Little things you like about Pokémon



You know, looking at the Gen 5 roster, I think Druddigon is one of the neatest additions to the Gen 5 roster they included. While its massive roster generally has a hit-and-miss reception (some are disliked as expies), the later portion of the Pokedex has a lot of really good and original designs going from Sandile and beyond, and the later mons are all really cool and oftentimes really fun to use.

But Druddigon is a unique one that I feel is a nice addition, not because it looks standout or because it's particularly good, but because of the opposite: it's not particularly good in battle, being a rather average Pokemon, that while functionally good and usable, isn't particularly strong, and design wise it's not cute or cool looking in any way: it's unremarkable at best, ugly and repulsive at worst, as far as what it looks like, but that's also what makes it a neat Pokemon.

Why, you ask? Because it's a Dragon-type Pokemon, and for a Dragon-type to not be particularly powerful and to just be a usable, average Pokemon while also not standing out much in design makes it a unique addition to the Dragon-type roster and a unique twist on a type that usually has a very specific vibe. Usually Dragon-types are the cream of the crop, the strongest of the lot, and are either legendaries (Rayquaza, Sinnoh and Unova cover legendaries, Zygarde, Eternatus, Raidons), sub-legendaries (Latis), pseudo-legendaries (most of them except Tyranitar and Metagross), or Ultra Beasts and Paradoxes. And the ones who aren't still have high BSTs usually 500 and above, and have striking designs: think Kingdra, Flygon, Altaria, Haxorus, Noivern, Duraludon/Archaludon, and Tatsugiri. These Pokemon are usually hard to obtain, either being Legendaries who only appear once and have a low catch rate, or pseudo-legendaries and even normal ones being rare, high-investment, and high reward. Design-wise, many of them are striking. They're badass, like Salamence or Garchomp, or cute, like Dragonite, Goodra, and the Latis, or elegant like Altaria, and so on and so forth.

While that's a cool aspect of them, it makes Druddigon a neat addition because it's none of that. It's average with a BST of 485, and it has no evolution line which means what you see is what you get: nothing evolves into it, and it doesn't become anything stronger. It's not super rare either, being a relatively common spawn around Dragonspiral Tower and just being kinda there. This basically makes Druddigon the "common man's Dragon-type", one where there's no particularly standout traits, and it's just an ordinary Pokemon. For a type that's often exotic, powerful, and larger-than-life, Druddigon being so average and down-to-earth is a neat twist on a type's trope.
 


You know, looking at the Gen 5 roster, I think Druddigon is one of the neatest additions to the Gen 5 roster they included. While its massive roster generally has a hit-and-miss reception (some are disliked as expies), the later portion of the Pokedex has a lot of really good and original designs going from Sandile and beyond, and the later mons are all really cool and oftentimes really fun to use.

But Druddigon is a unique one that I feel is a nice addition, not because it looks standout or because it's particularly good, but because of the opposite: it's not particularly good in battle, being a rather average Pokemon, that while functionally good and usable, isn't particularly strong, and design wise it's not cute or cool looking in any way: it's unremarkable at best, ugly and repulsive at worst, as far as what it looks like, but that's also what makes it a neat Pokemon.

Why, you ask? Because it's a Dragon-type Pokemon, and for a Dragon-type to not be particularly powerful and to just be a usable, average Pokemon while also not standing out much in design makes it a unique addition to the Dragon-type roster and a unique twist on a type that usually has a very specific vibe. Usually Dragon-types are the cream of the crop, the strongest of the lot, and are either legendaries (Rayquaza, Sinnoh and Unova cover legendaries, Zygarde, Eternatus, Raidons), sub-legendaries (Latis), pseudo-legendaries (most of them except Tyranitar and Metagross), or Ultra Beasts and Paradoxes. And the ones who aren't still have high BSTs usually 500 and above, and have striking designs: think Kingdra, Flygon, Altaria, Haxorus, Noivern, Duraludon/Archaludon, and Tatsugiri. These Pokemon are usually hard to obtain, either being Legendaries who only appear once and have a low catch rate, or pseudo-legendaries and even normal ones being rare, high-investment, and high reward. Design-wise, many of them are striking. They're badass, like Salamence or Garchomp, or cute, like Dragonite, Goodra, and the Latis, or elegant like Altaria, and so on and so forth.

