I was super-slacking with these, mostly because I took a bit of a hiatus myself in playing through Pokemon games. After I finished the Sword & Shield DLC, I just sort of... did a lot of other games instead. I wasn't interested in the Diamond & Pearl remake (and as far as I can find, I don't think there's any new Pokemon designs there?), and I was in a place where I didn't have access to my Nintendo Switch, so I wasn't able to play through Pokemon: Legends Arceus. And, to be honest, I didn't realize just how much more involved Arceus was going to be as a game in terms of brand-new Pokemon designs and forms.
So I was intending to wait until after I did a full playthrough of the game, but while I am doing so, I'm also kind of... taking a bit of a slower time? I barely even started that game So I guess instead of waiting for that, I'll just do the reviewing designs separately, and then maybe if I have any sort of insight about these Pokemon after encountering them in-game, I'll update and maybe re-release this article. Anyway, to those less informed, 'Legends Arceus' takes place in an ancient version of Sinnoh (the setting of Diamond, Pearl & Platinum), but when it was 'Hisui' instead of Sinnoh, the climate differs drastically to how it is in modern-day SInnoh.
As with what I did with the Galarian regional variants (and the amount of DLC forms we got later on), I'll go through these in National Pokedex order, but also tack on any new regional forms with their respective evolutions. I feel like that's a neat way for me to split this into two articles.
[Author's note: this article was originally published May 2022, then re-edited and re-published at September 2022 after playing through Legends Arceus]
Click here for the previous part.
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It is so strange to have a batch of Pokemon introduced in a spin-off game, right? And they're not even ones that show up in the Diamond and Pearl remake? Not that I'm complaining, Legends Arceus is definitely one of the most successful Pokemon products out there, and having played through the game... I feel like it would've been successful regardless, but the new species do add a fair amount of pizzazz to the game that it wouldn't have otherwise. There's even an in-story reason to highlight these new variations/evolutions of pre-existing species... and they do take some pretty interesting choices.
#899: Wyrdeer
Like Wyrdeer here! Wyrdeer is an evolution of good old forgotten Stantler, and I absolutely love the little meta-joke -- Generation IV, Diamond and Pearl, will forever stick in my mind as the first 'expansion pack' generation where it added so many brand-new evolutions that suddenly made a lot of the forgotten Generation II Pokemon feel so much more powerful. But not all Generation II Pokemon received attention, and poor Stantler is one of those that we were kind of hoping would get an evolution, a mega-evolution, a gigantamax, a regional variant, something. And now, more than 20 years after the fact, we do get a Stantler evolution! Wyrdeer is even a Normal/Psychic type, a typing that I've always felt like the original Stantler could've easily been retconned -- to especially with how the anime and manga tended to play up how Stantler uses those fake horn-eyes to cast illusions.
In the Hisui region, the Stantlers have apparently adapted to the harsh environment and managed to evolve into Wyrdeer and... and can I say how much I appreciate that they don't just slap Ice-type on every single regional evolution that's adapted to the cold? I love me my Alolan Sandshrew and Vulpix, but it always bothered me that almost half of the Alolan regional variants are just ice. Wyrdeer himself is apparently based on the Yezo Sika Deer, a specific subspecies of deer native to Hokkaido, the region that Hisui is based on. And much like the Yezo Sika Deer, Wyrdeer's fur is prized by the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido for clothing. The fandom consensus, though, is that there's the implication that these sub-species and evolutions only appear in Hisui mean that they're mostly extinct in the modern-day Pokemon timeline?
Since Wyrdeer isn't the most exciting creature to talk about on these Legends: Arceus reviews, Wyrdeer is one of the ten 'noble' species of Pokemon that used to fight with some Ancient Hero, and their descendants are respected by the Hisuian locals. Some of them act as bosses, while some (like Wyrdeer here) are just happy to give you aid immediately.
Wyrdeer itself really doesn't do anything too novel. It looks different enough from Stantler to be distinctive, and I do appreciate that while the shapes have changed, the general look of the fake-eyespot orbs still remained in Wyrdeer's antlers. It's not the most exciting thing, and to be frank I find that I'm kind of indifferent, but it's nice that Wyrdeer keeps a lot of what keeps the original species charming.
