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RTTP: The Pokemon. All 721 of them, and counting.

Watch Da Birdie said:
around Gold and Silver you'll probably remember there was a popular Fakemon going around that resembled a hammerhead shark
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Completely forgot about this guy, that takes me back.
 
I'm not usually one to complain about Pokemon being over designed with too many patterns and the like, but goddamn Mega Sharpedo is ugly.

I really like Carvana and Sharpedo though.
 
Mega Sharpedo is my personal favorite for being the most ridiculous Mega Evolution in the game, visually.

Like, it appears they didn't really know what the heck they wanted it to be so they just threw everything at it. The design is so cluttered and busy...

Anyway, I used Sharpedo in my Omega Ruby run because I had always wanted to use Sharpedo but he was bad in Ruby. He wasn't terrible at all in OR, the Special/Physical split really helped Sharpedo a lot, at least enough that he's a decent story mode Pokemon.

And I say he, even though my Sharpedo was female and had a female nickname that I don't remember. She's actually my only female on my OR team.
 
Carvanha is another Pokemon I always have to spellcheck...I always wanna type out "Carvana" and forget about the "h".
 
Back in OG Sapphire I was looking for a Feebas to complete my Ruby Dex with (yea I know I could have just looked in Ruby but it just wouldn't show up there so I thought I'd try my luck in Sapphire) but I encountered nothing but Carvanha's for hours. This lead to the inevitable and I encountered a Shiny Carvanha before fucking Feebas >_>. So I got a Shiny Sharpedo. I like Sharpedo's design so that was cool.


Mega Sharpedo looks really awful though.
 
Christ Mega Sharpedo is ridiculous.

Longer fins!

More body markings!

SPIKES!

It's basically every reason people dislike mega evolutions rolled into one design.
 
I used Carvanha/Sharpedo in OR, mainly because of the faster surfing speed. Never been a huge fan of the design tbh, and Mega Sharpedo looks absolutely horrible.

With that said, I never minded that it's only the head of a shark. It's a shark torpedo. Which makes that line in its' Pokedex about being able to take down an oil tanker actually quite dark.
 
Zyrox said:
Back in OG Sapphire I was looking for a Feebas to complete my Ruby Dex with (yea I know I could have just looked in Ruby but it just wouldn't show up there so I thought I'd try my luck in Sapphire) but I encountered nothing but Carvanha's for hours. This lead to the inevitable and I encountered a Shiny Carvanha before fucking Feebas >_>. So I got a Shiny Sharpedo. I like Sharpedo's design so that was cool.


Mega Sharpedo looks really awful though.
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Feebas was uncatchable in sapphire
 
For the first shark Pokemon, Sharpedo is pretty disappointing. I'm not a fan of the cut off head look.

At least Gen IV gave us the amazing Garchomp, but I'd still like to see a water type shark Pokemon.
 
Gulpin and Swalot are pretty cool. I can't help but like them. Maybe it's the Swalot cards that have its gaping mouth look vaguely menacing or the image of my PC box from Ruby with a Swalot in it burned into my mind. I can't say they're much more designed than my least favorite Pokemon, Diglett, but they're still appealing.

Carvanha and Sharpedo are a family that I've always felt was pretty boring. Definitely not as great as the top-tier Hoenn Pokemon that is the next family.
 
Carvanha is one of those cases where it took me a surprisingly long time to figure out it evolved, at first it was a straight up Basculin in my eyes.

I can forgive Sharpedo and its compact design due to the whole torpedo/bullett motif he has going on, I also dig the shifting eye behind the gills.
But really there should be another Shark by now, preferable a hammerhead or maybe a wee nipper of a shark that has a split evo to cram another type in there.

I forgot what Mega Sharpedo looked like, what an absolute mess.
 
Gulpin and Swalot: The Selfie Pokemon

And I'll say nothing about Mega Sharpedo, I'll just say some are made for the youngest and male among us and stay quiet.
 
