeds of 40 mph"... but it can't breathe unless it's underwater. It has got powerful legs, but it can't use them cause it needs to be underwater. This poor, poor, poor thing!
And you'd think slapping the 'Vish' head onto the 'Dino' part would make for at least a semi-cohesive form the way that Dracozolt is. Like, sure, if we're looking at their real-life counterparts a Dunkleosteus is a fish and an Ichthyosaurus is a reptile, but at least they're both underwater and have a similar general body build, right? Except they slapped the Vish head upside-down, making this thing look absolutely tortured. Sure, it's head markings make it look like it's got the face of a smiling frog, but its real jaw-mouth is on its forehead, and what's supposed to be backwards-pointing fins are treated as seal flippers or some shit. Poor Arctovish, you're just as fucked up. The pokedex doesn't even try to hype this thing up as an apex predator or anything, just noting that it's ability to freeze its prey is rendered null by how hard it can eat the prey, and it supposedly went extinct because of 'breathing difficulties'.
Y'know, there are some Pokemon that were really m'eh to me until I learned of their real-life inspirations and did a fair bit of reading before I really ended up appreciating them a lot more. Paras and Parasect were a pair that became infinitely cooler to me once I learned about what they are. Fomantis and Lurantis are another that was elevated from 'neat' to 'awesome executions of a concept' after realizing what they are. For this generation, it's these slapdash fossils. As an extra bonus, they can't even breed, which just adds to their perversion-of-nature vibe.
This wasn't a set of Pokemon I liked originally. Visually they look terrible, but that's the point. You're supposed to look uncomfortable by them, even if the -Vish ones do have a layer of comedic whimsy to them. The concept and the real-life inspiration behind these guys are cool, and I definitely appreciate the lore and integration of old, goofy paleontology folly. They could've been just lazy 'copy and paste' efforts, but I do really like that at least with the -Vish ones, they really do showcase just how fucked-up these slapdash, Frankensteined creatures look like. They took time for me to get used to, but I definitely appreciate just how... unique these critters are. I do hope that at some point down the line we get to see what 'Vish', 'Draco', 'Zolt' and 'Arcto' look like when restored to their original glory. Which admittedly probably wouldn't be as unique or as original as these, but man, I can definitely give these fuckers kudos on their concept and the execution of said concept.
5/6.#884: Duraludon & Gigantamax Duraludon
Duraludon's our first Steel/Dragon type since Dialga and... and it sure is a metal dinosaur. Apparently it's specifically the alloy Pokemon, with the dex entries noting that it's lightweight, strong, but rusts easily. Somehow, through that 4x resistance. Duraludon's dex entry claims it's super fast and stuff, but, again, that's not reflected in-game with its base 85 Speed stat, which is decent but definitely not something that I would highlight when talking about Duraludon.
Duraludon gets a Gigantamax form, and it, uh... becomes a fucking skyscraper based on The Shard, which is hilarious and dumb-looking and also kind of neat in the same breath. Looking at its model in game you'd think that the huge blue chunk on its belly would open and be a mouth or something, but Duraludon's tiny regular head is at the very top of the skyscraper and it's got a teeny-tiny mouth on that insanely large and long body. It's kinda funny I guess, even if it's not my thing. In yet another divergence from Duraludon's in-game properties, the pokedex claims that Giga Duraludon is one of those anti-earthquake skyscrapers, but that's a lie, this giant skyscraper will still crumble like paper to any ground move.
Anyway, an interesting concept and at least the Giga form is a weirdo, but ultimately one that I find to be more awkward than anything. Creative concept, interesting execution, but I'm not a fan.
2/6.#885-887: Dreepy, Drakloak & Dragapult
We have our pseudo-legendaries, and it's a cutie! And surprisingly, Dreepy's line is Dragon/Ghost, which we've only ever seen in combination all the way back with Giratina, a.k.a. the extra-dimensional demon-dragon-god-thing. And Dreepy is adorable, with a little wormy body that trails off like a cartoon ghost and the most perfect lizard face. A lot of people intentionally mis-spell Dreepy's name as "Derpy" and it's certainly an appropriate one. In its base form Dreepy doesn't look much like a dragon, but as Applin has shown us in this generation, we're basically using 'wyrm' rather loosely in this generation. Dreepy's a cute lizard ghost and dragons are basically big lizards anyway.
