Reviewing Monsters: Persona 5, Part 14

Well, the actual monster from Okumura's Palace to be featured in this article is just the Mothman (which is a clever thing to put into a space colony themed area) but I basically went through a huge fusion spree over the course of my couple of trips to Okumura's Palace, leading to a whole lot of new Personas that I think I should have discovered earlier, but are either locked behind the level gate or just never got the ingredients until I ran around in Okumura's Palace.

At this point of writing I also have max-ranked a couple more of the older confidants. I think I've mentioned Takemi, Ryuji and Yoshida before? I also max-ranked Mishima and Ann at this point. It really is kind of interesting seeing how some of these confidant stories play out, considering how... standalone some of them actually are compared to the rest of the 'main' story!

Also, yeah, I use 'Persona's adaptation of X' and 'Shin Megami Tensei's adaptation of X' interchangeably. I know Persona is technically a spinoff of SMT, and most of the monsters here had their designs originate in one of the big SMT games, but I've never touched a SMT game yet and it's hard to remember that most of the time!

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Mothman

• Monster Name: Vampire Moth
• Arcana: Moon

Oh! OHHHH! I've always loved the Mothman. What a weird cryptid! This is kind of a more modern-day Loch Ness Monster or something! The Mothman is particularly popular in the 60s to 80s in West Virginia, where it's described as a mysterious dark figure looking like a strange, cloaked or winged figure that resembles a moth and is able to fly. Interpretations have taken liberties from portraying it as drawing the iconic silhouette that looked like a scrunched-up owl to just going full-on demonic Killer Moth with it. As with many cryptid sightings, the Mothman has gone from just a creepy glowing-eyed creature people happened to see at night to some kind of calamity-bringer that people associated with the collapse of the Silver Bridge. In reality, it's just likely some people got spooked by particularly large owls, and typical exaggeration and association of events and tales ended up sensationalizing the events. But it's still fun!

But I've always loved the idea that the Mothman wasn't just some dude with a demonic head and moth wings, though. I barely know anything about Fallout, but they had a pretty fun interpretation that just takes the silhouette and turn that into a creepier-looking moth monster. Pokemon Quarantine Crystal also had a pretty cool Mothman fanmade Pokemon, too!

Persona's Mothman, however, is probably my favourite in that it emphasizes just how goofy and adorable he looks. The glowing eyes and the strange 'owl-like' silhouette are kept, but I love the adorable little tippy-tap feet that it has, and the :0 expression the Mothman has. They also went along and made it a real moth monster, too, with a fuzzy body and a set of wings that look pretty colourful, as well as two antennae.

And the result... well, this is probably one of my favourite monsters just due to how cute it looks! Look at the adorable little Mothman! Probably one of my favourite designs from this game so far in terms of absurdity and adorableness!

Hell Biker

• Monster Name: N/A
• Arcana: Death

That's just Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider from Marvel comics! I'm sure the details aren't exactly the same (his head isn't on fire), but he's an undead skull guy with a leather outfit and a badass bike with wheels on fire. Sure, he's got a Kamen Rider scarf going on, too, but... uh... yeah. Hell Biker (or Hell's Angels in Japanese, referencing the biker gang) is sure a Ghost Rider. 

This is one of the few unique entities to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, and the backstory is that he's a human motorcyclist whose violence caused him to return as a demon (remember that in Shin Megami Tensei, all these monsters represent actual demons and stuff) as the 'Angel of Hell', driven by self-loathing and anger to lash out at everything in the world. Sounds like your typical 80's-90's anti-hero. 

He's one of the 'special fusion' Personas, being created by Principality (if he's Ghost Rider, the angel connotation makes sense), Matador (another SMT-original undead guy) and... Decarabia? The star alien-demon guy? Uh... okay? I mean, I like the Ghost Rider and the hilarious novelty of using him in a Persona game, so I like this one! Bit unexpected, though!

White Rider

• Monster Name: N/A
• Arcana: Chariot

Huh! Unexpected. The White Rider is the first of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse described in the Bible's Book of Revelations. The Biblical text only specifies that the White Rider is associated with 'Conquest', but in popular culture, and taking another passage slightly later in Revelations, have associated the White Rider with 'Pestilence'. Others, who take the riders and horsemen as something more symbolic, sometimes associate the 'conquest' as the spreading of Christianity over the world. As is stated in the Bible and the many artwork done about the Horseman of Pestilence/Conquest, the White Rider is depicted with a crown and bow. 

Nowhere in the Bible does it state that the White Rider's horse is pockmarked with eyeballs all over his body, but it does strike a very imposing and terrifying figure. This simple change in detail really does elevate Persona's take on the White Rider beyond just a generic skeleton king on a horse. 

Power

• Monster Name: Divine Warrior
• Arcana: Justice

Continuing with the biblical theme, we continue with Persona's adaptation of the nine hierarchies of angels from  De Coelesti Hierarchia. We've done all the lower orders, and now we enter the middle order, starting with the angels known as the "Powers". Also known as "Authorities", they are noted to be angels who have power over evil forces. Again, not a whole ton to say here. 

I do really enjoy the Power's design compared to the Archangel or Principality, but that's probably because of how war-like he looks with that badass red helmet and cuirass, and... an octopus on the shield for some reason? Pretty neat. I'm not sure if it's a reference to a specific depiction of angels or not, but I do like the overall design. 

Hariti

• Monster Name: N/A
• Arcana: Empress

Hariti, also known as 鬼子母神, or Guǐ zǐ mǔ shén/Kishimojin, has a name that literally translates to 'demon child/mother god', Hariti has had many different interpretations over the years. Originally, Hariti was a demoness that slew human children to feed her own children. However, when Buddhism arrived, a new legend was created. Gautama Buddha hid away one of Hariti's sons under a rice bowl. After Hariti desperately sought all throughout the universe for her missing child, this made Hariti realize that the suffering and pain of losing one of her hundreds of children was a fraction of the human mothers whose few children she stole. Hariti, remorseful, converted to Buddhism and became a protector of human children and childbirth. She and her children would then feed on pomegranates, which substituted for human flesh. Eventually, Hariti would be counted among the Twenty-Four Protective Deities, a group that includes the Four Heavenly Kings we covered before. 

Design wise... she sure is a woman in a cloak holding a baby? I do like the subtle horns beneath the coverings around her head, and the red glowing eyes that she has, hinting at her original malevolent nature. I can't actually get a proper look at the baby's face, but it looks like it's just a regular baby there. 

Kikuri-Hime

• Monster Name: Mountain Girl
• Arcana: Priestess

Kukiri-Hime-no-Mikoto, literally 'Priestess Chrysanthemum', is a goddess that was briefly mentioned in the story of Izanagi that we covered when we covered the DLC Personas a while back. Kukiri-hime mediated on behalf of Izanami, in order for Izanagi and Izanami could engage in a debate over their confrontation in Yomi. Whatever the results of the debate is, Kikuri-hime is noted to establish the duties of the Miko, or Japanese priestesses, in being a mediator between the netherworld and the living world. Kikuri-Hime ended up being merged with other Japanese deities, eventually. 

And... again, I tend to not really have a whole ton to say about these humanoid designs. She sure has a fancy dress, and I do like the magatama that are attached to her hips and hairpins. Her fancier-looking outfit also makes her a bit more interesting looking than Hariti up above, and she has... ashen gray skin for some reason? 

Not too much to say here, tbh!

Secret Invasion S01E01 Review: Aliens Among Us

Marvel's Secret Invasion, Episode 1: Resurrection

So this happened! I have always been of the opinion that a show like Agents of SHIELD would've been so much better if characters like Nick Fury and Maria Hill were a bit more involved in it... but obviously scheduling and actor problems ended up making it not quite as well-received as it could've probably been.

And... as it is, I really did feel like the character of Nick Fury, while a great crowd-pleaser whenever he shows up, ends up being kind of a waste after gathering the Avengers in The Avengers and Captain America: Winter Soldier. Nick Fury always has some kind of presence in subsequent movies as a mentor or as an ally, but his two most prominent post-Winter-Soldier scenes are in a prequel as a younger self (Captain Marvel) or it's revealed that he's being impersonated by Talos (Spider-Man: Far From Home). The real Nick Fury, as this show points out... really hasn't done anything since the Infinity War/Endgame two-parter. He didn't do anything in Infinity War, and he doesn't even show up in the big climactic ending in Endgame. 

And... I really did wish that we get to see what Nick Fury has been doing. We saw that he's on a big giant spaceship on Earth's orbit at the end of Far From Home, but... it's not the most exciting thing to do. And so we've got this series, based on the Secret Invasion arc of the same name... except without the big shocking parts of the Skrulls having infiltrated and copied members of the superhero community. 

Here, we seem to have basically a rather generic spy/alien-invasion storyline, with our main hero Nick Fury teaming up with some MCU characters like Maria Hill and Talos the Skrull as they dismantle a group of evil renegade Skrulls. Turns out that after the Blip in Endgame, and the fact that despite all of her superpowers Captain Marvel hasn't been able to find a new planet for the Skrulls, they are still homeworld-less, and have begun infiltrating the humans in a bid to cause the extinction of humanity and take Earth as New Skrullos. 

It's... it's kind of a clunky opening, I'll admit. As a spy show with a 'invasion of the body snatchers' twist, it works just fine. The Everett Ross cameo is also much appreciated. But with how the Skrulls have been depicted in the MCU, as well as the general obviousness of 'oh, these are bad Skrulls, and Talos's daughter is the one good Skrull that is in deep with the bad Skrulls', the pilot is nowhere as bombastic or exciting as the other Disney+ shows. And don't get me wrong, the setup sounds amazing... but the actual execution just somehow... doesn't work? I'm really not sure. 

