Characters / Pokémon: Generation III - Wailmer to Deoxys

Main Character Index > Pokémon Generation III Families >
Treecko to Sharpedo (252-319) | Wailmer to Deoxys (320-386) | [Super-ancient Pokémon (382-384)]

This page has the tropes for National Pokédex numbers 320-386.

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Wailmer and Wailord (Hoeruko and Whaloh)

0320: Wailmer / Hoeruko (ホエルコ hoeruko)
0321: Wailord / Whaloh (ホエルオー hoeruoo)

Wailmer

Wailord

Whale-like Pokémon that are Water-typed and are somewhat based on inflatable objects like beach balls and blimps. Wailmer was among the first Generation III Pokémon to be revealed to the public. Its evolution Wailord is famous for being the largest non-legendary Pokémon in existence, measuring in at a whopping 47 feet and seven inches from nose to tail.^note The only other Pokémon who has a larger base form is the Generation VIII legendary Eternatus, who at 65 feet and 7 inches easily dwarfs Wailord. Their HP is appropriately massive.

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• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: In New Pokémon Snap, this is Wailord's (rather ironic) response to the Illumina Wishiwashi after the latter comes after Wailord in School Form.
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • While Wishiwashi's School Form is considered so terrifying that even Gyarados runs away from it, Wailord considers it dinner except in New Pokémon Snap. Strangely enough, Wailord themselves happen to be prey for Dhelmise.
  • In a literal sense, Wailord held the record for being the biggest Pokémon in the series for five generations before the introduction of Eternatus.
• Armored But Frail: Inverted. Both have high HP stats (Wailord's is the highest out of all Water-types), but low defenses.
• Big Eater: Wailord can eat whole schools of Wishiwashi at a time. According to Ultra Sun, they eat so much that fishers tend to drive them away if there are too many.
• Black Bead Eyes: Their eyes are barely visible on their gigantic bodies.
• Cub Cues Protective Parent: If a predator harms a Wailmer, its pod will react to defend it.
• Cute Giant: Wailord is enormous, and absolutely adorable to boot thanks to its beady little eyes and big, smiling mouth. Even Wailmer is very big for an unevolved Pokémon.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Wailmer made its first appearance in March of 2001 alongside Azurill and Kecleon.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In New Pokémon Snap, Wailord ends up retreating from the Illumina School Form Wishiwashi despite its Pokédex entires saying Wailord fearlessly eats even School Form Wishiwashi.
• Ground Pound: This evolutionary line can learn Bounce via level up from Generation IV onwards. As a result, it is also able to perform the Flying-type Z-move, Supersonic Skystrike. Both moves are visually the same in principle, involving a giant whale dropping onto the target from the sky with enough force to either paralyze the target or shatter the ground.
• Healing Factor: Can be bred with the move Aqua Ring.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: ...The other half of the Trope Namer. Despite being one of the largest Pokémon in existence at 47 feet long/tall, Wailord is able to breed with anything in the Field egg group (as this includes Pokémon based on mammals, which whales are), including Skitty or the even smaller Diglett.
• Making a Splash: Water-types, and can also learn the move Splash. Wailord do it quite literally when hunting; they'll jump out of the water to make a huge splash.
• Master of None: Wailord's attacking stats are equal, but neither of them is particularly high, and it's also very slow. While it does have an excellent HP stat, its very poor defenses leave it surprisingly frail as well.
• Mundane Utility: Learns Noble Roar and Soak, the former of which drops the opponent's attacking stats by one stage each, and the latter turns the opponent into a Water-type. Both of which are pretty helpful tools for catching Pokémon, by making them weaker and potentially removing their types, making them a bit more manageable.
• Not Drawn to Scale: Wailord's physical size in battle is smaller than the 11-year old protagonists in Sun and Moon. Sword and Shield doesn't improve on this much, with Wailord visibly smaller than Gyarados in battle. However, via Dynamaxing it can take on a even larger size than its real one.^note though not by much, given that Pokémon smaller than the Trainer grow five stories tall when Dynamaxed, while Wailord is only about one and a half times its normal length upon Dynamaxing However, Wailord is much larger when seen in the overworld in Isle of Armor.
• One-Hit KO: They can be bred with Fissure.
• Power Up Mount: Wailmer is one of the few Pokémon in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire to get a unique surf/dive model. However, there's no difference between using Wailmer and a miscellaneous Pokémon.
• Required Party Member: Alongside Relicanth, Wailord is needed to access the Regis in Ruby and Sapphire and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Secret Art: Prior to Generation V, the only Pokémon to learn Water Spout naturally, apart from Kyogre.
• Similar Squad: In Ruby, Sapphire, and their remakes, this is The Rival's answer to the Mudkip line if they don't have one.
• Square-Cube Law: Wailord's mass is too light for its volume, which makes it less dense than helium. Possibly intentional, as it's classified as the Float Whale Pokémon.
• Tombstone Teeth: Both Wailmer and Wailord have baleen that resembles rectangular human teeth.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Wailmer in Alola eat a ton of Wishiwashi each day, though in New Pokémon Snap, a Wailord decides to flee from the Illumina School Form Wishiwashi instead of simply eating the little guys.

Numel and Camerupt (Donmel and Bakuuda)

0322: Numel / Donmel (ドンメル donmeru)
0323: Camerupt / Bakuuda (バクーダ bakuuda)

Numel

Camerupt

^{Mega Camerupt}

Making their home around Mt. Chimney, these stubby-legged camels store magma inside their humps and release them when using Eruption and Lava Plume. Numel are also quite dull, being rather unfeeling to pain (though not as much as Slowpoke). They excel in Attack and Special Attack but lack in Speed. Water-types absolutely wreck them due to their Fire/Ground typing. It gained a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire that makes it slower but stronger and gets the ability Sheer Force.

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• Boss Battle: Camerupt is the signature Mon of Maxie in Ruby, Emerald, and Omega Ruby. It can even Mega Evolve in the latter. Doubles as Recurring Boss and Climax Boss.
• Berserk Button: Camerupt's Hidden Ability is Anger Point, which causes its Attack to max out when it's hit with a Critical Hit. It also hates being being hit in the face and Mega Camerupt apparently hates all moisture.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Mega Camerupt has a M-shaped marking on its forehead.
• Delayed Reaction: In the 3D games, Numel will take a second to register that it got hit by an attack — not as extreme as Slowpoke, but still fairly ridiculous.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Part Ground-types that are based on camels with humps that resemble hills and volcanoes.
• Fat Idiot: Numel is a rather tubby Pokémon (and based on an animal whose most notable feature is a fat deposit to boot) and has Oblivious.
• Foil: To the Sharpedo line. While both of them have good Attack and Special Attack along with a Mega Evolution, Camerupt is a Fire-type, has better defenses, and is the signature Pokémon of Team Magma's leader Maxie.
• Glass Cannon: Camerupt can't take hits very well (not helped by being extremely weak to Water) and is pretty slow, but hits decently hard.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Mega Camerupt is very short-tempered. Regular Camerupt is no slouch in that department either, as its Hidden Ability is Anger Point.
• Kill It with Water: Being Fire/Ground, they will certainly not like Water-type attacks coming its way. Mega Camerupt is even said to have a deep hatred towards it.
• Living Lava: As Mega Camerupt, lava visibly erupts from its volcano humps, and it already has magma circulating around its body.
• Magic Knight: Camerupt's offensive stats are both above average, and has strong Physical and Special moves to abuse.
• Magma Man: Magma circulates inside Camerupt's body and it has volcanoes on its back. It apparently erupts every ten years, or whenever it gets very angry. They also learn a lot of moves involving magma and volcanic activity, like Lava Plume, Eruption, and Earth Power. Finally, one of Camerupt's abilities is Magma Armor, which prevents it from being frozen.
• Mighty Glacier: Mega Camerupt has its already low Speed lowered, but in return, all of its other stats receive some decent boosts. It can take some hits that regular Camerupt can't while hitting even harder than before.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Hoenn, the region where it first appeared, has both a desert and a volcano... with Numel being found at the latter.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Camerupt is mainly based on Bactrian camels, but has some bovine features, particularly its face and neck length. Mega Camerupt is as fluffy as a yak.
• Multiform Balance: Of a bizarre sort. While both Numel and Camerupt's natural stat spreads lean towards Mighty Glacier, the former's access to the Simple ability (which increases the effects of Status Buffs) and the Eviolite item (which is useless on fully-evolved Pokémon like Camerupt, but will increase the Defense and Special Defense of Pokémon with evolutions by 50%) leads to the former being played as a Stone Wall.
• Mundane Utility: Camerupt's Magma Armor ability not only prevents it from being frozen, but it also can hatch Pokémon eggs faster.
• No-Sell: In addition to the standard Ground-type immunity to Electric-type moves, the line’s default abilities serve this purpose; Numel's Own Tempo and Oblivious negate confusion and infatuation/taunting, respectively, while Camerupt's Magma Armor prevents freezing.
• One-Hit KO: Can naturally learn Fissure, a low-accuracy Ground-type move that guarantees a KO on lower-leveled targets.
• Playing with Fire: Part Fire-types that store magma inside their bodies.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Mega Camerupt has a much thicker coat of fur than regular Camerupt.
• Secret Art: The only Fire-type Pokémon to learn Eruption naturally in its debut Generation.
• Similar Squad: In Ruby and Sapphire, this is The Rival's answer to the Torchic line if they don't have one. Interestingly, this is not the case for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, with The Rival using the Fire-type substitute from Emerald (Slugma), instead.
• Super Mode: Camerupt gained a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Super Spit: Oddly, despite being a camel, the Stockpile/Swallow/Spit Up moves need to be bred onto it.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Numel has Oblivious as one of its abilities, rendering it immune to attraction and being taunted.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Mega Camerupt has Sheer Force, which boosts the power of attacks with a secondary effect at the cost of removing them.
• Unstoppable Rage: Camerupt's Hidden Ability is Anger Point; hit it with a Critical Hit and its Attack will max out. The anime also characterizes it as becoming uncontrollably angry if it's been struck in the face.

Torkoal (Cotoise)

0324: Torkoal / Cotoise (コータス kootasu)

Torkoal

Also living on Mt. Chimney is this tortoise that stores coal in its shell. When agitated, it blows out black smoke to disorient the enemy. In battle, it surrounds itself in White Smoke to prevent anyone from lowering its stats. Its defense is its best stat and has average stats everywhere else except for Speed, which is absolutely abysmal.

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• Balance Buff: Given the Drought ability, which summons sunny Weather of War, starting in Pokémon Sun and Moon; this not only strengthens Torkoal's Fire attacks and mitigates its weakness to Water, but also gives Torkoal an important niche on Sunny Day teams by automatically calling sunny weather to boost its allies as well.
• Boss Battle: Torkoal is the signature Mon of Flannery, the fourth gym leader of Hoenn. It's also used by Mela, the leader of Team Star's Fire-type Schedar Squad, as her signature and only Pokémon in her initial battle, though the role of ace Pokémon gets transferred to Armarouge for rematches.
• Death or Glory Attack: Can learn Overheat, a powerful Fire-type move that sharply lowers its Special Attack.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Learns quite a bit of Ground-, and Rock-type moves, befitting of turtles/tortoises in Pokémon.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: Torkoal lives off of coal, which is what it uses to fuel its internal fire.
• Eyes Always Shut: It has never been seen with its eyes open.
• The Flame of Life: If Torkoal's flame ever goes out, the Pokémon will stop moving and eventually die.
• Foil: Gains an odd one in Generation VII in the form of Pelipper. Both get new abilities to empower them in battle, both of these abilities change the weather (Drizzle for Pelipper and Drought for Torkoal), and both, as always, are tank Pokémon. The first time you run into Torkoal is a route away from when you first run into Pelipper, as well. (Provided you didn't evolve a Wingull.)
• Playing with Fire: It's a Fire-type tortoise that eats coal to fuel its internal flame.
• The Power of the Sun: It has Drought as a secondary ability, which summons strong sunlight for five turns, enabling it to fire-off Solar Beams in a single turn and make its Fire-type moves hit even harder.
• Similar Squad: For some reason, in Emerald, May^note if she is The Rival; this does NOT apply to Brendan if he is the rival starts off with this Pokémon in her second battle if she did not choose the Torchic line. In every battle afterwards, she replaces it with a Slugma instead.
• Sturdy and Steady Turtles: It's an archetypal Stone Wall — it has an abysmally low Speed stat, but very good Defense.
• Smoke Out: With the smoke coming out of it, it learns Smog and Smokescreen in addition to the White Smoke ability.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Can learn Rapid Spin naturally.
• Stone Wall: It has a very high Defense stat, but its offenses are below average, and it's also very slow — in fact, it's tied for 5th fully evolved slowest Pokémon in the entire franchise with Ferrothorn, Escavalier and Greedent. Turns into a Mighty Glacier if it has the Drought ability to power up its Fire attacks.
• Status Buff: Torkoal can learn quite a few from level-up; Withdraw, Curse, Iron Defense, Amnesia, and the rare Shell Smash.
• Trap Master: Can learn both Stealth Rock and Rapid Spin, setting up and clearing away hazards.
• Useless Useful Spell: Torkoal naturally learns the very rare Shell Smash, which sharply increases offenses and Speed at the cost of lowing defenses. However, Torkoal is so slow that the Speed buff isn't useful without using Shell Smash until it hits the max buff (which isn't even that high), which requires lowering its defenses to the point that anything faster can beat it easily.
• Weather Manipulation: Gains the Drought ability in Generation VII.

Spoink and Grumpig (Baneboo and Boopig)

0325: Spoink / Baneboo (バネブー banebuu)
0326: Grumpig / Boopig (ブーピッグ buupiggu)

Spoink

Grumpig

A strange Pokémon if there ever was one: The piglet (Spoink) has no back legs, so it gets around by bouncing on a springy tail. It also carries a large pearl on its head which apparently amplifies its psychic power and allegedly belongs to Clamperl. It becomes more normal (for a Pokémon at least) when it evolves into Grumpig.

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• As the Good Book Says...: The fact that both Pokémon are pigs with pearls comes from the Biblical quote, "[D]o not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."
• Big Eater: Implied by their Hidden Ability, Gluttony. Being based on pigs though, this is appropriate.
• Blush Sticker: Spoink sports a pair until it evolves.
• Dance Battler: Grumpig dances while wielding its powers, as indicated by both the Pokédex and one of its attack animations in X/Y onward.
• Gasshole: Grumpig can learn Belch through move reminders.
• Kevlard: Can have Thick Fat as their ability, which halves damage taken from Fire and Ice moves.
• No-Sell: Can have Own Tempo as an Ability, which prevents them from being confused and as of Gen 9, from being intimidated.
• People Puppets: Grumpig can use its psychic powers to take control of its foes.
• Pig Man: The legless Spoink evolves into Grumpig, a humanoid pig.
• Power Incontinence: Apparently, that pearl not only serves to amplify psychic power, but also, according to the Mystery Dungeon games, as a sort of counter-weight for the Spoink's bouncing; without it, the bouncing gets a little out of control.
• Psychic Powers: The line is comprised of Psychic-type pigs that use the pearls on their heads to amplify their psychic abilities.
• Recurring Element: Of the Drowzee line. Both are two-stage Pokémon, pure Psychic types that have Special Defense as their highest stat, and serve as a more common alternative to the rarer-but-stronger Abra and Ralts lines in their debut games.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Spoink is a small, round and bouncy pig with a curly tail. It's cute for the same reason as piglets in real life.
• Secret Art: Prior to Generation IV, Spoink and Grumpig were the only Pokémon who could naturally learn Magic Coat, which reflects status moves back at the user.
• Spring Coil: Spoink has one for a tail in place of legs, providing that trope's page image. Grumpig has legs, but still retains the springy tail.
• Squishy Wizard: Grumpig has a decently high Special Defense and an okay Special Attack, but it can't take physical hits too well.
• Unreliable Narrator: Spoink's Pokédex entry is one of the few to be flat-out wrong as opposed to questionable. Spoink can visibly stop bouncing with no ill effects in both the anime and the 3D games.
• Visual Pun: Spoink is a literal "spring pig".

Spinda (Patcheel)

0327: Spinda / Patcheel (パッチール pacchiiru)

Spinda

This odd Pokémon is a common sight in the ash-covered Route 113. It has two motifs going for it: the patches on a Spinda's face differ from individual to individual, much like a fingerprint. Using an algorithm in the coding, there are over four billion combinations for face patches. The second motif is that its movepool and abilities revolve around spinning and dizziness. It's not a Pokémon that's going to win battles for you, but it's at least one you aren't likely to forget.

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• Cast of Snowflakes: There are 4,294,967,296 spot patterns, meaning you're not likely to see the same kind of Spinda twice. And that's not counting the Shiny version of Spinda, which would double that number to a staggering 8,589,934,592 combinations.
• Confusion Fu: Quite literally. Most of its abilities and moves have to do with confusion.
• Disability Immunity: According to Salandit's Ultra Moon Dex entry, its toxins fail to affect Spinda since it's always dizzy.
• Drunken Master: Emphasized by the Teeter Dance move, which confuses the opponent with its wobbly dance.
• Joke Character: It exists pretty much to demonstrate Gen III's new mechanics that allow it to have a random spot pattern. Spinda has all-around awful stats and, aside from a few gimmicks, is completely worthless and unremarkable in battle (well, single battle at least).
• Master of None: Spinda's stats are all equal... and they all equally suck.
• Missing Secret: Spinda is set to become this when Pokémon Bank on the Nintendo 3DS shuts down, due to being unable to be transferred to Pokémon HOME from Pokémon GO or Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
• Non-Elemental: Normal-type based on pandas.
• Secret Art: The only Pokémon to learn Teeter Dance naturally before Generation V.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Can be bred to have Rapid Spin.
• Support Party Member: Has increasingly been pushed into this role. Teeter Dance is far more useful in Doubles and Triples because it hits all other Pokémon (including teammates if you're not careful), and it gains access to the move Skill Swap, which allows it to give its hidden ability (see Useless Useful Spell below) to a Pokémon that can make far better use of it.
• Useless Useful Spell: Its Hidden Ability is Contrary, one of the most coveted Abilities in the series, as it reverses debuffs. However, Spinda has absolutely no moves that can take advantage of this bar Superpower, which it could only obtain through the Dream World. It can however use Skill Swap to give Contrary to an ally Pokémon in a Double Battle, as detailed above in Support Party Member.
• Wingding Eyes: Spinda has swirls for eyes, indicting its perpetually dizzy state.

Trapinch (Nuckrar), Vibrava, and Flygon

0328: Trapinch / Nuckrar (ナックラー nakkuraa)
0329: Vibrava (ビブラーバ biburaaba)
0330: Flygon (フライゴン furaigon)

Trapinch

Vibrava

Flygon

Based on the antlion, Trapinch is a Ground-typed Pokémon commonly found in the wild in desert areas. While at first it looks unimpressive, upon evolution it becomes Vibrava, which drastically transforms Trapinch from an orange walking mouth to a green dragonfly-like creature (the adult form of the antlion, of course) with reduced Attack, greater Speed, and the unexpected Dragon-type. Afterwards, it evolves into Flygon, which returns its high Attack and tones up the rest of its stats as well.

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• Antlion Monster: Waits in its hole to capture prey, and like its Real Life counterpart, evolves into a dragonfly-like creature. Its Arena Trap ability prevents non-flying enemies from escaping.
• Bash Brothers: According to Flygon's Ultra Sun Pokédex entry, Flygon and Krookodile are known to work together in order to hunt prey, then they split the food they get.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Trapinch is a two foot long giant larval antlion, and Vibrava is a three foot long adult antlion.
• Breakout Character: While not on par with some of the other stand-outs from Gen III, such as Blaziken or Gardevoir, Flygon remains well-liked and popular enough to appear in most regional dexes going forward, only missing Platinum. It was even considered a candidate for a Mega Evolution, but ultimately didn't get one due to artist's block on Ken Sugimori's part.
• Buried Alive: Vibrava are known to bury their prey alive in the sand to preserve them.
• Confusion Fu: Flygon's typing and Bug-based design affords it access to Ground, Dragon, Rock, Fire, Bug, Flying, and some Dark and Fighting moves, and while its Attack is higher than its Special Attack, both are high enough to allow it to be comfortable with attacking from either stat (or both of them).
• Cute Little Fangs: Trapinch gains these when it evolves into Vibrava and keeps them as Flygon. As for Trapinch itself... well, its fangs cannot be described as little.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Part Ground-type based on the antlion.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Its stats change drastically as it evolves. It also learns different moves unavailable for other stages. Trapinch learns physical Ground moves (Dig, Fissure) and biting or contact moves (Bite, Crunch, Superpower). Vibrava learns sound moves (Bug Buzz, Boomburst). Flygon learns Dragon moves (Dragon Claw, Dragon Dance, Dragon Rush).
• Foil: Has become one to its fellow Dragon/Ground dual type, the Gible line. In games where both are present, Gible and Trapinch tend to become available at the same time.
• Glass Cannon: Trapinch has a shockingly high Attack stat for an unevolved Pokémon, but its other stats are at the standard levels (read: not very good).
• Irony: Trapinch and its evolutions all resemble insectoid dragons modeled after antlions, are part of the Bug egg group, and can learn some Bug-type moves, but are not Bug-types themselves. And the Bug-type is the only remaining type that hasn't yet been paired up with the Dragon-type so far.
• Jack of All Stats: Flygon has decent base 100 Attack and Speed and an 80 in everything else. It's not particularly standout, but it's still perfectly capable and effective.
• Kill It with Ice: This is the most reliable way to bring Flygon down.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Trapinch hits like a truck, but it is fragile and very slow. When it first evolves, its speed becomes average, but at the cost of its huge attack becoming average as well, and gains virtually no bulk. When it evolves again, however, it is a different story.
  • Their movepools add an extra layer of this by giving both Trapinch and Vibrava powerful moves that are learned well after the level at which they evolve and are not available to the next evolution, forcing the player to delay their evolutions further to get at those moves.
• Make Some Noise: Capable of learning several powerful sound moves, most notably Boomburst and Bug Buzz, and several Dex entries make reference to the sounds Flygon makes.
• Master of None: Vibrava. While it is far faster than Trapinch, said Speed is just decent among unevolved Pokémon, and its Attack drops significantly, while its defenses barely increase.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Flygon has a lizard-like body, a vaguely feline face, and insect-like wings.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite its name and images clearly showing it flying, Flygon is Ground/Dragon. It does have Levitate, though.
• One-Hit Kill: In a somewhat curious case, Trapinch learns Fissure naturally while Vibrava and Flygon don't.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Vibrava and Flygon are draconic antlions. Along with Gen VI's Noibat and Noivern, they were Dragon-types that were not in the Dragon egg group prior to Gen VIII; they were only in the Bug egg group.
• Power Floats: While they have wings and are depicted as being capable of flight, Vibrava and Flygon's only ability is Levitate, which makes them immune to Ground-type moves and most entry hazards under normal circumnstances.
• Pun-Based Creature: Flygon is an insectoid Dragon-type. In other words, a dragonfly.
• Retcon: In Gen VIII, they're part of the Dragon egg group, along with keeping the Bug egg group designation they had previously.
• Secret Art: Vibrava's the only non-Bug-type Pokémon to learn Bug Buzz naturally.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Antlion larvae are vicious and predatory, and dig sloped holes to trap prey, which explains Trapinch's high Attack and its Arena Trap ability.
  • Vibrava and Flygon not being Flying-type may be in reference to the fact that real life adult antlions are actually pretty poor flyers.
• Vibration Manipulation: Vibrava is a Pokémon that creates vibrations with its wings. In-game, these vibrations manifest as sound-based moves, such as Bug Buzz and Boomburst.
• Visual Pun: Trapinch evolves into a dragonfly, that then evolves into a flying dragon.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Trapinch has the Arena Trap ability, which prevents opposing Pokémon from fleeing battle or switching out unless they're Flying-type, have the Levitate ability, or are holding an Air Balloon.

