Gotta Review 'Em All - Moves [Generation III], Part 1

The third generation! Probably the generation most significant to me personally even counting the first one, because the third generation was when I started really paying attention to the mechanics of the game. Weather moves, how certain moves like Rain Dance + Thunder or Sunny Day + Solarbeam interacted, properly memorizing the type matchups, learning about priority moves and whatnot... Generation III also gave us a bit more complexity with abilities and the like, which, short of the physical/special split we'll have in Generation IV, is probably one of the biggest changes to the Pokemon battle system. 

As always, we'll talk more about the flavour of these moves as we go. Originally I had intended to include abilities in this one, but I severely underestimated the amount of abilities introduced in Generation III. Or the new moves in Generation III, which... when I consider that this is when the GBC technology gave way to the much more powerful GBA, it kinda shouldn't be that much of a surprise?

We'll do the Normal type and the four 'base' elements of Grass, Water, Fire and Electric in this article, and do the rest in a separate article!

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Normal-type Moves:

Again, we're going to divide the many, many Normal-type moves by rough category of what they do. I think Generation III is the last big bastion of huge influxes of Normal-type moves? I might be wrong, though. 

• Fake Out (Nekodamashi/Cat Deception) Fake Out has always been one of my favourite moves. The idea is that it's a sumo maneuver or something where they do a loud clap to unnerve and force the opponent to blink. And there's a cat pun there too, which is why cat Pokemon can do it. In practice, Fake Out goes first, does a little bit of damage, and stuns the opponent... but you can only do it during the first turn your Pokemon is in the battlefield, otherwise it fails. I do like the idea that the 'faking out' doesn't work after the enemy has seen your Pokemon do it. I still think that with the explanation it really should be a Dark-type or Fighting-type move, but I think that's basically a pretty common sentiment I have towards so many Normal-type moves.
• Facade (Karengeki/Bravado) Facade means "a deceptive outward appearance", which... isn't exactly what the move does. The damage is boosted if your Pokemon is under a status effect, but that's hardly a 'facade' of strength, is it? The animation for Facade always looks kind of generic as well, and other than this move being given as a TM by papa Norman, I don't really have much to say here. 
• Odor Sleuth (Kagiwakeru/Find Scent) Odor Sleuth is basically Foresight, reskinned so that the flavour and animation can fit mammalian Pokemon much better. I think this move has found itself into the learnsets of... practically every non-rodent, non-cat mammal out there? Not too much to say, the dog or pig or bat sure does use smell to hunt down its prey.
• Endeavor (Gamushara/Daredevil) Endeavor is an interesting move that basically sets the enemy's health to be equal with your own... but only if your HP is lower than the enemy's. The 'daredevil' part of it is that you probably have to take a certain amount of damage to force your enemy down, which in itself is an 'endeavor'. Practically useless in regular gameplay, but in competitive there are a lot of funny things that you can do with weak Pokemon that have a Focus Band followed up with a priority attack, otherwise known in the community as the F.E.A.R. technique.
• Uproar (Sawagu/Clamour) Building up to a bunch more sound or crying-based move is Uproar, which I particularly associate with the Whismur line. It's a move that goes on for anywhere between 2-5 turns
• Hyper Voice (Hapia Boisu/Hyper Voice) A move that... I honestly don't remember existing? It's a basic 'screaming' voice that hits both enemies in double battle. Which in Generation III might be a quaint little effect, but nowadays such a move isn't really something that's particularly desirable over other moves. 

• Nature Power (Shizen no Chikara/Nature Power) A bunch of interesting moves here, and "Nature Power" is a move that I felt was far, far more interesting but is reduced to what's basically a one-off, underwhelming gimmick. Sort of like Porygon's Conversion moves! Nature Power basically takes stock of the physical, in-game terrain that you are at, and changes depending on it. So in tall grass, it transforms into Stun Spore, in pond water it becomes Bubblebeam, in the ocean it becomes Surf... extremely cool, and it does play into the fantasy of channeling the power of nature! Except it never was really highlighted, didn't get updated too much across generations, and it was completely useless in 'meta' battles since it defaults to the not-very-impressive Swift. Kind of a shame that the anime and comics didn't quite make as much use of this as I would've expected, too. 
• Secret Power (Himitsu no Chikara/Secret Power) The other 'Power' move, Secret Power's in-battle effects are also affected by the terrain, but only the animation and a secondary effect that it will cause (poison, sleep, a debuff on stats) but the real usage here is that it can be used on certain trees, rocks or giant bushes to essentially hollow out the innards and allow the trainer to be able to engage in the 'secret base' minigame... the first of many, many genuinely interesting gimmicks that won't be taken forwards across generations. Which, unlike not taking the actual Pokemon across generations, is something I completely understand! Gimmicks are hard to maintain, and some of them like the stupid underground just doesn't work out! But it does make Secret Power a move you use exactly once in Ruby/Sapphire, and basically kind of a forgettale move otherwise. 

