This is the third part of my coverage of the Paldean Pokemon in Generation IX. Not too much to say on this entry -- I do think that I did make the second and third parts of the Paldean review-em-all to be a bit disproportionately longer than the rest of the generation, but there's really no way to split apart the later segments of the dex in any other way, thanks to all the Paradox Pokemon, right?
Anyway, not much to say here, on with the reviews.
Click here for the previous part.
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#942-943: Maschiff & Mabosstiff
So yeah, we've got two dog Pokemon, and Maschiff is... just not as interesting as the bread dog, actually. Maschiff is based on a mastiff, and it does look like a very stylized version of one that has all the right features (short skull, droopy ears, large feet) and the lore does set them up as being guard dogs, like how mastiffs have been traditionally used (though they've also been used as hunting dogs, war dogs and in animal bloodsport). It's a Dark-type, though there really isn't any indication that they're particularly 'evil', and the major representative of this species we see in the Scarlet/Violet game is extremely loyal.
I actually don't have a whole ton to say here, it's a stylized cartoon animal, and if you own a mastiff as a real-life pet I bet seeing this guy would very easily make this one a lifelong Pokemon. I know I would instantly raise a pomeranian or collie/shetland sheepdog Pokemon if they ever make one of those. Anyway, I'll just close this one with its hilarious Scarlet dex entry. "It always scowls in an attempt to make opponents take it seriously, but even crying children will burst into laughter when they see Maschiff’s face." That's mean! A growling Maschiff is reasonably feral-looking!
Maschiff evolves into Mabosstiff, which is inspired by larger mastiff breeds like the Spanish or Tibetan Mastiff breeds... and, again, it's a bit of a looser adaptation. Mabosstiff also has a bit of a 'mafia don' vibe to it, which means that the tiny little Maschiffs are probably meant to be like his underlings? But Mabosstiff's signature ability, Guard Dog, essentially stimulates a fierce guard dog who refuses to be intimidated and will loyally stand its ground, refusing to be switched out as well. It's a bit odd that they combined both the 'mafia don' and the 'loyal guard dog' traits together, but I guess it's meant to show a mafia godfather that is nice when playing with children or people under his protection, but very violent when dealing with the enemy -- a trait bred into many guard dogs or herding dogs, where they have to be gentle with the livestock they guard but also violent enough to fight wolves and bears.
Interestingly, the dex also notes how Mabosstiff stores energy in its dewlap that it can unleash to attack the enemies. What? Okay.
They really also did a much better job at making Mabosstiff's design really resemble a sad, tired old man, which really ends up getting capitalized on when a sick Mabosstiff becomes a major plot point in the Generation IX games. The shape of the darker fur markings resembling a sad mustache, the sad gray eyebrows, the sad droopy eyes... and then you see Mabosstiff fight. The glowing yellow pupils (or are those the entire eyes?) are creepy enough, but Mabosstiff has a pretty epic grin when he's ready to fight. Not the most derivative Pokemon, to be honest, but the story of Arven's Mabosstiff, as well as the mafia don and the 'gentle to his family' vibes really do make this a lot more interesting than I expected this random monotype Dark Pokemon to be.
3/6, all thanks to Mabosstiff if we're being honest. #944-945: Shroodle & Grafaiai
Oh, this one is kinda cute! I remembered meeting it the first time and being absolutely confused what it is. Shroodle is our very first Poison/Normal Pokemon, and based on its name, it's a shrew. Venomous mammals are rather rare (we usually just rely on maiming or crushing our prey/predators) but one of the few venomous mammals are from the shrew family, with at least three confirmed species having a venomous bite. And Shroodle is a pretty neat cute representation of such a rodent, with the long, chunky snout, the adorably pudgy body with teeny-tiny legs, and gigantic eyeballs with dot pupils. Okay, I can see why people call our mouse a 'mouse'. That's not all that Shroodle is all about, though!