Cacnea and Cacturne (Sabonea and Noctus)

0331: Cacnea / Sabonea (サボネア sabonea)
0332: Cacturne / Noctus (ノクタス nokutasu)

Cacnea

Cacturne

Another pair of desert denizens, Cacnea and Cacturne, being based on cacti, are very well adapted for desert life. They use their thorny arms as clubs to batter their opponents, or they can shoot needles to subdue them. They're also noteworthy for having Sand Veil as an ability, which not only makes them more evasive in a Sandstorm, but also makes them immune to its damage despite not being Rock-, Ground-, or Steel-types. Cacturne takes on a creepy scarecrow-like appearance and becomes a Dark-type. If you're wandering in the desert and notice that the cacti are following you, it's not just heatstroke that's getting to you.

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• All Deserts Have Cacti: Where you find them, despite it being a Japanese desert.
• Alien Blood: Cacturne have sand for blood.
• Cactus Person: Cacnea resembles a round cactus walking around on two conical stubs, with a yellow flower on its top, a series of round holes for a mouth and pair of long arms ending in rounded tips studded with more conical spikes. Its evolution, Cacturne, loses the flower and is more fully humanoid. They're found in deserts and attack by shooting volleys of quills (represented through them learning the move Pin Missile). They get by in deserts by storing large quantities of water in their bodies, and Cacturne in particular spends the days standing still to save energy and water, becoming active at night as it stalks travelers exhausted by the desert sun.
• Combat Pragmatist: Cacturne gains the Dark-type and prefers to chase its prey and tire them out rather than fight directly.
• Defend Command: One of the few Pokémon able to learn Spiky Shield, which protects the user from most moves, with the added bonus of damaging anybody who uses a contact move on them.
• Glass Cannon: Cacturne has awful defenses and poor Speed, but great Attack and Special Attack that can be boosted further with Swords Dance or Nasty Plot.
• Green Thumb: The line is Grass-type based on cacti.
• Implacable Man: Cacturne form packs to stalk travelers through deserts, waiting for said travelers to wear themselves out. Then the Cacturne will beat it up and suck it to a desiccated husk.
• Man-Eating Plant: Rather than chewing prey or swallowing it whole, Cacturne sucks its prey dry like a vampire.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A vampiric scarecrow cactus.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Due to Cacturne's habit of absorbing fluids from its weakened prey.
• Plant Person: Cacturne has a humanoid figure and both are in the Human-Like Egg Group.
• Scary Scarecrows: Cacturne hunts prey at night when it's weakened by the heat.
• Secret Art: Needle Arm, until Generation V where it was shared with other spiny Grass-types such as Maractus (which is also based on the cactus) and the Chespin line.
• Status Buff: They can be taught Swords Dance and bred to have Nasty Plot, which, respectively, sharply boosts Attack or Special Attack on each use. It's worth noting that there are only a small handful of Pokémon that can learn both of those moves.

Swablu and Altaria (Tyltto and Tyltalis)

0333: Swablu / Tyltto (チルット chirutto)
0334: Altaria / Tyltalis (チルタリス chirutaris)

Swablu

Altaria

^{Mega Altaria}

Cute blue birds with a cloud theme. Swablu is a regular Normal/Flying-type that isn't particularly noteworthy, but it does evolve into Altaria, which is strangely a Dragon/Flying-type. Unlike most Dragon-types, they're peaceful and sing with beautiful (and sleep-inducing) voices. Its highest stat is its special defense, but Ice-types still present a problem. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Altaria gains a Mega Evolution that changes its type to Dragon/Fairy, and gives it higher Attack and Special Attack, and the ability Pixilate. Even though Mega Evolution is temporary, this also means that Swablu holds the distinction of being the only dual-type Pokémon that loses both of its original types upon completely evolving.

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• Armor-Piercing Attack: The line can be bred to know the Substitute-bypassing Hyper Voice. Mega Altaria's Pixilate will likely make it quite painful. They also learn Disarming Voice by level-up, which never misses and also bypasses Substitutes.
• Badass Adorable: Altaria is an absolutely adorable little flying cotton ball, but never underestimate it — it's a Dragon-type for a reason. Taken further with Mega Altaria, whose Fairy-type grants it both a double type advantage against other Dragon-types and negates its own Dragon-type weakness.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Altaria has a kind dispositition, but its Shield Dex entry mentions that if provoked, it will first threaten its opponent with shrill cries before attacking without mercy.
• Blow You Away: Swablu and vanilla Altaria are part Flying-type.
• Boss Battle: Altaria is the ace Mon of Winona, the sixth gym leader of Hoenn. Altaria is also the ace Pokémon of Grusha, Paldea's Ice-type Gym Leader located in Glaseado; he uses Terastal to make it fit his type specialty.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Altaria's Emerald entry:
  "It hums in a beautiful soprano voice. It flies among white clouds in the blue sky. It launches intensely hot fireballs from its mouth."
• Breath Weapon: Altaria can fire fireballs from its mouth, and naturally learns both Dragon Breath and Dragon Pulse.
• Confusion Fu: Like most dragons, Altaria has a massive movepool. Besides Dragon and Flying moves, it can learn Fairy, Fire, Psychic, Ground, Steel, Grass, and Ice. Its stats, especially as Mega Altaria, are balanced, and it can use a large variety of different sets.
• Death or Glory Attack: Altaria can be taught Draco Meteor, a powerful Dragon-type move that lowers its Special Attack by two stages. Mega Altaria's ability boosts and puts STAB on Normal-type attacks, so Giga Impact and Hyper Beam hit even harder than ever, but still leave you a sitting duck afterwards.
• Discard and Draw: Including Mega Evolution, this happens twice. Upon first evolving, its Normal type is replaced with Dragon. When it Mega Evolves, its Flying type becomes Fairy.
• Fairy Dragons: Mega Altaria is the first (and currently only) Pokémon to be both a Dragon-type and a Fairy-type.
• Feathered Dragons: Since Altaria is a feathered Dragon-type, it counts as one by default.
• Flight: Flying-type. It loses this upon Mega Evolving, although it's still depicted as flying in its animation.
• Head Pet: According to the Pokédex, Swablu enjoys acting like a hat.
• Heal Thyself: Can be bred with Roost to heal Hit Points or Refresh to cure itself of status effects (though the latter is rather redundant with Natural Cure).
• Healing Factor: Learns Refresh and has the Natural Cure ability.
• Kill It with Ice: A trait shared with many, many Dragon-types due to the common Dragon/Flying-type combo, normal Altaria has a double weakness to Ice-type attacks.
• Lightning Bruiser: By default, Altaria's base stats would condition it more to being a Stone Wall, with the powered-up Mega Altaria being more of a Mighty Glacier... however, in almost every appearance, Altaria can learn Dragon Dance by level-up remarkably soon after evolution (and its impressive bulk and resistances often afford it opportunities to set up), buffing both its Speed and Attack and turning this normally peaceful and defensive dragon into a fluffy wrecking ball with bulk to spare.
• Lunacy: Naturally learns Moonblast.
• Magic Knight: Mega Altaria's Attack and Special Attack stats are equal, allowing it to use either a physical or special set.
• Mighty Glacier: Mega Altaria's offensive and defensive stats are above-average, though it's not the fastest thing out there.
• Musical Assassin: These songbirds have quite the vocal range — gentle lullabies, hypersonic or frightening shrieks, songs that power up if more people get involved, the ability to defend themselves while asleep through incoherent chatter, and songs that result in everything dropping dead in minutes, itself included.
• Non-Elemental: Swablu is part Normal-type until losing it upon evolution.
• Opera: Since they're based on songbirds and opera music, the line learn a lot of sound-based moves.
• Our Angels Are Different: These are more cloudy.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Altaria is much more bird-like than most other Dragon-type Pokémon. There's practically nothing draconic about its visual features, aside from and a possible reference to The Blue Bird.
• Our Fairies Are Different: A cloud-bird-fairy that somehow also counts as a dragon, when it Mega Evolves.
• Oxymoronic Being: Mega Altaria is a Dragon/Fairy-type, even though Fairy-types were intentionally designed to be dragonslayers. On the other hand, this also gives Mega Altaria a type advantage on two fronts against its fellow Dragon-types. This also makes Mega Altaria the only Dragon-type Pokémon immune to Dragon-type moves.
• Personal Rain Cloud: They can use Rain Dance, and their plumage is made up of cotton.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When it Mega Evolves, its feathers become even fluffier. Looks like Ampharos has a rival for fluffiest Mega Evolution.
• Power Nullifier: Mega Altaria deserves a special mention — it graduates from Dragon/Flying to Dragon/Fairy. Already effective against other dragons, Mega Altaria effectively becomes unstoppable against them, as its Fairy-type cancels out its own weakness to other Dragon-types...unless these Dragon-types happen to also be Poison or Steel, of course. It also learns Haze to remove all stat changes.
• Status Buff: It can learn Cotton Guard to raise its Defense by three stages, and Dragon Dance to boost its near average Attack and Speed - the latter of which is often very accessible for Altaria by level-up in normal playthroughs compared to other Dragons who tend to get it later in life (Scarlet and Violet being a notable exception, where the move is now locked for Altaria by way of TM instead).
• Stealth Pun: Altaria is based on the Bluebird of Happiness, which comes from the Belgian play The Blue Bird whose plot includes a star called Tyltalis (Altaria's Japanese name), which is part of the Draco Constellation, and is thus the basis behind Altaria's Dragon-type.
• Stone Wall: Altaria's stats focus largely on its defenses, unlike other Dragon-types who focus on offense.
• Super Mode: Gains a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Weather Manipulation: If they have the Cloud Nine ability, all weather effects (and abilities that require weather to activate) will be negated while they're on the field.

Zangoose and Seviper (Habunake)

0335: Zangoose (ザングース zanguusu)
0336: Seviper / Habunake (ハブネーク habuneeku)

Zangoose

Seviper

Two Pokémon — one a Normal-type and the other a Poison-type — with an intense rivalry that is practically part of their nature. They inhabit Route 114, just outside of Meteor Falls. Trainers will find Zangoose in Ruby or Seviper in Sapphire and Emerald. They are both hard-hitters, both having decent offense.

Zangoose is a mammalian Pokémon with predominantly white fur and crimson markings. Its main weapons are long claws which it can use to carve up its prey, making it an effective hunter. Zangoose has specialized in fighting Seviper for generations, so much so that it has become mostly immune to its adversary's toxins.

Seviper is a serpent Pokémon clad in black and yellow scales and purple markings. What it lacks in limbs, it makes up with weapons on both ends of its body: huge fangs protruding from its jaws, and a nasty blade on the tip of its tail. Both of these weapons are capable of delivering a nasty poison.

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• Acquired Poison Immunity: Owing to their long rivalry, Zangoose has the Immunity ability. It also has the Hidden Ability Toxic Boost; while this means Zangoose can be poisoned, its Attack will be boosted if that happens. Either way, a Seviper attempting to poison a Zangoose is in serious trouble.
• Animal Jingoism: Snake Versus Mongoose, naturally. If the two are found in a Horde Battle in the wild in the sixth generation games, they will prioritise fighting one another before worrying about you.
• Artificial Brilliance: In Horde Battles where Seviper outnumber Zangoose, they will use Swagger on each other after they're done fighting the Zangoose. Since they always carry Persim Berries in the wild (which cure confusion), this leaves them with doubled Attack, ready to take you out.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Both are in the Field egg group, so it’s absolutely possible for them to breed. They don’t exchange any egg moves, though.
• Blood Is the New Black: Both of them have markings that make them look like they're wounded from battling one another. It is especially prominent on Zangoose, who has crimson markings on white fur.
• Cartoon Creature: Zangoose looks more like a cat than a mongoose (specifically, it appears to have traits borrowed from Turkish Angora and Persian cats), and the Pokédex even calls it a Cat Ferret...
• Cats Are Mean: Zangoose is a catlike Pokémon known for its bitter rivalry with Seviper.
• Cursed with Awesome: Zangoose's Toxic Boost gives it a 50% boost to its already high Attack when it's poisoned. Coupled with Swords Dance and STAB Facade, its power is astronomical.
• Determinator: A Zangoose with its Hidden Ability Toxic Boost will fight even harder when it's poisoned.
• Disability Superpower: Zangoose's Hidden Ability, Toxic Boost, increases the power of its physical moves by 50% if it is poisoned.
• Enemy Mine: They are mortal enemies and have been for quite some time. Doesn't mean they can't be on the same team, fight together on a Double Battle, or even breed; likely a result of being trained to co-operate, in spite of how they feel about one another. This is averted in X and Y’s Horde Battles, where they will actively beat each other up until only one species remains in battle, and then they'll go after you.
• Foil: To each other. In addition to their natural rivalry, both of them are Glass Cannons in battle, but Zangoose is faster, while Seviper can hit hard with both physical and special attacks. Their Exp. curves also mirror each other; Zangoose levels up slowly at low levels and faster late in the game, while Seviper does the opposite.
• Fragile Speedster: Zangoose is much faster than Seviper and can hit much harder if poisoned and has its Hidden Ability, but it can't take many hits.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In Pokémon X and Y, you can encounter both in horde battles... whereupon the species will go after each other before they even start attacking you.
• Genetic Memory: An odd example. While most Pokémon are able to learn egg moves from their parents that they can’t otherwise know, in Scarlet and Violet, Zangoose has none; instead, it can just remember all of its egg moves from previous generations. This means that, from birth, every Zangoose in Paldea knows how to perform attacks such as Double Kick, Disable, Night Slash, and Belly Drum.
• Glass Cannon: Both of them have high Attack stats (with Seviper able to hit just as hard with Special Attack, and Zangoose being faster), but neither of them are good at taking a hit.
• Healing Factor: Seviper’s Shed Skin has a chance to remove status effects after each turn.
• Hidden Weapons: As seen in the anime and the Gamecube games, Zangoose's large claws are actually retractable and can be hidden from view when not in use. This didn't show up in the core games until Pokémon Scarlet and Violet , though.
• Magic Knight: Seviper's Attack and Special Attack are equal (100, which is decent) and it has good moves for both offensive kinds.
• Magically Inept Fighter: In contrast to Seviper, Zangoose has low Special Attack, putting the extra points into Speed instead.
• Mundane Utility: Zangoose's typing, Attack, and Speed make it one of the best users of False Swipe in the series.
• Natural Weapon: Seviper literally has a knife for a tail. A poisoned knife.
• No-Sell: Zangoose's aptly named Immunity ability makes it unable to be poisoned.
• Non-Elemental: Zangoose is a Normal-type mongoose.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Seviper is in the Dragon Egg Group despite not being Dragon-type. It can learn Dragon Tail via TM, however.
• Poisonous Person: Seviper, being a venomous Poison-type snake.
• The Rival: To each other, even though there are chances of running into both in Dark Grass or finding double battles where both are used against you. In X and Y, though, they can appear in Pokémon Hordes together, and will attack each other while ignoring your Pokémon.
• Secret Art:
  • Seviper's Poison Tail, until Generation V. Zangoose's Crush Claw could always be bred onto other Pokémon, but was learnable only by Zangoose in the attack's debut.
  • Zangoose has a unique Hidden Ability, Toxic Boost, which boosts its Attack by 50% when it's Poisoned.
• Shown Their Work:
  • In that the mongoose Expy's rival is named after and looks like a viper as opposed to being a cobra like Arbok. In real life, the mongoose specializes against cobras. Vipers strike much faster and less predictably than cobras, and so mongooses absolutely suck at fighting them (which does explain the red scars all over Zangoose). Seviper is based on the Habu, a real-life black viper that is the most common snake species in Japan used in illegal mongoose cage fights.
  • That being said, Zangoose's Immunity ability is a reference to how real-life mongooses are immune to the venom of a cobra, due to having an altered type of neurotransmitter that isn’t hindered by neurotoxins (like, say, cobra venom).
• Status Buff:
  • Seviper is one of the few users of Coil, which boosts accuracy, its good Attack, and helps with poor Defense.
  • Of course, Zangoose can in turn learn Hone Claws, which boosts Attack and accuracy.
  • Additionally, both can learn Swords Dance by TM (or from natural level-up, in Zangoose's case), to sharply raise their physical Attack stat.
• Status-Buff Dispel: Seviper can learn Haze, which gets rid of all status changes.

Lunatone and Solrock

0337: Lunatone (ルナトーン runatoon)
0338: Solrock (ソルロック sorurokku)

Lunatone

Solrock

This pair of Pokémon are living meteorites that fell from space. Both of them resemble stellar bodies: Solrock resembles the Sun while Lunatone resembles the Moon. Solrock is more physically-inclined while Lunatone is specially-inclined. Both are also Rock/Psychic and have a small chance of carrying evolutionary stones (Sun Stones for Solrock, Moon Stones for Lunatone). You'll find Lunatone in Sapphire and Solrock in Ruby and Emerald.

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• Ascended Extra: A secret event in Sun and Moon (where they are only acquirable via Old Save Bonus) hints that they may have been the source of the O-Powers from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and X and Y.
• Balance Buff: They were given +20 points to their base HP of 70 in Sun and Moon.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Both are part Rock-type. As usual for these, they also learn a lot of Ground-type moves like Earthquake, Bulldoze and Earth Power.
• Dual Boss: Both of them are the signature Mons of Tate and Liza, the seventh gym leaders of Hoenn. Even moreso in Ruby, Sapphire, and their remakes, where Solrock and Lunatone are their only Mons.
• The Face of the Sun: Solrock is a little more subtle than most examples.
• Foil: Designed to be one to each other. Both are Psychic/Rock-typed genderless Pokémon that come from outer space, but while Solrock is a sun-powered physical attacker with plenty of Fire-type moves, Lunatone is a moon-powered special attacker with Ice-type moves. They are also version-exclusive Pokémon in their debut games, the remakes, and Sword and Shield.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Their Pokedex entries often mention how they bask in sunlight/moonlight, and how sunlight/moonlight is the source of their power; however, as wild encounters they mostly appear in caves, and in their debut generation Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald they can only be found there.
• Heal Thyself: Lunatone can have Moonlight and Solrock can have Morning Sun if they were obtained via the Dream World. However in Pokémon Sword and Shield, they can learn it via Move Reminder.
• An Ice Person: Despite not being an Ice type, Lunatone can learn Icy Wind, Ice Beam, Blizzard, and Hail, possibly so it contrasts better with Solrock, or as a reference to the coldness of the moon.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: They have a whopping seven weaknesses (Water, Grass, Ground, Steel, Dark, Bug, and Ghost). Although Levitate removes one of them, that's still a lot.
• Lunacy: Lunatone. While its learnset isn't as influenced by it as Solrock's with the sun, it still gets Moonblast and Moonlight. It also has a chance to hold a Moon Stone when found in the wild.
• The Man in the Moon: Lunatone is more subtle than most examples.
• Meaningful Name: They are living stones shaped like the sun and moon that produce Sun and Moon Stones for evolution.
• Mighty Glacier: Solrock on the physical side and Lunatone on the special side, though they are a tad bit faster than your average example.
• Night and Day Duo: Two Pokémon based on the moon and sun respectively.
• No Biological Sex: Genderless.
• Piñata Enemy: Lunatone and Solrock have small chances of holding Moon and Sun Stones, respectively. In both of the Black and White games, they also have a very rare chance of holding Comet Shards. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they can now hold Stardust.
• Playing with Fire: Solrock isn't a Fire-type, but it does have some fire moves to use. Quite fitting, being based on the Sun and all.
• Power Floats: Both of them have the Levitate ability.
• The Power of the Sun: Solrock. Reflected by its learnset, which is filled with a plethora of Fire-type moves, Morning Sun and Solar Beam. It also has a chance to hold a Sun Stone when found in the wild.
• Psychic Powers: Both are Part Psychic-type, naturally learning several Psychic moves.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Lunatone's in particular are said to fill anyone with fear.
• Silicon-Based Life: They're living chunks of meteorite.
• Solar and Lunar: Both are meteorites that resemble a stylized sun and crescent moon. They even learn some moves that would be associated with the sun and the moon, like Solar Beam (for Solrock) and Moonblast (for Lunatone).
• Starfish Alien: They're living meteorites from space.
• Status Buff: Both can learn Rock Polish to deal with their middling speed, Calm Mind to boost their special stats, and the rare Cosmic Power to boost both defensive stats. Sword and Shield gifted them with Swords Dance and Nasty Plot too.
• Telepathy: Solrock can read minds.
• Wave-Motion Gun: They’re capable of learning Meteor Beam, a powerful Charged Attack that raises their Special Attack before use.

Barboach and Whiscash (Dojoach and Namazun)

0339: Barboach / Dojoach (ドジョッチ dojocchi)
0340: Whiscash / Namazun (ナマズン namazun)

Barboach

Whiscash

Water/Ground type catfish. They possess the ability to cause earthquakes, and are also said to have a limited ability to predict real earthquakes. Unlike real catfish, Whiscash's tail is horizontal, resembling a sea mammal's tail instead of a fish's. Be careful: those whiskers can tickle you into submission and weaken you.

