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

Part 2 of my coverage of Generation V moves! All the types here only get a handful of moves here and there, compared to the types I covered on part 1 of Generation V moves. 

There are a bunch of 'almost' signature moves in Generation V, I notice. Moves like Razor Shell that are very much associated with a single evolutionary species but are available to a couple of others, or moves like Steamroller or Drill Run that are obviously designed with one of the new designs in mind but they have to 'share' the move with another Pokemon in the debut generation. 

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Water-type Moves:

• Scald (Netto/Boiling Water) I've always thought this move and Brine debuted in Generation IV, but I felt like Scald is one of those rare gems in Generation V where we get a non-signature move that is super flavourful. It's a pretty decent middle-level Water-type move, but the flavour is of boiling water -- something that has never really been represented in Pokemon before. The effect, a chance to Burn, is always welcome and, again, extremely flavourful in terms of what the move itself does. But rather bizarrely, while the move is available via TM, up until Volcanion debuts in the next generation, Scald is exclusive by level-up to... Panpour? Huh? The water monkey that has nothing to do with boiling geysers, boiling teapots or superheated water in general? Hmm. 
• Soak (Mizubitashi/Watering) We've had a handful of moves that had been able to change the user's type, but Soak is the first move to be able to disrupt the enemy by changing their type. When you use Soak, the opponent becomes so utterly drenched with water that they become pure Water-type, overwriting anything else that they may have been before. I guess the idea is that you're so drenched by the explosion of water that you are now vulnerable to the same weaknesses that water has? And that, conversely, you are 'wet' enough to get that same-type bonus from Water-type moves? I guess it's like getting super-drenched in heavy rain! Very interesting one. 
• Water Pledge (Mizu no Chikai/Water Oath) ...basically the same thing as Grass and Fire Pledge. I really don't have much to say here that I haven't said in the previous parts. A combo move exclusive to Water-type starters. Cute on paper, not particularly useful in practice. 
• Razor Shell (Sheru Bureido/Shell Blade) A move that was originally exclusive to Oshawott and Shellder. Later on, other crustaceans also get the ability to use Razor Shell. But it was very much associated with Oshawott and his evolutions, whose prominent appearances as a Water-type starter type is tied with it using its 'scalchop' weapon. It's always fun to see a starter Pokemon have a move designed around it, and even more fun when it makes sense that later on, other Pokemon like Kingler or Crawdaunt get access to it too. Bit of a shame that the Snivy line doesn't get anything special, though, unless Leaf Tornado was meant to be it? 

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Bug-type Moves:

• Rage Powder (Ikari no Kona/Rage Powder) Basically similar to the forgettable 'Follow Me' move introduced in Generation III, Rage Powder is another kind of 'powder' that forces the user into the center of attention, framed as scattering powder that enrages the enemy so much that their attention and anger is only focused on the user. 
• Quiver Dance (Cho no Mai/Butterfly Dance) Called 'butterfly dance' explicitly in Japanese, this move is exclusive to a lot of the butterflies and moths in Pokemon, and it buffs the Speed, Special Attack and Special Defense stats of the user. Kind of like Dragon Dance, but for bugs! I love it. I love that butterflies are so cool in Generation V (most likely just to make Volcarona super-useful) that they get their own version of something originally exclusive to dragons. While other non-lepidopterans have gotten access to Quiver Dance, they've all at least been Bug-types or are flowers (which are associated to butterflies). 
• Struggle Bug (Mushi no Teiko/Insect's Opposition) This one shows up a lot in movepools after this, and it's really because there's not a lot of good Special-category Bug-type moves. Struggle Bug's description and animation has always been a bit baffling, The actual move is a simple damaging move that has a chance to reduce the opponent's Special Attack... pretty run-of-the-mill. The animation is a bunch of weird green strands with little dots on it, and the description of the attack says that the bug 'struggles' against the opposing Pokemon. Okay? Not sure about the flavour of this one. 
• Steamroller (Hado Rora/Hard Roller) This was originally only available to the Venipede line and Golem. (Not Donphan, whose whole point was rolling up into a ball) And it's a pretty decent Physical Bug-type move with a chance to make the opponent flinch. Love the English name, too, 'Steamroller'. The whole point of this is to basically make a move out of Whirlipede's whole design, yeah? To have a pillbug or roly-poly or millipede design turn into a big spiky wheel to take down the enemy? Pretty neato.  

