It's been a bit longer, but here's the next part of my (mostly blind) commentary on the designs of the Pokemon in the fan-made game Quarantine Crystal! To those who are joining us for the first time here, this is a fan-made romhack of Crystal where the 251 Pokemon in that game are replaced with brand-new designs!
As with all the previous parts, thanks to Heckbot for providing me with screenshots of all of the Pokedex entries. Also, special thanks to MrKyurem, one of the creators of the game, who provided some updated dex screenshots as well as telling me what not to post so that I don't accidentally spoil the game for people that are playing!
Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I haven't played through the entire rom-hack, so I am making it a bit of an exercise to attempt to guess the typings of most of these designs!
I knew I wanted to open or close out one of these articles with this guy! The Mothman is one of the most famous figures in cryptozoology, and little Motho's dex entries even references one of the more famous (and earliest) sightings of Mothman, where people driving in the street at night reported being followed by a winged humanoid with glowing eyes.
Motho is an actual moth, though! It's got the two giant glowing eyes associated with Mothman and a chibi-fied version of the Mothman silhouette, but there's no mistaking those two bat-like 'ears' as feathery moth antennae! I also love that the Mothman's oddly sinister way of following people at night is just an adaptation of how a moth would be drawn to lights.
And of course, Motho evolves into Mothomen, with a pretty cool adaptation of one of the more fantastical depictions of the cryptid. A seemingly hunch-backed figure, almost owl-like, whose huge glowing eyes turn out to be on where we humans would call the 'chest'. I love how since we're not seeing Mothomen in silhouette, we get to see just how gloriously alien this thing looks, with tiny arms attached to large moth wings, and those two giant eyeballs looking so alien in what our minds associate as the 'chest'.
I love the colours on this thing, too, purple with pale orange highlights. Very believably moth-like, and I like that the textures on the wings are unmistakably buggy. The coolest depictions of the Mothman myth has always never been just 'a human dude with moth features', but a moth creature that just somehow happen to vaguely resemble a human. The dex entry describes that the Mothomen heralds disaster, and towns often get evacuated because of Mothomen sightings, but I wonder if this isn't actually an Absol-type scenario where Mothomen showing up is just a symptom of the disaster as opposed to them being the cause.
Presumably Bug/Flying, or maybe Bug/Dark, since it maybe has Absol-esque tendencies?
A gloriously bizarre one! I'm not sure what the direct inspiration for this one is, and as much as I like pointing at specific organisms or myths, I am also equally pleased to see Happig here as something that feels pretty original; an amalgamation of multiple concepts distilled into the shape of this happy-looking blob!
Categorized as a 'vessel', Happig has a huge emoticon smiling face attached to a huge puffy body with aodrable little nub-legs. I'm not sure what those two orbs next to its face are. Eyes? Ears? It apparently goes around like Drowzee and Munna, sucking in bad thoughts from around them and storing them inside itself. But in the long-term it actually harms poor Happig... as shown by that strand of black miasma with two glowing eyes poking out of his behind. Very cool design, actually reminds me of Dethl, the final boss in Link's Awakening.
It's sort of like the original concept for Girafarig found in the beta versions of Gold/Silver, where the rear half of a two-headed animal is actually straight-up evil? Only with Happig, he's just running around trying to suck in bad vibes from people, only for the same thing to slowly leak out in the end. Which leads us to...
...Biporkar, the 'Shattered' Pokemon. The balck miasma has shattered poor, poor Happig's main body, and that black orb at the end of the tail is now the 'main' head now. I like that the remnants of the shattered original white body is still attached to the giant black mass of dark thoughts. Poor Happig's original body has been turned upside-down, with the once-smiling face now flipped on its head and the legs hanging as the 'horns' of Biporkar. I love that there's a huge grin that has broken out on the surface of Happig's body. The end result of Biporkar spinning Happig's body around like this ends up with a new face! With the 'eyes' of Happig forming the piggy nose of Biporkar! You see it?