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• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Whiscash has a "W" on its head.
• The Catfish: Based on a Namazu catfish.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: It's a silly-looking catfish. That can use Dragon Dance.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Ground-type, based on the namazu catfish that cause earthquakes, and bury themselves in mud to hunt prey.
• Earthquake Machine: Whiscash have the ability to cause earthquakes.
• Extreme Omnivore: It eats everything. Including Master Balls.
• Fiendish Fish: Whiscash are known for being intensely territorial catfish Pokémon that can cause earthquakes stretching over a three mile radius, and are known to eat just about anything.
• Fragile Speedster: Downplayed; in contrast to Whiscash, Barboach's speed is its highest stat while the rest of its stats are pretty poor, but with its speed being at a base 60, it's not that fast.
• Healing Factor: Hydration will cure it of any status at the end of the turn as long as it's raining.
• Jack of All Stats: With the exception of above average HP and low Speed, Whiscash's stats are relatively balanced.
• Making a Splash: They are Water-type catfish that live in rivers, caves, and lakes, with the Hidden Ability Hydration.
• One-Hit KO: Learns Fissure by level-up.
• Psychic Powers: They both learn Future Sight via level up, since they can predict earthquakes. Whiscash can get Zen Headbutt from the Move Relearner and Move Tutors. This is also reflected in their ability Anticipation, which allows them to sense if a foe has a Grass-type or self-destruction move.
• Shown Their Work: They are the one of the few non-Electric type Pokémon able to learn Spark, as a reference to real-life electric catfish, which are able to release a discharge of up to 450 volts of electricity.
• Status Buff: They can get the rare Dragon Dance via breeding, jacking up their Attack and Speed, and Amnesia to increase their Special Defense.
• Swallowed Whole: Whatever Whiscash eats, it swallows whole.
• Use Your Head: Headbutt and Zen Headbutt, which Whiscash can get from the Move Reminder or Move Tutors.
• Youkai: They're based off a Japanese myth about giant catfish causing earthquakes.

Corphish and Crawdaunt (Heigani and Shizariger)

0341: Corphish / Heigani (ヘイガニ heigani)
0342: Crawdaunt / Shizariger (シザリガー shizarigaa)

Corphish

Crawdaunt

Water-type Crayfish Pokémon that were apparently introduced from overseas. These feisty Pokémon are resourceful enough to thrive in any environment they're introduced to (as long as there's enough water). When Corphish evolves, it gains the Dark-type and becomes viciously territorial and willing to challenge anyone, tossing out any other Pokémon in its area.

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• Action Initiative: Can be bred with Aqua Jet to hit faster opponents, which happens quite a lot.
• Blood Knight: Crawdaunt lives for challenging other beings to battles.
• Combat Pragmatist: Crawdaunt gaining the Dark-type upon evolution. What would you expect from the "Ruffian" and "Rogue Pokémon"? Its Hidden Ability Adaptability boosts its Dark attacks even further.
• Critical Hit Class: They naturally learn Crabhammer and Night Slash, moves with a higher chance to crit.
• Dirty Coward: Crawdaunt is normally an extremely violent Pokémon which quickly challenges others to battle... as long as its prized pincers are intact. If they break, it turns timid and cowardly, and it stays that way until they grow back.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Crawdaunt's shell resembles an open shark mouth with a star on the nose, which appears to be a Pokémon example of Batesian mimicry in association with fellow Hoenn Water/Dark-Type Pokémon Sharpedo.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Crawdaunt are sometimes referred to by the Pokédex as being extremely difficult to raise. This is reflected in the evolution line being in the Fluctuating Experience group, which requires the highest amount of Experience to reach Level 100^note 1,640,000 Exp. points, compared to the Slow group, which requires 1,250,000.
• Giant Enemy Crab: While they're both smaller than your average ten-year-old trainer, they're huge compared to the animal they're probably based off of (the red swamp crawfish); Corphish is two feet tall while Crawdaunt is a little over three and a half feet.
• Glass Cannon: They have high Attack and hit extremely hard if they have Adaptability, but strong hits take them down quickly.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Crawdaunt's pincers can come off, but they'll grow back eventually (though in the meantime, Crawdaunt will actually hide from potential enemies).
• Introduced Species Calamity: They're not native to any of the regions they're found in. They were brought there by outside forces, escaped and bred. Combine that with a belligerent attitude, sheer stubbornness, and the fact they taste awful keeping predators away and they tend to thrive anywhere... whether anyone else wants them to or not.
• Making a Splash: Water-types based on crawdads.
• One-Hit KO: Naturally learns Guillotine, which knocks out the target in one hit if it connects.
• Power Pincers: They have a nasty pair of pincers.
• Red Live Lobster: Corphish and Crawdaunt are crayfish, and are likewise both red.
• Riddle for the Ages: The line's status as Misplaced Wildlife is repeatedly brought up, but no region where they appear describes them as native. However, Unova's Pokédex entries (in both BW and B2W2) are the only dex entries for a region that has no reference to them being introduced, only talking about their hardiness, so it's possible they originate from there, despite not being found in the wild in BW.
• Secret Art: As a crustacean-based family, it is one of the few that can learn Crabhammer.
• Status Buff: It gets Swords Dance to make it even stronger. Dragon Dance provides a more Lightning Bruiser characteristic.
• Weak to Magic: Its Defense is only okay, but its Special Defense is abysmal.

Baltoy and Claydol (Yajilon and Nendoll)

0343: Baltoy / Yajilon (ヤジロン yajiron)
0344: Claydol / Nendoll (ネンドール nendooru)

Baltoy

Claydol

Bizarre Ground/Psychic clay figurines brought to life by mysterious means, these Pokémon prefer arid ruins and are able to wield a number of elemental attacks. They are based on the "shakōkidogū", a "Spaceman" figurine from the Jōmon period.

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• Action Bomb: Naturally learns Explosion. Combined with its high defenses, it's tough to take out in the wild.
• Ancient Astronauts: Claydol are modeled after something that descended from the sky.
• Armored But Frail: Claydol has good Defenses, but its base 60 HP is poor.
• Body Horror: According to Claydol's Ultra Sun dex entry, exposure to water can cause it to melt. It has to use its psychic powers to shield itself when it rains.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Part Ground-types made of clay figurines, more specifically, the Shakōki-dogū.
• Eyes Always Shut: Baltoy has these much like the "Spaceman" figure it was based on. Claydol has this on two of its front eyes (according to the 3D games, all the eyes on the back are open).
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Claydol has eyes all around its head.
• Floating Limbs: Claydol's limbs are detached from its body and uses telekinesis to move them.
• Living Toys: Apparently, both are clay figurines found in ancient ruins that somehow came to life.
• No Biological Sex: As they are made from inorganic material and possibly alien in nature, they don't have genders.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: They're based on Japanese clay figurines, which don't really get much representation in cartoons or any other media.
• Power Floats: Both of them have the Levitate ability, which makes them immune to Ground-type attack, and are noted to use telekinesis to get around.
• Psychic Powers: Part Psychic-type with telekinetic powers.
• Silicon-Based Life: These guys are clay ornaments who sprang to life somehow.
• Stone Wall: Claydol can take hits very well thanks to its good Defense and amazing Special Defense. But it can't deal damage to its opponent very well as its offensive stats and speed are quite low.
• Time Abyss: Claydol was first created more than 20,000 years ago.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Claydol learns a variety of beam-based moves like Psybeam, Ice Beam, Charge Beam, Signal Beam, and Hyper Beam — notable for the fact that it learns Hyper Beam when it evolves at level 36, when most other Pokémon that learn it naturally don't get it until much later (sometimes, it's the last move they learn).

Lileep and Cradily (Lilyla and Yuradle)

0345: Lileep / Lilyla (リリーラ ririira)
0346: Cradily / Yuradle (ユレイドル yureidoru)

Lileep

Cradily

Revive a Root Fossil and you'll get this strange creature. Despite being part Grass and resembling a plant, this fossil Pokémon is based on a crinoid: a creature related to seastars that are still living in the deep oceans today. It is an extremely slow Pokémon, but it more than makes up for it in its defenses.

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• Dishing Out Dirt: As expected of fossil Pokémon, they are part Rock-type.
• Fossil Revival: Revived from a Root Fossil.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Especially Cradily. Some people have trouble figuring out which of its eyes are the real ones. ^note The ones in the black part of its face are the real ones.
• Green Thumb: Grass-type, though it's not based on a plant.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Subverted. Despite its type combination being a pair of the two types with the most weaknesses, Grass and Rock cancel out much of each other’s weaknesses so that it only has four weaknesses (Steel, Bug, Fighting, and Ice), where the first two types mentioned have few attacks available when it debuted. And Bug- and Ice-types are ill-advised to switch in on it, lest they eat a super-effective Rock move.
• Making a Splash: While not Water-types, they are based on crinoids (A class of aquatic animals related to sea stars) and belong in the Water 3 Egg Group. The line is also able to learn Brine by level up starting with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Mundane Utility: If they're placed in the first party slot, their Suction Cups ability makes fishing much easier, as it causes bites to occur much more often. This is very useful when trying to chain fish for shiny Pokémon.
• Palette Swap: Mentioned only because of an amusing fact: their "Shiny" forms switch colors with each other.
• Poisonous Person: Naturally learns Acid and can learn Sludge Bomb through TM. Real life crinoids spray acid on their prey, like starfishes.
• Prehistoric Monster: Lived on the seafloor 100 million years ago.
• Recurring Element: Fills the same role as the Kanto fossil duo along with Anorith, starting a tradition.
• Stand Your Ground: Its standard ability is Suction Cups, which makes it unable to be forcibly switched out.
• Stone Wall: Practically a Diamond Wall against special attacks during a sandstorm. Rock-types get their special defense raised a 50% during that sort of weather, and Cradily's base Special Defense is more than respectable. It naturally learns Stockpile and Amnesia to bulk up even more. And it can have Recover bred onto it, or be tutored Synthesis for a similar effect. Using Ingrain makes it even more so, giving it a constant Healing Factor and denying any attempts at using a Switch-Out Move on it.
• Super Spit: Can learn Stockpile, Swallow, and Spit Up.

Anorith (Anopth) and Armaldo

0347: Anorith / Anopth (アノプス anopusu)
0348: Armaldo (アーマルド aamarudo)

Anorith

Armaldo

Reviving a Claw Fossil will net you this Rock/Bug fossil Pokémon. Despite being labeled as an "Old Shrimp", Anorith is based on a creature known as an Anomalocaris, which, at one meter long, was the largest predator in the early Cambrian oceans. When it evolves, it grows legs and vaguely resembles a dinosaur.

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• Action Initiative: Can be bred to know Aqua Jet, allowing it to overcome its rather poor speed.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Based on the Anomalocaris, one of the earliest arthropod ancestors, and almost 5 feet tall. Two of only a few Bug-type Pokémon with Bug as a secondary type^note Skorupi, Dewpider, Araquanid, Sizzlipede, Centiskorch, Snom and Frosmoth are the others.
• Dishing Out Dirt: As expected of fossil Pokémon, they are part Rock-type.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Apparently some trainers release their Anorith into the wild, and the poor things have problems living in an environment 300 million years removed from their comfort zone.
• Fossil Revival: Revived from a Claw Fossil.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Armaldo weighs 150 lbs/68 kg.
• Making a Splash: While not Water-types, they are based on aquatic creatures, so it's only natural that they could learn Water-type moves like Water Gun, Aqua Tail, Aqua Jet, and Water Pulse, and belong to the Water 3 Egg Group (which mostly consists of aquatic invertebrates).
• Mighty Glacier: Armaldo hits hard with 125 Attack and has a solid base 100 Defense, but its Speed leaves much to be desired. Generation V gives it the power to become a Lightning Bruiser in the rain via Swift Swim. And there's always Rock Polish and Aqua Jet.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Armaldo's base 125 Attack contrasts its base 70 Special Attack.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Armaldo is half Anomalocaris, half stegosaurus.
• Prehistoric Monster: Hunted prey with its deadly claws.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Anorith's eyes are big, shiny, and adorably pitiful-looking.
• Recurring Element: Fills the same role as the Kanto fossil duo along with Lileep, starting a tradition. It's also very similar to the Kabuto line, sharing two abilities with it ^note Swift Swim and Battle Armor, only Kabuto's Hidden Ability Weak Armor is not represented in the Anorith line and having high attack with moderately good defenses. Armaldo is slower compared to Kabutops, but can hit harder and take a few more hits.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Anorith is remarkably cute for a Pokémon that was modeled after a Lovecraftian-looking predator.

Feebas and Milotic (Hinbass and Milokaross)

0349: Feebas / Hinbass (ヒンバス hinbasu)
0350: Milotic / Milokaross (ミロカロス mirokarosu)

Feebas

Milotic

A weak, little fish that evolves into a mighty serpent. Reminds you of Magikarp, right? It's actually pretty different. First, Feebas is exceptionally rare; it can only be encountered in certain tiles in the Route 119 river (as well as one of the Mt. Coronet underground lakes). Second, it is unique in that it is the only Pokémon that evolves with a contest stat, namely, Beauty ^note in games without contest statistics, Feebas can instead be evolved by holding a Prism Scale during trading. This makes both finding one and evolving one a daunting task, though as the Generations have gone by, Feebas has become much less frustrating to find and evolve.

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• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Black and White introduced the Prism Scale item, as a way to evolve Feebas by trading while having it equipped. This is because Contests are not present in the Generation V games (and, thus, there are no Pokéblocks or Poffins), so a Feebas caught in Unova would be unable to evolve otherwise. A Feebas transferred from a previous generation game can still evolve by leveling up if they had maximum Beauty before the transfer, however.
  • In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, fishing under the bridge near the Weather Institute during the day or the southernmost rock of Route 119 at night will yield a Feebas encounter 100% of the time. Also, there's no limit to how many Pokéblocks a Pokémon can eat, so go crazy and fill your Feebas's beauty stat!
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Milotic is a famously beautiful Pokémon who is much more serene than the similarly powerful Gyarados, who resembles a bestial Chinese dragon.
• Berserk Button: In Generation VI, it gained the Competitive Ability, which doubles its Special Attack if its stats are lowered.
• Boss Battle: Wallace's strongest Mon in Ruby, Sapphire, and their remakes.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: A Cooltrainer in Ruby and Sapphire's Route 120 is most likely to be the first time the player encounters a Milotic, and it can prove to be incredibly difficult to take down.
• Butt-Monkey: All of Feebas' Pokédex entries talk about how ugly and worthless it is, much like with Magikarp. At least they agree that Feebas is a hardy little fish.
• Care-Bear Stare: Milotic is said to be so amazingly beautiful the mere sight of it stops fights (actual fights, not regular trainer battles).
• Commonplace Rare: Despite being the Hoenn region's answer to Magikarp, they're much, much rarer, often being harder to find in the Generations that they appear in. The saving grace is that they're extremely easy to catch once you do find them, having the catch rate of early-game Pokémon:
  • Ruby and Sapphire's Feebas are only available in Route 119. Doesn't seem so bad, except they spawn in 6 tiles... out of the available 400. And they're randomly generated at the start of each playthrough. At the least, once you find the tile, it's a 50% chance of hooking them up with any rod. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire changes the spawn rate to 5%, though they can now be found on any of the tiles. Even better is that there is a hidden way to guarantee Feebas encounters, making them extremely easy to encounter. ^How?Fish underneath the bridge in the route. Doing so will allow Feebas to spawn 100% of the time with any rod.
  • Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum maintains the 50% chance of hooking up Feebas, though they're now found in the basement of Mt. Coronet. In 4 tiles out of 528. Even worse? The tiles now change every single day. And this wasn't rectified in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, making them just as difficult to get there. The only other way is to walk with the Pokéwalker... as a rare encounter in one of the routes, which is unlocked after acquiring the National Pokédex and holding 200,000 Watts. Have fun.
  • Black and White, as well as their sequels, is an outlier in that Feebas is actually fairly simple to obtain. Feebas is a post-game encounter via fishing on rippling tiles in Route 1, and it's a fairly common encounter. Even better is that Milotic, who you have to trade to evolve otherwise, can be found as well, though they're much rarer at a 5% chance.
  • Sun and Moon makes Feebas an encounter in Brooklett Hill (after the trial's completion), though it's a 1% encounter. Fishing in bubbling spots increases the chances to... 5%. The Ultra games slightly rectified this by increasing the bubbling spot chance to 10%, but it won't lessen the amount of Magikarp, Goldeen, and Basculin you have to sift through to find the fish.
  • Sword and Shield puts Feebas in Route 2, with a 1% encounter rate when fishing. The mitigating factor here is that Milotic is an overworld spawn, thus allowing access if you can catch it and breed it. The Isle of Armor DLC does put Feebas in Ballimere Lake, though its encounter rate is only slightly better at 5%. Thankfully, there's the option of catching them in Max Raid Battles.
  • Scarlet and Violet's Teal Mask DLC hide the fish in an out-of-the-way cavern in Oni Mountain, located in a slightly out-of-the-way pool inside. Feebas like to hide under the water for a bit as well, making them hard to detect as well. And unlike Sword and Shield, there's no catchable overworld Milotic this time ^note There is a mandatory fight against a wild Milotic in the DLC's campaign... but you're unable to catch it. Much like Sword and Shield though, they can spawn in Tera Raid Battles.
• Cursed with Awesome: Feebas is considered so ugly that people don't give it much mind, but on the flip side, predators think that it tastes bad based on its looks, so their numbers continue to grow.
• Developer's Foresight: Because Contests aren't in Generation V onward (aside from the Gen III & IV remakes), and neither is the ability to raise Condition, the Prism Scale was introduced in order to allow Feebas to evolve anyway. Conditions still exist but aren't visible, so Feebas with maximum Beauty, when transferred from earlier games, will still evolve upon level-up. This gives Feebas the interesting distinction of being the only Pokémon with two different ways of evolving into the same Pokémon.
• Disability Superpower: Marvel Scale increases Milotic's defense by 50% when it is afflicted with any major status ailment. Competitive works similarly, raising Milotic's Special Attack by two stages every time a stat is lowered.
• Fragile Speedster: Like Magikarp, Speed (and a minor in Special Defense) is Feebas's only high stat.
• Final Boss: Milotic is Wallace's strongest Mon in Emerald, where he's the Champion. It's also a member of Cynthia's team, making it one of the few Pokémon to be on multiple champions' teams (a distinction it shares with its foil Gyarados, owned by both Blue and Lance).
• Gentle Giant: Milotic fits the bill. At 20'04'' (6.2 metres), it is only a foot shorter than Gyarados, and it appears in times of conflict in order to calm the participants down.
• Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies: Feebas is a little 2-foot-long fish, while Milotic is a huge 20-foot-long sea serpent.
• Heal Thyself: Milotic learns Aqua Ring and Recover via level-up.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Milotic gained Competitive in Generation VI, so if you plan on lowering its stats, don't be surprised when its Special Attack begins to skyrocket.
• Informed Attribute: Several Pokédex entries describe it as having rainbow scales that change color based on the angle you view them. This has never been portrayed in the mainline games, they've always just kept Milotic with static colors instead. This has been seen in the anime at times though.
• Magikarp Power: Even if it's slightly more useful than Magikarp due to being able to learn TMs and egg moves, you aren't going to get anywhere with Feebas. Milotic, on the other hand, is a Mighty Glacier that's as powerful as it is beautiful, and its movepool expands greatly. Even their leveling rate plays into this — Feebas and Milotic are both in the Erratic EXP group, causing them to level up slowly early on, but overtake the rest of your party late in the game.
• Making a Splash: Like many fish and sea serpent Pokémon, they are Water-type.
• Mirror Character: To Magikarp and Gyarados. Gyarados is intimidating and vicious, Milotic is beautiful and serene. Gyarados is more offensively oriented, Milotic is more defensively oriented. Magikarp takes practically no effort to find; Feebas is intensely frustrating.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Not Dragon-types, but they're in the Dragon egg group and can learn some of their attacks.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Milotic somewhat resembles a mermaid because of its hair-like fins, pale upper body, and scaled lower body.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Unlike Gyarados, Milotic is hindered by a movepool limited to the usual Water-and-Ice fare that most Water-types get. It can learn Dragon Pulse, but that move provides little coverage on its own.
• Power-Up Letdown: While Feebas has the nice Adaptability ability as its Hidden Ability, Milotic gets... Cute Charm. It's rather situational and only has an effect against opposite-gender Pokémon. Compared to the wonderful and oh-so abusable Marvel Scale, it's a major letdown.
• Recurring Element: Inspired by Magikarp, only instead of being a weak fish that turns into a strong serpent, it's an ugly fish that turns into a beautiful serpent.
• Sea Serpents: Milotic is considered the benevolent counterpart of sorts to Gyarados, due to the fact that it's also a serpent, it has a much calmer temperament, and it evolves from an equally weak Pokémon, although it is much rarer and famed for being incredibly beautiful.
• Socialization Bonus: Due to the lack of contest stats in Generation V, Feebas can be evolved by trading while it holds a Prism Scale. This method also works in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, in addition to the re-introduced old method.
• Status Buff:
  • Feebas has Swift Swim, which doubles its Speed while it's raining.
  • Milotic gets the rare move Coil, which increases Attack, Defense, and Accuracy.
  • Marvel Scale increases Milotic's Defense by 50% if it's afflicted with a Status Effect.
  • Competitive will boost its Special Attack by 2 stages each time it's hit with a stat reduction.
• Stock Ness Monster: Milotic is based on sea serpents but resides in large lakes instead of the ocean.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After much talk about how ugly Feebas is, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon mention there are trainers who actually prefer it to Milotic.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Calling Feebas "The Ugly Duckling of Pokémon" would be an accurate comparison, although you have to help it become beautiful.
• Useless Useful Spell: One of Milotic's possibile abilities is Marvel Scale, which raises its defense when affected by any major status ailment. Milotic also learns Safeguard, which... prevents being affected by status conditions for 5 turns. Oops.
• Water Is Womanly: The Water-type Milotic is known as the Tender Pokémon for being able to calm human anger and hatred, and is regarded as the most beautiful of all Pokémon. Milotic owned by major trainers in the games tend to be female, even for male trainers.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: According to the Pokédex, Milotic is considered to be the most beautiful Pokémon in the world.

Castform (Powalen)

0351: Castform / Powalen (ポワルン powarun)

Normal Form Castform

^{Sunny Form Castform}

^{Rainy Form Castform}

^{Snowy Form Castform}

A tiny Pokémon that seems to resemble nothing more than a floating head. Castform is best known for changing its appearance and typing with the weather: It becomes a Fire-type under strong sunlight, a Water-type in the rain, and an Ice-type in a snowstorm. Its most famous move is Weather Ball, a move that can become certain types under certain weather conditions, much like Castform itself.

