#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.