#024 - Arbok

ARBOK

IN SHOW

Jessie’s newly evolved Arbok lasted from Season 1 to Season 6 of the show, and we were all pretty attached to it by that point. We had seen Arbok blast off with the team countless times, and be recruited into some of Jessie’s many schemes. Arbok was still as emotional as it had been when it was an Ekans, crying when it didn’t have the lead role in a movie and relying on Jessie for support. When Arbok finally left the show it was only to protect another group of Ekans and because Jessie forced him to. Arbok was extremely upset, refusing to leave and crying his eyes out when he did. This may not have been the first time we had seen Jessie and James be upset, but it was one of the first times we realized that they did really care for and love their pokemon.

WHY YOU WANT AN ARBOK

Arbok’s picture looks really good. His design was solid, and yes it’s hard to mess up a snake but after spending so long with Arbok we knew what he looked like and the Arbok pokedex picture actually did it justice. He could learn an HM, strength, which is always a nice thing to have. It’s evolution from Ekans actually make sense as they build on what Ekans already brought to the table to give Arbok a good strong look.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT AN ARBOK

Arbok is a disappointing pokemon when it comes to move set. It actually learns all of the same moves as Ekans and learns them faster so it’s actually a better idea to wait to evolve your Ekans instead of allowing it to evolve the moment it hits level 22. It’s ‘exactly the same but...’ stats approve and that’s supposed to make it a little more worthwhile. It’s hard to see why you shouldn’t just keep your Ekans as an Ekans for the entire game when there’s no real reason to evolve a pokemon, and that was a huge error that the company made. In a game that’s all about levelling your pokemon and making it stronger, there’s a problem when your pokemon is actually a faster learner before it evolves, meaning it improves more in its primary stage.

IN SUMMARY

In all honesty, maybe we should have been expecting disappointment when it comes to Arbok. He was never that good in the show for all that we loved him and we constantly saw him being defeated. So why did we expect any better in the game? Perhaps it’s our own fault that Arbok sucked so bad? We got our hopes up that Arbok might just be awful because of how Jessie trained it and used it, and maybe she just hadn’t tapped into Arbok’s full potential. We would be able to do that because we were the ultimate pokemon masters and all our badges showed that we could in fact train pokemon to be worthwhile even when we were told they weren’t. But the show producers were actually trying to warn us! Arbok was gonna suck, and we had better be prepared. It’s a shame that we weren’t.

#023 - Ekans

EKANS

IN SHOW

Jessie had an Ekans. It was her most important pokemon, and it helped define her entire character. She was the bad girl with the snake pokemon, making her intimidating and possibly even sexy to some people. And Ekans loved Jessie. At one point they were separated on the Island of Giant Pokemon and all Ekans could think about was returning to his Jessie, and when they finally were reunited it was very emotional for the both of them. Ekans only ever wanted to make Jessie happy and this was proven when he decided to evolve because Jessie wanted him to so badly.

WHY YOU WANT AN EKANS

Anyone who loves snakes will want an Ekans. There are only 2 families of snake pokemon and Ekans comprises one half of the first family. Its evolved form Arbok is hard to catch, so if you want an Arbok your best bet is to go for the fairly common Ekans. Ekans also receives a pretty good variety of moves before it levels up so it creates a good basis for the evolution. Ekans also happens to be the very first pure poison pokemon in the pokedex so it has some pretty unique strengths without the added weakness of different types, and that hadn’t been seen yet.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT AN EKANS

Because Ekans is the first pure poison type in the pokedex you would expect him to have a pretty good selection of poison attacks to work with. You’d be wrong. By the time Ekans evolves he will only have poison sting, unless you wait until level 38 to evolve him, and poison sting is not one of the stronger poison attacks. Catching an Ekans because you hope he will have enough poison attacks to do some severe damage to an opposing type will set you up for disappointment.

IN SUMMARY

Ekans was a loyal and worthy pokemon to Jessie, and everyone was happy when it evolved, just as they would be when their own Ekans evolved. It’s not because people don’t like Ekans either, the Ekans in the television show made it so that no one would ever think poorly of an Ekans because it had just enough character to make us root for it. But Ekans was just of no use until it evolved, and when even the character in the television show that loves it above all other pokemon agrees with that statement, you know there’s a problem.

