Reviewing Fan-Pokemon: Pokemon Infinite Fusion!

Pokemon Infinite Fusion is a fan-game that became a bit popular around the time of last year. It's a rom hack of the Kanto games, with an additional twist -- you can 'fuse' any two canon Pokemon, creating a fused Pokemon that has a combination of the features of the two 'base' creatures. It's based on the many 'Pokefusion' generators that became a bit popular over the years -- with a simple palette/face merging algorithm. 

But Infinite Fusion goes a step further and commissions brand-new artwork for a huge majority of the possible fusions, making the game have a much more unique and coherent sprites that look like people gave a thought to it. It's something that I've been itching to talk about on this site, and I guess it's going to be something I do in the sidelines as I play around with the Infinite Fusion calculator. 

Now only 420 of the current 1000+ Pokemon species are available in the game, but remember that all species can be fused with everyone else, and even themselves, and any two combinations having two possible yields... it leads to 176,400 possible combinations in the game! Not every single one of them has a custom sprite (yet), but thanks to the power of online artists, there's a lot of them that do!

Anyway, I have only played just a bit of the game itself and the novelty really is just to mix and match hideous creatures to see what you can get next.

Now I do have a simple rule for my review(s?) of the fan-mons in this game... I won't talk about any fusion that's basically just a transplanted character from another game. 

This is a fusion of Machoke and Hoothoot, and it's one of the ones that don't have a custom sprite. As you can see, it's a simple algorithm -- transplant Machoke's face and limb extremities to Hoothoot's body. It's not the most impressive-looking one, and even in some combinations the face will be blown up and ruin the sprite. 

The one on the left is a fusion of Heracross and Moltres, which shows the 'feet' part a lot more neatly. A nice, fun one because it's so weird to see Heracross's extremely simple face pasted on the epic firebird body of Moltres, and those two pokey feet also look rather odd on Moltres's body! 

These are the non-custom sprites, which the game (and generator) happily marks out for you! Let's see what a custom sprite is, yeah?

These are the two custom fusion sprites for the combinations of Caterpie and Pidgey, because as I mentioned above, any give two combinations have two results. And while both are pretty simple fusions, you could see that there's a fair amount of work put into the spriting of these things. The one on the left is a bit more mundane, but it's clear that it transplants Caterpie's bulb-like tail and the underside of the caterpillar onto the chest and legs of Pidgey. The one on the right, on the other hand, looks so much cooler. Caterpie's colours always pops out, and putting its head on Pidgey's body is cool, but there's a special amount of care to make the Pidgey tail taper onto the back-end of Caterpie's worm-tail. 

Let's go with another pair that's more ridiculous Victreebel + Machamp fusion is a cool (if predictable) creature with Machamp's body structure, a pair of arms made out of leaves and another pair made out of Victreebel's vines. Love the little 'tail' and the leaf acting as a crotch cover. This is the 'Victreebel head, Machamp body' fusion. 

But the Victreebel-bodied fusion is where it's at, where the Machamp body ends up becoming fused with Victreebel's pitcher, and it now scuttles around with the four muscular Machamp arms as legs. It's also presumably constantly flexing, including those pectorals that look hilariously like boobs. The champion belt and the leaves being turned to resemble Machamp's hair are both a nice touch. 

Either way, I like that both custom spriters realize that it's Victreebel's monstrous pitcher-mouth that has to be the focus here. 

You can also fuse two of the same Pokemon together, with Magnemite + Magnemite yielding the hilarious, non-existent two-unit thing between Magnemite and Magneton. 

But whenever there's a custom sprite, you get what I headcanon as these artists imagine is a 'prime' or 'pure' version of the species. It's kind of like an evolution in that sense, but it ends up being such an interesting take on what a Chinchou evolution that feels a bit more faithful to its original design would be... gotta love all those algae-like tendrils and whatnot! Look at it! It's so cool! I think the fact that the pre-evolutions are the source of some of the cooler fusions is one of my favourite things about this. 

I'd also be remiss not to include Dugtrio + Dugtrio, which is a mass of random Digletts combined together into a gigantic legion of Digletts. 

On the flipside, fusing two Muks together leads to a gloriously sprited sludge monster with a fun yawning mouth and a smaller Muk popping out of the side of its forehead. Is this a Weezing reference, then? A lot of times, these two-of-the-same-Pokemon do end up just being their Mega/Giga form. 

The game also features a monumental buttload of references. Porygon2 + Porygon2 gives us its lion-based Spaceworld Beta design. Entei + Unown gives us Entei kidnapping Ash's mom with five Unown spelling out 'MOLLY' in reference to the third anime movie. 