See, Shroodle is also based on graffiti culture, something that's a bit more apparent with its evolution below. But there's also a sense of 'naturalness' to Shroodle and Grafaiai's behaviour, with Shroodle using the poisonous liquid not just as a way to bite predators, but also to mark its territory and drive away other Pokemon with its odour.
Shroodle evolves into Grafaiai, and the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) with their creepily large eyes and even creepier manipulator fingers has been one of the real-world animals that I thought was a shoo-in to be an inspiration for a Pokemon at some point. It's one of those animals that needs a bit of an 'oomph', though, and they delivered pretty amazingly by combining the aye-aye with graffiti art! In addition to the fingers of Grafaiai dripping with paint (poisonous paint, itself a creative avenue to take the Poison type), I also do really like that Grafaiai's snout also somewhat resembles a gas mask used by some graffiti artists, and is in fact used by the graffiti-artist trainers in this game. Even the distribution of black and grey fur also gives to impression that Grafaiai's wearing a hoodie around its 'ears', with those jagged hair sticking out of the 'hood', yeah? But unlike something like Throh that just looks unnatural, I really do love that everything about Grafaiai's resemblance to a certain human profession are all still believably part of its natural form that just coincidentally resembles a graffiti punk.
The real aye-aye only uses their elongated middle fingers to catch insects hidden within tree barks, but the Pokedex also notes how Grafaiai creates poisonous saliva, which it then puts on its fingers. Venomous saliva is actually something that a different primate has -- the slow loris of the genus Nycticebus. Really do like this, I really do like how they mix together a bunch of different mammals with just an extra feature together to create this graffiti-painting monkey. Hell, Grafaiai even has a whole forest where all the tree trunks are marked with their handiwork, based on the Oma Forest in Spain! I've always loved it when a Pokemon gets a certain unique area associated with it.
So why did a mouse (well, a shrew) evolve into a monkey (well, an aye-aye/loris)? A couple of reasons, one of which is rooted in real-life evolution, where shrews are actually thought to be some of the rodents that most resemble the primates' evolutionary ancestors. That's cute! There's also a more interesting fact where the aye-aye was previously mis-classified as a rodent, because of its continually growing incisors.
Anyway, both of these guys are very, very solid mid-dex Pokemon. They're not quite 'my taste', so to speak, but looking at them I can really appreciate the amount of design work that went into them. Which is not something I can say about a lot of the previous generation, now that we've done and dusted it.
4/6.#946-947: Bramblin & Brambleghast
OH OH OH! My boy Bramblin! I love Bramblin and its evolution. Our second Grass/Ghost Pokemon since Trevenant, Bramblin and Brambleghast are pretty fun! I actually thought they were just part of the terrain thanks to having played a couple of games back to back (Zelda: Skyward Sword and Genshin Impact) that featured a lot of tumbleweeds in their respective desert areas. And... it's genius that a tumbleweed is a Ghost-type, too. Tumbleweeds are plants that actually have most of its body dry out and die so that winds can pick them up and disperse their seed. It's literally the corpse of the parent plant that's being carried around by the wind so the seeds can grow in a new place!
Bramblin's design is amazing, with the main tumbleweed body looking like a skeletal cage, and its floating eyes are, of course, the aforementioned seeds. I absolutely love the very spooky dex entry, too. "A soul unable to move on to the afterlife was blown around by the wind until it got tangled up with dried grass and became a Pokemon". So like Yamask and Phantump before it, Bramblin is explicitly a spirit that ends up becoming a Pokemon! Spooky!
Bramblin's cry also sounds like that spaghetti Western whistling from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And for the first time in a long, long while, Bramblin's signature ability Wind Rider re-categorizes a bunch of moves to be 'wind' moves, because they will boost Bramblin's Attack stats. For a long time the 'wind element' so commonly found in so many other RPG's is just folded into just a thing that the Flying-type can do, so it's pretty interesting that the 'wind moves' are given a bit of a spotlight the way that 'sound moves' or 'wave/pulse moves' or 'punching moves' or 'biting moves' were.
