Pokémon You Simply Gotta Use (Part 7)
PART 7: Meganium - Pichu
Pokémon You Simply Gotta Use (Part 7)
After 3 mainline Pokémon games in Red, Blue and Yellow, plus spinoffs, a booming Trading Card Game and all kinds of merchandise, Pokéfans were still baying for more. Everyone and their grandmother had a Pokémon game. Pokémon was so popular that even those unlikeliest of bedfellows, the schoolteachers and the Satanics, were banning it.
The first Generation couldn’t last forever, of course, and Nintendo and Game Freak followed up with Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, ushering in the second Generation of Pokémon games. And talk about an upgrade: 100 new Pokémon! And the games are in full colour! Or should that be “color”?
Pokémon can now hold berries and other items, there’s a day and night system, you can even make the highly questionable decision of breeding all of your Rattatas with each other. The changes brought about by these games were numerous, and the reception to these games was overwhelmingly positive.
It was a thrill to head through the whole new region of Johto, with a new starter Pokémon and other different monsters picked up along the way. But that didn't mean the old 151 were cast aside - if anything, the Kanto Pokémon would still make up the majority of your team, especially once you traded some of your older companions from the first Generation - an incredible concept at the time.
It's time for us to take a look at all of the fully evolved Pokémon that Generation II brought us, as well as some of those infernal baby Pokémon that never seemed to exist in Kanto, for whatever strange reason. Please do enjoy:
Meganium
A big sort of lizard with antennae, and a flower for a necklace, as you can see. Can't you? Well it doesn't fall into the trap of being part-Poison type like Venusaur did, not to mention the rest of the Grass-type Pokémon in Kanto. That instantly gives Meganium some merit. I don't care if the type got a bit better in Generation II - using Poison is still an absolute shamer. In truth, Meggy here never really made an impact in battle, although it can apparently bring plants to life through its breath alone. Depending on how the weather goes this summer, I may need Meganium to come around and have a look at our flowers. But other than that, I’m afraid I’ll be keeping it well away from my team.
Typhlosion
It's no Charizard, but if Fire-types still get your flame lit, then Typhlosion here will be indispensable to your team. I do very much enjoy its fire scarf. Or is that a muffler? A shawl? Maybe even a veil? Take a quick trip to Hisui in the Legends: Arceus game and you can pick up a Typhlosion with a fetching, ghostly purple muffler-shawl-veil-scarf instead. Whichever Typhlosion you choose, I’m just awfully glad that he managed to open his eyes, at last. Little Cyndaquil could never manage that. Perhaps it starts out blind, like some sort of fire cat. Wait, that’s Litten. Then what’s Cyndaquil? A fire badger? Well, whatever it is, we can always do with cool Fire-types.
Feraligatr
Surprise surprise, I’m very much into water starters. I pick them most of the time, usually because it saves you the ignominy of having to catch a Tentacool and using that as your Surf-monkey. Anyway, Feraligatr. Cool name, despite them clearly running out of vowels. And consonants, and space altogether. The old Game Boys didn’t have much in the way of memory back then. Even if you’re not into Feraligatr as a battler, at least you can live for the day that someone tries to use “Feraligatr” as a word on Countdown. I tried Feraligatr once on Scrabble and my spouse nearly threw me out the window.
Furret
You’ll find most Generations come with their throwaway Normal types like Furret. You know, the ones that evolve once; they’re so commonly found in the region that they border on plague status; and they have stats that would need many courses of anabolic steroids before they approach anything near average. Furret here is the Generation II variant of this particular generic cluster of binary code and Normality. At least Raticate has the Super Fang move. Furret has a body that's so long that it'll get caught in doors if it follows behind you. You'll be forever having to unhook it from its misery, and it’ll wind you both up. It’ll be like when your earphones get caught on door handles. Apologies Furret, but leaving you in the wild is best for us both.
Noctowl
Remember a few seconds ago when I told you that Furret tries and fails to be on par with Raticate? Well, Noctowl tries to be the equivalent to Pidgeot. And Fearow, I suppose. I always like to use the first Flying-type I meet, though. You can stick the Fly move on them, and at least their Flying moves can offer a bit of diversity and mess things up in a hurry for Fighting and Grass types. And Bug types, but everyone laughs at them anyway. Plus, all of the bird Pokémon titter derisively at Ground moves like Magnitude and Earthquake. Also, Noctowl is - and you’ll be amazed at this – an owl, and owls are great. I mean the wise owls obviously. Not those shrieking barn owl deathbirds you sometimes see in online videos.