While that's a cool aspect of them, it makes Druddigon a neat addition because it's none of that. It's average with a BST of 485, and it has no evolution line which means what you see is what you get: nothing evolves into it, and it doesn't become anything stronger. It's not super rare either, being a relatively common spawn around Dragonspiral Tower and just being kinda there. This basically makes Druddigon the "common man's Dragon-type", one where there's no particularly standout traits, and it's just an ordinary Pokemon. For a type that's often exotic, powerful, and larger-than-life, Druddigon being so average and down-to-earth is a neat twist on a type's trope.

I like a lot of the more "down-to-earth" Dragons the series has introduced in more recent generations - Flapple, Appletun, Noibat, Tatsugiri, Turtonator, Dreepy (I know Dragapult is a psuedo-legend, but Dreepy is just so conspicuously weak and Dragapult is fairly underpowered compared to its equivalents) - but yeah Druddigon really is the cream of the crop. It's so unlike every Dragon that came before it.
 
I recently replayed Emerald for challenge run purposed, and for the first time I picked the girl as my player character. I got surprised at how pathetic Brendan is, bro really tries to play it cool and knowledgable about Pokémon, while also getting swept by May in a regular basis. He can even be condescending at times, once he said and I quote "your father looks challenging, unlike YOU", and I love that shit.

It doesn't do enough to improve him as a character, since he's still pretty static all the way through even after calling it quits with battles, but I liked that they went with some personality differences with the two rivals (ORAS made him nicer, because of course lol)
 
I recently replayed Emerald for challenge run purposed, and for the first time I picked the girl as my player character. I got surprised at how pathetic Brendan is, bro really tries to play it cool and knowledgable about Pokémon, while also getting swept by May in a regular basis. He can even be condescending at times, once he said and I quote "your father looks challenging, unlike YOU", and I love that shit.

It doesn't do enough to improve him as a character, since he's still pretty static all the way through even after calling it quits with battles, but I liked that they went with some personality differences with the two rivals (ORAS made him nicer, because of course lol)
The 3rd gen rival kind of disappointed me at first, but in the grand scheme of things I think it's kind of amusing that there's one rival who just eventually realizes that they're not cut out for battling and kind of just gives up lol.
 
A lot of the time when a rare new Pokemon comes back in later games, they make it much easier to obtain. This makes sense at multiple levels: It'd start to get annoying while powercreep and the wearing off of new toy syndrome would make going through the whole shebang less and less worthwhile with every generation. At the same time, however, you can't help but feel like a key part of the Pokemon's identity is lost going forward. Say whatever you will about having to scour specific water tiles for Feebas, you can't deny how memorably tedious it is, especially for someone in the target audience. I'm all but certain that Milotic would be significantly less popular if getting the damn thing didn't put you through the wringer in its debut game, making your ultimate reward really feel like an accomplishment.

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All of this is to say that I genuinely love how from its inception, Spiritomb has almost never let up on being an absolute ballache to obtain. From its original Underground quest in DPPt to having to trade with Yancy & Curtis in BW2, from making you interact with 32 players to activate a single tombstone in the Crown Tundra to the wisp collecting odyssey in Legends Arceus, this little asshole is always giving you the runaround and I love it. It seems like SV is the only game thus far that has slipped up so to speak, with Spiritomb "only" being fixed encounter-only in a few areas. Hopefully this is corrected wherever it shows up next.
 
As much as I crap on Pokemon Colosseum as a game, I really enjoy the atmosphere of its finale.

It's nice the game fakes you out with a Gonzap battle already, but the final fights set in this HUGE futuristic tower colosseum is a great way to cap off the game. If it was just the four trainers and the battle with Nascour, I think I wouldn't dislike this game as much as I do. Getting the Cipher Peon Battle music for the last two trainers is a nice bonus.

Shame about that Evice fight being straight out of a bad ROM hack, but what can you do. (Yes, they heal you and let you retry Evice immediately if you lose, but it's still absurd).

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Forgot to mention it back then, but Friede's "death" theme is an Area Zero remix. That's interesting because it did not play when the anime actually showed Area Zero but it keeps indirectly being linked to dead people (we all know Friede is not dead but you get the idea).