And I think it's about time for me to say there's a lot of references in this game, being a fan-made affair. In addition to showcasing specific variants from the franchise (like the anime-exclusvive hallucination fusions of Blastoise/Venusaur and Mismagius/Rayquaza), other beta forms or Missingno or whatever or to sneak in later-generation regional variants, mega evolutions or gigantamax forms... but there's also a metric load of literal references to anime, other games, and movies. We've got literal sprited versions of characters from Dragon Ball, One-Punch Man, Demon Slayer, One Piece and a lot of other stuff. I may or may not miss a couple, but I'll be definitely not be talking about them intentionally. It's cute, but I'd rather talk about the actual 'fusions', y'know what I mean?

You can also fuse a Pokemon with its evolved/pre-evolved form. With most of the biological/animal Pokemon I actually find this rather overwhelming once the novelty of having, say, Fearow's badass face on Spearow's tiny body or Pichu's adorable features on the more imposing Raichu or whatever... but some of them look wonderful! Like this adorable combination of Gengar + Gastly, which has Gastly's face pasted on to a Gengar body that's reduced to a chibi ghost state with little Gastly smoke-puffs around it!

The other Oddish + Vileplume fusion actually looks adorable, basically a Oddish with a tiny Vileplume flower on top of it... but this one, where Oddish's body inexplicably extends and becomes a vase (that's be a Victreebel fusion thing, wouldn't it?) with teeny-tiny versions of both Oddish and Vileplume's plant parts poking out is certainly... interesting!

Hoothoot + Oddish makes a pretty adorable one! Both are pretty round boys, and I do really like that the custom spriters took the 'clock hands eyebrow' that Hoothoot has and turned it into a pair of Oddish leaves. That's adorable!

Muk + Wailord goes for a very impressive creature, based on a megamouth shark! Neither Wailord nor Muk has the triangular shark note, but I really do like the idea of a giant, whale-sized moving mouth monster with a giant, yawning mouth dripping toxic goo everywhere! This one is actually cool, and I could see this as a giant creature-feature in a dedicated toxic-waste area!

Snorlax + Butterfree! This one is just adorable. That pair of hands does remind me of Meowth more than the other two, but I love the visual image of big ol' Snorlax with two adorable little butterfly wings on his back. 

This Beedrill + Alakazam fusion really looks like there's an interesting story behind it. On the surface, it's just Alakazam's head on Beedrill's body. Yeah, the spoons float near Beedrill's arms, too... but the spears are also visibly shattered and held together by psychic powers! What's the story here? There could be some kind of superhero origin story that led to Beedrill fusing with Alakazam or evolving or gaining Psychic powers or something to recover the usage of its shattered drill-spears!

Oh! OH! Parasect + Hydreigon turns into a hideous, monstrous dracolich filled with fungal strands and skeletal parts. The exposed ribcage, the wings turning into fungal tendrils with mushroom caps, and the three Hydreigon heads being surrounded by Parasect's mushrooms... I just find this one really cool, even if it's definitely in the realm of something that Pokemon will never do. 

Machamp is one of those Pokemon that always makes for funky fusions, but this combination of Machamp + Tentacruel is very interesting! The custom sprite has a very cool face where you can really tell which parts are from Tentacruel and which parts are from Machamp, but it's distinct enough that he looks like a TMNT character or something. The best part, of course, is using Tentacruel's tentacles as Machamp's four arms. A nice little last touch is using Tentacruel's red orbs to replace Machamp's wrestling championship belt!

Something a bit more creative this time! Anorith + Geodude makes a fun little usage of Anorith's background of being a resurrected fossil by making Anorith into a fossil... as in the creature's fossilized remains embedded into a rock. And then since Geodude is a rock-face with hands, Anodude or Georith (whichever one this is) ends up being a fun little creature! This reminds me of the canonical Runerigus too, but with a fossil in a rock instead of a rune carved into one. 

Vileplume + Kabutops is just here for the absolutely creepy combination of Kabutops' triangular head, Kabuto having its entire face underneath the shell (like a real horseshoe crab) and Vileplume's original Game Boy sprite of being a creepy smiley face in darkness. The claws and back-fins look cool with the colouration of Vileplume's flower, too.

Solosis is one of the handful of Pokemon that, alongside Porygon, Rotom and Ghost-types, will always deliver something creepy-cool. This combination with Muk puts the regular Solosis 'nucleus' head within the yawning mouth of the Muk half, with a glowing white pseudo-eye (or is it just another eye?) and Solosis's umbilical cord thing poking out of the side of its forehead. 

That other combination with Golurk, on the other hand, puts the entirety of a Solosis in place of Golurk's chest, while the massive hands are dripping what's presumably the cytoplasm-amnion equivalent that Solosis is formed out of. As one last detail, Golurk's shoulder-spikes has been replaced with Solosis's umbilicus-thing.