It's pretty dang creative, not going to lie. I am curious if this is based on a specific myth, or if it's just an original concept? I am guessing that the original Happig is likely a Psychic or Fairy-type, and then it gains either Dark or Ghost (probably Dark) when evolving?
We go into a couple of single-stage Pokemon now! Eyechosis here is an interesting one. It's sort of like a Xenomorph, in a way? A bipedal dinosaurian monster with Giger-esque details? I like the almost Mewtwo-looking arms, and I like what's going on with the face. It looks so alien! From its name, I'm assuming that's actually a huge eye at the center of its face? Despite looking like a monster and having a name that's a pun on 'psychosis', all Eyechosis wants is a friend, apparently. Not too much to say here, otherwise.
Huh! An absolutely fun and unexpected combination of two different mythological beings! The Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow of Japanese myths, and Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore! Or, specifically, Baba Yaga's enchanted, walking hut! In many versions of the Baba Yaga myth, her hut is described as walking on chicken legs. I'm not sure where the idea is to combine the Baba Yaga hut with the Yatagarasu. Is it just the pun? It's probably the pun!
It's such an inspired pun, too, making Yagagarasu a house with chicken legs, and the third crow leg functions as an elephant-trunk-esque arm. I love the eyeballs on the windows, and the little detail of that rooster weather-marker on top. It's apparently a hunter that pretends to be a house before bursting out and... eating smaller Pokemon? Or humans?
I'm actually not sure what type it would be! Fairy/Flying? Dark/Flying? Dark/Fairy? Any one of those or just pure-Fairy or pure-Dark would work!
This guy looks like a Goomba from Mario! Except he's a sheriff! He fights the evil Olchap and protects small towns! It's a sheriff hat with cute little fangs and a pair of leather cowboy boots. Not my kind of thing, but it's adorable!
Olchap, I think, is meant to be some sort of a hat with a feather sticking out of it! They are hats that fight each other! I like Olchap a lot more than his sheriff counterpart, but I know that I really like the visual of two glowing eyes in a void of darkness. I also like that Olchap seems to have a bunch of teeth jutting out under the 'rim' of the teeth, and he's got what the dex call 'brim blades', so they are weapons that apparently allow it to fly around. Oh, like Oddball's hat from Goldfinger!
A definitely unexpected and interesting way to have a 'rivalry' Pokemon. It's not my kind of monster personally, but I do still like the concept of these two a fair bit! Presumably Normal-types? Olchap could be Normal/Flying?
I have a feeling that this is based on a specific mammal, but I genuinely have no idea what the 'yant' part of this guy is supposed to be a reference to. Ramboyant is a pretty fun... weasel-esque mammal? He's got an assault rifle made up of a plant stick, and that stick shoots seeds? Bullet-Seeds, presumably? I've never been a big fan of the Rambo movies, but making him into a rodent that utilizes plants to fight is neat, I suppose.
Wallarrior is a wallaby, I'm pretty sure. Interestingly, it's classified as a 'knight' and used to be respected by locals, but apparently it now raids the same locals for resources? Again, I'm not sure if there's some reference to the Rambo movies that I'm not getting, since I assume Ramboyant and Wallarrior are a paired set of Pokemon? Wallarrior has a bunch of tattoos and seems to be holding a spear. Okay!
OOOOOOOOO Okay, I was a bit less enthusiastic with the past couple of Fan-mons, but here we go with a glorious one. Falwodur is a snail! That alone is already enough to make me like him, and it's even a well-drawn snail! It's got a mouth and little slit-eyes, and its eyestalks are interpreted to be like, dragon ears? It's got a Jar Jar Binks looking face, actually, except Falwodur looks so much like a friend. Most importantly, though, is that the 'sucker' part of its body is filled with scale-like armour. Which means that Falwodur is a scaly-footed gastropod, a deep-sea gastropod that lives near underwater vents, and has iron-mineralized growths to protect its 'foot'.
