I have yet to play ZA mind you. Despite it being on my self since literal release day, health, academic and even work issues have stopped me from playing it. Amusingly that means that even a month later, and despite knowing *who* they are, I have not seen most Megas.
Today someone made the very "kind" decision of spoiling Zeraora to me regardless with this meme. At a first glance, I assumed it was true.
However the more I look into it...the more I disagree. First of all, this is not actually a new palette of colors, it's the same 3 ones as base Zeraora, just distributed in a different way. Of course, this does make a good visual difference...for like, a shiny or an OC.
I have defended to the death the officially revealed base game Megas. I think they are good, even Dragonite. I can't say the same for Zeraora.
Mega Charizard X works, even of all its industry plant glory, because of various factors. First of all, it's obviously a completely colour change. Orange is done, there are red eyes, the most predominant ones are black and obviously blue. There are face changes, even if they are only flames and differenr horns, apart from more striking red eyes. There are also obvious body changes: "feathered" wings, spikes, even in XY (can't believe I'm saying it) the model is quute different and with less belly, even if it isn't as drastic as with Zard Y. The contrast between black and a simple plain color makes it even easier to pick up on these changes. Of course, it has the Dragon type and turns it into a physical attacker.
Now, Zeraora. There *are* changes. They just seem rather random. The legs stop being fluffly for some reason, but they at least take advantage of the zig zag pattern...even trough is still looks way worse. The rest of the changes? Excluding the yellow top of its head, they are quite literally
adding spikes to it. It's literally the meme about making Megas by adding spikes. Like, genuinely amazed at that.
It really doesn't seem like they are doing anything new with the design. So yeah, tecnically they are doing the same as Zard X but with a worse execution, without another different Mega to contrast it with, and without doing nothing new with the concept of Zeraora.
This wouldn't be an issue...if I didn't find the very concept of Zeraora to be so plain and boring. Or if it wasn't a Mythical. I have said before how I consider it to genuinely be the "less Mythical-esque" of all Mythicals. I know that can be argued since people consider Zarude to be so common worse in that regard, but in my eyes a Mythical Pokemon should have something special in either lore or design, or even in gameplay. Zeraora looks like the most generic furry possible, it's a plain Electric type, doesn't have an interesting movepool or statline, doesn't have any kind of lore in-game behind it even related to its movie (yes, I consider rip-off Tarzan simian to be better in that regard because it's
something). It being created for said movie is somehow even worse since it feels like such a generic Pokemon even on it. Really seems like they wanted to finish Gen 7 with a non-UB mon but it's even more insulting such a good part of the dex finishes with such a random-looking mon.
Imagine for a moment that Raichu was only getting one of its Megas. X or Y, you can choose. Even on a vaccum, any of them changes more than Zeraora physically despite keeping the pure Electric typing. We can joke about Y being Mega Pikachu and X asking so badly for Fighting type, but they are still doing something different with Raichu. Zeraora isn't. And that's just baffling to me. When it was leaked, I was interested because a Mega could redeem Zeraora for me. But they didn't. And the worst part is that it doesn't even seem lazy in my eyes. It just seems like someone is so confident in base Zeraora they tried their best to make the Mega change the least possible. My question is, why even bother giving it a Mega to start with then? If it was like, Volcanion, I could understand feeling "forced" to pair it with Hoopa and Diancie. But Zeraora had nothing to do with Kalos. Someone decided it needed a Mega, and then did this. I have tried so hard- looking st the trailer (thinking hey, perhaps it looks good in-game and is the contrast between Sugimori artwork and the shitty 3D render, but nope), at the official description, at the leaked staline. There is nor a single interesting thing about it.
I'm honestly glad it didn't make it into Horizons as the Teraleak said, even if I feel really dissapointed in the yellow Lucario. I genuinely think it's the lamest Mega so far in the franchise, and while I could joke about it fitting the lamest Mythical, this has happened so many years later it doesn't make sense to double down on that aspect, not does it feel an intentional joke like with Dudunsparce.
