#pokereview

[poke-reviews]

Poke-Reviews: The Original Hard mode

Meganium

Type: Grass      Number: 154

Height: 5’ 11’’ Weight: 221.6 lbs.

 Well before Roberto Z. Nuzlocke of the Manhattan Nuzlockes, created a way to essentially give Pokémon a hard mode, the only way to make your Pokémon games harder was by choosing a starter Pokémon that was at a severe disadvantage against the gyms. Charmander was the first, and the final evolution of this review was the second.

In many ways, starting with a Chikorita, the pre-evolved form of today’s topic, is harder to use than Charmander, at least Charmander gained some advantages later on in the first few Pokemon game. See, in the 2nd generation of Pokemon games, the first two gyms are strong against Grass types, which Meganium is, but all the subsequent gyms don’t give an edge to grass types in any way. That’s why, growing up, you were considered “hardcore” if you started the Johto games with the grass-type because it was such a difficult choice to start with.

This time around I asked a friend to choose one of their favorite Pokémon, Meganium. When asked why this one, he said “It was my first starter Pokémon just always did well for me and was a beast battle. Especially when double battles came around.” How well does it really stack up.

Stat-Wise: HP: 80 Atk: 83 Def: 100 Sp.Atk: 83 Sp.Def: 100 Speed: 8 

Once fully evolved, Meganium has the potential to be a wall. As you can see, its defenses are good and all the other stats are above average. If you are into competitive play, maxing out the defenses then focusing on HP would make a strong wall.

This does lead us into the one biggest flaw to using this Johto starter. It’s typing. Pure Grass type Pokémon do resist some common Pokémon types like Water, Ground, and Electric but they are weak to even more common types of Pokémon. Fire, Ice, Flying, Bug, and Poison all have an advantage over Grass and are among the types of attacks that you will always see against opponents.

With the other stats being good enough, Meganium can turn into a fair wall if given the right items, but this carries its own risks. An Assault Vest will make Meganium tougher against Sp. Atks but locks it into only using battle moves, which would prevent Barrier, Reflect, and healing techniques. There are plenty of berries that would allow this grass starter to survive against its weaknesses, but then your problem is guessing what berry to use.

Move-Wise:

If you’re willing to invest a lot of TM’s and use a lot of time breeding Pokémon there are a number of unique moves Meganium can learn.

For the more combat oriented, it can naturally learn moves like Petal Dance, Solar Beam, and Magical Leaf, the first two being high damage moves and the third is a move that never misses. Got to be honest, there are not a lot of good moves Meganium can naturally learn by leveling up. Which is where the other attack methods come in.

Via TM’s, Move Tutors, and Egg moves, Meganium’s move set is….better. It still mostly learns grass moves, but for added coverage against weaknesses, Meganium can lean Earthquake, Stamping Tantrum, and Iron Tail. Giga Impact is a super strong Normal move which….doesn’t have an edge over anything.

Perhaps you want Meganium to be a tank who inflicts status conditions? Will it can learn moves like Toxic, Protect, Barrier, Reflect, Swagger, and Heal Pulse. The issue here is, being a pure Grass type, Meganium doesn’t resist its weakness types and that hurts it in the long run.

Ability-Wise:

Meganium has two abilities to talk about.

Overgrow: When your Pokémon’s health drops below 1/3 of its maximum, it increases the power of Grass type moves by 50%.

The standard ability for any and all Grass starter types. If you’re just playing the games for fun, this is the Goku ability where the more your Pokémon is being beaten, the harder it will start to hit. It’s definitely a good ability, certainly better than its other one.

Leaf Guard: Prevents this Pokémon from being affected by status moves during a strong sunlight.

Notice the end there, the “during the sunlight” bit. There are some abilities and moves that cast a strong sunlight, and it does make this move useful if you are planning on using a team centered on weather effects.

If you don’t do that then….this ability does nothing for you. Sure, Meganium can learn Sunny Day which would make it work, but that still doesn’t guarantee your opponent will even use status inflicting moves. And this is also ignoring that your opponent is not using their own weather effects and/or can benefit from your strong sunlight.

All in all, Meganium is a good Pokémon for the Pokémon games. A good starter Pokémon to learn how to play the games. But in competitive…it’s hard to recommend. Its monotyping means only Grass attacks will be boosted and there are dozens of other, better Grass type Pokémon. Hell, most of the other Grass type Starter Pokémon are better.

Venussaur is Grass/Poison, learns a lots of moves, can Mega-Evolve and soon will be able to Gigantamax. Sceptile has a Mega-Evolution that is banned from competitive play. Torterra is the only Grass/Ground type, which makes it strong against Fire-Types. Serperior has a better hidden ability and can learn more interesting moves. Chesnaught is another a stronger attacker, Decideueye is not only the goof Grass/Ghost type but it has its own, unique Z-Move, and the newest starter, Boomrilla, was until recently the only Grass starter who could Dynamax.