I absolutely love the dex entry, too. "It is emboldened to charge at brave knights very, very slowly". Oh, Falwodur! Presumably Dragon/Steel, because...
...Falwodur evolves into the mighty Falwodraig! I know that French folklore has a mythical snail-dragon called the Lou Carcolh thanks to the official Pokemon Goomy, but Falwodraig is so much mroe of a 'snail dragon' than Goodra ever is. I love that it's still sticking with the theme of the scaly-footed gastropod, and I love that it's got a set of 'wings' that are just, well... gastropod tentacles! It's a proper dragon, and I like that the shell is basically just part of its tail, while the main body of Fawlodraig just looms over the knights that are presumably trying to kill it. Does the entire body fit into that tiny shell? Normally I would say no, but this is Pokemon...
Anyway, snail dragon! I love this guy, he looks so cool!
AAAA A WHAT A CUTIE. Sometimes you just need an adorable blob with a funny face in your life. It took me a while to get it, but Pilfoard is one of those bags of money you see in cartoons! it's just that I don't immediately recognize the sign for the Poke-dollar. It's sprouted two comically tiny legs and a bandit mask. Apparently, Pilfoards will always run off with its trainer's stuff! Why would you want to keep one of these?
Presumably Dark-type, but I wonder if it actually has some in-game mechanics? A reverse-Pickup, where it will steal one of the items in your bag and hold said item?
Huh, okay, I kind of get it. Porygon was a digital Pokemon that's a duck. Polyro is a digital Pokemon that's... a Spyro! Spyro the dragon! Not something Nintendo will ever do because of licensing reasons. And if this was just Spyro I'd probably not like it as much. But it's a Porygon version of Spyro, and I feel like the description adds just a layer of creepiness to it. It's called the 'nostalgia' Pokemon, and the more you look at this thing, the more it resembles a dragon. Is it just the nostalgia, or is Polyro subtly warping the perceptions of any observer into thinking that it's a dragon?
Normal/Dragon, I guess? Or just pure-Dragon?
Oh my god the puns on this one are gloriously painful. Djamm is a jam monster that jams. Like, jam as in strawberry jams? And it also jams, as in "I jam to music"? Djamm also uses only the spiciest beets. You know, a pun on beet the vegetable and beat as in "drop the beat". And it re-mixes jams when it gets stale, because both music and fruits can get stale and can be remixed. There are so many puns going on here that my brain is stuck in a different kind of jam right now.
I actually like what's doing on here. It's an amorphous goo-man made out of beet jam with stylized beet flowers or something as headphones, and it's posing like a DJ. (oh my god, it's a DJamm. I just got that.) So many puns.
Another one that I'm convinced was born out of a pun, we have Cocacobra! The design here is kind of obvious -- instead of soda bursting out of its can, Cocacobra is a snake bursting out of a snake charmer's basket. Only the snake is Coca Cola, and the basket is the can. And instead of a flute, Cocacobra is roused from its slumber to dance when catchy advertisement jingles happen. I get it, Coca Cola and Pepsi are extremely commercialized!
And then Cocacobra evolves into Kalkola, where it looks like a snake is folded around the exploding fizz from the soda. Is the soda can just consistently spraying out its fizz as a perpetual fountain? Kalkola is described as being in absolute zen because it's mastered its form. So I guess it went from being easily distracted by advertisement jingles into a state of inner peace? That's different, for sure.
Water/Psychic, I guess?
Okay, interesting. Zaster is apparently an 'accident' Pokemon formed by the refuse left behind from car crashes? Um, what? It's just a bunch of rubble with cartoon eyes, a bunch of random metal wires poking out, and a little traffic cone as a head? That implies that any time a Zaster is created, you need a car crash! Like the dex entry itself says, 'its presence is a sad sign'.
Oh. Wait. A sad sign. Traffic signs. Dang it, Quarantine Crystal, your puns!
