Gotta Review 'Em All - Abilities [Generation VI]

Similar to the amount of new species and moves added in this generation, Pokemon did scale down a lot on adding new concepts due to the sheer amount of work 3D-fying the entire game's bestiary and animations and attacks into the 3D engine.

We've also kind of hit critical mass for the amount of 'generic' abilities over Generations III through V, and from this point on, the abilities are going to mostly be taken up by those that fit a Pokemon's specific form-changing gimmick (like Aegislash's Stance Change, the one that springs to mind immediately) or tied to some super mode -- a lot of the abilities here are ones tied to Mega Evolution. Speaking of which... Mega Evolution in this game does owe a lot to the specific super forms gaining access to game-breaking abilities that they wouldn't otherwise have, some of which we covered previously. 

Anyway, with less than 30 abilities to talk about, this should be a quick one!

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We'll talk about the handful of 'generic' abilities first that are added here, some of which seem to be to fill in a niche or to plug up certain Pokemon that don't already have two 'base' abilities. 

• Competitive (Kachiki/Determined Spirit) Competitive is basically the Special Attack version of Defiant, and it boosts the Special Attack stat when the user is debuffed. Again, just like Defiant, it's flavoured as the Pokemon with the ability being so pissed-off and so determined or competitive that they're instead invigorated to battle more despite getting an advantage. 
• Cheek Pouch (Ho Bukuro/Cheek Pouch) Originally shared between the Bunnelby line and Dedenne, this was later given to a bunch of other rodent Pokemon. It's the trope of a hamster having a lot of food in its cheek pouches, and it... restores extra HP when the Pokemon eats a berry. Yeah, not very useful, and at this point we've had so many berry synergy abilities that are kinda pointless that I really wished that the berries themselves were a bit more relevant, you know?
• Stance Change (Batoru Suichi/Battle Switch) Speaking of abilities that make or break a gimmick, Aegislash's entire existence hinges on Stance Change, since using an offensive attack causes it to go into its 'sword mode', and using King's Shield or other defensive moves has it go into its 'shield mode, swapping its insane stat pool accordingly. A very flavourful ability, and one that I appreciate actually worked so well!
• Fur Coat (Fa Koto/Fur Coat) An insanely useful ability on paper. Fur Coat just halves all physical-category damage. That's a lot! That's a whole lot! ...and it's the signature ability of Furfrou, who has neither the typing nor the movepool nor the stat pool to make use of this. I get the idea, though, that some dogs (like mine!) are approximately 50% fur by volume. Now I'm not sure that dog fur can really halve the damage from a Mega Punch or a Body Slam, but the idea is fun. Fur Coat seems like it's begging to be given to a Mega Evolution or something, but so far the only Pokemon that has been allowe to have it is Alolan Persian. 

• Tough Claws (Katai Tsume/Tough Claws) We get a boost to the category of moves that 'make direct contact'. This is going to be something that sounds like a broken record to me, but a lot of these abilities are what maeks or breaks Mega Evolutions, due to the sheer synergy that some abiltiies (even some Generation V ones, which I alluded in that review) have with a Pokemon's moveset. Tough Claws is naturally learned by the Binacle line, but it's also the ability gained by three different Mega Evolutions -- Mega Metagross, Mega Charizard X and Mega Aerodactyl, making all of them into powerful physical powerhouses. 
• Strong Jaw (Ganjo Ago/Strong Jaw) This one, meanwhile, works as a counterpart to Iron Fist, boosting 'biting' moves like Crunch, Bite, and all the elemental fang moves. This was originally shared by the Tyrunt line and Mega Sharpedo, though I guess they realized that it's not quite as powerful as Tough Claws and began distributing it to a lot of newer Pokemon. I appreciate that Drednaw, the snapping turtle, gets this as its default ability!
• Mega Launcher (Mega Rancha/Mega Launcher) Speaking of which, Mega Launcher is an ability shared between the Clauncher line and Mega Blastoise, and it powers up the moves of 'hado' moves. Which raises a lot of problems in other languages, since in Japanese these hado moves haven't been translated as consistently as they could've been. For most of them, they've been translated as 'Pulse' (Dark Pulse, Water Pulse) but then we've Hadodan, translated as Aura Sphere. Oops! A small but fun little translation hijinks!