Perhaps it's the fact that practically everyone other than these three guys (and Fake Everett Ross) are all new characters, so I just am not really invested in 'who's secretly a Skrull'. Like, we're introduced to a lot of brand-new characters, or people that might as well be brand-new characters (like Talos's daughter G'iah). And... out of the new 'humans', we've got sassy MI6 spy Sonya Falsworth, and the President of the USA, Ritson... and whether they are Skrulls or not, it's not particularly interesting. The one 'canon' character that is revealed to be a Skrull is Everett Ross in the cold open, but it's less of a 'big shocker' moment because it's not even clear if this Skrull just took advantage of Ross's disappearance post-Wakanda-Forever and ran around with his face, or if the Ross we've been seeing in the Black Panther movies is actually a Skrull that just died an inglorious death (which is very likely not the case). 

Also, for a bunch of shape-shifting aliens, it's rather silly that characters like Talos and G'iah just default into the same-looking humans all the time. I get that it's because we need to associate the actors with them, but it does strain a bit of believability that they don't abuse the ability to swap faces all the time. There's also the fact that the show tries to play up the Skrulls both as a sinister shapeshifting faction that's infiltrating our society, but also focuses on them as a refugee camp. I get what they're going for, that Gravik is using a lot of these desperate, disillusioned Skrull youth as his terrorists, but I really do feel that for a first episdoe they probably should've hammered home the villainousness part first. 

Nick Fury himself lands on Earth and Maria, Talos and Sonya all try and point out how Nick Fury has 'changed' and 'is not the same', but... he's still Samuel L. Jackson being a badass. As usual, Samuel L. Jackson is always a treat to watch, but other than bits of him brooding in-between missions, as well as the end of the episode where he fails to catch the bomber, he honestly already seems to be firing on all cylinders.

We also have Talos and Ben Mendelsohn's wit is still welcome to have, but his wife Soren has been 'fridged' since Spider-Man: Far From Home, having been killed in an unspecified interaction with main villain Gravik... which Talos just refuses to explain to his bratty teenage daughter G'iah, who we last saw as a wee bab in Captain Marvel and is now played by Emilia Clarke. 

After a couple of investigating, including them beating up a Russian art dealer (who we also meet for the first time) that turns out to be a Skrull, our heroes follow a lead. G'iah seems to be helping Talos with marking the bomb-bags, but whether G'iah played her father like a fiddle or if she's actually duped by Gravik's goons, the bombs blow up as our heroes are distracted with the marked bags. In the chaos, Gravik disguises himself as a Skrull and seems to shoot Maria Hill dead, and... man, kind of a waste of a character, huh, if she actually does die here?

If I don't sound particularly enthused about the plotline of this episode, that's because I really am not. The setup is a lot more boring than what a 'Secret Invasion' should be. There are a bunch of way too many new characters that I don't particularly find interesting or memorable (Sonya's a typical sassy spy, Gravik's a reluctant resistance leader, his second-in-command is the fanatic type, there's another young earnest Skrull recruit that G'iah befriends) and while this is admittedly just the first episode, it really does feel like the Skrull rebels are going to fall into 'they are all basically the same people' problem that made the Flag-Smashers so boring in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

The best part of this episode, of course, if you realize that the forms that Gravik takes throughout the final sequence are all random background characters that Nick Fury has met all throughout the episode in Moscow, showing that Gravik is the one that's "three steps ahead". That's easily the best part of the episode that really makes the greatest use of the Skrulls abusing their transformation! 

Of course, the show itself does promise to have something more interesting, if they manage to do things properly. It's just the opening episode, and we're already promised the involvement of War Machine. It is basically what the show's premise is all about, but considering how fun and interesting most of the Disney+ shows have been (yes, even though I don't like She-Hulk, but at least its pilot episode had energy) this one feels a bit too repetitive and formulaic. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Secret Invasion is based on the comic book run of the same name, although the Skrulls impersonated actual superheroes instead of spies. 
• The events of Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel are all brought up. Nick Fury taking charge of S.A.B.E.R. was briefly seen in the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home. 
• Nick Fury was last seen taking a holiday in space in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The Nick Fury and the Maria Hill that appeared in that movie are revealed to be Talos and his wife Soren in disguise. Everett Ross (presumably the real one) last appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever being broken out of CIA arrest by Okoye. The real Maria Hill last appeared in the funeral scene in Avengers: Endgame. 
• Gravik's second-in-command is Pagon, who in the comics' version of Secret Invasion was the Skrull that replaced Elektra. 

Gotta Review 'Em All - Moves [Generation IV, Part 2]

My coverage of Pokemon moves introduced in Generation IV, part 2! Not a whole lot for me to say in the intro, other than the reminder that Generation IV was the one that introduced the Physical/Special split, meaning that a lot of the moves added is just in service to balancing out the other side of that split for most types. 

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Flying-type Moves:

Originally all Physical-type, 'Flying' is probably the type that gets the most splitting between the existing moves since the Flying-type always had a decent amount of moves themed around striking like a predatory bird (which fall into Physical-category moves) and wind-related moves (which fall into Special-category moves). 

• Air Slash (Ea Surasshu/Air Slash) ...which goes straight into these first couple of moves I'm going to talk about! Air Slash is a very neat fantasy that has been represented a couple of times in Pokemon as moves, with the not-particularly-useful Air Cutter and the highly impractical Razor Wind. Air Slash is very simple, very practical, and looks amazingly cool in animation as your birds just strike the air hard enough that a compressed blade of wind flies at the enemy like a thrown weapon! Pretty cool. 
• Brave Bird (Bureibu Bado/Brave Bird) We're just giving Double-Edge to every type in this generation, huh? With Wood Hammer and Flare Blitz and now Brave Bird? I've always found the animation of Brave Bird (which is shared with Sky Attack of 'God Bird' in the 3D games) to be cool as hell, as your Flying-type Pokemon flies up to the sky and conjures this manifestation of a glowing yellow giant predatory bird that just swoops down and slams onto the enemy like a goddamn fighter jet. Needless to say, one of the more powerful physical Flying moves.
• Pluck (Tsuibamu/Pick) Basically the exact same thing as Bug Bite, but flavoured as a bird picking the berry off of the opponent. I do find it cute that certain things that some animals do on their own that might seem innocuous could be translated as a certain attack with a certain effect in this franchise. 
• Chatter (Oshaberi/Chatter) We'll get through all the damaging moves in one go, and Chatter is Chatot's signature move, which has such an interesting history behind it. You see, Chatot is a parrot, and the fourth generation debuted in the Nintendo DS era, which had a built-in microphone. The damage that Chatter does -- and the secondary effect of confusion -- ends up being tied to the decibel of volume of the recording that you, the player, puts into the NDS itself. It's such an interesting gimmick tied to the signature move of an honestly rather bland Pokemon, but the sheer amount of calculations involved in Chatter in the NDS-era games is honestly quite impressive. Chatter can also be used outside of battle to record a sound clip that would replace Chatot's cry. A combination of the games moving into other consoles, however, meant that Chatter was reduced to just a generic move... but I think banning it really just meant it stopped people from recording "FUCK YOUUUUU" really loudly.

• Roost (Haneyasume/Feather Rest) Speaking of 'birds doing bird things', Roost! Roost is always a fascinating move to me. Generation IV and V are the generations where I feel like they're really trying to add more functionality to some of the more neglected types like Bug, Poison and Flying, and Roost basically kind of became a staple move for a lot of Flying-type Pokemon. A bird roosts on a tree or a rock to rest, and this translates to healing half of the Pokemon's health. Of course, this comes with an interesting drawback -- Roosting removes the 'immunity to certain moves' that Flying-type Pokemon have, and this might end up causing hilarious things as the Kilowattrel that just roosted would suddenly find its life being rocked by an Earthquake. 
• Tailwind (Oikaze/Tailwind) Another one that I really like with a fun name, Tailwind summons a gust of wind that blows on your side of the field, increasing the speed of not only the Flying-type Pokemon that casts it, but also its allies in a double battle. It's such a fun little imagery, and this move is shared by a bunch of non-Flying Pokemon that has some association with the wind, like Suicune and Whimsicott.
• Defog (Kiribarai/Fog Wipe) Debuting in this generation and one of the much-reviled 'Sinnoh has too many HM's' complaint, Defog removes the 'foggy' weather effect that's never tied to any in-game move (unlike Sunny Day, Hail, Rain Dance, Sandstorm or Snowscape) but is just tied to the areas in Sinnoh and Hisui. So a Flying-type Pokemon will just flap their wings hard enough to clear the fog, I guess? Defog in battle isn't as useless as Flash is, though, because not only does it lower the enemy's evasiveness, it also gets rid of both shield moves (Reflect, Light Screen) but also entry hazards (Spikes, Sticky Web, etc). While I really do like the idea of using your party Pokemon's physical abilities to transverse the terrain instead of turning the HM's into 'plot coupons', I definitely agree that Defog is probably the HM that felt the most 'why'.

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Fighting-type Moves:

As you can imagine, literally every single damaging Fighting-type moves from the first three generations are categorized into the physical category since they do involve a lot of punching and kicking. This generation gives us some of the first Fighting-types that can utilize special-category Fighting moves (notably the iconic Lucario) but also adds a bunch of moves to facilitate that. 

• Aura Sphere (Hadodan/Wave Bomb) Again, the most iconic of these is Lucario's highly-marketed Aura Sphere -- a hadodan instead of Street Fighter's iconic hadoken. I get the idea, it's something a lot of fighting games do where you compress a large amount of ki or fighting spirit or something equivalent to those and then launch it as a blast of pure energy. Aura Sphere ties in with concepts that are explored around Lucario, which is its ability to sense the enemy by sensing their 'aura', which is a pretty martial arts thing to do. Now it's not Lucario's signature move, with Togekiss and a handful of legendaries also being able to learn it even in its debut generation, but I do find the move tied to an interesting 'extra sense' give it an extra oomph. Besides, it definitely gives Lucario that extra 'oomph' where his hadoken attacks are very visually distinctive!
• Vacuum Wave (Shinkuha/Vacuum Wave) Originally only learnable by Hitmonchan of all Pokemon (though HG/SS and Platinum made it available to much more Pokemon) this one is a bit of a more 'sci-fi' Special-category Fighting move, where the Pokemon punches so hard that it... blows away all the air and unleashes a blast of vacuum at the enemy. It's a priority move, though, and doesn't cause explosive decompression or whatever. 
• Focus Blast (Kiaidama/Fighting Spirit Bullet) And the 'Blizzard' of Fighting-type moves is Focus Blast, a kiai bomb where you just launch a blast of fighting energy at the enemy. Powerful but inaccurate, and all that. It is interesting, however, that the only Pokemon that learns Focus Blast naturally is Yveltal, who isn't even a Fighting-type Pokemon! 

