Anyway, a brief little introduction -- Pokemon have types, one of eighteen (originally fifteen) elemental types that each have their own weaknesses and resistances, being a bit of a rock-paper-scissors thing going on as you build your team and journey through your given region. A Pokemon innately has up to two types which will inform their defenses and the effectiveness of attacks of a similar type. Depending on the moves they learn (each move has their own assigned type too), a given Pokemon might have a wider coverage against a larger variety of enemies.
Again, though, just like all my other monster reviews, I'll be primarily talking about the flavour of these types more than anything. Also, kudos to Generation VII's Z-stones in giving me a neat little picture that I can use to represent all of the types, even if I don't think they look quite as nice or stylized as the TCG emblems:
NORMAL
- Offensively super-effective against: N/A
- Offensively resisted by: Rock, Steel; Ghost-types are immune to Normal attacks.
- Defensively weak to: Fighting
- Defensively resists: Normal-types are immune to Ghost attacks
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 115
So the first type we'll talk about is Normal-type, which is basically a 'default' type. In the earlier generations Normal-type is honestly equivalent to "okay, this is basically just an animal", with most normal types being just, well, straight-up animals with no specific elemental powers. A vast majority of the part-Normal dual-types are just Normal/Flying, which means that they're regular birds. That fly. We've got the likes of Rattata, Meowth, Tauros, Sentret, Teddiursa, Stantler, Patrat, Wooloo... all basically just real-life animals with extra monster details tacked on. and it's even became a recurring theme in all Pokemon games that all early routes have at least one Normal-type creature that's basically just a Pokemon-ized version of a real-world mammal. And I suppose that it's fair to have what's basically an "element-less" type. It's one of the simplest typings out there, even mechanically, only really having one weakness in Fighting-types. I do really love the little detail that they kept about how Normal-types and Ghost-types simultaneously can't hurt each other. That was pretty cute and clever.
That's not all that there is to Normal-types, though. Prior to the introduction of Fairy-types, Normal is also a lot of where the cutesy pink-blobs, little fairy-like creatures, are lumped in. Creatures like Jigglypuff, Clefairy, Audino, Chansey and the like are all considered Normal-types, and that's an... interesting thing to spice it up, even if they kind of blur the line between what exactly counts as a Fairy and why Audino and Chansey are just considered Normal-types... I could fill an entire article about the bizarre inconsistencies on what Nintendo considers 'normal' and what is a 'fairy'.
Normal also serves as the 'base' form of a bunch of Pokemon that are explicitly artificial creatures (Type: Null, Porygon) or creatures that can shift around between different types (Arceus, Castform, Type:Null again). With Normal being considered the 'default' typing, it's obvious, I suppose, that this is the case.
Normal also serves as the 'base' form of a bunch of Pokemon that are explicitly artificial creatures (Type: Null, Porygon) or creatures that can shift around between different types (Arceus, Castform, Type:Null again). With Normal being considered the 'default' typing, it's obvious, I suppose, that this is the case.
Attack-wise, Normal types tended to have very boring attacks that real animals can do. Scratching the enemy, growling at them, tackling them, sleeping, flailing, unleashing the base-150-attack primal beam of concentrated destruction upon your enemies... Hyper Beam aside, though, an interesting theme that Generation VIII did bring out is the prevalence of sound-based attacks in the Normal movepool. Moves like Growl, Boomburst, Sonic Boom, Uproar, Sing and the like, as well as the existence of creatures like Exploud, had led people to speculate on a 'sonic' type back during Generation VI, but I do like the theme that these loud soundwaves are basically the Normal-type equivalent of a ranged 'beam' attack.
An interesting trend that surfaced in Generation V and became particularly prevalent in VII is blurring the lines between Pokemon that are part-Normal and those that are just fully committed to a type. Because up until then, the only type Normal has been paired up other than Flying with was Girafarig in Generation II, and that's thanks to the whole "half-and-half" theme of Girafarig. But then Generation IV gave us the Normal/Water Bibarel, and Generation V gave us the Normal/Grass Deerling and Sawsbuck, and VI had the Normal/Electric Helioptile, Normal/Fire Litleo, Normal/Ground Diggersby, and VII had a fair bit more. This has always been kind of strange to me. Take Litleo and Pyroar, for example, an evolutionary line of fire lions. What made them still retain the Normal type, and why isn't it pure-Fire like other "animals that breathe fire", like Arcanine, or Rapidash, or Torkoal? What makes Sawsbuck Normal/Grass, whereas Gogoat is pure-Grass? I guess it's something about their physiology that makes them closer to a regular animal, for lack of a better term, than a straight-up Fire-type creature or something?
Anyway, Normal-types do have their purpose for being the baseline of Pokemon that tended to be straightforward and not too weird, and you do need it in a franchise that consists of many, many designs, lest you end up with the problem that later-generation Digimon has where everyone is super-extra and thus as a result every single over-cluttered design end up feeling like the norm.
My original draft of this had little listings of 'the cutest', 'the coolest', 'the most appropriate X type', 'the weirdest X type' and such, but I feel like it doesn't work all that well and I cut it out.
My original draft of this had little listings of 'the cutest', 'the coolest', 'the most appropriate X type', 'the weirdest X type' and such, but I feel like it doesn't work all that well and I cut it out.
FLYING
Before we delve into the first three types that we're first introduced to in the games, I suppose I'll get Flying-types out of the way as well. Another one that feels like a basic 'just an animal, but in the Pokemon world' type, Flying is an interesting typing. It's basically a tag given to most animals that can fly, even if the limitations of each Pokemon having only two types means that there are a bunch of other creatures that conceptually really could've been part-Flying but aren't. In the first two generations, Flying-types are always basically just flying birds and bugs (in beta versions of the game, apparently "Flying" was called the "Bird" type), with the occasional Hoppip or Gyarados sneaking into the pool... and while the variety of Flying-types have certainly increased over the following generations, by and by it's still perhaps one of the most thematically same-y one. It's basically almost a given for any given Pokemon generation to have at the very least a single 'early bird' evolution line, and most regions tend to have at least a couple other birds of prey down the line. Plus, that's not counting other sorts of flying animals, like flying insects, bats, or the odd dragon or two.
Thematically, Flying-type attacks tended to fill in the slot of an "Air" or "Wind" element, something that tends to crop up thanks to its inclusion in the four Western classical elements. Outside of legendaries like Tornadus, though, Pokemon have actually shied away from actually making a lot of wind-themed creatures, and any 'weather manipulation' style abilities tended to be lumped into an associated elemental type. Up until Generation V's Tornadus, and, bizarrely, VIII's Rookidee, all Flying-types also have a secondary type. I do appreciate that while there really aren't a whole lot of new innovation for the Flying-type, in the newer generations we've gotten some rather interesting entries like Tornadus (a weather god), Minior (a meteor), Celesteela (a bamboo spaceship alien) and Sigilyph (a Sigilyph). Flying doesn't really break the mold often, but when they do, it's sure to be memorable.
It's something that I've got more than two decades to get used to, but man, it's kind of weird when you think about it that "Flying" is considered an elemental type in the same vein as fire and ice and electric, huh? After all, it basically just denotes the ability to fly, and yet it counts as one of the eighteen elemental types in Pokemon. I'm curious if the Flying type would even exist if the game-makers had the technology to add in Abilities when doing the first generation, or if we'll slap on "Flying" as an ability in the same vein that "Levitate" is right now. Sort of like a Magic: The Gathering keyword, y'know?
I do like that Flying is a type, ultimately. The ability to fly is definitely something that's significant in a setting all about battling, and having this ability be represented by an advantage and outright immunity against some of the more land-locked types is pretty clever.
GRASS
We'll continue with the first of the three main elemental types that are assigned to your starter in any given mainline Pokemon game, and we'll start off with the one that traditionally opens up your Pokedex... Grass. While a more accurate moniker would certainly be "Plant" type, I guess they just go with the catchier "Grass" type? Plant monsters have always been a staple in fantasy settings, but they never tend to be portrayed as anything particularly powerful, and in other games that also operate with an 'elemental/type' based system plants tended to be lumped in together with something like 'Earth' or 'Nature'. It's pretty interesting, then, to see that Pokemon apparently views Grass-type monsters as being equivalent as one of the three main types to be the face of the elemental rock-paper-scissors theme of the game. I do love it, and as someone who has always been fascinated with the weirder aspects of nature since I was a child, I absolutely latched on to the many bizarre creatures of the Grass type.
And out of the three starter types, I've always thought that Grass-types contain some of the more interesting variations out there. We've got some straight-up ambulatory cool plants (and fungi) like Victreebel, Shroomish, Carnivine and Lurantis walking around bizarre half-plant, half-animal creatures like your Bulbsaurs, Leafeons, Grookeys and Sceptiles. The sheer amount of variety of plants meant that there is no real shortage of inspiration, as we go from fruits to nuts to flowers to carnivorous plants to parasitic plants, and that's not counting some real oddballs like Celebi, our favourite onion time fairy, or Kartana, the origami samurai alien. But from Lurantis to Abomasnow to Parasect to Victreebel, when they latch onto a weird plant and really expand on it, they do really expand on it. Also worth noting that Grass-types also serves as a catch-all for fungi, which aren't plants at all, but it'd be too much to have a "Fungus" type next to Grass and Poison. In Pokemon, though, all of the fungi Pokemon share a little signature move called "Spore", which I thought is a delightful touch.
Grass-types also have an interestingly 'supplementary moves', and the available moves that Grass-types can use often have other sorts of effects. We've got moves like Sleep Powder and Stun Spore that cause detrimental effects, we've got healing moves like Ingrain or Aromatherapy, we've got moves where the Grass-type Pokemon straight up drains your life with Giga Drain or Leech Seed. I sort of get the feeling that Grass-types are meant to be the 'utility' and 'tricky' part of the three starter types.
It's also very interesting just how Generation I had only Tangela as a pure-Grass type, whereas every other Grass-type monster in Generation I were paired with another type, with Poison being the most common one. Did they think that being a simple plant monster isn't threatening enough?
FIRE
We'll Considering how prevalent Fire is in fictional media and mythology in general, it's actually surprising how comparatively little Fire-types there actually are in Pokemon. I mean, fire-manipulating protagonists are super marketable, right? Especially to kids? I guess the designers just don't want to overplay their hand in including too many fire-types in a single generation, to make them feel special? I have admittedly been kind of burned out (heh) on the prevalence of fire-wielding anime and manga characters, and while there's just something that's so primal and cool about the all-consuming nature of fire, it's also kind of a bit too common in fiction. Still, I do have to admit, for the most part, fire-types are indeed pretty dang badass.
I do really like how Pokemon actually mixes things up by not just having fire-breathing animals and dragons be the only creatures around, but also have some really interesting ways to make a Fire-themed monster. A vast majority of the Fire-types are just fire-breathing [insert animal here] with parts of their body on fire, your Ponytas and Charmanders and Chimchars and Heatmors. But in addition to the expected (but still awesome) fire dragons, fire hellhounds and fire phoenixes, Pokemon also gives us a bunch of wacky shit like Fire-types based on volcanoes, steam engines, coal, magma and candles. Honestly, looking at the list of Fire-types available, I'm actually pretty surprised to find out how little the amount of 'just an animal, but on fire' Pokemon there are since, oh, generation III or something. Sure, every generation has at least one example in the fire starter, and maybe one or two more down the line, but for the most part, there is a relatively wide variation of themes being explored among the Fire-types, which is neat.
