Okay, let me tell y'all what I really think. Probably should have just done this to begin with, I didn't want to do a full review but wanted something so punted to this, but in hindsight reviewing each new Pokémon might have been an interesting thing to do, but whatever, on the plus side, now it's a comment and I can let it all hang out and say fuck and stuff! Cool!
Okay, Sprigatito/Floragato/Meowscarada, pretty good, actually maybe my second favorite Grass starter line (and I am usually a Grass starter guy) of all time after the Decidueye line, though maybe after the "new hotness" factor wears off the Torterra line might sneak back into the runner up position. One note is that Meowscarada also gets bonus points for actually using the "Paldean" setting well, as it's basically the fictional Iberian peninsula and Meowscarada is a lynx, of which there is an Iberian variety. Also, Floragato's yo-yo is cool. I don't know what that's about, but it's cool.
Fuecoco/Crocolor/Skeledirge, well, those first two evolutions are rough, though the final form is pretty good. Pretty brutal looking, too; probably the most "brutal" of any of the starter lines of any type. The two for one concept (as the crocodile basically gets a fire ghost bird buddy) is also unique. It has a Day of the Dead theme going on, which originated in Spain, but seems to be taking a bit more Latin American visual influences than actual Spanish. Same thing applies to the next Pokémon, as well.
Why is everybody up in arms about Meowscarada's "anthro" design when the Quaxly/Quaxwell/Quaquavel line is right there? Maybe the worst starter line, ever. It's bad.
And going the other way, we have Lechonk and the Oinkolognes, which is a very nice "animalistic" design, but not getting as much attention because it's a pig. Lechonk is one of the early indications of an actual design trend in this generation; there are a lot of ball shaped Pokémon. Prefer the female variation, personally.
Tarountula/Spidops ... oh, look, another ball! Spidops is an improvement, but Pokémon has never really just hit it out of the park with any of it's various spider mons. Like, it's a relief they just got the damn number of legs right for once.
Nymble/Lokix are a pretty decent early bug line, though they become so common you kind of get sick of Lokix especially later in the game.
The Pawmi/Pawmo/Pawmot line is trying so hard to be the breakout Pikachu mon of the generation, and it's just not happening. Pawmi especially is very ball-like.
Tandemaus/Maushold, the Heteronormative Pokémon! A pair of mouse that "evolve" when they have children, basically. Basically a parody of the older generation's Breeding system, they're the first Pokémon that can evolve without the player even knowing, as if they hit level 25 and aren't actually the active Pokémon, they'll suddenly have babies and the game doesn't inform you, letting you get surprised later on your own, kind of like the weird elderly Daycare couple who apparently never figured out where babies come from and are always shocked when your Pokémon, well, fuck. Maushold's Pokédex entry even continues this tradition, saying noone knows where the little mice came from. They came from the girl one's vagina, you guys. Mystery solved. Easily one of my favorites.
Fidough and Dachsbun are dogs made out of dough. Meh.
The Smolliv/Dolliv/Arboliva line are a pretty standard vaguely humanoid/vaguely feminine plant line that pops up once every other generation or so.
Squawkabilly is a parrot with a pompadour. If I had a dollar for Paldean bird lines with pompadors, I'd have two dollars, but it's weird that happened twice. Comes in four colors, which is annoying.
Looking like refugees from Minecraft, Nacli/Naclstack/Garganacl are at least not balls. I guess.
Internet all "rah, rah, cat too human, rah, rah" but are like, "wow Charcadet/Armarouge/Ceruledge, we love those!" despite they are literally just a dude in set of armor. Fucking hypocrites.
Tadbulb and Bellibolt are very ball shaped.
Wattrel and Kilowattrel are pretty standard bird Pokémon, though the choice of frigate bird is kind of cool. Still not sure if "Kilowattrel" is the best new name or worst new name.
Shroodle and Grafaiai are some of my favorites; like, aye-aye Pokémon, that's worth points right there. And it makes sense the shrew Pokémon would be both Poison (a few species of shrews are one of the few venoumous mammals) and evolve into a type of lemur (the extinct "tree shrews" were the first primates, while lemurs are the oldest extant primates). Also, Grafaiai's design is just wonderfully bizarre, even for an aye-aye.
Bramble and Bramblin are tumbleweed Pokémon, and as a guy from the American Southwest, I appreciate that.
Toedscool and Toedscruel were pretty apparently meant to be regional variants of Tentacool and Tentacruel, but then somebody realized that was a lame concept, and just made them new Pokémon, I guess.
Klawf is a giant enemy crab. You can order Klawf claws in some of the restaurants in the game. This pair of games is maybe the first that just went all in on the "people eat Pokémon, deal with it" aspect.
