5 Aspects of the Pokémon Games That We Never Needed [guest article]

by James Clark

5. The Everstone

Evolution is one of the most integral parts of the pokémon games. With a few simple levels, your pokémon will transform from a puny pile of crap to a fire breathing beast of death. Unless, of course, it’s equipped with an Everstone: An item that allows your pokémon to level up without the strain of becoming too useful.

The Everstone made its first appearance in Pokémon Gold and Silver as the second prize in the bug catching contest (and considering first prize was a Sun Stone, you should probably work a bit harder next time). Stopping pokemon from evolving can allow it to level faster and learn moves earlier, so the Everstone seems useful on the surface. However, pressing “B” does the exact same thing. And you don’t have to be runner-up in some stupid bug contest. Then again, you wouldn’t want to strain your thumb reaching for the “B” button.

4. The VS Recorder

Not to be confused with the VS Seeker, the VS Recorder is a device that allows you to record your battles. What’s the in-game benefit of it? There isn’t one. You get no experience, no cash, no items, NOTHING. The VS Recorder is used exclusively for players to smugly show off their mad skills as a pokémon trainer. Essentially, all they’re doing is showing their lame battle to an audience that will undoubtedly just find fault in their technique. Beats going outside, I guess. 

3. The Pokégear Radio

Pokémon Gold and Silver offered a range of changes in gameplay from Red and Blue. They added a day and night system (new pokémon would be seen at different times of the day), there was a phone that allowed you to have rematches with former opponents and then finally, there was the radio.

And what did the radio do? Not a lot. For the most part, it was just scrolling text backed by a soundtrack only slightly different from the regular gameplay music. There was also a Pokéflute channel that, get this, played the music of the Pokéflute! The only real use to this was to wake up a Snorlax (the apparently narcoleptic pokémon) that is rudely blocking your path. In some ways it was a nice idea, but all it really did was allow you some hours to sit watching characters having a conversation. If you want that, you may as well go read fan fiction.

2. Useless HMs

Your pokémon only have four move slots. Do we really have to use one up to make room for an HM that only comes in handy for one part of the game? The only real use of HMs is to stagger your progress between towns. If it wasn’t for that pesky little tree, you would have been in Vermillion City ages ago! For each of these wonderful little obstacles, you have to find a specific HM and then find a pokémon that can use it (most can’t). Since most of them are useless in battle but necessary otherwise, most people end up having a pokémon in their party just used for its HMs. An HM Bitch if you will. A total waste of party space. 

1. The Masterball

This one’s a bit controversial. A ball that catches any pokémon without failure is indeed incredibly useful. But the concept of Pokémon is to travel the world fighting, defeating and catching pokémon. The inclusion of the masterball completely cheapens the entire concept.

Let me put this into perspective for you. Your character is a young hero who has left his mother behind and embarked on a grand adventure. Criminal organizations have fallen under his might. Grown men have wept at his feet. Finally, you face your greatest foe: A Pokémon of legend. A monster that was said to have created the very ground you stand on, that has flooded cities and annihilated everything in its path. You are the only person that can face this beast. The story of this battle will be passed down through generations. And what do you do? You throw a fucking masterball! Through no challenge or skill, you have managed to catch the greatest of all the Pokémon. Any victory you have now will be a hollow one, devoid of meaning. I hope you’re happy.

Discard

know your meme

I was starting in on Breloom, but when I glanced over and saw that he evolved from this disappointment, I had to change gears.


"Look at me. I am grumpy. And adorable"
Shroomish here is on loan to Nintendo from Pac-Man. Namco worked extensively on its 4 ghosts and in the process created a lot of duds. You may have heard of abandoned characters such as Clinky (grey), Shrinkey (white), and Chad (some awkward and pointless color). Well, this was Shroomy (brown). Namco charged Nintendo mighty highly for this dud and Nintendo gladly paid, eager to make money off Namco's classic game. This story is totally untrue. Nintendo is just scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I mentioned in an earlier review that "blushing cheeks" is really lame and that I hate it. Shroomish's blush has evolved to measles levels. Still lame.
Is he walking on his tumors?
You can kinda tell that he was modeled after a bulb. But they were careful to disguise the link to Bulbasaur, a godly Pokémon they invented 10 years earlier. So they made Shroomish look like a doodle of a prophet.

Second Coming

thanks to Halolz?

Get Money [guest article]

"Whether this Pokémon is trying to offend Eskimos or Native Americans I don't know, but I appreciate all forms of racism equally."




as always, thanks to Phatality

Tension II

much thanks to Buzzfeed

Onomatopoeia

bouncing sounds

He could be cute. There is that potential. I can see a certain group of people maintaining Spoink's cuteness. But does he deserve our respect?

His color scheme is pretty unsuitable. Grey and pink? If you stare at him long enough I guess it becomes more acceptable, but honestly it reminds me of an eraser stain. Blush is always lame.

