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.

....To the ridiculous

There still aren't many pokemon on this list that I hate. It's just that there are some problems with all of them. That said, if all of the 100-140 pokemon in X and Y were to reflect the pokemon we've already seen in quality I'd be thrilled. First up is....

6) Skrelp-The Pseudo-Seaweed Pokemon

Height:1"8

Weight:7.3kg

Type:Poison/water

Good typing, allowing the water type to beat grass, and the concept's pretty cool, the idea that it pretends to be seaweed to poison opponents. A great idea. The brown/purple/blue colour combo is really ugly, and so is the entire design but I think that's deliberate. When I first saw this it was 9th or 10th but it's steadily climbed, and I'm not even sure it's not top 5. It uses Sludge Bomb, that's standard. And it could maybe evolve. I doubt it but it could. It's 6th, but only because I can't be bothered changing the last post to make it 5th.

7) The Vivillion line

Scatterbug-The Powder Blowing Pokemon

Height:1"00

Weight:2.5kg

Type:Bug

It's an unevolved bug pokemon. It's never, ever gonna be any use at all in battle. So let's look at design. It was always gonna look like either Caterpie or Weedle. So they've, cleverly I think, made it a bit of both. And finally, after all my complaints, bug types do come in black. I love the black and neutral colouring (3rd time) and I think it's pretty good looking as bugs go. It looks more modern than you'd expect. I like it a lot.

Spewpa-Also The Powder Blowing Pokemon

Height:1"00

Weight:8.4kg

Type:Bug

Still not gonna be any use to anyone. It kinda looks like a Larvesta in mourning gear, but I don't hate it. Yeah, the black/neutral/orange/white colour combo is really cool. The shapes in it, I'll save for the next post, but there's something interesting. Again, nice design.

Vivillion-The Scales Pokemon

Height:3"11

Weight:17kg

Type:Bug/flying

Despite not being the type for "pretty" things or pink, I love this design. Butterflies are a little symbolic thing between me and someone I love, so whenever possible I like using them, and this one is nice. I don't get how we go from brown and orange to pink and blue but bug types tend to do that. Struggle bug has been confirmed for it, but that's not a move I like much. Bug/flying is the other type combo that's very overdone, and I'm bored of it. Again, it's not great typing. I'd have thought bug/fairy. There's apparently a "big secret" to do with its scales. How big? This better not be a silly little thing in the anime. Put your money where your mouth is, Gamefreak. But colour me interested.

By the way, there are two big reasons why these are down in 7th place. One, and I know this is immature, Vivillion looks like it has an erection. And two, where I come from "spew" means "vomit." Why not Spupa? It will always be the vomit larva pokemon to me.

8) Gogoat-The Ride Pokemon

Height:5"6
Weight:91.0kg

Type:Grass

It's fine. It's a pretty standard grass type. It is the first goat pokemon ever, but that's only a small point in its favour. It's just so standard

"But you can ride it"

This is true, and if it were the only pokemon you could ride I may like it more, but now that Rhyhorn and possibly any number of other pokemon have also been confirmed as ride-able it's not as cool. Yawn. Next!

9) Noivern-The Sonic Pokemon

Height:4"11

Weight:85.0kg

Type:Dragon/flying

I've changed my mind! Bring back the boring goat! Because this may be the ugliest pokemon ever. It's hideous, in colour and design. The speakers on its head I get but don't like at all. Boomburst may be a cool move but it won't work at all in double/triple battles. Dragon/flying is yet another overused typing, and with the weakening of dragon in Gen VI it's not even all that good any more. This pokemon ended up being both weird and dull, which is an achievement. The only thing I hate more is...

10) Clauncher-The Water Gun Pokemon

Height:1"08

Weight:8.3kg

Type:Water

Well here it is. I have an almost irrational hatred for this one. It's just so hard to get excited about yet another standard fish pokemon with standard water typing, the most common in the game, and average looks. In fact, this could be a joke. Because this feels like a collage, taking parts of every other water-type pokemon and combining them in an ugly way. But wait! It has Crabhammer! You mean the move with pretty good power, subpar PP and accuracy and a high critical hit ratio. That crabhammer? That's nothing to get excited about. Don't you look so snootily at me, you idiot! You're nothing special.