• Wake-Up Slap (Mezamashi Binta/Awakening Slap) An interesting move that is taken from a common trope in anime. You slap an unconscious or sleeping person so hard that they wake up. I think this might've been the original concept for the move Smelling Salts in Generation III? Anyway, Wake-Up Slap deals double damage to a sleeping target, and also wakes them up. Kind of a niche move because your opponent sleeping is almost always a better thing for you than a very slight boost in damage. 
• Force Palm (Hakkei/Force Discharge) Oh, I like this one. It's that move that so many animation studios use to give their action scenes an oomph -- striking the enemy so hard that an explosion of energy bursts out from the back of the opponent. It's like... you hit the enemy with such force and energy that the force travels through the enemy's body and it erupts out the other side! Hakkei, or Fa Jin in Mandarin, is a concept of dealing internal damage through shockwaves. Very fun little move!
• Hammer Arm (Amu Hanma/Arm Hammer) This one is kind of the late-level moves for Fighting-types as far as damage goes, with a base 100 power but not a perfect accuracy. You also decrease the user's speed, which means most people just run the slightly-less-accurate Cross Chop (which has a bonus of increased critical hits) or... 
• Close Combat (Infaito/Infight) Close Combat! Or just the English word 'Infight' in the original Japanese version. One of the most widely-available Fighting-type moves, and honestly kind of terrifying to see? The animation for this move always tends to be pretty hectic, too, with the user charging in and blitzing the enemy very quickly. The tradeoff is that you lower your Special Defense stats by going in so 'close' to the enemy. I like this one.
• Drain Punch (Dorein Panchi/Drain Punch) I've always found the idea of this move rather bizarre, actually. A lot of the Fighting-type moves refer to relatively specific moves in martial arts like judo, boxing, karate and wushu... and yes, I know I just talked about Aura Sphere and Focus Blast up there and that draws more on Dragon Ball and Street Fighter than on MMA, but this one is a bit more odd for a Fighting-type move. You punch the enemy and you restore health by draining their energy? I dunno. That really doesn't sound like something that particularly fits the 'flavour' of Fighting-type moves all that much. 

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Ground-type Moves:

• Earth Power (Daichi no Chikara/Earth Power) Huh, only two new Ground-type moves? Earth Power is very crucial, though. The Doylist explanation for this is that the Ground-type needed a powerful Special move to be a counterpart to Earthquake... but the flavour's pretty neat even if it's technically the same thing. Earthquake's more about the shaking and moving of the ground itself, whereas Earth Power is the Pokemon channeling the sheer power of the ground to cause a gigantic volcanic eruption of... well, tectonic plates, I guess? It's really hard to explain this animation without using the words 'stone' or 'lava', which implies other types!
• Mud Bomb (Doro Bakudan/Mud Bomb) It's not that the Ground-type didn't have moves that got categorized into the Special category -- but Mud Shot and Mud Slap really weren't the most impressive ones. Mud Bomb ends up becoming the middle-of-the-pack move, and like all the 'mud' moves, it has a chance of lowering accuracy. It sure is a dense ball of mud being launched at the enemy!

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Rock-type Moves:

It is interesting that I've never noticed until when I did these move reviews how few Rock-type moves there are in the first three generations, despite the abundance of Rock-type Pokemon. We had a total of seven Rock-type moves in the first three Generations, and that's it, when we're already doubling up on redundancy in some types like Fire and Normal! So yeah, we have a fair amount of new Rock-type moves here, some which will become staples. 

• Power Gem (Pawa Jemu/Power Gem) The only Special-category Rock-type move we had before was Ancient Power, and Power Gem was basically made to fill in that gap. Depending on the generation, the user either summons a cluster of gemstones and launches them at the enemy, Magneto-style, or summons four floating diamonds that shoot laser beams at the opponent. By dint of lack of any other options, this one ends up becoming pretty widely available among Rock-types, I think.
• Stone Edge (Suton Ejji/Stone Edge) This is the huge-damage, low-accuracy move for Rock-types, basically the Fire Blast to Rock Slide's Flamethrower... though the Rock-type, sadly, doesn't quite have that high of a base damage power compared to those two specific Fire-type moves. Always loved Stone Edge, though. There's just something so satisfying, particularly in the 3D-era games, to see a cluster of spiky, vertical rocks just rise up and impale the opponent. 
• Head Smash (Moroha no Zutsuki/Double-Edged Headbutt) Kind of a 'shared' signature move, only the Cranidos line and Relicanth could learn this move. It's a very powerful move with 150 base power, but it has subpar accuracy and deals a lot of recoil. It kinda makes a lot of sense that the self-destructive headbutting Rampardos can learn this one, then! 
• Rock Polish (Rokku Katto/Rock Cut) Oh, hey, Rock-types get a self-buffing move! Rock Polish basically has the Rock-type Pokemon polish its body to 'reduce drag', according to the description. It increases the Speed stat a lot. Not much to say, it's pretty cute as far as moves go and what kind of association they would draw for the Rock flavours to turn into a buff move. 

• Stealth Rock (Suterusu Rokku/Stealth Rock) Ah, good ol' Stealth Rock. The 'staple' meta move of entry hazards and what dominated the metagame in Generations IV and V before VI nerfed entry hazards a bit. Hey, I know a little about the meta! Stealth Rock isn't the only entry hazard out there -- there's also Spikes and Toxic Spikes -- but Stealth Rock is able to hit even flying Pokemon and even deals damage based on typing, meaning it's even more powerful against Flying-types. The flavour is even pretty cool, speaking in anime terms... a bunch of floating stones set around the opponent, that will all swoop in and dig into the enemy's flesh as they enter? That's so much more badass than just a bunch of caltrops on the ground! Later games would even make the 'stealth' part a bit more clearer by having the floating rocks go invisible. 
• Now interestingly, this portion of the review was written after I played Legends: Arceus -- some of the previous reviews were not -- and only in that game, Stealth Rock is turned into a physical attacking move that has the user launch the rocks at the enemy, leaving them with a 'splinters' damage-over-time for several turns. I'm not sure if I like or dislike that game changing a fair bit of how moves work, since Stealth Rock is probably one of the more drastic changes, but it's interesting for sure. 
• Rock Wrecker (Ganseki Ho/Rock Cannon) Originally the signature move of Rhyperior, and later shared only with Dwebble and Crustle, Rock Wrecker also has the gigantic 150-power damage. And hey, look at Rhyperior! It's literally a giant rock kaiju dinosaur with cannons built into its arms. You would think that a 'Rock Cannon' fired from this thing would do a fuck ton of damage. And it does! It's just that, just like Hyper Beam and Giga Impact, Rock Wrecker demands that the Pokemon misses its next turn... and 'recharging' in this case makes a bit more sense because Rhyperior needs to probably 'load' its next cannonball, right? 

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Steel-type Moves:

As one of the types introduced a bit later into the franchise, the Steel type does have a fair amount of catching up in terms of moves alone, and particularly in terms of Special category moves -- the only Special category move before this was Jirachi's Doom Desire, whereas a lot of the 'sci-fi beam' flavour moves like Zap Cannon were typed as Electric instead. So we do have a couple of brand-new ones, like:

• Flash Cannon (Rasuta Kanon/Luster Cannon) Okay, what the hell, 'Flash Cannon' is catchy, sure, but 'Luster Cannon' sounds so much more badass! Anyway, this is the endgame Special-category Steel-type move, being accurate and having a chance to lower Special Defense. Kind of like Shadow Ball. Now how exactly do you attack 'specially' with Steel-type, when the Steel type usually stab and whack people with blades and girders? Short of vomiting metallic bars at the enemy, obviously. Flash Cannon just 'gathers all the light energy and launches it at the enemy', which basically means a metallic-coloured beam. Um, okay, then. 
• Mirror Shot (Mira Shotto/Mirror Shot) Another Steel-type special move, this one is nothing to write home about, being inaccurate and relatively weaker. It's kind of interesting that the description of this move talks about how it's launching a 'flash of energy from its polished body', which means that the Pokemon that can use this move are ones with glossy metallic bodies like Klinklang, Magneton, Ferrothorn... and Vanniluxe? Okay?
• Bullet Punch (Baretto Panchi/Bullet Punch) Okay, I don't really know why, but 'Bullet Punch' just has such a badass ring in my head. BULLET is just one of those words that has a bite to it, y'know? And Bullet Punch is basically always depicted as punching so fast that you strike multiple times... and somehow this his you like the Steel impact of a bullet. Very cool! This move is a priority move, meaning that like Quick Attack and Aqua Jet, it goes before other moves. 