• Grass Pelt (Kusa no Kegawa/Grass Pelt) This one is the Skiddo line's signature (and hidden!) ability, which is one that plays with the newly-introduced 'terrain' mechanic in Generation VI. I've always found that the terrains were a bit of an underwhelming addition to the game, but I also felt that up until Generation IX, there really just isn't much interplay that benefited from it. Grass Pelt boosts the Defense stats of Skiddo/Gogoat, which is... so... boring for such an exclusive ability.
• Symbiosis (Kyosei/Symbiosis) This was originally the signature and hidden ability for the Flabebe line, and later learned by Oranguru. And... it's a bit more useful than Grass Pelt, though still niche. Despite a very cool-sounding name, Symbiosis activates when an allied Pokemon uses up their held item (a berry or a gem, usually), and then they will give their own item to the non-item-holding Pokemon. Again, very gimmicky. 
• Gooey (Numenume/Gooey-Gooey) The signature hidden Ability (how many times am I going to say this?) of the Goomy line, Gooey is actually a lot more interesting than the previous couple ones! Gooey causes contact with it to have their speed reduced as they are caked in the slimy goo of the Goomy line. It's later also given to Wiglett, and... I really did wish that they go back and revise some of the other older Pokemon like Gastrodon to also have this ability, honestly!

• Gale Wings (Hayate no Tsubasa/Wind Wings) Yet another hidden signature ability, this one is famous, nay, infamous for breaking the Generation VI meta. Now I don't care about the metagame, but Generation VI was the only time that I've done it and that's entirely because of Gale Wings. This was given to the innocuous-looking Fletchling line, and the effect seems rather simple. Gives priority to Flying-type moves. Not bad, right? Talonflame's alreay fast, and this gives it an extra edge to launch even more Flying-type moves. Except Talonflame is fast, hits hard, can deliver one hell of a Brave Bird... but the healing move Roost is also considered a Flying-type move. So you get a Pokemon that's almost always guaranteed to hit first, hit hard, and can heal up the recoil damage. This got so bad that Gale Wings was nerfed in the subsequent generation to only work if the HP is full, keeping Talonflame stronger than the average regional bird but not making it able to heal so much in an average battle. 
• Parental Bond (Oyako Ai/Family Love) The other one that broke the meta was Mega Kangaskhan's Parental Bond. The gimmick behind Mega Kangaskhan is simple. Baby Khan has grown up and has hopped out of mama's pouch, and it now mimics its mother, hitting for a second time... except, guess what, in a very strict turn-based battle, hitting twice in a single turn is massive. Parental Bond originally causes the child to hit for half of the damage that mama does, but that's still impressively powerful coupled with priority moves like Fake Out and Sucker Punch, or with the insane Power-Up Punch, where each strike counts as a trigge for the buff. This got nerfed in the next generation into the child dealing 25% damage, but then Mega Evolution kind of got quietly shuffled off to the side in subsequent generations. 

• Refrigerate (Furizu Sukin/Freeze Skin) We've now got a trio of '-ate' moves that changes Normal-type moves to strike with as a certain type instead, with an extra power boost to boot. This is the much more useful variation of Normalize, Delcatty's underwhelming signature ability. In the original Japanese, all of these moves are given 'Skin' as a suffix. Refrigerate turns all Normal-type attacks into Ice-type, and is shared between the Amaura line and Mega Glalie.  
• Pixilate (Feari Sukin/Fairy Skin) Pixilate, meanwhile, does the same thing to Fairy-types, and is shared between Sylveon (as a hidden ability), Mega Gardevoir and Mega Altaria. A lot of these mega-evolution abilities are shared between one new Pokemon and a mega-evolution, huh. 
• Aerilate (Sukai Sukin/Sky Skin) And finally, Aerilate is shared between Mega Salamence and Mega Pinsir. Again, I do really appreciaet that this really does fit into how Mega Salamence's whole story is that it's finally able to achieve its dreams as a Bagon of flying!

• Aroma Veil (Aroma Beru/Aroma Veil) We've got three 'veil' moves, and they all basically protect your side of the battlefield from certain effects. Aroma Veil was originally the signature hidden ability of the Spritzee line, and protects its allies from effects that restrict moves -- like Disable, Encore, Cursed Body, Taunt, and a couple of others. This was later given to other sweet-smelling Pokemon like Alcremie and Oinkologne. 
• Flower Veil (Furawa Beru/Flower Veil) And this one is Flabebe's signature ability, only shared with Comfey. Both are Fairy-types that look like they should be Grass-type but aren't. Flower Veil basically protects their Grass-type allies from getting their stats lowered. Cute. 
• Sweet Veil (Suito Beru/Sweet Veil) Sweet Veil, meanwhile, prevents allies from falling asleep, and it's Swirlix's signature line. I find this to be the most flavourful of the three, because have you ever seen a little kid after you feed them a gigantic pile of cotton candy? God, good luck tucking them into bed afterwards! 