From the sublime......

OK, this will be a little different. These are all pokemon that a lot has been announced about, in fact in some cases virtually everything. Movepool, we don't know, so I'll assume each pokemon has moves typical for its typing, and may talk about any move they have announced. Also, this will be a countdown, from my favourites to my least favourites. In this post will be the 5 I liked most.

1) Litleo-Classification Unknown

Height:1"12 (isn't that 2" ?)

Weight:13.5kg

Type:Fire/normal

OMG I WANT ONE I WANT ONE! Is that unprofessional? OK, fine. I think it is utterly adorable. It is a really nice design, incorporating perfectly the looks of normal types (recognisable animal, neutral colours, soft lines) and fire types (spikes, sharp lines, orange, and cuteness in the first evolution.) In fact, it's just overtaken Houndour as my favourite ever non-legendary design (yes, I like fire, black and dogs.) Its typing.....well, it's unique, which is good because as you'll see later I'm tired of the same old typings. But I'm not sure it's necessarily good typing. Instantly violating my rule of not speculating on movepools, I suspect it may have access to a fairly large one, including STAB fire moves and some hugely powerful STAB normal moves. But that's about it. I mean, with a defensively vulnerable primary type like fire, especially considering fire type's generally poor defences, the last thing it wants is normal's fighting weakness. Also rock type isn't any less deadly for either type. Steel is helped along. And the ghost immunity.......may be useful, if.... No. Its typing is terrible. If it wasn't SO cute I'd have dropped it straight down to the bottom half of the list. But anyway, I'm hoping it may evolve to shed its normal type in favour of a more useful type, much like Fletchling has been revealed to do.. I'm pretty sure it will evolve, and that it'll have a flaming mohican. How cool is that? Punk-rock fire puppy may be even cooler than Litleo.

2) Pancham-The Naughty Pokemon

Height:2"

Weight:8.0kg
Type:Fighting

OK, this was one of the original 4, and my favourite of them. It's a KUNG FU PANDA! It's also really cute, and again I just wanna give it a cuddle, which isn't like me at all. Again (count how many times I say it) I love the black and neutral colouring, I like the face it's making for a baby fighter, and love the concept that it's a little troublemaker who evolves into a serious fighter. I love one line of the bio, where it says "It tries to intimidate its opponents by glaring intensely (although this is rarely successful.)" How cute is that? And the leaf is a nice touch. It may evolve to get a second type-grass one would assume, and I'd be fine with it doing that or with it not. I'd actually maybe rather it didn't if grass is the option. A friend said it may evolve to fight with a bamboo sword, as in Kendo. While I really like this idea, I also think martial arts are a bit played out, and would hope this would be the last. But yeah, I can see Pancham being a favourite.

3) Helioptile-The Generating Pokemon

Height:1"8

Weight:6.0kg
Type:Normal/electric

Again, really nice design. Yellow is my least favourite colour, but I can't object to it being used to represent the electric type, even if it would be nice to see them break out of the colour=type rut with certain types (fire being the other big one.) Again it incorporates recognisable normal elements as well. I thought before any designs were announced that reptiles were really what was left to do. The almost rabbity elements take it to a more cute and Pokemon-y (it's a word now) place. Also with them having announced Parabola Charge as a new move (a great idea, given the nature of electricity I'm surprised they didn't do a healing electric-type move long ago) I like that the shape is a bit like a parabola, but not so much that it looks ridiculous. You're expecting me to hate the typing. Well, I don't. Like I said, I don't like the idea of adding normal typing to defensively vulnerable types. But with the electric type having only one weakness, and above-average defenses, it would be considered a pretty good type defensively, at least by me. So adding one weakness in exchange for a new, albeit fairly esoteric, resistance and the ability to get STAB on hyper beam and giga impact really works for me. I mean, a normal/dragon pokemon (why not Altaria?) has been high on my list for that very reason for a while. Also it gets STAB normal-effective hits on all 17 existing types. It may evolve, but if it doesn't I wouldn't be "shocked." That said, I heard grass/electric somewhere, and it's a nice idea. Maybe not a great pokemon, but I'm keen to see some more new-typed pokemon, especially with the fairy type looking likely to take prominence here.