3/6. Neutral.#900: Kleavor
What a surprise for me to discover that Kleavor here isn't a brand-new Pokemon, but a branched evolution of Scyther! Instead of evolving into Scizor, Scythers exposed to a certain item called Black Augurite evolves into this Kleavor instead. And... and I'm not sure how I feel about him when I first saw him. My original May 2022 version of this article gave Kleavor a scathing 2/5 point and bitched about how different Kleavor looked from Scyther, which are criticisms that I felt were done because I only saw a single static image of Kleavor.
I did always praise that Kleavor's concept as a more 'organic' evolution of Scyther (as opposed to the metallic, almost cyborg-esque Scizor) and that it kept Scyther's lower half. And the fact that it's traded in Scyther's giant mantis claws for two gigantic rock axes. Again, I still don't quite get what was the inspiration in having Kleavor have two giant axe-arms... but it's a very weird yet distinct silhouette. Unfortunately, Kleavor isn't actually based on an axe-armed mantis (imagine how cool the existence of that would be), but a pun on several Japanese phrases. 'onomushi', a term for mantises, can be translated to 'axe bug', while the idiom 'toro no ono', or mantis's axe, means 'a courageous but doomed resistance'.
I am not the biggest fan of the almost beak-like mouth that Kleavor has, and I still don't really like its face -- the rocks forming the topknot and the giant eyebrows and the beards -- are still somewhat off-putting to me. But I will admit that they looked a lot less distracting in-game, and seeing the 3D model in action, and being able to appreciate the tiny, degenerated mantis wings that still jut out of Kleavor's back, or the fact that the game gave Kleavor a very badass cutscene.
Just like Scizor, Kleavor actually doesn't gain any extra stats compared to Scyther, merely re-distributing them elsewhere and leads to the same base stat total. All these new Pokemon have gotten a signature move or two, which is par the course for any new Pokemon introduced post-XY, but Kleavor's signature attack is pretty fun. "Stone Axe"! Anyway, a pretty fun addition to the Bug-types that I am proud to admit to be mistaken about, and very much pleased that it managed to grow on me.
5/6. Almost 6/6, I did really enjoy using mine. #901: Ursaluna
Okay, Ursaluna here is an evolution of Ursaring, another one of those Pokemon from Johto that really feels like they could've gotten an evolution already. Yay! Unless I'm missing someone, Ursaluna is also the first bear Pokemon to be quadrupedal by default -- Bewear, Ursaring, Pangoro, Urshifu and Beartric are all bipedal. I like that. I like that Ursaluna looks so much more primal and savage by his pose alone.
But the pose isn't all that changes about Ursaluna! Ursaluna evolves with an item called Peat Block , and the pokedex notes that Ursaluna has evolved due to the swampy terrain of Hisui that gives it the ability to manipulate peat. What's peat, you ask? It's a bit more complex to explain, but it's a unique part of bogs and mires that is formed out of partially-decayed organic matter. Kind of like... a decayed layer of gunk and moss, but that's a gross oversimplification. But I really do like that Ursaluna's gray parts are actually the big ol' bear being covered with peat... and I absolutely like the little bit of creativity that they had, using some of the ersatz chunks of peat to form Ursaluna's 'eyebrows'. His 'eyebrows' also form clouds in front of the full-moon on Ursaluna's head... because, remember, Teddiursa and Ursaring both have moon tattoos too! It's always weird that the bears have the moon aesthetic. Ursaluna actually requires you to pay attention to the moon cycle and have the moon be in the full-moon phase to evolve, something that's a bit more irritating. But hey, it's on-brand!
I forgot to mention, but Ursaluna becomes dual-type Normal/Ground. I guess peat is more 'ground' than 'grass'? Again, just like Wyrdeer, there's a specific Hokkaido animal that Ursaluna is based on, the Ussuri Brown Bear, which are apparently often found near former coal mines filled with peat. Anyway, while Wyrdeer doesn't change a whole ton from its pre-evolution, and Kleavor changes so much that I mistook it as a standalone species, Ursaluna, I feel, strikes a neat enough balance between being similar to its predecessor and being different enough. I didn't think I would like him that much, but I ended up using an Ursaluna for a large amount of my playthrough. I think his derpy peat-covered face really won me over. And... honestly, the fact that it's actually a novelty to command a four-legged bear in Pokemon is kind of interesting to me.
5/6, thanks to him being a good boy in my playthrough.#550, #902: Hisuian Basculin & Basculegion
Previous generations have been accused of being a bit too lopsided in favour of the first generation in terms of granting brand-new forms. In fact, anything from Gen IV and beyond don't really get a whole ton of attention, so I'm absolutely pumped to see some of the (relatively) newer Pokemon get brand-new evolutions and forms. Basculin, by the way, is probably one of the most forgotten Pokemon in Generation V, literally admitted by the designers to be drawn because they forgot to include a fish for the fishing mechanic.
