Worst Gen V pokemon-#9

It's Mandibuzz

OK, with 510 base stats, including pretty good 110/105/95 defenses; decent typing both defensively and offensively and a fairly broad movepool which allows it to be quite versatile, Mandibuzz is far from the weakest pokemon for battling in Gen V.  In fact, the main reason it's on here is because Vullaby is one of the worst designs for a pokemon ever, and it really had to be amazing to live up to its dark/flying predecessors Murkrow and Honchkrow and, as it turns out, its successor Yvetal. But it's wearing a diaper! Mandibuzz actually is kinda cool, and I have cards in which it looks great, but that just does NOT justify a diapered prevolution. Nothing does. Also, its Japanese name is Vulgina. Just saying.

Edited to add: Just looked properly at its design for the first time and actually it's weird. I understand it couldn't completely lose the diaper (although humans do) but the spiked crotch, combined with the fact all Mandibuzz are female, makes it seem like extreme birth control

Worst Gen V Pokemon- #10

Surprisingly, it's.....Druddigon. Here's why. It always felt like this was kind of a showdown between Druddigon and Haxorus, as the only 2 fully-evolved dragon type pokemon (Arceus excluded,) and both coming from Unova, and if you read my June post on best Unova pokemon you'll see Haxorus at a conservative 6th. That makes Druddigon the loser, and in fact Haxorus wins in my book in virtually every way: overall stats, stat distribution, movepool, overall useability, concept and most of all design. Even its name is cooler. Druddigon kinda sounds like a stroke victim saying "Dragon." Druddigon is so heavily outclassed by Haxorus that I almost wonder why they put it in there. There are two things that could have really helped. First, it looks so much like a storybook dragon that it could have had normal/dragon typing, which would be better typing in my opinion. Second, again with it being the most like a fairytale dragon (read: unoriginal and uninspired) it could have had a storyline with the knight pokemon Escavalier, which could have been interesting. But really, Haxorus is here because I wanted to draw up the list before posting and I haven't done it yet, so Druddigon being 10th is kind of a copout but it also kinda works. 9th (as properly determined) tomorrow!

Countdown

OK, so it's 53 days until the new games come out, so I'm going to do a sort of retrospective on the last 5 generations. I've done my top 10 favourite Gen V pokemonm, so for the first ten days I'm just gonna do my 10 worst Gen V pokemon. After that I'll do best/worst, one of each per day, for each generation. We start Friday.

I don't like any of these damn pokemon

OK, disclaimer, this is the latest I've been with info, but things have gone nuts both in my life and the pokemon world over the last 3 weeks or so, and I've had a lot to blog and not much time to do it in. That's actually not why it's taken me so long to get this done, that's just because I have nothing interesting to say on the subject. But eventually I decided as a blogger if I have nothing interesting to say, that's what I have to say.

Along with the megaevolutions and so on, September's Corocoro also unveiled three new pokemon, with their Japanese names, followed by their English. They're kind of all indicative of the problems I've been having with Gen VI's pokemon thus far. Let's go.

 

Skiddo- The Mount Pokemon (Giggity!)

Height-0.9m

Weight-31.0kg

Type-Grass

Ability- Sap Sipper

It's Gogoat's pre-volution. It is also rideable. It can learn Leaf Blade. I'm done.

Bunnelby- The Digging Pokemon

Height-0.4m

Weight-5.0kg

Type-Normal

Ability- Cheek pouch/ pickup

Buneary called. It sounded angry. Cheek pouch is a new ability, clearly somehow related to the real-life ability of certain mammals (hamsters come to mind) that can store food in pouches in their cheeks. That might be an HP-replenishing ability, but it's hard to tell.

 

Dedenne- The Antenna Pokemon

Height-0.2m

Weight-2.2kg

Type-Electric/fairy

Ability-Cheek pouch/pickup

This isn't a horrible pokemon by any means, in fact it's pretty adorable and well-conceived, but it's nothing new. Does an electric rodent sound familiar? Yeah, if it wasn't for the fact all 3 members' names end in -chu I'd swear it was a new Pikachu evolution. It still might be. And that's not a mistake, it really does have the same abilities as Bunnelby. I like it, and electric/fairy looks like pretty good offensive typing, but it feels very uninspired and a bit derivative.

Sorry again for the horrible formatting. I'm having issues with the program at the minute and adding pictures is hard.

You sly fox, you

And Fennekin continues to confuse and intrigue me. I had what I thought was a lock on it being a fire/fairy, until....new information. The pokemon game show revealed that the fairy type will be not very effective on the fire type. That's a spanner not so much in the works as in the balls. On the one hand, that suggests something I initially thought may well be true: that the fire type counters the fairy type, but as for my thoughts that Fennekin's Glow Punch would be fairy type, that's not looking likely. Because, assuming that the battle dynamics stay the same and a hit super-effective on one of a pokemon's types and not-very-effective on the other will be neutral (e.g.  fire attacks on ice/dragon type Kyurem,) a fairy-type hit should at best be neutral on fire/normal Litleo. That's not a good sign at all for Fennekin not being fighting type. Assuming pre-existing type matchups will remain the same, that leaves Glow Punch as being fighting, water, ground or rock type, and it....doesn't look like any but being a punch fighting leads the charge. In summary, either Glow Punch is not fairy type, or Fairy type will be 4x effective against the normal type. And that's a terrible idea.

Corocorocorocorocoro chameleon

It has been confirmed that next month's Corocoro won't reveal as big a twist as this month's but will continue giving us bits and pieces from the game. It is worth noting that this will be the penultimate Corocoro before the new games are released, with the last being around a week before the worldwide release. It is now less than 2 months until the new games, and given that we only have about 30 of what will probably be 100-150 pokemon we can expect the number of new pokemon to be significant. New megaevolutions will be revealed, and so, perhaps most interestingly, will the fairy type's battle properties. Given that I, along with many other enthusiasts, am now pretty sure Fennekin will evolve to be fairy type, I wonder if that means we'll get to see the other starters' evolutions. If Fennekin's move Glow Punch, which is our biggest clue, is in fact fairy type then the fairy type does supereffective damage to either fire, normal or both types. It seems most likely to be normal. In other news, so far no new ice types have been revealed, and there's likely to be a handful, so expect at least one. The number of new legendaries has risen steadily game by game, from 5 in Gen I to 6 then 10 then 14 and finally 13 in Gen V. This number fell for the first time from Gen IV to Gen V but I don't for a moment believe that the only legendaries of Gen VI will be Xerneas and Yvetal, so there are more to come or to be announced as legendaries from the existing pokemon. But I bet there's at least one to come, because if the two we have don't make up two parts of a trio it'll be the first time since Gen II. There's a Rayquaza/Giratina/Kyurem to come. I'll be here to judge it. Oh, wait, I've still got the 3 new pokemon from Corocoro to do. They all suck. Whatever. I'll do it tomorrow.

Battle of the gods-Heat A

OK, here goes.
Heat 1-Kyurem-W vs Dialga

And straight off the bat we have 2 of the favourites, 2 hugely strong dragons. In secondary typing, they represent the dragon type's greatest offensive and defensive enemies in ice and steel. However, Kyurem's ice and dragon type attacks are balanced by the steel type's resistance to both. It can use a few very very powerful fire type attacks, but these only do neutral damage due to the dragon type. This is what makes Dialga so deadly, resistances everywhere. Dialga's STABs, however, both hit White Kyurem for super-effective damage. Both are specially-offensive nightmares, with huge special attack, but both have pretty limited special defense, meaning it really comes down to who hits the fastest, because neither can take the other's hit (Dialga's Roar of time, Kyurem's Draco Meteor.) And the faster pokemon is....Kyurem-W.
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! THE DRAGON TYPE REPRESENTATIVE IS OUT ROUND 1 AND AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DRAW RAYQUAZA IS STARTING TO GET SCARED.

