#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.

#032 - Nidoran♂

NIDORAN♂

IN SHOW

Nidoran♂ was once again one of those pokemon who is a background character. It has a lot of episodes under its belt but none that can really be mentioned as important except for the Romeo and Juliet-esque episode where he was in love with a Nidoran♀ but their trainers refused to allow them to see one another. It was cute romance that could only be done because the Nidoran group where the only pokemon to have official genders to their species. How sweet.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDORAN

You want a Nidoran♂ for all the same reasons you would want a Nidoran♀. Only this time Nidoran♂ eventually evolves into Nidoking and not Nidoqueen. Usually, since they were the only two pokemon with gender, it just came down to whether or not you were a boy or a girl. Nidoran♂ had horn attack though whereas Nidoran♀ had scratch, and sometimes it came down to which attack you found to be more useful as well.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDORAN

The same reasons you didn’t want a Nidoran♂ would become the same reasons you didn’t want a Nidoran♀. The picture was definitely Nidoran♂-like, but not exactly like the show and it does suck when they get so close to the actual thing and miss it by just enough to be annoying. It would only ever learn poison sting before evolving and when your main type is poison you’d think you could start off with a poison type move.

IN SUMMARY

The problem with writing this review for Nidoran♂ is that Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀ were essentially the same pokemon except one was female and started off with scratch and one was male and started off with horn attack. Everything I wanted to say for Nidoran♂ I had already said for Nidoran♀, and I didn’t really want to have to repeat myself. So if you want to know what I have to think about Nidoran♂, go look up what I have to think about Nidoran♀.

#031 - Nidoqueen

NIDOQUEEN

IN SHOW

Nidoqueen actually first appeared in the movie, and not the show, but it did hold some big roles in the show itself. One of the gym leaders in the Orange Islands owned a Nidoqueen, and even Gary owned one though no one knows where he got it from. Nidoqueen is usually the pokemon that is seen to be owned by ‘the girlfriend’, as was demonstrated at least once in the show as well.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDOQUEEN

Nidoqueen was the first pokemon ever to have its type combination, poison and ground, and this gave it some pretty unique strengths and weaknesses. It was absolutely untouchable by electric attacks, which means if you got a moon stone and decided to evolve it before you reached Lt. Surge, you were golden because you could cancel out most of his attacks. And Moon Stones were pretty easy to come by, being found in at least 4 different locations so you could at least evolve it relatively painlessly. It could learn Surf and Strength making it pretty useful in the HM department too. And the picture? It looked GOOD. Everyone has a favourite pokedex picture but this is by far the best one so far. It looked exactly like the Nidoqueen in the show, down to every last detail.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDOQUEEN

You need to hold off on levelling it. If you want an effective Nidoqueen you have to milk Nidorina for every last move it can learn because otherwise your Nidoqueen will cap out at level 23 by learning body slam. A strong move, yes, but pokemon should learn moves steadily as they level. There’s no fun in levelling the pokemon for stat boosts only, when other pokemon are learning much stronger moves that take advantage of those stats much better than the moves a pokemon will learn at 23 ever could.

IN SUMMARY

Nidoqueen has way more good points than bad points; interesting type combination, easy availability for levelling, a good amount of HM’s, a healthy amount of cameos on the show, and an amazing pokedex picture. But its move set is lacking so much that it ruins the entire pokemon. Now, I know, you can teach it tons of TM’s to make it a wonderful addition to any team, but I don’t review based on that. I review based on a pokemon’s natural ability to be as good as it can be, and it is up to the trainer to take it from there. Any pokemon can be spruced up with moves but those can only take them so far. This is why I haven’t mentioned TM’s up until this point, but with Nidoqueen it needs to be addressed. TM’s are useful for trainers, they give a pokemon a lot of tactical boost and make them strong in situations where they might have been weak. But that is a human choice, not a choice that is naturally programmed into the pokemon’s move sets and I will not review pokemon by them. So Nidoqueen, you’re great if a trainer wants to give you TM’s, and you had so much potential that I wanted to give you a gold star. But sadly, it couldn’t be done.

