This has been a bit of a long time coming, hasn't it? I thought about doing this back during the time that they released the Teal Mask DLC, but I decided to wait until the Indigo Disk. In retrospect, I definitely did the right choice because of how there were a lot of additional context that the Indigo Disk DLC gave us for certain Pokemon released both in the Teal Mask chapter as well in the intervening months.
I tried to do reviews for these, but it ended up being me bitching about Dipplin (which is a complaint that kind of goes away after Hydrapple's release) and moaning about how Walking Wake and Iron Leaves doesn't have dex entries... at which point, yeah, it probably is best for me to wait until the full DLC is out.
I'm not a biggest fan, by the way, of the numbering of these brand-new Pokemon. It's numbered based on their release schedule, which honestly is nonsensical since it splits up not only the trio of legendary-paradox Pokemon (Walking Wake and Iron Leaves show up much earlier) but also splits up an evolutionary pair, Dipplin and Hydrapple. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, but it does grind my gears a bit. I will still review these Pokemon by their official 'national dex' number, although I'll review Hydraple with Dipplin for sanity's sake.
For clarity's sake, these are the specific debuts of these Pokemon:
- DLC Reveal: Walking Wake, Iron Leaves
- The Teal Mask: Dipplin, Poltchageist, Sinistcha, Okidogi, Munkidori, Fezandipiti, Ogerpon, Bloodmoon Ursaluna
- Indigo Disk: Archaludon, Hydrapple, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown, Terapagos, Pecharunt
Click here for the previous part.
___________________________________________________
#1009: Walking Wake
So the existence of Paradox versions of the Legendary Beasts of Johto and the Musketeers of Unova were hinted all the way in the earliest base game, with sketches in the Scarlet and Violet Books respectively showing off the 'Imagined Pokemon' that looked like a fusion of the three members of each legendary trio respectively.
And when the DLC was first announced... turns out that this 'chimera' Paradox Pokemon are just kind of a misleading teaser, and we're just getting straight-up Paradox versions of Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Cobalion, Virizion and Terrakion. One member of each pair showed up prior to the DLC's release in the games, explaining why Walking Wake and Iron Leaves pop up a bit earlier in the Pokedex. And... let me get some storytelling out of the way first, because... well, unlike most other legendary Pokemon, the Johto Legendary Beasts actually have a specific origin story, where they are three random Pokemon reincarnated by Ho-Oh after burning to death in the tower. For a while, the existence of a 'Paradox Suicune' was one of the biggest proponents of the 'dream machine' theory... though with the release of the full DLC, Walking Wake is just Suicune from another timeline.
And how!
I have mentioned in some of my reviews of the 'past' Paradox Pokemon that a lot of them try to have a 'dinosaur' theme to them. Brute Bonnet and Flutter Mane are explicitly compared to dinosaurs, for example. But Walking Wake is just straight-up a theropod, like a velociraptor or a tyrannosaurus, but with Suicune's features. It's Water/Dragon, pulling on the running gag of kyoryu (dinosaur) containing the kanji for dragon (ryu) in it.
This is actually one of the more pleasant ancient paradox Pokemon to me, actually, somehow getting the vibe of being an ancient Suicune and a dinosaur well. Suicune's long purple mane translates well into covering a good chunk of the body, his lupine snout fits into the generally lithe build of Walking Wake, and I love how more crude Suicune's forehead crystal is.
My favourite part of Walking Wake's design is the fact that he's got two very dinosaurian tail... which is a reference to regular Suicune's two ribbon-tails (which point forwards, and most people forget are actually tails). I like the detailing of the fur on the legs as well. In an attempt to tie in to the whole 'Sunny Day' theme of the past Paradoxes, Walking Wake's signature move 'Hydro Steam' actually gets stronger in sunlight instead of weaker. A generally cool monster all around, though as always I have the long-running complaint about these Paradox Pokemon not having any meaningful pokedex entries.
5/6.#1010: Iron Leaves
There is a bit less to talk about Iron Leaves here, which just takes Virizion and makes it a cool, segmented futuristic robot. I actually think that this improves on Virizion in every possible way, but I've also gone on record on not really being the biggest fan of the Swords of Justice. I've always found their original designs to look too toy-like, with artificial-looking anatomy and awkward ways of how they attach together. When Iron Leaves here is a robot, however, suddenly the shape of his head and tail, or the random greebles and wings that jut out here and there cease to be distracting and actually look cool. In particular, Iron Leaves's head just looks so much nicer as a robot. Those eyes are really menacing.