[its-whitetomorrow]

Okay, this was actually pretty nice...

Like, am I the only one who noticed the twisted complexity behind Kojiro’s decision? I expected another great self-sacrifice (aka James’ style, as always) but in the end it was pretty mixed up. The underlying reason was common for James but... the final line was kind of a twist on me and I liked it.

Their episodes were always the most complex which is why I love them so much but back in the day it was pretty much a pattern and there wasn’t a lot of different factors at stake. Like, they were losers number one alright, always landing ‘on their heads.’ Sad pokemon episodes were amazing and heartbreaking but it was always this huge self- sacrifice for the good of their pokemon (especially with Kojiro), with Pokemon either leaving (because that’s what they needed/where their dream was) or decided to stay with James (like in case of Inkay). But here, well... it begun as the same kind of stuff he pulled on Musashi in XY63, aka ‘live for your love’ except with Hidoide... well... she is kind of this annoying girl that hurts you too much (you know, as a pokemon, and even gets in your way with her silly obsessions).

Hence we got this...

Seriously, complexity. The initial reasons were okay, as always (up to the point where his sacrifice is just too much and unnecessary) but rather than go ‘okay, you really want to stay with me?’ and cry, he pushed a little further and added those other reasons as well... Seems kind of ‘assholish’ to reason like that (and say it out loud) but hey, it’s actually pretty different in this case because it’s not just *friendship* and it’s pretty unhealthy (for one party at least because she is crazy!). You can see why Kojiro might feel like it’s better to ged rid of her (something like: you seem to cry but seriously perhaps it’s better for both of us, besides it’s not like I’m happy for this, I’m really sad too).

Funny enough he got punished for being too harsh with the dialogue and making Hidoide cry, although he doesn’t actually go for it yet... until the other one gets on his ambitions and make him prove he is stronger. Not just show of force but ‘who can actually stop the sadness and take care of her’ kind of way.

In which case he does care about Hidoide (as always) and doesn’t want to see her cry but - of course - it doesn’t mean he loves her (in a a romantic sense, I mean). It was a good idea to leave her with someone that might actually love her like that (and be free from the awkward situation, including personal downs) but well... since this somebody isn’t going to solve the problem, after all, and challenges him to take care of this... well, it seems he and Hidoide are destined to be 😂 😂 😂 (whatever fucked up issues it creates).

Seriously, I hope SM can do better and go even further with the development here. Like... what if Hidoide works out through her issues (or whatever else, close to that) and maybe finds another love or passion at the end of SM. You know... which would be great since... being seperated from James most of the time, left in HQ (even if we consider that they do communicate and spend some time with all their pokemon off-screen) would be... like a nightmare for her... Hmm, so yeah. It better happens.

[tesalionlortus]

Alola, Z-Crystals, Rocket Gang and Skull Gang...

Where are we heading? How will this end?

[themesozoicsperm]

uhoh who on youtube's talkin about my pokereviews D:

Oh, no video in particular. Just people already commenting what will you have to say about the Galar pokémon, like in this video about Appletun:

[poke-reviews]

Poke-Review Galorian Weezing

Hats Off to You Sir

                       Type: Poison/Fairy     Number: 110

**                        Height: 9’10”   Weight: 35.3lbs**

A lot of questions occurred to me when deciding to review this Pokémon. The first being this will be the first review of a Pokémon who got a new form for a new game. The second thought being, “My, what a mighty fine moustache.”

But seriously, ever since the 7th Generation of Pokémon games, Game Freak has used the idea of Pokémon with different forms based on the area they are in. It makes sense in an evolution way as animals that are originally from one area do change to match their environments. And finally, Pokémon has caught up to actual science in that regard.

Personally, I think giving Pokémon mega-evolutions and redesigning old Pokémon to make them cooler was easier on game developers rather than creating brand new mons from the ground up, but what do I know, I’m just someone who thinks waaaaay too hard about these kinds of things.

Anyway, Galorian Weezing is one such Pokémon. Where the original Weezing is a pure poison type, Galorian Weezing is Poison and Fairy type. Being these two combinations turns Weezing into a very tough Pokémon. It only takes ¼ the damage from all Fighting and Bug type and it can now resist Dark types as well. It does get gain a weakness to Steel type Pokémon, but that doesn’t hurt the fact that, as a Fairy, Weezing has now become a dapper looking Dragon slayer.

_Stat-Wise: _HP: 65 Atk: 90 Def: 120 Sp.Atk: 85 Sp.Def: 70 Speed: 60

Fun Fact: Galorian Weezing has the same stat distribution as regular Weezing.

All Weezings are very good physical and special attackers but that Defense is it’s best stat by far. Couple this with the added Fairy typing increase the amount of types Weezing resists, but it does become weak to Steel types now.