#030 - Nidorina

NIDORINA

IN SHOW

Nidorina almost never appear in the show, though one did appear when a female Nidoran evolved after kissing a male Nidoran. Other than that there has been no real example of any Nidorina in the pokemon world.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDORINA

If you catch a Nidorina in pokemon Yellow and don’t simply evolve a Nidoran♀ you can actually get a whole extra move out of it, that move being the very useful double kick, which many may think is pretty weak, but was actually one of the first fighting moves to be learned naturally in the game, and so this move can be pretty useful. Nidorina also learns double kick in pokemon red and blue but it’s at a much later level. Nidorina’s picture is actually one of the rare instances where the pokemon red and blue pokedex entry could actually be considered superior to the yellow one.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDORINA

Yes, the pokedex picture in red and blue are superior to the one in yellow, but both of the pictures suck. Nidorina didn’t have that much screen time, but we at least knew it was supposed to be a poisonous rabbit, not some type of pig. Who thought it was a good idea to give Nidorina a pig nose? Also, other than double kick the move set is pretty much identical to that of Nidoran♀.

IN SUMMARY

Now, though Nidoran was a good ends to the means pokemon, Nidorina took whatever Nidoran had built on and...sat on it. It wasn’t an improvement, and it was really not very much of a progression. It was only given the one fighting move, which it would only ever get if you waited until level 50 to allow it to evolve, and by then many other pokemon were getting much better moves. And what was with the pig nose? Who thought bunny and drew pig nose? I’m sure they had actual art for what the pokemon were supposed to look like at that point, at least for the television series, so couldn’t the sprite artists have taken a look? I don’t really mind the awful pictures at this generation because the medium was so limited as long as it at least looks like they were trying, but when you add a pig nose to a pokemon who clearly doesn’t have one...But Nidorina is a pretty solid middle pokemon, as long as you didn’t keep it for too long.

#029 - Nidoran♀

NIDORAN♀

IN SHOW

Nidoran♀is another one of those pokemon in a long line of pokemon that are there as background characters, though they are often seen to be owned by younger children. There was one main Nidoran♀ though, one who was involved in romance with another Nidoran♂. When their trainers found this out the plot essentially began to copy that of the Romeo and Juliet. The two pokemon were constantly trying to find one another, but their families had forbidden them from ever seeing their one true love. At the end, the two pokemon kiss and Nidoran♀ evolves into Nidorina. It’s cute and romantic, and it’s what we expected from the only two pokemon with actual genders.

WHY YOU WANT A NIDORAN

Nidoran♀ evolved at a pretty steady rate and when it did evolve it evolved into some pretty powerful pokemon. There wasn’t a lot of problem catching it pretty early on, so it was good pokemon to have to balance out your team if you wanted the poison attacks without the bug type weighing you down, and you just weren’t that into Ekans.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A NIDORAN

Nidoran♀ only ever learned the most basic poison type attack before it evolved. The picture in the pokedex was definitely Nidoran♀ like, but it wasn’t the Nidoran♀ in the show at all. This was a pity because Nidoran♀ actually had a pretty simple design, and I at least thought that the people in charge of the pictures couldn’t have screwed that up. Of course, as usual, they totally let me down, and I think just dropped the ball in general.

IN SUMMARY

Nidoran♀ is definitely an ends to a means, but it can stand up on its own two feet. Sure, it’s only really shown as the pokemon that young children have, but if I were a kid and had a Nidoran♀ I’d be really happy. Because by the time I could be an actual trainer I’d probably have already evolved my little Nidoran♀ into one of the pokemon in its bad ass evolutionary line and could actually kick some serious butt out of the starting gate. Yes, it only learns the most basic poison type move, but it doesn’t have the TIME to learn anything else because it evolves so quickly. This is actually a pokemon that only exists to evolve that was done right. It’s not a drawn out evolution where they pretend the pokemon is meant to be its own creature, but because it’s not Nidoran♀ actually does become its own creature. Maybe this was totally coincidental, but it’s the best coincidence to ever happen to what has become one of the staples of pokemon.