'Hisuian' Basculin is technically just 'white-striped Basculin' (there's actual in-universe debates whether this constitutes as a regional form!), following in the footsteps (fin-steps?) of the previous two Basculin variations of red-stripe and blue-stripe, and... well, it sure is a Basculin with a white stripe. The dex entries note that white-striped Basculins are more gentle instead of being savage like the other two Basculin types.
Look at that face, though. That doesn't scream 'gentle' to me.
Amazingly, Basculin gets a brand-new evolution here, and he turns into a Water/Ghost creature called Basculegion. What a fucking badass name. Basculegion. And I'll quote the pokedex verbatim, because there's no way my descriptions can do it justice. "Clads itself in the souls of comrades that perished before fulfilling their goals of journeying upstream. No other species throughout all Hisui's rivers is Basculegion's equal."
Holy fuck! I love just how increasingly morbid Pokemon's Ghost-types have grown over the years. Someone took a look at Basculin and said, hey, 'I want to make this thing evolve with the power of all his buddies that died during the migration season'. Basculegion's general shape looks a bit more elongated, and I love that it has got those ghostly clouds trailing off not just on its back end, but also its Magikarp-esque 'mustaches'. I think I would've liked it more if the ghostly 'flames' or 'clouds' resemble little fishies, the way Wishiwashi looks, but would that be too morbid? There are also some who point out that Basculegion also looks like a paddleboat called the itaomacip used by the Ainu people.
Basculegion itself is based on the Sakhalin Taimen, also known as the Japanese Huchen and sometimes nicknamed the 'phantom fish'. It's a now critically-endangered species closely related to salmons, and, you guessed it, it lives in Hokkaido rivers. The Sakhalin Taimen is also featured in Ainu folklore as a creature called the Ciray that could devour deer and boars... oh no, Wyrdeer and Ursaluna! Basculegion has two different variations -- red and white -- but unlike the stripes of regular Basculin, this is actually gender dimorphism this time, with males being red and females being white. It's based on some salmon species, who change colours in mating season!
And I haven't mentioned the way you evolve a Basculin into Basculegion. You need to deal a specific amount of damage to Basculin -- at least 294 HP (this number can be punned into 'hatred' in Japanese), and he can't die -- and Basculin would then evolve into Basculegion. That's surprisingly fucked up, even moreso than how Galarian Yamask evolves into Runerigus. I really didn't think too much about Basculegion when I first saw it, going 'oh, they gave Basculin attention, finally!' but reading about just how well they incorporated the ghost themes, the migration-swarm theme, the salmon theme and even the boat theme... I find myself liking this weird-ass ghost fish more and more. Actually probably the favourite new thing to come out of this game.
5/6.#215, #903: Hisuian Sneasel & Sneasler
What? Okay? Sneasel of all Pokemon get a brand-new regional form, and instead of the traditional Dark/Ice of the kamaitachi-based weasel, Hisuian Sneasel is Fighting/Poison. The 'Fighting' bit is because these Sneasels apparently use their much larger, mean-looking claws to traverse cliffs. So... a mountain-climbing weasel? And the 'Poison' side of things is actually communicated pretty well by all those purple markings. I love the twalmost blotched, paint-like markings on Sneasel's face and chest, and especially around the edges of its claws. The Pokedex notes that Sneasel excretes a nerve-infiltrating venom. Now as far as I know, weasels and their ilk aren't venomous (mammals that are include shrews, platypi and the slow loris), but Sneasel's based more on a yokai than anything.
Sneasel has always been a Pokemon that I'm a huge, huge fan of, and Hisuian Sneasel is one of those regional variants that do just enough to make it look distinct while still keeping a vast majority of the original design intact. I just love the pose in this official art, too. What a smug-ass gremlin! I'm honestly not entirely sold on the typing, but I guess Hisuian Sneasel just likes rocky mountains and isn't as evil as regular Sneasel? Being a rock-climber, I guess the physical activity ends up counting as 'Fighting'? Eh.
5/6 for Sneasel.