Interestingly, the pokedex entries note that the Dreepy line didn't start out as the Ghost/Dragon critters we know and love, but it's "reborn as a ghost Pokemon" and wanders the areas that it lived in "back when it was alive in prehistoric seas". So while Dreepy and company might have an appearance that resembles how we know them as now, they didn't used to be ghosts! It's pretty neat that we're actually getting a proper fossil pokemon in a roundabout way, because with that little detail and the shape of the heads of the Dreepy line, we get an obvious reference to the ancient amphibian Diplocaulus, one of the more distinctive non-dinosaurian extinct animals thanks to its pretty cool boomerang-shaped skull. Dreepy isn't quite directly based no the Diplocaulus alone, though!
Dreepy's second form, Drakloak, gets a surprising upgrade. Sure, we get the expected larger body. Drakloak gets little nubby hands, and the boomerang-skull starts to take aspects of something like a bomber plane (culminating in something that's obviously based on the B-2 Bomber by the time we reach Dragapult) which is such an out-there association that I'm happy the design team for Pokemon makes. Drakloak looks cool, but the biggest and most important detail? When your Dreepy evolves into a Drakloak, it adopts a Dreepy. Well, sure, in-game the model just spontaneously get created in the same way that all newborn Kangaskhan has a little mini-Khan already in their pouches and whatnot, but Drakloak's dex entry notes that as it gets stronger, it battles alongside a tiny Dreepy sidekick and 'dotes on them' until they successfully evolve.
It's adorably cute, and both a neat visual reference to a bomber plane carrying a missile payload (or one of those "smaller drone plane docked onto a larger plane" deal), but also a nice homage to how some amphibians actually do carry their young on their back. Sure, Drakloak doesn't quite go to the extremes of the Surinam Toad, but it's still pretty adorable! Also adorable (adorably sad) is the detail that without a Dreepy to place on its head, Drakloak gets extremely uneasy and tries to substitue any Pokemon for the missing Dreepy. Oh no! They should hang out with those poor motherless Cubones!
The final form of this line, and the first member of this evolutionary line I was exposed to, is Dragapult, which is Drakloak but bigger -- and instead of the Dreepys docking on top of its had, Dragapult has evolved fucking missile pods where the Dreepys can nest in. Aww, it's adorable! And then, just like real missile pods, Dragapult will then launch its own babies at the enemy so they explode. Hahahaha, what the fuck, that's so awesome and I guess we learn why the Dreepy line went extinct in the past if they weaponize their young like this. The Pokedex entry notes that the Dreepys are actually excited at the prospect of being launched, which I suppose works now that they're incorporeal ghosts that will survive being launched as "dragon darts". Dragapult's design is also pretty cool, with those dominantly pink stealth bomber head-wings being pretty neat, and I absolutely love just how the lower part of the body trails off into a ghostly intangibility. Even its pose in the official Sugimori art is great, it just looks so mischievous and ready to cause some ruckus.
Anyway, Dragapult is awesome. It's the ghost of an ancient prehistoric salamander who takes care of its young and also it's a stealth bomber that launches its young like missiles. There's a lot of concept going on here that somehow mixes together and works as a solid design. I didn't really think much of Dragapult the first time I saw it, but man I really like it a lot.
6/6.#888-889: Zacian & Zamazenta
The first of the duo, Zacian, is the elder of the two, a blue wolf holding a sword in her mouth. Yes, 'her', because while the Pokemon are still genderless, the Pokedex entries actually use the term 'sister' when referring to the two wolves. Both wolves come in a 'weakened' form known as "Hero of Many Battles", and are mono-type until you restore their power by giving them their weapons as held items. In its naked, "Hero of Many Battles" form, Zacian is pure-Fairy, which I suppose works as a legendary, ancient guardian of the land. She's... she's a blue wolf with scars all over her, and there are some neat details that I kind of like -- the missing ear and the braids -- but ultimately it's sort of just there.