Capsakid is Grass Pokémon that evolves using a Fire Stone, turning into Scovillain, which is the pretty unique Grass/Fire type combo. It's a hot pepper, so it makes sense. Cool concept, design is hit or miss.
Rellor and Rabsca are dung beetles. The Pokédex goes out of it's way to assure you that is a ball of mud, just mud, thank you very much. Also, literal ball again.
Flittle is, I guess, supposed to be a newly hatched ostrich chick? It's just kind of this thing that hovers around until you accidentally run over it with your giant motorcycle Pokémon because you didn't see it, it's so small. Espathra is definitely an ostrich, and has, hands down, the hardest name of any of the new Pokémon for me to spell. I don't know why, either. Does not have a pompadour.
The Tinkatink/Tinkatuff/Tinkaton is a little pink fairy with a giant hammer. Really popular, from what I can tell, despite being basically just a person with a hammer, but, oh, no, we don't like humanoid Pokémon! Except when we do!
Wiglett and Wugtrio are Diglett and Dugtrio regional variants, except someone realized they already had regional variants, and not really cool enough to get two official variants, so, uh, brand new Pokémon! Yeah!
Bombirdier is a stork. Some people say it brings the little baby mice to Maushold, but I still maintain they come from the girl one's vagina.
The Finizen/Palafin line is interesting in concept, and Finizen is a pretty straightforward dolphin Pokémon, so I kinda like it. Palafin has a unique concept, in that it basically barely changes physical form (it basically gets a mark on it's chest) when it evolves, but if you switch it out of the active spot on your team, then switch it back in, it reveals it's superhero identity. Dolphin superhero Pokémon! Amazing on paper! Unfortunately, that superhero form is pretty godawful looking, honestly, and also evolving it requires you to interact with real life people, and like I play these games because I have social life, geez.
Varoom and Revavroom are car engines. Not cars. Car engines. The bad guys use them as engines for their cars, though.
Cyclizar is a lizard that is also a motorcycle. Okay.
Orthworm is a giant eathworm. Like, actually, kind of surprising it took us 9 generations to get there.
I have no idea what the fuck Glimmet and Glimmora are supposed to be.
Greavard and Houndstone are little ghost dogs. They're more like toy dogs than working dogs. The Ghost gym leader is a rapper (yeah, it's about that cringey), but a Greavard dances to the music in the background of that fight, and it shouldn't work but it's actually pretty adorable.
Flamigo is a pink flamingo, and definitely rendered to evoke the kitschy plastic lawn ornaments rather than the actual bird.
Cetoddle and Cetitan are apparently a cross between a whale and a snowball. Yep, more balls. Apparently, someone on the design team was a big fan of the first gen's Voltorb/Electrode line.
Veluza is a fish that fires fillets of itself at you. It's kind of weird.
Maschiff is a dog Pokémon that gives off slight hyena vibes to me, but it's evolution, Mabsstiff, is pure dog. Doesn't really look like a mastiff, though. Kind of in the face, but too much hair.
Dondozo and Tatsugiri are not a single line, but apparently have a symbiotic relationship. I've heard Dondozo described as basically Lord Jabu Jabu from The Legend of Zelda and I can't really do much better than that, so yeah, I'll just steal that and move on. It's like the Lenny to Tatsugiri's George, a little fish that looks like sushi and is actually a Dragon type Pokémon. It also inexplicably comes in multiple colors for no other reason than to annoy Pokédex completionists.
Gimmighoul is treasure chest Pokémon that evolves only after you've found 999 Gimmighoul coins, which is really annoying, though once you figure out where the other chests spawn, is not that difficult, but also the evolved form, Gholdengo, is kind of lame and not really worth it.
The actual big new Dragon line is sub-typed Ice, and is Frigibax/Arctibax/Baxcalibur, and it has a weird kind of fin on it's back. That's it's, uh, thing, I guess. It's the "new" Dragonite, but it's no, well, Dragonite.
Updates to old Pokémon include Dudunsparce, which is basically the lamest to the point where it almost become cool Pokémon in the series history gets a lame to the point it is almost cool update when it gets ... a little longer. Girafarig becomes Farigiraf when it's tail head eats it's normal head, somehow. Wooper gets a Paldean form, which evolves into a new Pokémon, Clodsire, which is literally two balls of mud stuck together and also apparently a fan favorite. Bisharp evolves into Kingambit, which, besides the cool chess reference, is also an incredibly blatant Game of Thrones reference. It literally sits on an Iron Throne. In order to evolve it, you have to KO three other Bisharps with Leader's Crests (or, basically, take out it's rivals to the throne) which would normally be one of those annoying evolutions but is kind of a fun reference, so I'll allow it (even though I don't even like Game of Thrones). Tauros also has a black Fighting Paldean version, with two super secret alternate versions of that alternate version. Kind of lame. Finally, Primeape gets a new Ghost type evolution, Annihilape, which is basically described in the Pokédex as what happens when Primeape gets so mad it basically dies of anger.