Heat 2-Terrakion vs Regigigas

I'm not even gonna. Regigigas is really only in here because it's the only normal-type legendary. Meanwhile, representing the rock type, Terrakion is a pretty good pokemon all things considered. Even without being overall better than Regigigas, Terrkion counters it beautifully. Its rock type  combined with Regigigas' teeny tiny movepool means it's pretty likely to resist every attack of Regigigas, especially because Regigigas is running confusion, paralysis and substitute, giving Terrakion a 37.5% chance of a hit. But when it does hit, which it's more than likely to do in the 5 turns Regigigas is essentially useless, it's with a scarily powerful STAB  and super-effective Sacred Sword. Bye-bye Regigigas. And the winner is..Terrakion

Heat 3- Volcarona vs Groudon

Volcarona really didn't want to face a ground type in round 1. Then again, it also didn't want to face a water, flying or rock type, or another fire type that resists its STABs. But this is Groudon's to lose, because Volcarona can be one of the deadliest pokemon in the game....in sun. Groudon, you done screwed yourself. In sun, Volcarona outspeeds Groudon to deliver an STAB sun-boosted Flare Blitz (my choice for a reliable fire-type hit, which Volcarona needs, while having huge power. The recoil is irrelevant. If that's not an OHKO you're in trouble/defensively in no danger most of the time.) coming from 120 base power, with Volcarona's 135 base attack, and with the sun up, and the fact that Groudon doesn't actually resist the fire type, and Volcarona takes it in another OHKO. Good boy, Volcarona. :)

Heat 4- Palkia vs Keldeo

This is a water head-to-head with the honour of representing water in the quarter finals at stake. It's also a battle between one of, in my opinion, the ugliest pokemon and one of the best-looking. And yet ugly old Palkia is definitely the favourite. They will both be using their non-water type STAB attacks, Palkia's Spacial Rend and Keldeo's Secret Sword. Keldeo hits first, and hits hard with a 129 special attack 85 base power STAB Secret Sword. This hits Palkia's mediocre defense stat and deals it a lot of damage, but Palkia survives and responds with 150 special attack, 100 base power STAB, into Keldeo's subpar special defence. This is a one-hit KO, and gives Palkia the win in the match. Nice job, Penis

Battle of the Gods-Heat B

So White Kyurem, Terrakion, Volcarona, Palkia have eliminated Dialga, Regigigas, Groudon and Keldeo in the early heats to secure their quarter-final places, and we get to the other 8 now. Onwards!

Heat 5- Mewtwo vs Reshiram
Huh, I've just got here to watch the battle and Mewtwo's already stood over the defeated Reshiram glaring at me. I guess it must have abused its brilliant speed and nightmarish special attack to hit Reshiram's poor physical attack with its Psystrike. Mewtwo insists that you bow down.

Heat 6- Shaymin-S vs Giratina-O

This is the only battle of round 1 that could function as a sky battle in Gen VI. Shaymin-S is built for special attack, while Giratina-O is a beautiful mixed attacker. Neither has any form of defenses, but Giratina's HP bolsters that a little. This allows it to take up to 2 hits from Shaymin-S's chosen attack, Air Slash, meaning that if they both result in flinches it takes a third and is knocked out. And it flinches twice. Shaymin-S, against all odds, takes out Giratina-O

Heat 7- Darkrai vs Zekrom

These are two of my favourites, and I'm actually pretty sorry that one has to eliminate the other. But them's the breaks. Darkrai knows exactly what to do and how to do it. It harnesses its enormous speed (only just lower than Mewtwo's) to instantly use Dark Void, giving it an 80% chance of sending Zekrom to sleep, and it can then just sweep, using its equally huge Special Attack, its superb STAB move Dark Pulse and its ability Bad Dreams to make sure Zekrom is out for the count in no time. Zekrom has one hope. It is one of the best physical attackers in the game, and since it's running a mixed attacking set including Focus Blast, if Darkrai's 80% sleep chance fails and its 75% hit chance makes it it wins the battle. But the gods of fate (by which I mean another random number generator) have decided Darkrai does send Zekrom to sleep, and wins the battle.

Heat 8- Rayquaza vs Genesect

These two ubers powerhouses are actually very similar in stat distribution; mediocre speed, horrible defenses and high and balanced offenses. Genesect has the weaker stat total, and by far the lower offenses, but the better typing head-to-head. If Rayquaza can get in first, though, many people, me included, like to run Fire Blast on Rayquaza, and that will just destroy Genesect. Genesect has the higher speed, but the strongest neutral or better hit it has for Rayquaza is Flash Cannon, and that is only just good enough to take down Rayquaza. Genesect takes out an early favourite to win the final heat
WINNERS!
1) White Kyurem
2) Terrakion
3) Volcarona
4) Palkia
5)Mewtwo
6) Shaymin-S
7)Darkrai
8) Genesect

6 vs 7- Shaymin-S vs Darkrai
2 vs 4-Terrakion vs Palkia
5 vs 8- Mewtwo vs Genesect
1 vs 3- Kyurem-W vs Volcarona
Bring it on!

Battle of the gods

OK, here's how it works... first I'll choose what I consider to be the best pokemon of each type (one type per pokemon) then we'll use alphabetical order and a random number generator to create matchups and play them off head-to-head. Now this could make dragon pretty much invincible, but there are pokemon it still doesn't wanna face. We'll start with the legendaries...

1)Bug-Volcarona  (Yes, it has loads of weaknesses but it does great things)
2)Dark-Darkrai (Well, yeah)
3)Dragon-Dialga
4)Electric-Zekrom
5)Fighting-Keldeo
6)Fire-Reshiram
7)Flying-Rayquaza
8)Ghost-Giratina-O
9)Grass-Shaymin-S
10)Ground-Groudon
11)Ice-Kyurem-W
12) Normal-It'll have to be Regigigas
13) Poison (Sorry, poison's out, no legendaries apart from Arceus and that's not fair)
13)Psychic-Mewtwo
14)Rock-Terrakion
15)Steel-Genesect
16) Water-Palkia

There are loads of dragons here, but that seems only right, I've genuinely gone with what I see as the best. And the fixtures for round 1:
11 vs 3 Kyurem-W vs Dialga
14 vs 12 Terrakion vs Regigigas
1 vs 10 Volcarona vs Groudon
16 vs 5 Palkia vs Keldeo
13 vs 6 Mewtwo vs Reshiram
9 vs 8 Shaymin-S vs Giratina-O
2 vs 4 Darkrai vs Zekrom
7 vs 15 Rayquaza vs Genesect
7 vs 15

Just the facts

More from Corocoro, as the details begin to firm up about MegaPokemon.
First of all, Megaevolution does happen via Mega Stones. The Blazikenite that event Torchic will be holding is one such item.
Megaevolution will raise stats in various ways, with MegaLucario having higher Attack and MegaAbsol having increased Attack and Speed.
There are two slightly disappointing pieces of information. First, which I sorta thought was so obvious it wasn't worth saying but which they've announced so I'll pass it on, not all pokemon will have these Megaevolutions but it won't just be the 6 announced yesterday. Second, megaevolutions will only be in effect in battle. One other thing that has been announced is that Blazikenite will not be found in normal gameplay, which somewhat suggests all the Megapokemon will be distributed via events.
The Master Tower will somehow be involved in Megaevolution.

Too excited to write witty title

OK, I think it was in a post I never published that I said the last Corocoro promised a huge reveal in today's, and I was skeptical, but this is a huge, potentially game-changing reveal, and it's all to do with that new Mewtwo.
Confirmed in Corocoro for X and Y are "Mega-evolutions" of existing pokemon, namely Absol, Ampharos, Blaziken, Lucario, Mawile and Mewtwo. Their names will be Mega(current name,) e.g. MegaMewtwo. Two of their typings have been announced: MegaMawile will be steel/fairy, and MegaAmpharos will be electric/dragon.  Steel/fairy is also the typing for Mawile, it has been revealed to be the newest retyped pokemon, which could really help it, but MegaAmpharos has not been confirmed as a new dragon, suggesting the Mega-evolutions may not always share the pokemon's typings. Their abilities have been announced: MegaAbsol will have Magic Bounce; MegaAmpharos will have Mold Breaker; MegaBlaziken will have Speed Boost; MegaLucario will have Adaptability; MegaMawile has Huge Power and MegaMewtwo has Insomnia. These abilities mostly work very well, especially Speed Boost, which oddly I was talking about in my last post yesterday, and Adaptability which is RIDICULOUS on a fighting type like Lucario. The one that doesn't really is MegaAmpharos' Mold Breaker, which essentially works only on pokemon an electric/dragon has no problems with. But whatever.
Mega-evolution will apparently be a new form of evolution, which the event they also announced may give us a clue towards.
The first X and Y event, from October 12th to January 15th, will give away a Torchic holding something called Blaziken Knight (probably Blazikenite.) It will make use of a new item called a Mega Stone, and can eventually evolve into MegaBlaziken. This suggests the MegaStone is kinda like the evolution stones we have already.
A new gym leader, whose Japanese name is Koruni, will hold the key to understanding MegaEvolution. She looks a bit like Maylene, and seems to be a fighting type.
Quite how MegaEvolutions work, and what they do, has not been confirmed.
More as it comes (including pictures,) and I'll get to the rest of Corocoro tomorrow. It's not really that interesting.