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• Artificial Human: Castform is an artificial Pokémon created by the Weather Institute to help predict the weather.
• Confusion Fu: Castform has a surprisingly versatile moveset, including a variety of Fire, Ice, Electric, Water, and Grass-type moves, as well as some Ghost and Flying-type moves and Weather Ball, which can variably be Ice, Fire, Water, or Rock-typed. In tandem with its ability, Castform can fit into any weather-based team and use a variety of movesets.
• Conjoined Eyes: It's hard to tell whether Castform has these kinds of eyes or if that's a white "mask" on its face.
• The Corruption: Weather Ball becomes a Shadow-type move when Shadow Sky is active. It's the only way a non-Shadow Pokémon can harness Shadow Power.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Weather Ball becomes Rock-type in a Sandstorm, even though Castform itself lacks a form for that weather.
• An Ice Person: Becomes an Ice-type in a hailstorm from Hail or Snow Warning.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: It will automatically change form depending on the weather.
• Joke Character: With 70 in each of its base stats, it's not going to do much. The embarrassing thing is that outside of stats, Castform has a fantastic movepool and an ability that lets it be flexible on many weather-focused teams. It might be played around with for a little while before being put back in the PC.
• Making a Splash: Becomes a Water-type in a rainstorm from Rain Dance or Drizzle.
• Master of None: Its stats are all equal, but sitting at 70 each means they're all equally sub-par.
• Non-Elemental: It's a Normal-type if there's no weather or there's just Fog.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Belongs in the Fairy Egg Group, despite not being Fairy-type nor does it have a form that is that type.
• Playing with Fire: Become a Fire-type in strong sunlight from Sunny Day or Drought.
• Protection from the Elements: In Hail, it changes to the Ice Type which takes no residual damage from the weather. However, since it has no form for Sandstorm, it will take damage from that.
• Quirky Bard: Pretty much introduced as a gimmick to show off weather moves.
• Required Party Member: In the Generation III remakes, Soaring in the Sky with a Castform in your party will make a storm cloud appear over Fortree City. Entering this cloud will allow you to battle and potentially capture either Tornadus or Thundurus, depending on the version.
• Secret Art: Weather Ball, in Generation III. Changes form along with the weather as well.
• Teru-Teru Bōzu: Based on these.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: It can control the weather, thus, it can choose its form.
• Waddling Head: Unless you count its cloud as legs.

Kecleon (Kakureon)

0352: Kecleon / Kakureon (カクレオン kakureon)

Kecleon

One of the earliest Pokémon of the third-generation games to be promoted, Kecleon is a chameleon that's well-known for changing its colors and almost becoming invisible; the only exception is the zig-zagged band of red on its torso. This doesn't factor into the game itself, but its ability comes fairly close. Every time it is hit with an attack, it becomes that attack's typing. This can be exploited by foes with knowledge of the series' Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. In the sixth generation, it gained the Protean ability as well, which allows it to change into whatever type of move it's just about to use.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the games proper, Kecleon is somewhat strong (if gimmicky) if you're bothering to use Protean, but generally nothing to write home about. In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, however... let's just say it would be unwise to try and steal from one of its in-dungeon shops.
• Armored But Frail: Kecleon has an excellent base 120 Special Defense, but a poor base 60 HP stat.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The concept of Color Change is cool, but it gives your opponent a lot of control over your weaknesses and STAB options. This becomes much more apparent in Player Versus Player battles, as human opponents can exploit this far better than the in-game AI. This became a lot more noticeable once Protean was introduced, which tends to do the job in a more practical way.
• Balance Buff: Became the only user of the rare and powerful ability Protean outside the Greninja line in Gen VI. This effectively gives Kecleon STAB on everything and the ability to control its typing as it wishes, although it's still held back by mediocre stats in everything but Special Defense and an only passable physical attack, so it's unlikely to supplant Greninja as the most popular user of Protean any time soon.
• Barrier Change Boss:
  • Its Color Change ability makes it change to the type that it was last attacked with. It can be easily beaten by Dragon-types, due to the type's self-weakness. Ghost also, if you can change its type off Normal first.
  • The Hidden Ability it gained in Gen VI, Protean, is this done right, as now it's the user that controls when Kecleon's type changes and what it changes to, rather than the opponent.
• Broken Bridge: In Generation III games, you'll sometimes run into empty spaces that don't let you move ahead. It's Kecleon in its invisible form, and you'll need the Devon Scope to make it move.
• Confusion Fu: With Protean, Kecleon's type changes to the type of the move it uses. Coupled with a diverse movepool encompassing Normal, Dark, Psychic, Ghost, Electric, Fire, Ice, Rock, Fighting, Grass, Ground, Flying, Steel, Water, and Poison attacks (though that last one only counts on a technicality), a trainer facing a Kecleon is not only left wondering what moves it will use, but what moves to use against it. It also gets the Action Initiative moves Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch to get the drop on you and change its type before it gets hit. ^note Kecleon does not receive any directly damaging Poison-type moves, but like most Pokémon that can use TMs, it has access to Toxic. In addition, the move Hidden Power, which is likewise available to most Pokémon that can use TMs, can be any type except Fairy, giving certain Kecleon access to the Bug and Dragon types as well.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The very first Generation III Pokémon to appear in the anime, midway through the Johto arc.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: It's quite easy for a player to hit a Color Change variant with one kind of move, at which point its elemental type changes. After that, it gets easily exposed to one it's weak to. Dragon moves are especially effective, as Dragon types are weak to Dragon moves^note Ghost type moves can also be used, but since Kecleon is naturally a Normal type, it needs to have its type changed to something else first.
• Hollywood Chameleons: Blends in with any environment nearly perfectly.
• Invisible Monsters: Run into a spot where nothing is there? It's a Kecleon, and you'll need the Devon Scope to reveal it.
• Invisibility with Drawbacks: An uncooperative stripe on its body will give it away.
• Mage Killer: Sports a fairly impressive Special Defense stat and hits harder on the physical side than on the special side. Its Special Attack, HP, and Defense are nothing impressive, and it's downright slow.
• Non-Elemental: A Normal Type based on the chameleon. However, either of its Abilities ensure that it typically won't stay that way for long.
• Palette Swap: Its very first appearance in the anime in the middle of the Johto arc and the Mystery Dungeon series featured Kecleon with a purple color scheme that can easily pass for a shiny variant. Strangely enough, its actual shiny variant only differs by having a blue torso stripe instead of a red torso stripe.
• Quirky Bard:
  • Color Change is clearly a gimmick, nothing else. However, Kecleon's decent Special Defense, good movepool, and the fact that its ability is at least good at fending off opponents without much type coverage to their attacks manages to keep it above being a Joke Character.
  • With Protean, it still kind of falls under this, but giving control over its type to its user makes it harder to exploit.
• Recurring Element: For Snorlax and Sudowoodo, as the Broken Bridge Pokémon of Generation III.
• Secret Art: The sole owner of the ability Color Change.

Shuppet and Banette (Kagebouzu and Juppeta)

0353: Shuppet / Kagebouzu (カゲボウズ kagebouzu)
0354: Banette / Juppeta (ジュペッタ jupetta)

Shuppet

Banette

^{Mega Banette}

Mega Banette debuts in X and Y

One of two pure Ghost-type families that are caught far into the game, Shuppet and Banette live up to the reputation of Ghost-types being fairly creepy. Shuppet feed off vengeful emotions and gather where such people live. Banette is more freaky in that it takes on the form of an animate doll searching for the child who discarded it. They have a high attack stat but little else. It's more easily found in Sapphire. In X and Y, Banette gained a Mega Evolution, which has an enormous Attack boost as well as the Prankster Ability, perfect for swamping the enemy with status effects as well as hitting hard.

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• Action Initiative: Its Mega Evolution gains Prankster, giving it priority on all non-damaging moves, but not on the turn it Mega Evolves. Mega Evolution mechanics changing in Sun and Moon removes this limitation.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Shuppet, vaguely. More of a handkerchief ghost.
• Casting a Shadow: Ghost-types. Shuppet is a puppet, while Banette is an abandoned doll that came to life.
• Creepy Doll: Both Shuppet and Banette are abandoned children's dolls, reanimated by a grudge against their former owners.
• Dark Is Not Evil: They feed on negativity. This means that a person who they feed from will feel better after having his or her hateful feelings devoured!
• Divergent Character Evolution: Dusclops got an evolution in Gen IV, while Banette got a Mega Evolution in Gen VI (which left Banette in a rather awkward spot during Gen IV and V).
• Emotion Eater: Feeds on dark emotions, as demonstrated with Shuppet in its anime debut.
• Foil: To the Duskull line. It is more common in Sapphire while Duskull is more common in Ruby. Also, Shuppet and Banette are Glass Cannons while Duskull and Dusclops are Stone Walls. While Banette gained a Mega Evolution, Dusclops gained a normal evolution (though these happened in different generations, meaning that Banette was effectively screwed over in comparison to Dusknoir before it got its Mega Evolution).
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In X and Y, you can find wild Banette in the Pokémon Village inside shaking trash bins, meaning that they really might be discarded dolls come to life out of revenge.
• Glass Cannon:
  • Very low defenses, but Banette has a nice Attack stat of 115. It was one of the only Ghost-types that could actually have reliable STAB before the Physical-Special split of Gen IV^note Dusclops and Shedinja are also Ghost-type Pokémon with decent base Attack who existed during Gen III, but neither of them hit as hard as Banette.
  • While Banette did get a Mega Evolution, its defenses are only slightly improved, so any reasonably powerful attack will still do it in.
• In Name Only: Banette is known as the "Marionette Pokémon". Its lore and Pokédex description make it clear that it's a possessed plush doll, with very little in common with string puppets.
• Living Toys: Banette is a living plush doll that was thrown away, but reanimated due to the grudge it bears.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Downplayed; Banette's base Attack is an impressive 115, which was especially useful as Ghost-type moves were classified as Physical prior to the Physical-Special split in Gen IV. It's base Special Attack, however, is a more average 83.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: They're not so much ghosts as they are discarded toys possessed by an evil force said to be the grudge they've held against being abandoned by their owners.
• Perverse Puppet: Shuppet is based off of a Teru-Teru Bōzu and feeds off of peoples' negative emotions, and Banette is a doll possessed by pure hatred that searches for the child that disowned it.
• Power Up Letdown: While Prankster is a great ability, it synergizes poorly with the stat boosts Banette recieves upon Mega Evolving, with only modestly boosted defenses and speed compared to greatly boosted Attack. Mega Banette is forced to compromise between status moves that can take advantage of Prankster or attacking moves that can utilize its monstrous Attack stat.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: Mega Banette evokes this, with its head-tail levitating upwards and its unzipped body resembling large robes around the pink inner body.
• Slasher Smile: Banette's zipper-mouth gives it quite a gorgeous smile.
• Soul Power: Banette seems to be possessing a puppet.
• Super Mode: Banette gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y. It becomes a lot stronger while getting the Prankster ability, giving it priority on non-damaging attacks.
• Taking You with Me: Mega Banette is notable for being the only Pokémon that has both Prankster and Destiny Bond, meaning if things are looking bad for it, it can reliably use Destiny Bond before the opponent hits it, taking the opponent down with it if it faints.
• Teru-Teru Bōzu: Shuppet is based on these, at least appearance-wise.
• Too Many Mouths: One interpretation of Mega Banette's arms are that they are actually extra mouths with tongues rather than claws.
• The Trickster: Mega Banette has the Prankster ability, which makes non-attacking moves go first.
• Unreliable Narrator: The Pokédex says that Banette would lose all of its energy if it opened its mouth, but Banette is shown multiple times in the games opening its mouth without losing said energy.
• Useless Useful Spell: In Gen VI, due to the rules around Mega Evolution applying abilities and stat boosts the turn after a Pokémon evolves, Mega Banette is forced to burn a turn with Protect or risk being knocked out before ever getting access to Prankster. Averted in Gen VII, as Mega Evolutions were reworked to take effect immediately.
• Vengeful Abandoned Toy: Banette is a Ghost-type Pokémon said to be a doll that was thrown away and came to life, reanimated by a grudge against its former owner.
• Voodoo Doll: Though the animation for all Ghost-Types using Curse shows a pin being jammed through the Pokémon, Banette is the only one explicitly said to curse others via this method.
• Zipperiffic: Mega Banette gains extra zippers. The ones in its head are really for show, but the ones in its arms and body at least unzip to show its claws and feet, making it look a lot more threatening.

Duskull, Dusclops, and Dusknoir (Yomawaru, Samayouru, and Yonoir)

0355: Duskull / Yomawaru (ヨマワル yomawaru)
0356: Dusclops / Samayouru (サマヨール samayooru)
0477: Dusknoir / Yonoir (ヨノワール yonowaaru)

Duskull

Dusclops

Dusknoir

Dusknoir debuts in Diamond and Pearl

Another pure Ghost-type family, Duskull and its kin gathers inspiration from a variety of Stock Monsters, but mostly The Grim Reaper, mummies, and the Cyclops (or a more malevolent take on genies). It has a reputation of relentlessly pursuing their prey, capturing it, and then spiriting it away. It is mostly a defensive monster. It's more easily found in Ruby.

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• Action Initiative: Naturally learns Shadow Sneak.
• Armored But Frail: The whole line's stat distribution. Due to Dusclops still being able to evolve, it can take advantage of Eviolite to further increase its defenses. However, its HP still remains poor at 40.
• Belly Mouth: Dusknoir — a glaring frown on the front, and a gentle smile on the back, though only the front side has been seen opening up. Presumably this is how it carries spirits, though Pokémon-Amie and Poké Refresh shows it can also eat through it.
• Boss Battle: Dusclops is Elite Four Phoebe's signature Mon. During the remakes, she evolves it into Dusknoir pre-rematch, where it's later replaced by Mega Sableye.
  • In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, Blake Hall sends a Dusknoir to attack the player, appearing as the game's penultimate boss.
• Casting a Shadow: Ghost-types that are cyclopes and a mummy (for Dusclops at least).
• Cyclops: Dusclops and Dusknoir have only one eye. Duskull also only has one eye, but has two eye sockets that the eye moves between in the 3D games.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Dusknoir may look plenty frightening and have some sinister overtones, but at the end of the day, it's a benign guardian of the dead whose job is to lead lost spirits home.
• Demoted to Extra: In Omega Ruby, Duskull has been reduced to the rarity it had in Sapphire while Shuppet assumes the center stage role of the local cemetery ghost in both of the remakes.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Dusclops got an evolution, while Banette got a Mega Evolution. This looked... odd until Gen VI, though (and by "odd", we mean "Banette got screwed over").
• Foil: To the Shuppet line. It is more common in Ruby while Shuppet is more common in Sapphire. Also, Duskull and Dusclops are Stone Walls while Shuppet and Banette are Glass Cannons. While Dusclops gained a normal evolution, Banette gained a Mega Evolution.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Dusclops used to have four-fingered hands in the Generation III games until Generation IV changes it to having five-fingered hands, though the artwork always depicted Dusclops having five-fingered hands.
• Gravity Master: Naturally learns the move Gravity.
• The Grim Reaper: If Dusknoir's Pokédex entry is to be believed.
• Life Drain: In an unorthodox way with Pain Split. Pain Split adds the user and target's current HP together before dividing it evenly between them. Since their HP is so low, most of the time Pain Split will leave them with more HP if it’s used against an opponent with full (or mostly-full) health.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Unusually for a Ghost-type, Dusknoir has a rather poor base Special Attack of 65, whereas its base Physical Attack is a much more impressive 100.
• Magikarp Power: Downplayed; Duskull's initial lack of good level-up moves and Stone Wall-oriented stats can make it hard to use before evolving and getting the useful Shadow Punch.
• Mighty Glacier: Dusknoir is significantly stronger than its pre-evolutions, getting a more impressive 100 base Attack. Its base speed, however? A mere 45.
• Meaningful Name: Samayouru is just one kana away from samayoeru, which means wandering. While it's not relevant to Dusclops in particular, Dusknoir is tasked with wandering around and locating lost souls to guide them to the afterlife.
• Mummy: Dusclops looks like it's wrapped in bandages like a mummy.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Based on cycloptic Youkai, with Dusclops integrating cloth wrappings like a mummy and Dusknoir integrating The Grim Reaper.
• Psychopomp: Dusknoir's job is to lead wayward spirits home.
• Reality Warper: Can be taught Trick Room, which reverses the turn order in each priority bracket.
• Skeleton Motif: Duskull, besides including the word "skull" in its name, also has a face resembling a bleached skull with a single glowing red eye peering from behind the sockets. While not outright evil, it's decidedly sinister — its Pokédex entries describe it as relentlessly stalking hapless humans and Pokémon through the night, and stealing away misbehaving children.
• Socialization Bonus: Dusclops needs to be traded while holding a Reaper Cloth in order to evolve.
• Soul Power: Dusknoir can take spirits into its body.
• Stone Wall: Dusclops has high defenses on both sides that can be boosted further with Eviolite, but with a mere 70 base Attack, Dusclops won't be doing much damage directly. It was still better at using its STAB than any other Ghost-type except for Shedinja^note base 90 Attack and Banette^note base 115 Attack in Gen III, though, making it more of a Mighty Glacier relative to other Ghost-type Pokémon. ^note Gen III is specified because it was the last generation in which moves were classified as physical or special based strictly on their type, with Ghost-type moves being physical. Starting in Gen IV, whether a move was physical or special became dependent on the move itself, and Shadow Ball, the premiere Ghost-type attacking move (80 Base Power), became Special. This was great for specially-oriented Ghost-type Pokémon such as Gengar, which could finally use their STAB to good effect, but physical Ghost-types like Dusclops, Dusknoir, Shedinja, and Banette needed an alternative. Dusclops and Dusknoir had it worse, with their strongest physical Ghost-type move being Shadow Punch (60 Base Power), while Banette and Shedinja (as well as the new physically-competent Giratina (base 100 Attack)) could use the more powerful Shadow Claw (70 Base Power). Thus, the physical-special split ruined Dusclops as a true Mighty Glacier and forced it into its current Stone Wall role.
• Swallowed Whole: Dusknoir can swallow things whole using the mouth on its belly.
• Undead Abomination: Dusknoir is one of the most alien and uncanny Pokemon. It is a drone with an antennae that works as a link between the Afterlife and the mortal world, and collects and brings souls to it (and feeds on a part of them). It is heavily implied to be the Pokémon's world equivalent of the Grim Reaper Oh, and it has a black hole inside it
• Will-o'-the-Wisp: "Will-O-Wisp", an attack many ghosts get, is a Fire-type attack that inflicts Burn. This is good for crippling Physical attackers and gradually wearing them down should its Defense and Attack fall short, though Fire-types, Pokémon with Water Veil or Water Bubble, and especially Pokémon with Guts will just laugh off any attempts to tank them in this manner.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Dusknoir's Shield Dex entry mentions that it eats souls from the beings it swallows, but only their souls, the bodies themselves are disgorged before it departs.
• Youkai: Dusclops is based on the chōchin-obake, a haunted paper lantern.

Tropius

0357: Tropius (トロピウス toropiusu)

Tropius

A Pokémon that resembles a sauropod dinosaur, it is somehow able to fly with banana leaves growing from its back and it also grows a beard of bananas on its neck. The origin of this beard is supposedly due to consuming so much fruit that it ended up growing its own. So the old adage "You are what you eat" really does apply to this Pokémon. Most people just use it as a cool ride and a mover of obstacles, though. Who wouldn't want to ride on a flying banana plant dinosaur?

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• Big Eater: There's liking to eat your favorite food, and then there's liking to eat your favorite food to the point that you started growing it out of your body.
• Blow You Away: A Flying-type that naturally learns moves like Gust and Whirlwind.
• Boring, but Practical: An excellent choice of HM user in the games it's present in, as one of the rare non-Legendaries that can learn Cut, Fly, and Strength.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The fruit that grows on Tropius's neck clearly look like bananas, but they've never actually been referred to as "bananas" or even the similarly shaped Nanab berries.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: It's not a Dragon-type, but it does learn a few Dragon-type moves like Dragon Pulse, Dragon Dance, Outrage, and even Dragon Hammer via breeding.
• Flight: Via giant leaf wings.
• Glass Cannon: With Solar Power. It gets considerably stronger attacking prowess from the special side, at the cost of losing health each turn.
• Green Thumb: It’s part Grass-type, and able to learn moves like Leech Seed and Razor Leaf. With its Harvest ability, it can also cause its held berry to regrow.
• Heal Thyself: Naturally learns Synthesis, and can gain Roost via Move Tutor.
• Kill It with Ice: Tropius's typing makes it horrifically susceptible to Ice-type attacks.
• Life Drain: Can be bred to know Leech Seed, and gained Giga Drain via Move Tutor.
• Master of None: Tropius can do just about anything you want it to; it just depends on which Ability and Status Buffs you give it. However, its stats fall short of making it particularly good in any role.
• Mokele-Mbembe: Tropius is partially inspired by this cryptid, being a modern day sauropod who lives in the tropical jungle.
• Mundane Utility: In addition to its use as an HM slave mentioned above, it's also the only Pokémon that can learn both Fly and Sweet Scent, which makes it great for Horde Battle experience harvesting.
• Planimal: Even compared to most Grass-types. It's got a banana beard and banana leaves for wings.
• Power of the Sun:
  • All three of its Abilities. Chlorophyll increases its Speed in the sun, Solar Power increases its Special Attack at the cost of health each turn in the sun, and Harvest, which gives it a chance of regaining a held Berry that had been used up at the end of each turn, becomes a guaranteed chance if the sun is out.
  • It naturally learns Growth, Synthesis, and Solar Beam. The first is a Status Buff that doubles in effectiveness if the sun is out, thus doubling both attacking stats, the second is a healing move that grows more powerful in the sun, and the last is a two-turn attack that takes only one turn to use whenever it's sunny.
• Protection from the Elements: Inverted with its ability Solar Power, which decreases HP for every turn of harsh sunlight.
• Razor Wind: Learns Air Slash naturally, and can be bred to know the Trope Namer.
• Status Buff:
  • With its Hidden Ability of Harvest, it can effectively have an infinite supply of berries.
  • It can learn Dragon Dance to increase its Attack and Speed, Curse to raise Attack and Defense at the cost of Speed, Growth to raise its Attack and Special Attack^note twice in the sun, and Tailwind to double its Speed.
• Stone Wall: Pretty good defensive stats, but its offenses and especially its speed are poor.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tropius loves bananas to the point that it started growing them. They'd probably get along well with Noivern.
• Weird Beard: It's made of bananas.

Chingling and Chimecho (Lisyan and Chirean)

0433: Chingling / Lisyan (リーシャン riishan)
0358: Chimecho / Chirean (チリーン chiriin)

Chingling

Chimecho

Chingling debuts in Diamond and Pearl

Pokémon that resemble bells and wind chimes. It's a psychic Pokémon that wasn't very notable when it was first introduced. Its effectiveness was not only hampered by the availability of other, more useful Psychic-types, but its rarity meant that people wouldn't normally go out of their way to find one. Gen IV was kinder in that it received a baby in Chingling and was made more common. But it's not exactly top-tier.