But above all, I do really like just how much they hold their hand at just shoving Fire-types wily-nily into the game, making it actually feel special, y'know? Hell, in some games (particularly Generation IV and to some extent II), it's even dang hard to find Fire-types at all. Anyway, Fire-types are pretty dang awesome, and even though they're a tad overdone, there's no denying just how awesome slapping flames on a creature can sometimes be.
WATER
Aquatic life is one of the most varied and most diverse of any biome on Earth, and no wonder, considering the sea covers some 70% of the planet's surface. From fishes to cephalopods, from mollusks to crustaceans, from cnidarians to echinoderms, to so many other different aquatic-dwelling creatures, Water-types end up becoming one of the most exciting venues for the Pokemon developers to flex their biology knowledge and introduce another new generation of kids to weird and wacky looking oceanic life. And not just oceanic life, either, because Water-types also comprise of a bunch of Pokemon based on freshwater animals.
There's just something that's pretty neatly basic about Water-types -- the idea of fishing to encounter aquatic animals, and later on gaining the ability to transverse through the oceans and lakes and rivers of the Pokemon world is pretty neat. Being someone who lives near the ocean and has always been interested about deep-sea creatures, I'm perhaps one of those apologists who don't care about Pokemon games that have "too much water". Because, hey, have you seen the real world? As someone who lives near the ocean, I have a vast amount of respect for the sea and the life in it, and thus I have a vast amount of respect for Water-types. I dunno. I acknowledge that part of the reason I love Water-types (and, by the same vein, Bug-types) so much is that I'm a huge biology geek in the first place, but my love for biology and my love for Pokemon do genuinely just feed into each other like an ouroboros.
Out of the seven generations, I feel like Generations III, VI and VII are the best at showing off the sheer amount of variety you could get with aquatic creatures, with III and VI in particular selecting some genuinely awesome aquatic animals that you don't really ever see being represented a lot in fiction. Crawfish! Gulper eels! Chimaeras! Pistol shrimp! Leafy seadragons! Barnacles! Coelacanths! Bell spiders! Isopods! In contrast, Generation V was the one that had the least amount of Water-types, with even Basculin explicitly noted to be added because they realized they didn't have a single fish for fishing routes.
It's interesting, again, that like Flying-type up above, Water-types sometimes just translates to "lives in water or around water", and they basically just combined this aspect with the inherent elemental ability to produce and manipulate water. That's basically a good chunk of Water-type moves, where you just manipulate water in some way or form, or do something vaguely related to marine life or water sports. Anyway, not much to say here, although I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that my relatively early exposure to Pokemon is probably why I'm even so dang interested in aquatic biology in the first place.
ELECTRIC
Right after the starter elemental trio, I feel like I associate Electric the most, thanks to the whole "starters and also Pikachu" grouping from the first generation. And, just like Fire, Electric-types is another pretty common motif not just in fiction, but also in myths. I guess the ability to manipulate the primal forces of nature like thunderstorms and flames are just kind of ideal as a power fantasy, huh? Electric, Fire and Ice sort of form an elemental 'trio' in generation one with the Kanto legendary birds as well as Electabuzz/Magmar/Jynx sort of being counterparts in the first two generations, and I suppose it works in that those three are perhaps some of the more elemental types that involve creatures manipulating relatively unnatural elements or something? Eh.
The Electric type is perhaps one of the eighteen types that has the biggest variance in terms of design, because unlike other types, there simply aren't many creatures that can wield lightning bolts in real life. We run the gamut from random animals like your Raichus and Manectrics and Boltunds that just happen to shoot electricity, to artificial robotic creatures like Magnemite or Xurkitree or Rotom, to creatures inspired by legends like Electabuzz or Raikou or Thundurus, to pokemon partially inspired by electrical appliances like Alolan Golem or Toxtricity or Vikavolt... and I do appreciate this variance a lot. Like the fire type, Electric is one of the rarer types in the franchise despite its prominence in the media, again, presumably to not dilute the pool with too many 'just an animal, but it can breathe electricity'. In the first Generation, Electric-type is also the go-to type for the artificial or at least inorganic Pokemon with the Voltorb and Magnemite lines both being quasi-robotic beings, although Steel has basically taken over that role nowadays.
I think it would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that one of the recurring themes in Pokemon generations is the existence of a Pikachu expy, often referred to as "Pika-clones" by the fandom, and it's interesting to note that for whatever reason, divergent evolution (or, well, just straight-up marketing I guess) means that each region has its own niche of electric-generating fat rodent. It's like Darwin's finches, but with little rodents that carry electricity in their cheeks.
Anyway, not a whole ton to say here without repeating myself. I do really appreciate just how varied the Electric type really is, and it's a typing that has a lot of interesting members in it.
FIGHTING
Okay, with those out of the way I guess I'll cover them at random? Fighting is a type that has always felt a bit ambiguous, because, well, all Pokemon fight. It's part of the whole point of the game, but Fighting-type is called Kakuto type in Japanese, a term that translates best perhaps to "hand-to-hand combat" or "martial arts", which... yeah, "Fighting-type" does help to get the point in a single word. And even early on, it's pretty clear what this type is all about -- boxing, kicking, wrestling, body-building, sumo, capoeira... the first three generations primarily had their Fighting-types almost exclusively revolve around martial arts, and as a result, other than a few exceptions a vast majority of Fighting-types ended up taking up a generally humanoid body shape, looking like actual monsters instead of funnily-drawn animals. There are certainly exceptions, though -- Poliwrath was around from the get-go, and as the generations go by the definition of Fighting has became a bit looser. Basically any Pokemon that is potentially capable of doing martial arts and ends up just a bit strong counting as a Fighting-type. Because, well, last I check, lifting construction girders sure as hell isn't a type of martial arts. But I do like this flexibility a lot, because from then on we go on to have pretty fun designs like Scraggy, Kommo-o, Buzzwole, Falinks and many others.
There's also a vaguely 'heroic' feel to a fair amount of these Fighting types -- and a fair amount of the Fighting-type Pokemon do have a relatively heroic build, which is why they're given an advantage over the evil Dark-type, although this isn't always consistent -- Pangoro, Scrafty and Toxicroak are pretty nasty looking, and they're the type to beat you up in a dark alley and steal your lunch money. Fighting-types are also pretty great competitively, and there are a lot of great reasons to put one in your team.
It's pretty interesting to see how they incorporate this into more animal-based designs, with some particularly stand-out ones in Clobbopus and Crabrawler. Still, on the same vein, there are also a lot of Pokemon where the 'Fighting' type are just slapped on wily-nily without much thought on just how well the design reflects a martial artist practitioner. Looking at you, Unovan musketeers. The Fighting type is sort of the nexus of humanoid Pokemon and while I don't always hate on humanoid Pokemon... it's no real coincidence that this is probably the type with the highest proportion of designs that I am neutral-to-indifferent towards.
BUG
It's no secret that one of the main inspirations of the concept of Pokemon are the creators' childhood hobby of bug-catching, and as such it's actually interesting to see that "Bug" itself is considered a separate type from everything else. And it kind of should -- while the aquatic creatures might have reign over a larger proportion of the planet's surface, arthropods have them beat in terms of biodiversity, and it's estimated that arthropods account for 80% of all known living animal species. And just like the Water-type, there's still a massive amount of insects, arachnids and other associated worms and creepy-crawlies that fall under the blanket term of "Bug". Real-life arthropods are already pretty monstrous and variable even without the embellishment that the Pokemon art team gives them, so they are already a fun hotbed of wackiness to pick from.
Bugs are easily one of my favourite type, if not outright my favourite type (the contenders are Ghost, Water and Grass), and a not-insignificant part of it stems from the sheer amount of interesting adaptations of actual strange arthropod biology which, again, made me interested in entomology in the first place. Be it the horrifying parasitic fungus tale of Paras and Parasect, or the fun adaptation of a cicada's shedding of their skin in the Nincada line, or the bizarre yet interesting way they portray a snail-eating carabid beetle in the Karrablast/Shelmet duo, or simply the fact that we not only have one, but two entire Pokemon lines based on freaking bagworms... I also do appreciate just how wild Bug-types can vary even from the first generation, with the selection ranging from pretty butterflies and moths like Venomoth and Butterfree, to the absolutely mean-looking man-sized monster bugs like Pinsir and Scyther that wouldn't look out of place in a D&D Monster Manual. Honestly, just like the Water-type, the designers are really allowed to stretch their biological knowledge in making these critters.
Yet another staple in the Pokemon games is the fact that each generation has an early-route bug, spiritual successors to Weedle and Caterpie from the first game that also showcase just how Pokemon evolution works -- real-life insects have some of the most spectacular changes in their metamorphosis, and using it as a neat little jumping off point before we get to the fancier evolutions is always a pretty interesting thing to do in my opinion. Still, it's not to say that the early bugs are always boring. While the constant influx of butterflies were kind of tiring after a while, when they started to switch to other insects in Alola with Vikavolt, we're back in business for cooler-looking Pokemon.
And yet... Bug-types are still consistently one of the weakest types out there, almost always more of a liability than a boon when it's attached to another typing. Look at that massive list of types that are able to resist Bug-type moves! Up until Volcarona in Generation V, viable Bug-types are honestly almost always noted to be viable in spite of their Bug typing, instead of because. While there are certainly some powerful Bug-types even from the first generation, it's not until Generation V and VII that we get a large amount of actually powerful bug-types, including our very first Bug-type Legendary Pokemon in Genesect, and later on, the highly-awesome duo of Buzzwole and Pheromosa.
Anyway, bugs are pretty dang cool. I'm a huge, huge fan of them both in pokemon form and in real life. And surprisingly, we're a couple of decades in and Pokemon still hasn't blown their load on arhtropods to base their creatures on -- we still don't have a fly or a grasshopper Pokemon, which really boggles my mind!
ROCK
It's really weird that "Rock" and "Ground" are two different types in Pokemon, yeah? Even as a kid, I found it to be baffling that instead of a catch-all 'Earth' type (or whatever you want to call it) Pokemon made such a point to distinguish between creatures whose element is just straight-up rocks, whereas Ground... well, we'll get there when we get there. It doesn't help that practically every single Rock-type in Generation I is also part-Ground-type as well, blurring the lines between the two even more until Generation II and III came with pure Rock-types like Sudowoodo, Regirock and Nosepass.
It's at least a lot easier to define what a Rock-type is, which is going to be difficult when we get to Ground. Rock-type Pokemon actually are made out of rocks (Nosepass, Roggenrola, Rolycoly, Geodude, Onix, Minior), incorporate objects that human culture associates with hard rocks (Corsola's coral, Carkol's coal, Barbaracle's barnacle shell) or have anatomy that are partially made out of rock (Magcargo's shell, Lycanroc's spikes).
