#039 - Jigglypuff

JIGGLYPUFF

IN SHOW

Normally, if a pokemon were part of the main cast I would tell you how many episodes it had been in. Jigglypuff was a member of the main cast for so long that I can’t tell you how many episodes it’s been in, only seasons. Jigglypuff was in 6 seasons. And even if it’s appearances did become less and less frequent as the shown ran on everyone still loved to see that pink ball walk onto the screen. Don’t ask me why a pokemon singing people to sleep and then drawing all over their faces, but it never ceased to make people laugh. And it cemented Jigglypuff as one of the most popular pokemon of the franchise. Jigglypuff is also one of the only pokemon to ever have their shiny forms shown on television. That’s right, not one, not two, but three Jigglypuff have been shown in their shiny forms. That’s quite an honour for one pink puff ball.

WHY YOU WANT A JIGGLYPUFF

Jigglypuff wasn’t incredibly hard to catch, if you knew where to look, and if you did manage to catch it the thing was pretty tough as well. I mean, with a move like Sing, which could easily put opponents in a gym you had a type disadvantage with to sleep, coupled with some strong offensive moves and some pretty nice defensive ones Jigglypuff was actually a very well rounded, pardon the pun, pokemon.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A JIGGLYPUFF

Other than not wanting to seem like a little girl, I suppose my own problem with Jigglypuff is it’s sprite. It is a pink ball with big eyes and cute little stubs for feet and hands. I don’t get how you cannot knock this one out of the ballpark. But in all honesty I don’t think they got Jigglypuff’s sprite right until generation 3, and that is forever from the red/blue release date. I guess the more simple the design, the easier to screw it up?

IN SUMMARY

Apparently I’m starting to go easier on these pokemon, or my nostalgia factor’s beginning to kick in, but other than my gripe about the sprite I can’t really find anything wrong with it. Sure, it’s a normal type and those tend to annoy the hell out of me, but it’s moveset balances everything out quite nicely. It learns at an efficient rate with a definite stop point so you can know when it’s time to evolve the thing. The show Jigglypuff had me laughing every time, how can you not when that thing puffs up and gets all threatening like that, and it just strikes a chord in me when even macho men will have this thing in their party. So all in all I’m giving Jigglypuff a gold star.

#038 - Ninetales

NINETALES

IN SHOW

Suzy, the same person who originally owned Brock’s Vulpix, had a friend Zane who owned Ninetales. Brock was also confused for an ancient Ninetales’ old master as it tried to convince Brock to stay with it. Brock just seems to have a thing for getting involved with this pokemon family . I think the joke here was that Ninetales and Vulpix were supposed to be the beautiful pokemon of Kanto, and perhaps the rest of the world, Brock has a thing for beauty and so of course he would get tangled up in situations with these two.

WHY YOU WANT A NINETALES

Ninetales was a pokemon you could only get if you happened to have pokemon blue and decided you want to catch a Vulpix. For the rarity factor alone Ninetales was worth the capture. If you got up to the Flamethrower move with your Vulpix, if you could be patient enough to wait for this beauty of a pokemon, than Ninetales improved stats could actually be worth it.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NINETALES

Ninetales suffers from evolutionary stone-itis. It doesn’t get moves other than the ones Vulpix gives it, and that can bite the big one if you caught a Vulpix went to Celadon and bought a fire stone, and then evolved your cute new pokemon into a useless Ninetales that would only know Ember. And for the most beautiful pokemon in existence its sprite definitely didn’t show it. Though I will admit the sprite for it in yellow is worlds better.

IN SUMMARY

I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to have a good Ninetales if you’re not patient. I know, you want to rush your Vulpix up into its next evolutionary stage, but you can’t. You have to wait it out if you want to have a lethal beauty. This sucks for some of the more immature trainers, and normally I would say it’s a total drawback to the pokemon. In my personal opinion a strong Ninetales is worth the wait though. Or you could just evolve it quickly and then stick it in your box and only bring it out to show your friends that you were awesome and got a different version than them.

#037 - Vulpix

VULPIX

IN SHOW

Was Vulpix in the show? Vulpix was in the show for so long it managed to finish season one, briefly appeared in Orange Islands, and finished its trip with Brock in Johto. This pokemon was even in the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back. That’s a total of 141 episodes, not all of which it appeared in, but in which it was owned by a main party member, and one movie if you’re counting. That’s a pretty long run. And for a pokemon that lasted so long, it barely got any air time. It wasn’t really Vulpix’s fault though it was the fact that though Brock was a main character none of his pokemon actually were. Usually we’d see Vulpix getting brushed and taken care of by Brock and not actually doing any of the fighting. But that was okay because Vulpix was ADORABLE. Yes, I had to write it in all caps because it was that cute. And when Vulpix did fight it may not have always one but it was definitely shown to be very, very strong. Other Vulpix have appeared as background characters throughout the rest of the show but people only ever remember Brock’s Vulpix, a wonderful edition to the team that only was ever there because Brock wanted to become a breeder and get a girlfriend.