In-story you recover Zacian's ancient rusted sword and give it to her, allowing her to achieve her "Crowned Sword" form where she gets a massive crown decoration, golden not-quite-wings and whatnot, and she holds a sword in her mouth Roronoa Zoro style. With all that armour, she's now Fairy/Steel! It's slightly cluttered and while I don't dislike it as much as some of the older legendaries, it's still a bit too cluttered for me. I guess if they trimmed down some of the extraneous details -- like the pink scarf or the extra butt-wings the design would flow a bit better, but Zacian's inoffensive. The dex notes that Zacian 'absorbs metal praticles' to form the weapon it uses to battle, which is how I suppose she changes the rusty ancient sword to the fancy-ass golden "Fairy King Sword" she has in her mouth. Zacian's special move, Behemoth Blade, is something straight out of a shonen anime where the sword gets even bigger, even glowier, and it deals extra damage against the scourge of those evil, evil dynamax/gigantamax Pokemon. Neat story, but I have to confess that I didn't really feel like the game's version of the story hooked me in all that much.
Now while I was pretty m'eh with the both of the "Crowned" forms and thought that unarmoured Zacian was kind of just there, unarmoured Zamazenta actually looks significantly cooler. The layout of the darker shade of red contrasted with the dark blue is just so much more striking than the rather pastel colours that Zamazenta's elder sister has, and the scars on Zamazenta's body and face feels a bit more prominent. The shape of the fur around Zamazenta's face also resembles a shield without trying too much and still looking natural. Hero of Many Battles Zamazenta is easily my favourite form out of the four Galarian doggos.
Like Zacian, when you recover the Rusted Shield item, Zamazenta goes from pure-Fighting (okay, sure. I'm not about to question legendary typings too much) to Fighting/Steel because it gains a big honking shield around its face, and... and while Zamazenta's design is technically more cohesive than Zacian's with less random details, the resulting look of a wolf that wears heavy armour only around its neck just ends up looking pretty dang awkward. Both Zacian and Zamazenta look a lot better with their 3D models, and those 'wing' pieces on Zamazenta's sides can actually move and lock into place to form a giant shield. Zamazenta's lore is more or less identical to her sister's, just swap out 'sword' with 'shield'.
Overall, they're all right -- being legendary wolves they get 3/5 out of principle. Definitely not the biggest fan of them, but they definitely felt like a 'could be better' effort.
3/6.#890: Eternatus
As a surprise bonus, we learn quite literally in a single cutscene before fighting him that all of the Dynamax energy in Galar that allows Pokemon to achieve Dynamax and Gigantamax form... actually comes from a mysterious legendary Elder Being Pokemon slumbering deep, deep beneath the earth, and the game's villain has been trying to siphon off its power as a source of clean energy. It's a skeletal dragon that everyone's been unknowingly drawing power from, and... and it kinda looks like it's designed with the same mentality as the Ultra Beasts, huh? The 'Wishing Star' plot devices that are implied to be part of Eternatus are sort of handwaved as magic meteors, and the dex entries give Eternatus's origin as a creature that came from space, but I would believe it if somewhere down the line we get some canon welding that establish Eternatus as an Ultra Beast that has 'gone native' and now counts as a Pokemon the way Necrozma, Solgaleo and Lunala are. Regardless, though, it's an alien, otherworldly threat, and it works!
I mean, just look at this fucking thing! It's a giant dragon made out of nothing but skeletons, with a prominent ribcage, little arms shaped like nasty forks, wings that are made out of little fractals that trail off, and that face gets even weirder once you take a bit of a closer look, with Eternatus's real face being a lot smaller (basically that cluster of eyes) whereas the massive pink thing with skeletal horns is more like a blast shield in front of the actual draconic face. Oh, and the lower jaw-bones are disconnected from each other, which is pretty cool. Like the Ultra Beasts, this is a design that is so not Pokemon, which works in Eternatus's favour since it's role in the story and region is as an alien, otherworldly antagonist.