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• Forced Sleep: Learns Yawn naturally, and can be bred to have Hypnosis.
• Gale-Force Sound: If threatened, it can scream loud enough to fling attackers away.
• Guide Dang It!: No trainers in Ruby & Sapphire use a Chimecho. Combine that with how it only appears as a 2% encounter in off-the-road grass at the top of Mt Pyre, an area the player only has to visit once, and there is effectively no chance of learning it exists, bar the gap in your Pokédex. The remakes amend this somewhat by adding one to a trainer team in the Mossdeep Gym, at least allowing the player to be made aware of it.
• Heal Thyself: Can be bred to have Recover, though only if it starts as Chingling (in other words, make sure you have some Pure Incense handy).
• Joke Character: A Pokémon that takes a good chunk of your time and energy to find, yet it's extremely frail and its best stat, Special Attack, is sub-par compared to other Special sweepers. It is not enough to make it an acceptable Pokémon in a competitive or even in-game lineup.
• Lunacy: Chingling evolves with high friendship at night.
• Make Some Noise: It learns Echoed Voice and Uproar, plus it got Hyper Voice through Dream World and Move Tutors.
• Master of None: Middle-of-the-road HP and Speed, with slightly higher defenses and a 95 in Special Attack make for a good, balanced Mon. Sadly, it's one of those Pokémon just to have because it's cute, not because you want to train it for battle.
• The Medic: One of the rare few to get Heal Bell naturally, which can heal its teammates of status conditions. It can also get Heal Pulse, Wish, and Healing Wish to facilitate this playstyle even further.
• No-Sell: Ground-type moves naturally don't effect either of them due to their ability, Levitate.
• Power Floats: Has the Levitate ability. Chingling gets the move Entrainment, which lets it invoke this in others as well.
• The Power of Friendship: Chingling only evolves by becoming friends with its trainer.
• Psychic Powers: Psychic-type.
• Support Party Member: Because of its stat spread, Chimecho is relegated to this. However, it can set up Light Screen and Reflect to soften both Special and Physical attacks against its party members on both sides, and prevent status with Safeguard, along with the aforementioned healing skills. Gen 7 gave a slight boost to its HP and both defenses to allow it to fill this role a little better.
• Unique Enemy: Chimecho only spawns at one of the top floors of Mt. Pyre, in a few patches of grass in the original Ruby and Sapphire, at a 2% rate of appearance. It's pretty much designed to be as frustrating to spawn and catch as possible.

Absol

0359: Absol (アブソル abusoru)

Absol

^{Mega Absol}

Mega Absol debuts in X and Y

A white-furred Dark-type. Absol has a reputation of being a bad omen and seeing one is said to bring doom. How this Pokémon is able to predict such events is not explained, but it showing up is supposed to be a warning that a disaster is imminent. As a result, many people have accused Absol of being doom bringers rather than celebrating them for being heroes. It has a wicked attack stat, but is lacking in other stats. It gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y, with boosts to offensive stats and Speed, and gives it the Magic Bounce Ability.

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• Action Initiative: Naturally learns Sucker Punch, which is also the strongest Sucker Punch of any non-Legendary, non-Mega Pokémon. And that becomes even stronger if it Mega Evolves.
• Anti-Magic: Mega Absol has the Magic Bounce ability, which reflects any non-damaging moves aimed at it.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Due to the reworking of critical hits in Gen VI, Super Luck Absol can be used as a Critical Hit Class, as detailed below, but remains slow and relatively frail, and the strategy is incompatible with Mega Absol, since it loses the Super Luck ability.
• Badass Adorable: Great Attack stats and Mega Evolution aside, Absol is very cheerful and happy when you play with it in Pokémon Amie/Refresh.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Absol's Mega Evolution invariably releases an aura that causes nearby faint-hearted people to die from shock. Needless to say, Absol hates having to Mega Evolve in the first place.
• Bearer of Bad News: Absol can predict when and where disasters will happen, and tries to warn people of the danger. However, since this means that Absol is always present when the disaster strikes, this leads to people blaming it for the disaster.
• Boss Battle: Absol is Elite Four Sidney's signature Mon. It can Mega Evolve in the remakes. In X and Y, it's your rival's Mega Evolving Pokémon once they get a Mega Ring.
• Breakout Character: Modestly. While it was a relatively rare Pokémon in its debut region, Absol has been consistently popular enough to be added into every region since Hoenn. It even recieved a decent bit of publicity as an early reveal of Mega Evolution in the lead up to Gen VI, and a Mega-Absol serves as Rival Calem/Serena's Mega in X and Y.
• Cartoon Creature: Absol resembles the Bai Ze, a mythological creature of Chinese origin commonly described in Japanese tradition as having a mix of bovine and feline features and a human-like face.
• The Cassandra: Despite its ability to predict disasters, people never seem to believe it before they happen. Fortunately, as of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, younger generations are paying more attention to it.
• Cassandra Did It: It's often blamed for the disasters it tries to warn people of, mainly by the elderly.
• Cast from Hit Points: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, wild Absol have a chance of holding a Life Orb.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Despite all the hatred it gets for allegedly causing doom, it still goes out of its way to help people. Later games downplay this by implying that younger generations have taken interest in Absol's powers (and consequently take it more seriously).
• Combat Pragmatist: Even though it isn't malicious or cunning unlike most Dark-types, it does learn many underhanded Dark moves via level-up.
• Confusion Fu: Has an insanely huge movepool ^note It has access to moves of every type except for Grass, but normal Absol is only able to use physical attacks to good effect; it needs to Mega Evolve to use Special attacks effectively.
• Crippling Overspecialization: It's got a deadly Attack stat... but that's all it excels at, barring Mega Evolution.
• Critical Hit Class: Absol has the most moves with higher critical hit ratios of any Pokémon — Slash, Night Slash, Psycho Cut, Shadow Claw, Stone Edge, and Razor Wind, and has Super Luck to increase the odds of Critical Hits even more. No other Pokémon gets as many attacks with high critical hit ratios, and none of the other Pokémon with Super Luck can abuse it like Absol. As of Generation VI, the new critical hit mechanics mean that if Absol is also holding a Razor Claw or Scope Lens, those moves will always be critical hits.
• Cute Little Fangs: If you pay close attention, you'll notice these in Pokémon-Amie.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Notably honorable within its type, even getting the Justified ability.
• Dragons Up the Yin Yang: Its head looks like a taijitu and it has mysterious disaster-sensing powers.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Only has a scythe on one side of its head.
• Fragile Speedster: Its Mega Evolution has higher Speed and even higher Attack, as well as a hefty Special Attack boost. Still has awful defenses, though.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Absol does appear at sites where disaster will appear, as the Dex stated, usually in routes that connect plot-important places:
    • In Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, it first shows up on Route 120, which connects Fortree, Lilycove and Mt. Pyre, the latter of which is the area where Team Magma/Aqua steal their orb and summon Groudon/Kyogre.
    • In Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum it's encountered in the upper levels of Mt. Coronet, which you first enter as you're trying to stop Cyrus from attempting to destroy and remake the universe.
    • In Black and White, it can be encountered on Route 13, which is near the Giant Chasm, where Kyurem resides and is attacked by Team Plasma two years later.
    • In X and Y, Absol appears at Route 8. Doesn't sound like a case of foreshadowing, but this is the first route you enter in Coastal Kalos, where the Team Flare plot kicks off not long after, and is not too far from Geosenge Town, where the Ultimate Weapon and Xerneas/Yveltal are located.
    • In Sun and Moon, Absol is catchable in the Tapu Village, not long before Team Skull kidnaps Lillie and Nebby for the Aether Foundation. Since Tapu Village is in ruins by the time you reach it (thanks to Tapu Bulu), it is also likely that it appeared before the residents there to warn off the village's impending destruction. Tapu Village is also nearby Haina Desert, which is where Celesteela can be found.
  • That it lives on mountains ties in to its Sapphire and Sun Pokédex entries, which state that it tends to stay in the mountains most of the time.
  • Absol is said to be quick to sense disasters but is often too slow to save anyone. Its Speed stat is mediocre.
• Glass Cannon: It has a very high Attack, Swords Dance, an ability that increases its critical rate on top of having a load of moves that have high crit rates naturally, but it has mediocre Speed and horrible Defenses.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: This Pokémon is infamous for being a doom bringer despite its efforts to help people. Though thankfully, younger generations are showing more positive feelings towards it.
• Honor Before Reason: Absol's Hidden Ability is Justified, which boosts its Attack when it's hit with a Dark-type attack.
• Long-Lived: Absol's Emerald Pokédex entry says that it's a long-lived Pokémon with a life-span of 100 years. Most Pokémon are assumed to share their real-life counterparts lifespan, so this is indeed quite long.
• Magic Knight: Mega Absol has extremely high Attack along with great Special Attack.
• No Mouth: Prior to Gen VI, Absol's mouth wasn't visible in the games or most official artwork, and was rarely visible in the anime (mostly when Absol opened it).
• Not Helping Your Case: Absol already has a bad reputation for causing disasters. According to Ultra Moon, its Mega Evolution gives off an aura of dread strong enough to make faint-hearted people die of fright. It really doesn't help that Mega Absol can’t repress this aura.
• Perpetual Smiler: As of Gen VI, Absol's model is constantly smiling, which is odd because it's a species with a tragic backstory and it's leery of humans. Can also be a Smug Smiler or a Stepford Smiler. Of course, playing with it on Amie/Refresh makes it all the sweeter with Absol's cheerful reactions.
• Power Gives You Wings: Its Mega Evolution does not become a Flying-type, but the fur in its artwork takes a wing-like appearance due to the energy surging through its body.
• The Scapegoat: It tends to get blamed whenever disaster strikes, mainly by the elderly; younger generations are more interested in its powers and less prone to blaming it for misfortune.
• Reluctant Warrior: According to its Ultra Sun Pokédex entry, Absol hates violence, and isn't very keen on Mega Evolving for battles (given how faint-hearted people die from just looking at it).
• Sinister Scythe: As if one scythe weren't enough, it seems to feature three sickle-like growths on its body: two on its head, one on its tail. The two on Absol's head, one looking more blade-like than the other, appear to form a yin-yang symbol together in their juxtaposition.
• Super Mode: It has a Mega Evolution in X and Y, with the ability Magic Bounce.
• Taking You with Me: Naturally learns Perish Song. This can make catching a shiny one a bit tricky.
• 13 Is Unlucky: Shows up in Swarms at Route 213 in Diamond & Pearl and Route 13 in Unova.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Starting from X and Y, Absol is always smiling and very playful when interacting with it through Amie/Refresh.
• Winged Unicorn: Mega Absol's design aesthetic, though its horn is of an unconventional design.
• Wings Do Nothing: Mega Absol's wings are just a mere aesthetic change from Mega Evolution caused by Mega Evolution power making its hairs stand up on end.

Snorunt, Glalie, and Froslass (Yukiwarashi, Onigohri, and Yukimenoko)

0361: Snorunt / Yukiwarashi (ユキワラシ yukiwarashi)
0362: Glalie / Onigohri (オニゴーリ onigoori)
0478: Froslass / Yukimenoko (ユキメノコ yukimenoko)

Snorunt

Glalie

^{Mega Glalie}

Froslass

Froslass debuts in Diamond and Pearl, while Mega Glalie debuts in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

An odd conical fellow that evolves into an icy sphere, Snorunt and Glalie were introduced as the first Pokémon that were purely Ice types (all the others were dual types). Snorunt was originally only found in the icy depths of the Shoal Cave, which was only at low tide, and even then it was scarce. Aside from its typing, it wasn't that remarkable since its stats were all even. In Gen IV, female Snorunt gained the ability to evolve into Froslass with the help of a Dawn Stone. Unlike its kin, Froslass is an Ice/Ghost and her stats favor speed over defenses. Glalie gained a Mega Evolution with the ability Refrigerate in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

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• Action Bomb: Glalie can be taught Explosion by TM. Between its Refrigerate ability giving Explosion same-type attack bonus points, as well as its 30% power boost to all moves that benefit from it (not to mention that unlike Normal-type moves, nothing is immune to Ice-type moves), Explosion used by Mega Glalie is sure to cause massive damage. In fact, it's the fourth-strongest Explosion in the game^note after Explosion from Lickilicky holding a Choice Band, Explosion from Silvally holding a Choice Band and Explosion from Alolan Golem with the Galvanize ability holding a Choice Band with a better offensive typing than the first three.
• Action Initiative: All members of the line learn Ice Shard.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Glalie resembles an "onigiri", or a rice ball; those snacks that were sometimes called "donuts" in the English dub of the anime. Even its Japanese name (Onigohri) is similar.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Snorunt looks like it is wearing a poncho and Glalie looks as if it's wearing a hockey mask (the kind associated with the movie killer Jason from Friday the 13th, not a regulation one).
• Body Horror: Mega Glalie's jaw is all but wrecked by the process of Mega Evolving, leaving it unable to close its mouth. This doesn't stop it from using biting moves. Thankfully, after the battle is over, Glalie's jaw returns to normal.
• Boss Battle:
  • Froslass is Candice's strongest Mon during Platinum and appears on Glacia's team in the Gen VI remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
  • Glalie appears on Glacia's team in Ruby and Sapphire, and in the Gen VI remakes, becomes Glacia's Signature Mon.
  • In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, Froslass is used by Ice during your first battle against him.
• Clothing Appendage: Froslass' arms look like the sleeves of a kimono.
• Cold Flames: As of Generation VII, Froslass can learn Will-O-Wisp, a Fire-type attack that doesn't do any damage, but burns opponents.
• Cool Mask: Glalie is essentially a living hockey mask.
• Cute Ghost Girl: Froslass is the pretty-looking and female-only counterpart of Glalie that also happens to be part Ghost-Type.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Although it's an Ice-type, Glalie consists of ice covering a solid stone core, and its family belongs to the Mineral egg group. In addition, it can learn Rollout via breeding.
• Distaff Counterpart: Though Glalie can be either gender, Froslass is its more feminine-looking, female-only counterpart.
• The Fair Folk: Froslass has shades of this: she looks spiritlike and oddly beautiful, but she also has the cruel-hearted side of freezing her prey and secretly displaying it. Although it's not a Fairy-type, it is in the Fairy egg group.
• Flying Face: Glalie is known as the "Face Pokémon" and is capable of floating in the air. Mega Glalie amps this up by looking like a flying skull made of ice and rock.
• Food Chain of Evil: While neither can really be called "evil", Glalie enjoys snacking on Vanillish, since they come pre-frozen.
• Fragile Speedster: Froslass is one of the fastest Ice-type Pokémon, but she can't take that much damage compared to Glalie.
• Glasgow Grin: Mega Glalie evokes this. The power of Mega Evolution has destroyed its lower jaw, rendering it unable to close its mouth.
• Horned Humanoid: Froslass has two ice chunks sticking out of her head that resemble horns.
• An Ice Person: A family of Ice-types that can naturally learn Ice-type moves.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: If Froslass comes across a Pokémon or human she likes, she freezes them solid and takes them back to her den for her to admire.
• Informed Ability:
  • Glalie's Pokédex entry in Ruby (and Omega Ruby, for obvious reasons) states that its body is made of rock, which it hardens with an armor of ice. Guess what type it doesn't have and is in fact weak against (and would still be weak against even if it did have it)?
  • Some Dex entires also claim that Glalie's ice body will never melt, even with fire. You only got one guess as to what type, one of its primary weaknesses in the games is.
• Jack of All Stats: Glalie's got an equal 80 in each stat, just like Phione.
• Late Character Syndrome: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you only get the Dawn Stone to evolve Snorunt into Froslass after beating Wally at the end of Victory Road right before facing the Elite Four. Until then you're stuck with a weak Snorunt if you want to use Froslass. There are other ways to get a Dawn Stone that involve RNG (such as as a Secret Super Training reward), but Wally is the only guaranteed way.
• Mad Artist: Froslass are liable to freeze good-looking Pokémon and travelers to decorate their home with their bodies, which is demonstrated by a Froslass in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness/Time/Sky.
• Magic Knight: Mega Glalie has both of its offensive stats boosted significantly.
• Master of None: Snorunt and Glalie's stats are perfectly equal, but a tad low overall, and having four weaknesses and only one resistance is a notable drawback.
• One-Gender Race: Only female Snorunt can evolve into Froslass.
• Our Fairies Are Different: The line is in the Fairy Egg Group, despite none of them being Fairy-types. Froslass can learn Draining Kiss via level-up, though.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Froslass is a Yuki-onna, a Japanese ice ghost/demon. The first Glalie was made from a dying mountaineer whose extreme distress bound their soul to a nearby boulder.
• Punny Name: Its Japanese name, Onigohri, sounds similar to "onigiri" and is a combination of "oni" and (Gratuitous English for) "goalie". Fitting for a Pokémon that resembles both an onigiri and a demonically possessed hockey mask.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Glalie, when shiny.◊ Mega Glalie's pupils are an eerie red.
• Scunthorpe Problem: In Black and White, you couldn't trade an English language Froslass on the GTS without a nickname.
• Secret Art: Snorunt and Glalie are the only Pokémon that learn Frost Breath naturally.
• Silicon-Based Life: Glalie's main body is a boulder encased in ice.
• Skull for a Head: Froslass kind of looks like she has this.
• Soul Eating: Froslass' favorite food is frozen souls.
• Soul Power: Froslass is part Ghost-type based on the yokai, Yuki-onna.
• Super Mode: Glalie gained a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Froslass, however, did not.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Froslass can learn Destiny Bond and she's also the third-fastest user of the move (only Mega Houndoom and Mega Gengar are faster), which is quite handy.
  • Glalie can learn Explosion. Mega Glalie can use Refrigerate to make it one of the strongest attacks out there.
• Technicolor Eyes: Froslass's eyes have blue irises and yellow sclera.
• Trap Master: Froslass is notable as the only Ghost-type that can learn Spikes (thus preventing the opponent from removing them immediately with Rapid Spin).
• Was Once a Man: Froslass is said to be the spirit of a woman who was lost in the mountains. Glalie is also said to be the result of a stranded mountaineer's distress and regrets possessing a boulder.
• Youkai: Snorunt is a cross between the yukinoko (coat-wearing snow fairies) and the Zashiki-warashi (household fairy children). Despite this, it has not been retconned to Ice/Fairy type. Froslass is based on a Yuki-onna. Glalie itself may be based on the Okubi, a giant head that appears in the sky as omens of doom.
• Yuki-onna:
  • Froslass is based on the female ice spirit of Japanese folklore and her Japanese name is even an archaic translation of "Yuki-onna". Pokédex entries mention that, according to legend, Froslass are the souls of women who died in snowstorms reborn as Pokémon. Froslass freeze their victims, be they Pokémon or human, then either eat them or use them as decorations in their caves. According to Moon's entry, Froslass are especially fond of men.
  • One appears as a boss in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon spinoff series, alongside her gallery of frozen victims.
• Zashiki-warashi: Snorunt is partially based on this youkai; several of its Pokédex entries state that it's believed a house with a Snorunt living in it will prosper for many generations, and it's especially evident with its Japanese name being Yukiwarashi.

Spheal, Sealeo, and Walrein (Tamazarashi, Todoggler, and Todoseruga)

0363: Spheal / Tamazarashi (タマザラシ tamazarashi)
0364: Sealeo / Todoggler (トドグラー todoguraa)
0365: Walrein / Todoseruga (トドゼルガ todozeruga)

Spheal

Sealeo

Walrein

A family of seal-like Pokémon, Spheal is an adorable ball-shaped seal Ice/Water type that becomes more walrus-like as it evolves. It's a bulky Pokémon that works best in hailstorms. If it has the Thick Fat ability, it only takes 1/8 damage from Ice moves.

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• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Walrein's white fur and blue body makes it resemble a breaking wave.
• Ball-Balancing Seal: Sealeo is a seal-like Pokemon described as rolling anything new it encounters on its nose to test its smell and texture.
• Boss Battle: Elite Four Glacia's strongest Mon. It's replaced by Mega Glalie in the remake's rematch, though. It's also used by Nascour as his strongest Mon at level 57.
• Cute Little Fangs: Spheal. Sealeo has some too, but the mustache makes them harder to see.
• Healing Factor: Its Ice Body Ability gives it 1/16 (the equivalent of Leftovers) of its max HP at the end of a turn if it's hailing. It can get Aqua Ring through breeding as well.
• Ice Magic Is Water: Dual Ice/Water-types. This type combo became far more rare afterwards, with the next Water/Ice type being introduced 5 generations later.
• An Ice Person: Ice-type.
• Kevlard: Has the Thick Fat Ability, giving it resistances against Fire and Ice attacks. Because of this and its typing, it only receives 1/8th of an Ice-type attack's normal damage.
• Making a Splash: Water-type seals.
• Mighty Glacier: High HP, high Defense and Special Defense, and usable Special Attack, but low Speed. Its Attack of 80, while on the lower end, is also serviceable. It can also learn Curse to increase its Attack and Defense but become even slower.
• One-Hit KO: Naturally learns Sheer Cold and can be bred to have Fissure.
• Perpetual Smiler: Spheal is always seen with a sweet, cheerful smile on its face, reflecting its playful nature, and Sealeo likewise appears smiling happily in most cases. Walrein, however, loses this and appears as a more serious, intimidating Pokémon.
• Power Up Letdown: Compared to Thick Fat's resistances and Ice Body's healing, Oblivious, as its hidden ability, is nowhere near as useful as either of them. Subverted later, as Oblivious was buffed to prevent the Pokémon from being taunted, which helps a lot given Walrein's defensive-minded playstyle.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: SPHEAL. Just LOOK at it! It's so round and cute and precious looking!
• Rolling Attack: Its Ice Ball attack. It can be bred with Rollout as well.
• Secret Art: Ice Ball, although it has always been breedable into several Pokémon.
• Status Buff: Learns Curse, Defense Curl and Stockpile.
• Stone Wall: Hail, Ice Body, and Leftovers can recover 1/8 of Walrein's health in one turn, which can be increased to a quarter health with Protect stalling, and even more than that if Aqua Ring is used. Add that to its damn good HP stat, and you've got a potentially annoying Mon to take down.
• Super Spit: Learns the Stockpile/Swallow/Spit Up trio through breeding.
• Sweet Seal: Spheal is a little ball-like seal with little tusks like Dewgong, another example of this trope.
• Useless Useful Spell: Thick Fat halves all incoming Ice- and Fire-type damage but is unfortunately redundant on this monster, which already heavily resists Ice-type attacks and only takes neutral damage from Fire-type attacks thanks to its typing.
• Waddling Head: Spheal, although it's more rolling than waddling.

Clamperl (Pearlulu), Huntail, and Gorebyss (Sakurabyss)

0366: Clamperl / Pearlulu (パールル paaruru)
0367: Huntail (ハンテール hanteeru)
0368: Gorebyss / Sakurabyss (サクラビス sakurabisu)

Clamperl

Huntail

Gorebyss

If you thought a fish that evolves into an octopus was bizarre, then what about a clam that evolves into two kinds of deep sea eels? Clamperl is an unusual Pokémon that produces a single large pearl in its lifetime, which is then used by the equally unusual Spoink (how the Spoink acquires the pearl from a deep sea creature is a mystery for the ages). Clamperl are able to evolve by trading with either a DeepSeaTooth, which evolves it into Huntail, or a DeepSeaScale, which evolves it into Gorebyss. Huntail is a more physically oriented fighter while Gorebyss is more specially oriented.