The tail a dumb idea, it it looks really creepy. A developer went to work one day, saw a picture of a pig, and then thought, Man. That thing's tail looks like a spring. So that's the gimmick. It's a pig Pokémon which bounces around on its spring tail.

At first I thought the pink orb on the top of his head-body was apart of his head-body, but its actually just a pearl that Spoinks find to increase their psychic powers. It isn't always pink, the developers just made pink the default (true story!).

But here's the most interesting or the most depreciating thing about Spoink. Pokédex entry:

"Spoink bounces around on its tail. The shock of its bouncing makes its heart pump. As a result, this Pokémon cannot afford to stop bouncing - if it stops, its heart will stop."

Uh...... what?

....

..

As I regain my composure, consider this. You encounter one of these in the wild. You battle. You win. It faints. It stops bouncing. It dies. You're a f*cking monster.

Anyways. Spoink is kind of pathetic. I'll end it right there.

to the kill

created by Zect?

Swollen Glands [guest article]

Now its time for

"Yes Castform. Man this thing has huge testicles. It must get ALL the babes. I mean just look at the picture, don't they look like balls? That thing must've hit puberty early and it must've stricken like God strikes elephants with lightning. It also has pretty crappy stats. I mean this thing is just basically another forgettable gimmick Pokémon with its various forms. Please Game Freak stop the torture E:-( "

credit to Fuelbi?

Truth II

with thanks, Geekstir

Yeah this guy definitely evolved from Wurmple

nausea?

I'll say something nice. Dustox's color scheme is outofcontrolawesome. Vibrant as f*cks.
But his design is weird as b*lls.
I guess the eyes are supposed to resemble compound vision, but they just make him look like he has six eyes. Or is totally smashed. Or high. His smile is almost ironic, how does he have any confidence at all? Maybe he's slow.
The "antennae" don't look like antennae, they look like maggots. The body looks like a maggot. The arms look like worms. Basically the whole overtly-pupa thing he's got going on is kinda makes my stomach turn a bit. And the wings just look like leaves. The designers through in the red ellipses just to make it all poisonous nature-ie.
Dustox looks like he got lost on his way back from the French Carnival.

Seedy Pokémon Gym

merci a Dorkly

...Pichu? [guest article]

"hey look at me guys, I'm totally Pikachu, I swear!"

"URG. There was no need for this to happen. All Plusle and Minun did was confuse people who thought they should evolve into Pikachu or something. Gamefreak keeps on doing this, making new electric rodents and shoehorning them into the anime in the hopes they'll be the next Pikachu.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

I mean, they didn't even try to pretend they could come up with a new idea. It's still the same mouse-rabbit as Pikachu. If they had seriously tried to make it more bunny-like, then things would be a little different, but whatever.


Overall: 2/10"


credit to da Straw Hat Samurai

Reference

pwned

with thanks to Geekstir

Gold vs Heart Gold

Click to enlarge

with thanks to MyDarkPrince

The Starters should be acceptable right? Otherwise what are you playing with?

hey. monkey.

Well... Chimchar is okay. but then he sucks. 

When you first take a gander at him, you think, young monkey and fire. Not so bad. The fire seems like it was thrown on at the last second, but hey, Nintendo hasn't given a non-halfassed attempt at a Pokémon in a while, why should we be surprised? So at first he's passible starter.

But then you look more closely.

Is that pink eye-shadow? Or, are those the insides of its eye-lids? Thaaaats kind of weird.

And compare the size of the ears to the size of the eyes. Aren't they enormous? Aren't they wide endless tunnels into Chimchar's cranium? They make Chimchar look like a mouse. 

Now look at the hair. Chimchar has bangs and, to quote someone with better opinions than myself,  a turd on his head.

There's also a needless Cinnabun-swirl on its chest. The fire on its ass, the old gimmick, is explained in this Bulbapedia entry

A sleeping Chimchar - note the lack of a flame

So it has no tail, no stub; when Chimchar wakes up, its shiny red ass produces the fire. That's also weird. Its weird that they would even have that in Pokémon game.

In conclusion, its the details, the little things, that take Chimchar down from acceptable to awkward (five fingers, three toes?). No, I will not be having any Diamond or Pearl, thank you.

with thanks to SSlick, of screwattack.com

Po Ta To

with thanks to Artur

Ouh

with thanks to Buzzfeed

Ma-why?-le

confusion

Were they trying for bad-ass? Meh. I guess maybe for some kind of female empowerment (the message: though you can wear a dress and have a ton of hair, and have a really shy introverted personality, you can still be dangerous) but they missed when they made Mawile unappealing. To your sense of sight.
The coloring is dull, black a faded yellow, like a taxi cab, or an old caution sign (dumb Pokémon: beware!), and the blind-and-deaf dinosaur ponytail isn't winning any beauty contests either. I mean look at it, it doesn't know where it is. Its probably retarded. 
And there's just something about that pose. Something presumptuous. Like its trying to declare it has some kind of knowing edge. Yeah, its putting on airs. And the dress and hair are poor design choices. 
I might dig the sinisterness, a little, but I don't play Pokémon for sinisterness.
To top it all off its a Steel-type. Not a Dark-type, or Normal-type at least, a Steel-type. Where were they when they were designing this Pokémon?