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Poison-type Moves:

On the other hand, while the 'primary' elemental types are starting to really repeat itself, it does feel like types like Poison and Bug really do get a fair bit of a 'buff' in this generation. Poison, in particular, suffered from only really having Sludge Bomb as a good Special-category move before. 

• Sludge Wave (Hedoro Webu/Sludge Wave) A bit of a rarer move, Sludge Wave is basically the same flavour as Sludge Bomb, only instead of a massive giant gunk, it's a wiggly wave that hits multiple enemies at once. Neat to have multiple options for late-game Poison-type moves, though, particularly since Generation V is arguably one of the last generations to really care about multi-battles. 
• Venoshock (Benomu Shokku/Venom Shock) I could've sworn this is a Generation VI move, considering how I've never seen it in a Gen V game, but it's practically everywhere in Generation VI. Another 'drench the enemy in purple liquid' style attack, Venoshock had a pretty memorable animation in the 3DS games with a lot of 'splashing' effect that I mistook as poison spikes the first coulpe of times I saw it. Venoshock itself is pretty middling in terms of power, though it does double if the enemy is suffering from the Poison status. 
• Acid Spray (Ashiddo Bomu/Acid Bomb) Basically an upgraded version of regular 'Acid', Acid Spray (or 'Acid Bomb' in Japanese) does the same thing (reduces the enemy's Sp. Def, simulating corroding of armour), but with higher damage. Bizarrely, in its original Generation V animation, Acid Spray is animated with green liquid, which fits the idea of 'acid' a bit better. In subsequent generations it's all purple like every other Poison-type move. Boring! 
• Coil (Toguro O Maku/Coil Up) A non-damaging move, the user coils up to increase their Attack and Defense stats. It's classified as poison-type because snakes are poisonous, I guess, and only Pokemon with long bodies like serpents (Arbok, Seviper, Serperior, Dunsparce), eels (Eelektross, Huntail, Gorebyss, Milotic), and, uh, Furret can do it. Pretty funny! 
• Clear Smog (Kuria Sumoggu/Clear Smog) Not to be confused with regular 'Smog', Clear Smog is non-damaging and it's basically a single-target version of Haze, returning stat changes to normal. I guess the idea is that you can use activated charcoal or something to bind to poisons, nullifying them? A bit interesting that this is counted as a Poison-type move, though. 

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Dark-type Moves:

• Foul Play (Ikasama/Trickery) God, I love Foul Play. I used Foul Play a lot during my competitive days in Generation VI. Foul Play basically calculates damage using the enemy's physical Attack stat, meaning that it deals way more damage if the enemy is a high physical attacker. More importantly, it allows Special-leaning Dark-type Pokemon (like Zoroark) to deal massive Physical damage to certain targets. The flavour is that 'the user turns the target's power against it', which the anime has taken into something like a judo toss, causing the enemy's powerful momentum to injure itself. 
• Snarl (Baku Auto/Bark Out) A very common Special-type move among Dark-type Pokemon, Snarl is just... well, the Dark-type Pokemon does a snarling action, unleashing dark shockwaves that radiate out from it. It has a chance to reduce Special Attack, and it's basically the move you keep before your Pokemon learns Dark Pulse or something. I'm not quite sure why snarling or barking out is particularly 'evil', though. 
• Hone Claws (Tsume Togi/Claw Sharpen) A variant on Swords Dance, Hone Claws increases physical Attack and accuracy. Pretty simple flavour, you hone your claws to get a boost in damage. I do like the mental image of these evil-looking punk Pokemon like Obstagoon or Zoroark or Weavile just menacingly sharpening the claws the way a human punk would play around with their hand-held knife or something. 
• Quash (Sakiokuri/Postpone) A bit of a confusing name in English. The Japanese name is literally 'postpone', which is what the move does -- it postpones the enemy's attack to the last move of the turn. It was exclusive by natural learning to the Murkrow line in Generation V, though, as with a lot of Gen V moves, there's a TM for it. Not particularly useful outside of double battles, and while it is a 'trickery' move, I can't really think of a particularly useful avenue for this move. 
• Night Daze (Naito Basuto/Night Burst) And here we end with Zoroark's signature move, Night Daze -- or Night Burst in Japanese. It sure is a huge explosion of dark energy, which is what you'd expect from a Pokemon like Zoroark would do. It's cool that Zoroark has a signature move, being a Pokemon that initially debuted in the movie and everything. I liked Night Daze on my Zoroark, too, but other than mentioning its animation -- a sphere being created then exploding -- it really is just kind of a generic anime beam explosion thing, isn't it? 