Bought a new 3DSxl and plan to play one pokemon game per month to catch up. Currently playing the black edition and already bought white2. Then i guess ill be playing X and then ORAS. (Noob question inc)
Is there any way to transfer my pokemom from one game to another or atleast have the pokedex filled?
And is the order i chose alright or should I play ORAS before X?
 
in Japan Rough Skin and Sharpedo's names are virtually the same..."Samehada" (written in hiragana) and "Samehadaa" (written in katakana), and both basically mean the same thing, "skin like a shark".
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Holy hell that's so cool, and totally lost in translation

You'd better believe i'm mega jealous at how cool the Japanese language can get
 
Gulpin was fun in Brawl, and that about sums up my feelings about that line. I always felt like that line needed a third evolution. Hopefully Gen 7 adds some needed evolutions like 4 did instead of hamming it up with the mega evos.

I gave Sharpedo a try for the first time in Alpha Sapphire. I really liked the design, though the mega evolution...left much to be desired. Mine had some serious attack power and speed, but often went down in one hit. One heck of a glass cannon.

It's shocking to me that there hasn't been more than one shark Pokemon yet. Seems like a pretty obvious choice.
 
Ragona said:
Bought a new 3DSxl and plan to play one pokemon game per month to catch up. Currently playing the black edition and already bought white2. Then i guess ill be playing X and then ORAS. (Noob question inc)
Is there any way to transfer my pokemom from one game to another or atleast have the pokedex filled?
And is the order i chose alright or should I play ORAS before X?
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In all my nearly 20 years of playing Pokemon I've never actually transferred Pokemon from one game to another (I know, it's weird), so I can't answer your first question. For your second question I say play X first since it takes place in the newest region, then ORAS to remember why everyone in school stopped playing Pokemon after Gen III came out. I kid, I kid, ORAS is a decent game, it's good for some bouts of nostalgia.
 
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#320 - Wailmer
Water

Hoenn has a ton of Water-type Pokemon, the most of any Generation, and while there are numerous ones who are quite forgettable it also introduced some of the more iconic Water-types as well, and perhaps no Hoenn Water Pokemon is as iconic as Wailmer. One of the first Generation III Pokemon introduced, Wailmer is virtually everywhere in Hoenn via Fishing and has quite an endearing design. There's so many Water-type Pokemon available in Generation III it has a lot of competition for a spot on your team, but it has a pretty interesting stat spread (similar to Carvanha, with mixed attack but fragile defenses, though trading Speed for high HP) and a nice, somewhat varied learnset even back in Generation III, so why not give it a chance? The Surf sprite in Generation III always seemed to have been intended to be loosely Wailmer, while ORAS came full circle by giving Wailmer a unique model when using Surf---it doesn't have any special abilities while Surfing like Sharpedo, but it looks cute at the very least!

Wailmer visually is a bit similar to Sharpedo, a popular aquatic animal, this time the whale, which appears to be oddly missing the rest of its body---though this actually works with Wailmer though and makes it cuter, plus its evolution delivers the full-body creature. If Sharpedo was the first-form, and designed to be "lacking", nobody would've complained if it had an evolution that fixed that, but sadly that wasn't the case. Wailmer in particular draws from the baleen whale, so named for the baleen plates that are commonly mistaken for teeth (it's unknown if those are meant to be teeth in Wailmer's case though) and used to filter feed. Narrowing it down, it may also draw from the "right whale" family of baleen whales who notably have heads that are 1/3 the length of their body and thus Wailmer can be seen as an exaggeration of that trait. Furthermore, baleen whales also have two blow holes which in Wailmer's case are actually nostrils. By sucking in large amounts of water, Wailmer can turn its body into virtually a beach ball and bounce around on the land for a limited of time, though if it stays out of the water for too long it'll dry up. Is anybody here a marine biologist?!

