Reviewing Fanmade Pokemon - Pokemon Insurgence, Part 3

The final part of me reviewing the fanmade Delta Pokemon from the fan-game Pokemon Insurgence!

Delta Elekid line

I wouldn't have thought of associating the Elekid line with gargoyles. But for Electabuzz and Electivire, it sure as hell fits! Not so much for Elekid, though. The spriting is pretty great here, I feel, and I do like how both Elekid and Electabuzz have empty, rock-statue eyes and it's not until its final form, Electivire, that the eyes suddenly gain a bunch of detail. The devil horns and wings work well, too. I do like the fun little detail about how they like to gather and congregate on rooftops at night, probably exchanging gossip, but return back to their original positions in the morning, Toy Story style. These guys are pure-Rock, but Electivire is Rock/Dragon because... everyone gets to be a dragon I guess? It's not like Nintendo is any better at it. 

Delta Magby line
Hahaha what? Delta Magmar's line gets to become... scuba divers? Again, I'm not the biggest fan of them just giving some human clothes to Pokemon, but I really do like the idea here. Delta Magmortar (who is Water/Steel) is easily my favourite of the three, though, with the glass-gome head and the metallic armour translating well to those old-fashioned scuba gear while also working with Magmortar's own 'cannon-arm' gimmick. 

Delta Lotad line
Yer a wizard, Lotad! Mmm, not feeling this one either, but the spriting is marvelous. Lotad, Lombre and Ludicolo basically swaps their lotus pad hats for wizard hats, and I absolutely love that gigantic Gandalf beard on Ludicolo covering his entire face. I guess they're still kappas, since they're Water/Psychic. I dunno. I kinda like them, actually. 


Delta Seedot line
Oh, cool, Seedot goes from an acorn into a lightbulb, that is so creative. Honestly, Delta Seedot is just 100% awesome. I don't care for its two evolutions all that much, although I'll admit that the tengu inspiration of Nuzleaf and Shiftry does translate into being a thunder deity a lot better. Shiftry's hair becoming clouds, the legs becoming little points that allow it to float, Nuzleaf's leaf becoming a little lightning bolt... I just find Nuzleaf's little cloud diaper to be funny, and I think I would've liked it better if Delta Shiftry didn't have giant electrical sockets for arms. It's funny and I can't fault that, but I feel that if they had wanted to really go in on turning the Delta Seedot line from a forest-spirit creature to a proper lightning-and-thunder spirit, they could've gone all the way. Still pretty cool!


Delta Sableye
He's a fire gremlin now, hee hee hee. Delta Sableye is Fire/Rock, and while there's not much that changed here other than swapping the colours and adding some flames, I do like that he went from being a cave gremlin into a straight-up imp devil thing. And the mega evolution holds a giant burning rock! That's cool. 


Delta Mawile
Oh wow, yeah, this really should've been expected, but I still find Delta Mawile rad as hell. Mawile's giant hair-jaw has always been compared to a venus flytrap, so obviously Delta Mawile gets to become a real plant creature and she's now Grass/Dark. Turning Mawile's maw into a long Audrey II is cool enough, and the little network of vines down the maw is cool enough... but the addition of giant roses is just perfect, as is turning Mawile's pigtail-ear things into leaves. Mega Mawile even found herself some hair curlers! Easily one of my favourite deltas. 

Delta Aron line
Another pretty expected Delta variant. Hey, it's the same cool creature, but on fire. The thing is, badass kaiju monsters on fire is just freaking awesome, and I love the idea that the Fire/Steel Delta Aron, Lairon and Aggron are these burning fiery elemental-like creatures who have that red-hot steel armour to contain the flames within their body. Absolutely love the very dramatic sprite they have here. I can't decide which one I like the most. Aron's cool white-hot eyes, Lairon's burning quadrupedal body, or Aggron's flames seeping out from within its armour? VERY awesome, even if I'm actually kind of baffled that Delta Aggron doesn't get a mega evolution considering regular Aggron has one. 

Delta Meditite line
They become satyrs, which is cool, I guess? They're Fairy-types, now. It's an interesting twist on the design, but I just really don't find much to say here.