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Fighting-type Moves:

• Low Sweep (Ro Kikku/Low Kick) Ah, it's been a while since the English translation doubled up on moves! Low Sweep is known as 'Low Kick' in Japanese, whereas the move known as Low Kick in English is ketaguri or 'kick down' in Japanese. The more you know! Anyway, Low Sweep is a sure a move that the user does a low, sweeping kick that reduces the Speed. I get the flavour, you injure the enemy's feet and make them slower to run or evade. 
• Quick Guard (Fasuto Gado/Fast Guard) An interesting move! This is Protect, but specifically only towards increased priority moves. I'm not smart enough to talk about priority brackets to really know just how much more useful this is compared to just running regular Protect or Detect, but it is very much flavourful for a seasoned martial artist to have such good effects that they are able to parry moves that are meant to strike before the enemy can react.  
• Final Gambit (Inochi Gake/Risking Life) A move that is a fair bit more interesting than it actually is, Final Gambit is basically similar to Explosion or Selfdestruct -- the user faints, then deals a bunch of damage to the enemy. Only for Final Gambit, the damage dealt is equal to whatever HP the user has left... which is kind of counter-productive since if you have a lot of HP you kinda can do other things instead of dying. The sort of self-sacrificing nature does fall in line with the more heroic, superhero-esque idea of the Fighting-type, though. 

• Circle Throw (Tomoenage/Overhead Throw) Throh gets two almost-signature moves in this generation. His rival Sawk doesn't even get any! Man, I guess Game Freak really likes Judo a bit more, huh? Both of Throh's 'throw' moves are available to a bunch of other Pokemon via breeding, and at least one other Pokemon is able to learn them in Generation V. Circle Throw is based on a specific overhead throwing technique in judo, and this is translated in battle to Throh forcing a switch on the opponent. In addition to Throh, Poliwrath and later Pancham and Spidops are able to do this move. 
• Storm Throw (Yama Arashi/Mountain Storm) Storm Throw, or its far cooler Japanese name, Mountain Storm, is just a damaging throwing move that will always result in a critical hit. This was originally fully exclusive to Throh until Pinsir of all Pokemon gains access to this in B2W2. Okay?
• Sacred Sword (Seinaru Tsurugi/Sacred Sword) There are two of these Sword moves, all associated with the Swords of Justice. Sacred Sword is a move that all four of the sword-fighting ungulates are able to do, and is a very respectable Fighting-type move that ignores Defense and Evasion stats. In the anime and manga, Cobalion and his buddies just manifest a glowing energy sword, temporarily turning them into unicorns. Strangely, this move quickly became made available to other Pokemon -- first the Honedge line (who are literally swords), fellow legendaries Kartana, Zacian and Chien-Pao (who are all swords in different definitions), Iron Leaves (also a member of the Swords of Justice) and Gallade. It's... I can understand why all of these other Pokemon learn Sacred Sword, and while the Swords of Justice aren't my favourite legendaries, I did feel like this move probably should've been restricted to them. 
• Secret Sword (Shinpi no Tsurugi/Sword of Mystery) Now Secret Sword is only unique to Keldeo, the 'special' student of the Swords of Justice. I really do love just how much Secret Sword does cater to Keldeo's story as the underdog and the apprentice among the Swords of Justice. Despite being a member of the team, Keldeo will never make great use of Sacred Sword for one crucial reason -- Keldeo is a special attacker, whereas Sacred Sword (and Keldeo's three big brothers) are all physical. Secret Sword, however, calculates damage with Keldeo's Special Attack stats, but still inflicts physical damage, allowing Keldeo to shine and unleash a potentially far stronger sword attack compared to his mentors with this move. For all the hard time I gave the Tao Trio's signature moves for being bland anime elemental explosions, I will give the designers props for Secret Sword. 