#022 - Fearow

FEAROW

IN SHOW

When we learned that the Spearow from the very first episode had evolved into a Fearow, we were terrified and for good reason. Fearow is shown working for a poacher, he’s one of Gary’s pokemon, hell even Mewtwo has one. Nothing about Fearow is clean cut, he’s ragged and edgy and he oozes evil. So the moment we realized that Fearow had been holding a grudge against Ash for as long as he had, we wanted to skip town. And Fearow was literally starving and terrorizing a flock of Pidgey! Pidgey are like 2 year olds and Fearow was beating them up and commanding others to beat them up just out of spite or boredom.

WHY YOU WANT A FEAROW

Fearow reeks of intimidation and the moment your opponent realizes you’re going to use a Fearow, they know that you’re serious. You don’t want them to just lose, you want them to suffer and you do this with Drill Peck. Drill Peck is a 100% accurate powerful peck to the face that will have opponents begging for mercy. It sounds painful and it probably is. Coupled with Fury Attack Fearow is one tough dude.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A FEAROW

The main reason you do not want a Fearow is because you are a nice guy or because you looked at the pokedex picture and realized that Fearow in the game doesn’t look like an intimidating badass but a bush or a guy with rocker hair. Fearow’s picture was supposed to strike fear in our hearts but instead it just made us sad. Yellow had the better picture, and Fearow gained some of his intimidation back but I don’t think he will ever be able to fully recover from what Red and Blue did to him.

IN SUMMARY

Fearow is scary, and Fearow is evil. There are only a few pokemon that are evil just in general, and not because of their trainer or the situations they were born into. Fearow is evil because Fearow finds it fun to be evil and isn’t that what true evil is? He does things for only his pleasure, and won’t even give a second thought to who he’s hurting. I doubt that even Spearow are safe from a Fearow’s wrath and that is probably why they always do whatever Fearow wants. Because they might not survive if they don’t. And have you ever seen two Fearow together? You won’t because Fearow probably can’t even stand one another because the only pokemon who can get the upper edge on a Fearow is another Fearow.

#021 - Spearow

SPEAROW

IN SHOW

Flock of Spearow are constantly attacking people for no reason. These pokemon are the bird equivalent of Beedrill and if they ever teamed up I would fear for the world. There has been one main flock of the pokemon that have appeared in two different episodes and a movie! This is the flock of Spearow which the first Spearow Ash ever tried to catch belonged to. This pissed the Spearow off, to be fair he did hit it on the head with a rock, and it returned to its flock to plot revenge. That episode the Spearow only succeeded in helping Ash ruin Misty’s bike and almost killing Pikachu. When Ash returned to Pallet Town, after the Indigo League, that same Spearow had evolved into a Fearow and was plaguing the Pidgey and Pidgeotto of the town. Then, later on in the 8^th movie there is a flash back which contains that Spearow and his flock. For a pokemon Ash never caught it sure can hold a grudge and we’re all thankful that Pidgeot is there to keep the town safe.

WHY YOU WANT A SPEAROW

Spearow is the exact same class combination as Pidgey so it’s actually more about personality then it is anything else. Spearow are incessant, and have been shown to only care about themselves unless you’re asking them to help annoy or bother or injure another party. Then they will help you to the fullest extent. Spearow will learn Fury Attack, which is a perfect move for this pokemon but is one of those attacks that eats away at an opponent’s health not one that will do a straight amount of damage.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A SPEAROW

Most sane people will not want a Spearow because Spearow exist only to torture everyone else around them. I’m sure there are some good Spearow out there, but I can’t think of an example of one. Their pokedex picture isn’t bad, but it’s not the Spearow we were exposed to in the show either. Most people picture Spearow dealing out loads of damage and being the more offensive of the two small bird pokemon of the first generation but Spearow is the exact opposite. He will deal out little amounts of damage over a long period of time and if you plan on powering through the game, despite looks and personality Spearow won’t work for you.

IN SUMMARY

Spearow is a pretty cool pokemon, if only for the fact that he is the first pokemon we absolutely hated. If he had actually succeeded in killing Pikachu the show would’ve ended their and that would be the end of the pokemon legacy. Or Ash would have attempted to seek revenge and the show would have turned into a weird pokemon version of Rambo. That might actually have been cooler. For an understandable reason people always think that Spearow should be the one to be dealing straight damage and not Pidgey, and are confused when he doesn’t do so. But it’s because Spearow is supposed to be the awful poking at eyes and not letting up even when you beg for help kind of pokemon. Spearow isn’t the type to do one swift attack and fly away feeling that he has accomplished his goal. Spearow will make you suffer, and he will enjoy it.