• Helping Hand (Tedasuke/Help) Anyone who plays through the Generation III games can totally remember how double battles are introduced in this generation, and how so many of the trainer double battles feature this move. Helping Hand is completely useless in single battles, but it boosts the attack of its ally. By clapping!  You're literally weaponizing cheerleading!
• Follow Me (Konoyubitomare/Stay With This Finger) Another non-damaging move, Follow Me is similar to 'taunting' in MMORPG games. Again, only really useful in double battles and I think the designers were just tossing out what might be useful in multiple-Pokemon battles. Follow Me redirects all damage done by the enemy team to a single Pokemon, but those that can learn it aren't especially super-tanky ones. 
• Howl (Toboe/Howl) An interesting move! Your Pokemon howls, and it'll increase its attack stat... and also all its allies! The idea is like a wolf howling to energize its pack, I guess? It's mostly learned by canine Pokemon, but also the noise-based Whismur line. 

• Yawn (Akubi/Yawning) Damn, I hated this move! Yawn will ensure that your Pokemon goes to sleep, unlike previous low-accuracy sleep-inducing moves we've had before (Hypnosis, Sleep Powder). It just takes a full turn for the Sleep effect to occur. Extremely memorable, and basically the reason for me to carry at least a couple of Full Heals when playing through Hoenn. 
• Wish (Negaigoto/Wish) I'm actually surprised this move isn't exclusive to Jirachi -- or that it wasn't retconned into being Fairy-type in Gen VI. A handful of 'healing'-style Pokemon like Natu, Illumise, Togepi and Latias have access to Wish, and it's basically delayed healing. I like the flavour, where you wish upon a star and it takes time for the healing to be answered. 
• Recycle (Risaikuru/Recycle) Bit of a weird move, and initially only learnable by Porygon2 and Mr. Mime, Recycle has you basically recycle a consumed held item, mostly a berry. I get the Porygon2 joke! The Recycle Bin! The other Pokemon that would be able to naturally learn Recycle extend to natural scavengers (Munchlax, elemental monkeys) and creatures partially made of trash-looking items (Garbodor, Klefki, Flapple). Kind of a niche ability to give up one of your four slots for, but pretty flavourful!
• Refresh (Rifuresshu/Refresh) Another healing move, this one basically heals your Pokemon from three status conditions -- Paralysis, Poison and Burn. It really is kind of a forgettable move; whether in terms of actual usability in-game or in flavour, the franchise has a lot more interesting healing moves. 

• Tickle (Kusuguru/Tickle) Ah, this one is kinda funny! A Pokemon tickles its opponent, causing it to lose its attack and defense stats. Hey, if you're writhing on the ground giggling, you probably can't fight as effectively! Rather interestingly (or disturbingly), those that can initially leran tickle are those with, um, tentacles. Aipom, sure, but also Tangela, the Omanyte line and... Whiscash. With his mustache. Okay. 
• Block (Tosenbo/Block) An interesting move -- this is basically Mean Look (prevents a Pokemon from switching out or running away) flavoured in a different way. By physically blocking the enemy's path. The original joke, of course, is that two of the three Pokemon that learns this move -- Snorlax and Sudowoodo -- were overworld pathway-blockers themselves in their respective debut games!
• Covet (Hoshigaru/Covet) Another move I'm surprised didn't get Fairy-ized, this move is basically Thief. Only instead of pickpocketing or burgling the enemy, the description states that the Pokemon 'cutely begs' for the opponent's held item. Later on, the description gets changed to 'cutely approaches the enemy, then steals the target the enemy is holding', which I guess explains the damaging part of the attack. But I kinda like the original mental image of Covet dealing EMOTIONAL DAMAGE from the betrayal. 