Despite being the source of all dynamax energy in Galar, in practice Eternatus itself is unable to Dynamax, and its signature move is "Dynamax Cannon", where that ribcage and the glowing 'heart' within ends up powering up like a sci-fi weapon to unleash ruin upon anyone who dare turn Eternatus's own dynamax powers against it. Eternatus giveth the power to become titans, and Eternatus taketh it away. Best of all, Eternatus is Dragon/Poison, and as a long-time fan for the game's most under-appreciated type, it's so cool to see this alien outside that looks so wrong able to unleash toxic goop in addition to its array of dragon beams.
But wait, that's not all! While not available for play beyond a brief cameo in the attack animation for the move "Eternabeam", the final fight against Eternatus pits you against what's kinda sorta its Gigantamax form, called "Eternamax" because Eternatus just has to be that extra, I guess. And Eternamax Eternatus is... what a bizarre, alien thing it is. It just turns into this long, winding skeletal serpent that coils around as a massive spiral in the sky, and the appendage that looms down to fight you is not a dragon head, but rather that 'blast shield' transformed into a massive five-fingered claw that acts as Eternatus's head. It's such a bizarre, strange form and I kind of liked how Enternatus's skeletal parts sort of rearranges to accomodate this spiral-UFO form, with the trident-like skeletal hands being repurposed as some sort of a 'crown' around the glowing core. It's not quite as neat as Necrozma's "part rearrangement", I feel, but I do appreciate what they were going for here. Ultimately Eternatus is a pretty neat 'big bad' legendary that looks obviously evil and the very angular skeletal purple dragon from outer space that's this ancient evil slumbering deep beneath the land and is also unknowingly the source of the superpowers everyone takes for granted is such an ecclectic mixture of tropes, but it's one that I feel is done relatively well. At least it goes for something unique, y'know?
Not your typical Pokemon, and for sure not your typical legendary Pokemon, but you can't deny how cool space elder-god skele-dragon looks.
4/6.
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That's all folks, for Generation VIII. For all of my complaints about the games and the direction of the design team, one thing that this generation didn't disappoint me was the new Pokemon for sure, and that's what I'll be here for. I'm not the biggest fan of Gigantamax (it's basically Mega Evolution, round two, with less exciting changes) but it did give us some neat-looking designs. I don't think the generation quite achieved the same amount of hit-and-miss ratio as the two previous quality-over-quantity generations, VI and VII, but for the most part a lot of the newer Pokemon end up winning me over, even with a demonstratably different art team.
Over the next couple of weeks I might do a couple of 'special' Gotta Review 'Em All segments. I'll do a redo of my old (and now-deleted) "Types" review in a far more coherent way, sort of breaking down the trends and outliers among the types. I'm definitely not doing items, and if I do human characters it'd be a lot more light-hearted and less analytical. I thought of doing moves, but the first couple of drafts ended up being basically a list of "yeah, the translation team for generation one changed a lot of things to make the names fit in within the alphabet limit, huh". We'll see if I ever complete that.
I do plan, at some time in the future, to sort of give the previous parts of Gotta Review 'Em All a bit of an editing spree. None of my opinions have changed that drastically and if there's going to be score changes it's probably just a ball up or ball down, but there are some parts where I could stand to be a bit less fanboy-y and parts where I could be a lot less rant-y.
Honestly, looking at the fossils, what could we have expected from a lady covered in dirt and mud and can't even be bothered to wear matching shoes...
ReplyDeleteShe's called Cara Liss! And her machine looks like a fourth-grade science project! I'm surprised her machine even managed to bring the fossils back to life at all.