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Psychic-type Moves:

Whereas all the other types on this page only got a small handful of damage, Psychic gains a whopping 12 new moves! And almost every single one of them are non-damaging, weird stuff that really makes me feel like Generation V was another one where they experimented a lot with what they could do with the battle system, and it's just that other than the 'fusion' moves, they lumped everything in Psychic. Anyway, I'm going to rapid-fire this. 

• Guard Split (Gado Shea/Guard Share) and Power Split (Pawa Shea/Power Share) I guess inspired by Pain Split (which really should've been retconned into Psychic in this generation to make a trio of moves), Guard Split and Power Split takes the average of either the defensive or offensive stats, and then splits it between the two users. Other than to make some fun memes with Shuckle and his super-imbalanced stats, these moves aren't particularly useful, though. 
• Wonder Room (Wanda Rumu/Wonder Room) and Magic Room (Majikku Rumu/Magic Room) These are variants of Trick Room, and... they're nowhere as memorable as Trick Room. Wonder Room is at least interesting, where the Defense and Special Defense stats of all Pokemon are swapped around. There's a genuine sense of confusion there not too dissimilar with Trick Room swapping the speed turn order. But Magic Room just... stops everyone from using items? Hmm. 
• Telekinesis (Terekineshisu/Telekinesis) This one is interesting -- the user makes the opponent float with telekinesis for five turns, which is something that the anime and manga already do a lot with Psychic-type Pokemon. But instead of disabling them, Telekinesis makes them be an obvious target and causes all moves to always hit. Interestingly, the target also becomes immune to Ground-type moves, which is one of those super-niche move interactions I love from Pokemon.
• Ally Switch (Saido Chenji/Side Change) A move that probably makes more sense in a cinematic anime fight, or in a real-time game, than in a turn-based game, Ally Switch instantly teleports the user and an allied Pokemon on the field, presumably to redirect attacks or something. And... it's not really that useful, really. Kadabra and Alakazam are the only ones able to learn this naturally in Generation V, but, again, there is a TM for it. 
• Psyshock (Saiko Shokku/Psycho Shock) Psyshock is basically identical to Secret Sword above, only without the fancy story. The user's Special Attack and the enemy's physical Defense are used to calculate damage. Neat, I guess. 
• Stored Power (Ashisuto Pawa/Assist Power) Another damaging move, Stored Power deals more damage the more buffs the user has on their stats. Very impractical, but with the right shenanigans, Stored Power has the highest base power out of all special category moves at the time of writing. 

• Synchronoise (Shinkuro Noizu/Synchro Noise) A very interesting effect. Synchro Noise (and it's a noise, meaning it's another 'sound' move, a lot of which is introduced in this generation) unleashes a scream that damages every Pokemon on the battlefield that shares a type with the user. In addition to a lot of Psychic-types, a lot of 'screaming' Pokemon like Exploud, Hoothoot and Chatot are able to do this. Very weird, and I assume this move was made literally just for the pun.
• Heal Pulse (Iyashi no Hado/Healing Wave) I guess Psychics can heal, too? Heal Pulse is a 'hado' or a pulse/wave move that unleashes a blast of healing energy. If this move debuted a generation later, I would bet that it would be classified as a Fairy-type move... though I guess it is not too uncommon in fiction that psychics and espers are able to heal wounds and knit them close. 
• Heart Stamp (Hato Sutanpu/Heart Stamp) A move that really should have been exclusive to Woobat, Heart Stamp deals damage and causes the enemy to flinch. No real reason that this move has to be Psychic other than Woobat being a heart-nosed bat and Woobat being Psychic, but then this move is also given to... Jynx? Eh. Luvdisc getting it later on makes a lot more sense, though. 
• Psystrike (Saiko Bureiku/Psycho Break) And they decided to finally pander to the Generation I fanbase... in a generation that famously doesn't feature any pre-Gen-V Pokemon before the endgame. Mewtwo, everyone's favourite psychic lab-generated superbeing, gets his own super-powerful version of Psychic, called by the very-easily-mixed-up name of 'Psystrike' in English but the far more impressive 'Psycho Break' in Japanese. Psystrike also has the same effect as Psyshock and Secret Sword. Interestingly, the move is often depicted in the DS/3DS games as Mewtwo unleashing a pulse before a bunch of... psychic stones slam at the opponent? Later games and the anime turn it into a more generic big-explosion-anime-purple-spirit-bomb thing. Can't fault Mewtwo for that, he's been doing giant psychic hadokens since 1998.