• Stockpile (Takuwaeru/Stockpile), Swallow (Nomikomu/Swallow) and Spit Up (Hakidasu/Spit Up) These three moves have to be talked about together, because they're part of a gimmick move. It's normally used by Pokemon that has a huge mouth or belly -- Pelipper, Swalot, Guzzlord, Snorlax, Victreebel, Greedent... and the idea is that they keep stockpiling... food, I assume, in their big mouth. After several turns of using Stockpile, they can then either use Swallow (to heal themselves) or Spit Up (to deal damage), with both Swallow and Spit Up having greater effects depending on how much the Pokemon had Stockpiled. Except... you kind of burn multiple turns doing nothing with Stockpile. Later generations gave Stockpile the bonus of buffing up your defensive stats, but still, I've always found these moves a bit too gimmicky. Charmingly gimmicky. Oh, and I'm going to have to note that these moves are the butt of way too many 'haha, swallow or spit out' oral sex jokes.

And we'll close this off with a bunch of signature moves! We already had a bunch of these in the first two generations, but I feel like Generation III and IV are when we start really going ham with signature moves. The idea of each species having its own 'secret art' is very cool and makes them all unique, although only for a while... because later generations would make some of them available to other Pokemon. I've always thought that it's kind of a shame, but I guess some moves and Pokemon aer so obscure that they want some mileage out of the moves they programmed into the games?

• Weather Ball (Weza Boru/Weather Ball) A fun example of a signature move that is associated with an already gimmicky Pokemon, Castform, is Weather Ball -- in addition to Castform's own transformation abilities, Weather Ball deals elemental damage depending on the weather condition -- Fire in Sunny Day, Ice in Hail, and so on. The actual usefulness of this is kinda debatable, but the flavour is definitely pretty cool!
• Crush Claw (Bureiku Kuro/Break Claw) A simple damaging move with the potential additional effect of lowering defense, this is Zangoose's signature move. Later on, it's given to some other Pokemon with mean-looking claws like Sandslash.
• Camouflage (Hogoshoku/Camouflage) You can totally tell that the designers were really proud of the 'we can detect what terrain the battle is taking place on', becuase Camouflage changes the user's type to match whatever the terrain is. It becomes Fire in volcanoes, Rock in caves, Ground in deserts, Grass in, well, grass... and it definitely feels like a move that a Pokemon would actually naturally learn through the process of evolution, right? And who do you think this is the signature move of? Kecleon, surely... no, it's not actually Kecleon's, though he does learn this move in future generations. No, Camouflage is a move exclusive to Staryu, which is surprising that out of all the choices among the 365 Pokemon available at the time, they decide Staryu's the one that shold have Camouflage. Okay! I'm not mad, it's kinda cool, actually! 
• Smelling Salts (Kitsuke/Resuscitate) This is the signature move of Makuhita and Hariyama. Which... they don't have a Fighting-type signature move? Okay? Also, this game is where I learned about 'Smelling Salts for the first time. Despite the real-world Smelling Salts waking you up from unconsciousness (which you'd think Sleep) Smelling Salts deals more damage to a paralyzed target, but also cures it of paralysis. Which is kind of flavourful but also extremely niche.
• Teeter Dance (Furafura Dansu/Dizzy-Dizzy Dance) Spinda's signature move, and... it's kind of interesting? It confuses everyone around Spinda. Including Spinda's ally. And it definitely fits good ol' Spinda and everything around this spiral-confusing dancing panda! It probably gets my vote for most well-flavoured signature move in this generation. And you're meant to pair this up with Pokemon whose abilities prevent them from being confused! 
• Assist (Neko no Te/Cat's Paw) Skitty's signature move, and one whose English translated name is kinda bland. The actual Japanese name is 'Cat's Paw', stemming from a Japanese proverb/saying of 'I would even accept help from a cat's paw'. The idea is that you're so desperate for help that you'd take it from unconventional places, and in Skitty's case, this means that Skitty will randomly borrow one of her teammates' moves. The anime made Assist much cooler than it actually is, for sure, and in subsequent generations of course only cat Pokemon can learn Assist. 
• Slack Off (Namakeru/Slacking Off) Originally the signature move of Slakoth and Slaking (not Vigoroth, who can't learn this in its regular moveset), Slack Off is just... you laze off, and you recover HP. It's a far more efficient Rest because Slakoth and Slaking are just so... lazy? And... they're so good at resting that they rest... less? Don't think too hard about it. 

