23. Ekans

You guys there’s something super witty about Ekans that I noticed just now, you’re going to be so amazed you didn’t see it before okay ready it involves the name Ekans and what happens if you spell it b—

Oh. Everyone figured that out about twelve years ago? Of course, I was just… making sure.

The sad thing is, that’s pretty much the most interesting observation there is to be made about Ekans. It’s a snake. Not even a very cool snake, just a purple earthwormy one.

Nedroid has an “Inventing Pokemon” game with the rules “Basically all you have to do is combine two things, or take one things and put a face on it. It's easy!”

(more)

Well, Ekans doesn’t even make that much effort. It’s one thing, that already has a face.

Maybe I’m just incapable of appreciating it, being a Pokémon Blue child (Ekans was Red-exclusive), but it’s not much worth training either. It’s got that underpowered Poison typing that, again, is super effective against five whole pokemon of the first 150, and learns no particularly useful attacks.

But far be it from me, that I should write off a pokemon just for being weak and based somewhat uncreatively off a real animal. So here’s some positives: I like its protruding, lifeless eyes, and the gold band and underbelly on its later sprites. They give it a certain classiness.

The Winner:
Ruby and Sapphire

Okay, so you’re going to draw a snake in action. You have some options. You can draw it in a perfectly concentric coil, like its sitting in a basket. Observe: some of the worst Ekans sprites.

OR, you can draw it in a cool, sidewinding, figure eight shape of cosmic relevance. Gee, tough call.

Usually the FireRed and LeafGreen sprites take Ruby and Sapphire’s rushed ones (as most of these pokemon aren’t catchable in those games), and improve on them. But I don’t really see the improvement in making Ekans look smaller and less brainy? So this one it is.

22. Fearow

oh man oh man so cool

I don’t mean to keep harping on this comparison, but did you know Fearow’s base stat total is only 27 points lower than Pidgeot’s? And you can have a Fearow at level 20, whereas you have to wait until level 36 for Pidgeotto to evolve? Just sayin’.

Did you also know Fearow’s name in Japanese, オニドリル (Onidrill) (which by the way sounds awesome even without the meaning I’m about to supply), means “demon drill”? Or that its original Pokedex entry claims that on its “huge and magnificent wings, it can keep aloft without ever having to land for rest”? That’s the Pokedex calling it magnificent, not me. Fearow: the factually magnificent pokemon. Not to mention the being able to fly forever thing, that makes ospreys and aircraft sound kinda weak.

Well, if you didn’t know all those things, you now have no excuse not to recognise Fearow as the best bird pokemon ever. I very rarely bother training to Pidgeot when I know I can just get a Fearow. Especially once it learns Drill Peck; that move does crazy damage when you factor in type bonuses and everything. Which makes sense, since from what I gather it involves Fearow turning its beak into a drill and stabbing things.

So how does one even begin to critique a Fearow sprite when they’re all so perfect, you might wonder. When I love every bit of them, down to the white, downy tufts on their backs? It’s like a parent having to choose between children. Except different, because parents always have favoured children.

Well for one thing, it is possible to make its neck too long and slender; do so and Fearow ends up looking a bit fragile (which it is, but never mind that). Gold, Silver, and the DS sprites are guilty of this. The rubber chicken coxcomb look is best avoided on the headcrest. It should look more like… just, cool spiky feathers I guess. And the beak is most impressive when closed, when you can easily imagine it as a big drill and not just an unwieldy eating appendage. Red and Green’s sprite does this best; that shnoz looks about five feet long. Unfortunately R/G’s wings, though in an awesome position, are just a bit too ruffled and unnatural to classify as “majestic.”

The Winner:
FireRed and LeafGreen




The happy medium, FR/LG’s wings aren’t quite as majestic as on the last two, mostly due to space constraints. But they’re sufficiently majestic to look impressive, especially since they take up about as much space on the sprite frame as allowed on the Gameboy Advance.

It’s not too thin, not too short, not too rubbery, not facing the wrong way, and it’s got this great downward direction to it—a brooding, vulturine quality that fits both its “death from above” character and positioning on a Gameboy screen.