WHY YOU WANT A VULPIX

Well, first of all it was an exclusive pokemon so unless you owned pokemon blue, or had a very nice friend, you could probably just skip this entire section. Fire was one of the strongest types in the original games, except for that tragic ice miscalculation and it’s never a bad thing to have a fire type on your team. It did start out with a fire attack right away, and even got some pretty good attacks, starting with Ember and working its way up to Flamethrower all at reasonable levels. Especially since you would be catching your Vulpix at a pretty late level, just due to how late in the game it was available.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A VULPIX

The only reason I can honestly see for not wanting a Vulpix, and maybe it’s because its cuteness has disarmed me, is because you simply can’t. It’s not available in your game and you didn’t team up with your friend and buy a separate version so that you guys could trade between yourselves. Or the face on the game sprite sucks. I mean, yes, it’s still cute but it’s not Vulpix cute. That’s a weak argument against a pokemon isn’t it? Let me try again. After Ember you don’t learn another fire type move until level 35 and sure it’s an incredibly strong fire type move, but that’s a long time to wait.

IN SUMMARY
Vulpix is too cute and too strong for me to be annoyed at it. It’s true. Normally I go into these reviews with such a negative point of view, basically asking the pokemon to prove to my why it’s good. Vulpix came in and just did it. I mean, yes if you went a bought a fire stone and then immediately evolved it you might run into some problems, but Vulpix does everything else right. It learns moves at a steady pace, and yes it only ever naturally learns 3 fire type moves and you’d have to wait, if you caught the lowest level Vulpix the moment you could 17 levels to get it but that’s not as tragic as some other examples I’ve seen so far. So I suppose Vulpix is just too cute to hate. Go out and get one.

#036 - Clefable

CLEFABLE

IN SHOW

Clefable, like its evolutionary counterpart Clefairy, are only ever seen when people happen around Mt. Moon. These guys are so reclusive that they’re not even around when it’s time to build spaceships. Clefable are so rare in the show, that they’ve only ever made two major appearances. Both of these times it was when they were trying to help their pre-evolutions from screwing things up too much, either by being lost or by simply leading Team Rocket straight to the Moon Stone that they worship.

WHY YOU WANT A CLEFABLE

Clefable is only weak to one thing, fighting, and despite the fact that there’s a lot of battling in the pokemon world, there aren’t a lot of fighting type pokemon, so Clefable has an advantage there. The picture of Clefable is...well it is definitely a Clefable but...there’s just something off putting about it and I can’t quite put my finger on it...

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CLEFABLE

That smile! What is with that smile? Is it supposed to be charming? Because it’s not! It’s terrifying in a sort of ‘I-want-to-kill-you’ kind of way. It doesn’t put me at ease at all. I wouldn’t want to be carrying a pokemon around knowing that when I tried to use it for a battle it might smile at me like that! Not that I ever would use it for a battle because it knows only two aggressive moves and learns nothing else once it has evolved from Clefairy.

IN SUMMARY
Clefable has two problems, I think, and one is that it happens to be a pokemon that evolves from a stone. This means it will never learn anything useful, unless you use TM’s, again. This would be okay if you weren’t going to find the stone that would evolve it in the exact same area that you catch Clefairy and will probably use on Clefairy unless you have caught a better pokemon, because if you use it on Clefairy immediately you will have to use TM’s for the rest of its lifetime. The second problem with Clefable is that smile. I just cannot get over it. I know I’m spending too much time on the art for this pokemon, and some people may think I’m blowing it way out of proportion but I don’t think I ever actually evolved any Clefairy I ever got because I didn’t want to see that Clefable looking at me for any length of time. Maybe it’s so rare in the show because it’s embarrassed that its game art looked like that? Maybe that’s the way you smile when you’re an alien? I don’t know, but I don’t like it.

#035 - Clefairy

CLEFAIRY

IN SHOW

People remember Clefairy for one reason; Mt. Moon. That impassable beast of a mountain was littered with rare Clefairy in the show, which people would think meant that you would never see one. Ash happens across one the moment he steps foot on the path leading to the mountain, and he does this not once but twice. Clefairy would be just jumping around being lost and scared, or trying to find a member of its clan that was lost or scared and Ash would have no choice but to help it. It showed where the Moon Stone was in Mt. Moon, which was actually more like a giant meteorite and less like the stone we were expecting. Clefairy also showed up in another town trying to gather parts for its space ship. Oh right, did I forget to mention that? Clefairy is from space! It’s a proven fact because at the end of the episode you see them go up into space. No wonder they’re so lost down here on Poke-Earth.

WHY YOU WANT A CLEFAIRY

Despite the fact that Clefairy apparently gets lost even when it’s in the only location in Kanto where you can find it so you’d think it’d know its way around the place, Clefairy actually happens to be a pretty useful pokemon. Easy to evolve, as almost all pokemon found around Mt. Moon are because hey, the Moon Stone is just within the mountain, and even as a Clefairy it can still learn some interesting moves. Maybe not any moves that would actually be particularly useful for fighting, but it does learn Sing which can make it pretty useful for catching other pokemon. Also, the picture is definitely a Clefairy. Bonus points!