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Steel-type Moves:

• Autotomize (Bodi Paji/Body Purge) Holy shit, this move has an edgy Japanese name. "Body Purge"! I love the flavour of this one, too. The user literally purges parts of its body, which increases its Speed stat, and almost completely for flavour reasons, the user also becomes lighter! And it's obviously very flavourful for Steel-types, which are kinda robotic in nature, and the more 'organic' Pokemon that naturally learn these like the Aron or Skarmory do look like they could easily shed parts of their metallic anatomy and become faster. A very 'Rock Lee removes his weights' trope. I approve!
• Heavy Slam (Hebi Bonba/Heavy Bomber) Steel-types tend to be heavy, and Heavy Slam capitalizes on that. It deals more damage based on the difference in weight, and I love that there's a bunch of moves that take into account the sheer difference in qualities like weight and speed to calculate damage. Not much to say beyond that!
• Gear Grind (Gia Sosa/Gear Saucer) Man, the Generation V development team really loved Klinklang, huh? It's a non-legendary Pokemon and it gets two signature moves! Gear Grind is a multi-hit move, and Klinklang summons two gears to grind its opponent. While you think it would be Klinklang's main body, the games and even the manga depicts it as being 'faceless' gears that Klinklang summons out of nowhere. Huh!
• Shift Gear (Gia Chenji/Gear Change) Originally exclusive to the Klink line and later given to other Pokemon like Magearna (a clockwork doll), Cyclizar and Revavroom (both vehicular ones, get it, shifting gears)... and, hilariously, Amped-up Toxtricity, which I guess is a reference to a guitarist term. I don't play the guitar, but I'm sure there's a joke as to why the main guitarist can use 'Shift Gear' but not the bassist. Anyway, this is a reference to how you change gears in a manual car, going to the high gear -- represented by the Pokemon boosting its own Attack and Speed stats. 

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Flying-type Moves:

We get a couple more Physical Flying-type moves in this generation, and... I feel like Acrobatics and Hurricane also do show up a lot among Flying-type movepools. I guess the types that I was thinking of in terms of Generation V just adding a lot of moves that kinda dilute the list of moves is more in the first couple of types I covered in Generation V. 

• Acrobatics (Akurobatto/Acrobat) A move that I feel can generically be given to any Flying-type Pokemon, unlike some of the other more specialized ones that are tied to either being a bird or being able to summon great winds. The definition of Acrobatics is that they can swoop in and do all sorts of mid-air stunts to attack the enemy. This move deals extra damage if the user isn't holding an item... which is meant to represent them being far more nimble and able to do all sorts of acrobatic maneuvers when they are unburdened. Cute!
• Hurricane (Bofu/Windstorm) This one has a more flavourful one! Basically a much, much stronger version of Gust, Hurricane is flavoured as the Flying-type Pokemon summoning such a huge hurricane that it can reach upwards to hit Pokemon in the invulnerable turn of Fly or Bounce. That's cool! 
• Sky Drop (Furi Foru/Free Fall) Not the most practical move, and I'm actually surprised I didn't know this move existed! Sky Drop was only exclusive to Braviary and Aerodactyl in Generation V, with the wreslter-bird Hawlucha gaining access to it next generation, but the idea of Sky Drop is that the user brings the enemy into the air, basically putting the two of them in a semi-invulnerable turn like Fly... and then lets go and bashes the enemy into the ground, dealing massive damage. There are a couple of fun little tidbits to Sky Drop, where Flying-type Pokemon will avoid damage in the second turn since they can just, well, fly. From Generation VI onwards, Sky Drop is also not able to affect Pokemon heavier than 200 kg, because I guess that's the limit of even what Braviary can lift?