DeleteBaby stage digimon is a really good way to describe Milcery. Cute atleast. Also considering dex cut reaaaally wasn't expecting a bunch of forms for a mon and Alcremie blew that notion outta the wate. Gmax Alcremie is another one which I woulda been fine as a evo(maybe w a bit of alteration to incorporate whatever form you chose for Alcremie) Oh well, it looks cool and big ol cake is just a fun concept.
ReplyDeleteFalinks uuuuuubber got me. Saw him in the leaks with just the default sprite and thought he was some sort of caterpillar or something. Saw the moveset+typing later without the sprite and literally thought it was a different mon it was referring to. Literally took until the game came out days later that it clicked that they were one and the same. Also No Retreat sick animation.
Well Pyukumuku is my 4rth favorite mon and I have a large plush of it and Pincurchin...oh well not every mon can be a win. Cool that they gave it Electric Surge and Zing Zap.
SNOM. This line is almost perfect in having a incredibly adorable first stage into a elegant, beautiful, 2nd stafe. I actually prefer Frosmoth over Snom, just stunning. Wish it had Volcarona stats instead of base 65 Spe, but beyond that a sweet mon.
Stonjourner is just weeeeeiiiird. Stat spread wise, it has great HP/Atk/Defenae(100/125/135) and aaaaabsolutely garbage SpA/SpD(20/20). But then it's weirdly....unslow? Like base 70 is pretty solid, even quick. Like that's Flapple Metagross and Volcanion speed. Pity its ability doesn't power up itself as well, its min maxed stats could've had some powerful competitive usage. Maybe in DLC.
I like normal Eiscue's ridiculous ice cube head but noice form isn't my thing. I have noooo idea how someone came up with this idea of hair fishing line freeze/unfreeze penguin.
I feel like Comfey doesn't really fit in w/ Blissey/Audino/Indeedee. It's pretty distinctly non-human, isn't a normal type, and has less pokecenter association. Does feel weird to have a servant pokemon...nasty slave race-ish vibes. Oh dear, we'll probably get a male master female servant pokemon chain at some point...I guess we have the inverse w/ Salazzle already but still gonna be creepy. Well no point in thinking about something that hasn't occurred. The hips on them feel weirdly disproportionate to me.
I didn't like Morpeko much initially but I've warmed up. Aura Wheel looks pretty and is a broken move+Morpeko gets all sorts of weird stuff. Might be due to gameplay but its charmed me.
I kinda hate Gmax Copperajah. Just looks hideous to me and the joke doesn't click, which is a shame since I really do like Copperajah normal.
Milcery is basically just a blob-baby Digimon, isn't it? We don't actually have any such adorable blob-babies in Pokemon, though, so Milcery feels surprisingly fresh.
DeleteYeah, I'm pretty sure everyone figures out that "we don't have enough disc space" isn't the real reason they cut half the pokedex. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the entirety of the Generation VII games can fit snugly in a fraction of the Switch cartridge's disc space. It's probably just them simply not having enough time to convert everyone into Generation VIII graphics and whatnot due to the time-crunch to get the game out by December. It's just kind of hilarious to see that 'hey, we don't have enough of a dex space for half of the pre-existing pokemon' but then you get like seventy different variations of Alcremie.
I saw Falinks for the first time in-game as they were marching out of their adorable little holes, and I thought it's a caterpillar bug too, like the Moldorms in Zelda, and it was... it was definitely big 'wait, whaaaat?' when I saw their animation and the caterpillar split up into five little small buddies. It's adorable, and we haven't gotten such a nondescript 'monster' in a while.
I love Pyukumuku, but I feel like they did a lot more to make Pyukumuku adorable. That face, the adaptation of a sea cucumber's real-life ability to have Pyukumuku have an extendable balloon hand that can make peace signs, the adorable way it was integrated into the in-game Alola culture, hell, even its name was adorable. Pincurchin was just kinda there. I don't dislike Pincurchin, though, but it's going to take a bit more for me to really like it.