Outfoxing Fennekin

Gamefreak have tried so hard to toy with us, again, and I'm getting a little irritated. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thoroughly intrigued but I am a little bored of the misleading spoilers, half-truths and unfinished reveals. So ha ha Gamefreak, this one I've cracked. I think.
The absolute last thing ANYONE wanted for Gen VI was a 4th fire/fighting type starter. In Gen III Torchic evolved into the first of these, Blaziken. It was a pretty good pokemon, and in general pokemon players applauded the move. In Gen IV Chimchar evolved into Infernape, and Infernape was a very very good pokemon indeed. As far as I can see pokemon players were happy to accept a second fire/fighting because Infernape felt like a polishing and a boosting of Blaziken. Its stats, movepool, concept and design were all way better, and when it was released it became arguably the best starter of all time. In Gen V something strange happened, and Blaziken leapfrogged its OU rival Infernape to go from languishing in UU to being the only Ubers starter ever...for now. This was thanks to its Dreamworld ability, the almost unjustly good Speed Boost. But Gen V also brought a nasty surprise for fire/fighting, in the form of lame younger cousin to the family Embor. This fat, lumbering pig tries to copy its older relatives and fails miserably. Why is it a pig anyway? That makes no sense from a conceptual point of view. There is just no line you can draw to get from pig to punching stuff, although I have just mentally created the superhero Bacon Man. Anyway, Emboar sucked, and with so much potential still left in the fire type for new things, players rejected Emboar as a waste of a starter.
I said, in one of my very first posts, that not only did I not see Fennekin becoming a fire/fighting I didn't see how it could become a fire/fighting, when they'd done three and anyway it didn't look fighting-y (not that Tepig did either.) But then they showed us it using a move called Glow Punch, and alarm bells were set ringing. Oh, no, it's punching stuff now! But.......I'm pretty sure that not only is Fennekin's unrevealed evolution not a fighting type, the move isn't even fighting type. OK, i have just seen that it deals super-effective damage to fire/normal and fighting is one of 4 types to currently do that. But I say currently for a reason. This punch really doesn't look like, say, Mach Punch. I bet this is a special punch. Specifically I bet this is the fairy equivalent of fire/thunder/ice punch, and Fennekin will be a fire/fairy. That is, based on what we already know, frighteningly good typing. Specifically it will be a specially offensive monster. I mean, dragon, normal, steel, ice, grass, these are very good types to be super-effective against (and potentially not all,) and should slot it into ubers as an amazing counter to a lot of things you most commonly find there. Also, the fairy type IS super-effective against fire or more likely normal type or both, and isn't resisted by either. Now, Gamefreak, have you got any unintentionally very informative spoilers on Chespin or Froakie? 

Best. Event. Ever

Actually that's not quite true. The following are the best events ever in order:
1) Arceus
2) Darkrai
3) Shiny Rayquaza

But this is also an excellent event. It is a UK only event, so I'm sorry if it doesn't cover you, but keep reading, it gets funny I promise . The event comes in three parts:
1) August 30-September 12   Shiny Dialga
2) September 13-September 26 Shiny Palkia
3) September 27-October 12 Shiny Giratina
These pokemon will be given away in Game, which works for me because it's one of the few shops I can get to in the Highlands.

Now I must admit that I expressed my excitement about getting three of my favourite pokemon in shiny form before seeing them. The first shiny pokemon I ever caught was a Liepard. It goes from purple to...purple. You'd never know it was shiny. Dialga is only a bit better. It goes from blue to turquoise. Turquoise is a shade of blue. It is one of my favourite colours, and Dialga looks great in it, but again it's hard to tell it's shiny. This irritates me, but not as much as Palkia. There is one major problem I have with Palkia, which is nothing to do with typing, movepool, stats, or ability, which I love, love, love and can't complain about.No, my problem with Palkia can be summed up in three words: GIANT PURPLE PENIS! I know, you can't unsee it now. It even has testicles. How did this pass the testing phases? Some other pokemon, like Castform, bear a passing resemblance to genitalia, but this I just can't with. What is the one thing that would make Palkia look more phallic? Painting it pink. Congratulations Gamefreak, you now have a legendary pokemon with the worst design ever. I am sarcastically clapping, which is an impressive feat while typing. Giratina's not half bad, having a recognisable colour change and looking pretty good. But as a set I'm gonna stick with my usual normal forms. Best event ever. This sucks.

See what I mean?

Burn, Baby, Burn

OK, this is a new bi-weekly feature (because I've done the maths and that lets me do a fairy-type post three days after the new games come out (because the day after is my birthday and this stuff takes me two days even when I'm not busy) and an ice-type post the day before Christmas), where for want of a better way of putting things I take the types apart to see how they work. Since it is as hot as hell here in the UK and my xz and zx keys have melted together, the only type I could possibly start with is fire.
Fire, in battle, is one of the most clear-cut pokemon, with clear stat trends, clear strengths and weaknesses and clear strategies to use with them. See, fire is nearly unmatched in one thing: hitting hard. It can hit four types for super-effective damage (even if the only totally useful one is steel and possibly ice) and only dragon can outdo it for  average special attack stats when fully evolved. But dragon doesn't count, because half of all fully-evolved dragon types are legendaries. Half! 50% 1 in 2! 9 of the 18! Exzpress it how you choose. It's too many and it skews the stats. So strike that, fire types have the best special attack stats of any type. Combine that with a nice range of moves, over 60% having 80 base power or higher, an immunity to pesky burns, and moderate to good speed, with several sitting in the 100-110 region (although I will admit the fastest fire type is Infernape with 108 base speed, and 44 pokemon have at least one faster forme, but 108 is not half bad, outspeeding loads of great pokemon such as Hydreigon, Scizxor, Garchomp and of course Mew and Celebi) fire types often make perfect special sweepers. Basically, with fire types, you want to hit hard and get the hell out of there, because very few of them can take a hit with generally awful defenses and 3 nasty weaknesses, and it suddenly occured to me when writing this post that the biggest thing the fire type needs is a variation on Volt Tackle/U-Turn, which means even when you can't get an OHKO (which you need a lot of with fire types) your pokemon doesn't crumple like burnt paper. So yeah, except in a few very special cases, this is the fire type's only decent use, and I don't recommend using the special cases until you're sure of it (he said, patronisingly). But if you know how to use fire types, they can be a huge asset. And come on, how fun is it to burn stuff?

Additional thoughts on Oorrotto

It's just occured to me that when I said here I was wrong here, that's not necessarily true. I mean, there's now obviously no connection to sound, which means my strange blogger musings on the sound type are going back to bed...for now, but the rest might still be as I suggested. See, I zoned in on the possible name Aulotte, and connected it to French nursery rhyme Alouette. Actually that's more likely than ever, with Oorrotto confirmed as the Japanese name and it looking like an evil tree. I mean, what is an evil tree? I think one that captures birds and harms them is about as good as you're getting on that.And much as I think the bird being plucked alive is too gruesome even as a pokedex entry in pokemon, dark and ghost pokemon are often said to trap or capture weaker pokemon or even people and somehow hurt them. So yeah, I'm thinking it might well be Aulotte, a pokemon that captures birds in its leaves and....well that's Gamefreak's job. I love it. Watch out, Fletchling.

