#027 - Sandshrew

SANDSHREW

IN SHOW

I remember seeing Sandshrew a lot in the show, but not as a main character. Sandshrew was always one of those pokemon that you would see living life in a pokemon utopia while the main characters were walking by a field, or in clips of battle in a league competition. This always surprised me because Sandshrew was so cute and could have been a pretty good mascot for the series. Maybe not the main mascot, but Brock definitely could have branched out and caught one as it would have been much closer to Rock than his later pokemon would be.

WHY YOU WANT A SANDSHREW

Sandshrew actually has a pretty good pokedex picture, as far as they go. You can clearly identify what pokemon is popping up in front of you, and it’s cute, which is what we had come to expect for the Sandshrew we had seen on the show. It may not have been the most imaginative of the pokedex pictures but it did actually show the pokemon in a reliable way which is more than we had come to expect. He even has some pretty good moves that he’ll learn before evolving, and he continues the good move set even if you choose not to evolve him.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A SANDSHREW

Sandshrew doesn’t learn any Ground type moves. He’s the first Ground type pokemon in the pokedex and he doesn’t know a single move! Yes, all of his moves fit him and work well together, but when you add pokemon to your party a lot of people tend to do it because they need the type to defeat a trainer or gym leader, and when the first, and most likely to be found, Ground type doesn’t actually have any Ground type moves, that can cause serious problems. Also, it learns a poison attack and I don’t understand how it can do that but not learn any from its only elemental type.

IN SUMMARY

Sandshrew was a cute pokemon that got a lot of air time, even if it was in the background, and a lot of people remember it very clearly because it was in so many background shots. Its constant appearances are probably because it was so animal like and very believable. Even with effective attacks it lost its appeal because it didn’t actually have any moves of its type and that can cause problems when you’re building a team around different types and how they work well together. Having a Sandshrew is essentially the same thing as having a normal pokemon but with different weaknesses and it’s not really worth the slot on that basis alone.