There isn’t much else to say about it. Weezing is a good physical wall and can dish out the damage in either Special or regular attacks.

Move-Wise:

Sadly, Galorian Weezing doesn’t learn any damaging Fairy moves naturally. It can only learn them through breeding, move tutors, and tms.

That said the move set it has are an odd bunch. Despite having a slightly higher physical attack, the best Poison type moves it learns are stuff like Venoshock, Sludge Bomb, and Belch which are all special moves. Be warned though, Belch requires Weezing to eat a berry, which means you are giving up an item slot on the Pokémon to use Belch.

Via TM and TRs it can also learn strong moves like Thunderbolt, Thunder, Overheat, and Hyper Beam, for that all important type coverage to let Weezing survive a turn or two.

Those are some of the best Special Attacks, but for Physical we don’t get the best moves. Part of the problem is most of the Physical moves don’t give Weezing Same Type Attack Bonus (a mechanic where attacks do more damage if it is the same type as the Pokémon.) Gyro Ball is a Steel attack that does more damage the slower Weezing is, Assurance is a Dark type attack with 60 but that is doubled if Weezing took damage in the same turn it’s using Assurance. Other moves such as Double Hit and Giga Impact DO, do damage, but those are normal types. The only physical attack Weezing has that also gives it STAB is Play Rough, a fairy type move while it doesn’t learn any of the physical Poison attacks.

If you want two moves that Weezing does double damage you’ll have to split the floating smokestack between special and physical attacks which isn’t a problem unless you want to focus on one singular stat for attacking.

_Ability-Wise: _

So far, all the stats and moves I’ve talked about Weezing have been the same between both OG and Galorian, but this is the only category where they differ….for like one ability.

_Levitate: _Pokémon with this ability can’t be harmed by Ground type attacks, spikes, and they can’t be trapped by the Arena Trap ability.

_Neutralizing Gas: _If a Pokémon with this ability is sent into battle, it neutralizes all other Pokémon abilities on the field.

_Kanto Weezing Stench: _If the user uses a move that does damage to the opponent, there is a chance that Pokémon will flinch.

_Galorian Weezing Misty Surge: _Upon entering the battlefield, Weezing lays down some Misty Terrain.

Levitate is the ability most Weezings come with and it’s a very good ability that can cancel out both Ground moves and field hazards. Back when abilities were first introduced this made all Koffing and Weezings only have one weakness instead of two. It’s less effective on Galorian Weezing thanks to the added Fairy typing, but nonetheless, it’s handy to have if you want to ignore an opponent’s Earthquake.

Neutralizing Gas is a little more situational. There are a lot of abilities that can be cancelled out by this ability like _Arena Trap, Moxie, Static, _etc. It doesn’t work at all on Pokémon whose abilities work outside of battle (_Regenerator, Shed Skin) _and the ability doesn’t stick around when Weezing leaves the field. It’s not terrible, and can be used to cancel out some tricky abilities, but that also depends on Weezing surviving long enough for it to be helpful.

Stench is where OG Weezing can finally stand….well…float on its own without being compared to its top hat brother. Unfortunately…it’s also the worse of the abilities Weezing has access to. See, a chance flinch is good when combined with moves that also have a chance to flinch. There could be a good strategy in combining Stench, King’s Rock (a hold item that ALSO has a chance to cause a flinch), and an attack that has a flinching chance which is where the real issue is.

According to my main source for Pokémon information (Serebii.net) Weezing can’t learn any moves that has a chance for flinching. Now you might think the King’s Rock and Stench would be enough, but here is the other main issue you’ll run into, speed.

Weezing isn’t fast and flinching is only useful if you out speed the opponent which isn’t going to happen most of the time. Sure, Trick Room (a move that lets the slowest Pokémon go first) can help, but by the time you set that up your opponent will have either killed Weezing or be infuriatingly close to killing it.

Galorian Weezing’s Misty Surge is ok if you are running a team that can uses Misty Terrain. Misty Terrain is one of a few moves that change the battlefield to better benefit the player. In this case, the Misty Terrain protects all the Pokémon from status effects (burn, poison, sleep, etc.), reduces the power of Dragon attacks by 50% and boost the Sp. Def of a Pokémon holding the Misty Weed by one stage.

It has some pretty handy effects that won’t matter too much if your opponent isn’t using Dragons and doesn’t care about inflicting status conditions on you. Hell, if you’re forgetful you might team your Weezing up with a Dragon type thinking it would be a sweet combo, but now YOUR Dragon is weakened.

All in all, the Weezing twins come out of this as mostly positive Pokémon, I still think _Levitate _ is the best ability you can get on Weezing if for nothing else than to make you immune to a type of Pokémon and attacks that are fairly common on most opponents. You can customize your Weezing experience for whatever your attacking method is and this mad lad will even tank a few strong hits.

It’s a nice Pokémon, just don’t breathe in its smoke.