Same pokemon, different news

First of all, one piece of good news, for some reason my blogger has been f***ed for the last 10 days or so, and although I figured out about 4 days ago how to actually use it it's been hard, annoying and time-consuming, so now that it seems back to normal I can do more.
OK, so they've carried on spoonfeeding us little bits and pieces about Honedge and Oorrotto. I'm gonna do Honedge first because it will take no time at all. Honedge's ability, or maybe one of them, will be No Guard. That makes total sense given that it's a sword freed from its sheath, but how good it is will depend thoroughly on Honedge's movepool. One thing I know is that Heatran was already a massive threat to it, and it getting its signature move Magma Storm at perfect accuracy, as well as Fire Blast, is SCARY. I don't think i like it at all, and it may have ruined what coulda been a great pokemon. Shame.
Now as right as I was about Xerneas and Yvetal I couldn't have been more wrong about Oorrotto. Partly because the name I got was wrong. Orotto-Oorrotto changes things, as does the fact that this is the Japanese name when I thought it was the English,  but whatever. I can give you some facts now. Because of certain legal restrictions, I can't provide you with pictures but I'll describe it as best I can:
It's an evil-looking tree-trunk with arms and roots that function as spidery legs. There are strips of bark torn from  the trunk and arms, it has one eye and three branches. The only pieces of greenery on the trunk are "cuffs" on the arms, which have branches as hands, and one clump which makes up "hair."  There is no doubt in my mind that this will be grass/dark type, but I'll wait until the official announcement to tell you why that's such horrible typing. We have nothing else really, so I'll leave you to get on with your life.

Some thanks I never expected to have to make, and some I hoped to

So my blog's viewership has just hit a bit of a milestone, and I felt like I should tidy up the thanks I wanted to make

Thanks to my sister, who kept pushing me into writing and then publicised the results
Thanks to the website whose entire formatting I legally ripped off for one of my posts
Thanks to the people doing the same stuff as me on Youtube, you inspire me
Thanks to the friends I see on Thursdays who give me ideas and help with development, especially Ross and Frances, although I do wish Ross would read the damn blog.
Thanks to the Palauan website whose function I have yet to figure out but which has apparently helped me significantly with viewers.  (seriously)
Thanks to the pokemon players in central and eastern Europe, especially Russia and Serbia, who have made up a surprisingly large chunk of my readership (Russia beats the USA into second place)
Thanks to my high-school English teachers, who are gonna hate me for using their first names, but who all got me started writing, especially Anna Bogucki.
Thanks to the people who I've bored to death using them as a sounding board.
Thanks, obviously, to all those involved in making the Pokemon games
And thanks to anyone else who I've forgotten to thank, including all the regular viewers.

And I should thank some of my favourite pokemon, so here goes: Rayquayza, Reshiram, Dialga, Meloetta, Keldeo, Latios, Drapion, Volcarona, Tyranitar, Hydreigon, Gallade and Gliscor, and my favourite good/bad doggy Houndoom.

Candy-floss, perfumed birds, fighting pandas and revolving squids (or why I hate the fairy type)

To be honest, I'm thinking of British panel show Mock the Week. For those of you who don't know the show, you can skip to the next paragraph. But for those who do, can you imagine the sheer joy of seeing the team being presented with this for "If this is the answer, what is the question." Now, I'm usually quite quick-witted, with a comeback for everything, but all I've come up with is "Name 4 things you can get in Chinese duty-free." and the eternal answer to a seemingly stupid question: "Name four things."
But the answer to this question is actually "What is the basis for the four newest pokemon designs?"
So let's begin with one of the strangest pokemon they've ever come up with:

Spritzee-The Perfume pokemon
Height-0"08
Weight-1.1lbs
Type-Fairy
Ability-Healer

Holy crap that's ugly! I mean, this is why I thought I'd hate the fairy type. It's just so....pink. And puffy. And yet it still manages to be faintly unsettling. I think it's the huge red eyes. But I just have this...thing against pokemon that look like that, like Jigglypuff, like Glameow. I think it's male genitalia. Yes, I promise that is the last time I'll mention my junk. But seriously, I understand fully that in order to make the fairy type fit into the pokemon pantheon there need to be a fair few, and that the fairy type will be almost entirely made up of cutesy pokemon like this, but I will point out now that with Noivern included there are still only 30 dragons, the countering of which looks to be the fairy type's main purpose, and with Sylveon, Flabebe, Spritzee (sounds like a teenage girl's body spray by the way,) Swirlix, Xerneas, Jigglypuff, Wigglytuff, Marill, Azumarill and Gardevoir confirmed as fairy types, along with 34 other pokemon in the "fairy" egg group, the fairy type needs no further expansion. In fact, if we go with there being 44 fairy-types, based on average numbers of pokemon added per type per generation, there will be more fairy types than pokemon of the ghost, dragon, ice and steel types, which sucks because when dark and steel were introduced in Gen II there were just 6 of each, making them only more common than dragons and ghosts. And I'm not saying that pokemon should be a game for boys, but the majority of pokemon players are, in my opinion, male. And the fairy type allows girls to counter dragons. What do boys do? This entire game, to me, seems a little feminine, and I don't know anyone who's ever had a problem with the gender balance in previous games. So we're done with the fairy type and why I don't much care for it. The only other thing we have is its ability, Healer, which has precisely one use, when run by a tank in conjunction with sweepers in multi-way battles. I doubt this thing is a tank. And we know it will be able to use Aromatherapy, which I think I have used once, with a Roserade which I scrapped after two battles because it was a liability. It's safe to say I won't love it.

Swirlix-The Cotton Candy Pokemon

Height-1"04

Weight-7.7lbs

Type-Fairy

Ability-Sweet Veil

Kill me. This thing's uglier still, and clearly not for diabetics. I mean, the ice cream was bad enough but cotton candy "melts" in exposure to air, or could get eaten by trainers. Realistically, I've said what I need to about this when I was talking about Spritzee. All that's left to say is this. My beloved dragons are getting beaten by cotton candy. Seriously, the pure destructive force of nature that is Hydreigon is now going to be taken down by SPUN SUGAR! Whatever. Let's move on. Its ability is to be Sweet Veil, preventing the user's team from falling asleep in double and triple battles. I will never use that, and Healer works better in that tiny little niche it might have. Its announced move is Draining Kiss, a new fairy-type draining move. That could work. Next!

At this point I'm gonna stop and weep a little. For all the talk that a bag of trash (which I actually didn't mind) and an ice-cream cone (which I really did mind) meant Gen V had run out of ideas, these two pokemon are a perfume-spraying bird (which I assume works in a department store) and cotton candy. Ironically enough the fairy type has left me feeling a little disenchanted. I'm pretty close to being out on Pokemon X and Y. The next thing up had better be some kind of super-cool squid pokemon.

Inkay-The Revolving Pokemon

Height-1"04 (I think, I've just converted in my head)

Weight-7.7lbs

Type-Dark/psychic

Ability-Contrary/Suction Cups

Well, that was lucky. I like this thing a lot, but it's really just a prevolution to this:

Malamar-The Overturning pokemon

Height-4"07

Weight-103.6lbs

Type-Dark/psychic

Ability-Contrary/Suction Cups

Now this I love. I don't like squid at all, but this is really cool, in a banana-y kind of way. It looks like someone's peeling Ursula from The Little Mermaid. While I let that sink in I'll go onto its typing. Now you may look at dark/psychic and say "no resistances whatsoever." I look at dark/psychic and say "total versatility." Because it only has one weakness, albeit a 4x one, to bug, and offensively it shines like crazy. Surprisingly enough, the niche I think it will have is as a beautiful counter to fighting types. Despite the dark typing removing its fighting resistance, the majority of fighting types run moves to get rid of flying and psychic types, and the dark type usually fixes that. So yeah, love it. It is said to be one of the best hypnotisers of all pokemon, meaning humans sometimes use Malamar to do their evil bidding. That really sounds like it ought to be an evil-team favourite, and yet I thought we'd established they were leaving the dark types for fire. Possibly they'll be using both. I wouldn't mind that at all. To correspond with its hypnotic force, it can use hypnosis, which there's nothing to say about. It will, however, also be able to use a new move called topsy-turvy, which reverses stat changes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what Contrary does? So this reverses Contrary's reversal of stat changes and puts them back. Either that or it's only meant to be used with Suction Cups. It strikes me that Suction Cups is a great ability, as there are a lot of pokemon you would want to trap with Malamar, but that Contrary is such a great ability, and currently only available in the Dream World you can go with either ability but with Suction Cups you need topsy-turvy, because it's great. I'm starting to form a team I can see myself using for X and Y, and I think Malamar will definitely be in it. Just one question: Isn't Malamar a candy in the USA?