21. Spearow

I get the impression Spearow isn’t a very popular pokemon, given that Pidgey and its two evolutions make it a bit redundant. It’s like the dysfunctional, forgotten nephew of all the Normal/Flying types. Sundelsticks to that, I say. Spearow is pure badass. Check out the gaze in the Yellow sprite. Check out Silver’s “haters gonna hate” walk. Check out actually having a Flying-type attack from the beginning, unlike certain other Flying pokemon, as well as being able to learn Fly just as one would expect.

I will admit, though, Spearow’s design is puzzling. It’s got brown plumage on the head and tail, black on the back, and hot pink on the wings. And its underbelly appears scaly and featherless. What kind of a bird is that? Some kind of gryphon? A diseased eaglet? It’s like it was stitched together by the same mad scientists that created the platypus. From pieces of a hawk, a turtle and a flamingo.

And it’s not like it’s one of those pokemon that just needed better graphics to look more plausible over time. If anything, it’s gotten weirder. The first few sprites look wonky, but at worst they’d be mistaken for a fat, evil version of Woodstock.





But then I’m looking at its most recent back sprite…





That lion’s mane anime hairdo it has? Only on its face. It’s like a mask, with the back of its head completely different. You try to render this thing in 3D and it only gets more perplexing.

But I guess in some ways it actually resembles a spear from behind, the way it’s got a black shaft pattern up its back, and comes to a point at its beak. And then the pink wings would be like… alright nevermind I’m not even going to try interpreting this thing’s appearance

The Winner:
Gold

Spearow always gives the impression that it packs more of a punch than Pidgey, and this sprite is no exception. It’s got seven pointy things all facing forward: six talons and a beak. It appears to be caught in the middle of jumping onto a person’s face to peck at their eyes. At least that’s what a Spearow I owned would be doing, eheheh

It also benefits from being one of the final sprites to omit Spearow’s flamboyant colouring. That may seem like a given, but with Gold and Silver’s two-tone palettes, they could have very easily made it brown and pink. Instead they went with brown and… brown. Nice! Pidgey’s Gold and Silver sprites actually have more pink in them than Spearow’s. This is because Pidgeys are for women and gay boys. *hock* *spittoon*

20. Raticate

Raticate, Raticate, baker’s man

Raticate may not seem like a Big Deal, but check his Pokedex entry in Gold and Silver: “It can even topple concrete buildings by gnawing on them.” Concrete buildings. Those are some intense incisors… but what else would you expect from a two foot tall, 40 lb rat?

Basically, Raticate is like the giant leader rat, Ben, in the rodent-horror movie Willard—either the 1971 film or the recent remake with Crispin Glover. Its haunting, accusatory stare was apparently such a hit, it got its own spinoff movie in 1972, and had a love song made about it by Michael Jackson.



I’m not making this up, that’s who the song was about. A big fictional rat in B-movies. Actually, given how it’s this malicious, corruptive character, it’s kind of interesting/awesome Jackson would be singing its odes and having a whole album named after it in his early years. Never too early for teen pop stars to get into the occult.

Now, what was I supposed to be writing about again? Oh right: Crispin Glover. He is pretty dreamy; you know you want that nose.

The Winner:
Red and Blue




Raticate’s sprite is actually pretty important, because it’s the first fully evolved pokemon you encounter in the games that isn’t, like, a butterfly or something. And so a little scariness goes a long way, since this thing should be able to dole out more damage than most other pokemon available at that point in the game, especially with Hyper Fang and whatnot.

So guess what the most critical design element is in a Raticate sprite? Hint: it’s not his potato shape or underbelly. It’s the teeth! Raticate should be as close as possible to a big, cavernous mouth with arms and legs. Think Kirby, but decrepit and deranged.

Red and Blue flat out got it best. You could lose an arm in that thing.

19. Rattata

True story: I used to get in heated debates with kids in elementary school over the pronunciation of Rattata’s name. They were utterly convinced it was “ruh-TAT-ta” for some reason. Not only does that completely miss the pun on “rat,” it also misses the resemblance to the onomatopoeia “ratta-tat,” as in “ratta-tat-tat,” as in the noise made by a gun, or something that strikes quickly and repeatedly, like a pesky, cannon-fodder rodent species in a popular videogame.