Perhaps the biggest sub-set of Rock-type Pokemon are the revived fossil Pokemon, which, at least pre-VIII and their abomination fossils, are all part-Rock type. Whether this meant that the Jurassic Park style revivification altered them in such a way that they gain the Rock-type after being restored to life, or if it's because they are Rock-type that they fossilize so well, it's a pretty interesting little theme going on with the fossils. Relicanth, the 'living' fossil, is also part-Rock, which I've always thought is a nice touch. Another little interesting sub-theme with Rock-types? Space rock. Lunatone, Sorlock and Minior all explicitly come from space on meteors (as meteors?) and ended up becoming living space-rock monsters, and at least two of the Ultra Beasts (Stakataka and Nihilego) are also part-Rock. Considering the amount of Godzilla and Ultraman stuff I've watched, the amount of 'space rock turns out to be alive' plotlines is pretty dang high.
Anyway, the rocky boys have never been my favourite, but they are always solid designs. See what I did there? Solid? Eh?
GROUND
Ground, as a typing, has always been bizarre. The original set of generation one Ground-types were a bizarre mix of burrowing animals (Sandshrew, Diglett) or creatures made out of rock (Geodude, Rhyhorn and Onix). And, uh... Cubone, Nidoking and Nidoqueen are... Ground-type... because? They live in the desert or underground or something? Throughout the years we've gotten a lot of particularly bizarre usages of the Ground-type, mostly creatures that are associated with the earth, dirt, soil or sand. We've got burrowing creatures (Diglett, Drillbur, Nincada, Diggersby), sand-dwelling creatures that burrow in the sand (Trapinch, Hippopotas, Gible, Sandile, Sandaconda), we've got creatures made out of clay (Baltoy, Golett), creatures made out of sand (Sandygast), even creatures that live in the mud (Mudkip, Wooper, Palpitoad, Barboach, Stunfisk). And, okay, sure, those are all different forms of the earth and I can kind of respect that. But then we've got oddballs like, oh, Gligar, who's part-Ground for no real reason. Or Camerupt and Numel, who I suppose are part-Ground because... volcano? And, y'know, we've got outliers like Nidoking and Larvitar and Zygarde that are Ground-type because I guess like most Kaiju they burst out of the ground or something?
There's, like, a definite theme of what makes a Ground-type specifically Ground-type as opposed to Rock or Steel or Normal or whatever, but at the same time trying to define that is pretty hard. I guess "some association to an aspect of the earth"? It's easily one of the least cohesive types out there when you order all of the Ground-type Pokemon in a line, though, jumping from mud-themed creatures to desert monsters to straight-up just-an-animal monsters to haunted golems to sandcastle beasts.
Anyway, I guess not exactly being tied to anything does allow any monster that they want to give earthquake-creating, burrowing or sand-manipulating powers does vaguely fit into the Ground type. I guess that's the price of splitting the traditional 'Earth' element into Grass, Rock and Ground, I suppose -- one of them gets left with all the oddities. Not my favourite because, again, it's not super cohesive, but there's a fair amount of charming designs among Ground-types. If nothing else, the sheer power that the Ground-type possesses in-game is nothing to sneeze at.
POISON
Poison is the original 'evil' type, with a lot of its members being associated with the original games' villainous team, Team Rocket, and a fair amount of them being designed to look evil or menacing. And the Poison type is slapped onto a fair amount of creatures, too -- from poisonous/venomous animals (Ekans, Tentacool, Qwilfish, Beedrill, Scolipede) to poisonous plants (Venusaur, Roselia, Vileplume, Foongus). And that's an easy thing to swallow. Oh, hey, these animals and plants are poisonous/venomous, so in Pokemon-land they are able to actually weaponize their poison as an actual element.
That's the most fun thing, though, is that instead of just making 'Poison' just a mere status or whatever, it's actually an element, and even from the get-go we have straight-up representations of artificial poison -- pollution -- in the Koffing and Grimer line. After a decade or so, they will be joined by Trubbish, forming a full trio of land, water and air pollution. A huge majority of Poison-types are still cool, poisonous/venomous creatures like Drapion and Toxapex and Ariados and Foongus, but the couple of times that they deviate from that and go for something weird is fun. Take the Gastly line -- a sentient poisonous gas that slowly solidifes into a chubby ghost! Or Toxel and Toxtricity, a baby lizard that grows up into a rock-star. Or Nihilego, a space jellyfish with a mind-control toxin that's Rock/Poison. Or Poipole, or Naganadel, or Eternatus, all of whom are so weird, but it fits them so much that they are part-Poison.
Gameplay-wise, Poison-types haven't had a pretty good career across Pokemon's long history. The biggest influx of Poison-types was in the original first generation, not helped by the slapping the Poison type into most Bug and Grass types there, but otherwise we haven't really had a whole ton of notable Poison-types, and most of the time when they do show up, they tend to be paired with another type.
And it's... it's kind of a shame just how neglected the Poison-type is. With its coverage only being good for a single type prior to Fairies coming into play, the Poison-type is honestly the game's underdog, with so many other types resisting Poison, and the Poison-type attacks being relatively weak. Poison-type Pokemon that are considered playable are honestly considered so in spite of being Poison-types instead of because. Which is kind of a shame. I've always loved the aesthetic of the Poison-type, but while we do have a bunch of cooler new members in recent generations, for the most part poor Poison still remains overlooked by the franchise.
PSYCHIC
Psychic used to be the overpowered type, at least in the first-generation games and its associated media. While the type isn't exactly rare, especially compared to the next tree, the likes of Alakazam, Starmie and especially the legendary Mewtwo were easily the powerhouses that could wipe the floor with anything and anyone, particularly due to the way that the 'special' stat worked in the first generation and due to the fact that Psychic's supposed weaknesses were absolute shit -- neither Bug nor Dark had any sort of halfway-decent moves, and the only Ghost-types were also part-Poison, which meant that Psychic-types are the bane of Gengars and Haunters out there instead of the other way around. Generation II absolutely nerfed Psychic-types by adding the Dark-type, which in addition to dealing super-effective damage, was also straight-up immune to Psychic type.
These days, Psychic still has that exciting feel of being pretty dang powerful, because, well, Psychic-type attacks are still pretty powerful and cool to have. And Psychic-types do run the gamut of having a whole lot of members, basically anyone or anything that could move things with the power of their mind like an esper. We've got Pokemon based on magicians or stage performers (Kadabra, Mr. Mime, arguably the Ralts line), we've got bizarre alien creatures (Deoxys, Elygem, Starmie), we've got unexplained ancient ruin-dwelling creatures (Claydol, Sigilyph, Unown), and we've got a whole lot of creatures that just have Psychic powers because they are god-like legendary entities. It's sort of a hodgepodge of multiple themes in fiction from things like Gundam's New-types, X-Men's psychic-wielding mutants, Star Wars' Jedi and all of the other fantasy that mankind has ever had regarding moving things with their mind. And then we've got the real-weird ones, like Reuniclus (it's a psychic cell), Exeggcute (a psychic egg hive-mind), Beldum (a psychic robot-leg what?), Orbeetle (a UFO ladybug) and Mr. Mime.
Honestly, I did believe that when they introduced the Fairy-type in Generation VI, they really should've retconned a bunch of the Psychic-types into Fairy-types or at least part-Fairy type, because I do feel like Psychic was kind of a shorthand for the enigmatic, supernatural fair-folk powers that the modern Pokemon team associate more with Fairy-type. Like, oh, I dunno, half of the 'mythical' pixies could've been Fairy-type instead of Psychic-type, since their powers really doesn't quite gel with the telepathy/telekinesis/mild-reality-warping, more sci-fi theme of Psychics. It's still pretty cool, though, and all in all the sheer flexibility of the Psychic type's definition does mean that we have some pretty fun off-the-rails design from this type.
ICE
We're entering what I used to call the 'rare' types back in the '90's when I discussed Pokemon in the school playground, with Ice, Ghost and Dragon having minimal representation in the first generation. There are a grand total of five Ice-type Pokemon in the first Generation, none of them pure-Ice, and more than half of them being hard to find. And even after eight generations, Ice still has the least amount of members.
It's interesting, again, that Ice-type is a distinct type from Water-type. Most games out there would tend to group the two together if they work off an element system, or just straight-up just make 'freezing' a status effect instead of an actual elemental type. It's interesting that we've split Water and Ice into two parts despite the two, well, being essentially just water in different states. But I guess from a fictional perspective, having the Water-type be focused more on aquatic life and shooting and manipulating water itself to drown your opponent is definitely distinct enough compared to freezing your enemy solid and summoning giant chunks of ice or snow to pelt them. Plus, it allows a dedicated typing to slot all of our animals adapted to living in the tundra, so our Beartrics and Swinubs have a type to call their home. Again going back to how much Nintendo loves giving nods to real-life biology, a lot of aquatic life is specifically adapted to living in far colder regions, too, which is why we do have a fair amount of Water/Ice creatures like Walrein, Dewgong and Cloyster. As one of the rarest types, I do find it interesting that the whole theme of the regional variants being that they are Pokemon that have adapted to a different region's climate, a fair amount of them are ice-type variants.
In Pokemon-land, Ice has a pretty set theme of basically being either Pokemon adapted into living into the tundra (Beartric, Snom, many Alolan regional variants), icy spirits (Jynx, Froslass), or are straight-up creatures made out of snow or ice, (Glalie, Cryogonal and Bergmite). Ice is also one of those rare types that, in Generation I, are exclusively paired another type, usually water. Ice is pretty cool despite its rarity, and I always do appreciate the games that throw an icy area at us. Prior to the introduction of Fairy, Ice-types are pretty valuable for being one of the only types that can deal super-effective damage to those dang Dragons.
GHOST
Ghost and Dragon are two of the types that only have a single evolutionary line as a representative in both Generations I and II, are incidentally two types that are super-effective against themselves, and thus always felt extra-special and extra-exclusive to me as a kid. Over the years, though, subsequent generations would definitely add to the variety of Ghosts out there, which I definitely appreciate!. Easily one of the more popular types thanks to the spooky nature and the inherent fact that spooky things are cool, Ghost-types are also always blessed with delightfully creepy pokedex entries, with Yamask and Phantump being especially notorious among the fandom for their delightful creepiness of their dex entries.
Just what these Ghost-types are tend to be left ambiguous, with some Ghost-types explicitly noted to be literal wandering spirits of dead humans or Pokemon, while others just possess qualities that make them be ghostly. The original concept of Gastly and company, after all, combines the idea of a sentient cloud of gas alongside the concept of a ghost, but of course we get such a wide, wide variety of ghost type Pokemon over the years and every single one of them honestly feel to be well-crafted to represent a different sort of spookster. I could go on and on, but just like how the various different cultures of the world have such a large variety of spooky spirits, so are the ghosts in Pokemon very varied. Ghost-types are varied, are never boring, and, looking briefly through my notes, almost always score very high on my own personal scale of awesomeness.
Anyway, creepy ghosts are pretty dang cool, and whether they be clouds of sentient gas, an anti-matter Satan-dragon from another dimension, a possessed sword, the ghost of a child inhabitting a tree, an animated golem made out of clay, haunted black tea possessing a teacup, a happy dancing pumpkin, a humanoid made up of party favours and a disco ball, 108 souls chained together onto a rock, the ghostly dead husk of a cicada's shed skin, or a ghostly flying dragon lizard shooting the ghosts of its own young which are also unable to die, Ghost-types in Pokemon can be many things but they certainly are not boring.