(Iron Leaves is also the bane of my existence when I was trying to catch him during the limited battles, because the Tera Raid Battles are terribly designed)
It's also a part of Iron Leaves's anatomy that isn't immediately obvious, but Iron Leaves actually has proper, robotic blades that extend out of the glowing Tron lines of his neck-leaves and his head. This, again, makes so much more sense as a robotic being, instead of the vague beamy swords of projected energy that the original Swords of Justice had. Being incorporated to the neck-leaves also makes this look so much cooler than the awkward "it's a scarf I guess" that the original Virizion had. The five-year-old within me really finds Iron Leaves here to be pretty cool!
Iron Leaves is Grass/Psychic. A lot of the Future Paradox Pokemon don't have the robotic Steel or Electric typing, so Psychic makes about as much sense as anything. It's the type that ties together all three Robo-Swords of Justice (Lightsabers of Justice?). Iron Leaves only has one damaging Psychic-type move, though, which is its signature move "Psyblade" which deals Psychic damage and is boosted on Electric Terrain. Eh, okay, sure.
Honestly, I don't have a whole ton to say. I actually find these two guys to be super-cool, and honestly probably the coolest out of their respective trios.
5/6.#1011 & 1019: Dipplin, Hydrapple
Out of the Pokemon on this page, Dipplin was ironically the only one that I had written up a blurb for before the release of Indigo Disk, and it was just a three-paragraph rant about how underwhelming I found Dipplin. Which... I really should have been a bit more patient.
Anyway, Dipplin here is the first Pokemon based from the region of Kitakami, a location based on Japan's Tohoko region. Dipplin is an alternate evolution of good ol' Applin from the previous generation. And since Kitakami is super-big on festivals, Dipplin is based on another apple-based dish... candied apple. And... and it's a very underwhelming design, and I still find it underwhelming even now. Visually, it's just regular Applin, but with some syrup slathered all over the candy and a giant 'handle' sticking out between the worm's eyes. There is some argument that the whole design is a homage to the Gigantamax forms of Appletun and Flapple, but I honestly found Dipplin to be so underwhelming as an evolution.
One of my biggest complaints about Dipplin, however, is that it's actually got an interesting bit of lore -- Dipplin is actually two worms in a single apple. The pokedex notes that the head belongs to the 'forewyrm' and the tail belongs to the 'corewyrm', but since you only see one end out of each worm, it gives the impression of a single worm within the apple, just like Applin.
In no part of the animation or the signature abilities or signature moves that this is ever acknowledged. And Dipplin's got both a signature ability and move! But they all revolve around the syrup of the apple, which... I know it's subjective, but that has got to be less cool than there being two worms in one creature, right? With how great this region has been at highlighting cool features of each Pokemon, Dipplin feels like a rush job.
1/6 for Dipplin. Would've been 2/6, but points deducted for not highlighting the two worms.
The Indigo Disk introduces a final form, because Dipplin can evolve into Hydrapple when it levels up learning the "Dragon Cheer" move. The design is basically a bigger Dipplin, seemingly -- it's got two horns instead of one (there's a candied apple homage with the apple stuck to his horn), the head is a bit snakier, but here's where the whole "multiple worms in a single apple" thing actually gets communicated well -- you've got two tails visibly poking out of the end of the apple, and some green v-shaped markings that denote where the other heads will poke out are visible on the rims of the apple. These are actually closed eyestalks of the other worm-heads!
See, Dipplin! This is how you communicate a design visually!
So yeah, Hydrapple here is actually seven worms this time around, banding together and co-inhabiting the same apple. In animations, you get to see multiple heads burst out of the apple's sides, giving us a nice nod to, well, either the hydra or the yamata-no-orochi depending on your favoured multi-headed serpent. Or, as the pokedex calls Hydrapple... syrpent. Get it? Because Hydrapple is themed around apple syrup?
Again, it's not like we haven't had Pokemon that is themed about symbiosis, or are explicitly a bunch of individuals hanging out together. Magneton, Tandemaus, Wishiwashi, Barbaracle... but I really do appreciate the design that makes initially a bit ambiguous on whether Hydrapple is a multi-headed apple worm, or a bunch of worms inhabiting the same apple.
In addition to the signature moves that Dipplin has, Hydrapple also has an additional, new signature move called "Fickle Beam". It has a small chance to have five heads pop up at once to unleash a higher-powered beam. That's pretty neat. I like Hydrapple much, much more than Dipplin. Honestly, I really do like the Applin line in general, it's just that I'm slightly disappointed that we didn't get anything more creative in terms of typing. Neat design, though.