Memories…

I kinda like Rattata though, and the way it symbolises underachievers everywhere. Think about it—if pokemon were real, who would you rather be friends with: the kid looking to max out the EVs on his inherited Charizard pumped with TMs and “supplemental” vitamins so he can challenge the Elite Four and become world famous, or the kid next door with the pet Rattata he caught in his backyard? I mean jeez, some people just want to wear short pants and enjoy their lives leisurely.

Anyway, given that you’ll be seeing a lot of Rattata in the games it appears, always at times you’d rather not (doesn’t give much experience boon, barely worth capturing), there’s a bit of pressure to give it a not-too-hateable sprite! And they don’t do too badly I’d say; almost all the sprites showing Rattata on all fours also show its paws spread wide, ready for action—even the early ones (except Yellow’s, but that one looks like a small dog so it’s got several problems). Atta boy Rattata! That really does help them look more dynamic—especially since, when you think about it, when do you see an actual rodent standing like that?

I also like the Ruby and Sapphire sprite for its blood-red alien eyes. Aww who’s a creepy evil Rattata, YOU are, yes you are, who got mutated by toxic waste, YOU did, aww

The Winner:
FireRed and LeafGreen



Remember when they used to sell those little pokemon figurines in the clear plastic pokeballs? And you got all excited about collecting all of them but your parents wouldn’t let you so you only wound up with ten or so?

Well, that was me when I was a wee lad, and Rattata was one of the ones I had:

And when I look at the above sprite it’s like a blast to the past, because it looks exactly like that figurine. The mouth, the eyes, the tail… they might as well have used it as a reference. Man, if they just took all those figurines and put them in sprite form for the games I’d be happy.

So that’s my shamelessly non-objective reasoning for liking that sprite best. Though I also really like the Red and Blue one, because its tail is so skewed it looks like Rattata is flying sideways. Which, funny enough, is exactly what it does when it enters the screen in-game. Whoooosh

18. Pidgeot

Your PIDGEOTTO has evolved into PIDGEOTTO WITH HAIR EXTENSIONS

Wait, that’s over the 10-character limit.

Indeed, it seems the Pidgey evolutions operate by the same principle as 80s rock stars: their power is directly proportional to their bigness of hair. Whether it’s the Ludwig van Pidgeot look in Gold and Silver, the classic L’Oreal model highlights, or Diamond and Pearl’s romance novel cover coiffure, Pidgeot knows how to work it.

Alas, Pidgeot is getting let down by its liposuctionist. In all too many of these recent sprites, its body is shaped like a bowling pin, and its wings look short and stubby. No no, this won’t do at all. It should trim off some of that baby fat and look more like Fearow.

It could also use a reinvention of its image. The name “Pidgeot” is kind of small-sounding, don’t you think? Pidgeotto sounds better. And the two are too easily confused; there’s a Pidgeot in the English dub of the first Pokémon movie that gets referred to as a Pidgeotto! How embarrassing. Not even people who work on Pokémon for a living can tell them apart! That’s why you never see Pidgey, Pidgeotto, or Pidgeot shown in the same poses successively in one game: differing poses are all the games have to keep the player from thinking, “Don’t I already have this pokemon,” when they evolve.

But in all seriousness, it’s not that difficult to make Pidgeot look amazing, as card and fan art shows us:

Despite my snooting, and lukewarm feelings for Normal/Flying types (would a pure Flying type be so bad? What’s so Normal about a giant bird that carries people around on its back?), and general preference for Fearow, I do think Pidgeot is pretty awesome and elegant. So why shouldn’t its sprites be too?

The Winner:
Yellow

I do like Diamond and Pearl’s and the original Gameboy sprites, only for having a nice flow to them and no real flaws. But Pidgeot really should be shown in action. It’s a big freaky bird; it should have better things to do than stand around looking nice.

This one from Yellow doesn’t have that glittery, golden eagle sheen of the others, but it’s the only one that shows Pidgeot in flight without having a dumb haircut or looking like a bag of sand with wings. It’s all talons, beak and feathers, just as it should be. And check out the face! Forget stoicism, this thing knows it’s boss. The darkness of it also provides a cool end to the sort of seasonal progression of its line; Pidgey is simple and summery, Pidgeotto is colorful and autumny, and Pidgeot is the cold, fatal claw of winter casting shadows on us all

17. Pidgeotto

Some housekeeping because Pidgeotto is boring:

I want to apologise to all two of my readers for not updating the last couple weeks; I had initially planned to post every day, but then technical difficulties arose with my internet connection—and since my writing process consists of sitting on Word with a window open to Google so I can look up trivial tidbits, this proved to be quite an obstacle.