• Magician (Majishan/Magician) Now we've got the three signature hidden abilities of the Kalos starter Pokemon! I think this is the first generation that the starters receive brand-new hidden abilities tailored for them? Magician is the Fennekin line's hidden ability, and it... it steals the held item of the enemy when it uses a move. So basically a free Thief effect, which... again, I think I've expressed that a lot of these abilities that interact with held items do just end up being rather underwhelming at the end of the day. This ability was given to fellow cheeky bastards Klefki and Hoopa later on. 
• Bulletproof (Bodan/Bulletproof) This one is the original signature ability of Chesnaught, and later given to some other 'armoured' Pokemon... and unlike Mega Launcher above, this one is a bit hard because it halves damage from moves that have 'bullet', 'bomb', 'ball' or 'cannon' in its Japanese names. This is simple if the translation is done literally (as with Egg Bomb or Seed Bomb), but sometimes the English translation isn't literal, and going back to our old friend Aura Sphere... yeah. Hadodan is 'wave bomb', and it's a move affected by Bulletproof. So is Acid Spray (acid bomb), Focus Blast (fighting spirit bomb), Rock Wrecker (rock cannon), and a couple of others. Oops! It is pretty flavourful for a Pokemon designed around shields, for sure. 
• Protean (Hengen Jizai/Protean) And this one is another super-meta ability, belonging to Nintendo's favourite child in this generation, Greninja. Protean is basically what Porygon, Arceus and Kecleon wished they could be with their transformation abilities, because Protean instantly transforms the Pokemon's entire type into whatever move they're using. It doesn't just grant same-type attack bonus, but also notoriously makes it really hard for the opponent to hit Greninja with whatever weakness he has. Frogs aren't even able to change their skin all that much, though I guess it's something along the lines of their adaptability? Or perhaps it's that trope popularized by Naruto of ninjas being elemental wielders. This was another ability that was utterly nullified, only being able to activate once every switch-in. 

• Dark Aura (Daku Ora/Dark Aura) and Fairy Aura (Feari Ora/Fairy Aura) And finally we close this off with a trio of abilities held by the mascot legendary trios of the Generation VI games. Dark Aura belongs to Yveltal and Fairy Aura to Xerneas respectively, the mascots and main plot devices of Pokemon XY. The auras power up the Dark and Fairy type attacks respectively of every Pokemon on the battlefield, including themselves. Simple, but neat. 
• Aura Break (Ora Bureiku/Aura Break) And just like how Rayquaza comes in to smack Groudon and Kyogre into shutting up, Zygarde comes in to smack Xerneas and Yveltal into behaving. It's a shame that we never actually see this in-game, since we never got Pokemon Z and Zygarde's biggest role in the game is in the Alola ones, but Aura Break basically has Zygarde using his role as the 'keeper of the land' and 'breaking' the auras of both Yveltal and Xerneas. Not only does Aura Break nullify those abilities, it inverts them, causing a reduction in the Dark and Fairy-type attacks respectively. 

• Primordial Sea (Hajimari no Umi/Sea of the Beginning) The other Generation VI paired game are Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Where Kyogre and Groudon originally were the sole bearers of Drizzle and Drought, the abilities that summoned rain and harsh sunlight, it's been cheapened with many regular Pokemon having access to it. Primordial Sea basically is an upgraded version of Drizzle, causing Primal Kyogr to summon Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain straight-up nullifies all Fire-type moves since it's super-heavy, and because it's being summoned by a Pokemon that can warp the weather, any other weather-causing ability or move will fail to activate. Except, of course... 
• Desolate Land (Owari no Daichi/Land of the End) Desolate Land, Primal Groudon's ability, can overwrite Primordial Sea and vice versa. Primal Groudon's harsh sunlight gets transformed into extremely harsh sunlight. This nullifies Water-type moves, which is particularly important! Primal Kyogre just nullifies Fire, which it already resists, but Primal Groudon is Fire/Ground, making it 4x weak to Water! Nullifying the entire type and taking it out of the equation is extremely insane!
• Delta Stream (Deruta Sutorimu/Delta Stream) And where original Rayquaza shuts down Drought and Drizzle with Air Lock, Mega Rayquaza gets Delta Stream, which can eliminate the previous two mega-weather abilities. Original Rayquaza doesn't get anything that benefits it, though, and Delta Stream has an additional ability that basically nullifies the super-effectiveness of moves that would be super-effective against Flying-types, basically helping Mega Rayquaza survive hits from Ice-type moves.