Pokemon Part 2 – The Ultimate Team or Definitely No Zubat

The great philosopher Confucius was credited with many famous sayings. Perhaps his best one was on opinions, where he said “Opinions are like assholes– everyone has one and most people think theirs doesn’t stink”. Certainly profound, if not a bit unhygienic, Confucius’ words certainly ring true today. With the advent of twitter, everyone feels the need to share their opinion on every topic. If it was real life, it would basically be a room where people shouted at the top of their lungs, making no rational points other than saying how they feel. Here’s a surprise you may not know – nobody cares about anybody else’s opinion. They will agree with anyone who thinks alike on the topic, and shun those who don’t. If you don’t think this is true, check out the White House on a given day and you’ll see this is now the nation is being run. It’s from the top down people.

Note that while absolutely correct, many of Confucius’ peers hated him for this revelation. He was not a hit at parties, trying to explain this point of view, and asking guests to sniff asses to prove his point. Confucius didn’t get invited to a lot of parties. I guess if there’s one thing to take away from this article, it’s not to sniff butts. At least without permission. That goes for the pups reading too. Get a better hobby.

Now, I started the article this way for a reason, other than to boost the word count. I wanted to remind you that what I am sharing is an opinion. You’re likely not to agree with it, even though my list is without question better than yours. But I’m not saying this to remind you to respect another’s opinion. Oh my no.

I’m writing this with the intent to make you salty. I want to trigger each of every one of you by leaving off your favorite pokemon while I explain why mine are far superior than yours. I want to feel the tears hit the keyboard as you say “This is all wrong – unsubscribe” in the remarks. I want to howl in laughter as editorials are submitted left and right calling me the worst blogger of 2018.

If the above paragraph was over the top, you’re right. Basically, I’d like to hear some debate on this. Let’s face it – everybody has a team of six they used playing these games. I highly doubt it was mine. So I do want to hear who your top six are. If only to tell you has misguided and wrong your choices were.

If somebody is passionate enough, they are more than welcomed to write a guest blog on their team. Hey, it’s less work for me that week. So let’s get a little interactive for once, and remember, my team is definitely cooler than yours.

You may be wondering how I came up with this list. Well, fortunately that’s pretty easy. Here’s the criteria for choosing the top six Pokemon, ever of all time.

1). No Legendaries – Let’s face it, if Legends were in, everybody would have Mewtwo on their lists. He’s without question a top three pokemon of all time. In the effort of variety, legends were not included.

2). First Two Games get a Heavy Bias – I mean, these were the games of my youth, so of course they have the best pokemon.

These are the ones most of us know, so I assume everybody will have bias toward it. So I mean, why not? Though, I did take a look at the sprites of all 800+ pokemon to make determinations. And while some of the later guys look cool (hold that thought) a lot of them are terrible (hold that thought too). So, just because five of the six monsters are from the first two games, don’t be a hater.

3). Design over Practicality – Sure, it’s nice if they help you win the game, and a few of my picks are because of that, but I’d rather win with style. This is why there’s touchdown dances, hanging on the rim, and Fernando Rodney’s now and arrow celebration whenever he gets a safe (seldom, but still). If I have to pick my favorites, having some style will matter. I’m not saying my picks are the best designed pokemon, but there’s something about them that makes it click for me.

Now before we begin, I have two honorable mentions I’d like to shout out.

Mewtwo – I already mentioned it, but I had to give it a special, second shout out. Mewtwo is the legend of all legends in Nintendo lore. He’s so powerful, he blew up an island, hit in a dark cave, and only one trainer could catch him… Ok, I guess it was a lot more than one, but you get the point. He was so powerful, most battles back in the day were between one Mewtwo vs another. It was like N-Sync – the other members of your team were there to support the star (Mewtwo/Joey Fatone). He was also a lot of fun in Smash Brothers, even though he wasn’t really that good, being more of a glass cannon than an unstoppable force. Guess you can’t just have one character hit a button and nuke everything on screen though.

Pikachu – This has nothing to do with the pokemon games. The only thing Pikachu ever did in the games was look extremely fat early on, and make the first gym way harder than it needed to be in Pokemon Yellow. I mean, you needed to use a Butterfree or a mankey to me. Spoiler alert – you won’t see either of those guys in the top six.

And the pikachu sprite was fat  seriously, google that and you’ll wonder how it didn’t make the worst designed list.