4/6 for Hydrapple. #1012-1013: Poltchageist & Sinistcha
And our next line is a brand-new evolutionary line, the 'convergent evolution' of the Sinistea line. I really wished we got more of those, but I'll take what I can get. Sinistea and Poltchageist look very similar conceptually, but they're actually a completely separate species that cannot interbreed. It is interesting that a completely different evolutionary line of tea ghosts manage to possess teacups and tea implements and manifest the exact same faces as Sinistea and Polteageist!
Also, the names are flipped around, so whereas for the Galar version Sinistea evolves into Polteageist; these Kitakami Pokemon evolve from Poltchageist to Sinistcha. I got so confused writing their names in both the Let's Play of the Teal Mask and on this review. This change is taken from the Japanese version as well, so it's not just a localized oversight -- it does make these guys a bit more distinctive than Wiglett and Toedscool, but also more confusing.
Poltchageist also has the same artisan/masterpiece in-species variation like Sinistea, but it's honestly something that ends up being more irritating for evolutionary purposes than something I find notable.
Anyway, Poltchageist has a bit of a backstory in his pokedex entries. "The regrets of a tea ceremony master who died before perfecting his craft lingered in some matcha, and became a Pokemon." That's... that's a neat enough little origin story, and feels pretty consistent with a tsukumogami or something. Poltchageist's design is based on a tea caddy, and I do like that the true body of the 'ghost' or the 'matcha' actually has the same swirls as Sinistea. I like the little disembodied hands as well, which reach out and is holding the tea powder spoon.
Apparently, Poltchageist will use this spoon to sprinkle its own powdery body onto food, and then drain life-force from those who eat those foodstuff. Appropriately spooky and silly, This is reflected with its evolution's signature move, "Matcha Gotcha", which is basically a souped-up Giga Drain. Life-draining plants and life-draining ghosts are an interesting enough combination of themes that it's surprising that it's not been pushed as much with our previous Grass/Ghost Pokemon!
In addition, Poltchageist also has the tendency to repair broken objects, sealing cracks with them with matcha powder. You can actually see this reflected in Poltchageist as well, with green-shaped cracks on the right side of his face. This is a reference to kintsugi, a Japanese method of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold to both fix and highlight the imperfections of broken pottery. They incorporated a lot into this species!
4/6 for Poltchageist. 
Its evolution, Sinistcha, is a lot more humanoid-looking, just like Polteageist. Sinistcha's anatomy is a bit harder to pick out unless you're a bit more familiar with Japanese tea implements. The cup/bowl that Sinistcha is lounging in is a chawan, a tea bowl, and the weird cylinder hat and the scraggly hair are actually a chasen, or tea whisk. I can totally see the designers messing around with actual items and go 'hey, the strands of this chasen can be the raggedy hair of our new tea ghost Pokemon!'
Sinistcha goes through the same 'pretends to be tea to get victims to drink them' hunting method as its Galarian cousins, and I love that the Pokedex just shrug and go 'that ruse is generally unsuccessful'. Just like how matcha has to be stored in cold, dark places, so does Sinistcha prefer to hide in said places in the day -- which, of course, is very appropriate for a spooky ghost-type.
Out of the four tea-ghost Pokemon, though, I do think I like Sinistcha the least mostly because I didn't really care for the flubber-ghost itself. I just really like the pre-evolved Poltchageist so much more, and while I don't hate Sinistcha, I find it hard to say that I really like it.
2/6, for Sinistcha. Could be 3/6.
Before we go to the legendaries, let's cover an interesting alternate form! This is a bit weird, since no other Ursaluna can access this form. Not the biggest fan of this kind of alternate forms, if we're being honest, but good on them on trying to experiment.
Part of the only major sidequest in the Teal Mask storyline is the investigation on a 'Bloodmoon' Ursaluna, where the full moon on a regular Ursaluna's forehead has shattered and transformed into a blood moon. This Bloodmoon Ursaluna stands on two legs and with a hunchback like some kind of hideous werebear, which does help it feel more like its Ursaring and Teddiursa pre-evolutions. The coolest feature about it would be his eyes -- one eye is black with a tiny pupil, and Bloodmoon Ursaluna can use this to see in the dark. It's not as apparent initially, but the peat basically caked over that half of his face, and in the dark, the tiny green-dot pupil glows.
The backstory is that this Ursaluna used to live in Hisui, and somehow made his way across the seas, arriving in Kitakami and living in a location called the 'Timeless Woods', where he gained special powers... like his signature ability Mind's Eye (can bypass evasiveness) and its signature move Blood Moon (a very powerful Normal-type attack that can't be used twice in a row).