Oh, I actually like the effort the artist put into Steelix + Yanmega. Steelix's already unsettling grin works well with Yanmega's equally unsettling bug-eyes, but replacing every single spike running down Steelix's body with either a pair of Yanmega's legs or a pair of his wings is a great little touch!

Roselia + Ledian is one of the random combinations I punched in. The alternate, Roselia-centric version is also very pleasant, but I'm especially taken with this one, which replaces Ledian's four punching-glove bug arms with multi-coloured roses and puts Roselia's little tie-dress thing on Ledian's body. 

Clefairy + Magnezone! LOOK AT THIS PRECIOUS THING. I love that the Clefairy looks chibi-ized, I love that Magnezone is being used fully as a UFO, and... I'm really not sure where the darker rusty colours or the green dome came from other than they're cool sci-fi colours, but this one is adorable. 

Goldeen + Magcargo! This is a fusion that I expected to yield no custom sprites, but we got one and by golly, what an interesting one! You can see the layout of Magcargo's body, albeit with the regular wheel-shaped shell replaced with one that resembles a conical sea conch, and you can definitely see Goldeen's colours and features like the horn and the fins, but everything else has been so merged seamlessly together that you could sell this to me as a brand-new Pokemon design or a Zelda monster or something and I'd totally believe you!

The Kangaskhan fusions, when you combine them with fully-evolved Pokemon, tend to have little pre-evolved versions of themselves in their little belly pouch. Like this Kangaskhan + Dragonite fusion! This one is a bit more Kanga-centric, although both Dragonite and Kangaskhan do fall under the 'kaiju-esque' look that Rhydon, Charizard, Nidoqueen and a lot of older Pokemon fall under. And look at that adorable Kanga-coloured Dratini in the pouch!

Far, far cooler, however, is the Magnezone + Kangaskhan fusion. The alternate one is pretty grody too, looking like a hideously organic version of the Clefairy/Magnezone fusion above, but this one is especially badass! The robo-kaiju feel looks amazing, but eliminating the entire upper head-half of Kangaskhan's head, making it look like something from Zoids, is cool. But having the little baby Magnemite in a little dome on the pouch? Magnezone's eyeballs ending on the pouch and knees, and there being some screws as shoulder-spikes, are the icing on the cake. 

And some of these are just funky. Shieldon + Jolteon isn't a pairing that you'd really think of, but I do like that the custom spriter at least had some fun putting Jolteon's face and ears under the upper half of Shieldon's bizarre Triceratops helmet. Again, this is the type of extra mile to make the anatomy of these fused abominations actually work and make the thing look like in an alternate universe, it might be a Pokemon or a Digimon or something. 

Shuckle + Magcargo! The alternate one is also pretty cool, but both Shuckle and Magcargo have shells with holes in them! This one combines Shuckle's body layout with Magcargo's anatomy, but keeps Shuckle's shell. This leads to Magcargo's magma body just gooping out of the holes to make it look like some kind of magma tortoise. Love that the little tongue of flame still pokes out of one of the holes.

Yep, that's about what I expected from a Bulbasaur + Oddish fusion. He looks like a little frog-lion with that leafy mane! The custom spriter really made the vastly superior choice of keeping Oddish's creepy beady red eyes for this one! An adorable plant frog. 

A lot of the Mudkip fusions are, surprisingly, not quite as cute as the original! I think I really do have to include this yawning Ekans + Mudkip fusion, though. I love how this, out of context, would actually fit as a random new Pokemon or like a monster in an early part of a Final Fantasy game or something. Love that they gave the Mudkip body the long, snaking tail of Ekans, and I love the big gaping snake mouth on Mudkip's already appropriately-large face. 

I think I could really make a whole page out of Duskull fusions. Or Rotom fusions. Or Spiritomb fusions. But we're not hurting for content to make this easily like a 10-part series or something! But we'll just keep things simple, and... LOOKIT THAT BULBASAUR-DUSKULL BABY. Skull head, and an adorable jack-o-lantern pumpkin face! An adorable Haloween creature!

I didn't realize Yamask and Cofagrigus are in this game, but we do have a large handful of post-Generation II Pokemon. A lot of those are the ones that'll yield fun fusions, like a bunch of ghosts! Yamask normally gives us a lot of weird mask fusions, but Yamask + Voltorb gives us a fun one where instead of a mask, it's holding a Great Ball!

Porygon-Z + Hydreigon! Hydreigon's already pretty chaotic and has an anatomy that's kinda toy-like, so Porygon-Z just dismembers all the limbs, makes all the heads look absolutely looney, and there's some of those MissingNo glitched textures replacing the Hydreigon heads' frills! Pretty fun!