What Pikachu did right was becoming a great smash character. While I switched off using him much in the recent version, because  who wouldn’t play as the OG troll Duck Hunt Dog, Pikachu was my best character for the first three versions on Smash. Playing Pikachu was very difficult. You had to hit both down and B at the same time… and that was it. Thunder was such a spammable move it wreaked pretty much everything, especially Kirby trying to fly a little too close to the sun, or at least away from a fight. So Pikachu, you’re not very good in your own games, but you’re excellent in smash, so that counts for something.

The Team

Venusaur

This is the best starter pokemon of all time. Now I know many of you will think that’s crazy. 98% of you are probably Charizard fan boys or girls, and that’s ok. Everybody is wrong sometimes. Let me break this down for you.

Charizard is a cool concept – a fire breathing dragon who can fly. He’s basically the epitome of a dragon in looks. But you know what he’s not in Pokemon? A dragon. Instead, he gets saddled with being a fire type in games where everyone and their cousin is water. Fire is rarely benefited by water. You end up with an overhyped Pokemon, and to be honest, most of the hype came from the cartoon. Charizard had attitude in the show, not listening to his trainer and doing what he wanted. As a kid, that seemed cool. But now, most of us are adults, and some of us have children of our own. Is disobedience cool? No, of course not. You see – Charizard was always overrated, preventing people from seeing just how cool Venasaur is.*

What makes him cool: In a game filled with useless grass types, Venusaur stands out. Most grass types look like flowers or weeds. There’s nothing interesting about them other than they are easily flammable (there you go Charizard), or just pathetic. Like I really want to send a plant or a patch of grass into a battle. Venusaur combined the necessary floral arrangement of his typing with being a giant dinosaur. He made being half flower cool. That’s incredible. Imagine somebody mocking the flower from a distance, only to be attacked by this murder dinosaur who would rip their faces off.

Venusaur also used his flower to the fullest extent. firing beams and blasts out of it (at least according to the animation). How many beings can shoot energy out of a flower? The answer is 1 (well 3 if you count Bulbasaur and Ivysaur, but who does). Again, making a flower seem dangerous and powerful is difficult, but Venusar does it with ease.

Finally, and I know I said usefulness doesn’t count, but Venusaur helped me wreck through Pokemon Blue like the champion he is. He’s a bonafide tank, and he does it while being a herbivore. And Charizard fans, take solace in the fact that you’re boy isn’t Blastoise. Man does that Pokemon stink**.

Nickname options: Caeser (salad), U’llbesore,   Herbisaur

Vaporeon

Eevee is a weird pokemon. Unlike pretty much everyone else, who has one, or maybe two evolutionary lines, Eevee can evolve into a plethora of monsters. He’s basically like a buffet – there’s a little bit of something for everyone. The one flaw with this is that he can only evolve once, and then he will remain in that form, so you must choose careful. As we discussed in the first entry, Pokemon evolution spits in Charles Darwin’s face. Eevee would be the being who projects the loogy. Eevee can evolve from three different stones, via friendship and in later games by leveling up…near specific rocks. No, that makes sense. Out of all these choices, the way to go is to use a water stone and get yourself a vaporeon.

What makes him cool: Unlike the rest of the Eevee line, Vaporeon doesn’t end up looking like a dog or a cat. Instead he stands out as a majestic mermaid… like thing. I don’t know, it’s tough to describe. The tail is definitely mermaid quality though. This is very unique, even with 800 monsters available. I don’t know how high mermaids rank on the coolest scale, but Vaporeon looks sleek, and that in itself is pretty awesome.

Now, there are a ton of water types in these games. You might ask yourself “What’s Bloggin Hood doing not picking Starmie or Lapras? Wasted team slot.” And sure, other pokemon have merit here, but Vaporeon’s earn this spot through in game prowess. I know, I know, second time in a row that effectiveness in game has been mentioned, but it’s true. Vaporeon joined Venusaur on my first playthrough and wrecked house. He could crush anything with its attacks, but that’s not it’s best feature. This thing just doesn’t die. It’s the purest defensive pokemon in the digital world. Try as the opponents might, they couldn’t get past this things thick, impenetrable mermaid body, as it mocked their pitiful attacks and countered with it’s on. Unlike most choics, Vaporeon offered both offense and defense. I mean, it was slow as sin, but you can’t have evenything. I’ll take the drawbacks with all the positives.

Nickname Options – Ariel, Merman, Vappy (I think I used this as a child. I’m not proud).

Heracross

Bugs typically aren’t cool. Usually they’re gross and if you see them in your house, you look to get rid of them ASAP. In the pokemon world, it’s basically the same thing, except even the smallest bug is like a foot long. Imagine living in that world, and every time you left your house, you’ve come across a pack of foot long bugs? I’d be a shut in faste than you could say Seamless. However, I can make one exception for bugs, Heracross, a traditional boxing beetle. Ok, it’s not traditional, but it’s pretty awesome.

