Blastoise: the Friggin’ Tank Pokémon. I once heard someone musing that if there were wars between countries in the Pokémon universe, they must be won by the countries with the strongest pokemon, since there’s no way they’d have all these powerful giant creatures and not use them. Well, they’d friggin’ sure as hell use Blastoise. Friggin’ Blastoise has friggin’ cannons in its shell. Just looking at Blastoise makes me want to use the word friggin’ a lot.
And they’re not like the cannons on 4th-gen pokemon Magmortar and Rhyperior, where designers seemed to be saying, “What’s a way to make a pokemon cool? Give it guns for hands!” While that may delight everyone’s inner 10 year old boy, Blastoise has real world merit, because… well, mollusks have valves, and… South African white mussels can extend these two tubes out of its shell that… okay nevermind, they’re just to make it look cool.
With that in mind, it stands to reason the best Blastoise sprites give us a view right down the barrels of those cannons. Only about half of them do this though, the rest preferring to let us admire Blastoise’s vast, rotund underbelly. Red and Blue is most guilty of this, looking worse even than the usually decrepit Red and Green sprite, which in the case of Blastoise actually looks pretty normal and ahead of its time. HG/SS’s looks basically the same.
The Winner:
Yellow
Okay, I’ll admit, Blastoise probably isn’t supposed to have the dexterity of a Ninja Turtle, and arms that are long enough to make good aesthetic lines, for goodness’ sake. Does this sprite look like Blastoises usually look? No. Does it look awesome? Heck yes.
If I were more objective about these things I would probably prefer Gold’s, Silver’s, or Diamond and Pearl’s sprites over this one because they also spotlight the water cannons while being more well-grounded and realistic. But they don’t have this one’s reckless abandon. And if you’re going to put guns on a pokemon, it’s safe to say well-groundedness is out the window anyway.
This is not just my favorite Blastoise sprite; it might be one of the best sprites made for any pokemon.
The Yellow Blastoise sprite is absolutely excellent. It has a very fine face, and his claws look the sharpest in this one. The pose makes little sense, but it's still really great.
ReplyDeleteD/P is my fav.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like he'z gonna blast ur face off
I noticed D/P has a squared turret thing while the rest are round. It just doesn't look right to me.
ReplyDeleteI think Silver had the best. Maybe not the best view of him, but given what you said about him resembling a tank, the quad stance give the impression of power.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with the HG/SS Blastoise'ss face? :-/
ReplyDeleteI think he's saying, "Haha! YOU wanna fight ME?! As if, shrimp!"
DeleteR/B looks like he's being over-inflated and about to fart, but FR/LG looks awesome. He's roaring at your face like F*** YOU, I HAVE GUNS IN MY BACK.
ReplyDeleteI'll go with Silver. Most aggressive use of the cannons, an attack stance and the most turtle-y of the sprites in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI really liked R/B, it looks majestic and terrifying.
ReplyDeleteI remember choosing charmander and then looking back on it and going why the heck did I not choose squirtle.
ReplyDelete