Just like Meowth before him, Sneasel gets a brand-new evolution instead of turning into a regional version of Weavile! Again, it's kind of interesting. Sneasler (yeah, that is not the best English name) isn't a design I'm a big fan of, although I do appreciate that it emphasizes different aspects of the Sneasel design. The claws get much more deadlier, the single Sneasel ear-tail gets elongated into a quasi-ponytail, and... and the body gets extended into humanoid proportions. Sneasler does look a lot more like a Fighting-type than Hisuian Sneasel does, and the fan-wiki claims think that Sneasler is based on a shapeshifting Yokai called the Onyudo which can afflict illness on people who see it. I don't see it, but there you go.
There are aspects about this thing that made it look neat, and I absolutely love how, in-game, it just stuffs you (the human character) into a backpack as it helps you to climb mountains. It's just that... I just... I just can't really say anything too nice about it. I don't dislike it on principle just because it's humanoid, but... I don't know.
I guess it's the fact that it's almost entirely a single colour on its body other than the extremities of its limbs? Is it the weird 'I had purple paint thrown on my face' design? I don't know. I always knew I preferred Sneasel over Weavile, but I infinitely prefer both Sneasels and Weavile over Sneasler. I respect Sneasler for at least trying to keep a lot of what made Hisuian Sneasel interesting, but it's just not my thing.
1/6 for Sneasler. Barely.#211, #904: Hisuian Qwilfish & Overqwil
Poor, ignored Qwilfish has finally obtained regional form and an evolution! Qwilfish can start a huge happy club with Stantler. We're slowly inching closer and closer to everyone from Johto getting something cool. Except for Dunsparce. Dunsparce's whole joke is that it's a sparse dunce, he can't get anything cool, can he? That would ruin the whole joke.
Ahem. Sorry, where am I? Ah, yes, Hisuian Qwilfish. It's one of those regional forms that's honestly just a recolour. Qwilfish goes from being Water/Poison to Dark/Poison in Hisui, swapping its yellow-blue colouration for a much meaner-looking black and pale yellow, with purple on the tips of its barbs and facial features. Hisuian Qwilfish is also a giant jackass that disturbs fishermen by spraying poison everywhere from its spines, hence the Dark-typing. It's kind of an interesting design choice. The designers doesn't do too much beyond the colour palette change, but it's enough to really communicate that this version of Qwilfish is a grouchy S.O.B.
It's mostly the same thing with the original Qwilfish save for the lower-case 'q' on its tail. It's actually kind of surprising since Qwilfish's Japanese name doesn't have the word 'q' anywhere, so this is a joke that ties specifically to the English name. Neat-o!
After using its signature move Barb Barrage 20 times in the 'Strong Style' (a mechanic unique to this game), Qwilfish evolves into the absolutely perfectly-named OVERQWIL. Can I just stop and appreciate that name? We went from the minimal-effort Sneasler into the absolutely pun-tastic Overqwil. God bless whoever thought of this name.
Overqwil is... it sure is a larger, more jackass version of Qwilfish? I'm not sure what I'm expecting -- Qwilfish was supposed to evolve into an electric catfish in the Gen II betas, but this? This is funnier, at least. Overqwil, the 'sea fiend', basically enhances everything about Qwilfish and makes it bigger. Longer spikes. Spiky eyebrows. An angrier face. The lower-case 'q' on its tail becomes a capital 'Q'. It goes around drinking poison to nourish itself, and Overqwil ends up looking a bit more explicitly more like a naval mine.
I'm... I don't know how I feel about this. I love, on principle, that Qwilfish received some attention, but I also feel like Overqwil is a bit too... too simple? Too obvious of an evolution? Maybe I'm just hard to please? I don't particularly love Overqwil at the end of the day, but he's certainly likable enough for me to use in the game. More out of the comedy effect since Overqwil's so unwieldy-looking, but hey, he's neat.
4/6. It was almost 3/6, but man, Overqwil makes me chuckle so much. #905: Enamorus
So I guess unless we get some random new DLC or spin-off game, Enamorus here is the final Pokemon in Generation VIII. Such a strange generation with such a weird distribution! We start off with Meltan, a batch of Pokemon in the base Sword/Shield, then two batches of DLC, then a final batch in a spinoff game.
Which is to say that Enamorus is a legendary Pokemon and... and she's the fourth member of the Forces of Nature, which is the group of weather gods that is made of Thundurus, Tornadus and Landorus? Buh-wha? Okay, I always thought that it was so weird that the raijin/fujin-based legendaries showed up in a region based on America, so it's nice that this game seems to tie the Forces of Nature to the Japan-based Sinnoh. I can't complain too much, I guess, since I was super excited about Regidrago and Regieleki joining the ranks of the Regis. But... but I think I've gone on paper on saying that I really find these oni-weather-gods possibly the most boring and uninspired legendaries ever...