Pangoro-The Daunting Pokemon

Height-6"11

Weight-299"13

Type-Fighting/dark

Ability-Iron Fist/ Mold Breaker

Well, I'm daunted. This, as you may have guessed, is Pancham's evolution. A 7" 300lb evil fighting panda. Fair enough. It is apparently violent but fair, and attacks those who pick on the weak. The leaf now has a purpose: it can predict opponent's moves. That could be a signature move, or it could mean nothing. One confirmed move is Hammer Arm, which will be boosted by 20% by Iron Fist, giving it an evil 120 base power. 90 base power Drain Punch, anyone? Or any of the elemental punches at 90? Mold Breaker, on the other hand, allows it to hit ghost users with fighting moves, but why bother when it has dark typing? The only use I can see for it is in Earthquake on the flying types it's not going to fancy facing much. So go Iron Fist, people. It's by far the better ability. I thought, hoped and can now confirm it will be fighting/dark, a typing it shares with Scraggy and Scrafty, who don't use what is pretty kickass typing to very good effect. I could actually make a REALLY good dark-type team in Y version, starting with Yvetal, Malamar and Pancham. I LOVE those three.

More later, peeps.

P.S. Sorry about the formatting people. The program is...playing up, to say the least.

The Root of All Evil

Why are you hearing a trumpet fanfare right about now? We'll get to that in a minute.

One of the other pieces of information to be revealed yesterday was the name of the evil group, the Team Rocket of Gen VI. That's all, their name and their mission, which is to make money. So why am I playing the trumpet? Because its name is Team Flair, possibly Team Flare.
*DAN-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DAAAAAAAN*
Why does that make me so happy? Because if you're one of my "pokemon friends," or if you've read one of my posts I put up a while back, you'll know that one of my big wishes for X and Y was that the evil team would NOT focus on dark and poison types. And Flare? That has to be fire type surely. Mind you, I have reservations. Big ones. Fire just would not have been my choice for replacing dark and poison. I mean, yes, it is the only other type that can really be construed as "evil" besides maybe dragon, and that ain't happenin'. So that's cool, very Series of Unfortunate Events. But I've been thinking about it, and you're sure to be seeing this team all through the game, probably three or four times from start to finish. And once again, as when they were constantly using poison types, grass types are in some trouble. I mean, is it not time for good things to happen to grass types? Mind you, I've expressed my opinion before that Chespin might evolve into a grass/rock type, so there's that. But as, it seems, always within the game water types get to sit and smile smugly as they carve down the evil team with ease, unleashing surf after surf on countless helpless Litleos. Still, I was speaking to a friend last night and these were my words: "it seems like they might be more redoing the old games than doing anything innovative. That might work for new people but it'll piss off hardcore fans like me." So a somewhat new evil team is a start. Either it will be a fire type team or, horror of horrors, it's going to be a dance-theatre-cum-evil-team, who will pirouette onto the scene and be evil. Flare!
Poise! Passion! God, I hope not.

ETA:I've just seen the first video of Team Flare, and that is definitely a fire-type team. The guy used Houndour, who being moderately weak and dark-type has long been an evil favourite. But he is CLEARLY a fire-type trainer, so much so that Chili might come up to him and say "Dude, enough with the fire, we get it!"

My head hurts

I'm sorry guys, but I haven't been on the internet since Monday, been away on business 200 miles away. So I checked back this morning on my source, praying that there wouldn't be too much new pokemon info, but unfortunately, what came up was perhaps the biggest package of pokemon info so far this gen. All this on a day when I have no less than no less than 4 posts to do for my other blog on reality TV. Also, I'm still dog-tired from the trip. But onwards and upwards, because the information virtually all of us have been waiting for is out. WE KNOW ABOUT XERNEAS AND YVETAL! Now, it may make sense to do them individually as usual, but because they so clearly act as both parallels and counterpoints to one another I'll do them together. Also, there is no freakin' way I'm typing their names time and again, so Xerneas is X and Yvetal is Y. Agreed?
Ironically enough they both have the exact typing I initially predicted. X will be pure fairy type, while Y will be dark/flying. They're the first of the "big 3" legends since Groudon and Kyogre in Gen 3 not to be part dragon-type. Mind you, there's no evidence yet that there'll be a third such pokemon, a Kyurem to their Zekrom and Reshiram, but I wouldn't bet against it. Now, there really hasn't been a case where one of the two "mascot pokemon" has clearly pwned the other. Even Groudon, who seems so screwed against Kyogre, can bring up the sun and use Solarbeam, or if it stays rainy Thunder works. Now that baffles me, because I thought for sure fairy and dark were going to be new playmates, and I established that, contrary to my initial speculations, fairy will definitely not deal super-effective damage to dark. This is based on footage of a Gardevoir using fairy wind on a Hydreigon and not quite managing to take it down, doing maybe around 80% damage. Given Gardevoir's awesome special attack (I'm taking what I think is a fair guess that most fairy moves, including this one, will be special) and Hydreigon's moderate to good special defense, there is no way that's a 4x super-effective move. It must be 2x, surely. But all this depends on the battle properties of the fairy type, and that more than anything is worsening my migraine. IT MAKES NO SENSE!
On and up, Xerneas and Yvetal will have parallel but awesome abilities. X's is to be called fairy aura, and will power up fairy type moves by an as yet unknown factor, while Y's ability, dark aura, does the same to dark-type moves. That's pretty self-explanatory, but essentially it's added STAB, making it close to my favourite abilities of all time. And in the same paragraph I'm gonna blast through their moves, because like Dialga and Palkia; Zekrom and Reshiram, they have a pair of signature moves. X's is called Geomancy, while Y's is called *deep voice* Oblivion Wing *normal voice.* Just take a moment and let the awesome of Oblivion Wing wash over you, and we'll continue.

Actually, we're pretty much done. All that is left to say is that some of this seems to fly in the face of my "feminine and masculine" theory. I'm still going with it for now, but it's actually seeming more like good and evil to me. One thing hasn't changed. I am 99% guaranteed to be buying Y version first.

The Sky's The Limit-A Guide To Sky Battles

Use Thundurus. That is all.

A completely made-up analysis of the fairy type

OK, this is a comprehensive prediction of what will happen with the fairy type. I will include all the known information and the rest I'll be trying to make up, but hoping to hit the mark in some cases. Are you sitting comfortably? Who cares, I'm starting anyway.

Characteristics

Offensive

Offensively the fairy type is obviously extremely useful for its ability to deal super-effective damage to the dragon type. However, like it does with many types steel resists its STAB, as do grass and poison. Its special attack stat is generally pretty high and its speed is among the best of all types, but its physical attack is almost unusably bad, meaning it is valuable as a special sweeper but encounters problems against pokemon with good special defense. It has a good range of moderately powerful to very powerful special moves, but fairy types do not tend to be able to learn moves from many other types. One positive with its moves, however, is that they can often target multiple opponents in double and triple battles. Fairy/fire offers good coverage, as does fairy/ground, but there are no confirmed plans to produce pokemon with either of these typings. Fairy types are popular as the best counters to dragon-types and as reasonably good special sweepers, but they face real problems.

Defensive

Defensively it is not a terribly good type. Its special defense is moderately high, but its defense is on the low side. Its battle properties are also less than favourable defensively, as it takes super-effective damage from normal, fire, poison and rock types, while only resisting grass and dark type moves. Because of the innate weakness of the fairy type defensively, many people use fairy moves but not fairy-type pokemon.

