Pokemans

Am I finally going to talk about Poekmon Black version?

No.

But don't worry.

Before I review it, I want to rant about the new Pokemans themselves.

Initially I didn't really like them. I am resistant to change. So introducing pokemans that are 5th overall in HP; 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 10th in attack, 2nd fastest; 1st, 2nd and 5th in Sp. Attack ... It seems a bit too much. So many new sweepers in the competitive department.

Also their appearances were very meh initially. But playing through the games, there are some cool ones.

But this rant is about something else. So many missed opportunities this Gen (and previous ones) with regards to evolutions.

Three that stuck out to me immediatly:

Luvdisc -> Alomomola

Why isn't this a thing?! Luvdisc is soooooooo useless. Sure, wild ones hold heart scales, a semi-useful item. But it is an awful Pokemon stats wise. Alomomola is not. It is actually quite good with the 5th highest base HP out of all pokemans. This would make people actually care a bit about Luvdisc..... But no such luck.

Tauros -> Bouffalant

Another obvious one. Tauros isn't much worse/better than the new one. He is faster but has a slightly less HP and Attack. But who the hell is going to use Tauros when afro-bull 9000 is available.

Cacnea -> Cacturne (top) or Maractus (bottom)

A bit more complicated than the last ones. But it is a parallel to two others. Initally Snorunt only evolved into Glalie, and Ralts only into Gardevoir. But in 4th gen a female Snorunt can evolve into Forslass with a shiny stone. And a male Ralts can evolve into a Gallade via shiny stone. So why not this family too?! WHY! I know there is like a billion different fish and butterflies, but does there need to be more than one cactus family?

Natu -> Xatu -> Sigilyph

This one is a stretch. But I kinda associate them. Xatu is like a totem pole kinda thingy. Sigilyph is sorta in the same style. Just seems to fit for me.

Here are some that aren't associated with 5th gen.

These first few aren't my own. Got them off the internets.

The Magikarp vs Dratini one is cool. But I have other ideas about Magikarp.

There is no need for two similarly looking stupid ugly fish that evolve into sth cool(ish).

Also Shuckle needs an evolution, so I can equip him with an eviolite.

So I'm actually doing it

Round One, Game One: Tyranitar vs Dragonair

It is unfortunate I can't do this in two columns side by side, but it is still doable.

So Tyranitar is one of the pre-tourney favorites, which is unfortunate, because I really like Dragonair. Well see how I close it is with the criterium I presented.

Name:

Tyranitar- Name is derived from tyrant and Tyrannosaurus, the second coolest dinosaur (the first being Ankylosaurus obviously). And Tyranitar sorta does have a dinosaur vibe to it.

Dragonair- Dragon, duh! Also, one theory is that it originated from the word debonair meaning graceful and sophisticated. I know Dragonair doesn't look like a dragon, but I'll get to that later.

Dinosaurs > Dragons. Dinosaurs actually existed and they are ridonculous.

Classification:
Tyranitar- The armor pokemon. Really? That's it. Tyranitar deserves better. I mean if he was an Ankylosaurus it would make more sense.... Also, apparently Donphan also is the armor pokemon. Comparing one of the greats to Donphan is inexcusable.

Dragonair- The dragon pokemon. Simple. Good.

Dragon > Armor

More pictures!

Pokedex entries:
So another new one I decided to use. I won't read out all the entries, but it'll be sorta a summary of the best points. Also, the pokedex entry for Magikarp wins Black and White (for now, since I haven't seen all of them yet).

Tyranitar- He can take down mountains and maps must be redrawn after he rampages. And apparently it can't be harmed by any attacks. Love how pokedex entries exaggerate. Also, Tyrannitar is only 6'7". How is it going to take down a mountain. But ignoring the extremes of the pokedex, its entry is badass. Way badass.

Dragonair- It can change the weather at will and fly without wings. Now that is even more badass than moving mountains. The weather! Sirius shit right there.



Appearance

Two polar opposites I guess.

Tyrannitar is badass looking. Like a Boss. The only flaw is probably that his arms are a bit on the short side (which makes a bit of sense if he is based somewhat on T-Rex.).
While Dragonair is elegant and regal. Such a simple design and beauty is achieved.

Tough to compare the too, but I think I am going to go with badassness.

Shiny:

Tyrannitar is a boring beige and the blue part turns purple.  Very meh.

Dragonair is an elegant pink. Pink and Blue, very appropriate.

Pokepeople:

I guess with theses it is mostly what the person looks like. With some there is also cool composition. This one goes to Tyrannitar, the Dragonair lady is sorta boring as not elegant enough to do justice to the poke.