A lot of people are apparently disappointed that Brambleghast didn't change a lot, but... really, what are you really going to change about a ghostly sentient tumbleweed? Make it a tumbleweed cowboy man? No thank you. That kind of ruins the whole concept about a tumbleweed tumbling around the desert, don't you think? Their solution, Brambleghast, is pretty much the perfect evolution. It's a bit larger, the thorns are now spiky ones, and we've got some of the thorns arranged to form a nose bridge and a smiling mouth, while the seeds are floating alongside floating thorns that form 'eyelashes'. It's a pretty great way to keep the essence of Bramblin while still looking rather distinctive.
Pretty great dex entries, too. Brambleghasts will use the branches to trap its prey like a living iron maiden, sucking all the life energy and then discarding the now-dead corpse. Apparently, hordes and mass outbreaks of Brambleghasts can bury an entire town, which is actually something that several types of tumbleweeds can do during outbreaks.
I absolutely love Bramblin and how it just whirls around behind you. The 'Pokemon following behind you' gimmick returns in full force in this game, and they really do a great job with some of the newer Pokemon having more memorable running/walking animations. The way that Bramblin and Rellor below evolve is something we saw before with Pawmo, but it makes so much more sense with these two because they're rolling balls and spheres and whatnot! Anyway, a pretty fun Pokemon. I don't see Bramblin as being anyone's particular favourite, but it's definitely one of mine from this generation.
6/6.#948-949: Toedscool & Toedscruel
Another one of my personal favourites from this generation is Toedscool, and in no small part because of its running animation. A lot of the official art of the Generation VIII-IX Pokemon are just their default battle pose in the game, but whoever drew Toedscool clearly knew that the most adorable part of this walking fungus is its running animation... which they milk for all it's worth with Toedscool/Tentacool's wiggly-legs. This thing runs really fast, too!
So before we really talk about Toedscool, these guys are our first Convergent Evolution, a phenomenon that actually happens in real life. Real-life convergent evolution (or parallel evolution) refers to how completely unrelated evolutionary lines sometimes end up with very similar features... like how a lot of different, non-crustacean invertebrates end up with body shapes similar to crabs; or how bats and birds independently develop wings despite being in completely different evlutionary lines that split long before either developed features resembling wings.
And where Regional Variants are just that, variants that have different features but are ultimately the same species (like different breeds of dogs or cats), Convergent Evolutions are two completely different evolutionary lines that end up evolving into visually similar looking creatures. Like, for example, the Toedscool line and the Tentacool line. Tentacool is, of course, the Water/Poison jellyfish line we all know and love. Toedscool is a Grass/Ground walking fungus that just happens to evolve (the real-world way, not the Pokemon way) into a form that resembles Tentacool.
I also really love Toedscool as its own design, too. Visually it's just a recoloured Tentacool, but the pale brown and yellow really does give a pleasant colour palette, and, of course, it lives in the land and runs around like a lunatic. The pun here is that Toedscool is based on the Wood Ear Mushroom, a group of edible mushrooms also known in Japan as kikurage, literally 'tree jellyfish'.
Toedscool evolves into Toedscruel, which, of course, resembles Tentacruel with a couple of slight changes. Gone are Tentacruel's massive, mean 'beak' protrusions, and they are instead replaced with a funny-looking nozzle. And instead of floating in the ocean, Toedscruels actually hop around on those giant tentacles like a bouncing toy. Are those hyphae, then? I love the more mottled, mushroom-looking cap, and while there's always a bit of an 'alien invader' vibe to the Tentacool line with their giant orbs, Toedscruel's siphon really does bring to mind a lot of the depictions of martians seen in a lot of older anime and manga.