Ledian
I do like its design a little bit, particularly its black-and-red colour scheme. Nothing too out of the ordinary though. Standard coloration for a ladybug anyway, I would have thought. Anyway, that’s about all I like: Ledian is absolute toilet in battle, to use a polite phrase. With its four gloved arms, it can actually use moves like Ice Punch and Thunder Punch - it just can't use them very well. Ledian can try to use them anyway, only to take another mauling by its far superior opponent. Just avoid Bugs like Ledian almost completely for now. On the whole, they’ll take a couple of decades to get good.
Ariados
What? A spider with six legs?! I already hate it. Even worse, Ariados is a Bug/Poison type, which is just swell. Actually, I'll confess that I have just the slightest soft spot for Ariados, or rather its pre-evolution Spinarak, because I once caught a Shiny Spinarak. Only thing was, I did this on an emulator, meaning I couldn’t hold on to my Shiny for posterity, making it just about worthless. And, to add insult to the hefty injuries that this Spinarak went on to sustain, the Shiny version didn't even look too different to the regular version. Don’t you just hate that? Actually, just so we know we’re both reading from the same hymn sheet: Shiny Pokémon are palette swapped variants of Pokémon which occur very rarely - the odds are better nowadays, but back then, your odds of finding one were 8,192/1. As such, you could easily go many playthroughs, and never see a single one. Other than the coloration, the Pokémon are mostly the same; no hidden superpowers afforded by radiation poisoning or whatever. So, to be favoured by those exceptionally long odds, after five minutes of play on a Game Boy Color emulator, giving me an exceedingly rare version of a worthless Pokémon... I’m not sure how I feel about that. What were we talking about again? Ariados? Sorry pal, never used him.
Crobat
An exceptionally fast Poison and Flying type Pokémon, Crobat can use the Toxic move to deal exponentially greater damage to the opponent as the battle wears on. Sounds pretty nasty, which is strange to see from a Pokémon that evolves from Golbat via happiness. Indeed, as of Generation II each Pokémon was given a hidden happiness value. You could increase this happiness value by keeping that Pokémon first in your lineup, walking many steps with them, and getting their hair cut. Even Geodude and Magneton love a good trim. Happiness can be lowered as well, if your Pokémon get battered in battle, or you try to release them into the wild or make them eat horrid, sour food. It’s tiny little bits of negligence like that. But if you invest the time in making your frightfully ugly Golbat happy, then this slightly less unsightly Pokémon is your reward. Ahh, isn’t that cute? At that point, the work is done: being awful to your Pokémon won't make them devolve or anything. In fact, it might even help you get the most power from the long forgotten Frustration move., which powers up the more your Pokémon dislikes you. I suppose you could use this as a way to look proper tough, by showing other Trainers what a swine you are to your Pokémon.
Lanturn
A new Generation usually brings with it some interesting new type combinations. Lanturn here, a sort of dual-bulbed angler-fish monstrosity that might have starred in a Sega game in another life, is of the Electric/Water persuasion. Lanturn can use Rain Dance to make it rain, then fire off perfectly accurate Thunders for massive damage. If you’re not a nerd about Pokémon battling, then don’t worry, because Lanturn has uses outside of battle, too. They say its light is so bright that it can light the sea’s surface from a depth of three miles. This means you could release Lanturn into your local lake and keep everyone awake as a joyful prank. I bet Pikachu can’t do that.
Pichu
When it was announced that ‘Baby Pokémon’ were going to be included in Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, it seemed almost inevitable that we’d be subjected to some impossibly cute offspring of Pikachu's. I reckon they’d give Pikachu as many evolutions as Eevee, if they thought they could get away with it. After all, there's been about 50 variants of Pikachu on Pokémon Go, for a start. Pichu here even managed to go one step further than most Pokémon, and got included as a playable fighter in Smash Bros Melee, possibly as a joke. Smash Bros Ultimate's amnesty towards all previous fighters means that not only does Pichu return for that game, but it was actually right up there in the top tiers of competitors, and it even had to be nerfed. Who could have imagined a world where Pichu reigned supreme? Luckily, in Pokémon games, using Pichu's electrical moves won't hurt itself, as it does in Smash. But this guy is strictly a Pokédex filler. Which you'll just about tolerate, until he dances all over you in Smash. Then you'll be out for blood.
To Be Continued!