So you might expect I’m here to amend by committing afresh to daily updates and announcing a blog redesign featuring text-wrapped images and smarmy captions in the manner of real online articles! Well, you’d be wrong. Except the first thing, I’ll try to do that.

Now then






Pidgeotto’s where this family starts to look actually capable of such novel avian ideas as flight and hunting, what with its more developed wingspan and talons. Though you wouldn’t know it looking at its early sprites, which resemble a roosting hen/peacock hybrid. Later on it gets more streamlined and actiony, Diamond and Pearl’s being the boldest of the bunch, though I defy you to find me a bird whose wings look like perfectly radial paper fans like that.

But it’s cool, I guess it’s not terribly important for Pidgeotto to have perfect sprites in every game, I mean it’s just a middle form and it’s not like there’s a gym leader that uses one as his signature pokemon or anything. At a comically low level, like 9. Okay what the hell, Falkner?

The Winner:
HeartGold and SoulSilver

Gold through FR/LG all have pretty great Pidgeotto sprites, I’ll admit—they’ve all got this intensity to them. Sadly, Gold and Silver are out because the brown and bubblegum pink palette just doesn’t work as well as later sprites’ brown-tan-yellow-red-orange rainbow; they’ve got the whole fall foliage motif going for them. Makes you feel festive just looking at them.

Then the next two, though good, still kinda look like poultry when you put them next to the latest one. It’s like the artists finally thought to themselves, “Maybe we should actually look at a bird of prey before trying to draw one this time.” And voila, we get the first Pidgeotto with good posture. Though I think the real difference maker for me is the little cowlick on the head crest. It looks so… aerodynamic. And the soulful Lucario eyes also don’t hurt. It’s the kind of bird you could see a falconer using to pick up chicks. Also females. *rimshot*

16. Pidgey

This is the part of the Pokédex where I get to trade in my junior entomologist badge for a birdwatching handbook, ‘cause we’re dealing with the Normal/Flying types! Every set of Pokémon games introduces a new family of these things, and by “introduce” I mean “profusely throw in your face early on to emphasise how generic they are.” But really, it’s cool with me if Pidgey gets rehashed with every generation, because it’s not like there’s a shortage of birds out there on which to base pokemon. Observe:

Starly from gen. 4 is based on Sturnus cineraceus, the White-cheeked Starling or Grey Starling of Asia.

Taillow is the spitting image of an unladen European Swallow, Hirundo rustica.

And Hoothoot from Gold and Silver bears a striking resemblance to the Eurasian Eagle-owl, Bubo bubo (I am not making these names up), right down to the eyes and pointy eyebrow/ear tufts.

Which brings us to Pidgey. After careful study of its plumage, dorsal and tertiary feathers, posture, and position of the synsacrum, I’ve come to the conclusion Pidgeys most closely resemble: chickens.

So much so, that if we assume pokemon are used to provide food in the Pokémon universe, Pidgeys would be ideal for raising as livestock. They’re plump, docile, and barely capable of flight (and overfeeding would take care of the rest). But that’s a scary, spiraling interpretation… would we then assume young trainers fuel their adventuring with a nice plate of scrambled Exeggcute and Spoink bacon each morning? Washed down with Miltank milk? Or an Oddish stirfry, for vegetarians?

Would that even be vegetarian?

And if you’re thinking, “Well, isn’t Pidgey basically a pigeon,” take a gander at upcoming Generation 5’s entry to the generic Normal/Flying type parade:








Why, it’s Mamepato, the… just, an… actual pigeon pokemon.

So Pidgey gets outpigeoned by a pokemon with a better claim to its name. That’s rough.

The Winner:
Gold

Gotta give credit to the DS sprites for tweaking Pidgey’s design to look a bit more like an actual bird you would find in, y’know, the wild, as opposed to behind a barn somewhere; they’ve got a slightly more angular, less balled up look. Silver’s has a nice sleek design as well, but Gold’s actually manages to make Pidgey look active. Wings spread wide, it may not be primed to rain fatal blows on anything, but it at least look ready to ruffle your shit up a bit. Reminds me of a Zelda chicken.