I really hope GF manages to give us something as good as Area Zero in Gen 10 because everything around it is still so damn good and it took me completely by surprise. I know music is not an issue because very Switch games has absolute bangers but that is just a piece of the puzzle here.
 
I always get into the inspirations for pokemon and ever since I learned about this Ultraman inspired intro made for Staryu and Starmie it made me like both a lot more. I didn't used to care much because I thought "oh its just the funny starfish that goes HYAH"
only learn to it goes HYAH because of Ultraman, which then lead to me learning about this video

 
Guzzlord is one of my least favorite Ultra Beasts but I don't think it's bad at all, it just doesn't really speak to me personally (plus I have some nitpicks on how its stats were distributed). I like how despite it having relatively "familiar" design aspects as a dragon, it also very clearly has way more going on for it to just be a regular Pokémon. Also a fan of how it incorporates design aspects of a trash compactor/incinerator and possibly black holes as well.
 
None of them are among my favourite designs (favourite may be Stakataka oddly enough, or Nagadel), but I would argue every single Ultra Beast does perfectly get the point across about them not feeling like normal Pokemon. I hope we get more someday, even if Paradoxes are more my thing.

Sure, Guzzlord may be tame considering it's supposed to be Lovecraftian inspired, but it isn't like Pokemon can do more to be fair- on a more realistic arstyle Guzzlord would be pretty grotesque. And the idea behind its world of origin is pretty cool.
 
Guzzlord is by far my favorite of the UBs and I love that it's not even, like, the cause of the disaster of its world. It's really funny how many people saw the destroyed Alola and figured Guzzlrod caused it but if you actually talk to the guy it sounds like the world went to shit independently* of Guzzlord which had been around for a long, long time.
The one guy you see is just there to check in on "Mr. Glutton" and thinks its cute and just wants to play!

Everyone else ran off to some distant planet.
But since Mr. Glutton is still here and all, I felt
like, y’know, maybe I should stick around, too.

Hey, wow, you actually were able to keep up
with Mr. Glutton! It’ll be back once it gets
hungry. I bet it would love to play again, too!

Guzzlord...? Oh, you mean Mr. Glutton? His kind
have lived on this planet since long before I was
even born.
They eat anything, and I mean literally anything.
Trash, toxic waste, you name it. But their
numbers seem to be decreasing these days.

They’ll eat anything they find, like rubble, waste,
whatever. They have a huge appetite, so we
couldn’t take them to the other planets...
Oh! Please, don’t mess too much with
Mr. Glutton’s food out back.



And have you seen its sleeping?? https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Guzzlord_(Pokémon)#/media/File:Guzzlord_SM_concept_art.jpg


*Which kind of sounds like there might've been some problem with the thermal power plant....
You noticed that poster, did you? I found it
buried in the rubble and decided to put it up.
The people from my grandparents’ generation
burned most of them, so they’re hard to find!
Whenever I brought up the power plant, it
seemed like the adults didn’t want to hear
about it, but I like that poster. It’s cheerful.
 
God I love the Coronet Highlands so much, it keeps getting better on each new playthrough. Just about everything in it represents Legends Arceus at its best:
-The map design is fantastic, taking full advantage of Sneasler to deliver a suitably imposing trek up the mountain with lots of cool little nooks and crannies. Getting jumpscared by the size of the space-time rift as you climb higher kicks ass
-Great Pokemon variety with some of the coolest & strongest species in the game debuting here: Mismagius, Hisuian Sneasel, Garchomp, Rotom, Clefable, etc.
-Electrode, the most challenging and dynamic Noble battle
-Punished Ingo
 
Guzzlord is by far my favorite of the UBs and I love that it's not even, like, the cause of the disaster of its world. It's really funny how many people saw the destroyed Alola and figured Guzzlrod caused it but if you actually talk to the guy it sounds like the world went to shit independently* of Guzzlord which had been around for a long, long time.
The one guy you see is just there to check in on "Mr. Glutton" and thinks its cute and just wants to play!











And have you seen its sleeping?? https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Guzzlord_(Pokémon)#/media/File:Guzzlord_SM_concept_art.jpg


*Which kind of sounds like there might've been some problem with the thermal power plant....
and it goes "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!". perfect pokemon?
 
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