• Gyro Ball (Jairo Boru/Gyro Ball) It's interesting. I don't know (and don't care to research) too much about Physics to know how well this works, but Gyro Ball basically has your Pokemon spin around and rotate like a gyroscopic... uh... thing! And then it rams the enemy! It's Steel-flavoured Rollout! The kicker is, Gyro Ball deals more damage the slower your Pokemon is, despite the description of it as a 'high-speed spin'. I'm sure someone can point out the obscure centrifugal or centripetal or whatever force that this is referring to, but I just like this move because I really like Ferrothorn as a slow-ass metal durian it's one of the best Pokemon to utilize this one. 
• Iron Head (Aian Heddo/Iron Head) Not much to say here, type-plus-anatomy moves never really gave me much to talk. This is a typical move where it's a perfectly accurate move that also has a chance of flinching. It's Headbutt, but with a little bit more metal to it? Eh. 
• Metal Burst (Metaru Basuto/Metal Burst) I genuinely didn't know this move existed until literally right now. Metal Burst is basically a Counter/Mirror Coat style move, where it returns damage with much greater power, but it does so regardless of the category of the move. It's... it's a bit... it's cool, from a 'let's talk about how to give Steel types more variety in their moves' aspect, for sure, but the flavour of this in animations tended to just be the Steel-type launching a metallic beam at the enemy without any real flavour the way Counter or Mirror Coat has. I dunno. 
• Magnet Bomb (Magunetto Bomu/Magnet Bomb) ...hold up, this is a physical move? Um? Only learnable by a small group of magnetic Pokemon (Magneton, Probopass, Genesect), Magnet Bomb has the user launch a bunch of black spherical orbs that magnetize themselves to the enemy and then explode. The magnetization means that these bombs will not miss. I guess the flavour here is that the magnetized spheres striking the enemy as they get drawn with electromagnetism is the 'physical' aspect of it? 

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Psychic-type Moves:

You really do get the vibe that Generation IV, with the jump from the Game Boy Advanced to the Nintendo DS, that the GameFreak team really tried to do a lot of wacky stuff and a lot of it ends up being slotted into the Psychic type. There's like maybe three brand-new damaging moves, and two of them are the Physical-category move to contrast the mainly Special-flavoured move of the Psychic type. 

• Zen Headbutt (Shinen no Zutsuki/Thought Headbutt) The premier Physical Psychic-type move, mostly because... there aren't really too much in terms of other physical Psychic move, which in itself is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? Zen Headbutt only really gets away because it has the 'zen' word in it that kinda-sorta falls under the realm of being tied to the esper vibes of the Psychic type. 
• Psycho Cut (Saiko Katta/Psycho Cutter) Psycho Cut, though, I can get behind a lot better. I associate this the most with Gallade, obviously, as one of the first dedicated physical-leaning Psychic-types, but a lot of other Pokemon even in Generation IV can use it. A compressed psychic blade isn't too much different than a compressed air blade, but it's so much more flavourful and fancy! 
• Gravity (Juryoku/Gravity) And now we get to the wacky moves that really interact with each other. It's a bit weird that Gravity falls under Psychic-type instead of Steel or Electric, since it's more of a 'sci-fi' power, but the idea of using powerful telekinesis to really intensify the natural forces of the universe does feel like something that psychic characters like Jean Grey or Professor X or Tetsuo would do. The effect nullifies all flight, including levitation, disables moves that requires flying (not just limited to Fly or Bounce, but also High Jump Kick and Magnet Rise) and somehow... increases accuracy of every Pokemon in the field? Hmm.  
• Healing Wish (Iyashi no Negai/Healing Wish) A move that I really felt should've been retconned into Fairy-type, Healing Wish has the user make a wish... then faints, and fully cures the next Pokemon in. Yeah, you never really want any Pokemon to faint, and just like Memento, this one falls under the realm of 'too huge of a risk, too little of a reward'. 

• Trick Room (Torikku Rumu/Trick Room) One of my favourite moves, and, for two generations, a move only naturally learnable by Porygon-Z (the TM made it widely available, though), Trick Room ends up creating a space -- usually represented by a mass of checkerboarded walls all around the area -- where the turn order is reversed, with slower Pokemon going first and faster Pokemon going last. But priority moves are still maintained! It's wacky, it's tricky, it's gimmicky, it's the sort of lunacy that I felt is extra fun when you're playing with your friends. 
• Power Trick (Pawa Torikku/Power Trick), Power Swap (Pawa Suwappu/Power Swap) and Guard Swap (Gado Suwappu/Guard Swap) A trio of moves that also do a lot of wacky rejiggering, but... I really do think that these are way too situational to use properly. Power Trick swaps Attack and Defense stats; while the two swap moves swaps the respective changes to the stats with the foe. Power Trick is honestly really only useful for Shuckle shenanigans, since it's a Pokemon with an abysmal Attack stat and insane Defensive stats, while the 'Swap' moves... well, they're not useless -- you can theoretically steal an enemy's Swagger buff while also delivering a debuff caused by Overheat that you used before, but what an effort to find someone who can survive that many turns and have that exact coverage of moves, y'know? They definitely feel like more of a concept-of-proof of something more creative but perhaps not the most practical to use in battle. 
• Miracle Eye (Mirakuru Ai/Mracle Eye) Okay, this one is kinda boring, it's just Foresight/Odor Sleuth flavoured as a miraculous eye. You can hit Ghost-types and Pokemon with evasive moves. Honestly, 'Foresight' already feels like it should've been a Psychic-type move in the first place.

• Heal Block (Kaifuku-fuji/Restore Seal) Kind of a reverse-counterpart to 'Imprison' if we go by its Japanese name, "Heal Block" has the flavour of restoring a broken seal... but the English name, this time around, really explains the move a lot more clearly. It just blocks the enemy from using healing moves for 5 turns. 
• Psycho Shift (Saiko Shifuto/Psycho Shift) They really did give Psychic a bunch of healing moves this generation, huh? This is basically the 'Synchronize' ability turned into a move -- Psycho Shift uses psychic power to literally shift a status condition to the enemy. The idea, of course, is to maybe use a Burn Orb or whatever to self-inflict a status condition, but it's a bit niche instead of just learning Toxic or Will-O-Wisp. And this move ends up sadly becoming a bit less useful as the sixth generation introduced a lot of status condition immunities to types associated with them. 
• Heart Swap (Hato Suwappu/Heart Swap) The signature of Manaphy, and later on shared with another legendary Magearna, Heart Swap is honestly not the most interesting move. You swap stat changes with the enemy, which isn't super-useful. Lore-wise, though, it represents Manaphy being able to literally swap the souls and minds of people in a 'Freaky Friday' style thing. Why is this given to a sea slug angel water prince? Why not, I guess?
• Lunar Dance (Mikazuki no Mai/Crescent Moon Dance) Cresselia's signature move, Lunar Dance is a very interesting move in that Cresselia dies in order to restore the HP and PP of whatever Pokemon comes to take its place. Now flavour-wise, I think this means to represent Cresselia coming in a dream and curing people from the nightmares they suffer from her rival Darkrai? But in-practice, healing-mid-battle isn't something super useful, and most certainly not worth fainting one of your party members! It's unique, but I don't think anyone really missed Lunar Dance when Legends: Arceus gave Cresselia a brand new signature move. 

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Dark-type Moves:

Dark is really interesting because the type was entirely Special in the previous generations, but thanks to the physical/special split, every single damaging move introduced in Generations II and III have been recategorized as Physical... and the majority of Dark-type moves would still be Physical afterwards, since the Dark type would lean far more into the 'fighting dirty' trope as opposed to the 'shadow darkness powers' which, other than a couple of specific moves, are all Ghost-type. 

• Dark Pulse (Aku no Hado/Evil Pulse) Oh, hey, speaking of the shadow darkness powers, here's Dark Pulse, the premier special-category Dark-type move. For most of the earlier generations, it's been portrayed as a concentric blast that radiates out of the user, dealing AoE damage in multi-battles... though the anime (and recently, Scarlet/Violet) tends to depic it as a blast of warbling black-red-purple energy instead. It sure is an evil beam!
• Night Slash (Tsujigiri/Crossroad Killing) Its English name is pretty cool, 'Night Slash'. Pretty neat! A relatively high-damage Dark-type move, with a high critical hit ratio, noted in the description as a slash done when an 'opportunity rises'. The actual Japanese context, though, is that tsujigiri refers to a way that a samurai would test out his blade in feudal Japan, where they would hide near a crossroads and wait for unsuspecting commoners (who's of a lower class, and thus legal for them to kill) and then behead them, testing how well their new sword can cut. That's... a lot more evil than a simple slash in the night! 
• Assurance (Dameoshi/Make Sure) One of those moves that really works off a pun in Japanese, the term 'dameoshi' is based on a term in baseball translated into English as an 'insurance run', where an already winning team continues to go for score to make sure they really win. And the term dameoshi can also be translated as 'useless push', hence the animation. The effect works off of it, where the move deals extra damage if the Pokemon already received damage earlier this turn -- something that's mostly practical only in double battles. 
• Payback (Shippegaeshi/Retribution) A bit of a discount Counter or Bide, Payback is a regular damaging move that has doubled power if you can use it after bein hit by an attack. Not too much to say here, it's mostly a damaging move a Dark-type Pokemon learns in the middle of the road. 
• Punishment (Oshioki/Punishment) Another 'hurt the enemy more if they're hurt' move, Punishment deals more damage if the enemy is affected by a status condition. Like Payback and Assurance, it's not really a particularly powerful move on its own, though. 
• Sucker Punch (Fuiuchi/Surprise Attack) ...and here's my favourite move, and one that I feel show up a lot in the meta? Sucker Punch will strike first, but only if the enemy has selected a damaging move. So it's a priority move that's a bit of a gamble, punishing your enemy if they're going for a damaging move (and sometimes taking them out, if you built your Pokemon right) but you yourself get punished if the enemy instead goes for a setup move like Swords Dance or a debilitating move like Will-O-Wisp. Very fun, and definitely this sort of 'evil scheme sometimes gets rewarded' vibe that the Dark-type has. 