Insert sword pun here

So I had my dragon/non-dragon battle tonight, and when I've come up with enough expletives I'll put something up on it (probably tomorrow.) But for now, they've spoon-fed us another new pokemon. Its name will be Monorpale in France, Hitotsuki in Japan, and it will be based on a sword. Oh, who am I kidding? It is a sword. Look:

Yes, this is actually a pokemon. Since it's you, here's another, of it in battle with a Golem which looks cooler than ever:

It'll be steel/ghost type, which is great typing, and I really love its design. Odd as it is, that works for ghost types. More as it comes, people. Promise

And more has come. The new pokemon's English name will be Honedge, which may be the coolest name ever. It works on so many levels. I'll leave you to find them yourself. It is 2"07 and weighs 4.4lbs. That's a tricky one because it combines what is typically one of the lightest types with one of the heaviest, so we'll go for that. Apparently it is made when a spririt possesses a human's sword. That is what I think the ghost type should be doing. It can use the blue cloth as an arm, which makes sense because I wondered how it would attack. Trainers who grab the sword may find themselves grabbed and their energy drained. Sounds like a signature move! One confirmed move is swords dance. I can't sign off on that, because a swords dance is a traditional Scottish dance performed over swords, or a dance with swords. But either way, some swords dancers make sense, but a sword cannot perform a swords dance. I assume it was done so people wouldn't say "Y NO SWORDS DANCE?" but it makes no sense. Bad move. Really cool pokemon though.

Dragons against the world

OK, this is another thing entirely. I consider myself a dark and dragon type trainer, just because they're my favourite types, and because if I had to make a team of pokemon of one type (which I once did, when I thought I was doing a 6v6 and it became a 3v3 leaving me with Tyranitar, Hydreigon and Houndoom) it would be one of the two. Me and a friend were recently discussing pokemon types (eg dark vs ghost as the better offensive typing. That one we did end up agreeing on, dark has better battle properties, ghost has better moves) and there were two which we just couldn't agree on. One was the psychic type, which I just don't love, as I said here. The other was the dragon type. I really didn't think dragon type's supremacy up to the 6th gen was in question but she managed to find the one problem with it: It's hard to use. And once she said it I realised that she was right (which is not the same as realising I was wrong) and that it took me a while to figure out how to properly use dragons, especially a whole team of them. But still, I felt like the honour of the dragon type was challenged, so I've challenged her to a duel.

The rules

1) Player 1 (me) may only use pokemon which are at least part dragon-type. They are not permitted to use dragon-like pokemon of other types, such as Gyarados, Aerodactyl and Charizard, or other non-dragon members of the dragon egg groups such as Grovyle.
2)Player 2 may not use any pokemon of the dragon type, but can use any of the 620 other pokemon, including any which have characteristics of the dragon type.
3) Each player may have up to 2 legendaries on their team.

The rest of the rules will be firmed up at the time. I was going to post my team and strategy, but that would be stupid pre-battle, so I'll do it afterwards. In the mean time this presents an interesting balance. One of us wanted more than 2 legendaries, the other didn't. You can guess which I was in favour of. I think 2 is fair, but it leaves me with choosing 4 fully-evolved non-legendary dragon type pokemon. How many do you think there are? No, it's less than that. Less. Less. It's 9. There are as many legendary dragon-types as non-legendary. I also have to deal with the fact that my opponent knows part of all of my pokemon's typing and can make a decent guess at which pokemon will be in my team, and that she can make a team to counter it with ice and steel types. Meanwhile she has to deal with the full draconian fury of my team. It's gonna be close.

What's in a name?

So Gamefreak has released what may be its vaguest piece of information ever. There'll be another new pokemon, called Aulotte/Orotto. What the hell? Not even a picture? I think this is classic Sylveon syndrome. They're only releasing what they can afford to without giving away secrets. So what does it look like? Well, some people are suggesting it's the new rodent, to go with Fletchling as the new bird, and joining the likes of Patrat, Ratatta, Zigzagoone, Bidoof and Sentret. So, normal? I'm not sure, though. See I keep being drawn to the word Aulotte, and given that this is likely an early pokemon and that the starting town is based on Paris, I can't imagine that it's not related to Alouette, the French for lark, made famous by the folk song in which a sadistic child captures and slowly plucks a lark, proving once and for all just how charming the French are. I kid because I love. But given that alouette will now always be associated with this story of cruelty, I wonder if there's dark typing somewhere. Also, I can't hear it and not think of Meloetta, my new favourite singer. And finally think about Audino, named for the Latin word audio, meaning I hear. SO MUCH SOUND! And yet I thought I'd put that idea to bed. Seems not yet. They're ready to toy with us like a Liepard with a Ratatta right up until.....I'm not even gonna do it any more. Because now I have less than no idea what they are doing. Maybe there will be a sound type. But if so, I'd be PISSED, for the reasons I spoke about in the linked post. The other name, Orotto? Sounds like Mexican food. But no, I'm thinking oral, related to the mouth and more specifically to speech. So it speaks, or sings. But....what does it mean? I haven't a clue.

Top 10 best pokemon introduced in Gen V

OK, many people say that Gen V's pokemon sucked. I don't quite agree. It may have had some duds, and 649 pokemon in the concepts are getting to sometimes be either stale or weird, although unlike many I have no objection to Garbodor. I will be doing a "worst of" post later, as well as tackling all the other games, so keep a lookout.

Honourable mentions
Because Gen V really did put out a great little set of legendaries. Maybe too many, I can't deny it, but let's look at them in their groups. Zekrom and Reshiram are just the best looking pokemon ever: sleek, simple, elegant, dramatic, unique and so impactful. BAM! MUTHAFUCKIN' DRAGON IN THE HOUSE! Combine this with unique and, especially in Reshiram's case, excellent typing and some seriously powerful moves and you have a killer pair. Kyurem's ice type and stats are less useful and helpful, but absofusion was a cool and helpful idea. Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus were interesting and usable, and I appreciated Tornadus as the first pure flying type. Interestingly Landorus was the weak link of the three (I'll stick to Gliscor.)  Then there were the Swords of Justice. If you're alone now, just try saying that in as booming a voice as possible, like Dumbledore. I love them, especially Terrakion who is a complete killer with awesome typing. Keldeo's Resolute form kind of looks like a depressed gay pride float but I still like it. I love the concept behind the quartet. There's Zoroark, who straddles the line between being a legendary and not, and whose ability, design and typing I love, although I find it flawed in movepool and for some reason it bugs me that its ponytail is tied in turquoise, which is the worst possible colour, and makes it look more feminine than I'd like. And then there are the event legendaries. I really like them all, but I have to give a shoutout to Meloetta, the singing pokemon. I love it as a singer, I like its designs a lot and its typings and ability to switch between them are really useful in battle. So yeah, let's leave them at the door, in a little box that says "Cool."

Other honourable mentions go to darmanitan, which is really strong but scares the crap out of me, and Escavalier which.....well, you'll find out why I didn't put a bug/steel in.

10) Samurott
This is basically here to avoid me being crucified for not including a starter. I liked the Oshawott line the best, but that's not to say I loved it. The water type is decent, especially in the Unova region, I really like its design and its stats make it a usable pokemon. I just wish it had had a secondary type. Probably fighting. But it was head-and-shoulders above the other Unova starters.

9) Scrafty
Love its typing, don't much like its design, think its stats could have been better. Next!

8) Reuniclus
As the best trick-room special sweeper is a legitimate threat. And magic guard is a killer ability. Other than that, it's a green psychic-type blob.

7) Krookodile
Krookodile looks like a boss. It's a red-and-black gangster crocodile. Decent enough typing. Otherwise, meh.

6) Haxorus
Listen, I'm as surprised as you are. But it is just a dragon type, which is fine but not unique. It's a really decent pokemon to use, and its shiny form is amazing-looking. But it disappointed me because surely this should be dragon-fighting. And THAT is good typing.

5) Ferrothorn
For finally giving us a grass type with half-decent defensive typing, and for being cool and unique. Its offensive typing...I guess, it could do with a wider movepool to let it do more, especially with types like fire. And it could REALLY do with being used with Trick Room, because boy is it ever slow!

4) Excadrill
Now that is a pokemon with killer attack. Its speed is...decent, could do with a boost. Oh wait, sand rush. Well, that's sorted. Or, if for some inconceivable reason you want a slow sweeper you can take sand force. It's all sand. Its defensive typing is...odd, to say the least. Ice and grass are the only two types to do it normal damage. 4 types do it 2x damage. The other 11 it resists or is immune to. This makes ground/steel excellent defensive typing, especially with 2 immunities, albeit to types it is never ever gonna have to face. This is hindered by its bad defences, but they aren't actually terrible It looks pretty good, and it's a design I'm surprised we haven't seen already. So yeah, it's one of the strongest battlers in Unova, and it's a solid threat.