I love Snom. After thinking that the generation doesn't really have much in lieu of new bug-types (Orbeetle and Centiskorch were fun, though) discovering that Snom exists really ended up making me super-duper happy. I'm frankly a bit surprised that we didn't get a G-Max Frosmoth for the obvious Mothra reference, but I guess that's what Giga Butterfree is for? I do really wish that Frosmoth is a bit better competitively, for sure.
I do confess that I didn't pay much attention to Stonjurner, but I guess as a being made out of rock, it's just super-duper physical? Not sure about the speed, though. I didn't think about it before, but I'm also surprised that we didn't get a Gmax Stonjurner that turns it into a full Stonehenge.
I feel like Eiscue could've benefited from one less detail, and that's the bizarre hair fishing line. The ice cube head isn't my thing, but it's a cute gimmick? I also felt like its body could've stood to be a lot less generic. Delibird and the Piplup line are also penguins, but their bodies didn't look like someone googled a penguin clip art and then drew over the head.
Indeedee is just really not my thing. The 'servant' thing is just unsettling, and the gender dimorphism now basically being a 'dudes do butlery things, chicks do babysitting things' feels particularly uncomfortable, especially with how clearly-not-based-on-an-animal Indeedee is. At least with something like Salazzle or Vespiquen or whatever, they're somewhat based on real-life animal behavior.
Morpeko's another one I don't really care for during the pre-release stuff but its appearance in the games is cute enough. Still don't love it, but I don't mind it.
Gmax Copperajarh is funny in all the wrong ways. It is admittedly one of my least favourite Gmax forms, but the visual appearance of it is just so unexpected and far from what you think the Gmax form of a copper elephant would be that... I dunno. I certainly don't like it, but it's... memorable? I dunno. I really still don't know how I feel about Giga Copperajah.
Yeaaaa, wish they were a bit more transparent on the real reason why they didn't include all the mons. Like if they had just promised that they would add all the mons later or something but the initial release wouldn't have had everyone because they were crunched on time I feel like there would have been much less outrage. Oh well.
DeleteYeaaaa, Pincurchin needs some help compared to Pyukumuku. Doubt it's going to get any tbh, maybe next gen?
Kinda wish we had gotten a Gmax Frosmoth over Butterfree, but oh well Gen 1 reigns supreme(and it was an attempt to equal out M-Beedrill I guess)
That Gmax Stonjurner idea sounds siiiiiiiick. Hope they do it in the DLC now. More Stonjourner relevance in general would be interesting, feel like if they do give attention in a DLC it'll be the 2nd DLC though w/ all the legendaries. Feel like Stonhenge would be at home w/ the ancient feel and the temples.
Yeaaaa, cubeless Ice cube is a lil plain looking for a mon and the hair is just distracting. Putting it next to Delibird and Piplup really does show the flaws. Still liek the ice cube head but the headless coulda used some work.
The humanoid aspect really does creep it up a little. The risk w/ humanoid mons in general I guess is that they already feel a lil bit too unpokemon and too close to human and when you layer on the gender stuff...yeaaaaa I getcha.
Memorable is fair for Gmax Raj, even if I do still think it looks heeeella ugly.
I kind of understand, why, from a PR point of view, they can't just outright say that, because it'll invite even more bloody murder. And presumably the sheer amount of backlash was why they ended up making the rest of the Pokemon re-introduced to Galar via the DLC free for all. But oh well.
DeleteThere is a lot of random standalone Pokemon in this generation that I kinda feel like we might get something for in the DLC? Like, y'know, the Stonjurner one? I'm just completely baffled that we get all these standing stones around that farming city (Milo's city, I don't remember the name on top of my head) and it turns out to be absolutely irrelevant to anything.
Giga Butterfree is nowhere as cool as Mega Beedrill, though. :(
(Although, to be fair, I love Butterfree enough to make it the only Giga form that I explicitly looked up den guides and spawn guides and shit to find and capture).
Eiscue's all right, concept-wise. It's the execution that just doesn't feel right. Part of it is the jarringly different art style, too -- which could be good, because we've had more deviations from the typical Pokemon art style in the two latest generations (the Ultra Beasts, Stonjurner, Eternatus, Impidimp) but I guess they can't all be winners.