Delta Numel line
Nope, this isn't Uranium's nuclear type. Delta Numel and Camerupt are designed after a leaking power plant, but they're just pure-Poison. And honestly, that's basically what radiation is, right? It's a pretty interesting take, and I do like that the humps grow bigger and bigger and more sophisticated as Delta Numel evolves, but it's still leaking toxic goop. I also really like the little hazmat mask that Delta Camerupt and Mega Delta Camerupt have. 

Delta Yamask line
Another nuclear-themed creature is the Steel/Poison Delta Yamask and Cofagrigus. And... okay, I guess they're glowing radioactive creatures surrounding anti-radiation canisters? They still kinda look like Ghostbusters-style neon-green ghosts. I like Cofagrigus being some sort of anti-radiation cylinder thing. Unexpected, but I must say it's very creative.  

Delta Plusle & Minun
Ahhh, cuties! I love this. Plusle and Minun become fairies, but they become diametrically opposite fairies, with Plusle being a happy Fire/Fairy and Minun being a happy Ice/Fairy. They're cute babies!

Delta Feebas line
Oh, okay, shit, that's not what I expected. Delta Feebas and Milotic are pure-Ghost types. Delta Feebas is just a cute ghost fish with dead eyes that's noted to want to scare people but is such a loser that it often just scares itself silly instead. Delta Milotic, on the other hand, isn't just a swirling ghost eel. It's the skeleton of regular Milotic, wreathed in ghostly aura. It's basically a Bone Naga from D&D, huh? I feel like they could've done a bit more to communicate that that's meant to be bones, but it's still ultimately a pretty neat design. Mega-Delta Milotic is essentially the same design as the regular fanmade Mega Milotic in Insurgence, but the fact that the colours don't change make it really hard to realize the two designs are supposed to be different. Apparently, Delta Milotic's highly protective of its owner because of what it felt when it was alive.


Delta Clamperl line
Okay, so Clamperl is now a baby Dragon. Cute, and it's basically swapped colours and has a bunch of extra sharp teeth. The dex entry lampshades this by noting that Clamperl is masquerading as a shellfish. Okay! Really like the creepy expression on its face. As with regular Clamperl, you can have two evolutions -- the Dragon/Dark Huntail and the Dragon/Fairy Gorebyss. (Pretty much what, in my opinion, Nintendo should really do with the canon Huntail and Gorebyss.) And I do like that while these two are a bit more dragon-like, the design of Huntail and Gorebyss isn't really changed a lot. Both are very fantastic. The darker colours for Huntail work well, as does the wing-like 'beard', while Gorebyss's slightly darker pink shade and extra leaves also gives a nice vibe of variance. Low-key might be some of my favourites here. 

Delta Beldum line 
Okay, that's interesting. Delta Beldum's line becomes a spider? It's Bug/Ground, and I suppose Metagross was always spider-like. The colour palette here seems to be referencing either the golden orb-weaver or the yellow garden spider, and... and the Delta Metagross and Mega-Delta Metagross is sort of the obvious route where the big metal arms are replaced with spider-legs, the X-shape gets replaced with fangs and it's got gross multiple spider eyes. A very cool bug monster design, and I think that weird slightly-brown texture is some sort of web armour. Or is it an egg sack?

What's kind of interesting is that they kind of worked backwards from that. Metang is a smaller four-legged spider, and just looks like a generic stylized spider-monster like a Gohma from Zelda... but then we've got Delta Beldum, which, well, is just a little spider-head attached to two gigantic spider legs. The only reason this really works is that we're alraedy familiar with how the Beldum line functions... and yet it's probably one of the coolest-looking things here due to how bizarre looking Delat Beldum is.  

The other Delta Beldum line
But wait, there's more! A bit of an obvious Delta variant is the other Delta Beldum line, which is less cool by virtue of not being a creepy spider. But Delta Beldum (Ruin) is Rock/Grass and basically has a similar inspiration as Delta Golem before... it's some Breath of the Wild or Dwemer style ancient lost-technology golem, covered with grass and moss and having parts of it covered in rust. Again, not anywhere as creative as the Spider Beldum line, but Ruin Beldum is still very awesome-looking nonetheless in no small part due to the amazing sprites done here. 