There are a variety of new late game Pokémon, the Paradox Pokémon, that are either prehistoric versions of Pokémon (Scarlet) or the future versions (Violet). There are two versions of Donphan (Great Tusk and Iron Treads), and two versions of Volcarona (Slither Wing and Iron Moth). And, yes, their official names are all like that. Other past versions include Scream Tail (Jigglypuff), Brute Bonnet (Amoonguss), Flutter Mane (Misdreavous), Sandy Shocks (Magneton) and Roaring Moon (Salamence). All of the Violet future are Iron Whatevers, though only Iron Treads is actually Steel type. They include Iron Bundle (Delibird), Iron Hands (Hariyama), Iron Jugulis (Hydreigon), Iron Thorns (Tyranitar) and Iron Valiant (a robot combination of Gardevoir and Gallade). They're okay, but come so late you don't really have time to get attached, and don't have quite the WTF impact of the similar Ultra Beasts, a.k.a. the Pokémon from a very alternative alternative reality, of two generations ago.
Their are four Ruinous Legendary Pokémon, which are not too bad, with a stone moose (Ting-Lu), sabre-toothed weasel (Chien-Pao), wooden slug (Wo-Chien) and fiery goldfish (Chi-Yu). Design wise, I liked them, but they seem a bit divorced from the rest of the game, and the fact that they have Chinese names doesn't fit in with the supposed to be vaguely European setting doesn't help.
The box art Legendaries, Miraidon and Koraidon, are okay, and the game does go out of it's way to make you actually get to know them as, if not exactly characters, at least Pokémon. Major cues taken from How To Train Your Dragon's Toothless in the story and animated interactions. Basically are the Paradox versions of Cyclizar, so they really were confident they had something with that lizard/bicycle combo. Preferred Miraidon, the future Violet "mascot", if only for the L.E.D. eyes.
Okay, let me tell y'all what I really think. Probably should have just done this to begin with, I didn't want to do a full review but wanted something so punted to this, but in hindsight reviewing each new Pokémon might have been an interesting thing to do, but whatever, on the plus side, now it's a comment and I can let it all hang out and say fuck and stuff! Cool!
Okay, Sprigatito/Floragato/Meowscarada, pretty good, actually maybe my second favorite Grass starter line (and I am usually a Grass starter guy) of all time after the Decidueye line, though maybe after the "new hotness" factor wears off the Torterra line might sneak back into the runner up position. One note is that Meowscarada also gets bonus points for actually using the "Paldean" setting well, as it's basically the fictional Iberian peninsula and Meowscarada is a lynx, of which there is an Iberian variety. Also, Floragato's yo-yo is cool. I don't know what that's about, but it's cool.
Fuecoco/Crocolor/Skeledirge, well, those first two evolutions are rough, though the final form is pretty good. Pretty brutal looking, too; probably the most "brutal" of any of the starter lines of any type. The two for one concept (as the crocodile basically gets a fire ghost bird buddy) is also unique. It has a Day of the Dead theme going on, which originated in Spain, but seems to be taking a bit more Latin American visual influences than actual Spanish. Same thing applies to the next Pokémon, as well.
Why is everybody up in arms about Meowscarada's "anthro" design when the Quaxly/Quaxwell/Quaquavel line is right there? Maybe the worst starter line, ever. It's bad.
And going the other way, we have Lechonk and the Oinkolognes, which is a very nice "animalistic" design, but not getting as much attention because it's a pig. Lechonk is one of the early indications of an actual design trend in this generation; there are a lot of ball shaped Pokémon. Prefer the female variation, personally.
Tarountula/Spidops ... oh, look, another ball! Spidops is an improvement, but Pokémon has never really just hit it out of the park with any of it's various spider mons. Like, it's a relief they just got the damn number of legs right for once.
Nymble/Lokix are a pretty decent early bug line, though they become so common you kind of get sick of Lokix especially later in the game.
The Pawmi/Pawmo/Pawmot line is trying so hard to be the breakout Pikachu mon of the generation, and it's just not happening. Pawmi especially is very ball-like.