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Ground-type Moves:

• Bulldoze (Jinarashi/Smooth Over) Basically a weaker version of Earthquake, without the RNG of Magnitude. There's an additional Speed-lowering effect, but otherwise Bulldoze isn't particularly memorable. I guess there's the neatness of the flavour, where you're bulldozing or smoothing over a surrounding terrain, which is more than I can say for a lot of the repetitive Fire or Electric type moves from this generation. 
• Drill Run (Doriru Raina/Drill Liner) This is a move only naturally learned by Pokemon with drills -- the Rhyhorn line, the Dunsparce line, Fearow (or 'Onidrill' in Japanese) and the Drilbur line. And judging by the debut of Drilbur in this generation, I'm actually surprised they didn't let Drilbur have Drill Run as a signature move considering how much they allow Excadrill to use it in the anime. But the idea is that you spin so fast like a drill and you charge forwards at the opponent without leaving the ground, hitting them with the force of... well, I don't think 'drill tanks' actually exist in real life, but I do get the idea of some kind of construction or mining equipment from this move. 

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Rock-type Moves:

• Smack Down (Uchiotosu/Knock Down) Surprisingly, not a move that's truly represented before. We do have Rock Throw, but Smack Down specifically shoots out a rock that hits a bird so accurately that it falls down -- which happens when you use Smack Down against Flying-type Pokemon or those with Levitate. They just get hit out of the sky and fall down to the ground, losing their immunity to Ground-type moves. It's the whole reason why Flying-types are weak to Rock-types in general, although... have you really ever tried to hit a flying bird with a rock? It requires a lot of skill! Very fun move, this is one of the few moves out of the glut of rather samey moves in Generation V to really leave a bit of an impression in my mind.
• Wide Guard (Waido Gado/Wide Guard) I'm not sure why this move is classified as Rock-type. Normally these sort of 'guarding' moves are classified under Normal or sometimes Fighting or Psychic, but I guess Wide Guard uses rocks or something? Really felt like the name or the animation could've been a bit more descriptive. The animation is always just the same kind of vague multi-coloured energy barrier as most protective moves, though. Wide Guard protects against AoE moves. 

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Ghost-type Moves:

• Hex (Tatarime/Evil Eye) Only a single Ghost-type move? Huh. Hex, or 'Evil Eye' (which makes me surprised that the actual in-game animations never featured an evil eye like Mean Look) is one of those 'kick the enemy while they're down' move, dealing more damage if the target has a status condition. Not too much to say about it, flavour-wise it does feel like something that the Dark-type would do but I also recognize the need for these other types to branch out a bit. 

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Dragon-type Moves:

• Dragon Tail (Doragon Teru/Dragon Tail) I personally always confuse this move with Generation IV's 'Dragon Rush'. One deals regular damage, and the other has the same effect as Whirlwind or Circle Throw or Roar. This is the one that forces the enemy to switch out, Dragon Tail. I'm... not sure what the flavour here is? I guess a sweeping strike from a tail does the same 'oh no Team Rocket is blasting off again' as a gigantic whirlwind? We've had a fair bit too many 'Dragon [insert verb or anatomy]' moves at this point, honestly. 
• Dual Chop (Daburu Choppy/Double Chop) ...but at least it's easy to say why Dragon Tail or Dragon Claw are considered Dragon-type moves. If I describe the move 'Dual Chop' to you, it doesn't sound like anything a dragon will do, right? Even its Japanese name is just 'Double Chop'. Its effect and description... striking brutally multiple times. Surely it's Fighting-type move, right? Normal-type, Dark-type, maybe? No? At least the later generations realized how honestly bizarre this move is, and added it to the movepools of Pokemon like Machamp and Ambipom. Yeah, maybe they've ran out of generic moves to give Dragon-types at this point...

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...yeah, that was a bit tiring. I think I'll wait a fair bit before Generation VI, huh? My Generation V move reviews has been cooking in the background for quite a while, but going through all the Fire, Electric, Psychic and Normal moves have taken forever.