The Five Best and Five Worst Pokemon Ever

Reading Time ~ 4 minutes

 

I’ve been playing the pokemon series for around twenty years and in that time there have been some great creatures created and regrettably some that are truly horrendous. With the release of Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!/Eevee! this week we thought we’d pull together a run-through of The 5 Best and 5 Worst Pokémon Ever. To note, it’s worth pointing out that some of the pokemon featured aren’t going to be in this specific release in its current form.

FIVE OF THE WORST

TRUBBISH

This pokemon is essentially a bin bag with a face. It feels like the designers literally looking at whatever rubbish was lying around and then designing a pokemon on that basis. The evolution is a mild improvement but still fundamentally a pile of rubbish, you really have to ask what someone was thinking with this one.

 

VANILLISH

I could have picked Vanillite or Vanilluxe here too as they’re all equally ridiculous. They start as a pot of ice cream, the first evolution is to an ice cream cone and then the final evolution adds an extra scoop. It really feels like this was a point where the pokemon guys were struggling for ideas a little, or it was hot outside.

 

KLEFKI

Keeping with the theme of terrible design decisions this pokemon is a ring of keys, I kid you not. It’s something of a miracle that the design team have managed to get away with certain designs as they are just incredibly lazy. Thank Christ they’ve managed to turn it around for the most part.

 

KAKUNA/METAPOD

I’ve included Kakuna and Metapod as a two for one, they’re basically the same – middle evolutions that are in essence a cocoon with no real offensive capability. They consistently use harden to make their defence increase to the point where you’re hardly doing any damage to them. I’m of the opinion that you’d only have them in a party with EXP share to evolve them into their final forms.

 

JYNX

Somewhat controversial initially as the anime portrayed her as having something suspiciously like blackface, which various people have called out over the years for being racist. To the point where Game Freak have now re-designed the character and in certain anime episodes she has been censored or cut.

FIVE OF THE BEST

PICHU

My head says I should go for Pikachu given he’s the face of the franchise and the fact that he’s an evolved form of Pichu, so is going to be stronger. My heart says Pichu though as he’s just so damn cute. Pretty much useless in a battle against semi-decent pokemon unfortunately so it’s inclusion is purely an aesthetic decision.

 

WAILORD

There’s a crapload of water pokemon across the various games but my favourite is Wailord, which is odd as on paper this is pretty uninspired. I just enjoy the simplicity of it as well as the fact that it’s bloody huge and has a big cheesy grin. Ripping off real-life animals isn’t a bad thing is what I’m saying.

 

CHARIZARD

It’s a dragon, it looks awesome and it breathes fire, it’s pretty obvious why this one is a firm favourite. There’s an argument to be had that it’s the pinnacle of dragon pokemon in the games, as the evolved form of one of the starters from the original game (and cover star of Pokemon Red).

 

METAGROSS

A steel and psychic pokemon, this looks badass and is pretty handy in a battle (fire type aside). It takes a lot of levelling to get a Metagross from the humble beginnings of a Beldum but it’s definitely worth the effort as it’s a pretty useful party member at the best of times.

 

MEW

I fell in love with Mew as a result of his level in Pokemon Snap and his appearance in the first pokemon movie. He’s super cute but has really only ever been available as a giveaway rather than being able to be caught in the game. This is the reason I’ve gone for the Pokeball version of Let’s Go, Pikachu!, I need that Mew. And as an added bonus a semi-decent psychic Pokemon is pretty handy to have.

 

Now I’d obviously be interested to hear what other people think in terms of Pokemon they hate and love, the beauty of there being over 800 Pokemon at this point is that there are a lot to choose from. Leave a message in the comments below!