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CLEFAIRY

If you caught a Clefairy it was because you actually happened to come across one, harder to do than Ash Ketchum makes it appear, and you were so stunned that you couldn’t help but catch it. It’s from outer space! You’re not gonna let that one pass you by. But if you were looking for damage dealing moves, Clefairy is not the pokemon. Sure it gets a bonus to Pound and Double Slap, but other than Metronome which (as many trainers would tell you) is better for a laugh than relying on it to be useful, those will be the only damage dealing moves it will learn. Forever.

IN SUMMARY

Clefairy was hard to get in the games, and thinking in turns of flavour, it’s because they’re peaceful shy little things that don’t want to hurt anyone. And guess what? They’re move set actually shows that. They don’t want to be caught and it’s not because they don’t like you, but they just don’t want to hurt your feelings when you expect the pokemon you catch to be able to hold their own in a tough fighting world and all they can do is gently sing your opponents to sleep. Clefairy is actually a really neat addition to the pokemon games because their move set reflects what they’re personalities are supposed to be like.

#034 - Nidoking

NIDOKING

IN SHOW

Not only did Gary own a Nidoqueen, he also owned a Nidoking which he used to face one of the most terrifying gym leaders of all time, Giovanni. He lost, but it left an impression on us. Nidoking is only to be used for the most badass of occasions. Nidoking has been shown to be the choice among Ash’s rivals as well, Paul also owning one, which must mean that Nidoking can also only be owned by the toughest guys that are intent on beating the best and showing that they’re better than the pathetic guy with a Pikachu who things always seem to work out for.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDOKING

Nidoking is the exact same type combination as Nidoqueen, also making it immune to electricity and a popular choice among potential Lt. Surge combatants. It was as easy to evolve as Nidoqueen as well, with a Moon Stone not being hard to come by. If you were a male, Nidoking was the pick of the pokemon you wanted to evolve the moment you left Mt. Moon, and who could blame you? The picture was even better than Nidoqueen’s! It was intimidating as hell and looked just like the pokemon.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDOKING

The same reason as Nidoqueen; the move set caps out at level 23, so once again you want to milk your Nidorino for as many moves as it can give you because you won’t get them from Nidoking. Who wants a pokemon to cap out at level 23, especially with a move like thrash? You get confused if it completes fully, and you could have to work through that for the rest of the battle. Yes, it’s a strong move but it can also be detrimental to your health.

IN SUMMARY

Nidoking was a tough as nails pokemon and it was owned by tough as nails trainers. Everyone wanted to be tough, to kick butt and take names in the pokemon world, and everyone wanted Nidoking. But his move set sucked. I’m learning quite quickly that this seems to be a habit among pokemon who use evolutionary stones because it’s supposed to take time to evolve them so that the pokemon that comes before it has time to learn a lot of useful moves so the final form doesn’t really need to. But you get a Moon Stone in Mt. Moon, and you can have a Nidorino before you even enter the location, so of course you’re going to use it immediately when you’re a kid and of course you’re going to be disappointed when your pokemon never learns anything ever again. So Nidoking in show, amazing, Nidoking in game, everything except move set also amazing.

#033 - Nidorino

NIDORINO

IN SHOW

Nidorino was actually the first pokemon ever seen on the show, being in a battle with a Gengar that Ash was watching the night before he went out to get his first pokemon. This is actually a huge honour to bestow on any pokemon, and it’s odd that they would bestow it on a pokemon that only ever had one episode to itself and even then that was just a brief appearance after evolving when it kissed its one true love. Other Nidorino were shown in the background of shows, sure, but this was the first animated pokemon battle we’d ever seen, it was the first pokemon we’d ever seen, and it got nothing more than a Romeo and Juliet story line.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDORINO

Nidorino was pure poison, though he would only ever learn one poison move, but even just having the type under his name meant that he carried all the strengths and weaknesses of the type. So Erica would find a hard time getting foothold on this pokemon. Plus its picture actually looked just like a Nidorino. There’s no beating around the bush here. We didn’t have to go around trying to guess how the artist might have thought this could remotely look like a Nidorino, it actually looked like the very first pokemon we had seen in the show! And in the game too! The opening sequence contains the exact same battle! Maybe that’s why the sprite art had to look so good.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDORINO

Poison types are really offensively good for one thing, poisoning other pokemon. But when that poison type move is as weak as poison sting then we have a problem. Sure it would do the same poison damage over and over again and you could move on to some stronger attacks, but if you wanted to beat a grass pokemon you would just spam poison sting, and get the same pathetic result over and over again.

IN SUMMARY

Nidorino looks great, and it’s hard to bad talk him when for many of us he is the first pokemon we ever saw in action. We may have seen the pictures on the cards, or owned a stuffed pokemon or a little keychain, but if we watched the show we saw that iconic battle, and the moment we first turned on our game we saw that very same battle. Many people remember the battle between Nidorino and Gengar so vividly and I can’t blame them. Sure, for a poison type there are better pokemon out there, but I’m gonna go with my gut on this one and say Nidorino showed a generation of pokemon trainers just how cool battling with your prized pet could be and I can’t give him a negative review on that one.