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Fire-type Moves:

Finally, we're done with Normal-type moves! It is kinda telling just how much Pokemon moves default into shoving a lot of their moves into the Normal type since basically every other type had, like, six or less moves each added in this generation. I think a good part of it is because Pokemon didn't quite have the niche needed before the Physical/Special split per move was done in Generation IV, and... honestly, there's only really so much you could do with fire, right?

• Heat Wave (Neppu/Hot Wind) Heat Wave is a very cool attack, though, really selling the fantasy of a wave of superheated desert wind coming onto you. It's an unmistakably Fire-type move that isn't just shooting fire in different shapes, and it even works to Generation III's double battle gimmick by, very logically, burning both opponents!
• Will-O-Wisp (Onibi/Will-O-Wisp) Another interestingly-flavoured Fire-type move, Will-O-Wisp takes its flavour from those ghostly fireballs (hitodama) often seen in Japanese media, and the English translation of Will-O-Wisp perfectly captures the spooky-light vibe going on here. It just inflicts the target with a burn, but it's probably the first move that can be reliably done to do so -- finally giving the Fire-type a guaranteed access to its signature status ailment. Except... other than Vulpix, the original users of Will-O-Wisp in Generation III are all the Ghost-types! The Duskull and Shuppet line! Later generations would include this in TM form and give us spookier Fire-types (Litwick line, Fennekin line, Alolan Marowak) but it is still pretty cool that this Fire-type move that deals a fire-flavoured effect is far more associated with ghosts.  
• Overheat (Obahito/Overheat) I do really like the idea of Overheat! It deals even more damage than Fire Blast, but it kind of screws your Pokemon for the rest of the battle since it debuffs the user's Special Attack. The flavour here, of course, is something that many anime characters do -- often hot-blooded fire-wielding types, natch -- where they go for an all-or-nothing attack that would exhaust and conk them out. It's not quite as self-destructive as, well, Selfdestruct, but pretty neat regardless.

• Eruption (Funka/Eruption) One of the more powerful Fire-type moves, Eruption deals maximum damage the more HP the Pokemon has. It's always one of the moves that the 3D games go all-in for in animating, and, of course, it's yet another move that hits both enemies. This move is almost exclusive, with only Camerupt (who is a volcano camel) and the legendary Groudon (who is a volcano kaiju) being able to learn it initially.
• Blaze Kick (Bureizu Kikku/Blaze Kick) All the starter Pokemon in Generation III get signature moves, making them extra cool, and it's going to be a running theme for... well, most of the starters that don't come from Johto or Sinnoh, anyway! Blaze Kick is pretty much perfect for Blaziken, though, who is a fiery kung-fu chicken whose powerful pillar-like legs are already pretty emphasized in its design. Adding it really does make Blaziken feel much more unique compared to just another animal that spews fire. It kicks you with fire while making Bruce Lee noises. 
• Blast Burn (Burasuto Ban/Blast Burn) Not to be outdone, when Generation III released FireRed/LeafGreen, only the three Kanto starters are able to learn these 'ultimate' moves in the Sevii Islands, taught by a mysterious hermit. They're basically Hyper Beam in practice, but Hyper Beam's badass, so I'm not complaining! The Pokemon Adventures manga made these special moves feel particularly badass, too, making it a whole quest for many of the Pokedex holders to go and get these abilities. In the very next generation, all starters are eligible for these ultimate moves, but for just a single generation, Blast Burn is Charizard's. It's normally depicted particularly in the anime as them slamming down onto the ground and causing the mother of all fiery explosions. 

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Grass-type Moves:

Unlike Fire, though, the Grass-type can afford to be a bit more creative with what it's doing by just how interesting the Grass type itself can be. Anything that plants (or fungi) can do is fair game, after all! And, again, just like the Fire-type, all the redundant 'deal damage' moves does get a bit more interesting when the Physical/Special split classifies all these moves as different -- Razor Leaf becomes physical while Magical Leaf becomes special, and the like. 