3) Chandelure
This one's for you, Frances. No, I like Chandelure a lot, more conceptually than as a battling pokemon, but I'll still use it in battle. Mostly for its jaw-dropping special attack but also because it has the movepool and offensive typing to match it. Its abilities are amazing. I mean, if a flash fire Chandelure switches into a Heatran's fire attack, it's throwing around 142 base power flamethrowers (some say 210-base overheat, I say screw the drop in special attack.) And its dreamworld ability, shadow tag, is crazy. But like I said, mostly I LOVE the concept of a possessed chandelier that steals people's souls. And it looks amazing.

2) Hydreigon
Dark and dragon are my two favourite types. Hydreigon is the first pokemon to combine the two and its classification as "The Brutal Pokemon" is more than justified. Its all-round offenses are incredible and its movepool is huge, varied and powerful. This means that Hydreigon can fire off all kinds of hellaciously strong attacks, and you can never be quite sure what to expect from it. Its ability is hugely helpful, as it can switch in to entry hazards with impunity, and is immune to earthquake. Its speed, however, is only OK, and the one thing that movepool lacks is a decent stat-boosting move. As for its design.....I don't even need to say it. Just bow down, people. One thing you may not have noticed is the tank tracks down its front. Its original design was sort of a cyborg dragon-tank thing, and it's kept the treads even now it's a hydra. Hydreigon is the pseudo-legendary of Gen V, and it's fully earned its place among the likes of Metagross, Salamence and Tyranitar. I love my evil dragon. I call him Clive.

1) Volcarona
Because it's the sun. Also, because it might be the only truly unique-looking bug type pokemon besides Genesect. Its offensive typing is among my all-time favourites, able to deal super-effective STAB to steel, ice, bug, grass, psychic and dark types, and between its two types it is virtually unresisted. Its defensive typing is fair enough, yes the 4x weakness to rock is almost a dealbreaker, but it does have 5 resistances. As for its stats, they are wonderful. 135 base special attack ranks it just below Chandelure, but what makes it a better special sweeper is both its speed and typing. Its special defense is excellent, but its physical stats are mediocre at best, which makes rock-type moves even more of a problem. As a versatile special sweeper though, it is usually at the core of my party, especially in the sun. Hint for free, Volcarona fits BEAUTIFULLY into a dragon-type team, to get rid of pesky steel and ice types. Volcarona and Palkia make a really great doubles team. For some reason, this is like my version of Ash's Pikachu. I love you, Volcarona.

Undervalued types

Poison-Now, this may be surprising. It's not all that rare, in fact it ranks 8th in that respect, well ahead of types such as dragon, ice, steel, ghost, electric, dark, rock and even fighting. In fact, in Gen I it topped the table by a huge margin, with over 20% of pokemon being poison-types. But it's very unappreciated, and when I say that I'm primarily talking about Gamefreak. They haven't really made that many useable poison-type pokemon. Frankly, I'm surprised they allowed Arceus to be poison type, because the creator is on record as saying poison was his least-favourite type. Its beautifully balanced stats and a decent movepool containing some relatively powerful moves allow it to do a lot, but I like it as a staller. Of course, the status condition poison is its best asset, but most poison-type pokemon can pick and choose between several options including sleep and paralysis. Koga, leader of Fuchsia gym and later elite 4 member puts it best when he describes the poison type as "confusion, sleep, poison." Offensively its battle properties aren't great, but that can be fixed in a few ways. So yeah, 3 things I want that would make poison less of a laughing stock. One, more powerful poison-type pokemon. Two, more pairings of poison with other types, because bug and grass really don't help much. Poison/dragon maybe. And three, finally a poison type legendary! Because why should it be the only type without one? And lets stop having poison types only used by the villain team. That and dark are always the favourites, and I understand that they're associated with evil, but seriously! Oh, also, fairy type. I think poison should be super-effective against it. I don't have a clue what its battle properties will be, but that would make sense to me. Wait.....

Is Yvetal a poison/dragon?

Ghost-Because I've had an idea. Also, I'm quite liking the purple. There are very few ghosts, in part because it's very hard to come up with decent ghost designs. But what about the ghosts of pokemon? Like Shedinja. I'm fully in favour of them only coming out in one place, like Lavender Town, but they should have things like ghost Blissey with normal/ghost typing. Problem is, it only works with single-type pokemon. Also, are they new pokemon or new formes? They also haven't finished with the ghost stories yet. There is so much they can do there, especially if they go to Russia. The dead pokemon thing is the germ of an idea, but they need to do something with ghost, because it's a bit like dark's younger brother at the moment, which is a bad place to be.

 

Fire-yes, people love fire, and the fire type is one of the most used pokemon types for competitive battle. It's also received 5 legendaries (Moltres, Ho-oh, Heatran, Victini and Reshiram)  up to Gen V, several of which make excellent sweepers.But there aren't enough of them. Fire must be hard to design for, but that abstract, dangerous and powerful nature means surely more fire-type legendaries make sense. And anyway, they usually just shove a flame on an animal. More of that, please.

The Gym leaders part 2

When you have beaten the champion your rival (who will be the opposite sex from you) rushes into your house to meet you and says there's a huge situation in some mountain somewhere. Xerneas, along with female gym leaders Viola, Alice, Alison and Zelda (the psychic type mother in the final gym) is fighting against Yvetal and male gym leaders Zap, George, Michael and Richard ( Zelda's dark-type husband) in the ultimate battle of the sexes. In the battle, all of the gym leaders' pokemon are knocked out, and the battle comes down to the two legendaries, who are evenly matched until Mewtwo's new forme, who was mutated by evil Team Sky and escaped, intervenes and stops the fight. The two pokemon, weakened, are captured. In Y, Xerneas is captured by Alice, who as players may have guessed has always wanted to train fairy types leaving Yvetal to you. In X, Yvetal goes to Michael, and you get Xerneas. You can battle the other legendary once per day by going to Michael or Alice's gym. Mewtwo flees, and you must track it down. But that's a story from another time.

Gym Leaders

Again, this is ideas...I'll use Viola's name for my version of her, but it'll be my design. This is my idea of how the gym leaders may figure in the story.

First we meet Viola, the shy, slightly nerdy bug type leader in her mid-teens. When taken down she giggles and says she thinks you may grow strong enough to "bug" the champion, then sends you away with your badge.
In the next town we get to another gym, and find the excitable Ibiza raver leader, who refuses to give his real name and only goes by Zap. He tells you that you are why he swapped the clubs for the gym.
Following Zap is Alice, who specialises in the normal type. She is an adolescent, and very girly. Her gym resembles an enchanted castle. She thanks you for a magical battle.
The fourth battle is your first experience of a sky battle, against flying gym leader George. He is the oldest ever gym leader, and a WWII veteran. He is quiet and uses a lot of strategy, but does not make for a very difficult battle. He salutes you as you leave.
The newly strong-against-fairy poison-type gym follows. The girl, Alison is a sort of emo/scene kid, and cries when you beat her, like Whitney but less........preppy. It later transpires she went to school with Whitney and hated her.
Dora runs a gym specialising in steel types. She openly insults you before the battle, and afterwards tells you you were lucky to get the badge.
Michael, Alison's brother, leads the next gym, the ice gym. When you lose you have to go back to Alison's gym to fight them in a double battle before you are granted the badge.
Finally you go into a gym where 20 trainers await you. You must identify the three leaders by speaking to them, having been given clues by the trainers you have to battle in a similar way to black tower/white treehollow. There turn out to be three, two parents and a son, who specialise in dark, psychic and ghost types, and challenge you to either a triple or a rotation battle. This battle is very difficult, but having successfully won the badge you can proceed to the pokemon league. But the gym leaders are not finished yet.....

Are we being lied to?