But wait, there's more! There's also Delta Crystal Metagross, which is apparently the 'true' form of Ruin Metagross here, where the metal armour shatters and reveals the true form, which is this Metagross with only two hovering arms made entirely of crystal. And this Ruin Delta Metagross is Grass/Crystal, the only member of the fan-made Crystal type in the entire game (it's got no resistances and is effective against everything). I'm not sure if it's even obtainable in the game or if it's just a boss fight or whatever (the Wiki doesn't tell me on that) but... okay, sure, that's a pretty cool-looking crystal glass Metagross monster for sure! 

Delta Buneary line
Delta Buneary becomes a full-on fighting bunny. It's... it changes a fair bit from the original design but it still keeps the same general silhouette, I suppose? the colour palette is nice, even if I do feel like it's a bit cluttered. Mega Delta Lopunny becomes Psychic/Fighting, it's a kung fu Jedi. Kind of indifferent about this one, to be honest. 


Delta Riolu line
Okay, so they go full-in on the Anubis vibes that regular Lucario gives off. I guess this sort of forms a pair with Delta Blaziken? Delta Riolu is Dark, and Delta Lucario is Dark/Ground. For what it is, it's a pretty cool Anubis-themed jackal-man, but... I dunno. I think it sort of loses what made it unique as Lucario in the first place, but it's kind of cool, I suppose. 

Delta Croagunk line
It's a fire frog! Apparently, the inflatable cheeks that Croagunk and Toxicroak have now act as fire-bags that allow them to vomit flame and smoke. That's kinda neat. Mostly I just really like the Delta Toxicroack sprite with the glowing, flaming stabby-claws and the glowing neck-bag. Not a whole ton to say here, but I do find it kind of cool. 

Delta Venipede line
Another 'cool, a lava-themed version of a regular monster', but while it's not quite as uber-impressive as Aggron up above, the Delta Venipede line does have some very, very cool textures. Particularly Venipede and Scolipede, the mixture of reds, yellows, blacks and grays are really pretty. Scolipede looks absolutely badass, and, hey, it's a lava centipede ON FIRE. That's just pretty freaking badass! Whirlipede is probably the one that changes the most, losing its regular buggy spikes... but hey, it's a rolling ball of magma. That's far more dangerous than poisonous centipede stingers!

Delta Dwebbe lines
Just like Metagross, Dwebble, of all things, gets two variants! The first one is a pretty neat, if expected one. The 'Berry' Delta Dwebble is Grass/Poison, and it's swapped its geology-themed hermit crab shell for a bush. I love the big fat purple berry that sticks out of Delta Dwebble's new home, and the fact that Delta Crustle's new home looks like someone cut out a square hedge and gave it to Crustle is hilarious. The colours are nice, too!

But even more fun is the CAKE Dwebble. Yes, Cake! These guys are Fairy/Normal, and I absolutely love how the general shape of Dwebble and Crustle's canon shells are still kept. Cake Dwebble has a dollop of cream and a cherry, while Cake Crustle is... well, a layered cheesecake! There's even a fork jabbed onto a cake, which the dex tells us Crustle stabs any thieves with. Fun! An amazing twist and a very creative one to take the regular Crustle's strata-based vibe while also turning it into something completely different.

Delta Petilil line
Equally fun is Delta Petilil, who also gets two completely different delta forms... and, again, are two very awesome ones. The first one, the 'Water' Delta Petilil line, is easily my favourite. Petilil's design already lends itself well to being adapted into a beautiful deep-sea jellyfish, but the patterns they pick for this one, the glowing dome-like head, the two different sets of tentacles... Delta Petilil is Water/Fire, and that's actually a small fire it has burning inside the little bubble dome. I guess the fire is meant to symbolize the 'stinging' sensation of a jellyfish sting? One of my favourite Delta designs. And Delta Liligant works well, too! Lilgant's dress ends up becoming the jellyfish's tentacles, but her hair is also filled with some flame-tipped hair, too, and we've got a fun Lampent-style face going on. I like her unevolved counterpart's simplicity, but Water Liligant is also dang cool.