Toedscruel adopts the black/dark brown colours of the Wood Ear Mushroom, but I do wonder if them having the orbs that's a holdover from the Tentacruel design is a reference to something like the Devil Tooth's Mushroom? Anyway, I really do like the morbid descriptions of Toedscruel using its tentacles to coil around prey and suck out its nutrients, and the very spooky descriptions of colonies of Toedscruels marking very territorial areas in deep forests.
Being mushroom Pokemon, Toedscool and Toedscruel have access to the almighty Spore, of course, and they are also some of the fastest Pokemon to have access to that move. To mitigate it, the Toedscool line are the only Pokemon line that has access to Mycellium Might, a signature Ability that always puts status moves at the end of the priority bracket... but also allows them to bypass other Abilities. Interesting! I didn't talk too much about their part-Ground typing, but I guess it's because they live in mucky, marshy, muddy areas and so it represents the 'mud' side of things.
Anyway, I love this a lot. I wasn't particularly sold on the 'convergent evolution'... 'gimmick'? Is it really a gimmick when there are only two lines that have it? But I really do like that while they look recognizable to their original inspirations, Toedscool and Toedscruel's designs still make perfect sense from the standpoint of them being an independently-evolving mushroom Pokemon. Honestly, I might actually like them more than the originals?
6/6.#950: Klawf
Oh, hey, speaking of crabs! We've got a couple of crabs over the course of the franchise, with the Krabby and Crabrawler lines, but with so many other arthropod families not being represented yet it's understandable that we don't see a crab for a bit longer... so it's a bit of a surprise that this generation gave us a giant enemy crab... and it's a Rock-dwelling crab! Klawf is pure-Rock, and the whole idea is that because it's flat, it scuttles around canyons and rock faces and presses their bodies flat against them so they can jump down and ambush prey. It's such a weird adaptation but also one that feels very true to something that a fantasy creature would do. It's not too far off when you consider that real-life crabs camouflage themselves on coral formations and the like, too. It's just that Klawf is like the size of a large dog and scuttles around a canyon area.
I also really, really love the little description about how Klawf can't remain upside-down for too long becase 'blood rushes to its head'. Klawf also noticeably have clumps of bristles and spines on its joints and nostrils, which is something that many crab species have. The Wiki does raise a couple of species that could be an inspiration to Klawf, but I really don't think it's based on a specific one at all.
A Klawf is also one of the five 'Titan' Pokemon that serves as one of the storylines that runs through the reion of Paldea, which showcases this species' rock-scuttling abilities pretty well. And... it's a neat Pokemon. I actually don't find it all too memorable, that said -- I really do think that Klawf just needs one or two more additional features that might make it a bit more interesting. But I really do respect what they were going for here.
3/6.#951-952: Capsakid & Scovillain
Huh. Huh! Capsakid derives its name from capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers that spicy taste. And It's some sort of bell pepper little gremlin, specifically based on the South American pepper, the Habanero. The Japanese version even calls it the "Habanero Pokemon". The end result looks like a bizarre kappa-gremlin, with the way it has a 'hat' and has an adoraly small body. The calyx forms kind of a jester-like neck ornament that I thought were a pair of tiny arms for several months now... but the most eye-catching part of the design is obviously its snout, which is growing a bit orange and has a little teeth. Habaneros go from green to yellow to red as they mature, and the little seeds that contain a lot of the spiciness are often called 'tooth'.
And I get it. This is a pepper kappa gremlin thing. But there is a rather interesting bit of its biology where the Pokedex notes that the shed front teeth of Capsakid are used as spices in Paldea. And... I know, it's just pepper, but still, it is kind of odd. Anyway, a rather interesting way to adapt a pepper Pokemon, but I really wouldn't find this guy interesting if not for...