While it's just a mutant Ursaluna, the sidequest giving a lot of mystique as our heroes hunt for this enigmatic, legendary creature only seen in rumours and stories. It does help him feel far more epic. That presentation does help!
4/6. On its own, it's a 3/6, but the in-game presentation elevates it a bit. #1014: Okidogi
So the quartet of new legendaries introduced in the Teal Mask are based upon the iconic Japanese folktale of Momotaro. If you're not familiar with Momotaro, the long story short is that a boy born from a peach (the titular Momotaro) traveled alongside three animal companions -- a dog, a monkey and a pheasant -- against a horde of oni (often translated to demons or ogres in English translations) on Onigashima, or Oni Mountain. This story has been referenced in numerous Japanese media, and Pokemon is just the latest one to do so.
We have a neat bit of subversion here, where in the land of Kitakami, this legend of the 'Loyal Three' (based on Momotaro's companions from the real-life legend) fought off a violent mountain-dwelling ogre that terrorized the village. Thus, the Loyal Three are venerated by the local Kitakami residents. I covered the full story in my let's play on the blog in much more detail, but basically the story being told is unreliable, and the supposedly-heroic Loyal Three are actually greedy bastards. Pretty simple but very welcome little subversion!
So yeah, we've got an evil trio! And instead of the very tired Dark or Ghost type that they usually saddle these villains with, finally, we get Poison highlighted as a legendary set's common type! It's frankly rather amazing to remember that the only legendary we have so far (discounting Ultra Beasts) have been a grand total of Eternatus and poison-plate Arceus!
...which, sadly, those paragraphs are the only nice things I can say about Okidogi. Based on Momotaro's dog, Okidogi is a giant, hulking cartoon dog-man with a rather offputting combination of black and green colours. It's got a purple chain around its neck and eyes, which represents the 'corruption' that transformed their physical bodies... which sounds a lot cooler than what it looks.
Okidogi is Poison/Fighting, which I suppose fits its hulking, brutish design. I just... I just really don't like how he looks. I appreciate that they didn't just went with 'let's slap a chain on a dog and call it a day', but I'm also not the biggest fan of the final product. I dunno. I just really don't care for this one.
2/6.#1015: Munkidori
Yyyyyeaah. If I don't care for Okidogi, I really dislike Munkidori. He's just a cylinder with limbs and a monkey face growing out of it, and I appreciate the effort. I really do. The obvious and boring way would be to cast Munkidori as the big muscular humanoid 'ogre', and for Okidogi to just be a dog... but the end result is just me going 'why' whenever I see Munkidori. He looks the most jackass out of the Loyal Three, though maybe it's just because I don't like monkeys.
Where the poison chain enhanced Okidogi's strength, Munkidori wrapped the chain around his head like a headband. Is it a reference on Sun Wukong's punishment ring, which is wrapped around his head? Either way, this chain enhanced Munkidori's brain and caused his head to swell and him to develop Psychic powers. Neat, I guess.
Like all monkeys, Munkidori is a sadistic creature, often keeping itself somewhere safe while slowly using its Psychic powers to cause dizziness on its prey. The Loyal Three don't have a signature move, but they share a signature ability "Toxic Chain", that can proc Toxic on those it hits. Not much to say here, I don't like this one.
1/6.#1016: Fezandipiti
And honestly, by default, Fezandipiti is my favourite out of the three... but it's also a very 'safe' design. It's just... a fancy-looking bird. Admittedly, with a fair lot more nice detailing that show more effort than whatever they did with Okigodi, but it's still... just a bird. I do really like that the chains on Fezandipiti is incorporated to resemble a kimono waist-ribbon, and he's even got some nice purple-poison eyelashes to decorate his eyes. I like him the most out of the three, but they also clearly put a bit more effort in designing Fezandipiti by amount of visual details alone.
Anyway, Fezandipiti is based on a pheasant, specifically the Japanese Green Pheasant, or Phasianus versicolor, the national bird of Japan. These pheasants are actually rather terrible fliers, so it actually fits the fact that Fezandipiti isn't Poison/Flying. No, instead, Fezandipiti is Poison/Fairy.
While it's kind of obvious that Okidogi is Fighting because he's a strongman, and Munkidori is Psychic-type because he's a cartoon brain-empowered monster... Fezandipiti is described to manipulate toxic stimultants to create pheromones that captivate people, essentially using a chemical-based mind-control. I do wonder just how much of the ancient people of Kitakami's reverence to Fezandipiti and how quickly they hailed this trio as saviours is due to Fezandipiti's manipulations?