The other Delta Petilil line is fairy-based... and... Fairy Liligant is pretty neat, but it's basically what you expected. Just swap the grass parts for pink petals and angel wings. Pretty, but not anywhere as cool as the sheer unexpectedness of Jellygant. Delta Petilil is absolutely adorable and precious, though, with those little wings and the little pink crown.

Delta Solosis line
Oh no poor Solosis what's going on? It's a haunted rock now, a Ghost/Rock, and it's explicitly a soul bound to a rock. I do like this, the cell-based cytoplasm that regular Solosis has is now a ghostly aura, and the little umbilicus/organelle thing is now just another friendly, slightly-miscoloured rock. Interestingly, as it evolves into Reuniclus, this variant just starts to gather more rocks, each with a mind of its own. It's no longer a cell-blob creature, of course, so of course it wouldn't undergo mitosis. Very neat, it's a legion of ghost-rocks formed into a single being. That's pretty awesome, and the spritework is also pretty great. 

Delta Darumaka line
Also another spooky one, Delta Darumaka is a Dark/Ghost creature. I'm not 100% sure what it's meant to be, and evil gremlin, I guess? Delta Darumaka is basically the regular Darumaka with a slasher smile, but Delta Darmanitan straight-up becomes some horrifying ghost-beast with giant claws and eyebrows. Apparently, Delta Darmanitan has the pretty charming habit of attempting to use doors even though it can pass through them. Not my favourite ones here, but at least they look different.

Delta Emolga
It's a Fire/Dark squirrel that can set itself on fire? Not a bad concept, but I feel like this strays a bit far from what Emolga looks like, I feel.

Delta Karrablast line
Aaaaah it's a kawaii! A pure Fairy-type Karrablast line! It's no longer scrappy and angry, it's got a cute ribbon and a smiling face, and it's now buddies with Shelmet! Doesn't stop it from borrowing the shell to evolve into Delta Escavalier, but at least it's done with them being buddies now! The giant candy-cane lances are easily what makes this one work particularly well for me. 


Delta Foongus line
Oh, it's a Ghost/Dark Foongus, but with the aesthetic of the kasa-obake, the traditional Japanese paper umbrella yokai. A fun little twist, turning the dome of the mushroom into an umbrella! It's even a creature that shares original Foongus' mimickry trick, since they that disguise themselves as  umbrella. Although a very fat umbrella, I have to imagine.  Not much to say here, I like them! They look funny.  

Delta Axew line
It's a pure-Water shark-themed Axew line. I was utterly indifferent at first, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. The fact that Axew's awkward chin-spikes end up being integrated as shark fins, the little anchor that gets embedded in Fraxure's fin... and how it somehow merged with Haxorus's anatomy to become anchor-blades that jut out of his chin... that's actually pretty dang cool. Haxorus even becomes Water/Steel after fusing with the anchor! And... and it's sure a very accurate shark colour, but I kind of feel like they might've given a dash of another colour to lighten up the design. Maybe red eyes? A cool shark kaiju regardless.


Delta Golett line
THIS IS SPARTA. It's kind of cool. Golett is now Fighting/Steel gladiator armours that fights and fights. Not my favourite design here and I do feel it's a bit over-designed for a Pokemon... but still a very cool design nonetheless!

Delta Heatmor
Oh no, what's going on with Heatmor? It's face is all goopy and melty! Delta Heatmor is Steel/Poison, and apparently it's now gone from a furnace-anteater into some sort of metallic acid-creating factory that emits smoke from its tail and has two giant cannons that spit acid. It looks like its existence is torture, poor thing!