Grimpact has a more obvious 'face' in the form of what I think is a traffic light. And, hey,m there's a traffic sign acting as the 'mouth' in that face. Grimpact (awesome name) is a mass of rubble and smoke, and... and it sure is the result of a grim impact! I like the idea that this is a bit of a more 'monster made out of rubble' since it actually has some explicit anatomy, with the car engine serving as its heart. All the exhaust is apparently a sign to stay away from it, so I guess it's warning others?
Steel, or Steel/Fire for Grimpact specifically, I suppose?
Okay, balloon animals! That's something that I felt is an avenue that could've been made into way more video game monsters. And Dumbloon? Dumbloon is unmistakably based on Grimpoteuthis, a genus of umbrella octopi that look absolutely adorable. Just google 'Dumbo octopus'! Dumbloon has the basic adorable jelly-like body shape that a Dumbo Octopus have, with the distinct 'ear' resembling the trunk of an elephant. And it's got to adorable bug-out eyes! But the two ear-like fins have actually blossomed into giant balloon-animal... ribbons? I have no idea how to describe balloon animal anatomy.
Dumbloons are adorable pets that float around, and they're bright pink, so Fairy/Flying?
Zepplium goes for a more obvious 'Dumbo' route, actually becoming a balloon elephant! I feel like it feels a bit more mundane than a balloon Dumbo Octopus, but then it wouldn't make sense for the evolution line to be reversed. Zeppliums can float around the air with air currents, so the skies of Quarantine Johto is probably a sight to behold, what with its galaxy whales, floating trawler jellyfishes and herds of balloon elephants bouncing in the sky.
I thought that Slowhog was the final evolution of the previous two, because it's a bouncy pink thing, but nah. Slowhog seems to be a standalone creature, a 'Pork Steak' that literally exists just to be eaten. How has this guy not been hunted to extinction? Apparently, their spikes are even only for show! Oh no, poor Slowhog! Not too much to say here, it's just a huge slimy pink glob. It's got a warthog's tusks on the sides of its faces, and its ears are curly pig tails? I just kind of feel sorry for this guy, judging by its flavour text.
I get it, "Yuesbi" is how you pronounce USB! This is a very Digimon-esque idea behind it. Yuesbi is an angry computer mouse, who has somehow been infected by a virus and rolled off. Remember those old computer mice with those rollers below? I remember! I love the description that it 'leaves empty USB ports behind'. The design is simple, just a mouse with eyes, and... and that's really it! Sometimes you don't have to be too complex to get the idea across.
Presumably Electric-type, or Electric/Steel?
And then Yuesbi evolves into Virues, which is an old-school computer! It's got a monitor above the CPU, and the keyboard in front of it. Except Virues has transformed into a grinning old-school-cartoon-style 'put a face on everything'. Its (cracked!) monitor screen has two warning signs with ! that double as eyes, the keyboard is a manic grinning mouth, and hey, that's Yuesbi the mouse plugged into the back side of the CPU!
Virues is just the embodiment of malware, wanting to part fools from bank account details. It's also vulgar and rude. Are computer viruses and malware actually rude? I'm not sure... but you know what? Anything that has its brain connected to the internet is probably rude.
Woah, that's unexpected! Virues evolves into Yuefoe! (That's how you pronounce UFO, get it?) And Yuefoe... is actually still a giant mouse! But it's a wireless mouse! But it's also a UFO! It took me actually reaching out for the physical mouse next to my computer to realize that Yuefoe is a modern mouse -- a wireless mouth that has one of those infrared lights on the bottom instead of a roller.
And then the artist has reinterpreted said infrared light as an alien UFO's abduction beam, and Yuefoe just floats around, looking for data, hovering over objects and 'clicking' to abduct them. That is so damn creative. I know I probably have said it several times in the process of talking about this dex, but Yuefoe might be one of the most creative ones yet.