4)The Fletchling Line

Fletchling-The Japanese Robin Pokemon

Height:1"

Weight:1.7kg

Type:Normal/flying

Frankly disappointing. The last thing ANYONE wanted for gen VI was a new normal/flying bird evolution line. I mean, wasn't Pidgey, Spearow, Farfetch'd, Doduo, Togetic, Taillow, Chatot, Rufflet, Hoothoot, Pidove and Starly enough. Fletchling becomes the 25th pokemon with this typing. IT'S NOT EVEN GOOD TYPING! It's just laziness, that they couldn't come up with proper flying pokemon that weren't birds. It's really cute, maybe the best of the typical bird-y pokemon. The red-orange and grey looks nice, and the arrow theme in the tail and name (Fletch makes me think arrows) intrigues me. But I was still really bored and not all that interested to see what was coming next. Until this happened...

Talonflame-The Deterioration Pokemon

Height:3"11

Weight:24.5kg

Type:Fire/flying

Now this is cool. It looks great, like a fiery bird of prey. The arrows are still there. It looks really strong. Again, I'm gonna mention movepool. It's been revealed to have Brave Bird. That's not a surprise. What interests me more is that the details mention kicking. Fighting moves? That's cool. And it'll have fire moves, including Flame Charge, to play with. It's been confirmed to have high speed, possibly very high speed, which is good news for a pokemon with this typing. In fact, if Fletchling wasn't so pathetic it could be higher on the list, because it's pretty kickass. Fire/flying means it joins two other pokemon, Ho-oh and Moltres. Yes, they're two of the least used and least popular legendaries but still. The arrows are still there, which makes me really curious. But there is one other thing that really creeps me out, and that is its classification as "Deterioration pokemon." That should surely be a ghost. It could be a carrion-eater, in which case maybe, but it doesn't look like one. That's full-on creepy.

5)Flabebe-Classification unknown

Height:0"04
Weight:0.1kg
Type:Fairy

Yes, it's super cute. I like the idea of it having the flower, and the idea that they have different flowers, although I wonder how far they can take that in practice. It also suggests some connection between the fairy type and the grass type, which makes sense. Apparently it can draw power from the flower. That sounds like a new move to me. Cool. It also has Fairy Wind, another new move, and that's pretty expected. Flabebe will be the smallest pokemon ever, and is tied for lightest with Gastly and Haunter. It looks weak though, and worse, it doesn't look like it's likely to evolve. It's a nice idea, and a good harbinger that the fairy type will be cool and innovative, but it's all a bit too cutesy for me.

 

Starters for Nintendo

The other pokemon that were revealed before Corocoro in May were the starters. They're kinda cool. I could go in Pokedex order, or alphabetical order, but since they're both the same, who cares? We're starting with...

Chespin

Chespin is the grass-type starter. It's actually one of my favourite grass-type starters ever in terms of looks. It's actually kinda nice not to just see the same-old same-old. Venusaur, Meganium and Torterra are all big mammals with plants growing on them. Sceptile and Serperior are both big snake/lizards. I can't guarantee that it won't evolve into a big plant but it shouldn't. It's also REALLY cute, like as in seriously cute. It's one of only two starter pokemon that has ever made me shout "I want one!" with the other being Cyndaquil. It has been confirmed as pure grass-type, making Bulbasaur the only unevolved starter to boast two types. But obviously it will evolve, and hopefully when it does it will have a second type. There have only been two so far that have, and they've been grass/poison Venusaur and grass/ground Torterra, neither of which is especially good typing. Give grass half a chance, and give it a useful second type. Steel works really well in Ferrothorn but I can't see Chespin becoming a steel type. What I can see happening is grass/rock, like with Cradily. With the exception of Ferrothorn and other grass/steels, all grass-type pokemon and possible new grass type pokemon have at least 3 type weaknesses, and as many as 7. Rock has 4, with 2 resistances, but importantly it's not weak to fire type moves. And offensively it can take on a wide variety of types. It also looks vaguely rock-type. So yes, I think Chespin may be grass/rock type, and I like it.