Tandemaus/Maushold, the Heteronormative Pokémon! A pair of mouse that "evolve" when they have children, basically. Basically a parody of the older generation's Breeding system, they're the first Pokémon that can evolve without the player even knowing, as if they hit level 25 and aren't actually the active Pokémon, they'll suddenly have babies and the game doesn't inform you, letting you get surprised later on your own, kind of like the weird elderly Daycare couple who apparently never figured out where babies come from and are always shocked when your Pokémon, well, fuck. Maushold's Pokédex entry even continues this tradition, saying noone knows where the little mice came from. They came from the girl one's vagina, you guys. Mystery solved. Easily one of my favorites.
Fidough and Dachsbun are dogs made out of dough. Meh.
The Smolliv/Dolliv/Arboliva line are a pretty standard vaguely humanoid/vaguely feminine plant line that pops up once every other generation or so.
Squawkabilly is a parrot with a pompadour. If I had a dollar for Paldean bird lines with pompadors, I'd have two dollars, but it's weird that happened twice. Comes in four colors, which is annoying.
Looking like refugees from Minecraft, Nacli/Naclstack/Garganacl are at least not balls. I guess.
Internet all "rah, rah, cat too human, rah, rah" but are like, "wow Charcadet/Armarouge/Ceruledge, we love those!" despite they are literally just a dude in set of armor. Fucking hypocrites.
Tadbulb and Bellibolt are very ball shaped.
Wattrel and Kilowattrel are pretty standard bird Pokémon, though the choice of frigate bird is kind of cool. Still not sure if "Kilowattrel" is the best new name or worst new name.
Shroodle and Grafaiai are some of my favorites; like, aye-aye Pokémon, that's worth points right there. And it makes sense the shrew Pokémon would be both Poison (a few species of shrews are one of the few venoumous mammals) and evolve into a type of lemur (the extinct "tree shrews" were the first primates, while lemurs are the oldest extant primates). Also, Grafaiai's design is just wonderfully bizarre, even for an aye-aye.
Bramble and Bramblin are tumbleweed Pokémon, and as a guy from the American Southwest, I appreciate that.
Toedscool and Toedscruel were pretty apparently meant to be regional variants of Tentacool and Tentacruel, but then somebody realized that was a lame concept, and just made them new Pokémon, I guess.
Klawf is a giant enemy crab. You can order Klawf claws in some of the restaurants in the game. This pair of games is maybe the first that just went all in on the "people eat Pokémon, deal with it" aspect.
Capsakid is Grass Pokémon that evolves using a Fire Stone, turning into Scovillain, which is the pretty unique Grass/Fire type combo. It's a hot pepper, so it makes sense. Cool concept, design is hit or miss.
Rellor and Rabsca are dung beetles. The Pokédex goes out of it's way to assure you that is a ball of mud, just mud, thank you very much. Also, literal ball again.
Flittle is, I guess, supposed to be a newly hatched ostrich chick? It's just kind of this thing that hovers around until you accidentally run over it with your giant motorcycle Pokémon because you didn't see it, it's so small. Espathra is definitely an ostrich, and has, hands down, the hardest name of any of the new Pokémon for me to spell. I don't know why, either. Does not have a pompadour.
The Tinkatink/Tinkatuff/Tinkaton is a little pink fairy with a giant hammer. Really popular, from what I can tell, despite being basically just a person with a hammer, but, oh, no, we don't like humanoid Pokémon! Except when we do!
Wiglett and Wugtrio are Diglett and Dugtrio regional variants, except someone realized they already had regional variants, and not really cool enough to get two official variants, so, uh, brand new Pokémon! Yeah!
Bombirdier is a stork. Some people say it brings the little baby mice to Maushold, but I still maintain they come from the girl one's vagina.
The Finizen/Palafin line is interesting in concept, and Finizen is a pretty straightforward dolphin Pokémon, so I kinda like it. Palafin has a unique concept, in that it basically barely changes physical form (it basically gets a mark on it's chest) when it evolves, but if you switch it out of the active spot on your team, then switch it back in, it reveals it's superhero identity. Dolphin superhero Pokémon! Amazing on paper! Unfortunately, that superhero form is pretty godawful looking, honestly, and also evolving it requires you to interact with real life people, and like I play these games because I have social life, geez.
Varoom and Revavroom are car engines. Not cars. Car engines. The bad guys use them as engines for their cars, though.
Cyclizar is a lizard that is also a motorcycle. Okay.
Orthworm is a giant eathworm. Like, actually, kind of surprising it took us 9 generations to get there.
I have no idea what the fuck Glimmet and Glimmora are supposed to be.