DRAGON
Dragons used to be super-special, with the Dragon-types in the first two generations being absolutely rare and hard-to-get creatures, and for a while, Dragon was the mightiest type, with Generations III through V giving us more and more powerful Dragon-type legendaries and pseudo-legendaries and other random assorted dragons here and there. And... and it's kind of a shame. Part of me do kind of like the fact that apparently the concept of draconic power is so mighty that it's a separate, special elemental type of its own, but by the time we got to Generation V the Dragon type feels like it had so many representatives. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you, and I do find a lot of the dragons to be pretty dang cool! That Fairy nerf-hammer in Generation VI is certainly needed, though, considering the sheer power level that Dragons have.
I do like that Pokemon's dragons run the gamut of having dragons based on both Western and Eastern interpretations of dragons, generic kaiju-style beasts, dragon-esque animals (dragonflies, seadragons, dinosaurs, reptiles) and even dragons based on mythological creatures that are not strictly dragons. And while part of me do wish that the dragons felt a bit more special and less frequent, I can't help but note that I do really love a lot of the draconic selections we have. Notably, subsequent generations seem to be a bit more willing to throw in more 'haha lol' funny dragons into the mix, with our dragon pool including the likes of Alolan Exeggutor, Turtonator, Mega Ampharos, as well as the adorable but decidedly non-draconic Goomy and Applin. And I kind of find it hilarious, I also do kind of wish that they sort of cut back on doing this, if for nothing else to have a thematic cohesion among the dragons.
Still, the fact that dragons are really not a real thing, and is more of a creature born out of collective consciousness (the Salamence-style four-legs-two-wings lizard body is, after all, only one culture's version of a 'dragon') does mean that there isn't any dragon expert out there who's going to be all snotty and be angry at Nintendo's executives for daring to classify Kingdra or Goomy as a dragon, because, well, what do they know?
DARK
Dark and Steel are two types introduced in Generation II, and, as mentioned before, the Dark type was introduced as a counter to the Psychic-types out there. A well-known fact, though, is that "Dark" in Pokemon refers less to the whole literal moving-darkness-and-shadow trope, and more towards "Dark" as in "evil"... which is what the type is actually called in Japanese. Sure, there are a fair amount of Dark-type moves that utilize shadows, but actual manipulators of the shadows themselves tended to be Ghost-type attacks, while a vast majority of Dark-type moves are more about dirty fighting, with moves with names like Beat Up, Knock Off, Bite, Nasty Plot, Thief and Throat Chop, a vast majority of the generic Dark-type moves tended to lean more towards dirty fighting, brutality and underhanded attacks. They're assholes, is what I'm saying.
And, sure, not all Dark-type Pokemon are explicitly evil and all that, but it's a neat and easy showcase of just how much these Dark-type Pokemon are willing to play dirty. And thus so many times, the designs are intended to depict a malicious and antagonistic creature. Or, well, sometimes you get creatures like Absol, which are totally misunderstood anti-heroes, or Giratina, which is an edgy chaotic neutral monster who's only antagonistic due to the actions of someone actually evil, or Pangoro, who is your typical foul-tempered-yet-secretly-good-at-heart anime protagonist. And sometimes you have Hydreigon and Guzzlord and Yveltal and they just quite literally want to burn the world and rule its ashes. And whether Dark-types are just rat bastard assholes, or if they're meant to be smarmy bastards that use underhanded techniques, or if they're an angsty, tragic anti-hero straight from your fanfiction, or if they are just into KISS, Dark-types are honestly never boring, I feel. And, well, predictably so, they are easily one of the more popular types out there.
Not all Dark-types are like, the broody and evil types, either, because sometimes the Dark-type gets slapped onto early-route mammals like Poochyena, and I'm assuming that it's because of the little hyena's brutality more than anything. I do kind of like that the types that can defeat Dark-types are the 'heroic' Fighting, Bug and Fairy. Why Bug? Kamen Rider, of course, who's going to rider jump rider kick the hell out of evil. Other than that, I really don't have much to say here, Dark-types are pretty dang cool!
STEEL
Where Dark was meant to sort of re-balance the typing chart, being powerful against Psychic and Ghost while also being weak to the somewhat under-utilized Bug and Fighting, the new type Steel was super-duper defensive, boasting an almost ridiculous amount of resistances and had even more before they got nerfed in Generation VI... the same generation that made Steel-types actually viable as an offensive tool since they can hurt the new Fairy type.
Thematically, Steel types sort of forms a trio of 'mineral' types with Rock and Ground, and as I mentioned above, Steel-types have sort of taken over the place for inorganic, artificial life-forms, including robots like Metagross; living objects like Bronzong and Aegislash; and just clumps of assorted toolwork like Magneton and Klinklang. And sometimes you just have Pokemon that are just intrinsically made out of metal or are covered in them like a suit of armour, or Pokemon like Escavalier and Klefki who wield metallic objects as accessories or weapons.
Steel (or metal) isn't really something you consider as an 'element' in traditional games with elements, because, well, they are basically just generally treated as equipment. But in a game where some of the actual equipment are alive, it's honestly a pretty neat typing to have in a world where all the organisms can basically channel their respective elements, and for Steel-types, whether it be creatures covered in metal plating or are made of metal themselves, it carries a pretty dang interesting look that's distinct from all the other Pokemon in the game.
FAIRY
Man, I still remember the time when Generation VI was announced as I was just getting back to Pokemon, and there was massive speculation about the hints of a brand-new type that's going to be super-powerful against the super-powerful Dragon-type that was all the rage at the time. The most prevalent theory at the time was some sort of "Good" or "Light" type to be a counterpart to Dark-type, but I do absolutely love that they went with "Fairy". The initial announcement was a bit bizarre, but with the announcement that a bunch of older Pokemon are getting the "Fairy" tag added to them (and I maintain that a lot more could've gotten the tag, with the general vibe of the fair folk fitting many other Pokemon) the Fairy type feels like an extension of a theme we never quite realized was already there from the get-go.
Fairy types do have one of the neatest vibes out there, with some Fairies genuinely being nice and happy and fluffy and ever-helpful, but just like the fair folk in real mythology, some of them are just rat bastards. Not quite malicious in the way Dark-types are, but they operate on such a different mentality of morality that they can be decidedly harmful to humans. Fairies have only had three generations to muck around with, but a vast majority of the new additions really do feel like they're interesting dudes out there, with the mischievousness of the Fairy-types going from just something benign like stealing keys to straight-up attacking people who get lost in the forest. Alola perhaps has a pretty interesting take on Fairies, actually setting up a quartet of Fairies as basically being god-like guardians of the islands. That's pretty neat.
Also a fun little theme that Fairy-types have, surprisingly, is, uh... foodstuff? Which I didn't quite realize until now. Apparently some fairies just really like appearing like foodstuff. Couldn't they have retconned Vanillite into part-Fairy?
- Offensively super-effective against: Bug, Fighting, Grass
- Offensively resisted by: Electric, Rock, Steel
- Defensively weak to: Electric, Ice, Rock
- Defensively resists: Bug, Fighting, Grass. Immune to Ground attacks.
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 105
Before we delve into the first three types that we're first introduced to in the games, I suppose I'll get Flying-types out of the way as well. Another one that feels like a basic 'just an animal, but in the Pokemon world' type, Flying is an interesting typing. It's basically a tag given to most animals that can fly, even if the limitations of each Pokemon having only two types means that there are a bunch of other creatures that conceptually really could've been part-Flying but aren't. In the first two generations, Flying-types are always basically just flying birds and bugs (in beta versions of the game, apparently "Flying" was called the "Bird" type), with the occasional Hoppip or Gyarados sneaking into the pool... and while the variety of Flying-types have certainly increased over the following generations, by and by it's still perhaps one of the most thematically same-y one. It's basically almost a given for any given Pokemon generation to have at the very least a single 'early bird' evolution line, and most regions tend to have at least a couple other birds of prey down the line. Plus, that's not counting other sorts of flying animals, like flying insects, bats, or the odd dragon or two.
Thematically, Flying-type attacks tended to fill in the slot of an "Air" or "Wind" element, something that tends to crop up thanks to its inclusion in the four Western classical elements. Outside of legendaries like Tornadus, though, Pokemon have actually shied away from actually making a lot of wind-themed creatures, and any 'weather manipulation' style abilities tended to be lumped into an associated elemental type. Up until Generation V's Tornadus, and, bizarrely, VIII's Rookidee, all Flying-types also have a secondary type. I do appreciate that while there really aren't a whole lot of new innovation for the Flying-type, in the newer generations we've gotten some rather interesting entries like Tornadus (a weather god), Minior (a meteor), Celesteela (a bamboo spaceship alien) and Sigilyph (a Sigilyph). Flying doesn't really break the mold often, but when they do, it's sure to be memorable.
It's something that I've got more than two decades to get used to, but man, it's kind of weird when you think about it that "Flying" is considered an elemental type in the same vein as fire and ice and electric, huh? After all, it basically just denotes the ability to fly, and yet it counts as one of the eighteen elemental types in Pokemon. I'm curious if the Flying type would even exist if the game-makers had the technology to add in Abilities when doing the first generation, or if we'll slap on "Flying" as an ability in the same vein that "Levitate" is right now. Sort of like a Magic: The Gathering keyword, y'know?
I do like that Flying is a type, ultimately. The ability to fly is definitely something that's significant in a setting all about battling, and having this ability be represented by an advantage and outright immunity against some of the more land-locked types is pretty clever.
GRASS
- Offensively super-effective against: Water, Rock, Ground
- Offensively resisted by: Bug, Dragon, Fire, Flying, Poison, Grass, Steel
- Defensively weak to: Bug, Fire, Flying, Ice, Poison
- Defensively resists: Electric, Ground, Grass, Water
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 106
And out of the three starter types, I've always thought that Grass-types contain some of the more interesting variations out there. We've got some straight-up ambulatory cool plants (and fungi) like Victreebel, Shroomish, Carnivine and Lurantis walking around bizarre half-plant, half-animal creatures like your Bulbsaurs, Leafeons, Grookeys and Sceptiles. The sheer amount of variety of plants meant that there is no real shortage of inspiration, as we go from fruits to nuts to flowers to carnivorous plants to parasitic plants, and that's not counting some real oddballs like Celebi, our favourite onion time fairy, or Kartana, the origami samurai alien. But from Lurantis to Abomasnow to Parasect to Victreebel, when they latch onto a weird plant and really expand on it, they do really expand on it. Also worth noting that Grass-types also serves as a catch-all for fungi, which aren't plants at all, but it'd be too much to have a "Fungus" type next to Grass and Poison. In Pokemon, though, all of the fungi Pokemon share a little signature move called "Spore", which I thought is a delightful touch.