• Embargo (Sashiosae/Seize) A cute move. The Pokemon sends out a chain and the enemy can no longer use items anymore. Again, just like the many Psychic-type moves above, they are really trying to make a lot of the wackier interactions happen with these moves. Not all of them work, of course, because again, it's much better for your Dark-type Pokemon to run, like, an extra type coverage or a buffing move instead of a wacky move like Embargo... but it's still cute that it exists. 
• Fling (Nagetsukeru/Throw) Speaking of interacting with items, we've got Fling! The Dark-type has already previously interacted a lot with items with Thief, but Fling is the opposite -- you literally chuck the held item at the opponent. And Generation IV gave us a specific item that realistically only works with this move, the Iron Ball, which deals a base 130 damage. That's a lot of damage! Other items that you might've seen me mention that self-inflicts status effects like Toxic Orb and Flame Orb will also deal extra effects to the enemy.
• Switcheroo (Surikae/Secret Switch) Well, this is exactly the same as Trick from Generation III, where you swap items with the opponent. The idea, of course, is to steal their beneficial item while passing over your, uh, Flame Orb or something. The only reason this is a separate move from Trick is the flavour, I guess, where this is shown as one of those scammy ball-and-cup games. 
• Nasty Plot (Waru Dakumi/Sinister Plot) Otherwise known as the Special-attacking Swords Dance, the Pokemon basically thinks up of some nasty plot to hurt the enemy, hence buffing it. I love it. I love that the flavour of this isn't as epic as dancing like a blade or calming your minds and emptying it of impure thoughts, or to put up a shield of metal... but just think of a prank, and go hee-hee-hee. 
• Dark Void (Daku Horu/Dark Hole) And we close this off with Darkrai's signature, Dark Void (or Dark hole in Japan), where it used to be pretty overpowered -- putting both enemies to sleep with a pretty high accuracy of 80%. And Sleep's a very debilitating status effect, even before considering that Darkrai has his signature ability, Bad Dreams, which just eats away the health of all sleeping Pokemon around it. It does really work with the flavour of Darkrai being the legendary Pokemon of nightmares, but it has since been nerfed not only to have reduced accuracy (a much more fair 50%) but, interestingly enough, can only be used by Darkrai (or a Ditto transformed into Darkrai), preventing Smeargle shenanigans! I didn't look into every legendary Pokemon signature move to see if this is the case, but I do like that certain abilities are really only be able to be used by certain legendary Pokemon. 

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Okay, that was a lot! Generation IV, thankfully, is the last generation to introduce a gigantic amount of moves. Generation V ahead should, god willing, be a lot more quicker for me to get out. Generations III and IV are the hardest for me to write, really, mostly because I tried (and honestly kinda gave up) on trying to analyze the repercussions of the physical/special split. 

Reviewing Monsters: Persona 5, Part 13

 

Yeah, the jump between 'part 12' and 'part 13' was quite long, huh? That's honestly mostly because I finished Futaba's Palace at around the first three or four days that they opened up the palace to me, and I cleared a huge chunk of the Mementos missions (and the Shadows I encountered, I listed there) and... that leaves the gigantic amount of free time between Futaba's Palace finishing and the conclusion of the Futaba/Medjed storyline, and a whole lot of cutscenes dealing with the one-week integration of Futaba into the Phantom Thieves group (since she doesn't actually hang out with them during the course of her arc, unlike the previous newcomers) and then there's also the matter of the Hawaii trip, which in turn leads to the whole beginning of the Okumura Palace. A whole lot of cutscenes, and snuck in-between them are all the Confidants I did. Hence, the reason for the relatively long delay between parts.

I don't think I really care all that much for the Okumura or Haru storyline compared to Makoto, Futaba and even Yusuke, though. I do know that a huge chunk of the storyline at this part is really hyping up the enigmatic conspiracy, giving Morgana some character spotlight due to the rather subtle buildup of his inadequacies and his desire to prove himself not useless over the course of the past two arcs... and I do like the buildup to this arc. The foreshadowing to things happening to food-related companies, as well as little bits of dialogue about Morgana's own change in mind, are all done relatively well. It's just that Okumura himself feels like a rather generic backdrop. I suppose we'll see once Haru actually confronts her dad, though.

Confidant-wise, I maxed out Takemi and Yoshida, and am getting very close with Ann, Ryuji and Mishima. I thought we'd get a 'boss fight' for every non-party confidant, but while there's something similar with Mishima, it's mostly just a cutscene and Yoshida's just... well, I think his story would feel a lot better if the generic-looking politicians actually look and sound distinct from each other. The story isn't bad, but it's really burdened by the huge gaps between his parts (since he's only weekly), and the side-characters being very opposed but very boring. Takemi's story is pretty interesting, even if it's obvious. Mishima... the game does a great job at making me really dislike how much of a twit he is until I realize that it's the point of his confidant story, that Joker encouraging him turned him into someone drunk on power for a bit.

Anyway, monster reviews! 

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Milady

"Let us adorn your departure into freedom with a beautiful betrayal!"

• Arcana: Empress

So our final 'permanent' party member is Okumura Haru, the daughter of the target of this leg of the story, a super-rich businessman who views his children in what connections they can bring. Which brings us to the trope of arranged marriage, which is something that surprises so much people in the Western world still is a thing that is relatively prevalent -- particularly among the richer people -- in Asia. Haru didn't quite draw me the way literally the rest of the cast introduced so far,  but there's also the fact that she ends up sharing a lot of her screentime with the buildup of Morgana's big character moment. 

Her Persona, representing the 'Empress' arcana, is named after Milady de Winter, a fictional character and antagonist from Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Milady de Winter is often depicted as being a fiercely manipulative villain. While not the main antagonist, she ends up causing a fair amount of grief against our heroes by manipulating, stealing, and charming her way through the setting. She has a particular enmity with the younger Musketeer, d'Artagnan. She ends up getting killed at the end of the story for her crimes of seduction and murder. 

And... I have never read The Three Musketeers and it's a bit late when I realized I needed to add Milady into this review, but I must confess that I was utterly underwhelmed when I saw Milady appear for the first time in the cutscene. Yeah, that's a gorgeous and ridiculously large pimped-out dress. And the fact that Milady doesn't actually have a head, and just holds one of those masquerade masks with eyes on it is a nice little detail... but it veers a bit too close to Ann's Carmen for my liking, and I didn't really like that the two more feminine ladies default to "giant lady with a dress" when the rest of the cast have such diverse silhouettes. 

...and then as Haru proclaims that she's going to never get used by her father ever again, that gigantic skirt splits open to reveal a completely metallic robotic creature beneath, looking like something from an old-school Japanese sci-fi anime, and that mouth opens up to reveal like two tank cannons and two spinning gatling guns! Ho-ho! That is amazing. There's obviously some bit of symbolism too, in that Haru is depicted as the most demure and traditional among the four main ladies in the team, but she's hiding quite a bit of a bite under it all that she's keeping hidden. These kids hiding an independent and rebellious streak has always been a common theme across the game, but I really do love that in her animations and weapon choices, Haru is indubitably the most brutal, wielding gigantic battleaxes for her melee weapon and toting around a rocket launcher for her 'gun'! 

(Unfortunately, Haru's Persona specializes in Psi attacks, which... is just filling in the gaps of the elements... but it's a bit of a letdown because Joker himself has gotten many access to Psi skills at this point.)

Haru's Fiance

A lot of the early enemies in Okumura's Palace are enemies that previously have shown up as either minibosses or Personas I've fused before, like Arahabaki, Decarabia and a couple more below that I actually encountered as 'fused' Persona before finding them in the 'wild'. But like Kaneshiro's bodyguards a couple chapters ago, we do get some unique enemies that aren't able to be obtained as Personas. 

The first is Haru's Fiance. I haven't mentioned it before but the theme of Okumura's Palace is a fancy sci-fi space station, so all the guards roam around in the 'sealed' form of Dalek-looking guards and floating orbs. The cognitive form of Haru's Fiance transforms into this big, giant chunky robot version of his real-life self, and... it sure is a big, chunky robot. There's a bit of a Tetsujin 28-go vibe to this guy, other than the creepy entitled-rich-kid lines that he says. I don't really have much to say here, pretty nice translation of the guy's human model into a robot.

This model also later shows up in various colours as other Corporobos, specifically the 'Section Chiefs', but I really can't say much about them beyond 'they sure are coloured different'. 

Corporobo MDL-WKR

And showing up as the goons of these larger guys are these exhausted Corporobo MDL-WKR. Middle workers, get it? The idea is that Okumura Foods have grown so hard that they're just pushing their many, many employees to the brink of exhaustion, merrily skirting the line of 'corporate abuse'. Anyone that's worked in the corporate life probably feels some kind of kinship to this? Pretty neat design for this guy, who shows up a fair bit in the cutscenes, and I do apprecaite how they look like wind-up toys that're constantly hunched over. There's a huge sense of patheticness from them. 

As a sign as to how they're so abused, the MDL-WKR will use a skill that drops their own HP to 1, but heals their 'boss'. Some of the NPC's that you can eavesdrop in order to gather intel about their higher-ups give some disturbing but depressingly accurate mentalities about how 'this elite corporation is going to be great for my future', 'what a privilege' and 'I'll cause problems for everyone else if I collapse'. A lot of the toxic mentality that stem from success stories of CEO's and whatnot, but doesn't really apply to lower-rung workers. Subtle about how corporate abuse really hurts these lower-rung workers, this game ain't. 

Corporobo MDL-ADM

The other minibosses are the middle-administration, who visually tower over the middle workers and wave their rubber arms around as they demand that they do work otherwise it's their head that's going to be on the block when the manager comes around. They also have only little beady eyes and a tiny grill mouth. They always kind of rub their hands together, kind of in an obsequious manner. There's a bit of a subsection of the dungeon where you have to figure out which one among them is the 'section chief', and the lower-level admins are happy to trash-talk their supervisors, allowing you to track down specific section chiefs or managers or whatever. Very appropriate for corporate-job workers in a highly toxic environment, I suppose. 

I don't really have a ton to say about these robots, but they are kind of thematic to the whole 'space station where the workers are abused' metaphor for Okumura's rapidly-expanding fast-food business, and since we're going for a space theme, I do appreciate that there really aren't a lot of previous Shin Megami Tensei monsters that fit the bill of being high-ranking enemies here. 

Girimekhala

• Monster Name: Rebellious Elephant
• Arcana: Moon
  

Oh, I like this guy. Girimekhala is a big fat elephant man with blue skin, a stubby trunk and a single eye! Girimekhala comes from Sri Lankan mythology, and is portrayed as the mount of the evil demonic king, Mara. Its evil eye causes anyone who looks into it to be met with misfortune. Is this mythological elephant the reason why Digimon's Mammon (Mammothmon to English speakers) only has a single carved eye? Cool!