Greavard and Houndstone are little ghost dogs. They're more like toy dogs than working dogs. The Ghost gym leader is a rapper (yeah, it's about that cringey), but a Greavard dances to the music in the background of that fight, and it shouldn't work but it's actually pretty adorable.
Flamigo is a pink flamingo, and definitely rendered to evoke the kitschy plastic lawn ornaments rather than the actual bird.
Cetoddle and Cetitan are apparently a cross between a whale and a snowball. Yep, more balls. Apparently, someone on the design team was a big fan of the first gen's Voltorb/Electrode line.
Veluza is a fish that fires fillets of itself at you. It's kind of weird.
Maschiff is a dog Pokémon that gives off slight hyena vibes to me, but it's evolution, Mabsstiff, is pure dog. Doesn't really look like a mastiff, though. Kind of in the face, but too much hair.
Dondozo and Tatsugiri are not a single line, but apparently have a symbiotic relationship. I've heard Dondozo described as basically Lord Jabu Jabu from The Legend of Zelda and I can't really do much better than that, so yeah, I'll just steal that and move on. It's like the Lenny to Tatsugiri's George, a little fish that looks like sushi and is actually a Dragon type Pokémon. It also inexplicably comes in multiple colors for no other reason than to annoy Pokédex completionists.
Gimmighoul is treasure chest Pokémon that evolves only after you've found 999 Gimmighoul coins, which is really annoying, though once you figure out where the other chests spawn, is not that difficult, but also the evolved form, Gholdengo, is kind of lame and not really worth it.
The actual big new Dragon line is sub-typed Ice, and is Frigibax/Arctibax/Baxcalibur, and it has a weird kind of fin on it's back. That's it's, uh, thing, I guess. It's the "new" Dragonite, but it's no, well, Dragonite.
Updates to old Pokémon include Dudunsparce, which is basically the lamest to the point where it almost become cool Pokémon in the series history gets a lame to the point it is almost cool update when it gets ... a little longer. Girafarig becomes Farigiraf when it's tail head eats it's normal head, somehow. Wooper gets a Paldean form, which evolves into a new Pokémon, Clodsire, which is literally two balls of mud stuck together and also apparently a fan favorite. Bisharp evolves into Kingambit, which, besides the cool chess reference, is also an incredibly blatant Game of Thrones reference. It literally sits on an Iron Throne. In order to evolve it, you have to KO three other Bisharps with Leader's Crests (or, basically, take out it's rivals to the throne) which would normally be one of those annoying evolutions but is kind of a fun reference, so I'll allow it (even though I don't even like Game of Thrones). Tauros also has a black Fighting Paldean version, with two super secret alternate versions of that alternate version. Kind of lame. Finally, Primeape gets a new Ghost type evolution, Annihilape, which is basically described in the Pokédex as what happens when Primeape gets so mad it basically dies of anger.
There are a variety of new late game Pokémon, the Paradox Pokémon, that are either prehistoric versions of Pokémon (Scarlet) or the future versions (Violet). There are two versions of Donphan (Great Tusk and Iron Treads), and two versions of Volcarona (Slither Wing and Iron Moth). And, yes, their official names are all like that. Other past versions include Scream Tail (Jigglypuff), Brute Bonnet (Amoonguss), Flutter Mane (Misdreavous), Sandy Shocks (Magneton) and Roaring Moon (Salamence). All of the Violet future are Iron Whatevers, though only Iron Treads is actually Steel type. They include Iron Bundle (Delibird), Iron Hands (Hariyama), Iron Jugulis (Hydreigon), Iron Thorns (Tyranitar) and Iron Valiant (a robot combination of Gardevoir and Gallade). They're okay, but come so late you don't really have time to get attached, and don't have quite the WTF impact of the similar Ultra Beasts, a.k.a. the Pokémon from a very alternative alternative reality, of two generations ago.
Their are four Ruinous Legendary Pokémon, which are not too bad, with a stone moose (Ting-Lu), sabre-toothed weasel (Chien-Pao), wooden slug (Wo-Chien) and fiery goldfish (Chi-Yu). Design wise, I liked them, but they seem a bit divorced from the rest of the game, and the fact that they have Chinese names doesn't fit in with the supposed to be vaguely European setting doesn't help.
The box art Legendaries, Miraidon and Koraidon, are okay, and the game does go out of it's way to make you actually get to know them as, if not exactly characters, at least Pokémon. Major cues taken from How To Train Your Dragon's Toothless in the story and animated interactions. Basically are the Paradox versions of Cyclizar, so they really were confident they had something with that lizard/bicycle combo. Preferred Miraidon, the future Violet "mascot", if only for the L.E.D. eyes.