15. Beedrill

There’s something about Beedrill that has always underwhelmed me. Weedle’s good, Kakuna’s good, but Beedrill… just isn’t as cool as Butterfree, for whatever reason. It’s stuck with the same awful Bug/Poison typing, and while Butterfree starts right off the bat learning cool psychic and spore attacks, Beedrill pretty much has to make do with the same lame moves until getting Twin Needle at level 20—at which point you’re busy fighting stuff like living rocks and armoured psychic seastars, quickly losing patience for your special needs early-game bug pokemon.

Beedrill’s supposed to be the more mean and intimidating of the two, but it’s not even that scary-looking. And I mean, I’m afraid of bees. Have you ever been stung in the eye by a bee? Well, neither have I, but if you’ve seen Matthew Broderick in Election, you know it can really spoil your day.

Should have used a Repel there, Ferris.

Maybe it’s just too cartoony—its body is plump and round and school bus yellow, instead of sleek and dangerous-looking like all the scariest bees and hornets, or like those thread-waisted wasps that look like they could kill a horse:

As you can see, insect stingers aren’t scary when they’re big and blunt, like Beedrill’s dunce cap hands; they’re scary when they’re long and sharp, as above—or better yet, as on the freaky-as-hell ichneumon wasp:

(But don’t worry, that’s not technically a stinger; it’s an egg depositor, for injecting parasitic larvae into an animal so they can eat it from the inside out :))

So maybe I’m just doomed to be disappointed by all Beedrill sprites—especially when you factor in the legs, which I guess are supposed to be bipedal, but don’t look strong enough to hold up anything bigger than an actual bug. Except on the Red/Blue sprite, that is, where they appear to be sexy lady legs.

The Winner:
Silver




I have to give credit to the most recent DS sprites for making Beedrill look more angular, like a wasp or hornet. But they still don’t seem all that threatening; I mean, D/P’s karate pose only serves to draw attention to its decrepit little limbs.

HG/SS’s is pretty good, but I think Silver’s takes the stale, half-eaten cake solely for its use of perspective. That’s right—that’s how easy it is to impress my caveman brain. That stinger is coming RIGHT AT ME.

But maybe that’s all Beedrill needs: the illusion of interaction with the viewer. That’s what really makes bees scary, come to think of it; there’s nothing all that impressive about one trapped behind glass, with its attention directed elsewhere.

14. Kakuna

Is it me, or are some of these bug pokemon getting smaller with every generation? I smell a conspiracy to undermine what few impressive qualities they have left these days. At least the most recent Kakuna is well-drawn; it’s got that face like it just hates your guts. It’s probably wondering where all its pixels went.

But, one might reason, it’s not like the original sprites do much better, since they look like creepy, soulless aliens, like they belong in a Metroid game rather than Pokémon. To that I say: have you ever seen what a real bee pupa looks like?

They look exactly like creepy soulless aliens. Complete with spawning chambers and everything.

And if the above image should have you slowly licking your lips in enticement, you’ll be pleased to know you can buy a whole jar of these little guys at a Chinese market near you!

According to the label they’re a great source of Protein, and, um… “Moisture,” and “Ash.”

But if anything, this just speaks to me how good the character design for Kakuna is. They took inspiration from little writhing, slimy, nubile insects, and crafted a pokemon that’s cool, sleek and metallic looking. I’d say it’s at least superior to Metapod’s weird shape and dopey stare.

The Winner:
Red and Blue

One of these things is not like the others.

All of these things are armored, mean-looking, two-foot-tall insect pods. One of these things is an armored, mean-looking, two-foot-tall insect pod that can stab you.

Some of the others are cool anyway; Gold, Silver, and HG/SS all have some pretty sweet shading going on, and Gold’s has a sexy hourglass figure, showing good dedication to its stomach crunches I guess.

But Red and Blue’s arm protrusions are a such a classic, out-of-left-field design choice, it’s hard for me not to appreciate them. No Kakuna has ever been portrayed that way before or since. But it gave it such a scary-looking edge—to the point where I used to pretend all the other Kakunas had such protrusions too, but just chose to keep them tucked in close to their armour. The claws would come out, my 10-year-old self would say, right as they’re preparing to pounce on a human victim from the shadows inside a derelict space vessel.