Wailmer made its debut in the 4th Pikachu movie, Pikachu's PikaBoo, and later made an early appearance in the Latios & Latias movie as well as a competitor in the movie's aquatic chariot race during the opening. If you discount Togepi, Marill, Munchlax, and Bonsly, who were owned by main characters by the time of their second appearance, I'm pretty sure Wailmer's the only preview Pokemon to appear in two separate films before its official debut. In Japan there was a special TCG card depicting the Wailmer from the movie that was part of a promotional set which was compatible with the e-Reader app, and in fact was the only card made of a Generation III Pokemon compatible with the accessory. Man, the e-Reader sure didn't last long but it was pretty neat---they really need to do something similar with QR codes and the latest Pokemon TCG cards. Wailmer had a filler dedicated to itself near the tail end of Hoenn where it befriended a castaway on the aptly named "Wailmer Island", and eventually evolved in order to help him and the gang off the island. Later it got a filler episode in Diamond and Pearl too, this time where Ash and friends helped a Wailmer stranded in a sewer make it back out to sea.

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#321 - Wailord
Water

At Level 40 Wailmer evolves into Wailord, who is the largest Pokemon by length ever---and that doesn't look to change anytime soon. In fact, it's more than ten feet longer than the runner up. Despite being absolutely gigantic, Wailord is surprisingly frail as while it has massive HP, its defenses are absolutely horrible so it's quite easy to take down. Furthermore, it isn't particularly useful or notable and if not for the fact it's gigantic and evolves from a "mascot Pokemon", most people would have probably forgot about it---its only real niche is access to the powerful 150 BP Water Spout, which weakens the less HP Wailord has. One could say Wailord is basically the Generation III Onix, a massive Pokemon who's nowhere near as powerful as it should be. Its Abilities are nothing special either, Oblivious is good of course as it keeps it safe from Infatuation, one of the most annoying status-effects ever, but its other Ability Water Veil prevents it from being Burned---and as the majority of moves that cause Burn are of course of the Fire variety, it's rare that this will come in handy. Come to think of it, it really feels like every Water-type should naturally be immune to Burn, doesn't it? Generation V could've turned things around with a cool Hidden Ability, but instead it got Pressure, which is dull as shit and usually tends to be thrown onto Pokemon as a placeholder "we couldn't think of anything better!" Ability. I was also disappointed ORAS didn't give it a unique Surf model, because it would've been neat to Surf around on such a gigantic Pokemon. Still, for the adventure it's good enough that you shouldn't be discouraged using one---being able to keep it healed for every fight and switch-in easily means Water Spout is a great opening move to take down the computer opponent.

Wailord is naturally based on the blue whale, a member of the baleen group of whales, which is the largest extant animal on Earth---and Wailord is the largest extant Pokemon on Pokemon Earth at 47'07. Though thats big, it's actually small compared to the real thing---real blue whales are typically around 80 feet or so, so in comparison one could say that it's actually quite tiny. Still, considering that this is a creature that can be captured in a tiny ball and freely carried around, that size really pushes your suspension of disbelief. How exactly does one use Wailord in actual Pokemon Battles? What would happen if you accidentally release one when in an enclosed area, do PokeBalls have safety features designed to prevent this from happening? And then, of course, why is it possible for a Wailord to breed with Skitty? Reminder that the real blue whale has the largest penis of any living organism with an average length between eight and ten feet---I mean if Wailord is half the size of a real blue whale elsewhere, it's still packing four feet of whale bone down there. Ouch. Wailord's size has only really been accurately displayed in two games, Battle Revolution where it's drawn to scale and the second Pokemon Ranger, where it appears as a set-piece and cannot technically be captured with the Styler, otherwise while big its always shrunk down. It looks pretty puny in Pokemon XY honestly, Vileplume looks bigger than it does.

While Wailord's the longest Pokemon, it's ridiculously light for a blue whale which is considered the heaviest animal to have ever lived---while it's of course difficult to fully weigh them, the largest blue whale ever accurately weighed by the American National Marine Mammal Laboratory weighed 177 tonnes. Wailord is 877.4 lbs, which while still above the majority of Pokemon is ridiculously light considering its size. People have done estimates and factoring in its size and weight, Wailord is basically less dense than air. Though this doesn't seem to be entirely accidental, as its design does seem to suggest it's partially based off of a helium-filled blimp and is basically just a big ball of air, but the PokeDex doesn't exactly suggest this because it mentions that it can be quite destructive when it breaches the water as the force from the impact with the surface can cause nearby opponents to faint. So, it seems it was intended to be a heavy Pokemon, Game Freak just is really weird when it comes to giving Pokemon fitting weights. There are people heavier than Wailord.