I do like this tubby elephant-man, who is surprisingly tough and actually caused a game over on me the first time I fought him! But looking at the Shin Megami Tensei wiki, some of the other designs actually feature Girimekhala as a proper giant demon-elephant instead of an elephant man, and I kinda find that a lot cooler. This one's charming in his own way, though! 

Koh-i-noor

• Monster Name: N/A
• Arcana: Priestess
  

Each dungeon brings to us a new Treasure Demon, and this time it's called the Koh-i-noor, meaning 'Mountain of Light' in Hindi. The Koh-i-noor is one of the largest diamonds in the world, weighting 105.6 carats. The Koh-i-noor has a reputation within the British royal family for bringing bad luck to only men who wears it, and it has only been given to female family members. The diamond is currently set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth, which is the exact crown depicted in here where the ghost is rising up from. 

Kaiwan

• Monster Name: Wishless Star
• Arcana: Star

And let me close this off with a couple of Personas I obtained with fusion. Both Kaiwan and Thunderbird actually do show up in Okumura's Palace, but I used them during some of the Mementos missions I did in-between the Futaba and Okumura arcs. 

Kaiwan, or Kiyuun/Chiun, is a deity mentioned in the Bible's Book of Amos, referring to the "star of your god Remphan". It's theorized that he's derived from the Babylonian term for the planet Saturn (Sakkut/Sak'kuth, as mentioned in the line), or just part of the worship of the god Remphan. Basically it's unclear if Kiyyun is even a separate entity of Remphan, due to the lack of context. More interestingly, and I'm going to guess one of the reasons for his inclusion, Kaiwan (with that specific spelling) is an alternate names for Hastur, the King in Yellow from Lovecraftian myths. It really is rather interesting that just like the various Mithra/Mithras-es, that Shin Megami Tensei draws from deities that are both extremely well-documented and some really obscure ones. 

And... being described as the 'star of a god' means that, obviously, Kaiwan gets represented as... a gray star with the face of an angry old demon man. Whose facial hair makes a different star, albeit upside-down compared to his star-body. It's again such a hilariously literal and fun interpretation of the original concept, and I absolutely approve! From what I see after fusing Kaiwan and using him in battle, he seems to use a bunch of the same general animations as Decarabia. Albeit, of course, with a face instead of an eye. 

Thunderbird

• Monster Name: Storm-Invoking Ptarmigan
• Arcana: Sun

A pretty common mythological creature to see in fantasy games, the Thunderbird has a pretty simple name and a pretty simple concept, isn't it? A giant bird that is so large and mighty that it can create thunder by flapping its wings, and launch lightning from its eyes. The Thunderbird legends come from Native American folklore, and is often seen in artwork, iconography and oral histories of many tribes. In some versions of the Thunderbird legend, it is the governor of the upper world, while the underworld is governed by either the Underwater Panther or the Horned Serpent. 

...which is an amazing surprise when Persona's take on the Thunderbird takes on the whole 'looks like an eagle' and gives us... what is this thing? It's like the robot or UFO version of something that's trying to mimic the general shape of a bird, yeah? You've got the wings, the talons, the tail, even a head... but only the silhouette looks like a bird. The wings are stiff and bent in angles that shouldn't allow an organic bird to fly, the head is more like the nosecone of a particularly weird-looking fighter jet, and the 'eyes' that shoot lightning are pointed downwards. Very strange-looking design, and after so many different big birds that we've seen in the game, I actually find it rather refreshing to see the idea of the Thunderbird be interpreted as a metallic robot jet thing. Very, very cool. Very creative. Of course, the Thunderbird shows up as one of the enemies in Okumura's Palace.

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

Hopefully this won't take as long as it took for me to make the Generation III moves segment. But here goes!

Generation IV is probably one of the most significant shake-up for Pokemon moves. All the hundreds of moves from the first three generations fall now into a completely different Physical/Special Split. Previously, whether a move is deemed as a Physical move or a Special move depends on the type they are associated with. So the Fire-type is always a Special move. But from Generation IV onwards, Fire Punch would be a Physical move, whereas Flamethrower would be a Special move, playing more into the flavour of the move itself instead of just the type, while also allowing, say, Fire-types with a high Physical Attack stat to not be completely useless. 

Anyway, I think Generation I through IV are the ones to introduce the most amount of 'global' moves.  But I do feel that with a few exceptions, a lot of the moves introduced after this generation don't really get a lot of 'screentime' in media. Though that's also probably with the rise of having so many brand-new signature moves unique to a certain Pokemon evolutionary line as well!

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Normal-type Moves:

I think this is the last generation with like 20+ Normal-type moves? I don't remember, but I do know the first four generations dropped a gigantic amount of Normal-type moves. Still really think a lot of them could be moved over to Fairy or Dark or Fighting, honestly. 

• Giga Impact (Giga Inpakuto/Giga Impact) With the Physical/Special split, some moves that were once good for Pokemon with high Physical Attack stats are no longer useful to them. Like Hyper Beam! So that's why they introduced (and will introduce) a bunch of new move variations that helps to solve this problem. Giga Impact is 100% identical in functionality to Hyper Beam, it's just that it works off of Physical stats instead of the Special-type Hyper Beam. It's always portrayed as the Pokemon using Giga Impact slamming onto the enemy and creating one gigantic anime explosion. Particularly cool in the 3D games!
• Rock Climb (Rokku Kuraimu/Rock Climb) While HM's will stick around for a couple more generations, Generation IV is probably the one with one of the lamer HM's, Rock Climb. I suppose it does make sense in the very mountainous region of Sinnoh, but I'm kind of confused how this functions as an attack. How do you hurt someone with the act of rock-climbing? And furthermore, it always confuses my brain that this is a Normal-type move. I mean, I get it. But at the same time it has 'rock' in its name and I always associate any move that has 'rock' in its title with the Rock type. 
• Feint (Feinto/Feint) Not to be confused with the Dark-type Feint Attack, Feint refers more to, like, a feint in swordfighting. Basically the effect allows you to bypass an opponent who used a protective move like Protect or Detect. Very situational, but neatly flavourful. 
• Natural Gift (Shizen no Megumi/Nature's Blessing) An interesting move that's a bit more impractical than it actually is, Natural Gift has a Pokemon consume a berry, and then convert that berry into an attack. The type and power of the attack depends on the berry itself. It's like Hidden Power with several extra steps, and you also need to supply the Pokemon with berries to boot. Very interesting mechanic, it's a shame that it's way too impractical in actual gameplay. 
• Wring Out (Shiboritoru/Wring Out) So, uh, you... grab the foe and wring them out? How does someone survive being 'wrung out', anyway? For the most part, the Pokemon that can do this move are those with long, tendril-like appendages. Tangela, Guzzlord, Weepinbell, Cradily, Jellicent... but Kabutops and Jynx can do it too, and I'm not sure how. Wring Out deals more damage the more percentage of HP the enemy has, which, okay, sure. 
• Trump Card (Kirifuda/Trump Card) A very bizarre move, especially when you consider that only four Pokemon naturally learns this. Eevee, Slowking, Minun and Magearna. It deals greater damage the less PP the move has left, which means only the final usage of the Trump Card move deals maximum damage. Weird.
• Last Resort (Totteoki/The Best for Last) Cut my life into pieces, this is my- anyway, Last Resort is a somewhat similar move to Trump Card, Last Resort is only usable if a Pokemon had used its there other moves at least once. Interesting gimmick and a very flavourful one, albeit it's extremely impractical owing to the fact that most Pokemon battles tend to be decided in under four moves.  

This generation has a bunch of interesting non-damaging Normal-type moves. It's also the generation where we finally aren't overwhelmed with a gigantic flood of normal-type moves, though, so maybe these are a bit more prominent thanks to that. 

• Captivate (Yuwaku/Allure) I could've sworn this move got retconned into Fairy-type... honestly, I could make whole articles about moves that should be moved into other types instead of just Pokemon! Anyway, Captivate's animation is a bunch of hearts, and it's somewhat similar to Attract where it only functions to opposite-gender Pokemon. Instead of inflicting the attraction status, though, Captivate debuffs the Special Attack stat. 
• Lucky Chant (Omajinai/Good Luck Charm) Kind of a cute move, Lucky Chant has the Pokemon pray for good luck, which manifests in... bad luck for the enemy, since they won't land critical hits. Okay!
• Me First (Sakidori/Take in Advance) A very interesting move that I really thought shold be a Dark-type move, Me First basically has the user 'cut in line' and steal the enemy's move in advance, then unleash it with more power. Unlike moves like Sucker Punch or Counter, Me First will actually fail if the opponent already executed their move. Rather strange move, and I honestly forgot this move existed!
• Copycat (Manekko/Imitate) Something somewhat similar to Mirror Move, Copycat just... copies the last move used in the battle. I do feel like it's one of those wacky moves that just feels super-situational. 
• Acupressure (Tsubo o Tsuku/Point Strike) Kinda cute! A Pokemon uses acupuncture on itself or its ally to boost its strength. I really do feel like this should be a Fighting-type move, though, but the only Fighting-type that can learn this is Meditite. Everyone else that can use this move are Pokemon like Qwilfish, Dodrio, Drapion and Maractus who have the thorns. 
• Double Hit (Dabaru Atakku/Double Attack) A very basic multi-attack move, not too dissimilar to Doubleslap or Fury Attack. The reason this is notable, of course, is that it's the move required by Aipom to learn before evolving to Ambipom. Not too much to say beyond that, it's not a very interesting move. 
• Crush Grip (Nigiritsubusu/Grip Crush) Many legendaries get their signature moves since Generation III, and Crush Grip is Regigigas's signature move. I guess when you see his masive golem fingers, you imagine it squeezing you hard and breaking every bone in your body? The animations tended to be Regigigas sending out a gigantic hand to crush the enemy, and I've always thought that it was rather odd that they never made a custom animation to use Regigigas's own claspers since it's his signature move. Eh. 
• Judgment (Sabaki no Tsubute/Strike of Judgement) Arceus's signature move. Or, well, if you somehow read a geeky dissertation about Pokemon moves and don't konw who Arceus is, this is GOD'S JUDGMENT. The depiction of this move has been different over the different media, but nowadays it normally involves Arceus glowing, then a goddamn airstrike of heavenly beams slam rain down all around him. In Generation IV and V, Judgment is portrayed as a black-and-white supernova with the opponent as the center. Arceus is the first legendary to have this property, but Judgment will change type depending on which plate you have on Arceus, which changes his typing as well. In Legends: Arceus, there is a specific plate that will immediately transform Arceus into whatever type (and ergo whatever Judgment-type) the enemy is weakest to, which is pretty damn awesome. I don't tend to get super hyped-up about these sorts of legendary attacks, but Arceus' is pretty badass. 