Vulpix Fennekin

Ok, yes, to address the elephant in the room, it is another fire-type fox. But I've thought about it, and I don't have a problem with that. All starter pokemon have a kind of approachability, almost as if you might see one in real life. That is to say, they're all to a greater or lesser degree based on real animals, and none of them is too left-field. They are, with, one would guess, around 800 pokemon, running out of ideas and having to return to old designs. And foxes are probably the most fire-looking of all pokemon. So as long as Fennekin's evolutions don't look like Ninetails and there's a second type that works and ISN'T fighting, I really don't mind. Anyway, Vulpix gets the cutesy side of fox and Fennekin is more snooty looking. Fire type starters tend to start off cute (again I'm gonna cite Cyndaquil, but also Torchic, Emboar, Charmander and Chimchar) and end up looking kinda tough and really cool. Fingers crossed. Now, having seen Talonflame I doubt very much it'll be fire/flying. Also, it's a fox. If they do a flying-fox pokemon that's actually a fox that flies I'm done with the games. The snooty look almost makes me think dark. That'd be cool, because the first time I do a post about past generations I'll mention Houndoom as one I love. But it could also be ground.Fire/ground is fox-appropriate and great typing, although it will have to deal with a 4x water weakness. But we'll have to see.

Poliwag Froakie

Yes, it IS still funny the second time. But again it's distinctive enough to satisfy me as long as its evolutions are unique. Water starters more than any other type run the gamut of animals, from turtle to crocodile to penguin, two I'm struggling to identify and now a frog. But yeah it's kinda cool and almost a little nerdy-looking. In this case I am pretty sure its evolutions will be water-fighting, unfortunately the same as Poliwrath. If any of them are fairy type, it'll be Froakie I imagine. But I doubt it.

 

Verdict

Yeah, this really does have the potential to be a really good set of starters. If they go exactly with my suggestions (which I highly doubt) I think I'd like Fennekin. But I'll have to see what else comes out before the game.  I never like to make my decisions before I know all the facts.