Yeaaaa, maybe they had more plans w a Stonjourner plot and scrapped them? Or maybe a sidequest will be added in DLC? Idk.
DeleteM-Beedrill is a haaaaard thing to live up to tbf, but yea GMax Butter...didn't. Oh well. Atleast it was something.
I mean outside of the fossils looking like they want to die they're neat. Prefer the Vishes over the Zolts on account of them having more..."creative" body melds. Definitely mons that I started out hating and eventually(was forced?) to like. Gotta root for the underdog. Nice that GF threw them a bone w quite literaly the most broken moves of the gen, base 170 BP when going first pre-STAB is absurd. Watching Dracovish slaughter foes at the highest level of play in both formats is a sight to behold.
ReplyDeleteDuralo kinda looks like a cigar lighter. Press the red thing on top of head, get some sparks. Gotta agree on the assertation of awkwardness-very very ugly imo. This is one of the ones that I wasn't a big fan of day 1 and unfortunately continue to not be a fan of.
Kinda wanna see a pre-ghost Dreepy line at some point, but either way the line is sweet. Also wish there was a tiny chance(idk 5%, 1% whatev) that Dreepy would evo to Drakloak and would just have some random mon on its head since it couldn't find a Dreepy. Like Drakloak w/ a Wooloo or Snom chilling on its head. Anyhow, whole line looks good.
Prefer both unarmored formsand still reaaaaally don't like the armored forms. My least favorite box covers legendary when they wearing armor(even over Gen 4s overdesigned abominations) The Solgaleo-Dusk Mane/Lunala Dawn WIngs atleast had the excuse that they had a parasite on them and they were a prelude to U-Necrozma. In this case, the armored dogs ARE the final form. Agree that unarmored Zamazenta the best looking, most natural incorporation. But I reaaaaaaaallly hate the armored forms-like would rate 0 hate them. The animations for Behemoth Bash is cool atleast.
Yea Eternatus looks like a UB. I loved the UBs though, so yay. Definitely prefer this lad to Naganadel. Obligatory mention that Eternamax Eternatus's 1125 BST outdos the previous tied record holders of M-Mewtwos and M-Ray by a ludicrous 345 points. Hopefully GF neeeever lets us use that mon. Good boss for the region. Wish the fight against it was harder(instead of watching the doggos hard carry) but tbf some people were having to use real niche strats against U-Necro to beat it so going a bit safer makes sense.
Didn't love this gen's design as much as 7, but it had some sweet stuff. Honestly surprised how much stuff I ended up liking this gen, when I first looked over the dex I thought I hated it but looking back over it, mostly positive feelings. I don't think i'll ever forgive Greedent or the armored legendaries, but beyond that mostly solid stuff. Did a fav pokemon checker thing recently(https://www.dragonflycave.com/favorite.html) and was surprised at how long some Gen 8 mons stayed around. The game itself could have used a bit of work, but mon design was solid enough(albeit weird in some aspects and not to its favor)
I feel like the Zolts were meant to be a bit more mundane so not every single fossil are crazy-looking like the weird dinosaur-tail-as-a-snake-head Dracovish or the upside-down-fish-head Arctovish. The Zolts are not as interesting as their fish-faced cousins, but we kinda need them as a comparison, I feel.
DeleteI really didn't like the fossils when I first saw them, but then I saw the Vishes and read the dex entries and started reading about silly palaeontology frauds and... one thing led to another and I ended up kind of liking them a lot.
Duraludon looks more like an upside-down asthma inhaler to me that someone glued limbs to, but mostly because I used one a lot as a kid. A cigar lighter works too. I'm sure there are people out there who like Duraludon, but I can't seem to find many who do.
Oooh, yeah, shit, that'd be awesome! Probably the same chance that Cramorant has to have a Pikachu stuck in its esophagus? It could be simply when Drakloak 'reloads' from using Dragon Darts, instead of gathering its Dreepy buddy, it instead picks up a local Pikachu or Snom or Salandit or something. Easily one of my favourite lines in Generation VIII, and honestly it might be my favourite pseudo-legendary line as a whole?