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• Action Initiative: Huntail can be tutored to learn Sucker Punch.
• All Your Powers Combined: Huntail and Gorebyss learn Baton Pass, and can learn Shell Smash as a Clamperl. This makes them excellent "smash passers".
• Armored But Frail: Huntail and Gorebyss both have a solid base 105 Defense, but a low 55 base HP.
• Beauty Is Bad: Gorebyss. The Pokédex specifically notes that while it is pretty, it is also very cruel. It feeds by sticking its needlelike mouth into other Pokémon and SUCKING THEIR BODY FLUIDS. And once it finishes, its body color turns a more vivid pink.
• Blush Sticker: They're very faint, but Clamperl has some light pink cheeks.
• Combat Pragmatist: Huntail naturally gets a few Dark-type moves through level-up, such as Sucker Punch, Feint Attack, and Crunch. It also has a Dark-type Poké Assist in Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia.
• Eyes Always Shut: Clamperl's eyes are always seen closed in a serene manner.
• Fiendish Fish: Gorebyss don't look particularly ferocious, but they are known for being cruel Pokémon who hunt by stabbing their prey with their long mouths and sucking out their bodily fluids.
• Foil: Huntail and Gorebyss are designed to mirror each other. Both are pure Water-type deep-sea eels that evolve from the same Pokémon, but while Huntail is a physical attacker with lots of Dark-type moves, Gorebyss is a special attacker with Psychic (and later, Fairy) moves. Moreover, while Huntail eats its prey whole in one swoop, Gorebyss takes its time agonizingly draining its victim.
• Fragile Speedster: They're usually slow and sport impressive defenses, but can invoke this by using Shell Smash to massively increase their attacking stats and Speed but reducing their survivability. Add Swift Swim to the mix, and only priority and massive defenses may stop them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Gorebyss is said to drain its prey from body fluids, but it took until Gen VI for it to learn a draining move, Draining Kiss.
• Glacier Waif: Both Gorebyss and Huntail have a very dainty, serpentine and eel-like apperance, suggestive of a fast but frail creature. However, they actually mostly just improve upon Clamperl's stat spread, a (baby) Stone Wall with a larger boost on either Attack or Special Attack, promoting them to Mighty Glacier. As a result they sport impressive defense, but pretty terrible speed.
• Healing Factor: Gorebyss has Hydration as its Hidden Ability, ridding it of any harmful status at the end of a turn as long as its raining. The line also learns Aqua Ring.
• Life Drain: In line with its Pokédex entry saying that it drains the body fluids of its prey, Gorebyss can learn the Fairy-type Draining Kiss starting in Generation VI.
• Light Is Not Good: Gorebyss is a bright pink and themed towards an angelic look, but its an even more vicious predator than Huntail and it maintains its pink coloration by drinking the fluids of live prey. Huntail being an ambush predator seems comparatively tame.
• Lighter and Softer: Games following their introduction seemed to be trying very hard to make the players forget that Gorebyss' Pokédex entries in the original Ruby and Sapphire state that Gorebyss "inserts its thin mouth into the prey's body and drains the prey of its body fluids", and "Its light pink body color turns vivid when it finishes feeding". Some entries even state it feeds on seaweed. However, Alpha Sapphire, being a remake, mentions again that Gorebyss is cruel and siphons its prey's bodily fluids, and this has been maintained for future games.
• Magic Knight: Although Huntail is more focused on physical attacking, its Special Attack is only 10 points lower than its physical Attack, allowing it to decently use powerful special moves like Hydro Pump, which can be handy considering physical Water-type moves cap at only 80 or 90 or suffer from spotty accuracy.
• Making a Splash: Water-type fish and their clam pre-evolution. Their abilities are also designed around this, making them faster under rain, curing them of harmful status and preventing burns.
• Marshmallow Hell: Gorebyss can learn Clamp, which involves squeezing the opposing Pokémon between the user's shell, from its previous evolution. Considering the only shells on Gorebyss are its Seashell Bra...
• Mighty Glacier: The whole line is quite bulky on the physical side, and deal good damage of a certain category depending on the Pokémon in question^note Physical Attack for Huntail, Special Attack for Gorebyss and Clamperl, but they have poor Special Defense and Speed.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Gorebyss has a Seashell Bra that makes it resemble a mermaid.
• Perplexing Pearl Production: Clamperl has a pink pearl for a head.
• Piñata Enemy: When encountered in the wild, Clamperl have a chance of holding Pearls and Big Pearls.
• Psychic Powers: Gorebyss can naturally learn a few Psychic-type attacks through level up such as Confusion, Amnesia, and Psychic, though it's not Psychic-type. It also has a Psychic-type Poké Assist in Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia. Clamperl's pearl is also said to amplify psychic power, and somehow it comes into the possession of the Psychic-type volcano-dwelling Spoink.
• Psycho Pink: Gorebyss is a pink eel and is a vicious predator that sucks the bodily fluids straight out of its prey. After eating, it also becomes a vivid pink.
• Seashell Bra: Gorebyss, regardless of gender.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: Clamperl is one of the few Pokémon blessed with Shell Smash. And its evolutions can even Baton Pass the boosts.
• Socialization Bonus: Need to be traded in order to evolve. Which one it evolves into depends on the item it holds when traded. Wild Huntail and Gorebyss can be rare wild encounters in certain games, though.
• Status Buff: The line is designed around this. They learn a move to pretty much boost all stats, between them the coveted Shell Smash, Coil, and Iron Defense — Gorebyss can also learn Agility and Amnesia. They also get Baton Pass in order to pass the buffs to another teammate.
• Stone Wall: Clamperl has quite high stats for an unevolved mon, but its highest stat is a Defense of 85.
• Weak to Magic: All three of them have much worse Special Defense compared to their physical Defense.

Relicanth (Glanth)

0369: Relicanth / Glanth (ジーランス jiiransu)

Relicanth

This Water/Rock Pokémon is based on a fish called the coelacanth. Once thought to be extinct, but was discovered as a still extant species and the best example of a living fossil. Relicanth displays a similar role and is closely associated with fossil Pokémon despite not being revived from one. Instead, you must either dive into the seas of Hoenn or fish them up in other places in later games. You need this Pokémon and a Wailord in order to get the three Regi Pokémon (and in certain party positions, too).

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• Cast from Hit Points: Naturally learns Double-Edge and Head Smash. However, it can subvert this with its Rock Head Ability, which removes the recoil.
• Dishing Out Dirt: A Rock-type Pokémon, beffitting its status as the "Living Fossil"^note Most Fossil-revived mons are Rock-type Pokémon.
• Forced Sleep: Naturally learns Yawn.
• Human Notepad: Turning one upside down will reveal that the red dot on a Relicanth's body reveals the location of the Sealed Chamber.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Its Hidden Ability is Sturdy, which lets it survive any attack taken at full health with 1 HP remaining. Extremely useful if the opponent's first move is Grass type.
• Magically Inept Fighter: 45 Special Attack, which is even lower than its Speed of 55, so don't expect any of its Water-type moves to do much damage if you're playing the original Hoenn games.
• Making a Splash: As a fish Pokémon, it is naturally a Water-type that inhabits the deep sea.
• Mighty Glacier: Slow, but with good HP, Attack, and Defense. Its Special Defense leaves a lot to be desired, though.
• Not So Extinct: Like the real-life coelacanth, it was long thought to be extinct, but was later discovered to still be thriving.
• Prehistoric Monster: The first one in the series to be explicitly stated that was ancient and didn't go extinct. Naturally, this is a nod to the real-life coelacanth.
• Recurring Element: Sort of the Aerodactyl of this generation, being a fossil unrelated to the fossil duo.
• Required Party Member: Alongside Wailord, it's needed to access the Regis in the Hoenn games.
• Shown Their Work: Much like the real coelacanth, Relicanth's body is filled with fat, so it can survive the crushing water pressure of their deep sea environment.
• Status Buff: Learns Amnesia, Rock Polish and Calm Mind.
• Use Your Head: Relicanth is one of the few Pokémon that can make use of the devastating Head Smash without any recoil with its Rock Head Ability, alongside the Aron and Tyrunt families.

Luvdisc (Lovecus)

0370: Luvdisc / Lovecus (ラブカス rabukasu)

Luvdisc

Lots of things can be said about this Pokémon, very few of which one would consider complimentary. It is based on a discus fish and is associated with love and romance. Despite being as powerful as many Pokémon that need to evolve twice in order to be useful, Luvdisc has no such benefit. However, the scales that they shed are highly sought after by collectors who will teach moves to your other Pokémon, so there may be some consolation to encountering this Pokémon.

---

• Action Initiative: Can be bred to have Aqua Jet.
• Cardiovascular Love: A heart Pokémon based on love. It learns most of the love-based moves naturally as well, such as Attract, Charm, Captivate, and Sweet Kiss.
• Fragile Speedster: Speed is its only decent stat, and thanks to Swift Swim, there are very few Pokémon that can outspeed it in the rain. Its other stats are so atrocious, however, that there's very little way to make use of this fact.
• Healing Factor: Its Hidden Ability is Hydration, which heals status effects it's afflicted with while it's raining. It can also learn Aqua Ring naturally, though it's unlikely to help much.
• Heart Symbol: It's shaped like a stylized heart.
• Joke Character: Its base stat total makes Farfetch'd look like a Legendary, or at the very least, a fully evolved starter. Its only significance is that it may hold Heart Scales used in move relearning, which was useful before Generation V vastly increased the availability of Heart Scales. Its situation got even worse when Gen VIII cut it from the Dex and made the Move Relearner a free service, so even if it had been available, it would have been completely obsolete anyway.
• Making a Splash: Water-type based on the discus fish.
• Piñata Enemy: It was evidently introduced to provide something for players to collect Heart Scales from.
• Visual Pun: Shiny Luvdisc are literal hearts of gold.

Bagon, Shelgon, and Salamence (Tatsubay, Komoruu, and Bohmander)

0371: Bagon / Tatsubay (タツベイ tatsubei)
0372: Shelgon / Komoruu (コモルー komoruu)
0373: Salamence / Bohmander (ボーマンダ boomanda)

Bagon

Shelgon

Salamence

^{Mega Salamence}

Mega Salamence debuts in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

Bagon is a small dragon Pokémon that constantly dreams of soaring the skies, despite the fact that it possesses no way of doing so, and ends up falling and smashing its head on the ground the more it tries. As a result, its skull is very thick. However, as it evolves, something miraculous occurs: It grows a bony shell around most of its body, and then once it evolves once more, it sheds the shell and the Pokémon realizes its long-held dream of flight. Unlike the peaceful Dragonite, this Pokémon is quite ferocious. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it gains a Mega Evolution that has the ability Aerilate.

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• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Can learn Thrash and Outrage, which locks it into attacking for 2-3 turns before becoming confused.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Salamence's Shield dex entry depicts it in this way, saying that it's usually in high spirits due to basking in the joy of flight, but will enter an unstoppable rage if something angers it.
• Boss Battle:
  • Salamence is Elite Four Drake's most powerful Mon. It even Mega Evolves in the remakes during the rematch with him.
  • It is also Zinnia's strongest in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire's Delta Episode, and has the ability to Mega Evolve.
  • Is one of Evice's 6 Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum.
• Boss in Mook Clothing:
  • It can appear as early as Route 3 in Sun and Moon via a Bagon calling for help. Even as low as Lv 9, its stats are high enough to utterly shitstomp a team of properly-leveled Mons (for that point in the game, anyway), but if you are able to catch it, any semblance of difficulty in the early game just disappears.
  • In Black 2 and White 2, a Veteran on Route 18 challenges the player with a sole Lv 70 Salamence.
• Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: Bagon's entire gimmick. It wants to fly, repeatedly tries and fails, and has developed a hard skull from its constant failures.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Salamence developed its wings out of an extremely strong desire to fly.
• Death or Glory Attack: Can learn Draco Meteor, a powerful Dragon-type move that lowers its Special Attack by two stages. Mega Salamence boosts Normal-type moves and gets STAB on them, meaning Giga Impact and Hyper Beam now hit almost twice as hard but still need a turn of cooldown. There is also Aerilate to Double-Edge and Thrash, which is essentially giving the dragon Brave Bird and a Flying-type Outrage.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, it's possible (if very difficult) to find Salamence as low as Level 9 within the first few hours on Route 3 via a Bagon calling for help. Assuming you're able to catch it without being slaughtered, early game difficulty all but vanishes: its Dragon/Flying typing resists most of the common move types on the first two islands, its massive attacking stats will steamroll almost anything in its path, and it can be given full type coverage as soon as the second Kahuna battle.
  • In Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, one of the first Pokémon you can befriend is a Level 50 Salamence, when your own Pokémon are at Level 15 at best. Salamence's extreme power early on is compensated by itself being somewhat difficult to recruit (as it has to be defeated when it practically One Hit Kills everything) and the fact it's unavailable to call most of the time, as well as the forced story progression, ensures one cannot take advantage of it too often before the post-game.
• The Dreaded: Salamence's regular ability is Intimidate.
• The Fighting Narcissist: According to Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon's dex entries, Salamence plays this trope straight in regards to its wings. Mega Salamence's attitude becomes brutal because its wings (which it finds beautiful) have fused into one wing it considers ugly.
• Flight: Its goal in life, achieved upon evolving to Salamence. It even gets Fly naturally. Mega Salamence increases these characteristics; its wings become massive and it gains the ability Aerilate, turning Normal moves into Flying moves and boosting them.
• Foil: To the Dragonite family. Both start off as wingless dragons that don't get their wings until their third evolution, but while the Dragonite family is serene and soft, the Salamance family is ferocious and sharp.
• Growing Wings: Bagon starts off as a wingless dragon that desperately wants to fly. When it evolves into Shelgon, it gains a protective shell that obscures most of its body in preparation for its next evolution. It sheds its bony shell when it finally evolves into a Salamence, revealing a pair of magnificent wings.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Salamence is noted to have a very irritable temperament.
• Headbutting Pachy: Bagon looks quite a bit like a pachycephalosaur, and its Pokédex entries describe it ramming its head into rocks.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Bagon and Salamence used to be purple and orange instead of light blue and yellow (Bagon)/red (Salamence) in their Gen III sprites, making them look closer to Shelgon's palette. Gen IV reverted Salamence to light blue, but kept the orange wings. Gen V onwards made the line's color scheme as close to concept art as possible.
• Infinity -1 Sword: One of Gen III's pseudo-legendaries.
• Jerkass: Salamence has built up a reputation for being an extremely vicious and cruel Pokémon. To drive the point home, its implied ancestor Roaring Moon is Dragon/Dark type, suggesting that it was even more vicious than modern Salamence.
• Kill Streak: Salamence's Hidden Ability is Moxie, which boosts its already quite high Attack when it knocks out somebody.
• Lightning Bruiser: Awesome stats all around. Some Glass Cannon tendencies, but compensates for its low Defense with Intimidate. Its incredibly well distributed pseudo-legendary stats manage to let it hit from both offensive spectrums while out-pacing a lot of opponents with its base 100 Speed stat. Its Mega Evolution also gets a boost to its defense, lowering the glass factor by a good deal.
• Magic Knight: Tied with Metagross for the second highest Attack stat of all pseudo-legendaries, and has a great Special Attack stat.
• Make Some Noise: They can learn Hyper Voice via breeding. Mega Salamence's Aerilate turns it into a powerful Flying-type move.
• Making a Splash: For some odd reason, they can also be bred to know Hydro Pump. It can also be taught Aqua Tail.
• Metal Slime: In Sun and Moon, Bagon can be found as early as Route 3... at a measly 1% chance. Why is this significant? Because that 1% encounter can S.O.S. a Salamence into the fight, which if caught (if you don't get crushed in the attempt) will give you a massively-powerful Dragon-type 40 levels before you should ever see it. Needless to say, this throws most of the early-game difficulty out the window if you pull it off. Said S.O.S. Salamence has a 1% chance to show up, and Bagon has a fairly low chance to call Pokémon for aid without the use of Adrenaline Orbs, making the chances of a wild Salamence appearing in Route 3 ridiculously slim.
• One-Winged Angel: Quite literally with Mega Salamence — its wings fuse into a single, crescent-shaped one.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Based more on European dragons. Salamence is about as stereotypical as you can get apart from the fact that it evolves from a cocoon-like form, and is even classified as the "Dragon Pokémon". Mega Salamence resembles a jet.
• Protection from the Elements: Shellgon's Overcoat hidden ability protects it from the residual damage of Sandstorm and Hail.
• Pupating Peril: Much like fellow pseudo-legendary Tyranitar, Salamence starts out as a baby reptilian creature that then encloses itself in a shell, before finally growing into a monstrous beast.
• Razor Wings: Mega Salamence's wings have fused into one, which it uses to slice through opponents at fast speeds.
• Recurring Element: The Hoenn draconican psuedo-legendary. They also have a pupal stage for the middle evolution just like Pupitar.
• Red Baron: Mega Salamence is known as "The Blood-soaked Crescent". It also doubles as Innocently Insensitive as Mega Salamence hates its crescent-shaped wing.
• The Rival: Garchomp's Ultra Sun Dex entry mentions that it and Salamence will compete over food when they meet in the wild.
• Secret Art: Salamence is one of the only Pokémon to naturally learn Fly, the other being Rayquaza.
• Shout-Out: Salamence is practically Devilman turned into a dragon Pokémon. Same colors, wings, and even similar accents.
• Stone Wall: Shelgon. Its 100 base Defense can be boosted with Eviolite, since it's not fully evolved.
• Super Mode: Salamence gained a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Salamence's vicious behavior is rather striking considering its previous evolved forms were mainly noted for their desire to fly.
• Use Your Head: Bagon constantly gets hit on the head in its attempts to fly. This, in turn, has given it a head harder than steel.
• Your Size May Vary: Salamence is 4'11" in the games,^note This makes sense if you consider that the figure is a measure of its height off the ground and not its horizontal, sprawling posture, with many real-world crocodiles being of that height or smaller, but many adaptations scale it up and turn it into a towering beast of destruction.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: The negative aspects of Salamence's behavior only occur when it's enraged. Otherwise, it just loves to fly.

Beldum (Dumbber), Metang, and Metagross

0374: Beldum / Dumbber (ダンバル danbaru)
0375: Metang (メタング metangu)
0376: Metagross (メタグロス metagurosu)

Beldum

Metang

Metagross

^{Mega Metagross}

Mega Metagross debuts in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

A robotic lifeform, Beldum apparently evolve by fusing with one another: two Beldum are needed for a Metang while two Metang are needed for a Metagross. The first time you might encounter a member of the family is during the final battle against Steven Stone, Hoenn's Pokémon Champion. However, once you've beaten him, you can go to Mossdeep City — a Beldum is waiting for you as a gift (in Steven Stone's house, no less). In this state, its only move is Take Down, but once you get it to evolve, it can learn a wide variety of moves that make it a very formidable Pokémon. This line is famous not only for their power, but their very low catch rate of 3. Combine that with Beldum's recoil-causing Take Down, and you got a Mon that is harder to catch than a non-roaming Legendary Pokémon! For Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it received a Mega Evolution where it gains more limbs, giving it a total of eight (four huge clawed arms in front, another four legs at the back), get the Ability Tough Claws, and boosts to all of its stats.