Other Evolutions:
Both are three stage pokes, easy to compare

Tyranitar-
First stage is Larvitar which is like a mini-Tyranitar:

All good.
But then the 2nd stage is Pupitar. It just looks dumb. Well not all that dumb, it's got a cool spiky head.

Dragonair-
1st stage is Dratini, which is like a mini-Dragonair.

Solid.

And then the 3rd stage (Dragonair is the 2nd stage. With some it isn't the final form that's the coolest. It happens, especially with the 5th gen it seems. I prefer the first stages with many pokes) explains the name origin- Dragonite which actually looks like a dragon. Why they made him orange is beyond me. But he is awesome. More awesome than Pupitar atleast.

Funny how both these evolutionary tracks have one stage that is vastly different.


Competitive:

Well, Tyranitar wins this by default, since Dragonair isn't a final stage. In comparison with Dragonite it is actually pretty interesting. They both have the same overall stats (600 total base stats) which is tied for 2nd best out of all the non-legendary pokemon (Slaking is first). The main difference is that Tyranitar has more HP and Defense while Dragonite has Speed (and Sp. Atk, but that doesn't really matter).

Type wise Dragonite is a bit better. They both have a 4x weakness- Dragonite with ice and Tyranitar with fighting. Fighting is much more common competitively. Also Tyranitar is weak to earthquake while Dragonite is immune.

They are both standard Sweepers (high attack, try to kill everything with strong moves). Move-sets aren't very interesting.

The deciding factor is that Dragonite is inferior to Salamance who has the same type combo of Dragon Flying. Salamance lacks Defense but has higher speed, making it a better sweeper. Tyranitar has a very good ability which causes (almost) permanent sandstorm. One other pokemon has this ability, but Tyranitar is much better. So competitively Tyranitar is vastly...well maybe not vastly, but superior.


Nostaliga factor:

Well, I didn't get to use either of them on my team of 6 against the Elite Four which is unfortunate. Though I am correcting that mistake with Tyranitar in Black when I face the Elite Four again.

A special little thing that only Dragonair gets:
My first Pokemon trading card.

I still have it in a separate plastic case.


So to recap:
Name:                Tyranitar     
Classification:     Dragonair
Pokedex:           Dragonair
                         Dragonair

Appearance:      Tyranitar
Shiny:                Dragonair
Pokepeople:      Tyranitar
Evolutions:         Dragonair
                         Tyranitar

Competitive:      Tyranitar

Nostalgia:          Dragonair gets a point
It's actually a 6 v 3 for Dragonair, but not all of them are worth the same. Shiny and evolutions sort of go together. Hence why there are sub-divisions and those group winners.

Overall winnar is:

Somewhat unfortunate Dragonair had to lose in the first round, but thus is life. In the end I'll give my top 5 or 10 in a non-specific order in case some of my favs go up against each other early.

Next round will be Wednesday.

Superspecialawesome Battle of the Ultimate Challange: Round 1

is delayed.

Today I was going to do the first match-up in best pokemon evar bracket, but I found out some horrible news. Also I am lazy.

Today one of the greatest voices of recent times died.

Nate Dogg

He didn't really have any great hits on his own, but he was featured on a lot of amazing songs. He usually just sang in the chorus and how glorious those choruses were. He has such a unique voice, seems almost auto-tuned.

To those that say rappers aren't singers, I say yes, but Nate Dogg has had the voice of an Angel. Every hip-hop/rap song should have featured him somewhere. He was only 41 which is very unfortunate. Also unfortunate that I am unfamiliar with his solo work

Here is some of his work with other artists where he takes the back seat, but still rocks it like a boss:

Regulator

Shake That

Til' I Collapse

Next Episode

Soooooo amazing. The voice!

Also some changes to the pokemon thing.

I'll be doing it twice a week: Wednesday and Saturday.

Also, more criteria, so the deciding factors:

Name

Classification

Appearance

Shiny

Appearance of Other evolutions 

Concept art- there is this one set of almost all the pokemon, where they are with a person who looks/is dressed similar. I call the set pokepeople.

Compettive usefulness

Uniqueness of movesets

Winner of head-to-head

So there, Round 1 will be Saturday

March Madness

So apparently there is a college basketball tournament or bracket or sth. It has to do with sports, so why would I know?

And I also found my picture collection that I thought forever lost.

Alos Pokemon Black and White came out recently which I am picking up this weekend.

So in combination of those two facts, I made a bracket of the best pokemon evar!
So to make it even sorta, I picked 8 out of each of the 4 generations (being unfamiliar with the 5th). It is somewhat unfair, because 2nd gen > 1st gen > 3rd gen > 4th gen (maybe 4th > 3rd gen, but I am not as attached to the newer pokemans), so giving them each 8 sort of skews it. But whatever.