In Pokemon Special "Sapphire" owned a Wailord, but the anime has never even tried to tackle the logistics behind training a Wailord---we've seen a few characters, such as the Water-type Gym Leader Marlon, who appear to own one but one has never taken part in battle nor has one been recalled into a PokeBall as far as I can remember, instead it tends to mainly be used as a ferry or exists in the wild. Even in Special, I don't recall Sapphire's Wailord actually doing anything other than ferrying her around, and most of the time it just waited for her in the ocean till it was needed. Its first appearance in Hoenn was actually as a side-note in an episode based around a trio of Hoenn Starters, where it served as a plot-device as a beached one ("is anybody here a marine biologist?") caused Nurse Joy to have to leave the Pokemon Center meaning Ash, May, and Max were forced to look after a rather unruly Torchic. Its other big appearances were linked with the two Wailmer mentioned above in its entry, as the Wailmer who rescued the gang from the island and the one who Ash and friends helped escape the sewer both ended up evolving into Wailord at the end. So, would like the entire city's sanitation infrastructure come to a halt if Wailmer happened to evolve a few minutes earlier and totaled the sewer?
 
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Never forget. I hope Wailord's largeness will be able to conveyed again in Gen 7.

Also I remember Wailord EX being the first Pokemon card I saw that had 200HP. I thought that was a really big deal.
 
I was so mad when I took the time to catch a female Wailmer in Pokemon Black 2 to level it up into a Wailord and up to the rest of my party, I named her Big Shirley and everything, but when I decided to use her, she went down with like a couple of hits. All that HP and it don't mean shit.
 
I love Sharpedo and finally used him in OR and he wrecked shit. The mega design is def disappointing tho. Mainly cuz it's still not a full shark, wtf were they thinking
 
AlexMeloche said:
Double battles? Nah.

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I was so disappointed when I noticed that X/Y/ORAS doesn't show the Pokémon true to scale like the other 3D games. We were denied this moment in 3D :/
Hopefully Gen VII remedies that. I loved summoning huge Pokémon in Battle Revolution. That was half the reason I had a Uber team.
 
I honestly blame the 3DS for that. No not because it can't render size, but because of the screen size.
 
Imagine...Generation VI had Wailord to scale and you could encounter them in a Horde Battle.
 
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#322 - Numel
Fire/Ground

At first glance, one might think Numel is the new Slugma, and while Fire/Ground isn't as horrible as the Fire/Rock Type that Slugma eventually becomes, having a weakness to Ground and a quadruple weakness to Water is of course not a good thing. Though Numel thankfully isn't as horrible as Slugma, as it has a better distribution of stats, and if you watch out for its weaknesses it can be a pretty decent party member with access to the powerful Earthquake relatively early. It's another Pokemon I took a chance with in ORAS for the first time, and found it pretty fun to use though it did have a lot of trouble when it came to facing off against the large amount of Water-type Pokemon inhabiting Hoenn. Ability-wise, Numel in its debut only had Oblivious, though it's one Pokemon who actually loses all of its Abilities upon evolution and gains an entirely different set---so with Numel you'll want to choose the Ability that corresponds with the desirable Ability of its evolution. I used to see this line as being the counterparts to Wailmer and Wailord, the lines having somewhat similar stats and similar signature moves in Water Spout and Eruption, but they're actually intended to be the counterpart of Carvanha and Sharpedo as they have the same BST, and their final forms are the mascots of the evil teams in Ruby and Sapphire and received Mega Evolutions together in ORAS.