• Bullet Seed (Tane Mashingan/Seed Machinegun) And we start off with one of the TM's given to you in the Hoenn region, and this multi-hit move Bullet Seed has such a badass name for what is basically... what kids do when they eat watermelons, and that's to spit out the seed. The anime in particular had a great mileage out of Bullet Seed by having Ash's Treecko abuse this like a damn machinegun. Interestingly, while most Generation III players would associate this with the TM, by natural learnset, Bullet Seed was originally exclusive to Sunflora of all Pokemon! Actually, I guess sunflowers do have a lot of seed in their flowers!
• Magical Leaf (Majikaru Rifu/Magical Leaf) A variant of Razor Leaf, except that the Magical Leaf glows in rainbow colours. The gimmick is that this is an unavoidable attack, though it's a bit weaker and doesn't hit both enemies. Not too much to say here, if we're being honest, although one of the weirder things in Generation III is that the Psychic-type Kirlia can learn this through move tutor. Only Kirlia. Not its pre-evolution or its evolution. I don't know if this is a mistake or not, but Nintendo would commit and let Kirlia have the ability to shoot weaponized magic leaves at people.
• Ingrain (Ne O Haru/Extend Roots) Oh, I hated this move, thanks to a traumatic experience with one of the Ace Trainers with a Cacturne at the end of Hoenn's Victory Road. But Ingrain is actually a very cool name and a very cool flavour -- it uses a different part of the plant anatomy, this time being the roots! The Pokemon will continue to heal itself with nutrition from the soil, but since it's rooted in place, it can't be switched out! Very cool and flavourful, and I love that with a couple of legendary exceptions, every single user of Ingrain is a Grass-type Pokemon of the 'sentient walking plant' flavour instead of the 'animal with plant parts' flavour. Very neat attention to detail, and, yes, Fomantis is part of that group!
• Aromatherapy (Aromaserapi/Aromatherapy) An interesting move -- we've got a couple extra non-damaging moves for the Grass-type, which ties in well with the 'Aroma Lady' trainer class, I feel! Aromatherapy in particular just heals every single Pokemon on your side of the field of status moves. Now I'm doubtful that real-life aromatherapy can cure you from being poisioned or burned, but this is nice scents from a rose-pixie monster, so clearly it's more effective than, like, peppermint and lavender.

• Grass Whistle (Kusabue/Grass Flute) We have a couple of signature moves now. Grass Whistle (or Grasswhistle as it was originally formatted as) is Roselia's signature move. I never knew that! But it basically puts yourself to sleep, and it is a cute little nod to how so many people, especially in movies, are able to make these soothing melodies with a blade of grass. Now I'm not sure about giving it to a rose bouquet Pokemon as a signature move, but eh. 
• Needle Arm (Nidoru Amu/Needle Arm) The signature move of the Cacnea line until we get fellow cactus Pokemon Maractus and spiky-nut Pokemon Chesnaught, Needle Arm is a pretty cool one! Very cool animation in the GBA engine with the needles stabbing in a concentric circle around the opponent, and can cause the opponent to flinch. I mean, you would, too, if a cactus-man just punched you with needles jutting out of his fist. 
• Leaf Blade (Rifu Bureido/Leaf Blade) Oh, this is a cool move right here! One of the straight-up best animations to come out of the GBA engine, and amazingly portrayed in the anime with Grovyle or Sceptile extending those leaves on their forearms into fucking glowing lightsaber blades of doom. It's a relatively simple trope, yes, extending part of your body into a glowing blade. I don't care -- it's something that works amazingly well with the design of Grovyle and Sceptile (and later on, other users of Leaf Blade like Leavanny or Shiftry or Kartana). 
• Frenzy Plant (Hado Puranto/Hard Plant) The ultimate starter move for Venusaur and later other fully-evolved Grass-types, I absolutely agree with the English translation that the name Frenzy Plant is so, so much cooler than 'Hard Plant'. The depiction of Frenzy Plant has differed from media to media. Its original Generation III video game version had a swarm of encroaching roots slamming into the enemy. The anime has shown it being depicted as a cluster of thorny vines bursting out of the ground, or gigantic serpentine logs not too dissimilar to that one demon from Jujutsu Kaisen, and the manga gives each different starter a unique 'Frenzy Plant', with Venusaur having a cluster of vines from its plant, Meganium shooting a Solarbeam-esque attack, and Sceptile just unleashing havoc with its back-seed-fruit-things. 