Grass-types also have an interestingly 'supplementary moves', and the available moves that Grass-types can use often have other sorts of effects. We've got moves like Sleep Powder and Stun Spore that cause detrimental effects, we've got healing moves like Ingrain or Aromatherapy, we've got moves where the Grass-type Pokemon straight up drains your life with Giga Drain or Leech Seed. I sort of get the feeling that Grass-types are meant to be the 'utility' and 'tricky' part of the three starter types.
It's also very interesting just how Generation I had only Tangela as a pure-Grass type, whereas every other Grass-type monster in Generation I were paired with another type, with Poison being the most common one. Did they think that being a simple plant monster isn't threatening enough?
FIRE
- Offensively super-effective against: Grass, Bug, Ice, Steel
- Offensively resisted by: Dragon, Fire, Rock, Water
- Defensively weak to: Water, Rock, Ground
- Defensively resists: Bug, Fire, Grass, Fairy, Ice, Steel
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 75
I do really like how Pokemon actually mixes things up by not just having fire-breathing animals and dragons be the only creatures around, but also have some really interesting ways to make a Fire-themed monster. A vast majority of the Fire-types are just fire-breathing [insert animal here] with parts of their body on fire, your Ponytas and Charmanders and Chimchars and Heatmors. But in addition to the expected (but still awesome) fire dragons, fire hellhounds and fire phoenixes, Pokemon also gives us a bunch of wacky shit like Fire-types based on volcanoes, steam engines, coal, magma and candles. Honestly, looking at the list of Fire-types available, I'm actually pretty surprised to find out how little the amount of 'just an animal, but on fire' Pokemon there are since, oh, generation III or something. Sure, every generation has at least one example in the fire starter, and maybe one or two more down the line, but for the most part, there is a relatively wide variation of themes being explored among the Fire-types, which is neat.
But above all, I do really like just how much they hold their hand at just shoving Fire-types wily-nily into the game, making it actually feel special, y'know? Hell, in some games (particularly Generation IV and to some extent II), it's even dang hard to find Fire-types at all. Anyway, Fire-types are pretty dang awesome, and even though they're a tad overdone, there's no denying just how awesome slapping flames on a creature can sometimes be.
WATER
- Offensively super-effective against: Fire, Ground, Rock
- Offensively resisted by: Dragon, Grass, Water
- Defensively weak to: Electric, Grass
- Defensively resists: Fire, Ice, Steel, Water
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 143
Aquatic life is one of the most varied and most diverse of any biome on Earth, and no wonder, considering the sea covers some 70% of the planet's surface. From fishes to cephalopods, from mollusks to crustaceans, from cnidarians to echinoderms, to so many other different aquatic-dwelling creatures, Water-types end up becoming one of the most exciting venues for the Pokemon developers to flex their biology knowledge and introduce another new generation of kids to weird and wacky looking oceanic life. And not just oceanic life, either, because Water-types also comprise of a bunch of Pokemon based on freshwater animals.
There's just something that's pretty neatly basic about Water-types -- the idea of fishing to encounter aquatic animals, and later on gaining the ability to transverse through the oceans and lakes and rivers of the Pokemon world is pretty neat. Being someone who lives near the ocean and has always been interested about deep-sea creatures, I'm perhaps one of those apologists who don't care about Pokemon games that have "too much water". Because, hey, have you seen the real world? As someone who lives near the ocean, I have a vast amount of respect for the sea and the life in it, and thus I have a vast amount of respect for Water-types. I dunno. I acknowledge that part of the reason I love Water-types (and, by the same vein, Bug-types) so much is that I'm a huge biology geek in the first place, but my love for biology and my love for Pokemon do genuinely just feed into each other like an ouroboros.
Out of the seven generations, I feel like Generations III, VI and VII are the best at showing off the sheer amount of variety you could get with aquatic creatures, with III and VI in particular selecting some genuinely awesome aquatic animals that you don't really ever see being represented a lot in fiction. Crawfish! Gulper eels! Chimaeras! Pistol shrimp! Leafy seadragons! Barnacles! Coelacanths! Bell spiders! Isopods! In contrast, Generation V was the one that had the least amount of Water-types, with even Basculin explicitly noted to be added because they realized they didn't have a single fish for fishing routes.
It's interesting, again, that like Flying-type up above, Water-types sometimes just translates to "lives in water or around water", and they basically just combined this aspect with the inherent elemental ability to produce and manipulate water. That's basically a good chunk of Water-type moves, where you just manipulate water in some way or form, or do something vaguely related to marine life or water sports. Anyway, not much to say here, although I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that my relatively early exposure to Pokemon is probably why I'm even so dang interested in aquatic biology in the first place.
ELECTRIC
- Offensively super-effective against: Flying, Water
- Offensively resisted by: Electric, Dragon, Grass; Ground is immune to Electric attacks.
- Defensively weak to: Ground
- Defensively resists: Electric, Flying, Steel
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 60
Right after the starter elemental trio, I feel like I associate Electric the most, thanks to the whole "starters and also Pikachu" grouping from the first generation. And, just like Fire, Electric-types is another pretty common motif not just in fiction, but also in myths. I guess the ability to manipulate the primal forces of nature like thunderstorms and flames are just kind of ideal as a power fantasy, huh? Electric, Fire and Ice sort of form an elemental 'trio' in generation one with the Kanto legendary birds as well as Electabuzz/Magmar/Jynx sort of being counterparts in the first two generations, and I suppose it works in that those three are perhaps some of the more elemental types that involve creatures manipulating relatively unnatural elements or something? Eh.
The Electric type is perhaps one of the eighteen types that has the biggest variance in terms of design, because unlike other types, there simply aren't many creatures that can wield lightning bolts in real life. We run the gamut from random animals like your Raichus and Manectrics and Boltunds that just happen to shoot electricity, to artificial robotic creatures like Magnemite or Xurkitree or Rotom, to creatures inspired by legends like Electabuzz or Raikou or Thundurus, to pokemon partially inspired by electrical appliances like Alolan Golem or Toxtricity or Vikavolt... and I do appreciate this variance a lot. Like the fire type, Electric is one of the rarer types in the franchise despite its prominence in the media, again, presumably to not dilute the pool with too many 'just an animal, but it can breathe electricity'. In the first Generation, Electric-type is also the go-to type for the artificial or at least inorganic Pokemon with the Voltorb and Magnemite lines both being quasi-robotic beings, although Steel has basically taken over that role nowadays.
I think it would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that one of the recurring themes in Pokemon generations is the existence of a Pikachu expy, often referred to as "Pika-clones" by the fandom, and it's interesting to note that for whatever reason, divergent evolution (or, well, just straight-up marketing I guess) means that each region has its own niche of electric-generating fat rodent. It's like Darwin's finches, but with little rodents that carry electricity in their cheeks.
Anyway, not a whole ton to say here without repeating myself. I do really appreciate just how varied the Electric type really is, and it's a typing that has a lot of interesting members in it.
FIGHTING
- Offensively super-effective against: Normal, Dark, Steel, Ice, Rock
- Offensively resisted by: Bug, Poison, Psychic, Flying, Fairy. Ghost is immune to Fighting-type moves.
- Defensively weak to: Psychic, Flying, Fairy
- Defensively resists: Bug, Dark, Rock
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 63
There's also a vaguely 'heroic' feel to a fair amount of these Fighting types -- and a fair amount of the Fighting-type Pokemon do have a relatively heroic build, which is why they're given an advantage over the evil Dark-type, although this isn't always consistent -- Pangoro, Scrafty and Toxicroak are pretty nasty looking, and they're the type to beat you up in a dark alley and steal your lunch money. Fighting-types are also pretty great competitively, and there are a lot of great reasons to put one in your team.
It's pretty interesting to see how they incorporate this into more animal-based designs, with some particularly stand-out ones in Clobbopus and Crabrawler. Still, on the same vein, there are also a lot of Pokemon where the 'Fighting' type are just slapped on wily-nily without much thought on just how well the design reflects a martial artist practitioner. Looking at you, Unovan musketeers. The Fighting type is sort of the nexus of humanoid Pokemon and while I don't always hate on humanoid Pokemon... it's no real coincidence that this is probably the type with the highest proportion of designs that I am neutral-to-indifferent towards.
BUG
- Offensively super-effective against: Dark, Grass, Psychic
- Offensively resisted by: Fairy, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Steel, Poison, Ghost
- Defensively weak to: Fire, Flying, Rock
- Defensively resists: Fighting, Grass, Ground
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 84
Bugs are easily one of my favourite type, if not outright my favourite type (the contenders are Ghost, Water and Grass), and a not-insignificant part of it stems from the sheer amount of interesting adaptations of actual strange arthropod biology which, again, made me interested in entomology in the first place. Be it the horrifying parasitic fungus tale of Paras and Parasect, or the fun adaptation of a cicada's shedding of their skin in the Nincada line, or the bizarre yet interesting way they portray a snail-eating carabid beetle in the Karrablast/Shelmet duo, or simply the fact that we not only have one, but two entire Pokemon lines based on freaking bagworms... I also do appreciate just how wild Bug-types can vary even from the first generation, with the selection ranging from pretty butterflies and moths like Venomoth and Butterfree, to the absolutely mean-looking man-sized monster bugs like Pinsir and Scyther that wouldn't look out of place in a D&D Monster Manual. Honestly, just like the Water-type, the designers are really allowed to stretch their biological knowledge in making these critters.
Yet another staple in the Pokemon games is the fact that each generation has an early-route bug, spiritual successors to Weedle and Caterpie from the first game that also showcase just how Pokemon evolution works -- real-life insects have some of the most spectacular changes in their metamorphosis, and using it as a neat little jumping off point before we get to the fancier evolutions is always a pretty interesting thing to do in my opinion. Still, it's not to say that the early bugs are always boring. While the constant influx of butterflies were kind of tiring after a while, when they started to switch to other insects in Alola with Vikavolt, we're back in business for cooler-looking Pokemon.
And yet... Bug-types are still consistently one of the weakest types out there, almost always more of a liability than a boon when it's attached to another typing. Look at that massive list of types that are able to resist Bug-type moves! Up until Volcarona in Generation V, viable Bug-types are honestly almost always noted to be viable in spite of their Bug typing, instead of because. While there are certainly some powerful Bug-types even from the first generation, it's not until Generation V and VII that we get a large amount of actually powerful bug-types, including our very first Bug-type Legendary Pokemon in Genesect, and later on, the highly-awesome duo of Buzzwole and Pheromosa.
Anyway, bugs are pretty dang cool. I'm a huge, huge fan of them both in pokemon form and in real life. And surprisingly, we're a couple of decades in and Pokemon still hasn't blown their load on arhtropods to base their creatures on -- we still don't have a fly or a grasshopper Pokemon, which really boggles my mind!
ROCK
- Offensively super-effective against: Bug, Fire, Flying, Ice
- Offensively resisted by: Fighting, Ground
- Defensively weak to: Fighting, Grass, Ground, Water
- Defensively resists: Flying, Fire, Normal, Poison
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 65
It's really weird that "Rock" and "Ground" are two different types in Pokemon, yeah? Even as a kid, I found it to be baffling that instead of a catch-all 'Earth' type (or whatever you want to call it) Pokemon made such a point to distinguish between creatures whose element is just straight-up rocks, whereas Ground... well, we'll get there when we get there. It doesn't help that practically every single Rock-type in Generation I is also part-Ground-type as well, blurring the lines between the two even more until Generation II and III came with pure Rock-types like Sudowoodo, Regirock and Nosepass.