Numel is another one of those dumb looking Pokemon, I don't mean that in a derogatory sense though, rather its motif is that it's dull and slow-witted---the only thing it ever notices is hunger. As far as Fire-type Pokemon go, I rather like Numel because it has an interesting color-scheme that sets it apart from the average Fire-type and is actually pretty cute, if it was pushed a bit harder I think it could've made a decent mascot Pokemon but for the most part it's ignored except concerning its evolution's role as the "Team Magma Pokemon". Numel is based on the dromedary camels, the most popular camels which have a single hump and are found in the Middle East and Africa---so chances are if you're watching a movie where the characters ride on camels, it's these kind. Though for a camel, Numel is very stubby and small but still a popular beast of burden in the Pokemon World as it's able to carry 220 pounds on its back---I wonder how useful this is since it seems to be a very slow-moving Pokemon.

Most people used to think, and some still do, that camels store water in their humps but this is actually false---the hump is actually a concentration of body fat, storing it all in one area like that helps reduce body temperature and keeps the camel cool in the warm climates that it inhabits. When the fatty tissue metabolizes, it does yield more than a gram of water for every gram of fat metabolized, but this process actually causes the camel to lose more water than it gains. Of course, the camel has many other adaptations to help it survive in the harsh desert, such as special red blood cells that flow better during dehydration and are resistant to high osmotic variation allowing it to consume massive quantities of water at a time, but Game Freak went with the idea that camels store water in their humps and played with it---rather than water, Numel stores magma in its body and is basically a walking volcano. Though as its color-scheme indicates, which resembles a regular, non-active mountain, it's rare that it erupts; it doesn't learn the signature move Eruption till it evolves. I find it odd that the Sugimori art leaves out the hole on Numel's back since that's a pretty big part of its design, but I actually wonder if it wasn't originally intended to have a hole since nothing states the magma ever erupts from its back until evolution, and it was something the sprite artists added and everyone eventually went with it.

You know Bulbapedia is pretty good at catching every appearance of a Pokemon in the show, major or minor, but poor Numel only has two appearances listed---a semi-filler in Hoenn which mainly served as a focus episode for May's Skitty, where it learned Assist, and a cameo in the Jirachi movie. I swear I've seen it elsewhere in the show, but damn, it's probably got the least amount of screentime of any Pokemon I've covered so far outside of the Porygon family naturally. I sort of wish Ash got this as his Hoenn Fire-type to give it some love, even though his actual Hoenn Fire Pokemon, coming up after this line, I did enjoy.

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#323 - Camerupt
Fire/Ground

At Level 33, Numel evolves into Camerupt. Camerupt's not all that bad, really---it does of course have its flaws, such as major weaknesses to Water and Ground, two of the most common attacking Types in the game, and none of its Abilities are particularly useful---once more it seems like Magma Armor, which prevents it from being Frozen, should be an inherent attribute of all Fire-types and Solid Rock reduces the effectiveness of Super Effective attacks, but won't help it out much when slammed by Earthquake and Surf---as well as having middling bulk, but it's a (until recently) unique Type Combination, STAB-wise, and a great counter to Electric-type Pokemon. It's never been amazing, but it does have it niches over the years such as access to Explosion (one of the first animal-based Pokemon who could naturally learn a move to blow itself up) and being one of the few Fire-types that can make good use of Trick Room.

While Numel was a dim-witted, dromedary camel Camerupt is an aggressive, bactrian camel---those are the larger two-humped camels that inhabit the steppes of Central Asia. Camerupt undergoes a rather drastic palette change here, though I think it works in this case as while Numel was a dormant mountain with lava stored within, Camerupt is on the verge of eruption and thus a more fiery color is quite fitting. The blue rings on the side of its body are kind of odd and look very unnatural due to the contrast in color, but I always assumed they were supposed to represent like blue-hot burners. Personally, I think they would've worked better if they were black and meant to look like smoke rings instead, but it's not enough to ruin the design for me---Camerupt is a Pokemon I used to pay little attention to, but recently have come to appreciate it a bit more. Though the volcanic rock on its back appears to be, well, rock formations the PokeDex claims they're actually mutated bone, a way to make Camerupt a bit more natural---but really, it's not like it having random rocks growing from its back would kill someone's suspense of disbelief. After all, this is a camel walking around with magma in its body. Every ten years, Camerupt will naturally erupt, though it's also known to erupt when it gets angry which presumably happens quite often. It's been shown that Camerupt is a somewhat popular beast of burden like Numel, but that seems pretty risky using it to carry valuables, or riding on top of it, considering that it could instantly melt everything around it quite easily if angered.