So to decide the winner in a match-up I will use 5 categories:

Name- Does it sound cool? How is it derived (like Blastoise- blast + tortoise)?

Classification- Like Blastoise is  the turtle pokemon, Mightyena is the bite pokemon (wtf is that?!)

Appearance- Badass, cool, wtf?, and cute (though there isn't any of that in the top 32).
Compare different sprites where they both exist in the same  generation. and also very important (for some) is the Shiny.

Evolutions- How cool do the evolutions/pre-evolutions/associated evolutions look.
Good evolutions > no evolutions > bad looking evolutions

Competitive battling- usefulness and uniqueness. Not necessarily which one is the best, being a hipster I don't usually like using the OU (overused) pokemon, so my teams consist of the not best pokemon.

Also, with the help of random numbers, I made up the bracket. I won't show it yet, so the pokemon involved can be a surprise, but after the 1st round, then I can post what it looks like to show that I am not cheating or sth.

So I'll do 1 match-up a week starting next week.

Pokemon of the Week #2

I sincerely apologize, because somehow my picture collection has almost disappeared. I still got a few. I'll eventually go back and update this post when I get new ones. And this segment will have to wait a while probably, as I try to obtain new pics.

So technically I picked Turtwig....it's a better pick than Skarmory, but still not exciting. So I realize that this isn't going to work: I'm not going to get the likes of Dunsparce and Quagsire every week. So I'll do this more systematically. Starting with, appropriately, the starters.

So this week we have the first 9 pokemon in the pokedex.

When I played Red version, I picked Squirtle, because that's the best choice of course. Many people will probably say that Charizard > Blastoise, but that's false. (Well, technically one on one, Blastoise wins beacause water>fire, but Blastoise wins just because he is awesome)

Also, the 2nd form for Squirtle is WARtortle. All Charmander gets is Charmeleon.

Shiny wise, Charizard is cooler. He is black, I call it Charkoal (hahahaha, I'm hilarious), Blastoise just turns pinkish. Definitly not as cool.

I would insert epic concept art of both pokemon, but alas, my collection is gone *sad face

I guess competative battling wise, Charizard is better- he has better attack and a more diverse moveset, while Blastoise has to settle with being an underused "bulky" water pokemon (has a lot of health and decent defense) so instead of using his massive cannons, you just stall with toxic.

So all this talk about Charmander -> Charizard and Squirtle ->Blastoise , one may ask, what about Bulbasaur?
I think this picture sums it up:

No one likes Bulbasaur.

I'm also going to start another new segment, which I'll try to do regularly on Thursdays. Be ready!

Pokémon of the Week #1

So, with inspiration from a friend, and in the honor of the new Pokémon games (Black and White versions) being released this year, I am starting a weekly segment. I'll try to do this every Monday. We'll see if I can be consistent. 

If you think this segment is dumb and doesn't interest you, then you can just go hang yourself, because Pokémon is awesome.

I'll be using a random number generator to determine the pokémon. To save time, I won't take each one individually, say a separate post for Kadabra, but rather all associated evolutions/pre-evolutions Abra and Alakazam as well..... 

I'll just express my opinion on the pokémon- competitive battle viability, coolness, shiny-ness, etc and show off funny and cool pictures of the chosen one(s). Warning, some pokémon I don't care aboot at all...say Luvdisc or crap like that, so the posts will be short. Let's just hope that the RNG goddess is in my favor.

And this week it is........

#227

 

Skarmory!!!

BOOOOOO!!!!!!

O well, at least it isn't Cherubi or whatever. 

Skarmory is semi-decent. It has a unique type of steel/flying. A solid type combo for battling. It is used often.....way too often. Being the hipster that I am, my policy when I play(ed) shoddy battle, was not to use any extremely over used pokémon like Skarmory, Blissey, Garchomp..... unless they were really, really cool like Tyrannitar..... he is sooooo badass. This way, at least the opponents would be surpirsed. True, I lost a lot, but it was still fun being unique with pokémon like Sableye.


Anyways, back to

2nd gen pokemon (Gold/Silver/Crystal). Considered using, ended up not using, already having a flying type in my party. Also, in the same game, it was catchable in the same area as Gligar. For those of you who don't know, Gligar is awesome and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Skarmory

Uhhhh...it's shiny is the dumb puke-green one, so that's no fun.

Sort of a boring one this time, as was to be expected....the numbers are not in my favor. Try this a couple more times, see what happens