Oooh, a neat one. Hexahed is a six-sided die (a d6, for D&D players) that hovers above the stump of a glove. A glove with eyes, it seems. Hexahed is a dealer Pokemon, apparently, and it likes to play games of chance! Does it gamble with its own die, or does it just deal cards as its species name implies?
And then Hexahed evolves into Icosahed -- who, obviously, has an icosahedron die on top of its head. Or, as D&D geeks would know, the fabled d20. I love that the glove has itself evolved into two gloves that act like a spider-like body (the thumbs are like the 'fangs' or something), and that the D20 just hovers above a Triforce where Icosahed's 'wrists' terminate. Of course it's a being of probability, and it carefully calculates odds.
What are the odds of me rolling a d20 in my D&D campaigns? Much, much less than 1 out of 20.
Presumably Normal-types or Psychic-types.
These two are, as I gather, still blank dex entries at the time of release. They're beavers, but instead of having a regular flat tail, Umberjerk has a fucking organic chainsaw for a tail instead. There's a slasher movie serial killer vibe to this guy, with Umberjerk's face being pure white to resemble like a hockey mask or something. Painsaw evolves to have the organic chainsaw be grafted onto its now-upright right arm, actually looking like a humanoid serial killer.
I don't have a whole ton to say here yet, and I'm not sure I'm supposed to!
Oh wow, okay, Lamyglama looks... he looks trippy! You can just imagine those legs move in exaggerated motions, like one of those acid-trip segments in one of those older Disney movies, right? Lamyglama is a llama Pokemon, obviously... but it also looks like a bunch of performers wearing a llama outfit? But then it's got that bizarre tongue stretching out of its mouth. And its dex entry notes that Lamyglama uses its iridescent fur to amplify all emotions... and then it proceeds to feed on those emotions. Man, you could totally see this guy waltzing into a party and making the party so much more fun before it feeds on everyone's emotions.
Presumably Psychic-type? Usually emotion-related monsters tend to be Psychic-types.
Um? Okay? Cantalone is... it's a tin can? Like a Pringles can? But it's got two beady eyes on the bototm of the can, and tiny stick-legs? Apparently Cantalone collects broken electronical scraps in its body, but if any one falls out, it pretends to be broken. Okay, then. I don't know enough about electronics to know if Cantalone is meant to represent a specific electronical piece? It looks cute, at least.
I guess it's the idea that electronic spare parts don't do anything individually, but put them together and suddenly you get a calculator or a laptop. Or, well, a Cantogetha. It's a six pack of Cantalones, and I do like that the way that the Cantalones have arranged themselves, each Cantalone's individual legs seem to have merged with the neighbouring Cantalone's legs to form those very unique-looking arms and legs. It's such a fun take on the old-school Magneton/Dugtrio style of 'stick a bunch of the Pokemon together and call it an evolution'. I also love the description in the dex entry telling us that... each unit eats individually? First up, okay, that means that Cantogetha isn't a true singular organism and more of a hive-mind. Second... with what mouths? Where are the mouths? The back of the can, I guess?
Oh, I get the name. "Can't alone" and "Can togetha". It took me way too long. This game's pun game is very strong.
Hell yeah, it s a dragon that shreds! And shredding as in doing a guitar solo! I love how Shreddrake is just a metal band's guitar turned into a dragon. Its wings are guitars, its head is angular, and... it's pretty cool. Its cries are hip with teens and people sell recordings of Shreddrake's noises. Is the Shreddrake's cry just a riff from Guns N' Roses? Does the Shreddrake get royalties from their music?
Obviously, it's Steel/Dragon?
I'm not entirely sure if this is meant to be a pun on something or based on a specific myth, but I do like the idea that Aligro is a mystic flute that blows itself. It's sort of like a smoke spirit or djinn that lives inside the flute, and the smoke comes out to blow the flute itself, and it's got a bunch of well-drawn smoke hands and fingers that it uses to play the flute. The pokedex entry pre-emptively answers the question I was going to ask -- does the smoke blow parts of its body through the flute? Yes, yes it does.