Camerupt's first appearance in Hoenn was under the ownership of Vicky, the eldest member of the Winstrate family who were in Ruby and Sapphire---you'll remember this was the family you battled against outside of Mauville, a pretty neat little "event" I always thought. In the games Vicky used Meditite, and it was actually Vivi who had a Numel, but the anime wanted to showcase Camerupt I guess and thought this was as good a time as any. During a battle with Pikachu, Camerupt was enraged and went on an Eruption rampage until it was stopped by a mysterious rain storm secretly caused by Vito's Alakazam using Rain Dance. Most people probably know this by now, but Vito, the last member of the Winstrate family, is first hinted at when you battle the Winstrates and can later be fought in Victory Road---I didn't realize this till the anime pointed it out, but it was a nice touch to make the world feel more connected. Camerupt later got an unorthodox filler in Hoenn which was all about watching movies---Camerupt carried movies on his back to remote villages so that its Trainer could host film viewing. This episode was really neat because we just got to see the gang chilling around talking about movies they remembered watching as children (such as an appearance by Pocket Monster's Red and Clefairy, and a shout-out to Titanic, proving that it IS culturally relevant unlike people in that Avatar thread tried to argue) and the typical formula took a backseat for once. So, thank you Camerupt.

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#M323 - Mega Camerupt
Fire/Ground

Sharpedo got a Mega as the mascot of Team Aqua, so of course the mascot of Team Magma got one too. Mega Camerupt is actually pretty good, as while it loses Speed those points are put back into its defenses making it an all-around solid Pokemon---except for HP and Speed, all of its stats exceed 100. It also gains Sheer Force, which increases the base power of its attacks in exchange for their secondary effects and with a great offensive STAB, very few Pokemon can safely switch into Camerupt. On the other hand, it still suffers from common weaknesses to Water and Ground, and while its extra defense makes it a bit more durable, it lacks any form of recovery due to being unable to hold Leftovers as a Mega Evolution and its low Speed also greatly hurts it. Switching into Mega Camerupt can be dangerous because it's even more fragile until it Mega Evolves, and Water-type Pokemon are quite common in the higher tiers---overall though, it's still a rather nice Mega Pokemon and a clear improvement of the original in every sense. Omega Ruby players, did you have a tough time with Maxie's Camerupt or did it go down as easily as Archie's Mega Sharpedo?

I guess technically Mega Camerupt goes back to being a dromedary camel with a single hump, though its excess fur makes it resemble a yak---they're not related to camels exactly, but they're similar beasts of burden so perhaps this is intentional. Mega Camerupt's volcano is always active and pouring out lava, and likewise Camerupt looks absolutely pissed. Why is he so angry? Well, according to the official site, Mega Camerupt has a deep-rooted psychological hatred of water, as well as moisture of any kind---he hates bottled water, he hates swimming pools, he hates Gatorade, dude just doesn't like anything wet. He's really a Team Magma Pokemon through and through, right? He's even sporting the Team Magma "M" on his head just to showcase his affiliation. Yeah, Mega Camerupt's pretty goofy, but I think it's clear he easily destroys Mega Sharpedo visually since he actually does something a bit different with the base from and isn't just Spikier Camerupt.

Mega Camerupt had a cameo in the second Mega Evolution Special alongside Mega Sharpedo. It's a shame the show didn't use this chance to bring back Team Magma and Team Aqua considering their climax in the original Advanced Generation series was widely disliked and rushed---I mean they basically pretended that Steven never appeared beforehand, why not do the same with Team Magma and Team Aqua and just start fresh?
 
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