Japan.

(k) [guest article]

all that mystery for nothing

"Pokémon Gold and Silver got the proud tradition of silly gimmick Pokémon like Spinda and Castform rolling with Unown, the Pokémon with 28 variations, all of them shaped like letters of the alphabet (with some punctuation types thrown in as a bonus). 
Yeah, we were excited, too. Found in the Ruins of Alph, these Pokémon sport only one move (Hidden Power) and exist solely to be collected in all their alphabetic variations. Once found, they're only good for sitting in your box and laughing at you, useless for both breeding and battling. You'll occasionally find the overly committed trainer who goes to the frightening extreme of hunting down every form of Unown just to say they've caught 'em all, but the rest of us can only shake our heads and move on with our lives."

with thanks to Kat Bailey and Chris Pranger

..... yeah

Ash Goes on a Date

Ash
…Yeah, so basically the best. The very best. The best there ever was.

Cindy
Uh huh…

Ash
What’s wrong? Hey, did I mention I’m a Pokémaster?

Cindy
Yeah, it’s come up…

Ash
I don’t get it. You should be falling all over me.

Cindy
So, how long did it take for you to become a Pokémaster?

Ash
Probably like 35 hours.

Cindy
Mhm…

Ash
I know, right? And I have all the legendary Pokémon.

Cindy
The what?

Ash
These Pokémon are so rare and powerful that they are fabled. There are only one of each of these in existence, fabled for thousands of years-

Cindy
But it took you 35 hours to catch them all?

Ash
Yes.

Cindy
What sort of crappy legends are those?

Ash
You’re missing the point. Look, I have badges!

Cindy
It took you a day and a half to become the very best in the world at this. Now what?

Ash
…

Cindy
I mean, it’s kind of sad. You kinda peaked at, what, twelve?

Ash
I didn’t peak! I…I can keep playing! I can catch them all! I can level them up to level 99!

Cindy
Isn’t that sadder?

Ash
…would you want to see my Diglett?

Cindy
I think we’re done here.

1. 
   
   created by Lee Novak

Created

hey Spiritomb, welcome to the club

Is this even a Pokémon? I've been looking at it for a good five minutes now and have come to no conclusion. I mentioned this in an earlier review of the Klink family, but aren't Pokémon supposed to be living things? Spiritomb is the grape juice stain on the cultural reference T-Shirt of the modern day Pokémon fan. Unwashed and unintentional. Unwanted. Preempting the conversation. Waiting to be cleansed (okay I'll stop).
Other things to point out: I've seen that expression before. On Haunter. On f*cking Haunter Nintendo, you can't keep bastardizing your shit like this. God. And does the swirl imply a lazy eye? 
And what about that cork shaped thing, is that a stand? Do Pokémon need stands? If they were alive they wouldn't; stands are for guitars, TVs, f*cking croquet sets, not Pokémon. And those beads (I guess they represent spirits) are kind of distracting. That particular shade of green should not be on a Ghost Pokémon to begin with (neither should that shade of purple actually). This guy is supposedly a renegade badass who instinctively clusterf*cks everything whenever he escapes his prison, but instead he's a grape juiced, pea-green pussy who is questionably animate.
Is this what constitutes a Pokémon these days? 


[alternate ending: This is what constitutes a Pokémon these days.]

Oh life, Part II

with thanks to Smosh

Shampoo and conditioner and french diets [guest article]

"oh jesus are they even trying?"

"This is just literally another Furret. It's just got stripes going the other way, but it's a Furret.

There is absolutely nothing to get excited about with Linoone, except to maybe make fun of its stupid name. Reminds me of linoleum, and Linoone is even duller than that.

When you think of re-hashed ideas, boring Pokemon, and needless redundant creations, you should think of Linoone. Him and his ilk are the bane of the 3rd and 4th generations.

Overall: 1/10"

with thanks to the Straw Hat Samurai

Tryin to be apart of the dragon club

burn
thanks to Pokemon Comics Dot Net

the weakest form of punctuation is

wah wah i dont need no wah wah

How bland is Whismur? bland. not even worth commenting on really
When people talk about Pokémon, they aren't talking about Whismur. It is outside the realm of consideration, though we are reminded of him from time to time, when it stands directly infront of us and we're bored enough to realize its there. Those times are very infrequent.
According to da Pokédex: "Whismur can become so startled by the sound of its own crying that it will continue to cry until finally falling asleep from exhaustion." ...so its totally useless. 
Is that why we don't remember it? 
It also looks like a sock, which isn't very memorable. Save your Pokéballs children.