Delta Goomy line
Instead of being a slug, I guess Delta Goomy is now just a mud-creature that resembles a slug. The entire line is Ground/Water, and... honestly, it kind of fits even regular Goomy. I could see an alternate world where the Goomy line gets designed 100% identical to the Goomy we have now, but are Water/Ground because it's a swamp-dwelling slug in the same way that Wooper or Swampert are. Delta Goomy's line are straight-up just mud monsters, though, which is why they need water otherwise they'll dry out and crumble. Pretty cool, and I like the detail of parts of their buddy sloughing off in their sprites.  

Delta Deino line
Delta Deino is Ground/Poison, and they're basically blind snakes. I like that they kept the blindness part of the original Deino line, and I do like the vibe of them incorporating plants and grass into their anatomy despite not being a Grass-type. Delta Hydreigon is easily the coolest out of the three -- because of how much it resembles the regular Hydreigon, albeit swapping the weird flesh-wings with grass wings, and having a very cool spiky-cobra center head. Honestly, keeping Deino and Zweilous legless makes for a more organic change into Hydreigon as well that I'm not sure why official Pokemon let Deino and Zweilous have legs. I dunno. The entire line has this male/female distinction, where the females (which are super-shy) have purple highlights instead of green. I personally like the male colouration a lot more, which makes it feel a lot more natural, but female Delta Hydreigon also looks pretty dang cool. 

Delta Larvesta line
It's a Dark/Poison Larvesta line. Larvesta is kind of nothing too special, just a purple-and-black Decepticon-coloured Larvesta. Apparently it can distort dimensions, though, what the heck! And then we get Volcarona, who has a freaking death mask for a head and that's so cool. The basic Volcarona body shape is still there, but instead of feathery moth wings she's got spooky skeletal bat wings covered with ghostly aura. Apparently it spreads toxins around it, and it can warp reality and create black holes. Okay, that's creepy! And then Mega Delta Volcarona just straight-up becomes an Evangelion creature or something. I dunno, that's a wee bit too much for me. But that's still cool. 

The Delta Regis
Legendaries, now, and... I kind of find these kinda neat, even if they look more like a Zelda enemy instead of a Pokemon. Instead of being golem automatons, though, the Delta Regis are more 'unbound' elementals, I guess, to borrow a term from Warcraft that seems to describe these guys? Delta Regirock is now pure-Ground and is completely made up of sand, which is pretty dang cool as a legendary creature. Regice, meanwhile, is pure-Water and is a living tsunami wave, while Registeel is a half-melted magma slab of metal. 

I guess this is regular Regirock, Regice and Registeel after they get 'destroyed'? Regirock shatters into sand but becomes a sand being instead, Regice gets melted but can still control its water form, Rergisteel also gets melted by lava but becomes a lava monster? Interseting!

Delta Meloetta
I legit actually like this Meloetta design more than regular Meloetta. She looks like she's having so much fun either being a mime or tap-dancing with magician getup! She also doesn't particularly look too much like a Pokemon design anymore and I feel would fit right at home in any given Western cartoon as just a cute cartoon girl, but eh. It's Dark/Fairy or Dark/Psychic depending on its form, and it's a neat way to keep Meloetta's 'entertainment' vibe while going a completely different direction. 


Delta Hoopa
And our final Pokemon is Hoopa, who goes from being a bottle genie into a cloud genie, becoming pure-Flying that turns into Fairy/Flying when unleashed. Hoopa Unbound's design is still kind of a mess, but that's the original Hoopa Unbound's fault more than the Insurgence team's. Regular Delta Hoopa is pretty cute, I like it. 

UFI

And we'll close this now with the only fanmade design in this entire game, which, somehow, doesn't even feature fanmade evolutions. (Missingno also exists in the game as a catchable Pokemon, but that's sort-of an existing 'Pokemon', isn't it?) We've got UFI, the adorable little black blob with glowing eyes in a little UFO. Apparently it arrives from space, and hangs out in the Oort Cloud, the mass of space rock at the edge of our solar system. UFI is Psychic/Electric and you can apparently only get him after catching all 920 Pokemon (everything from Gen I-VI, and two generations' worth of Delta Pokemon) in the Insurgence pokedex. Neat, and a pretty fun, simple design. 

And that's it for Insurgence for now, it's a fun little ride!