...so thankfully Enamorus does something different. She's Fairy/Flying, and she's a girl... and I honestly do have a bit of an eye-roll at her being bright pink with a hairdo shaped like a heart. But on the other hand, as far as these humanoid designs go, she does have a pretty cool four-horned facial design, and I love that the 'tail' takes the form of a snake that wraps around her like a scarf, and even has heart markings that resemble a fake snake-head.
Enamorus is specifically based on Ugajin; a kami that's a bit more obscure than Fuujin, Raijin and Inari Okami. Ugajin is a fertility deity, and... and there's a bit of an overlap to Enamorus's sphere with Landorus since they're both fertility. Only Landorus makes the land itself fertile, while Enamorus makes, uh... um... her 'love gives rise to the budding of fresh life across Hisui', according to the Pokedex.
In other words, she's a fertility goddess that, in the most PG-13 sense possible, causes the promotion of... of breeding.
...yeah, okay. That's... that's... okay. Yeah. I just don't know what to say. I actually find the fact that she's a fertility goddess in a PG-13 game to funny, and I like the snake scarf, but ultimately, just like the rest of the Forces of Nature, I find this to be entirely forgettable of a design. They at least try with the lore of these guys, bless them, but... but I'd like them better if they were animal or monster gods, y'know?
...which, just like her brothers, is something that happens. It's something I genuinely forgot about Thundurus, Tornadus and Landorus since I barely remember I have a set in one of my Generation VII-VIII boxes, but they have Therian forms where they transform into animalistic forms. In Enamorus's case, her chosen form is a soft-shelled tortoise, and I actually really like the creativity that goes here! The head looks very adorable, and I love that the cloud that all these flying musclemen ride on end up being the 'base' of the shell, while the snake coils up to turn into the rest of the turtle's shell. I'm still not a fan at all of the heart-shaped hairdo, but the rest of the design, at least, causes the Incarnate Form to coalesce into a surprisingly coherent design. I always thought that Thundurus has a pretty cool Therian form, but I barely tolerate Landorus and Tornadus is kind of a mess. Enamorus blows them all out of the water by how creative she is and how she uses the Incarnate Form's anatomy pretty well here, but that's admittedly a low bar to clear.
And with four members, now it's pretty clear that the Forces of Nature's Therian Forms are all based on the Four Auspicious Beasts or Four Gods, which are four mythological creatures that represent the four cardinal directions in many East-Asian cultures. Although the Forces of Nature only borrow the beast instead of the colour -- Tornadus is the 'Vermilion Bird', Landorus is the 'White Tiger', Thundurus is the 'Azure Dragon' and Enamorus is the 'Black Tortoise'.
And the Black Tortoise Xuanwu (Genbu in Japanese) specifically has been depicted as a tortoise entwined with a snake, which is where the reference of Enamorus having a snake involved as a turtle shell comes from.
...and all of this is very cool. Whoever did the Forces of Nature put a hell lot of research into trying to integrate all of these into pretty interesting designs. Enamorus also is by and far my favourite out of the four. But... I don't know. The Incarnate Form just still make my eyes roll, and I kind of fell like these Forces of Nature might have made me like them more if they are just beasts? While I love that it made me work for the research, I do feel like there's perhaps a bit too much references to the cultures that inspired them for these designs to stand alone on its own, too. I like Enamorus a lot more after reading through these inspirations than I thought I would (I thought she'd be an easy 0/6) but I also feel like there's perhaps a bit too much required knowledge to make this oni-turtle-lady's concept even make sense.
2/6 for Enamorus as a whole. I expected to give her 0!_______________________________
This part actually went on a bit longer than I thought it would. I originally planned on putting all the Hisuian regional variants in the same article, too, but... but you know what? I haven't done one of these in a while, and I did talk a surprising amount in here! I knew I was going to talk a bit more about the designs (particularly Sneasler, Overqwil and especially Kleavor), hence me re-relasing these 'review 'em all' shortly after I completed my own playthrough of the game. Enjoy these reviews again, before Scarlet and Violet hit the shelves and I'll have close to a hundred more designs to talk about.
Legends: Arceus has a lot of pretty great designs, and while I'm not jumping on my seat about all of them, I actually do appreciate that they took the time to add a fair amount of new expansions to a lot of older, almost-forgotten Pokemon.
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