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Fire-type Moves:

Generation IV is the first generation to really dial back the number of new moves compared to the first three, and... a lot of them are just trying to balance out the Physical/Special split. Again, I absolutely love the balancing act done with this, giving us a greater diversity and making Fire-type Pokemon with a physically offensive stat spread far more useful. 

• Fire Fang (Hono no Kiba/Fire Fang) Generation IV introduces the 'fang' series of moves, which tended to be tied to move tutors or breedng/egg moves, and it basically involves the animalistic Pokemon coating their fangs in the element of whatever they're using. Fire, in this case. It's great because it gives a neat physical move to anyone that doesn't have fists to learn Fire Punch, and the fang moves are a great mid-game move between Ember or whatever and the late-game attacks for physical-attacking Fire-types. In practice, like the 'Punch' moves, the elemental fangs also tend to allow type coverage to Pokemon not of the respective type, which is either a neat thing to not cripple a Pokemon thanks to their type, or kind of overpowers certain others depending on who you ask. I do find the Fang moves extremely dull beyond that, though, so this is probably the only huge writeup I'll do for the four fang moves. 
• Flare Blitz (Furea Doraibu/Flare Drive) Flare Blitz is the more powerful physical Fire-type move, essentially functioning like a Fire-type Double-Edge, dealing recoil and stuff. Pretty standard anime stuff, I suppose, but to be fair, I don't really think that Pokemon previously had an ability where you do something like this? 
• Lava Plume (Fun'en/Volcanic Plume) Not to be confused with Eruption, Lava Plume is another Fire-type move associated with volcano-based Pokemon like Numel or Torkoal or Heatran. It's not particularly memorable if you're being honest, and its gimmick is that it deals damage to everyone in the battlefield other than the user. I suppose this one is more explicitly lava/magma, which kinda falls under a different flavour. 
• Magma Storm (Maguma Sutomu/Magma Storm) Heatran's signature move! It is usually depicted in other media as a gigantic tornado of fire, and it's basically Fire Spin, but has an initial huge burst of damage instead of just doing a DoT over time. 

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Water-type Moves:

Water was Special pre-Gen-IV, though I'm actually surprised that this generation only introduced two physical Water-type moves. 

• Aqua Jet (Akua Jetto/Aqua Jet) Definitely a favourite of mine, Aqua Jet is a physical Water-type move that... has priority! Which means that it always hits first. Displayed well in the anime and manga with the Pokemon launching itself forward with the titular aqua jet, a little figure manipulating a controlled geyser of water. It's cool, practical, and thanks to the debut generation, a little associated with the Buizel/Floatzel line, the quintessential speedy Water-type Pokemon. 
• Brine (Shiomizu/Brine) Referencing high-concentration salt water, Brine is a move that basically hits for medium damage -- essentially the middle ground between Water Gun and Hydro Pump. I guess they wanted something that looks a bit more aggressive than Water Pulse? Brine basically deals more damage to oppnonents with less than half health. Why? Well, rubbing salt into the wound hurts more, after all. Cute!
• Aqua Ring (Akua Ringu/Aqua Ring) There really was some effort to make Water have some 'healing' abilities, which is a common theme in other RPG's... but doesn't really seem to catch on in Pokemon? Aqua Ring generates a ring of water that restores health over time. I remember it exists, but that's basically about it. 
• Aqua Tail (Akua Teru/Aqua Tail) Not much to say here, the physical-category equivalent to something like, oh, Surf or whatever. It sure is a Pokemon using their tail to slap their enemy and somehow it generates water. I really don't have much to say about the [type] [anatomy] moves. 

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Grass-type Moves:

Grass was Special too, and, well, as you can see here, in addition to the requisite bunch of status moves, Grass got a bunch of powerful Physical moves too.

• Energy Ball (Enaji Boru/Energy Ball) I guess it's about time that Pokemon had a Special Grass-type move that didn't take two turns to charge? I kinda wished that they had buffed Solarbeam a little bit more, though, since most Special Grass-type Pokemon just runs Energy Ball. I'm... very neutral about this move's appearance. I mean, I get it, it's a concentrated mass of plant energy or whatever, but... every type does that, y'know? 
• Leaf Storm (Rifu Sutomu/Leaf Storm) ...like Leaf Storm! Yeah, why can't this be the cool 'evergreen' special Grass move? It's even a pretty sensible 'upgrade' to Razor Leaf, Magical Leaf and Petal Dance! A gigantic tornado of leaves! Instead, Leaf Storm is just a reskinned Overheat, a move that cripples the user. Oh well. 
• Grass Knot (Kusamusubi/Grass Knot) This one is a lot more fun! Yeah, it's a reskinned Low Kick, where it deals more damage the heavier the opponent is... but that's because the attack manifests in a knot of grass that literally trips the enemy and has them fall flat on their face. Now we're talking something creative and falling into the realm of fun things you can do with plants! I also feel like Gardenia, the Grass-type gym leader in Sinnoh, uses this move a lot!
• Power Whip (Pawa Uippu/Power Whip) A gigantic whip of vine or tentacles that deals damage. Basically a more powerful Vine Whip. That's about it, really. Probably the most memorable part is that some really weird non-plant Pokemon like Goodra and Lickitung can use it. It sure is a Physical Grass-type move, which the generation needs to add a couple of since most Grass-types fall in the Special category.

• Wood Hammer (Uddo Hanma/Wood Hammer) Like Wood Hammer! How do you physically beat up an enemy when you're a plant? Why, with the hardest part of a plant, of course, the goddamn trunk of a tree. My Torterra had so much mileage out of this move! This move is learned by any Pokemon with a tree design to it. Trevenant, Exeggutor, Abomasnow, Rillaboom... and even some others that you wouldn't think would have it, like fake-tree Sudowoodo, or Mimikyu and Komala, who both have little logs with them. Cute!
• Seed Bomb (Tane Bakudan/Seed Bomb) Another physical Grass-type move is Seed Bomb, where you'd think the seeds would explode and thus the move would be classified as special, but the descriptions make it clear that it's the hardness of the seed shells that makes this move a bit more notable. A lot more interesting than generic ol' Energy Ball. 
• Worry Seed (Nayami no Tane/Seed of Worry) This is a pun on a Japanese saying, nayami no tane, which translates to 'cause of worry', but is also literally 'seed of worry'. A very interesting move where the Grass-type launches the titular Worry Seed and that causes the enemy to worry so much that their ability itself transforms into Insomnia. That's right, you're weaponizing generalized anxiety in the form of a seed with toxins and hallucinogenics to make your opponent unable to sleep! (And remove their other ability, too, which is the main usage of this).
• Seed Flare (Shido Furea/Seed Flare) Shaymin's signature move. It sure is a beam of green energy that blasts the enemy. It basically is a strong special move that lowers the enemy's special defense stat. Not too much to say about it, if that one Shaymin movie didn't exist, because that movie actually expands more on the mechanics of Seed Flare, where Shaymin draws pollutants and absorbs it to itself, and then launches the purified 'energy' at the enemy. I don't think there's a quantifiable method to transform pollutants into energy, but in the same vein I don't think hedgehogs are supposed to transform into flying deer when exposed to flowers, so.

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Electric-type Moves:

• Thunder Fang (Kaminari no Kiba/Thunder Fang) Oh, hey, copy my talk about Fire Fang above, note that Electric used to be a Special-category move, and copy paste it here. It's basically the same thing but sparkly. 
• Discharge (Hoden/Electrical Discharge) An explosion of electricity that zaps everyone in a double battle. There's a cheeky bit where you can plant an ally with Lightning Rod to buff the other enemy, but it's basically just a middle-range Electric-type move. Cool name, but it's rather similar to all the other Electric moves. 
• Charge Beam (Chaji Bimu/Charge Beam) It sure is a laser beam! Unlike Zap Cannon, Charge Beam offers an extra buff to Special Attack. I really don't have much to say here. After three generations of different permutations of zapping, it's really hard to muster too much enthusiasm. 
• Magnet Rise (Denjifuyu/Electromagnetic Levitation) A cute move that's not actually used too much by Electric types, this is learned by a lot of already-hovering Steel-type Pokemon. It basically allows the Pokemon to hover above ground, as if they had the ability Levitate. It's cute, and a lot of these more 'robotic' Pokemon like Forretress and Porygon and Metang are already hovering anyway. Neat showcase of electromagnetism, too!

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Ice-type Moves:

• Ice Fang (Kori no Kiba/Ice Fang) Oh, hey, copy my talk about Fire and Thunder Fang and move it here, kthx. 
• Avalanche (Yukinadare/Snow Avalanche) An interesting move! Avalanche is already something associated with ice and snow that we haven't really had represented as an attack, but the effect even works with the all-too-common trope in movies of an explosion triggering a massive avalanche. Avalanche-the-move has double damage if the attacker, which is the 'snow mountain' in this case, and that triggers an even more massive avalanche to be created! It's also a physical move in a type that was previously special in previous generations. Interestingly, while this is a TM move, the only Pokemon that can learn this move naturally in Generation IV was the Jynx line. 
• Ice Shard (Kori no Tsubute/Ice Throwing Stone) Similar to Aqua Jet above, Ice Shard is basically an increased priority move for Ice-types. Pretty cool name, and shooting actual tiny shards of ice is kinda different from the ice-beams and auroras and snow blasts and icicles we had before

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Bug-type Moves:

Generation IV was very good for Bug-type moves mostly because they finally got a decent batch of damaging moves that isn't the highly-inaccurate and highly-exclusive Megahorn. Was Signal Beam literally the only good Bug-type move in Generation III? Dang. But it's nice to see that Bug-types do get a lot of love in this generation, at least move-wise.