Scovillain! Which is like a giant two-legged cartoon dinosaur thing, with its head split into two heads. One angry, one happy. One red, one green. Each with white spiky protrusions that are more of the seeds of a bell pepper. I guess one of the heads matured a bit faster? Scovillain also has the honour of being our first-ever Grass/Fire Pokemon, a coveted typing, and it's... it's interesting taht instead of going for the fire-breathing plant idea that so many fan-made Pokemon with this typing had, Scovillain goes for a naturally 'hot' and 'fiery' plant that is so ubiquitous in cuisines all over the world. Scovillain's name, by the way, is based on the Scoville scale, which measures the spiciness of dishes.
Scovillain has a signature move, Spicy Extract (literally Habanero Extract in Japanese) that shoots a burst of flame that buffs the enemy's Attack stat and lowers the enemy's Defense stat. Not... not something I'd expect from a rampaging two-headed chili monster!
The dex notes how the red head is able to convert spicy chemicals into 'super spicy streams of flame', while the green head is addled because of the spicy chemicals on its brain that causes it to go on rampages. And... I guess there's a bit of a dinosaur or kaiju vibe going into it, too, based on its main body? It's also been a while, I think since Bellsprout, that we've gotten a plant monster in Pokemon that has a 'Deku Baba' or 'Piranha Plant' body structure. Not my favourite Pokemon, but I do appreciate this guy a lot!
4/6.#953-954: Rellor & Rabsca
And here we go! Here we go! Another one of my favourite Pokemon in this generation is Rellor. "Roller" backwards, get it? Its Japanese name, Shigaroko, are the syllables of Funkorogashi (dung beetle) backwards. And Rellor is a cartoon dung beetle standing upside-down as it rolls its giant dung ball around! Or, well, 'mud ball'. Created from 'sand, dirt and psychic energy'. I guess Pokemon can't say 'shit' yet, huh? But this is that extra 'oomph' that makes Rellor interesting. A while back I created by own fan-made region and a dung beetle was one of the animal concepts that I immediaetly tossed in, but I had trouble thinking of anything beyond the obvious Bug/Ground 'just adapt this animal' inspiration... and what Nintendo did with Rellor, giving it the weird upside-down motif, is just what makes it from a 'animal drawn funny' into a 'Pokemon', if you get what I mean?
I find that face to be interesting, too, where it's obviously upside-down based on the position of the nose, but it could very well be one of those faces that look like a face regardless of which direction you point it around. The 'eyebrows' at the bottom of the artwork here look like a mustache somewhat, right? They're not allowed to say dung or poop, but the markings on Rellor's abdomen is still shaped like a swirly poop. Ha!
Rellor's giant dung ball is interspaced with weird white and oragne lines which... I guess it's to make the dung ball look less like a ball of shit, but it could just be undigested food from whatever the Sandiles and Hippopotas made in the desert. Hilariously, Rellor's Shiny form rolls around a giant gold ball!
Now Rellor is noted to treasure its mud ball more than its own life, and it does so while the 'energy it needs for evolution matures'. Rellor is the other Pokemon that evolves by walking around physically rolling around its giant ball friend, just like Bramblin, and if you know about dung beetles, one of the reasons (though not always -- more often than not they just use the dung as a source of food) is that they roll the dung around is so that they can create a 'brood ball' for them to lay eggs in, upon which they will immediately have a fresh supply of feed to munch on.
And upon evolution, Rellor evolves into RABSCA. Which, of cousre, is the syllables of 'Scarab' backwards. Dung Beetles, of course, are a type of scarab beetles (The Japanese name, Berakasu, is sukarabu kinda backwards) but instead of just merely relying on just the dung beetle parts, Rabsca also draws on the association of scarab beetles with Egyptian mythology. Indeed, with how Rabsca's main beetle body now being glossy-green, they kinda resemble like one of those scarab ornaments, yeah? Especially with those white-coloured 'mustache' also resembling wings if you flip him upside-down? I also love that the jagged legs and mustache bits are also representative of the ridges that many scarab beetle species have.