What makes it cool: One of the coolest features of Heracorss is how you can catch it. It’s actually not found like normal pokemon. Instead, you have to make a Pokémon headbutt trees to get it. This is very difficult as it’s a rare pokemon to show up. You might be headbutting 100 trees until he finally appears. The pokemon using headbutt will have at least one concussion before you can capture the beetle. This is amazing on two levels. Firstly, you only catch this monster of a pokemon after brutally attacking trees with a skull. That’s pretty metal. Second of all, I like to picture Heracross in an adjacent tree, laughing at your misfortune, until it takes pity on your mangled brains and let’s you fight it. But what’s badass than damanging nature with your own face? Heracross’ attacks

Heracross is a bug and fighting pokemon, which is a pretty cool combo. Most people, like me, assume bugs are gross, but not so for Mr. Cross. One of his main attacks, Megahorn is basically Heracross impaling his target with his own horn. I mean, Jesus is that hardcore, or what? Then, as a fighting type, he learns all sorts of throws, punches and combat moves. He’s a Swiss Army knife of destruction. Plus, look at that innocent face. Imagine how many unspsecting enemies walked up to him with their guard down only to take a close combat beatdown, and a megahorn to the chest? I mean, what’s not to like?

He’s probably not nearly as bloodthirsty as I’m making him out to be, but he’s definitely the second most badass pokemon on the team.

Nicknames: Hercules, Beat-tle, Beatle Bailey

Ursaring

So this is why Heracross isn’t the most bad ass pokemon on the team. I mean, do you see this thing? He actually had a target on the front of him, daring any Pokémon to make the first move. Ursaring begs for combat, and he probably doesn’t get it. He would make me thankful most caves are piled high with Zubat  and other monster that don’t make most people shit themselves .

What makes it cool: Are you saying you don’t think a vicious grizzly bear is cool? I don’t know why I have to explain this one, but I will. Ursaring is saddled with the Normal typing, basically meaning there is no advantages from using it. It doesn’t get any plus type advantages, but at the same time doesn’t really have many weaknesses either. Typically, this type is given to plain looking Pokemon, or pokemon that can’t pinpoint where they belong. Personally, I’d have given him something like Ground and Fighting, but we wouldn’t want to make Ursaring clear and away the best Pokemon even, now would we?

Despite receiving the equivalent of a shoulder shrug from Nintendo, Ursaring still stands out. For starters, bears are awesome. I mean, everyone grows up with a cuddly little teddy bear, right? Well, Ursaring’s first form, is a little teddy bear. It’s very cute. But we’re not hear to talk about cute, we’re here to talk about the behemoth. Urasing evolves into one of the most intimidating pokemon in the history of the games. He looks like he would rip most pokemon in half. In fact, he usually does, as he has a sky high attack, and despite getting the plainest typing, learns plenty of fighting, ground, rock and dark moves. You know, all the types he ocould have been. Not that I’m bitter about it or anything.

You want to know how tough this guy is? In pokemon games, you might know you can inflict statuses like poison, burn and paralysis. For most, this is a death sentence. For Ursaring, it’s a benefit. Due to Ursaring’s ability, he actually gets either stronger or faster when affected by status. Basically, if you try to weaken it, it only gets stronger and it’s rage increases. So which bear is best? Definitely Ursaring. All day.

Nicknames: Grendel, Adams, Winnie

Scizor:

It takes a large effort to improve on Scyther, a green bug/flying type pokemon who had actual blades for hands. While that certainly isn’t practical for anything other than battling, fortunately as merciless trainers, all we care about is bloodlust combat. Hooray. Scyther was without a doubt one of the coolest pokemon introduced in generation one, but it wasn’t easy to use with terrible attacking options and one of the worst type combinitions in history. Bug and Flying is like having allergies and breathing deeply in a glass of dusty pollen. It does not end pretty. And that’s when Scizor was born.

What makes it cool: Firstly, he looks amazing. Don’t pretend he doesn’t. Scizor might be the sleekest pokemon of the lot. While Scyther is still pretty cool, Scizor trades in his hand/blades for claws. You might think this is a downgrade, but I strongly disagree. Claws can grip things, and you don’t risk losing vital organs every time you go to sleep, unlike with sword arms. Form a practical sense, this is great. This also doesn’t lose much for battling as claws may not be the best weapon, they aren’t bad. Scizor reminds me a bit of Clamps from Futurama, who I nicknamed my Scizor after. I picture that as his personality, just wanting to squish things with his claws. This makes Scizor the comedian of the team. You know, when he’s not squishing faces.