It's at least a lot easier to define what a Rock-type is, which is going to be difficult when we get to Ground. Rock-type Pokemon actually are made out of rocks (Nosepass, Roggenrola, Rolycoly, Geodude, Onix, Minior), incorporate objects that human culture associates with hard rocks (Corsola's coral, Carkol's coal, Barbaracle's barnacle shell) or have anatomy that are partially made out of rock (Magcargo's shell, Lycanroc's spikes).
Perhaps the biggest sub-set of Rock-type Pokemon are the revived fossil Pokemon, which, at least pre-VIII and their abomination fossils, are all part-Rock type. Whether this meant that the Jurassic Park style revivification altered them in such a way that they gain the Rock-type after being restored to life, or if it's because they are Rock-type that they fossilize so well, it's a pretty interesting little theme going on with the fossils. Relicanth, the 'living' fossil, is also part-Rock, which I've always thought is a nice touch. Another little interesting sub-theme with Rock-types? Space rock. Lunatone, Sorlock and Minior all explicitly come from space on meteors (as meteors?) and ended up becoming living space-rock monsters, and at least two of the Ultra Beasts (Stakataka and Nihilego) are also part-Rock. Considering the amount of Godzilla and Ultraman stuff I've watched, the amount of 'space rock turns out to be alive' plotlines is pretty dang high.
Anyway, the rocky boys have never been my favourite, but they are always solid designs. See what I did there? Solid? Eh?
GROUND
- Offensively super-effective against: Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, Steel
- Offensively resisted by: Bug, Grass. Flying-types are immune to Ground moves.
- Defensively weak to: Grass, Water, Ice
- Defensively resists: Poison, Rock; immune to Electric
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 69
Ground, as a typing, has always been bizarre. The original set of generation one Ground-types were a bizarre mix of burrowing animals (Sandshrew, Diglett) or creatures made out of rock (Geodude, Rhyhorn and Onix). And, uh... Cubone, Nidoking and Nidoqueen are... Ground-type... because? They live in the desert or underground or something? Throughout the years we've gotten a lot of particularly bizarre usages of the Ground-type, mostly creatures that are associated with the earth, dirt, soil or sand. We've got burrowing creatures (Diglett, Drillbur, Nincada, Diggersby), sand-dwelling creatures that burrow in the sand (Trapinch, Hippopotas, Gible, Sandile, Sandaconda), we've got creatures made out of clay (Baltoy, Golett), creatures made out of sand (Sandygast), even creatures that live in the mud (Mudkip, Wooper, Palpitoad, Barboach, Stunfisk). And, okay, sure, those are all different forms of the earth and I can kind of respect that. But then we've got oddballs like, oh, Gligar, who's part-Ground for no real reason. Or Camerupt and Numel, who I suppose are part-Ground because... volcano? And, y'know, we've got outliers like Nidoking and Larvitar and Zygarde that are Ground-type because I guess like most Kaiju they burst out of the ground or something?
There's, like, a definite theme of what makes a Ground-type specifically Ground-type as opposed to Rock or Steel or Normal or whatever, but at the same time trying to define that is pretty hard. I guess "some association to an aspect of the earth"? It's easily one of the least cohesive types out there when you order all of the Ground-type Pokemon in a line, though, jumping from mud-themed creatures to desert monsters to straight-up just-an-animal monsters to haunted golems to sandcastle beasts.
Anyway, I guess not exactly being tied to anything does allow any monster that they want to give earthquake-creating, burrowing or sand-manipulating powers does vaguely fit into the Ground type. I guess that's the price of splitting the traditional 'Earth' element into Grass, Rock and Ground, I suppose -- one of them gets left with all the oddities. Not my favourite because, again, it's not super cohesive, but there's a fair amount of charming designs among Ground-types. If nothing else, the sheer power that the Ground-type possesses in-game is nothing to sneeze at.
POISON
- Offensively super-effective against: Grass, Fairy
- Offensively resisted by: Poison, Ground, Rock, Ghost. Steel-types are immune to Poison attacks.
- Defensively weak to: Psychic, Ground
- Defensively resists: Poison, Fighting, Bug, Grass, Fairy
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 69
Poison is the original 'evil' type, with a lot of its members being associated with the original games' villainous team, Team Rocket, and a fair amount of them being designed to look evil or menacing. And the Poison type is slapped onto a fair amount of creatures, too -- from poisonous/venomous animals (Ekans, Tentacool, Qwilfish, Beedrill, Scolipede) to poisonous plants (Venusaur, Roselia, Vileplume, Foongus). And that's an easy thing to swallow. Oh, hey, these animals and plants are poisonous/venomous, so in Pokemon-land they are able to actually weaponize their poison as an actual element.
That's the most fun thing, though, is that instead of just making 'Poison' just a mere status or whatever, it's actually an element, and even from the get-go we have straight-up representations of artificial poison -- pollution -- in the Koffing and Grimer line. After a decade or so, they will be joined by Trubbish, forming a full trio of land, water and air pollution. A huge majority of Poison-types are still cool, poisonous/venomous creatures like Drapion and Toxapex and Ariados and Foongus, but the couple of times that they deviate from that and go for something weird is fun. Take the Gastly line -- a sentient poisonous gas that slowly solidifes into a chubby ghost! Or Toxel and Toxtricity, a baby lizard that grows up into a rock-star. Or Nihilego, a space jellyfish with a mind-control toxin that's Rock/Poison. Or Poipole, or Naganadel, or Eternatus, all of whom are so weird, but it fits them so much that they are part-Poison.
Gameplay-wise, Poison-types haven't had a pretty good career across Pokemon's long history. The biggest influx of Poison-types was in the original first generation, not helped by the slapping the Poison type into most Bug and Grass types there, but otherwise we haven't really had a whole ton of notable Poison-types, and most of the time when they do show up, they tend to be paired with another type.
And it's... it's kind of a shame just how neglected the Poison-type is. With its coverage only being good for a single type prior to Fairies coming into play, the Poison-type is honestly the game's underdog, with so many other types resisting Poison, and the Poison-type attacks being relatively weak. Poison-type Pokemon that are considered playable are honestly considered so in spite of being Poison-types instead of because. Which is kind of a shame. I've always loved the aesthetic of the Poison-type, but while we do have a bunch of cooler new members in recent generations, for the most part poor Poison still remains overlooked by the franchise.
PSYCHIC
- Offensively super-effective against: Poison, Fighting
- Offensively resisted by: Psychic, Steel. Dark-types are immune to Psychic-types.
- Defensively weak to: Bug, Dark, Ghost
- Defensively resists: Fighting, Psychic
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 95
Psychic used to be the overpowered type, at least in the first-generation games and its associated media. While the type isn't exactly rare, especially compared to the next tree, the likes of Alakazam, Starmie and especially the legendary Mewtwo were easily the powerhouses that could wipe the floor with anything and anyone, particularly due to the way that the 'special' stat worked in the first generation and due to the fact that Psychic's supposed weaknesses were absolute shit -- neither Bug nor Dark had any sort of halfway-decent moves, and the only Ghost-types were also part-Poison, which meant that Psychic-types are the bane of Gengars and Haunters out there instead of the other way around. Generation II absolutely nerfed Psychic-types by adding the Dark-type, which in addition to dealing super-effective damage, was also straight-up immune to Psychic type.
These days, Psychic still has that exciting feel of being pretty dang powerful, because, well, Psychic-type attacks are still pretty powerful and cool to have. And Psychic-types do run the gamut of having a whole lot of members, basically anyone or anything that could move things with the power of their mind like an esper. We've got Pokemon based on magicians or stage performers (Kadabra, Mr. Mime, arguably the Ralts line), we've got bizarre alien creatures (Deoxys, Elygem, Starmie), we've got unexplained ancient ruin-dwelling creatures (Claydol, Sigilyph, Unown), and we've got a whole lot of creatures that just have Psychic powers because they are god-like legendary entities. It's sort of a hodgepodge of multiple themes in fiction from things like Gundam's New-types, X-Men's psychic-wielding mutants, Star Wars' Jedi and all of the other fantasy that mankind has ever had regarding moving things with their mind. And then we've got the real-weird ones, like Reuniclus (it's a psychic cell), Exeggcute (a psychic egg hive-mind), Beldum (a psychic robot-leg what?), Orbeetle (a UFO ladybug) and Mr. Mime.
Honestly, I did believe that when they introduced the Fairy-type in Generation VI, they really should've retconned a bunch of the Psychic-types into Fairy-types or at least part-Fairy type, because I do feel like Psychic was kind of a shorthand for the enigmatic, supernatural fair-folk powers that the modern Pokemon team associate more with Fairy-type. Like, oh, I dunno, half of the 'mythical' pixies could've been Fairy-type instead of Psychic-type, since their powers really doesn't quite gel with the telepathy/telekinesis/mild-reality-warping, more sci-fi theme of Psychics. It's still pretty cool, though, and all in all the sheer flexibility of the Psychic type's definition does mean that we have some pretty fun off-the-rails design from this type.
ICE
- Offensively super-effective against: Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ground
- Offensively resisted by: Water, Ice
- Defensively weak to: Fire, Rock, Fighting
- Defensively resists: Ice
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 49
We're entering what I used to call the 'rare' types back in the '90's when I discussed Pokemon in the school playground, with Ice, Ghost and Dragon having minimal representation in the first generation. There are a grand total of five Ice-type Pokemon in the first Generation, none of them pure-Ice, and more than half of them being hard to find. And even after eight generations, Ice still has the least amount of members.
It's interesting, again, that Ice-type is a distinct type from Water-type. Most games out there would tend to group the two together if they work off an element system, or just straight-up just make 'freezing' a status effect instead of an actual elemental type. It's interesting that we've split Water and Ice into two parts despite the two, well, being essentially just water in different states. But I guess from a fictional perspective, having the Water-type be focused more on aquatic life and shooting and manipulating water itself to drown your opponent is definitely distinct enough compared to freezing your enemy solid and summoning giant chunks of ice or snow to pelt them. Plus, it allows a dedicated typing to slot all of our animals adapted to living in the tundra, so our Beartrics and Swinubs have a type to call their home. Again going back to how much Nintendo loves giving nods to real-life biology, a lot of aquatic life is specifically adapted to living in far colder regions, too, which is why we do have a fair amount of Water/Ice creatures like Walrein, Dewgong and Cloyster. As one of the rarest types, I do find it interesting that the whole theme of the regional variants being that they are Pokemon that have adapted to a different region's climate, a fair amount of them are ice-type variants.
In Pokemon-land, Ice has a pretty set theme of basically being either Pokemon adapted into living into the tundra (Beartric, Snom, many Alolan regional variants), icy spirits (Jynx, Froslass), or are straight-up creatures made out of snow or ice, (Glalie, Cryogonal and Bergmite). Ice is also one of those rare types that, in Generation I, are exclusively paired another type, usually water. Ice is pretty cool despite its rarity, and I always do appreciate the games that throw an icy area at us. Prior to the introduction of Fairy, Ice-types are pretty valuable for being one of the only types that can deal super-effective damage to those dang Dragons.