The dung ball that Rellor rolls around has evoled into a floating psychic ball, and the two dex entries give rather conflicting opinions on the nature of the creepy purple ball. The Scarlet dex notes that 'the body that supports the ball barely moves, therefore it is thought that the true body of the Pokemon is actually inside the ball'. The Violet one, on the other hand, is a bit more explicit, noting that 'an infant sleeps inside the ball', and that Rabsca rolls the ball with its legs to ensure that it sleeps comfortably.
Regardless of whether it's Rabsca's infant child (which would make sense, thanks to the brood ball discussion we had before) or if somehow part of its true 'soul' is inside the ball, there's a lot of people who seen amniotic sac in Rabsca's ball. Trying to see what's inside the orb actually will show that they modelled a stylized bug grub in the 3D model.
But honestly, I do think that Rabsca is meant to be confusing, becasue another aspect that Rabsca is revolving around is revival and renewal of life. Khepri is an Egyptian scarab god of the rising or morning sun, which represents renewal and rebirth of life... which translates to Rabsca having Revival Blessing, a move that resurrects a fainted ally and something that fits Rabsca and its mystic vibes much more than Pawmot earlier. Sorry, Pawmot.
Honestly, I wasn't actually sure what I was going to get when I was running around with Rellor, but a Bug/Psychic floating glistening scarab holding a psychic fetus which may or may not be its soul jar that can revive its fallen comrades certainly ranks very high up amongst my favourites of all time. I'm not the biggest fan of the fleshy pink faces, but I understand that it does make the idea of a face that 'works' either way you look at it a bit more distinctive.
6/6.#955-956: Flittle & Espathra
I really didn't get Flittle, and for the longest time I didn't even realize that Flittle and Espathra are an evolutionary line despite sharing colour palettes and typings. As a pure-Psychic type, Flittle is just this... weird blob with tiny feet and two 'ears' that kinda look like candy wrappers? Flittle does have an admittedly very pleasant set of yellow, purple and pink with teal eyes, a colour palette that is memorable... but not much more beyond being kind of a generic fairy-looking blob. And we have a lot of those already in Pokemon!
None of the dex entries really say too much about Flittle that you can't already infer frmo its design. It levitates because of Psychic powers, and it is protective of berries and will chase them down. It really is a bit of a bizarre being! And not all Pokemon needs to be based on something super specific, but it really is bizarre considering its evolution is a Cleopatra ostrich. Which, by extension, means that Flittle is a psychic baby chick and I really don't see that.
I did get a Shiny Flittle which became a party member in my Scarlet playthrough and as thus I have a bit more of an attachment to this line, but not by much.
Flittle's evolution Espathra is a much more 'obvious' Pokemon, being an ostrich -- an animal associated with the desert -- with parts of its design taking cues from Egyptian Pharaohs, or specifically Cleopatra based on its name. I do like the segmented rings on Espathra's neck and legs, which are meant to resemble the patterns on a Pharaoh's crook and flail. Espathra being a Psychic ostrich is a specific reference to another Egyptian mythology being, with Maat being the reference here. Maat is the personification of truth in Egyptian mythology, and is representated by an ostrich feather.
And... Espathra is a pretty neat looking regal psychic ostrich. Its eyes look creepy enough to be a psychic type, and just like Flittle I do reasonably like its colour palette. It took a while of getting used to, but I do like the way its wings and tail are shaped.
Ultimately, though, it's not really my favourite Pokemon in this region. I'm really not sure why I just didn't care for this line all that much, even after using one in my playthrough. They've got a decent basis, pretty neat colours... do the lack of interesting Pokedex entries and the weird evolutionary sequence really bother me that much? I guess they do, huh.
3/6, gets an extra point for being a Shiny in my playthrough. 
This is a cool list but I am disappointed in with what you said in Bramblin's entry. I mean second Grass/Ghost?! Have you forgotten about poor Pumpkaboo?
ReplyDeleteI actually did! Thanks for the heads-up! I think my brain clumped the Phantump and Pumpkaboo lines together because they were version exclusives and my mind went 'oh, they're clearly all the same big family'. Oops!
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