Gamefreak is toying with us. Virtually every pokemon has some connection to sound, from Noivern to Parting Remark to Fletchling to Battle Cry to the somewhat tenuous link to a tuning fork in Yvetal. And yet we're being drawn away from the idea of a sound type, with Noivern and Fletchling both having conmfirmed double typing and the moves belonging to pokemon with confirmed typing. This leaves two possibilities: one, we're being lied to, and all of these things will be sound type, including Yvetal. Sound  is, in the heads of Gamefreak, quite a masculine thing, so may make sense for Yvetal's typing. But when they released the first fairy type, Sylveon they released it with no typing, rather than faking it, and anyway I don't quite see the interactions of the sound type with other types, because it's not really either natural or abstract like other types. And that means a helluva lot more reshuffling, so much it'd be baffling to players. Which leads me to the second possibility: They're doing this deliberately, to send bloggers like me wild with cries of "The sound type! The sound type!" If this is all the sound there is, then the fact they've released it now means they're doing just that. Let's face it, a bit of speculation is good for business pre-launch. That's what I think is happening. If they've deliberately released fake information, I don't think i'm the only fan who'd be furious.

Barely a post

Just a little redesign, people. Tell me waht you think. 10 points if you can identify the inspiration

The overused types

OK, I'm gonna go back to something I said yesterday, about how tired I am of water types. I love water-type pokemon, but over 1/6 of all pokemon are water-type, and I'm bored now. Water is the most common type up to Gen V, and has been paired with 15 of the 16 other types it could be. There's a reason for that, it's easy. Any seabound animal is automatically a water type, and with a huge amount of the earth's species living in water that gives them a lot of choice for design. Virtually all of the water type pokemon make sense, and they're easy designs, especially with the necessity for pokemon to be able to use moves like surf, dive, waterfall and whirlpool. By the way, the one type water has never been paired with is fire, which makes sense because how? Scald, in Gen V, was the closest water and fire came to being "friends." But a fire/water design is still very tricky. I thought long and hard about how fire and water would be compatible and scald is the key. It's a steam cloud pokemon, with the ability levitate, and the ability to learn moves like scald, flamethrower and smokescreen. I kinda like that idea. So for Gen VI let's have Froakie and its evolutions; let's have Skrelp, who I think is really cool; let's have Clauncher as the token surf-slave, and let's add my steam cloud. Maybe a usable water/bug pokemon, because Surskit has great typing but awful stats.And really that will do for water types. By all means add some earlier pokemon to irritate the heck out of me make surfing more interesting, but don't make another game that's so water-heavy.

Ditto flying.  It's another type that has been paired with 15 types, and again over 1/8 of all pokemon are flying types. Again, I love flying types, I am waaaaay too lazy not to always have a Fly user in my party, and I think some of them are really cool, despite me having a bit of a bird phobia. Tornadus was the first ever pure flying-type pokemon, which is surprising until you remember that all the pokemon that would be considered pure flyers and not things like dragons and...whatever Skarmory is are birds, and therefore normal type as well. But surely Togetic and Togekiss should've been pure flying. But there's the thing. With Fletchling being announced for Gen VI, that makes 25 normal/flying type pokemon, and as I said here, it's not very good typing. Also, bug/flying, and dragon/flying. Both have been announced for X and Y and they desperately need to be retired. Dragon/flying in particular is a horrible waste of dragon typing, unless the flying type resists the fairy type (here's hoping, flying type's really not very good defensively.) Also, some of the flying type pokemon, unlike the water type, make no sense as being flying type. Hi, Gyarados.Mind you, with the advent of sky battles (coming later) it makes the flying type more tantalising and basically makes it have its own battle tier. But really, let's not go flying crazy again, Gamefreak.

Thirdly, I'm going to go to the fifth most-common type, because there's no fighting the normal type in second, and the grass type in fourth annoys me a lot less than the type in fifth, which I think is overused. Since this is in pink, you probably already know what it is. It's...psychic. Yes, people will hate me for this, but I don't like psychic very much. Other people seem to love psychioc types. I think it's kinda weak. The thing I really want for the psychic type is simple. NO MORE LEGENDARIES! There are 14 psychic-type legendaries, which is too many. Mewtwo's new form will almost certainly be at least part psychic type. Let that be it. No more psychic-type legendaries who can hit hard and not take a hit. One word: Darkrai. We just don't need any more. 15 will do.

Feedback

I would love to get some comments from people for soem feedback on how to improve the blog, because I'm aware that at times I can be a bit long-winded. Also, ultimately I want to write blogs people want to read, and since I don't know all that many pokemon fans near me, I could do with some of you giving me feedback. Thanks
Pokerman

Guys and Claydols

OK, first thing to say is that I am not sexist. These are observations on the game, and on what Gamefreak has done, and not my opinions on the genders.
Something's just occured to me. Really, since Xerneas and Yvetal were released, I've been thinking that they'd be the masculine and feminine pokemon.You can read more about that here. Really pokemon doesn't, or rather didn't, have recognisably masculine or feminine types. There are certainly pokemon mostly associated with one gender, mostly with girls, but no type is really exclusive to either gender. Until now. The fairy type is largely a girly type, one that I don't fancy using much. All of the pokemon that have so far been confirmed as fairy type are ones that most people consider girly, and male trainers don't tend to use. All my speculations about the tiny teasers of X and Y we've had are coming together. Xerneas will be the girly pokemon, or something like that, and have fairy typing. Fairy/steel has kinda gone out the window, because steel is quite a masculine type. So that remains to be seen. But what does this mean for Yvetal? I haven't a clue. Becaause if any types are considered masculine they're probably steel and fighting, and Yvetal doesn't look like either. But another more boy-favoured type is fire, and doesn't Yvetal look very much like a fire type? Which is drawing me down the route of fire/dragon or fire/dark as Yvetal's typing. I think fire will be super-effective against fairy types by the way. It looks fire/dark, and Reshiram does very well in the fire/dragon mascot legendary pokemon thank you very much, but fire/dragon makes sense in terms of battling Xerneas on an even ground. Poison keeps floationg by my head but I can't place it at all. Fire/poison? Interesting. And the other possibility is that there will be another new type. But what? The problem is, very clear lines are drawn for boys as kids as to what is and isn't considered manly enough, whereas girls can get away with doing anything boys do. I can't believe that. But I don't know exactly what to believe.....

I'd love to hear people's opinions. Am I right? Wrong? Insane? Comment and tell me what you think. But please no sexism.

Panic over

Just to say that I'm less worried about the fairy type than I once was. Check out this video from E3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bki3s5LDF1c
At 1:25 it clearly shows a Hydreigon taking a super-effective STAB fairy attack and not being knocked out. Now, Hydreigon is a stronger pokemon than Gardevoir, but I'm still inclined to think this means it's taking 2x damage rather than 4x, or that the move in question is pitiful. I'm not convinced they'd add a weak type to counter such a strong one, which leads me to believe the fairy type deals neutral damage to the dark type, not the super-effective I had feared. Because I am a dragon and dark type trainer mostly. I just love those types and I'm not happy about fairy taking down dragon.

You'd Better Shape Up

The song from Grease is now playing in your head, no? You're welcome. Anyway, this is just a word about some themes I noticed in the new pokemon. Some of them might mean something. Some don't.

First, as I've said, there's a lot of this kinda brown-and-black-mixed-with-brights colouring about, enough that I think it's fair to say it'll be a theme among the new pokemon. That's really cool. It looks great. That's all I'm gonna say on that.

The other one is more complicated. The other one is on geometry. Look through the pictures I've posted of the new pokemon. Almost all of them feature some sort of out-of-place geometric shape, and there are a huge variety of shapes shown. Circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, parallelograms, ellipses, diamonds, arrows and even a parabola. Hold that thought. We'll get there.

Let's look at Helioptile. Yes, that giant picture of him up there.There are triangles between its eyes and on its ears and ellipses in its eyes. In 3 dimensions its head is very round, its tail is very pointed and its entire body is shaped a bit like a parabola. Heck, even its signature move is Parabola Charge. A parabola, stop me if I'm going too fast, is a graph of the function fx=ax^2n. It's a quadratic graph, and in its simplest form it looks like this...

Yes, it thoroughly confuses me how much Helioptile, as well as pokemon like Spewpa, Noivern, Fletchling (look by its eyes) are so full of geometric shapes they look like half-finished Mickey-Mouse drawings. What does it all mean?

PS, if you can find all the shapes I mentioned then you're as big a geek as me.