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• Acrofatic:
  • Downplayed with Metagross. It's the third heaviest non-Legendary Pokémon^note Mega Steelix and Mudsdale are heavier and has one of the highest weight-to-height ratios of them all. It's kinda on the slow side, but still faster than its mass would indicate.
  • Exaggerated with Mega Metagross. It weighs almost one metric ton, making it the sixth heaviest Pokémon, while being as fast as Gengar. This makes it the fastest Pokémon with a body weight over 400 kg (900 lbs).
• Anti-Frustration Feature: During the first few generations where Beldum could be found in the wild, the only move it knew was Take Down, which, in addition to Beldum's rarity and abysmal catch rate, made catching it an absolute torture. When it returns in Gen VIII, wild Beldum's sole move is replaced with Tackle. While the games haven't improved Beldum's catch rate, Tackle's lower power^note allowing your Pokémon to survive longer, higher PP^note giving you more time before Beldum uses Struggle and lack of recoil damage^note preventing it from fainting itself after you False Swipe it at least alleviates some of the stress of trying to catch it.
• The Artifact: Their low catch rate is thought to be a holdover from them only being available via gift in the Gen III games. However, other Pokémon that were initially or have always been gift-only, such as Eevee, Lapras, Porygon, and the various starters and fossils, have always had a catch rate of 45 — identical with other pseudo-legendaries like Dratini, Larvitar, and Bagon.
• Belly Mouth: Metagross' mouth is located on its stomach, as stated by its Sapphire Dex entry.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Let's start with Beldum, which is a lifeform whose tissue is composed of magnets and has magnetism for blood, communicates exclusively through magnetic pulses, and with others of its kind always move in perfect Synchronization. It evolves into Metang, which doubles its psychic power and reinforces its body to the point where it can No-Sell collisions with jets. Two Metang will fuse into a Metagross, which produces a neural network between four brains that compute faster than supercomputers and with an implicit connection to space via Meteor Mash. Now, ponder the fact that Metang and Metagross are predators — carnivores.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Walk into a rustling grass in the Giant Chasm in both of the Black and White games and then suddenly... A wild Metagross appeared! Compounded by the fact the entire line has a catch rate of 3, making them as hard to catch as most Olympus Mons.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The only way to get a Beldum in Generation III is from Steven in the post-game. By the time you get one, it won't see much use in-game aside from the Battle Frontier.
• Brain Critical Mass: Metagross is a Psychic-type that happens to be even smarter than a supercomputer.
• Breaking Old Trends: This evolution line breaks a number of trends set by other pseudo-legendaries.
  • Metagross is the first (and so far only) pseudo-legendary to not be based on any sort of dinosaur, reptile, or dragon, and is one of the only two (the other being Tyranitar) to not be a Dragon-type period. It is even the only pseudo-legendary Pokémon that cannot learn any Dragon-type moves.
  • It is the only genderless pseudo-legendary Pokémon.
  • Its debut generation is also the first generation to introduce more than one pseudo-legendary, with Salamence being the other from Generation III.
  • It was the first one to not have a 4x weakness to any type.
  • Its evolution levels are the lowest among all the pseudo-legendaries, with Beldum evolving at Lv 20 and Metang evolving at Lv 45, whereas the others usually evolve far later, especially in the case of the Hydreigon and Dragapult lines.
  • It is the only one that resists the Fairy type, unlike fellow Steel-type pseudo-legendary Hisuian Goodra as its part Dragon typing negates the Steel type's resistance to the Fairy type. Other pseudo-legendaries are weak to the Fairy type.
• Cast from Hit Points: Outside of events and until later generations, Beldum is stuck with Take Down as its only attack until evolution.
• Combining Mecha: The Pokédex claims that both Beldum and Metang evolve by having two combine themselves. Mega Metagross, on the other hand, according to its Ultra Sun Pokédex entry, have one Metagross combine with one Metang and two Beldum. Though one wonders where the second Beldum or Metang came from when the one the player owns evolves.
• Cyber Cyclops: Beldum is an inorganic Steel-type with only one eye.
• Discard and Draw: Generation VI removed the Steel-type's resistance to Dark- and Ghost-type moves, giving this line two additional weaknesses. But at the same time, they got a type advantage against the newly introduced Fairy-type. Mega-Metagross is especially effective as a Fairy killer, able to take down even Xerneas with relative ease.
• Disk One Nuke: The shiny event Beldum^note with its Mega Stone given from November 21, 2014, through January 14, 2015, is hilariously good. With its two STAB moves (Iron Head and Zen Headbutt), it can reliably sweep the first two gyms by itself. Many players also seem to resort to Save Scumming to get a good nature and then Super Train it to make it even more powerful. As the cherry on top, it also knows Hold Back, which leaves the target at one HP instead of knocking it out, making it very useful for catching Pokémon thanks to its high Attack and defenses.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Steel-type. As a result, it's the only pseudo-legendary that resists Fairy-type attacks.
• Final Boss: Champion Steven's signature and most powerful Mon during Ruby, Sapphire, and the remakes. In the latter, it can Mega Evolve.
• Genius Bruiser: Metagross has four brains and is said to be superior to a supercomputer. It also subverts the tendency of Pokémon with very high brainpower being Squishy Wizards as Metagross's highest stats are its Attack and Defense, with its Special Attack and Special Defense being no slouch either.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • One of the pseudo-legendaries introduced in Generation III, sharing this role with Salamence.
  • In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, in the Giant Chasm before entering the Plasma Frigate, you can catch a Metang or Metagross already knowing Meteor Mash, Hammer Arm, and Psychic when you catch them, and Metang will evolve immediately upon leveling up. As a bonus, they make the battle with Black Kyurem^note White Kyurem has a Fire attack that hits its weaker Special Defense significantly easier in Black 2, since its attacks don't do much to Metagross while it gets Meteor Mashed in return.
  • The aforementioned event Beldum. Still a pseudo-legendary, but a pseudo-legendary that, back when the event was available, could be obtained at the beginning of the game. And unlike the standard Beldum that only comes with Take Down the event Beldum comes with Zen Headbutt and Iron Head, two powerful base 80 attacks that it gets STAB on.
• Informed Ability: Metagross' supercomputer-level intelligence that most of its Pokédex entries go in much length about. Generally, Pokémon stated by the Pokédex to be extremely intelligent tend to be Special attackers (Alakazam comes to mind). While Metagross' Special Attack is good, its Physical Attack is the main selling point. Despite that, only a few of its Pokédex entries (those being: Sapphire, Alpha Sapphire and Sun ) alludes to its physical might and even then, in those entries said physical might is attributed more to its weight, what with being a giant metal spider and all. Though its Pokédex entry for Ultra Sun does unambiguously state that it boasts fantastic strength.
• Lightning Bruiser: Mega Metagross subverts regular Metagross' Mighty Glacier tendencies with a significant boost in Speed and boosts to its other stats.
• Magikarp Power: In Generation III when it was first introduced, Take Down was the only move Beldum could learn before evolving into Metang, hampering its ability to battle well. However, later games introduced ways to obtain a Beldum (Pokéwalker, Dream World) that could use Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, or both. Once it evolves into Metang, it gets an actual movepool to work with, but its stats are still mediocre. When it evolves into Metagross, then it can start properly stomping opponents.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Have noted powers over magnetism, and prefer colder areas because their powers get stronger in freezing temperatures, hence their presence in the Crown Tundra.
• Metal Slime: In Generation IV, Beldum was found in only one area (which had a permanent sandstorm, although, fortunately, Beldum itself is immune to its damage), was a swarm Pokémon (so you had to wait before it could be encountered, possibly waiting for several days), had a low encounter rate, a catch rate of 3 (lower than some Legendaries), and only knew a recoil move.
• Mighty Glacier: Metagross has very high Attack and Defense, but its Speed is not very impressive.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Mega Metagross' legs multiply so it has four arms in front, and four legs at the back, giving it a total of eight.
• Nerf: Generation VI removed the Steel-type's resistances to Ghost and Dark-type moves, meaning they now have four weaknesses instead of two. Their semi-Secret Art, Meteor Mash, also had its power reduced, though it did receive a small accuracy buff.
• No Biological Sex: Since it's basically a giant robot spider, it has no discernable gender. It's notably the only genderless pseudo-legendary Pokémon.
• Power Floats: Mega Metagross floats in its animation, although it lacks Levitate. Beldum and Metang float as well, and the entire line (barring Beldum) can be tutored Magnet Rise, which simulates Levitate for 5 turns.
• Power Nullifier: Prior to Generation VI, its dual Steel and Psychic-typing offset its weaknesses to Dark and Ghost-type moves. Since the Generation VI games were released, this no longer applies.
• Power-Up Letdown: Light Metal. It only affects four moves — Grass Knot^note which it resists, and will take maximum damage from, even with Light Metal, Low Kick^note will still do max damage even with Light Metal, Heavy Slam^note which it resists, and even a Celesteela with Heavy Slam will do low damage to it, and Heat Crash^note even with Light Metal and a type weakness, Metagross is heavy enough that Heat Crash from Emboar will do a pittance of damage. Clear Body is miles better.
• Psychic Powers: It's part Psychic, and learns moves like Psychic itself and Zen Headbutt.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Learns Bullet Punch and other punching moves like Ice Punch and Thunder Punch.
• Recurring Element:
  • The resident pseudo-legendary of Hoenn alongside Salamence. Unlike most of the others who are usually Dragon types (barring Tyranitar) and are draconic/saurian in appearance, Metagross is more based on a Giant Spider and is a Steel type.
  • This evolution line is also similar to the Magnemite line, which consists of one-eyed metallic lifeforms that grow by combining with others.
• Secret Art: Meteor Mash is heavily associated with Metang and Metagross, mostly because the only other Pokémon to learn it is Clefairy (a Pokémon from an evolutionary line alluded to be from outer space, thus it gets to learn an outer space-themed move). The shiny event Beldum for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is one of the few Pokémon that knows Hold Back.
• Spider Tank: Metagross. Mega Metagross has eight limbs, just like a spider.
• Stealth Pun: As a number, a "gross" is equal to 144, or 12 × 12. Metagross weighs 1212 lbs.
• Super Mode: Gains a Mega Evolution in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Naturally, it is used by Steven.
• Taking You with Me: Metagross can learn Explosion and Self-destruct. The Dex entry for Mega Metagross even states that if it knows it can't win, it will dig its claws into its opponent and start counting down to a big explosion.
• Travel Transformation: Metagross can tuck its legs up to float in the air to travel.
• Use Your Head: Besides Take Down, Beldum can only be taught head-based moves for attacking.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Beldum's only attack is Take Down, although it can be taught Zen Headbutt, Iron Head, Iron Defense, and Headbutt through various means. In later generations, Take Down is replaced with Tackle.
• Wolverine Claws: Mega Metagross' claws are definitely this, as opposed to the small spikes that the rest of the line has. This is reflected by the fact that it has Tough Claws as its ability.

Legendary Titans: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel

0377: Regirock (レジロック rejirokku)
0378: Regice (レジアイス rejiaisu)
0379: Registeel (レジスチル rejisuchiru)

Regirock

Regice

Registeel

A group of robotic Legendary Pokémon with bodies made of rock, ice, and steel. Specifically, Regirock is made with rocks from all over the world, Regice from Antarctic glacial ice, and Registeel from metal that isn't of this earth. Notably, the Legendary Pokémon Regigigas is said to have made them in its own image. Though they protected an ancient civilization, they were sealed away out of fear of their power. Reawakening them in the present day is... quite the puzzle, with a working knowledge of braille being necessary to open their tombs.

For the other two members of this group, which were introduced several generations later, see Pokémon: Generation VIII - Impidimp to Calyrex. For Regigigas, see Pokémon: Generation IV - Chatot to Arceus.

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• Artificial Human: The three are based off golems, and were constructed by Regigigas from strange materials. Depending on if one views their appearances outside of Hoenn as canonical or not, it may have made more than one of each.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: According to its Pokédex entries, Regirock apparently lacks a brain or heart.
• The Blank: The closest thing they have for faces is their Braille patterns.
• Bowdlerization: Registeel's sprite had to be changed in the European version of Diamond and Pearl, as its arm was extended in a similar fashion to the Nazi salute; the change was later applied to all versions of the game from Platinum onward.
• Crystalline Creature: Regice is made entirely of sharply faceted ice, giving it the appearance of blue crystal.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Regirock is a Rock-type and uses rocks to repair itself.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Their names are a spelled out indication of which one has which powers.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Registeel is a Steel-type made of a material that can stretch and shrink but is more durable than any other metal.
• Eye Lights Out: In Gen VI, their fainting animation includes their dot-faces dimming in color.
• Foil: While the three form a trio, Regirock and Regice are direct inverses of each other statwise, while Registeel is a balance between them. Despite this, in Black 2 and White 2, it's Regirock who is available in both games while Regice and Registeel are (semi) version-exclusive.
• Golem: They are all made of inorganic materials, have writing (braille in this case) on their faces, act robotic in the anime, and Regigigas' Pokédex entries from Platinum and HeartGold and SoulSilver say that it may have created them.
• Gratuitous English: Despite having English-based names, their names are the same in the original Japanese and in all translations.
• Gratuitous Latin: The first part of their names comes from the Latin word "regis," which means "royal."
• Humans Are Bastards: Zigzagged — while the Sealed Chamber tells how humans sealed the trio away out of fear, little to nothing suggests there was a good reason for said fear (aside from their power), especially when they were thankful to them because of said power and the golems had been dormant for centuries with no signs of ever waking (akin to putting a man in a coma into a high-security prison because he might hurt someone when he wakes). However, them leaving instructions for how to unseal them implies that they didn't want them to stay locked away forever.
• An Ice Person: Regice is an Ice-type. It's literally made of ice (Antarctic ice, specifically) and always surrounds itself with freezing air that reaches -328 degrees Fahrenheit (-200 degrees Celsius). The ice that makes up its body is so cold that it can freeze anything that gets relatively close and it could be put in a pool of magma without melting.
• Inconsistent Dub: Regice is supposed to sound like Regi-ice, but take it with a grain of salt. Regice actually got two distinct pronunciations in the same season.
• Informed Ability:
  • Regice is said to be so cold that it freezes anything that is nearby, and it could be placed in a pool of magma without melting. Attacking it with contact moves does not cause the user to become frozen, Fire-type attacks are still super-effective, and it can still be inflicted with a burn. The only time anything close to this is ever shown is when you try to pet it in Pokémon Refresh, which is impossible to do as it will freeze the cursor.
  • Registeel's Pokédex entries say that it is made of the toughest metal known to exist. There are three other Steel-types with higher Defense stats; Steelix and its Mega Evolution, Aggron and its Mega Evolution, and Bastiodon. That said, it does manage to outdo them in Special Defense and HP, so it could be true in terms of all-around durability.
• King in the Mountain: Quite literally, too. The Sealed Chamber tells how the ancient people of Hoenn owed all to the three, yet they sealed them away out of fear.
• Leitmotif: The three have a unique battle theme that plays in every game they can be battled in, with remixes for every appearance save for Ultra Sun and Moon.
• Lost Technology: They are robotic lifeforms - most evident in the anime, where their eyes flash in various patterns while they make robotic-sounding and machine-like calls.
• Mighty Glacier: Regirock and Regice both qualify as this, since they're awfully slow, but in return, they are quite difficult to KO in one hit and can usually hit back quite hard with their respective attacking type. Regirock specializes in Atk and Def while Regice has high Sp.Atk and Sp.Def. Also a literal case for Regice, with its body being made out of ice and all.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: Opening the doors to their chambers in Hoenn requires doing some rather odd things, such as trying to use Fly indoors.
• No Biological Sex: Genderless.
• No-Sell: Each of them have Clear Body as their default ability, which negates all attempts to lower their stats, adding another layer of defensive capability to them. Registeel is also immune to poison, being a Steel-type and all.
• Numerological Motif: Seven. The center of each Regi's face is decorated with seven dots with distinct pattern. This seven motif continues later with Regigigas (if you ignore the six "eyes" beside its central golden "face"), Regieleki and Regidraco.
• Olympus Mons: The three form Hoenn's tournament-legal Legendary trio.
• Recurring Element: They're the minor Legendary trio of Hoenn, but they diverge pretty heavily from the birds and beasts before them by being living inorganic beings.
• Required Party Member:
  • In games where Regigigas can be encountered, the player is almost always required to have all three on hand to awaken it. The only exceptions to date are Pokémon Ultra Moon, where it is possible to catch Regigigas before catching any of the three golems, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, where an Icicle, Iron, and Stone Plate is required for Regigigas instead.
  • In the Crown Tundra DLC for Sword and Shield all three titans must be on-hand in order to access the ruin containing either Regieleki or Regidrago depending on how you choose to solve the puzzle inside.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: All three were sealed away long ago by humanity out of fear of their power. It's up to you to do the unsealing, though, and that involves unsealing the big can the three's individual cans are sealed by. Have fun!
• Set Bonus: Since its introduction, access to Regigigas always requires having the three in your party. Generation VIII adds Regieleki and Regidrago to the mix.
• Shoulders of Doom: Regirock has giant shoulders.
• Single Specimen Species: While never stated outright either way, the fact that the golems can be found in rooms specifically dedicated to them in Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and the Crown Tundra suggests an aversion where each region has their own trio stationed there.
• Stone Wall: All of them have their highest stats in their defenses, with Regirock having high Defense and Regice high Special Defense. Registeel fits the trope the most, as its defensive stats are more balanced than its specialised brethren, but its offensive stats are equally below-average.
• Temporary Online Content:
  • Though the three themselves weren't this in Platinum, a special Regigigas distributed for the game was. This Regigigas opens up three areas in Sinnoh where the three can be battled and captured.
  • The Global Link briefly ran a promotion in Gen VI that gave away the three with their Hidden Abilities, which is thus far the only legal way of getting them.
• Three Plus Two: Where this trope applies, they are the original trio. The Crown Tundra DLC for Sword and Shield introduces two more titans, Regieleki and Regidrago.
• Thunderbolt Iron: Registeel is said to be made out of a metal not found in the Pokémon world.
• Time Abyss: Registeel's Shield Dex entry for the Crown Tundra DLC states that it's rumored that it was born in the Earth's mantle and reached the surface 10,000 years old, and the other titans are probably at least as old, Regice being said to have been formed during the ice age.
• Waiting Puzzle: To open the door to Regice's room in the Hoenn games (sans Emerald), you have to wait two minutes from after you read the Braille message without pressing any buttons. Press a button, and you have to repeat the process.
• Weaksauce Weakness: They're all weak to getting punched really hard. Even Registeel, who's supposed to be made of extremely strong metal.

Eon Duo: Latias and Latios

0380: Latias (ラティアス ratiasu)
0381: Latios (ラティオス ratiosu)

Latias

^{Mega Latias}

Latios

^{Mega Latios}

Mega Latias and Mega Latios debut in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

A pair of Legendary dragons that fly all over the Hoenn region after the player has beaten the Elite Four and the Champion. Highly intelligent, they have access to a number of abilities, which are further enhanced by an item known as Soul Dew. Latias are female and are mostly red, while Latios are male and are mostly blue. They can use their down to refract light and alter their appearance to take on human forms or become invisible when they desire to.

In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they gained Mega Evolutions (though they also exist in X and Y). Under normal conditions in both iterations of the Ruby and Sapphire games, you'll find just one of the Eon Duo dragons roaming Hoenn. However, it is possible to obtain both Latios and Latias if the player has acquired an Eon Ticket, allowing them to sail to an island where the other half of the duo awaits them.

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• Action Initiative: In HeartGold and SoulSilver, Latias can be tutored Sucker Punch. Strangely enough, only Latias gets it and only in HGSS.
• Adaptation Expansion: Pokémon Heroes has both Pokémon share a deep history with the island city of Alto Mare which hasn't appeared in any of the games.
• Always Identical Twins: Mega Latias and Mega Latios are both very similar in appearance.
• Ascended Extra: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, one of them will join your party during the story instead of being exclusive to the post-game like their other appearances. The "Soaring" mechanic also revolves around using them.
• Badass Adorable: Both of them are rather cute by Dragon-type standards, Latias in particular due to her more friendly demeanour yet they're still powerful Olympus Mons nonetheless.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The two are noted for being docile and would rather fly than fight, but when provoked, you have dragons with some of the best stats in the games when Mega Evolved, and that can fly at the speed of jet planes coming your way.
• Big Brother Instinct: Latios is shown to be very protective of Latias in various media, who is usually depicted as his younger sister.
• Combat Medic: Both naturally learn Heal Pulse and Safeguard, while Latias also gets Wish and Healing Wish.
• Combat Pragmatist: Latias - and only Latias - learns the Dark-type Sucker Punch in Generation IV.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Soul Dew doesn't work in battle facilities (pre-Generation VII, anyway) for the player, but the Latias/Latios you can face in the Battle Frontier are not restricted from having Soul Dew working for them, as proven via damage calculation comparisons.
• Delightful Dragon: Latios and Latias are Dragon-types and are consistently portrayed as being some of the most benevolent and helpful legendary Pokémon in the franchise, unlike many others which live by Blue-and-Orange Morality, are indifferent and/or obliviously destructive, or are full-on Eldritch Abominations, if not outright malevolent.
• Divergent Character Evolution:
  • Downplayed. While the small additions to their learnset through generations have made the "supporter/sweeper" duality more noticeable, there's very little stopping you from playing them the same way.
  • Played With on their Mega Evolutions; now they get different stat spreads, but their abilities remain the same, and they don't get the learnset overhaul that other Mega Evolutions got befitting their new status. Even their models are the same, just differing in color.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Stars of Pokémon Heroes, the last movie set in the anime's original series.
• The Empath: Both are said to be able to detect people's emotions, and Latias will try to intimidate those she senses hostility from.
• Energy Ball: Latias' Secret Art is Mist Ball, a mist-like flurry of down that can potentially decrease a foe's Special Attack.
• Feathered Dragons: Latias is noted to be covered in "glassy down" that she can use to cast illusions. Presumably, the same is true of Latios as well.
• Gender-Restricted Ability:
  • Their Pokédex entries say that Latias is a Master of Illusion while Latios can project images into others' minds, (though neither of these things can be used during the game).
  • As far as gameplay goes, Latias gets a couple defensive moves while Latios gets a couple offensive ones.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: In Generation III, they are roaming Legendaries that are able to be caught after the Elite Four and Champion are defeated.
• Global Airship: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you can ride them to find wild Pokémon in the sky, most notably Dialga, Palkia, Reshiram, and Zekrom. They also served this role in Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs, where you could summon them to take to the skies whenever you wanted once you had befriended them.
• Heavenly Blue: The Soul Dew item bears the soul of a fallen Eon dragon, and has a blue glow.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Latias can learn Healing Wish, and Latios can learn the more detrimental Memento.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Latios is 1.5 larger and heavier than Latias, though the in-game sprites and models don't really convey this.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Mega Latias and Mega Latios can be distinguished from each other by their size and eye color.
• Intellectual Animal: Their Pokédex entries puts emphasis on their high intelligence, as they can understand human language, and can also communicate with humans with telepathy.
• Invisibility: One of their powers thanks to their glass-like feathers.
• Late Character Syndrome: In the original Generation III games, one of the two are available for capture after defeating the Elite Four, leaving the dragon as a Bragging Rights Reward. The remakes rectify this by turning them into a Sixth Ranger that's given to the player a little after the fifth gym.
• Leitmotif: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they get their own theme that's heard when using Soar, and plays in a few variants.
• Light 'em Up: Latios' Secret Art Luster Purge is a burst of light, or a laser beam if you're watching the anime.
• Light Is Good: Both have powers over light and are consistently portrayed as benevolent in each incarnation of the franchise.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Both of them, especially in the special side; Latios being more offensively oriented, and Latias more defensively oriented.
  • Mega Latios and Mega Latias both get boosts to all their stats bar Speed. This means Mega Latios becomes a Magic Knight that is somewhat further from being a Glass Cannon, unlike regular Latios, while Mega Latias is turned into a fast Stone Wall with very high offensive capabilities.
  • Before Generation VII nerfed it, the Soul Dew greatly increased Latios and Latias's Special Attack and Defense, becoming simultaneously powerful and tough to take down, with an effect equivalent to a combination of an Assault Vest and Choice Specs that did not restrict move choice.
• Little Miss Almighty: In some adaptations like Pokémon Heroes and Pokémon Adventures, Latias hides her true nature as a Legendary by disguising herself as a girl no older than sixteen.
• Magic Knight: Mega Latios gets a large boost to its Attack stat, putting it on par with its normal form's Special Attack.
• Male Might, Female Finesse:
  • Both have 600 BST and the exact same stat spread, just differing into which stat the points are allocated to; Latios gets slightly higher Attack and higher Special Attack^note 90 and 130 for lower defenses^note 80 and 110, while Latias gets higher defenses and lower attacking stats. Their learnset through generations reflect this; Latias gets Wish, Charm, Healing Wish and the Sp. Atk. decreasing Mist Ball, while Latios gets Heal Block, Dragon Dance, Memento and the Sp. Def. decreasing Luster Purge.
  • Their Mega Evolutions lean harder into this; Mega Latios gets sizeable increases to its attacking stats and minor defensive boosts, while Mega Latias stat increases are spread in a more uniform way.
• Master of Illusion: Latias' glassy down allows it to refract light in a way that can either alter its appearance or render itself invisible.
• Mundane Utility: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you're handed one of them shortly after getting your fifth badge. It so happens the two are among the handful of Pokémon that can learn Fly and all three of the Water-type HMs, so you can condense your Flyer with your Water transport into one slot.
• Nerf: In Generation VII, the Soul Dew's 50% boost to their Special Attack and Special Defense was replaced with a 20% boost to the pair's Dragon and Psychic type attacks. On the plus side, the item is now able to be used online and in battle facilities.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Dragon-bird-jet planes! With psychic powers and invisibility-inducing glass feathers to boot!
• No Biological Sex: Averted; they're the first Legendary Pokémon to have distinct genders (though they still can't breed).
• Olympus Mons: The first ones to have distinct genders.
• Only the Chosen May Ride: Latios will only open itself to trainers with a compassionate spirit; this applies for not riding it but for capturing/befriending it.
• Our Dragons Are Different: They appear to be based on the concept of aeons of Gnosticism, as well as jet planes and stylized wyverns. They're also kinda bird-like. In fact, concept art suggests that Blaziken and Latias were originally one Pokémon split into two entirely different species.
• Our Souls Are Different: The Soul Dew item they can wield is said (at least in the anime's continuity) to contain the spirit of a Latios. It's crystal-like in appearance and is used as a powerful energy source for ancient technology used to protect and maintain Alto Mare. The Soul Dew may have some inspiration from Star Jelly, of which some folklore states that it's formed when an atmospheric beast, a cryptid that shares several similarities to the dragons, dies.
• Palette Swap: Downplayed as there are a number of small differences in their designs such as crest and tail shape, eye color and shape, etc. but they are very similar overall. Back in Generation III, their only other differences were stat spread^note And even then, it's the same stat spread, except allocated in different stats and a total of 4 level-up moves^note Latias learns Wish, Water Sport, Mist Ball and Charm; Latios gets Memento, Protect, Luster Purge and Dragon Dance; even then, Latias gets Protect from T Ms. Efforts have been made to make them differ a bit more in later games. Their Mega forms play it straighter with their only visual differences being eye color.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Latios is sky blue; while Latias is mostly red instead of pink, it still counts.
• Power Floats: Both of them have the Levitate ability, presumably due to their Psychic powers.
• Power Up Letdown: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, regular Latios and Latias notably eclipsed their Mega Evolutions if they had a Soul Dew equipped. While it doesn't offer any improvement in Attack or Defense, all other improvements are vastly higher than the ones their Mega Evolutions provide. This is subverted in Gen VII however with the nerf to Soul Dew, making their Mega Evolved forms actually viable.
• Primary-Color Champion: Both of them are varying ratios of blue and red, and are also noble Pokémon that serve as the player character's mount in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire .
• Psychic Powers: Psychic-types. Latios is said to force others to see images it has seen, Latias can use illusions to disguise herself, and both are empaths, can communicate with telepathy, and are very intelligent.
• Purple Is Powerful: Mega Latias and Latios are purple in color and have some of the highest base stat totals of all Pokémon.
• Purposely Overpowered: Their associated held item, the Soul Dew, used to be prevented from working in the Battle Tower and similar facilities. It stops being this in Pokémon Sun and Moon, where the boost was cut down to 20% and only affected the pair's STAB moves, and the restrictions were removed (and it also stopped being event-only).
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Latios downplays this, as he has red eyes, but is docile instead of violent in temperament. However, he can still be a dangerous enemy if one provokes him.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Latias and Latios in their movie appearances. Latias is cheerful and friendly, while Latios is serious and reserved.
• Riddle for the Ages: There's surprisingly little actually known about Latias and Latios beyond their capabilities. Unlike the rest of the Legendaries, they don't have much connection to humans or other Pokémon, nor do they represent any concept given physical form. The only reason they're not a case of Giant Space Flea from Nowhere is because they are hinted at and conversed in Ruby and Sapphire and their remakes before they appear and continue to play a part in the story of the latter, but otherwise they're a complete enigma.^note This is more in line for Mythical Pokémon than Legendaries, who often have their abilities talked about, but are otherwise have not much known about them.
• Sapient Steed: Though it doesn't come up in the games, they can talk to their trainers as they ride on their backs.
• Secret Art: Latias is the only Pokémon which can learn Mist Ball, a Psychic move which has a high chance of lowering the target's special attack. Latios, on the other hand, learns Luster Purge, another Psychic move which functions identically save for swapping the chance to lower Sp. Atk with one to lower Sp. Def.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Their psychic powers allows them and others to see what the other dragon sees.
• Single Specimen Species: Subverted; despite the player only meeting one in their journeys, the Pokédex states that they, or at least Latias in Emerald, form herds.
• Sixth Ranger: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they willingly join the player's team not long after they received their fifth badge, invoking this.
• Soul Jar: Soul Dew is said to be the solidified spirits of Latios and Latias.
• Soul Power: They make good use of the Soul Dew's spirit, as they get a major status buff when it's held by one.
• Stationary Wings: Their wings don't flap as they fly; it seems that their psychic powers do the work instead.
• Status Buff:
  • Both get Calm Mind and Hone Claws.
  • Latios learns Dragon Dance, though it's not super useful due to his only passable Attack. Mega Latios can make much better use of it due to the large increase to its Attack stat.
• Summoning Artifact: In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you can obtain the Eon Flute, which is an ancient artifact gifted to you by Steven after saving Hoenn from Groudon or Kyogre, depending on the version. This allows you to fly across Hoenn on the (Mega) Latios/Latias you befriended, regardless of whether it's in your party, your PC, or even when its been traded/transferred to another game.
• Super Mode: Both of them gained Mega Evolutions in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, though they're in the code for X and Y.
• Super-Speed: They can fly at speeds faster than jet planes.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Latias' eyes are either amber or yellow in color depending on the artist, which complements her Legendary status and shapeshifting powers.
• Support Party Member: On top of being Combat Medics, they also learn moves like Helping Hand, Magic Coat, Defog, Tailwind and the Reflect/Light Screen pair.
• Telepathy: According to the Pokédex, both can communicate in this manner with humans. Sadly, this never comes up as you play the game.
• Temporary Online Content: The Soul Dew was frequently this, as the only way to get it usually involved catching the Eon Pokémon that wasn't normally available (which required the Eon Ticket and, in HeartGold and SoulSilver, the Enigma Stone). However, it's found after battling them in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, and given by an Aether Foundation employee in the Alola games (though it isn't so overpowered anymore).
• Tsurime Eyes: Latios has them. Latias nearly has Tareme Eyes to compliment them, but they aren't rounded enough.
• Undying Loyalty: Steven Stone says that playing the Eon Flute will cause the player's Eon dragon to come to them, no matter how far apart they are. He's not kidding — even if you trade away or release them, they will always come back to give the player a ride.
• Video Game Stealing: Latias can be tutored Covet in Black 2 and White 2, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Were Dragon: Latias can use her light-bending feathers to appear as a human in the various anime and manga adaptations. Latios is also stated be able to do the same thing, though this has not been observed for whatever reason.