We later learn that the three Pokemon that would become Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti are all losers who gained strength, intelligence and beauty respectively after coming into contact with the poisonous purple chains, like a reversal of the Johto legendary beasts' origin story. These are all details we find out through the pokedex, and I like that we don't actually get full context for the purple chains until the Indigo Disk DLC.
3/6.#1017: Ogerpon
And here is our main character in Teal Mask, Ogerpon, the supposedly evil Ogre that terrorized Kitakami... who's just an adorable, shy little leaf-person that lives in the mountains and wants to make friends. As the story would reveal, Ogerpon originally arrived with her trainer, a foreigner, and both faced intense discrimination by the locals. Only a local maskmaker who created masks for them allowed them to blend into the populace and make friends during the masked festivals. Unfortunately, the Loyal Three grew jealous, attacked Ogerpon and injured and/or killed her human companion, causing her to go berserk and apparently kill the Loyal Three. The legend became misinterpreted by the villagers, who view the Loyal Three as being heroic and fighting back against impossible odds.
And Ogerpon herself is quite adorable, and the game definitely wanted to make it come across rather cutesy. Her official art has her wear a badass-looking crystal mask patterned after leaves, but the face beneath is much more adorable. Without the mask, 'base form' Ogerpon just looks like an adorable little forest fairy with a giant oversized green poncho, which I think adds to the cutesy factor of this design. That green poncho (which is technically her body) goes a long way into making Ogerpon extremely adorable. I also do like her legs, which looks like it was cut down the middle to show the cross-section... which reminds us that she's a plant monster, since the texture is wooden.
I do really like her face, too, which is a perfect combination of a shit-eating mischievous grin and the ability to emote sadness. It's based on specifically a dekopon, a type of orange, which also contributes its name to Ogerpon. Also rather interestingly, I think the fruit-face makes Ogerpon both simultaneously the evil Oni in the story but also Momotaro ('peach boy') himself.
In the story, you help Ogerpon recover her three masks. Originally I had thought that the three masks would correspond to the typing of each of her adversaries, but there doesn't seem to be any real type advantage whether defensively or offensively that she obtained from those masks against Fairy, Fighting or Psychic.
Anyway, we gather three different masks for Ogerpon over the course of the story. Not a whole lot to say, because it's rather obvious. She holds a mask, and her poncho changes colour... and none of these look better than her base green form, though. Each mask adds its typing as a secondary type, as well as changing the type of its signature "Ivy Cudgel" move. They also change stats a bit. The Hearthflame (Fire) mask is obviously the most offensive, the Cornerstone (Rock) mask is the most defensive, and the Wellspring (Water) mask is balanced.
The blue one is a cute crying heart-shaped one, the gray one is a grinning one who looks the most like a traditional fanged/tusked ogre, and the red one is another traditional oni-looking mask with a fiery head-shape.
There are people far more qualified than me that has gone through in detailing what the masks represent, with various Japanese local myths and folktales being brought up as potential inspirations, but the most common interpretation is that the four masks together represent joy, anger, sorrow and fulfilment -- the four moods of East-Asian theatre from the Confucian Book of Rites. The Teal Mask resembles okina-men (masks that represent old men with smiling faces); the Wellspring Mask resembles onna-men (masks representing sorrowful, weeping women); the Hearthflame Mask resembles oni-men (which represent, well, oni) and the Cornerstone Mask represent butsu-men (which depict resolute and powerful deities).
Also worth noting is that Ogerpon is the first Pokemon to have a 'unique' Terastralized form, in that it's the mask that grows into a gigantic floating shield above Ogerpon, each growing unique decorations (vines, fire, waves and rock-dreadlocks). I still find the Terastral phenomenon to be underwhelming, but Ogerpon at least does something with it. The expressions of the masks change a bit, though it's most obvious with the Hearthflame Mask.
I am admittedly a bit underwhelmed with multiple forms -- which have never been something that appeals to me all that much -- but it's a nice effort, and honestly... at least they tried doing something with the Terastralization gimmick here that feels nice.
Anyway, pretty great story and a pretty interesting design all around. Admittedly the subversion that the evil mean oni is actually a nice one is rather... basic, but it's done relatively well, I think. I definitely wasn't sold with her design, but just like Calyrex before her, the accompanying story brings a lot to make her memorable. The animations they did with Ogerpon as she toddles around trying to make friends with us, and the backstory they gave us about her, are all pretty neat.
4/6.
No comments:
Post a Comment