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Water-type Moves:

• Dive (Daibingu/Diving) Hoenn's huge environmental gimmick (and a personal favourite of mine, actually -- I'm disappointed future regions didn't give us more diving locations) is diving, which allows you to, instead of just riding a Pokemon, also dive deep with them. In the manga in particular it's depicted as a shroud of... well, I guess oxygen around the trainer. In combat, Dive basically is just Water-type Dig, except it's way more ridiculous since you can use Dive in places without water. 
• Water Pulse (Mizu no Hado/Water Pulse) Unlike Ice, Fire or Electric, the Water-type didn't really have much in terms of 'middling' Water-type moves before you go straight to Surf and Hydro Pump. I'm not sure why the games didn't push Bubblebeam a bit more, but they eventually settled on Water Pulse, introduced in this generation, as the default 'anyone that can shoot water will learn this around level 20 or so'. And... it's pretty neat? Originally described as an ultrasonic pulse of water before just being, well, a pulsing blast of water, Water Pulse comes with the additional effect of confusion. Pretty neat and kinda distinctive, actually. 
• Water Sport (Mizu Asobi/Water Game) The 'Sport' moves are... kinda worthless? I kind of get the flavour. The Pokemon using Water Sport spreads out so much water as it splashes around that the power of Fire-type moves used by everyone gets cut down... but it's not particularly useful. I think this is basically the basis for the 'Terrain' moves introduced much later in Generation VI.
• Water Spout (Shiofuki/Water Spout) Water Spout is basically Water-type Eruption, dealing insanely high damage the higher the HP of the user is. I thought this move was exclusive to Wailord, but fellow whale-based Kyogre was also able to use it in Generation III. Very fun-looking animation, and it fits the very common visual image of whales shooting gigantic geysers out of their blowholes. 

• Muddy Water (Daku Ryu/Muddy River) The actual signature move is Muddy Water, which in Generation III takes the form of a recoloured version of Surf's animation. Instead of a wave of seawater, Swampert will douse you with a gigantic tsunami of icky, muddy water! That's just disgusting! In Generation III it's just a cooler variant of Surf, but later on Surf loses the property of not hitting your other ally... while Muddy Water will still damage only the enemy. Since then, a lot of the 'swampy' Water-type Pokemon have been able to learn Muddy Water.
• Hydro Cannon (Haidoro Kanon/Hydro Cannon) And we close this off with the ultimate Water-type starter move, Hydro Cannon. And... its name is probably the one that's the most tied to Blastoise, isn't it? He's got cannons! Whereas 'Blast Burn' and 'Frenzy Plant' doesn't exclusively tie itself to Charizard and Venusaur. Anyway, it sure is a much more devastating version of Hydro Pump. I'm just kinda happy that the starters get a bit more of an attention, even if it's just a couple of signature moves. 

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Electric-type Moves:

• Shock Wave (Dengeki-ha/Electric Shockwave) Shock Wave is just a very fucking cool attack name to say, yeah? SHOCKWAVE! Just say that and make your voice around two octaves deeper when you say it. Go on, we won't judge. Anyway, Shock Wave kind of bridges the gap between the laughably weak Thundershock and the end-game duo of Thunder and Thunderbolt. Its little gimmick is that Shock Wave can't miss. Later generations would make it a bit more clear that this is a concentric explosion of electricity instead of a lancing bolt like many other Electric-type attacks. 
• Charge (Juden/Charging) Yeah, this move used to be kinda useless. You 'charge up' for one turn, and if you use an Electric-type attack for your next move, it deals double damage. I do get the flavour, but... it's kind of telegraphing your attack. Similar to Stockpile, later generations added the bonus of Charge also increasing your special defense stat. 
• Volt Tackle (Borutekka/Volteccer) In Emerald, the Pikachu line gains a very interestingly hidden secret way to get the signature move. I learned about this from a fucking video game magazine. Those existed at the time! But you need to breed with a female Pikachu holding the Light Ball (itself being Pikachu's signature item) and the baby Pichu will have Volt Tackle. It is kind of surprising because I've always thought that the Pikachu line was more Special Attack oriented... but turns out that they're more or less balanced in the physical and special offensive side. Okay, then. Volt Tackle basically has Pikachu wreath itself in an aura of lightning before charging and slamming onto the enemy... but also taking recoil. The result is basically a reskinned Double-Edge. It's kind of an interesting signature move, and while it was a cute little easter egg, Volt Tackle has basically found itself to everywhere Pikachu shows up in. The anime, the manga, Smash Bros, the Ryan Reynolds movie... it's nice. It's really nice that our little mascot rodent gets something to call its own!

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Anyway, there are a lot of Normal-type moves introduced, huh? We'll be picking up on the rest of the moves in a separate 'part 2' article soon!