Super-ancient Pokémon: Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza

Now have their own page.

Jirachi

0385: Jirachi (ジラーチ jiraachi)

Jirachi

A Mythical Pokémon of mysterious power. It lays dormant until a comet comes close to the earth from which Jirachi draws its power from. This comet orbits the earth every 1,000 years and then only for a week. Thus, Jirachi is only active for that single special week. It has the ability to grant wishes during that time.

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• Badass Adorable: It looks adorable... and is very dangerous.
• Cycle of Hurting: Iron Head has a 30% chance to flinch (prevents the target from acting if they move after the user), which doubles to 60% with Serene Grace. If Jirachi is faster than its opponent, there's a decent chance it can just muscle past without giving them a chance to move.
• Deep Sleep: Jirachi falls asleep for a thousand years, though it can be woken up early if one sings to it with a voice of purity. And of course, you never have to worry about Jirachi permanently conking out on you.
• Extra-ore-dinary: It's a Steel-type, and one that might be made of Meteoric Iron.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: It has a Third Eye on its stomach. This isn't as creepy as most examples, though, because Jirachi is adorable, and it usually keeps the eye closed.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Technically, Jirachi is only supposed to be awake for a single week every 10,000 years due to a comet passing, and is supposed to be capable of granting any wish. However, it neither requires a comet to be used nor is it going to be granting its Trainer's desires anytime soon.
• Genie in a Bottle: Partly based off of djinn.
• Gravity Master: Naturally learns the move Gravity.
• Heavy Sleeper: Normally, it sleeps for a thousand years, and when it does wake up, it will only be active for a single week before going back to sleep.
• Last Lousy Point: You can complete the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire regional Pokédex (and even get a reward from Profesor Birch commemorating such an achievement) even if there's a glaring empty space between Rayquaza and Deoxys; one that should be occupied by Jirachi, who has limited availability.
• Luck-Based Mission: Thanks to Serene Grace, fighting Jirachi becomes this. It learns several moves with a 30% chance^note 60% with Serene Grace of causing harmful effects such as flinching, paralysis, or stat reduction. It's very difficult for a Pokémon to fight Jirachi and not be affected by any secondary effect of its moves.
• Make a Wish: Said to grant wishes and is shaped like a star, which is what people wish on. Unsurprisingly, it learns the move Wish. Its Secret Art, Doom Desire, works on a similar principle.
• Master of All: Its stats are all equal and above average.
• Meteoric Iron: It is a Steel type and it is heavily associated with comets, so it might be made of this stuff.
• Nerf: It became more vulnerable to Dark and Ghost-type moves in Generation VI when the Steel-type lost its resistance to those two types.
• No Biological Sex: Genderless, though spin-offs and different continuities usually refer to it as male.
• Olympus Mons: And a wish granter, to boot.
• Paper Talisman: Jirachi has three of these on its head. According to legend, if a wish is written down on one of them, it will be granted once Jirachi wakes up.
• Psychic Powers: Psychic-type.
• Purposely Overpowered: Being a Mythical Pokémon, Jirachi isn't allowed to enter battle facilities and tournaments.
• Reality Warper: Can grant any wish, thus this trope logically follows. In the anime and Pokémon Adventures, villains even use it to create eldritch abominations, though in the anime, it requires either absorbing a lot of power or teleporting stuff.
• Really 700 Years Old: It's a millennium old at the very least.
• Recurring Element: The expected Mew stand-in.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: As the cutesy mirage of the generation. Even with the abdominal eye.
• Rule of Seven: Supposedly, Jirachi is only ever awake for seven days at a time after sleeping for 1,000 years.
• Secret Art: Doom Desire, which is an incredibly powerful Steel-type move that only deals damage 2 turns after use.
• Secret Character: Only available via special Nintendo Events and cannot be obtained via normal gameplay.
• Shout-Out: As a Ridiculously Cute Critter from the stars with a hidden store of creepiness, Jirachi shares the milieu of the eponymous Kirby.
• Temporary Online Content: Outside of cheating and trading, Jirachi is only available via limited-time only events. You can, however, get one regardless of time period for completing the PAL version of Pokémon Channel and transferring it up (and unlike Manaphy, it's not one per disc). In Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, you can also get one for free from the old man in Floaroma Town if you have save data in Sword & Shield.

Deoxys

0386: Deoxys (デオキシス deokishisu)

Normal Forme Deoxys

^{Attack Forme Deoxys}

^{Defense Forme Deoxys}

^{Speed Forme Deoxys}

Attack Forme debuts in FireRed, Defense Forme debuts in LeafGreen, and Speed Forme debuts in Emerald

A Mythical Pokémon from beyond the stars. Deoxys is a humanoid alien that was derived from a space virus that was mutated by a laser of sorts. Depending on the game (and in later generations, by interacting with certain meteorites), Deoxys can change its appearance and stat distribution, setting a trend for Legendary and Mythical Pokémon having multiple "Formes". For over a decade, it was only available via limited-time events, before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire made it catchable regardless of era or time period.

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• Aliens Are Bastards: Subverted. While the Delta Episode Deoxys almost dropped a meteor on earth, the post-game hints that it simply wishes to journey to Hoenn for an unspecified reason.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: The original formes, Deoxys Defense, Normal, and Attack Formes. Speed Forme was the last added and breaks the theme.
• Anthropomorphized Anatomy: It's a humanoid, life-sized DNA helix.
• Arch-Enemy: Various media depicts Deoxys as an enemy of Rayquaza, which made its way back into the games with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Armored But Frail: Defense Forme. 160 for both defense stats, backing a measly base 50 HP.
• The Artifact: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire's Pokédex entry for Deoxys still claims it was created via a laser-triggered mutation, even when the Delta Episode shows that it came to Earth already fully mutated on a meteorite.
• Artificial Human: Some of Deoxys' Dex bios claim that it came about when an alien virus was hit with a laser and mutated, suggesting outside influence was responsible.
• Ascended Extra: Since its debut its availability has been restricted to special, limited-time distributions. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the Episode Delta story puts it front-and-center and even lets the player catch it like any other Pokémon.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Its Secret Art Psycho Boost has 140 power and goes really well with Normal and Attack Formes' massive offenses, but it also harshly drops Special Attack, being a variant of Overheat. It also has 90 accuracy, so if it misses and you were using Normal or Attack Forme without a Focus Sash or similar item, well…
• Berserk Button: You can pet Deoxys anywhere in Pokémon Amie... but the moment you touch its crystal, it gives you a Death Glare. If you continue to touch it, it enters a battle stance, as if it's about to attack you directly. Most Pokémon just try to push you away! ^note  Considering its crystal is supposedly its BRAIN, it has a right to be upset.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Deoxys is what happens when an alien virus is struck with a laser and mutates into a fully-sentient humanoid. Somehow, this also created a crystal in its chest that serves as the Pokémon's brain.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Delta Episode Deoxys' idea of a trip to Earth was to hitch a ride in a six mile wide meteoroid ^note For quick comparison, this size is only slightly smaller than lowest size estimate for Chicxulub Asteroid, which caused the (non-avian) dinosaur's extinction., apparently oblivious to what would happen if it landed. Bonus points for Deoxys literally being blue and orange.
• Bragging Rights Reward: It's possible to catch Deoxys at the end of the Delta Episode, but there is little other content to use it in besides Trainer rematches, owing to its restricted status in the Battle Chateau.
• Breakout Character: Deoxys' popularity was enough to where it was made one of the central figures in Delta Episode and was even made catchable, being the first event-exclusive legendary to made so in the mainline series.
• Colony Drop: What Deoxys intended for planet Earth in the Delta Episode. The fact that the rock was six miles wide (10 kilometers) in diameter cannot be stressed enough; ask the dinosaurs why this is a reason to worry.
• Combat Tentacles: That can turn into arms, too.
• Crippling Overspecialization: With the exception of Speed Forme, every other Forme relies too much on its specialized stats, leaving the other stats (especially HP, which is consistently bad in all Formes) rather lacking. Mind you, it's still a massive threat.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Its Secret Art, Psycho Boost, is incredibly powerful but harshly lowers its Special Attack, making it weaker with each use.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Deoxys was the first Pokémon that could change its form outside of battle... sort of. In Gen 3, its form depended on which game it was currently in. Later games introduced methods for it to change form within a single game, and other Pokémon followed suit.
• Energy Weapon: Part of its origin according to Generation III. Generations IV and V just refer to "DNA mutation". In the Generation VI remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, that laser beam is hinted to be AZ's weapon.
• Fastest Thing Alive: Speed Forme Deoxys was this for fifteen years until Regieleki came along and dethroned it.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Downplayed with its Speed Forme, where one of its arms is a different color from the other.
• Final Boss: Of the Delta Episode in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and by extension the game.
• Foil: As a Psychic-type mythical pokémon with an outer space motif, it's one to Jirachi. Jirachi is a Ridiculously Cute Critter with only some creepiness—Deoxys is an Eldritch Abomination and has Bizarre Alien Biology. Both have a stat point total of six hundred, but while Jirachi is completely even across the board with one hundred points in each category, Deoxys goes through extreme Min-Maxing.
• Fragile Speedster:
  • Attack Forme and Normal Forme aren't as fast as Speed Forme, but they're still very fast and among the most fragile Pokémon.
  • Speed Forme also applies to an extent. It is the fastest Forme, but it cannot hit as hard compared to Attack Forme and Normal Forme. However, it is not as extremely fragile as the two, but it still doesn't take hits too well.
• Gem Heart: The crystal in its chest is actually its brain.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Nothing at all foreshadows Deoxys' involvement in the Delta Episode, making its appearance completely out of the blue.
• Glass Cannon: Normal Forme and Attack Forme. Attack Forme is technically more fragile, but the difference is extremely negligible. In either case, the odds of those forms surviving any sort of hit are virtually nil, but they're both so goddamn fast that Sucker Punch is the only really reliable way to outpace them and wipe them out. And of course, the "cannon" part of them stems from boasting monstrous Atk/Sp.Atk stats, especially Attack Forme, which is almost guaranteed to knock out anything in a single hit.
• Healing Factor: Shown to have one in the anime; it can regenerate from any form of damage, if given enough time, and so long as its core remains intact. It also manages to heal from its battle with you the Delta Episode if you fail to catch it. This is fitting in both cases, as Deoxys can learn the move Recover.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: A confused Attack Forme Deoxys can, and in many cases will, knock itself out in one hit from confusion.
• Humanoid Abomination: Certainly gives off this feel. The fact that it's a sentient virus from outer space doesn't help.
• Jack of All Stats: You'd expect Normal Forme to be one of these, but nope, it's subverted, as it's actually a major Glass Cannon. It's actually Speed Forme that has the most balanced stats of the bunch, with HP being its only terrible stat at 50.
• Leitmotif: Three rather creepy bell strikes.
• Meaningful Name: Deoxyribonucleic acid or... DNA.
• Mega-Microbes: Deoxys started out as a virus that gained a much more sophisticated body via mutation.
• Multiform Balance: The Formes have different specializations and can only be changed outside of battle.
  • Normal Forme is a run-of-the-mill Glass Cannon, with low HP and defensive stats (50 for each) but high Attack, Special Attack, and Speed (with 150 for each).
  • Attack Forme's Atk/Sp.Atk stats are even higher (at 180), but its defenses are even lower than before at a pitiful 20.
  • Defense Forme decreases its speed and attack by quite a bit in exchange for massively boosting its Def/Sp.Def to a respectable 160, transforming it from a Glass Cannon to a Stone Wall.
  • Speed Forme slightly raises its defenses while lowering its attack, and boosting its speed to a ludicrous degree (with 180 base speed, it was the fastest Pokémon in the game until Regieleki was introduced).
• Mythology Gag:
  • The original Birth Island event in FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald involved chasing a black triangle around a little island in a set pattern, with the triangle glowing more and more red each time you touched it — Deoxys would eventually emerge from it. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, when you destroy the meteoroid, that same triangle appears and flies around the screen in the exact same pattern before it turns red and releases Deoxys.
  • The Pokémon you use to fight Deoxys in the Delta Episode is Rayquaza. Rayquaza and Deoxys previously fought in Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys.
• No Biological Sex: It's genderless, but then again, viruses don't typically have sexes.
• No Mouth: Its face is completely without a mouth.
• Olympus Mons: Although an alien Olympus Mon.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Normal Forme Deoxys. It has slightly higher defenses than Attack Forme, but said defenses are so bad that there are barely any attacks it can survive that Attack Forme can't, and it pays for those defenses by being significantly weaker. Bluntly put, while perfectly usable in its own right, there is literally no reason to choose it since Speed Forme and Attack Forme have the same basic fighting style but with more Min-Maxing in their benefit.
• Partial Transformation: The Normal Forme can fuse its tentacled arms together to form a single humanoid arm, complete with a five-fingered hand. None of the other Formes have been seen doing this, making it unclear if this is unique to Normal Forme Deoxys or not.
• Power Crystal: The source of its powers. Also probably its brain.
• Psychic Powers: A Psychic-type from space.
• Purposely Overpowered: Deoxys is tied with Primal Groudon and Mega Rayquaza for the fourth-highest unmodified Attack stat, tied with Primal Kyogre and Mega Rayquaza for the second-highest unmodified Special attack stat in its Attack Forme, and has the second highest Speed stat in its Speed Forme. It's also banned from the Battle Facilities and most real life tournaments.
• Puzzle Boss: Before you can battle it on Birth Island in FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald, you need to chase and interact with a moving black triangle in a specific way to make it emerge. One wrong move, and it resets the pattern. However, when encountered in space during the Delta Episode, Deoxys solves the puzzle itself.
• Recurring Element: Deoxys started the trend of having Mythical Pokémon that were fragile powerhouses with an intimidating disposition (like Mewtwo) rather than balanced Mew lookalikes, as well as that of Legendaries having multiple formes.
• Riddle for the Ages: What exactly the Delta Episode Deoxys found so enticing about Hoenn that spurred it to hitch a ride on a six-mile wide meteor has thus far never been revealed.
• The Rival: It is always presented as Rayquaza's mortal enemy.
• Secret Art: Psycho Boost, an extraordinarily powerful Psychic-type attack the lowers the user's Special Attack by 2 stages each time it's used. Lugia also knows the move in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness after purification.
• Secret Character:
  • Only available via special Nintendo events and cannot be obtained via normal gameplay in the Gen III-V games.
  • Averted in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where it's the Final Boss of the Delta Episode and can be caught in normal gameplay and is required to complete the Hoenn and National Pokédex. Despite this, Deoxys is still considered a Mythical Pokémon (a Deoxys captured in those games will have the "fateful encounter" text just like the rest).
• Sinister Geometry: Seems to take the form of a flat triangle when dormant in FireRed/LeafGreen, Emerald, and the Delta Episode.
• Single Specimen Species: The circumstances of Deoxys' origin as a mutated alien virus suggests that only one exists (at least on Earth) due to how unlikely the conditions are to replicate (since, among other things, space is big. Really big). Naturally, some continuities have ignored this.
• Starfish Alien: While there are some Pokémon that are theorized to be extraterrestrial In-Universe, and even some proven to be extradimensional, Deoxys is the only Pokémon (well, a virus that mutated into a creature like one) downright proven to come from outer space.
• Stone Wall: Defense Forme, true to its name, has high defenses but low offenses.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Shares this to Mewtwo, being that both are artificial Pokémon created from artificial means, are Psychic-type and have a nearly identical base Special Attack stat in their base form. However, Deoxys is majorly contrast to Mewtwo in certain ways:
  • While Mewtwo was created by humans including Mr. Fuji through cloning and gene-splicing, Deoxys is an alien virus from space who was only granted a form after a laser was fired into it, which leads to it being mutated into the form that is seen in the present.
  • Mewtwo, while having lower base Defense and Special Defense stat than its other legendary peers, is not much of a Glass Cannon in its base form, in contrast to Deoxys whose significantly lower base Defense and Special Defense stat of 50 in its base form makes it very vulnerable to Dark-type moves like Dark Pulse and Ghost-type moves like Shadow Ball.
• Temporary Online Content: For a long time, it was only available via real life Nintendo events and would be unattainable after they were over outside of hacking. However, OR/AS ascends it to the spot of Final Boss, allowing players to catch it in normal gameplay (while also making it necessary to complete the Pokédex, unlike other Mythicals).
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • A Generation V event gave it Nasty Plot, which doubles the user's Special Attack stat, which is also learns in normal gameplay via TM63 in Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. Attack Forme has the second highest Special Attack in the franchise and a powerful move in Psycho Boost. Do the math.
  • Speed Forme is already the second fastest Pokémon, yet you can teach it Agility to make it even faster.
• Ultimate Lifeform: Has the ability to adapt to every situation. Unlike Mewtwo, this isn't because it was created to be the strongest Pokémon, it just can.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Professor Cozmo, at the very least, believes Deoxys' motivation for bringing a six mile wide meteor down onto the planet wasn't inherently malicious, despite having some unknown reason for deliberately targeting the Hoenn region.
• Version-Exclusive Content: In Generation III, Deoxys's forme is based on what game it's currently in, with no way of changing it outside of trading. Ruby/Sapphire uses the Normal Forme, FireRed uses the Attack Forme, LeafGreen has the Defense Forme and Emerald added the Speed Forme. Future games from Generation IV onwards would let any version access all four formes.
• World's Strongest Man: Up until Generation VI, Deoxys's Attack Forme had the highest Attack and Special Attack stat in the game. Only 3 Pokémon (Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Heracross, and Kartana) has a higher Attack stat and only 1 Pokémon (Mega Mewtwo Y) has a higher Special Attack stat. And the former two and Mega Mewtwo Y cannot use a held item to boost their Attack/Special Attack even further, while Deoxys can.

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