• Bug Bite (Mushikui/Bug Bite) I can't believe it took them four generations to realize that the most annoying things that insects do to humans is to bite them. Bug Bite is a fun little move that is many physical-attacking Bug-types get as the mid-game move, and there is a fun effect where a Pokemon using Bug Bite will also consume whatever berry the enemy is holding. Cute!
• X-Scissor (Shiza Kurosu/Scissor Cross) A lot of Bug-type Pokemon have big-ass blades, and any anime character dual-wielding blades will inevitably slash them in the shape of an X. This is basically that, made into an attack and given to the Bug-types. Not a whole ton to say beyond that, a pretty fun physical move that adds into the list of decently-powered moves for bugs!
• U-Turn (Tonbogaeri/Roundtrip) A very fun move, U-Turn has the Pokemon slam onto the enemy, dealing damage, before retreating into its owner's Pokeball and asking the owner to send out another Pokemon. It's basically hit-and-run, a 'free switch' while still dealing damage. Of course, the reason that this attack is Bug-type and not Dark or Flying is that its Japanese name, tonbogaeri, or 'round-trip'... has tonbo in it. Which is dragonfly in Japanese. Yep! Nintendo loves their puns!
• Bug Buzz (Mushi no Sazameki/Insect Noise) Anyone who has ever lived in an area with cicadas can probably attest to how noisy the fuckers are, and since Pokemon is a game made in Japan, yeah, you can bet that at some point the noise from these insects will get translated into an attack in the game. This is a move that's widely spread amongst Bug-types, too, since it's a bit easier flavour-wise for most Bug-types to make a noise with their wings instead of summoning a beam like Signal Beam. 
• Attack Order (Kogeki Shirei/Attack Order), Defend Order (Bogyo Shirei/Defend Order) and Heal Order (Kaifuku Shirei/Heal Order) These three are Vespiquen's signature moves, and are often shown in-game as Vespiquen summoning a bunch of bee minions that look different from the Combee to do things as ordered by the queen of the colony. Presumably these are the things hidden in the hive under her skirt, though the anime and manga showcase Vespiquen commanding a bunch of Combees instead. It's interesting, and at least back in Generation IV, Attack Order was one of the harder-hitting physical Bug-type moves, only losing out to Megahorn. Defend Order sharply buffs Vespiquen's defenses, and Heal Order, well, heals Vespiquen. Pretty cool that they dedicated so many moves to Vespiquen of all Pokemon!

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Poison-type Moves:

Poison didn't fare as badly as Bug did, since they had Sludge Bomb from Generation II and that's a pretty universal move compared to Megahorn, but they kinda always needed some more help. And, again, the aforementioned physical/special split did end up giving Poison a variety of new weapons to play with. 

• Toxic Spikes (Dokubishi/Poison Spikes) This is the generation where entry hazard meta became a thing, and it's something that you'll probably barely notice if you don't play against other players or in the Battle Tower. Toxic Spikes is one of these entry hazards and probably one of the less-useful ones, where the Pokemon scatters a bunch of caltrops coated in Poison, poisoning any Pokemon that comes in afterwards. It's kinda interesting because like it sister move Spikes (which we'll cover in Ground) any floating Pokemon (be it Flying-type, Levitate or Air Balloon) won't get stabbed by it. Cute!
• Poison Jab (Dokuzuki/Poison Stab) Since Sludge Bomb, Poison's most powerful move, is moved to Special, we need a new Physical Poison move, and Poison Jab fills in that role! It's neat that they pre-empted the fact that Poison-type has a lot of creatures without hands, so it's 'Poison Jab' instead of 'Poison Punch'. The Pokemon basically coats an arm or a tentacle with poison and then jabs their enemy! 'Jab' also has some wordplay association with injecting poison, doesn't it? 
• Cross Poison (Kurosu Poizun/Cross Poison) Slightly weaker than Poison Jab, but having a higher critical rate chance, I associate 
• Gunk Shot (Dasuto Shuto/Dust Shoot) The 'Thunder' for Poison-type, being a high-power, low-accuracy move, Gunk Shot is described as throwing filthy garbage at the enemy. Only in Generation VI, the animation literally has the user manifest a gigantic metal trash can and chuck it at the enemy, whereas in all other generations it's just a blob of poison. Give me back my trash can attack, Nintendo! Hell, it even makes sense that the trashcan Gunk Shot is inaccurate, it's presumably harder to aim a chucked trash can compared to Sludge Bomb or Venoshock!
• Gastro Acid (Ieki/Gastric Juice) Not to be confused with Acid or Acid Spray, Gastro Acid eliminates the effect of the enemy's Ability. I'm not sure of the logic why digestive acid is able to stop, oh, Gengar from levitating or Exploud from being soundproof, but... well, I honestly don't have anything particularly clever to say here. It's certainly a good 'tech' move, to borrow a TCG term, but flavour-wise it is kind of strange. 

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Dragon-type Moves:

Normally I leave Dragon, Dark and Steel for last, but this time I just feel like doing Dragon first before the other types. Generation IV gave us a bunch of interesting Dragon-type moves, especially with Dragon-types being more and more prevalent in the Generation III-V meta.

• Dragon Pulse (Ryu no Hado/Dragon Wave) It's a purple beam of draconic energy, not to be confused with Dragonbreath, which is a purple flame of draconic energy, or Dragon Rage, which is a purple blast of draconic energy that explodes outwards. Anyway, coming in to fit the other 'pulse' moves, Dragon Pulse sure is a pulsating wave motion attack!
• Dragon Rush (Doragon Daibu/Dragon Dive) An inaccurate but powerful physical-type Dragon move, I kinda feel like this one was just randomly tossed in so Dragon Claw and Outrage aren't alone. I really don't remember this move existing at all. Later on, bizarrely, they added an interaction where Dragon Rush always hits targets with Minimize and deals extra damage. I'm... not sure why?
• Draco Meteor (Ryuseigun/Meteor Shower) Borrowing its pun from the Japanese term for a meteor shower, ryuseigun, which has 'ryu' or dragon in its name, Draco Meteor is just badass, okay? One of the highest-hitting Dragon-type moves where you literally call down meteors from space itself, and usually this meteor glows in the creepy purplish colour that Dragon-type is associated with... yeah, Draco Meteor is, and for now, still one of the most 'OH SHIT' moves out there. Practically all Dragon-types are able to learn this move, but usually it's treated as a specific 'secret art' akin to Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn and Hydro Cannon, where you either have to find a specific move tutor or a TM to teach your dragon this move. Neat!
• Roar of Time (Toki no Hoko/Roar of Time) The signature move of Dialga, the God of Time. The movies tend to give Dialga a pretty special animation for this, where his tail-fin-things expand, his diamond glows, and he unleashes the mother of all explosions, and you'd think a move called the 'Roar of Time' is able to do something funky. Turn back time to the previous turn, or skip an enemy turn, or something along those lines... nope? It's just a Hyper Bream, where the god of time is subjected to cooldown? Man, that sucks. In the Adventures manga, Roar of Time works like that, though, where Dialga distorts and bends and twists time in the area affected by its beam-roar. 
• Spacial Rend (Aku Setsudan/Subspace Tear) Spacial Rend, likewise, doesn't actually do anything with space, though it's a bit harder to imagine 'space-fuckery' being translated well into a video game format. The aesthetics are always cool, though, especially in the 3D games where Palkia will literally shatter the space around the opponent, having the entire image of your screen fall apart like a glass painting over another same scene. Very cool! The Adventuers manga also has something cool where Palkia seems to create a portal to another panel in and of itself, causing attacks to fly through his localized portals to other parts of the battlefield. At least they tried to communicate Spacial Rend's space-ness in animation!

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Ghost-type Moves:

• Ominous Wind (Ayashi Kaze/Eerie Wind) A great little horror trope, and I guess this is the mid-game damaging move for Special-attacking Ghost-types, which, surprisingly, it didn't have before, with how situational Night Shade is and how specific to ghosts with hands Shadow Punch is. So yeah, you just summon the creepy ominous winds that permeates most horror movies and use that chill to damage your enemy. Somehow, it boosts the user's stats, but I guess ghosts in movies do get spookier when the environment is spookier!
• Shadow Claw (Shado Kuro/Shadow Claw) The equivalent to Shadow Ball, but for Physical-leaning Ghosts, I also do think that Shadow Claw is a way to 'give' the Ghost coverage to a lot of non-Ghost-types since it's a lot more believable that a Salamence or a Nidoking or something could coat their claws in shadow and strike the enemy. The animation for this is always cool, though... there's just something so satisfying at seeing these shadowy Wolverine blades tear apart an enemy.
• Shadow Sneak (Kageuchi/Shadow Strike) Shadow Sneak is a weaker Ghost-type move that trades off damage for priority. I used Shadow Sneak a lot with my Mimikyu and Aegislash back in the 3DS generation, and I've always loved the animation for this, too -- the shadow of the ghost lengthens and then strikes the enemy as it rises up. Very amazingly shown in a lot of the anime and manga, too, where they can get a bit more customized with the spooky shadow animations. 
• Shadow Force (Shado Daibu/Shadow Dive) And we close this off with Giratina's signature move, Shadow Force, which is kinda similar to Fly or Dive (the comparison is even more explicit with the Japanese name, Shadow Dive), where Giratina disappears for a single turn -- diving back into its shadowy antimatter distortion dimension -- and then appears behind the enemy and striking them with all the explosive force of the shadows. It can also bypass moves like Protect, which I guess is because Giratina rises up from the shadow of the enemy or something?