I know I use Muk a lot here, but slime monster fusion are just so much fun! Porygon-Z being a nasty, messy glitch-monster also makes for a fun combination. The little 'limbs' of Porygon-Z now look like pieces of nuclear waste containers jutting out of Muk's body. Love the giant yawning mouth leading to an abyss of glitchy wasteland... and best of all are those 'almost-eyes' that kind of are partially glitched out -- a cyclopean one on Muk's head and another one under the arm.

We'll just go through some Porygon-Z fusions for this, and this Rayquaza one is just a mass of disconnected red and blue body parts telekinetically/magnetically attached to the central 'spine' of Rayquaza's regular glowing tattoos that glow green like the Matrix or something. There are a lot of 'badass' fusions, like the one with Giratina or Mewtwo, but I have a special soft spot for Rayquaza here due to how much it pushes the 'Porygon-Z has disjointed limbs and head' thing. 

The other Dusknoir + Porygon-Z fusion is a similar one to the Muk fusion up above, but I'm especially tickled with this one, where you've got a Dusknoir-coloured little Porygon-Z puppet being manipulated with strings by the disembodied Dusknoir hand up above. It actually gives a completely different lore and reason to why the head is detached from the body!

Combining Porygon-Z with Dugtrio, on the other hand... uh... there's always jokes about Dugtrio's lower body being hidden being something that can transcend even physics itself, so I think the idea is that the three Porytrio-Z heads are like, warping through something through a portal or whatever! Love that the Porygon-Z duck heads actually fit like a glove on Dugtrio's own dongus-heads, and I love that the top Porytrio-Z head is sliced in half or half-warping or glitching in and out of space or something. 

Not all of the Porygon-Z fusions are creepy reality-warping things. The fusion with Tyranitar just made use of Porygon-Z's blue growths to give Tyranitar some funnier spinal growths and a long clown nose. Love the expression on this one. 

I admit my brain didn't really go too much to the legendaries, but everyone told me to check out Butterfree + Palkia... and, hoo boy, the spriters really went to town, huh? I'm not sure if this is a reference to some kind of anime or whatever, but a giant cosmic space butterfly with different parts of the galaxy shown on its four wings is definitely far, far more cooler as a 'god of space' than pink Godzilla ever was!

And there are a lot of cool, badass Darkrai or Giratina fusions out there, but here's the one that I feel is the most disturbing without really changing too much... Mr. Mime and Darkrai! 

 

I wasn't initially sure what I was looking at when I put in 'Krabby + Bayleef'. I thought I mistyped and put in Kingler instead, and the Bayleef head was supposed to be the giant Kingler claw, but no. The lower body of Krabby is still there, intact and just coloured like a Bayleef... but the entire upper jaw and head of Krabby has been replaced with a long, serpentine Bayleef head that the Krabby arm is forced to hold aloft! What an abomination!

Scyther + Yamask is one that I genuinely find to be very cool, and honestly much cooler as a Scyther evolution than either Scizor or Kleavor. Maybe next time? It's just technically Scyther ccoloured in Yamask's badass Anubis-themed colours,  but the very mean-looking golden scythes and the fact that his wings are now changed to that of an Egyptian-appropriate set of scarab wings are a nice touch. 

Yamask + Exeggutor gives us a rather... interesting one where the Yamask bird-ghost body is juggling Exeggutor's three heads... but the 'mask' it's holding is an adorable cameo from Alolan Exeggutor's tail-head! It all ends up being a very fun fusion that pays homage to Exeggutor a lot while still technically just being regular Yamask with some accessories. 

Oh yeah. Skarmory + Scizor is another cool one. The head's a nice combination of the sleekest qualities of both, and Scizor's bug wings are replaced with Skarmory's badass blades-of-metal wings... but best of all are the chunky Scizor crab claws, which are replaced with two very mean-looking Skarmory blade pincers.

Oh! A very fun one! Girafarig + Butterfree! It's already a very fun spriting exercise to put Butterfree's antennae, compound eyes, wings and even the little fangs on Girafarig's giraffe head, but to colour the rear half green and put a Caterpie head to replace Girafarig's chain-chomp tail? That's wonderful! 

Slugma + Staryu forms a very fun one! The main body part and the general gist of the anatomy is Staryu's, but the actual body parts are from Slugma. The five points of the star is thus made of Slugma's fiery magma slug drooping flesh, and the central gemstone 'eye' is one of Slugma's eyes! The end result looks like an old-school space starfish alien, except made of magma and flames!

...and that's what I have for today without overloading the blog with pictures. This has been fun, and if the response to this article is good, I do think I'll do a couple more of these down the line! Also, see you guys maybe some time in next week for Indigo Disk coverage!