Ghost or Ghost/Psychic, I suppose.
Ooo, a Nuckelavee. Nuckelavees are very, very creepy Scotland demons whose most popular appearances has been a demonic horse with half of a man growing out of the horse's back. The impression is like a man riding a horse, except the man doesn't have a lower body and is just merged with the horse. And Nuckawheez... has the same anatomy. It's a man whose entire lower body is a horse... but I think the designers of the game realize that Pokemon aren't supposed to be too scary.
And I think the idea here seems to be that Nuckawheez is made out of those wiggly balloons that you see outside stores. It's such an unexpected combination of inspirations! And then I read the dex entry. It 'moans ominously', and... and then I realize that this is supposed to be a bagpipe. I think? The four horse legs and the 'human body' are the five things that stick out of the bagpipe?
Nuckawheez is apparently an 'ocean-dwelling pestilence spirit', so I guess it's water-type? The mythological Nuckelavee is often associated with water, so maybe it's an adaptation of that part of the myth?
Oooh, I love this one. Wendigaunt is a Wendigo, a mythological beast originating from the folktales of the Americas. This one takes a combination of inspiration from different popular media depictions of the mythological creature. Wendigaunt will drive everyone else into insanity, but it's doing so to protect its woods. It looks like a body deer-man at a glance, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's meant to be a tree monster. The skeletal-looking arms and the antlers look like they're made up of particularly knobbly branches, don't they?
I assume if my tree idea is right, then Wendigaunt is Grass/Dark. Or Grass/Fairy. And if it's not a tree and it's just a regular skeleton monster, then Dark/Fairy, perhaps?
I try to close out with at least a creature I really, really like, and, hey a jellyfish! Junobe is an adorable jellyfish friend with simple nubby tentacles, and I love that the little markings on its bell has resembled the most precious face ever. I don't think jellyfishes actually communicate by flashing lights, and they're just naturally bioluminescent... but squids do! Squids actually use their colour-changing abilities to flash and communicate with each other.
Junobes are adorable little babies that observe everything that they see... and then they describe them to their larger buddies, the Voyapods:
The Voyapods are a bit less cute, but they're still pretty neat! They're bigger, more tentacly-er than the Junobe. They're a bit less cute, but it's definitely a necessary middle stage before we get to the final one, which is probably one of my favourites overall. Voyapod's got a bunch of specialized tentacles, and the dex entry is... rather odd! Voyapods apparently obsess over machines and examines any mechanical scraps they find. And it's the 'tinker' Pokemon! That's not what I expected from a jellyfish creature.
And then we have this absolutely badass-looking Exotunity, who has mutated to have more meaner-looking tentacles. I love just how distorted the markings on its dome has became, too, giving the impression of a mournful skull-face with how those 'eyes' are arranged. But looking from it at the top, it probably just looks like the pattern on a sand dollar or something, right? Well, the sprite itself looks super-badass, though, especially with how the two tentacles kind of poke up menacingly like antennae, and there's an extra growth that resembles a mouth of sorts, presumably the proboscis mentioned in the dex entry. Despite looking super-fearsome, though, I love the fact that Exotunity is actually a 'defender'. It uses its pokey mouth to feed the baby Junobes nutrients, and their tentacles are used to defend them.
I love this -- these guys really do feel like part of some huge herd, with the smaller jellies being curious souls that explore around the ocean (wait, are they aquatic? I ask, because this is Pokemon, these guys might be completely terrestrial) and the largest and most powerful ones protecting the herd. I'm not sure why the middle stages are tinkering mechanics, but maybe they just really want to know what's going on around them? Regardless, the visuals are so cool! I like them a lot.
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A bit shorter this time, I think? I don't think I went through as many Fan-mons as I did in the past couple of reviews. But I want to keep the energy up and bite more than I can chew.