On the legendaries

Among the first pokemon to be announced for X and Y were the legendaries, Xerneas and Yvetal. As a pair of legendaries I think they are probably the coolest looking other that the sleek, gorgeous, sexy monochrome designs of Zekrom and Reshiram. Even then, they're maybe more unique looking. Yvetal in particular is exactly what I love a pokemon to look like. Xerneas is cool but it looks a bit too much like a gay deer. This also makes it difficult to guess at its typing. But I wondered, and now I suspect, that it's part fairy type. It could be entirely fairy type. But I'm not sure if that'll be the case. For the last two generations, and a lesser part of the one before, the main legendaries have been dual-type dragons. Mind you, Xerneas doesn't look like a dragon at all. Even Shelgon looks more like a dragon than this. And Shelgon doesn't look like a dragon.Edited to add-Had an "of course!" moment last night when I was talking to a friend last night about fairy types. I mentioned Xerneas and he said steel/fairy. I think he's right. Thanks dude!  Yvetal could be a dragon. It really could. In fact, now that I think that Xerneas is probably a fairy, Yvetal is more likely than ever to be a dragon, maybe paired with dark or flying. or it could be dark-flying, a combination I like but feel hasn't been used very well by Honchcrow or Vullaby Someone whose opinion I respect and often agree with pointed out on Youtube that when Yvetal flexes its wings it almost looks like a tuning fork. And? That's just what would happen as it moved. Sound type? I really doubt it, especially with a new normal-type sound move, battle cry, announced today for Shishiko.  If it's not flying type it will have Levitate as its ability. I'd like that. I don't like Pressure as a legend's ability. I'm usually focussed on fast, hot battles that end in 3 turns, so Pressure does nothing for me. I'll say more about sky battles later, but for now I'll just say it's odd that it looks like Yvetal can take part in sky battles, while Xerneas cannot. And finally, on this subject, the concepts. The main legends usually seem to have a corresponding pair of concepts they represent: land and sea; time and space;truth and ideals(?.) In this case I half-think it's masculine and feminine, with X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes being for girls and guys respectively. They do look it as well, with Xerneas being more pretty and cute but still tough looking and Yvetal being strong, sharp and dangerous looking.
Then there's that Mewtwo thing. Corocoro confirmed it as a new Mewtwo forme, calling it the eclair forme. I don't believe for a moment that's its real name. Either way, it's cool and looks a lot like a new mutation of Mewtwo. I'm imagining this means Mewtwo will be catchable in Kalos, and then my best guess would be that there'll be some kind of research lab you can take it to to mutate, or maybe that there'll be another evil team (actually I'm pretty sure of that one) and that they'll try to strengthen Mewtwo leaving you as the player to clean up the mess. I suspect it's still Psychic type. It looks very similar to Mewtwo. But I kinda hope it's not. It would be cool for it to be more than just a slightly-different looking Mewtwo with different stats. Also, I kinda think they're never likely to have another pokemon with 700 base stats, since Arceus is god and all, but as I said in my last post, Mewtwo was absolutely undisputed king of Gen I, and I kinda think it's a shame for that not to be true again in Gen VI. But it's kind of a big deal that the Vatican supports pokemon, and the last thing Gamefreak want to do is end that, so I suspect it'll be high-ish stats, and maybe another interesting twist, like a new ability. They've been very secretive about it, so I think something big's happening.

Just the one new type?

Well E3 11/6/13 confirmed that the fairy type is entering the game. I had hoped it would be light type representing goodness, in the same way as dark type represents evil, but fairy probably works better. Among those pokemon to be incorporated into the fairy type are Gardevoir, Jigglypuff and Marill. I'm not even gonna suggest Clefairy might be another, but surely Blissey will. Anyway, they're sensible and useful pokemon to have as fairy type, especially Gardevoir, who once had a niche until Gallade came along. It's also been confirmed that Sylveon will be fairy type. Who didn't see that coming. I've been pretty sure for weeks either the light type or the fairy type was coming because of Sylveon. I think, even though I tend to prefer cool, masculine-looking pokemon, who specialise in attack (which I doubt fairy will,)  I'll like the fairy type as a type. My other suspicion, which was confirmed , was that fairy would be super-effective against dragons. It was looking back at what happened between Gen I and Gen II that made me suspicious. Psychic types were absolutely deadly, almost uncounterable with the lack of a dark type, immunity to the ghost type and the general awfulness of bug types, and Mewtwo, the best pokemon in terms of stats, was pure psychic-type. Gen II (and indeed Gens III, IV and V) radically improved the bug type, made the ghost-type immunity into a weakness and introduced the dark type. Psychic went from being a defensive nightmare to, in my head, although I know a lot of people disagree with me, one of the weaker types. Gen II also introduced the steel type, which remains at least until Gen V the only type to resist dragon-type moves, which compromised the dragon-type's usefulness as an all-round sweeper. Unlike psychic though, dragon remined at the absolute front of the pack, able to hit 16 types for a huge chunk of damage, owner of incredibly powerful moves, and perhaps most of all defensively killer, resistant to 4 common types and only weak to itself and ice (which people only really use to counter dragon anyway.) Like psychic, it is dragon's turn to fall from grace, although not as far I don't think. My other question concerns the fate of two of my other favourite types, ghost and dark. They are both defensively very solid, and would both make sense as targets for fairy attacks. There may be other types. But I have no evidence there will or won't be.There is still a lot to be confirmed.....