The Ugly Side of Pokemon

When I was in elementary school Pokémon was my life. I remember when the first kid brought Pokémon cards into class. Everyone was amazed and I think we all went home and begged our parents to buy us some, I know I sure did! So when I walked into my classroom the next day with my new starter pack I thought I was going to be the best there ever was! But to my surprise many others had the same starter pack and the same idea. After that period of my life Pokémon has taken a backseat to many of my other gaming interests. I will pick up a new game here and there but I never invest the time and energy into making my Pokémon the best. When Pokémon Go came out it reinvigorated my interest and got me excited for the next games in the series, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. So if you are like me, and you grew up in the privileged generation that experienced the original 150 Pokémon, you can understand me when I say that the new generation of Pokémon absolutely suck!

Ok maybe suck is too harsh but mediocre gives them way too much credit. Starting from the epic Pokémon of the likes of Charizard, a fire breathing dragon and Blastoise, a monster blue turtle with giant guns on its shell only to end up with Charjabug, that is classified as a Battery Pokémon but looks more like a city bus with tusks, and Bruxish that looks like a fish piñata with sharp teeth, just seems lazy. Granted after reaching the sixth generation of games, and 721 unique Pokémon the designers are probably digging deep but it shouldn’t involve turning what supplies they find around the office into Pokémon.

To be fair every generation of Pokémon have had their fair share of loser ones. Even the first generation was tainted by the likes of Mr. Mime who looked like the guy driving the big white van around the neighborhood your parents told you to look out for, and Magikarp who was quite literally the definition of a fish out of water with nothing magical about it until it eventually evolved in Gyarados. Generation III had Luvdisc which looks like a sideways heart and is nearly useless in battle.  Generation V had Garbodor that looks like someone covered a teddy bear in rainbow sprinkles, ate it, and proceeded to vomit it up on the floor and give it a name. You get my point, each generation had a few “mistakes” but the new generation for Pokémon Sun and Moon is filled with them.

Even so there are some really cool looking Pokémon in the new generation. The two legendary Pokémon look really good. Solgaleo is a ferocious looking white lion that looks like it came from some alien planet where epic cat gods rule over all. Lunala is magnificent looking bat Pokémon that has two crescent moon shaped wings that look like they could cut through an entire mountain. But they are legendary Pokémon, they are supposed to look cooler than a cucumber! 

So if you can make them look that good, how the heck do you get so many bad ones? Sandygast is literally a heap of sand with a hole in the middle. It looks like a kid was building a sand castle, got bored, stuck his bright red shovel in the top then roid raged out and shoved his fist in the middle of it. Boom you got a new Pokémon! Wait I know what you are thinking, “Why didn’t they make a sand castle Pokémon?” Good question and it has an answer. They did.

Palossand the sand castle Pokemon that “controls human adults, making them build a sand castle.” HAH those pesky adults got beat by a sand castle. They should have learned from little Billy and defeat it by shoving an angry toddler fist in the middle.

I get it, the game takes place on an island so you want to get all the best an island has to offer, like lazy beaches and swaying palm trees and turn them into Pokémon. So that’s how you get Comfey, which literally looks like a leis I would get from the island natives after I got off the plane in Hawaii. Except the only difference is if Comfey was real I would immediately get crucified by PETA for animal abuse by wearing that poor Pokémon around my neck.

I am sure all this cynicism is getting boring so I will wrap this up after talking about my favorite new Pokémon, Mimikyu. It is labeled as a “Disguise Pokémon” and MimiKYU sounds awfully close to PikaCHU doesn’t it? Well go figure because the crappy dollar store disguise looks like a four year old with Parkinson’s tried to draw Pikachu’s face on a burlap sack with Sharpie.

Pokémon has always held a special place in my heart since I opened my first booster pack. So it makes me upset when I see the developers throwing in the towel on new Pokémon ideas. It gives me the feeling that Pokémon is much more of a cash grab for developers who care more about profits then they do about the fans. Pokémon Sun and Moon is the perfect example of how creativity can be cut from the equation when name brand recognition ensures sales. It is careless and unfortunately Pokémon are not the only victims of lowered standards, so are the fans that have invested their time and money into a series they love.