GHOST
- Offensively super-effective against: Ghost, Psychic
- Offensively resisted by: Normal-types are immune to Ghost attacks.
- Defensively weak to: Dark, Ghost
- Defensively resists: Bug, Poison. Ghost-types are immune to Normal and Fighting attacks.
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 54
Ghost and Dragon are two of the types that only have a single evolutionary line as a representative in both Generations I and II, are incidentally two types that are super-effective against themselves, and thus always felt extra-special and extra-exclusive to me as a kid. Over the years, though, subsequent generations would definitely add to the variety of Ghosts out there, which I definitely appreciate!. Easily one of the more popular types thanks to the spooky nature and the inherent fact that spooky things are cool, Ghost-types are also always blessed with delightfully creepy pokedex entries, with Yamask and Phantump being especially notorious among the fandom for their delightful creepiness of their dex entries.
Just what these Ghost-types are tend to be left ambiguous, with some Ghost-types explicitly noted to be literal wandering spirits of dead humans or Pokemon, while others just possess qualities that make them be ghostly. The original concept of Gastly and company, after all, combines the idea of a sentient cloud of gas alongside the concept of a ghost, but of course we get such a wide, wide variety of ghost type Pokemon over the years and every single one of them honestly feel to be well-crafted to represent a different sort of spookster. I could go on and on, but just like how the various different cultures of the world have such a large variety of spooky spirits, so are the ghosts in Pokemon very varied. Ghost-types are varied, are never boring, and, looking briefly through my notes, almost always score very high on my own personal scale of awesomeness.
Anyway, creepy ghosts are pretty dang cool, and whether they be clouds of sentient gas, an anti-matter Satan-dragon from another dimension, a possessed sword, the ghost of a child inhabitting a tree, an animated golem made out of clay, haunted black tea possessing a teacup, a happy dancing pumpkin, a humanoid made up of party favours and a disco ball, 108 souls chained together onto a rock, the ghostly dead husk of a cicada's shed skin, or a ghostly flying dragon lizard shooting the ghosts of its own young which are also unable to die, Ghost-types in Pokemon can be many things but they certainly are not boring.
DRAGON
- Offensively super-effective against: Dragon
- Offensively resisted by: Steel. Fairy-types are immune to Dragons
- Defensively weak to: Dragon, Fairy, Ice
- Defensively resists: Fire, Grass, Water, Electric
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 60
I do like that Pokemon's dragons run the gamut of having dragons based on both Western and Eastern interpretations of dragons, generic kaiju-style beasts, dragon-esque animals (dragonflies, seadragons, dinosaurs, reptiles) and even dragons based on mythological creatures that are not strictly dragons. And while part of me do wish that the dragons felt a bit more special and less frequent, I can't help but note that I do really love a lot of the draconic selections we have. Notably, subsequent generations seem to be a bit more willing to throw in more 'haha lol' funny dragons into the mix, with our dragon pool including the likes of Alolan Exeggutor, Turtonator, Mega Ampharos, as well as the adorable but decidedly non-draconic Goomy and Applin. And I kind of find it hilarious, I also do kind of wish that they sort of cut back on doing this, if for nothing else to have a thematic cohesion among the dragons.
Still, the fact that dragons are really not a real thing, and is more of a creature born out of collective consciousness (the Salamence-style four-legs-two-wings lizard body is, after all, only one culture's version of a 'dragon') does mean that there isn't any dragon expert out there who's going to be all snotty and be angry at Nintendo's executives for daring to classify Kingdra or Goomy as a dragon, because, well, what do they know?
DARK
- Offensively super-effective against: Ghost, Psychic
- Offensively resisted by: Dark, Fairy, Fighting
- Defensively weak to: Bug, Fighting, Fairy
- Defensively resists: Dark, Ghost. Dark-types are immune to Psychic-types.
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 63
Dark and Steel are two types introduced in Generation II, and, as mentioned before, the Dark type was introduced as a counter to the Psychic-types out there. A well-known fact, though, is that "Dark" in Pokemon refers less to the whole literal moving-darkness-and-shadow trope, and more towards "Dark" as in "evil"... which is what the type is actually called in Japanese. Sure, there are a fair amount of Dark-type moves that utilize shadows, but actual manipulators of the shadows themselves tended to be Ghost-type attacks, while a vast majority of Dark-type moves are more about dirty fighting, with moves with names like Beat Up, Knock Off, Bite, Nasty Plot, Thief and Throat Chop, a vast majority of the generic Dark-type moves tended to lean more towards dirty fighting, brutality and underhanded attacks. They're assholes, is what I'm saying.
And, sure, not all Dark-type Pokemon are explicitly evil and all that, but it's a neat and easy showcase of just how much these Dark-type Pokemon are willing to play dirty. And thus so many times, the designs are intended to depict a malicious and antagonistic creature. Or, well, sometimes you get creatures like Absol, which are totally misunderstood anti-heroes, or Giratina, which is an edgy chaotic neutral monster who's only antagonistic due to the actions of someone actually evil, or Pangoro, who is your typical foul-tempered-yet-secretly-good-at-heart anime protagonist. And sometimes you have Hydreigon and Guzzlord and Yveltal and they just quite literally want to burn the world and rule its ashes. And whether Dark-types are just rat bastard assholes, or if they're meant to be smarmy bastards that use underhanded techniques, or if they're an angsty, tragic anti-hero straight from your fanfiction, or if they are just into KISS, Dark-types are honestly never boring, I feel. And, well, predictably so, they are easily one of the more popular types out there.
Not all Dark-types are like, the broody and evil types, either, because sometimes the Dark-type gets slapped onto early-route mammals like Poochyena, and I'm assuming that it's because of the little hyena's brutality more than anything. I do kind of like that the types that can defeat Dark-types are the 'heroic' Fighting, Bug and Fairy. Why Bug? Kamen Rider, of course, who's going to rider jump rider kick the hell out of evil. Other than that, I really don't have much to say here, Dark-types are pretty dang cool!
STEEL
- Offensively super-effective against: Fairy, Ice, Rock
- Offensively resisted by: Electric, Fire, Steel, Water
- Defensively weak to: Fire, Fighting, Ground
- Defensively resists: Bug, Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ice, Normal, Rock, Psychic, Steel, Fairy. Immune to Poison-type. Prior to Generation VI, also resists Ghost and Dark.
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 64
Where Dark was meant to sort of re-balance the typing chart, being powerful against Psychic and Ghost while also being weak to the somewhat under-utilized Bug and Fighting, the new type Steel was super-duper defensive, boasting an almost ridiculous amount of resistances and had even more before they got nerfed in Generation VI... the same generation that made Steel-types actually viable as an offensive tool since they can hurt the new Fairy type.
Thematically, Steel types sort of forms a trio of 'mineral' types with Rock and Ground, and as I mentioned above, Steel-types have sort of taken over the place for inorganic, artificial life-forms, including robots like Metagross; living objects like Bronzong and Aegislash; and just clumps of assorted toolwork like Magneton and Klinklang. And sometimes you just have Pokemon that are just intrinsically made out of metal or are covered in them like a suit of armour, or Pokemon like Escavalier and Klefki who wield metallic objects as accessories or weapons.
Steel (or metal) isn't really something you consider as an 'element' in traditional games with elements, because, well, they are basically just generally treated as equipment. But in a game where some of the actual equipment are alive, it's honestly a pretty neat typing to have in a world where all the organisms can basically channel their respective elements, and for Steel-types, whether it be creatures covered in metal plating or are made of metal themselves, it carries a pretty dang interesting look that's distinct from all the other Pokemon in the game.
FAIRY
- Offensively super-effective against: Dark, Dragon, Fighting
- Offensively resisted by: Fire, Poison, Steel
- Defensively weak to: Poison, Steel
- Defensively resists: Bug, Dark, Fighting. Immune to Dragon-type attacks.
- Membership Amount as of Gen. VIII: 59
Man, I still remember the time when Generation VI was announced as I was just getting back to Pokemon, and there was massive speculation about the hints of a brand-new type that's going to be super-powerful against the super-powerful Dragon-type that was all the rage at the time. The most prevalent theory at the time was some sort of "Good" or "Light" type to be a counterpart to Dark-type, but I do absolutely love that they went with "Fairy". The initial announcement was a bit bizarre, but with the announcement that a bunch of older Pokemon are getting the "Fairy" tag added to them (and I maintain that a lot more could've gotten the tag, with the general vibe of the fair folk fitting many other Pokemon) the Fairy type feels like an extension of a theme we never quite realized was already there from the get-go.
Fairy types do have one of the neatest vibes out there, with some Fairies genuinely being nice and happy and fluffy and ever-helpful, but just like the fair folk in real mythology, some of them are just rat bastards. Not quite malicious in the way Dark-types are, but they operate on such a different mentality of morality that they can be decidedly harmful to humans. Fairies have only had three generations to muck around with, but a vast majority of the new additions really do feel like they're interesting dudes out there, with the mischievousness of the Fairy-types going from just something benign like stealing keys to straight-up attacking people who get lost in the forest. Alola perhaps has a pretty interesting take on Fairies, actually setting up a quartet of Fairies as basically being god-like guardians of the islands. That's pretty neat.
Also a fun little theme that Fairy-types have, surprisingly, is, uh... foodstuff? Which I didn't quite realize until now. Apparently some fairies just really like appearing like foodstuff. Couldn't they have retconned Vanillite into part-Fairy?
I'll be honest, until you mentioned Kamen Rider, I always assumed bug was strong against dark because they wouldn't understand the complexity of Dark-Type underhanded-ness.
ReplyDeleteThat's a possibility too, considering how Bug is strong (either offensively or defensively) against Psychic and Dark, and one of the things people always bring up is that bugs have simple, dumb minds, so they simply don't understand the Dark-type sneaky tactics and the Psychic-type's... smart-ness or something?
DeleteI dunno. I just really wished that there were a lot more viable bugs to use in the game. We've gone a long way since the likes of Dustox and Venomoth, but bugs are still kind of the underdog, aren't they? Not quite as much as Poison, but still...
Is interesting that normal types get all the types of moves, w/ random rats being able to Fire Blast or Blizzard or whatever. Guess it's part of their nature as the "base" type. They can adapt the elemental powers of other types, but w/o boosts.
ReplyDeleteHuh, never really thought about the shift from rare Normal+non flying type to a consistent amount pushed out. Girafarig being the only Normal+Non-flying type of the first 3 gens is crazy.