I feel like the armoured Zacian could probably afford to lose some of the details to make the design a bit more clean, but armored Zamazenta is just kind of a mess. I really do think like they could've stood to take out some of the more extraneous 'oh these are wolf knights!' details like Zacian's two sets of crowns or Zamazenta's blue tuft of hair. I dunno -- cover legendaries have never really been my thing, although Xerneas, Yveltal, Solgaleo and Lunala have been relatively all solid legendary-looking god-beasts. Zacian and Zamazenta have underwhelmed me the moment I saw them, and while my feelings for them have mellowed out a bit, I still don't really like them *that* much.
I absolutely love the Ultra Beasts, and while I understand that we can't have Ultra Beasts in every single generation, I do like that there seem to be tie-ins here and there to these weird-ass extradimensional Pokemon. Ultra Necrozma was a fun, insane memorable boss fight that, alongside totem battles, actually gave US/UM some bite that it was otherwise lacking. Sw/Sh was just a completely easy game to breeze through even without grinding, so I really kind of wished that the fight against Eternamaxtus was a wee bit harder. Maybe make the doggos come after you lose once against Eternamax, so the younger players aren't stuck in an unwinnable fight?
Pokemon designs were relatively solid this generation! I feel like there were a bunch that were huge misses for me, but there wasn't enough to make me have a negative feeling for the generation overall -- which is a huge reason why I played through the game with an exclusively Gen-VIII mon all throughout. It's just that the designs I don't like, I really dislike, y'know? Stonjurner, Eiscue, Indeedee, Greedent, some of the more underwhelming gigas... really don't care for those. Plus there are many aspects of the game that just feel unpolished as a whole. It's still a relatively solid generation overall, just perhaps not the best game.
That makes sense, gotta have a scale to the insanity. Like the Zolts a lil more thinking about them like that, thx!
DeleteIt is neat how the fossils have such a sweet background. Feel like a lot of people I know who started out hating them have come around and the background info is a large factor.
Cramorant's Pikachu thing is based off its health not percentile chance actually, but yea something along that line would fit. Dragapult is a siiiick psuedo, def a standout of the gen.
Having some strange out there mons each gen is nice. Yeaaaaa, that doggos idea sounds much nicer than what they did imo, avoids younger folk being locked while still providing a challenge.
Lotsa high and low designs, kinda evokes Gen 5 to me. Fine balance I guess, let's people find a fav and hating a mon is less likely to force away someone from a game compared to how much loving a mon can attract them. Can generaly ignore the mons you dislike and have access to the mons you like consistently in your party.
Solid generation but not the best game is a good way to describe it. Wellllll, hopefully the DLC is a bit more polished.
As much as I do like the two Vishes, I do appreciate some people saying they like the Zolts more because they look more like a regular theropodal dinosaur (even if abominations of one), so it's definitely an interesting attempt to make this niche concept appeal to a slightly wider audience.
DeleteI really, really do end up appreciating the fossils a lot more the more I looked into them. The way they are presented in the game, and the interesting spin they put on this... I also really love the sheer amount of work they put so that they're not just "let's slap a butt and a face together", leading to the interesting designs for Dracovish and Arctovish, while the two Zolts are given very interesting animations. Poor Arctozolt and his shivering really makes me feel bad for him!
This absolutely has a Generation V vibe to me, and I would argue that Generation V was another one that was very experimental in terms of designs (both V and VIII had dexes that start off with very regular animals and then the insane designs are pretty much insane) and felt like a soft attempt to reboot the series. But yeah, you're absolutely right. With both V and VIII, there are many designs I really disliked and didn't care for, but the designs that I actually do love ended up keeping me in.
I'm kind of interested to see how, in a couple months' time, we'll respond to the entirety of Generation VIII when we get the full scope of the entire Galar dex with the DLC.