His sleek design also improved his performance. Now as a new fangled Steel type, dying from pebbles, electricit, or even a gentle push was no longer a danger. Scizor went from fodder to being a walking tank of destruction. He could shrug off punishment, dish it out better than Scyther ever could, and still look fabulous while doing it. Seriously, I can’t stress enough how polished this look. How would you clean a Scizor anyway? Like does it bathe, or do you put some shiner on it. Pokemon is weird.

In fact, the only downsides ot Scizor was speed and a terrible fear of fire. He can circumvent the speed with agility, and as for fire, I mean, I wouldn’t want to go roll in it either. I think everyone can give my boy a pass on that one.

This is how bad Scizor is – you had to trade him to make it evolve. You know how risky that can be. Why wouldn’t someone run off with your cool ass Pokémon? But Scizor was such a baller, it was worth the risk. Plus you can only hold your trading partners real life pet hostage until the trade back occurs.

Finally, it’s weird  that I have two bugs in my top six, but I mean, these are special cases. How many death dealing steel bugs do you know? Actually, don’t answer that. I want to sleep tonight.

Nicknames: Clamps, Mr. Krabs, Crusher

Krookodile

So far, all of the selections have been for the first two games. These were all on the original Gameboy, where you had to squint to make out anything and  everything was a block. After these games, the graphics improved. Now, each character had a unique model and the pokemon didn’t just look like blocks. I mean, was anybody 100% sure that Charizard had wings in the original game? If you said yes, you’re lying. Still, most of the designs on newer pokemon are, in a word, disguising. Now, I’m not saying they’re all bad, but some of them needed some more thought, or to be scrapped. At least several artists are most likely homeless by now. However, the 5^th generation of games had some cool designs including our final member of the team. And what a pokemon it is.

What makes it cool: Is that a Crocodile with sunglasses? That’s a Crocodile in sunglasses. Ok, we’re good. No other explanation needed.

Seriously, I need to explain more? What’s wrong with you? Fine.

For anyone who has seen Happy Days, somehow, people thought the Fonz was cool because he wore a leather jacket, said “AAAYYYY!” and then started a jute box with a nudge. That’s not cool. That’s trying to be cool. Krookodile on the other hand oozes coolness. His demander is that he’s above all of this, often depicted with his arms folded, as seen above. He’s certainly strong, but the way he carries himself gives him an aura. Each pokemon has a moniker, typically in the format of the ______ pokemon. Krookodile is the intimidating pokemon. This is the guy who would shake you down for your lunch money.

By the way, those shades were actually a plot point in the cartoon. No seriously, they made him wear a second pair of sunglasses because he was so cool. Look.

I’ll admit I thought it was photoshopped in my some jerk like me cause it looks somewhat fake, but then I googled a clip and apparently this was a thing on the show. Now look, I haven’t seen pokemon on tv since I was 12, but the fact that being cool is his defining characteristic is ideal.

And yes, I know in the first picture those are his eyes and not actual sunglasses. Don’t ruin the double sunglass look for me. Even still, the fact that he was designed to look like he was wearing shades shows he’s meant to be the awesome one

Finally, his typing is awesome. He is a dark, ground type, obviously the two coolest in the game. With ground, Krookodile gets to start earthquakes all over the place and dig underground to attack. His dark typing means he uses underhanded tactics like biting, stealing and cheating to win. That’s exactly what I would do if I was a pokemon. It’s like he’s after my own heart. If Pokemon was real, there’s no question this would be my go to pick. Sure, he might bite my arm off and steal my wallet, but he looks so cool, I couldn’t even be mad at him.

Nicknames; Joe Cool, Joey Cool (If female), Stunner Shades

And that my friends is the best Pokémon team you can have. You can try to debate it but I proved I’m correct with all the factual knowledge I shared. Please, post your puny, less badass teams in the comments so I can mock it.

Our last Pokémon article will take the opposite spin and show the worst Pokémon. You’re going to see a lot of crap. In fact, I bet most of the list is comprised of your team members. There’s only one way to find out, so have your salt on hand from part three of our series

*For the record, I don’t believe like any of this other than I like Venusaur more. Charizard was probably the 7^th ranked Pokemon. As proof of his popularity, Charizard is recognized by Word while even Mewtwo does not (Bulbasaur does though. WOOT).

**Blastoise would have made the top 10 for sure.