I guess w Corvisquire/Rookidee they didn't want a type to dissapear like it did with Fletchling? Eh, there are no other type loss from evos in the gen but they did include ones from prev gens like Drapion. Or maybe they just wanted to emphasize its role as a sky taxi? Idk. . . Vileplume is an exception to the fungi pokemon get Spore rule, poor lad, but tbf 100% accuracy sleep+Chlorophyll making it quick would be a menace. I think they all get Effect Spore? Regardless, GF keeping mostly cohesion in a group of mons is always neat. . Mechanically speaking, it's nice how grass types have gotten buffed over the gens. Energy Ball got a boost as the other elemental moves(Ice Beam, Flamthrower, Tbolt) got nerfed to even them out, Giga Drain buff, and so on. Grass types get screwed by the weaknesses/resistances, which I think was meant to be made up for by access to many status moves? . . Do wonder if the many grass/poisons and only 1 pure grass was game balance or just because the developers associated those types together. Gave Chikorita in the next gen a bit of flare though regardless, helping make a pure type more exciting. . Huh, didn't realize the animal on fire trope had died down. For the best probs. . Think Gen 4 went a biiiiiit too far with making fire types rare, looking at Flint's Diamond/Pearl team. . . Yea water deserves its spot. And while they're gone now, the variety of HMs to explore water between Surf, Waterfall, Dive, Whirlpool helped push in the vastness of it. Rewarded ingame for it too, with water being one of the strongest typings resist/move wise. .
It's something that I feel has been slowly phased out of newer generations, though, isn't it? Like, sure, compared to Raticate and a lot of the Normal-types from back when TM's were one-time-usage things, a lot of the Normal-types don't get to learn as many wacky moves, but we still have random bits like Watchog being able to learn Thunderbolt or Wooloo being able to learn Electro Ball. A lot of the newer mons don't quite have the same amount of TM versatility as Generation III and before, but still, I do like the idea that the Normal-types are able to theoretically adapt to try and learn the powers of elemental creatures.
DeleteIt's something that I realized in Generation VI. It was the first generation in a long while that I've actually been serious about looking at each new Pokemon that is released on Serebii and stuff, and that generation has a couple of lines that are part-Normal for seemingly no reason (Helioptile, Litleo, Diggersby, plus the Jigglypuff line being retconned to Normal/Fairy), and it's been a bit bizarre since gameplay-wise, adding the Normal typing to any other type almost always ends up with more disadvantages than advantages.
I dunno. It's just that with Rookidee and Corvisquire, they don't look any less like a bird compared to previous Normal/Flying types. It could be a conscious decision to make most future bird Pokemon pure Flying types or something, but I dunno. It's not like the Rookidee line spends all of its time flying, right?
Vileplume is a flower, though! Gloom and Vileplume are based on Rafflesia, the corpse flower. It just happens to look like a mushroom because Pokemon gave it a fat chunky body underneath the flower that ends up looking like a mushroom's fat stem. Notably, though, Vileplume's the only non-fungal-based Pokemon to have Effect Spore, and even then as a hidden ability, so maybe as it's rotting it's cultivated a small patch of fungus helpers within its flower?
As someone who enjoyed the Grass type but always found it lacking due to the sheer fragility of their type matchups, I was surprised at how great they were in Generations IV and V onwards. Energy Ball is a god-send, because before Energy Ball came around, the best special Grass-type moves were the awesome-but-impractical Solarbeam, a pre-buff Giga Drain and the insanely impractical Petal Dance. The Grass/Poison bit in the first generation was always a bit weird to me, and I'm not sure if they just wanted to make the Grass-types feel stronger by adding the Poison type, allowing it access to poisonous status moves or something? But it's not like Poison moves were any good in Generation I, so.
Yeah, I was genuinely surprised by the lack of animal-on-fire trope. Animal that *breathe* fire, sure, those will be around till the end of time, but I think the last one we got that was basically the Charmander/Ponyta model was... Chimchar's line? And then we have a grand amount of zero animals on fire until Centiskorch's fiery facial hair. Every other fire-type afterwards tend to make the flame colours be part of their detail, like Volcarona's wings or Pyroar's mane or Turtonator's shell.
The sheer amount of Water HM's do make a lot of my generation II and III teams be a bit more water-heavy, I feel. And I also feel like Water-types to be always a constant in basically all of my in-game teams, with at least one Water-type hanging around. It's not just one that appeals to my own personal biases, but also one that's genuinely practical!
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ReplyDeleteKinda makes me sad that Morpeko(+giving it to Toxtricity, Boltund, and...Hatterene?) broke the "all pikaclones and only pikaclones have Nuzzle" thing they added in Gen6. Oh well. . And even Toxicraok/Scrafty all have a 2nd typing which is stereotypically evil. Pangoro I think is meant to be heroic in that Batman or honorable yakuza/thug trope or kind hearted anime delinquent sort of way.Some of the dex entries and the lil shoot in the mouth gimme the vibe. . Has been neat to see bugs skyrocket in power level over the gens. From pretty crappy to Durant doing veeery well in VGC atm. Deserved too, always felt a lil weird to me that bugs were so clearly liked by the creators and they made endearing designs for them, yet they were so weak. Guess in the OG game was balanced around revolving team so starting off with bugs early was a place of importance anyhow. .
ReplyDeleteAnorith is neat looking. . Cubone has the brown ground look atleast and bones are kiiiiinda groundish I guess in decomposing?Gligar is like a flying desert scorpion so ground kiiinda? I got nothing for the Nidos. TTar isn't a ground type, the rock ground overlap tricking even you lol. . . Couuuuple poison types abusing it as a resistance. Kinda by nature a very defensive typing and those who rise to the top(ie. Amoongus) bank it off that fact. nothing for the Nidos. TTar isn't a ground type, the rock ground overlap tricking even you lol. .
Yeah, some of the Dark-types like Absol and Pangoro are obviously leaning to the "looks like a thug, but has a heart of gold" tropes, with Pangoro in particular being endlessly compared to like, JoJo or Yakuza characters. And there's of course Incineroar, of course, who is a wrestler heel. Either way, though, Dark-types are always fun, whether they play the Dark-type straight or if it's a subversion of sorts.
DeleteBug-types getting more and more powerful is also something I absolutely love, because if you can't tell from all of my monster reviews... I love arthropods of all kinds, and I make it a point to try and utilize the 'starter bug' in most of my end-game teams. I think Generation II, IV and VI are the only ones that I didn't use the early-route bug bug in my primary playthrough of a main series game. In the original first-generation games the bugs were clearly meant to be the 'starter' type, I feel, and like Normal-types felt to be something that you can easily find and collect, but the trade-off is that they're weak. Which I've always felt to be kind of sad, since the creators clearly loved making all these weird bugs but they're relegated to early-route trash for the most part, y'know? And even if they're powerful they tend to be either gimmicky (Foretress, Shuckle, Shedinja) or have a typing that gets massive 4x-damage (Scizor, Heracross). Thank god for Generation V.
The bones kind of scream 'ghost' to me more than Ground, though, or Rock if we're having a fossil association. It's brown colours and being familiar with Cubone for like 20 years now has made it pretty much instinct to go "yeah, Cubone's Ground-type", but when you really kind of think of it should it really? Gligar being Ground/Flying instead of Bug/Flying or Poison/Flying or Bug/Poison feels pretty bizarre to me, though, considering that every pokedex entries highlight its ability to glide (flying) or its ability to sting people (poison), and it's also based on a bug. And while Ground/Flying is a genuinely unique type, I feel like Gligar's such a weird usage of it, y'know? It's not like it really is shown to be in the desert all the time like Flygon or Cacnea are either.
I meant to write Larvitar instead of Tyranitar, oops! I've always liked Larvitar and Pupitar losing the Ground typing when they evolve, though. They shed their old subterranean or mountain-living habitat into being a straight-up evil monster of doomy-doom-doom.
. Couuuuple poison types abusing it as a resistance. Kinda by nature a very defensive typing and those who rise to the top(ie. Amoongus) bank it off that fact. . Gimme Celebi w/ a Fairy type, it's cleaaarly a forest fairy. Victini too. And Jirachi. Even Manaphy jells with it. Fairy is also such a gooood type so it would make those all better, but they aren't legal in VGC so doesn't matter to GF balance wise anyways. . Ice types are neat. Did a Ice/Dragon locke of USUM and got to appreciate the type a fair bit more, it's full of glass cannons but they can do a good chunk of work. Pretty typing too. .
ReplyDeleteGhost, my fav type! Great variety and have only gotten more cool ghost types over the gen.
Making dragon a full on type of its own was pretty interesting, considering how most of the other types are more vague whereas dragon(and to a lesser extent ghost) are a mythology creature. Worked out well though.
Ahh, there we get the Pangoro rep, shoulda read deeper before writing that. Oh well. . Kinda wish Steel was still pre-Fairy. A typing being almost ll resists but very few offensive hits helped it feel even more distinct. Oh well, getting the fairy type to exist was worth it. . Fairies are a fun type, wonder when we'll get a fairy/poison. Has been cool seeing them go thru so many combinations and tropes w/ fairies in such a short time.
I've always felt that Poison's resistances sort of overlap a lot with other types, and until it resisted (and is effective against) Fairy, there's not enough of a reason to run Poison-types, I feel? And I do love that the best about Generation VI's Fairy introduction. It suddenly made Steel and Poison types be useful offensively at last. And... and I get that Nintendo is very unwilling to change types unless necessary, but I dunno. Maybe a Huge Type Revamp is due at some point? Make all the birds pure-Flying like Rookidee, and slap the Fairy type on a lot of deserving creatures like Chansey, Audino and a lot of the legendary pixies. But I feel like that ship has sailed, since if they had wanted to i t surely it'd be when they introduced Fairy-types in Generation VI? It really boggles my mind how none of the legendary pixies got the Fairy type, though. Celebi's a straight-up creature based on a forest fairy; both Jirachi and Victini are wish-granting critters; Uxie, Mespirit and Azelf straight up have fair folk names in their names... honestly, the Psychic type has always felt to be an arbitrary thing to explain their supernatural powers, and now that it's better explained with the Fairy-type I'm kinxd of sad that none of them get the Fairy typing.
DeleteI don't think I've ever really done a type-locke playthrough of any game. The Geneartion VII games would be great for Ice-type runs, though, since they've got a lot of options!
My guess is they sort of debated what type that 'the rare dragon line' is supposed to be, since making it merely a Water-type isn't going to make it feel special enough, and then they decided on Dragon-type as a special type for Dratini... and it set the ball rolling afterwards. It's such a bizarre decision to do, but one that ended up working very well as the franchise went on, and I definitely appreciate the sheer variety of Dragon-types.
I kinda felt like it was kind of weird that Steel resists Ghost, since, y'know, ghosts can supposedly pass through anything, so that one being a bit retconned was a nice touch. There really shouldn't be any reason for Steel not to resist Dark, though. I guess they just really hated Metagross or something?
We have a Fairy/Poison! It's Galarian Weezing, and it's one hell of a wacky fairy. I really do love them going through a lot of combinations and tropes... and I genuinely wonder what some of these creatures would've been if the design team had swapped things out a little. What if Impidimp showed up in Generation V, for example? Would it just be pure-Dark? How many of them would've been slapped with the Psychic-type instead if they were made earlier, and how many would've been given the Normal-type?
Ahh, there we get the Pangoro rep, shoulda read deeper before writing that. Oh well. . Kinda wish Steel was still pre-Fairy. A typing being almost ll resists but very few offensive hits helped it feel even more distinct. Oh well, getting the fairy type to exist was worth it. . Fairies are a fun type, wonder when we'll get a fairy/poison. Has been cool seeing them go thru so many combinations and tropes w/ fairies in such a short time.
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