13. Weedle

Well the first time I seen a boll Weedle, he was sitting on the square. The next time I seen a boll Weedle, he had his whole family there!

Jack White sings about Weedles

I gave a lot of love to Caterpie and its evolutions, which some would say is the iconic Pokémon bug-type family—which is true, for some reason. But let’s face it: when that guy in Veridian City first tells you about the “two bug pokemon,” one with poison, and one… without poison, which did you inwardly swear to capture and train?

Now maybe that excitement wears off somewhat the first time you get in a Weedle vs. Weedle game of who can inflict the least damage, or when you realize that poison attacks are only super-effective against grass pokemon (and there is exactly ONE pure grass type in the game—Tangela—while most of the others are half-poison themselves; it’s basically a completely useless type). Still though, that first venture into Viridian Forest, when you don’t have the foresight to bring antidotes, and Weedles in every bush waiting to poison your shit up? That’s a sweet five minutes of fame, there. There’s a reason Weedle is pokemon number 13: it’s your unlucky day if you cross one. Bam!

But mostly I like Weedle because he bears a striking resemblance to a certain enemy in a certain other Nintendo game:
 

And if you’re looking at his limbless R/B sprite, a striking resemblance to the worms in a certain current television show that I have a certain unabashed affection for:

 

no weedles on the BED

The Winner:
HeartGold and SoulSilver

At first I was leaning towards the R/S and FR/LG ones because they so effectively brandish both Weedle’s stingers, reminding you this guy is dangerous at both ends. But Weedle’s intimidation factor is so inherent in its game dynamic, it tickles me most of these sprites go the route of looking totally innocuous. While your pokemon is vomiting the last of its black, poison-ravaged organs onto the battlefield, Weedle will be sitting there watching, head cocked to the side, cheeky and adorable. This one gives that impression the most, I think, certainly better than Gold and Silver’s with their oddly inflated heads and clown noses. Unless those are meant to be just, y’know, gorged with flesh-searing venom

12. Butterfree

It seems Butterfree exists to be incredibly useful for a short while and then abandoned forever. It happens across all mediums—I’m continuing to pretend to have no nostalgic loyalty to the anime, but even “let’s train a Pikachu forever and never have it evolve” Ash Ketchum lets go of his in an episode that can only be described as a bolt of emotional catharsis for an entire generation of shut-ins and autistic children.

nooo don’t go Butterfree you’ll throw off the party balance

In the games, of course, they tend to be crammed permanently and unceremoniously into a storage box somewhere around the second or third gym. I mean, at least Ash’s was out getting laid. What is Pokémon trying to teach us? The ephemeral nature of all good partnerships? The astringent bodily limits we are dealt in life? Are we all merely Butterfrees, dreaming we are human? If a Butterfree flaps its wings in Kanto, does it—okay I’ll stop

Butterfree’s design is one of those that kind of cheats by taking an already pretty awesome animal—in this case Aporia crataegi—

(that noise you hear is the very last vapors of masculinity rushing out of this site, as if through an open airlock)

and tweaking it only slightly, to avoid nature’s copyright claim I guess. So in theory it should be hard to draw a bad Butterfree sprite when you have such an ample reference point—though the Gameboy Advance generation makes a pretty good go at it. Way to make Butterfree’s wings look practically vestigial, dorks

The Winner:
Red and Blue

Since I’m holding these up to the real-life Butterfree above, this is clearly the way to go. Back when Butterfree wasn’t Barney purple. Back when it had a mystical aura—the first fully evolved pokemon you get, the first with psychic attacks. Maybe it’s just the lack of color, but this sprite always had a big, imposing, yet fragile, otherworldly quality to it. Not too bad for a bug. It’s like they took something that should have been common and routine and turned it into the Ghost Orchid of Pokémon sprites.

The wings are obviously of utmost importance here, and this one really nails the detail in that department. More than the others, it looks like a pair of wings that happens to have a creature attached to it—not the other way around. The space allotted to them is huge, second only to Red and Green’s, which doesn’t have the finished quality. I try to judge these things free of nostalgia, and usually the original Gameboy art doesn’t hold up, but Butterfree is the exception. I’d say it has earned durability in at least this respect.