Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Top 10 Sea Creatures Not Yet In Pokemon

Silly concept for a Pokemon, but I love it.
Pokemon are usually based on plants or animals, and occasionally objects, like a balloon or a candle or a pile of eggs. Nothing's wrong with that, since they are Pocket 'Monsters', they were never meant to be based on any type of life-form... but I do feel that some of those slots in the Pokedex could have been put to better use. Since I'm the local marine life guy here, I thought I would make a list of the Top 10 Sea Creatures that have yet to be in Pokemon.

I was relieved to see a sea turtle Pokemon, finally.
People tell me there are too many Water-type Pokemon, it is the most common after all, so they may yell at me for making a list exclusively of sea creatures, but really, they don't all have to be Water type. Hell, one of the new Pokemon from Black/White is based on a crocodile and it's a ground type. The majority of these could probably be Water-types, but with interesting combinations. By the way, of all the Water-type Pokemon, probably only half of those are living in the ocean... so... why hasn't the ocean of the Pokemon world been filled yet? Shouldn't it logically have more species than the land? Bah, forget it, on with the list...

#10. Mosasaur

We already have a Plesiosaur from the first generation with Lapras, but since then, there haven't really been any other ancient marine reptiles in the Pokemon world. I feel that a Mosasaur would make an excellent Pokemon, with a high attack and HP stat. It could also be a lot faster than Lapras because of it's streamlined shape.

#9. Hammerhead Shark

We already have a shark with Sharpedo... well... half of a shark, but there are many different types of sharks that Pokemon can choose from, so why not the Hammerhead? It's one of the strangest creatures in the ocean, and it's overall shape could inspire a pretty cool design.

#8. Humpback Whale

Again, we already have a whale with Wailer/Wailord, but that wasn't really the whale I was imagining when I found out there was a whale Pokemon. What I was imagining was something majestic and beautiful, that's not to say that blue whales aren't that, which Wailord is based on, but Wailord is just... well... not that majestic. If I were to make a Humpback Whale Pokemon, I wouldn't make it a Water type, I'd make it a pure Flying type, because of it's long, wing-like flippers. Think about it, wouldn't that be awesome to fly on giant whale in the sky?

#7. Barracuda

Every generation, there's usually a generic fish Pokemon that comes along, but occasionally, we get something like Relicanth, which is based on a Coelacanth, that had me thinking of other fish that haven't been introduced yet, like the Barracuda. In my eyes, it would be a crazy fast Pokemon.

I decided to go with a cute squid for this picture.
#6. Squid

Pokemon is no stranger to cephalopods, we've had an octopus with Octillery, and an ancient Ammonite with Omanyte/Omastar, but strangely... we've yet to have the most common of cephalopods. Some people say that Tentacruel has some resemblance to a squid, but I'd say not really. There is a lot that can be done with a squid's basic design. If they can do something interesting with the squid's tentacles, that would make for a very visually pleasing Pokemon.

#5. Kelp

Well, not really a creature, but a plant... well... not that either, because technically, Kelp doesn't even belong to the plant kingdom, kelp belongs to the kingdom protista, 'plant' is just a general term for it. There's a free biology lesson for you. Anyway, I've always wondered why they've never made a Water/Grass-type Pokemon that was based on Kelp. We have lily pads with the Lotad line of Pokemon, so why not something with Kelp?

#4. Lionfish

Like the Barracuda, this is another fish I've been wondering about when looking at the generic fish Pokemon every generation. It's obvious that the type would be Water/Poison. The lionfish already looks badass, so they don't have to work that hard to make a good looking Pokemon out of this animal. If they can't make it look good, then... I don't know what to say, they must have bad design skills if they mess up this beautiful creature.

#3. Beluga

Hooray! Another cetacean on the list! I always thought that a Beluga would make a very cute Pokemon and I even tried my hand at designing one once, with a Narwhal evolution. I would suspect that the Beluga would be another Water/Ice type... but maybe it doesn't have to be... what about Ice/Psychic? It would have a ton of weaknesses though... yeah, forget that, just make it Water/Ice.

#2. Billfish

Billfish is a broad term for fish with swords for snouts, like Marlin, Swordfish and Sailfish. I always thought that a billfish Pokemon would be a Water/Steel-type, because of it's sword-like bill. It would only be the second Pokemon to have that type combination, and it would have a huge advantage with all those resistances.

#1. Dolphin

You all saw this coming. A certain friend argued to me that Gorebyss looked like a dolphin, but no, that's a pipefish or snipe eel at best. If bulbapedia doesn't think it looks like a dolphin, then it's probably not based on a dolphin. (They think Tyranitar looks like a T-rex? What?) There is an orca Pokemon, which is the legendary Pokemon, Kyogre, and that's technically a dolphin species, but that's still not the kind of dolphin I'm talking about. What I want, is a Pokemon based on the Bottlenose dolphin, as pictured above. My guess is that for the type, they could make it Water/Psychic, because of it's intelligence, or hell, make it just Psychic, after all, the lamprey/electric eel Pokemon we got from Black/White is only Electric, and not Water.


Runners-up:

So shiny, but terrifying.
Bobbit Worm

The bobbit worm is a very strange and creepy polychaete worm. They creep me out a little, but so do centipedes... but I love my Pokemon that's based on centipedes, my fat Scolipede, so if they can make me like centipedes, I'm sure Pokemon can make me like Bobbit Worms.

Marine Iguana

There have been a lot of lizards in the Pokemon universe, and there may have been an iguana in there somewhere, but the Marine Iguana is so different, that I had to mention it.

Deep sea tube worms

The reason I left this out of the top 10 is because I couldn't really think of what kind of Pokemon they could make with this, maybe some kind of crab or fish with the tube worms on it's back or something, I don't know. Though, I do know what type it would be... Water/Fire, because it lives in extreme heat near thermal vents.


Well, that's my list. What do you guys think? Are there some sea creatures I didn't mention that you'd like to see as Pokemon?

8 comments:

  1. Yeah, Tentacruel is totally more jellyfishy. What are those knuckleheads talking about that? Just because it has tentacles/legs doesn't mean it looks like a squid. You could just as easily say it looks like a spider. Which it doesn't.

    Yeah, total pipefish up there. Goofballs.

    --What about Horseshoe Crabs? Any of those? I'm surprised (along with your flying whale idea) they don't put more things in places where they don't belong..like a sea bear. No, not a polar bear!

    And I agree on the Lionfish. Wouldn't it be great if they called it "Fishlyon" or something?

    ReplyDelete
  2. A dolphin? No.

    And... Love the lionfish idea :D
    Hammerhead shark idea could be great - obviously like an actual hammer for a head or something.

    ReplyDelete
  3. how about a Narwhal Pokemon? and a Shrimp Pokemon...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bogleech recently did a similar (though broader) series of posts like this: http://www.bogleech.com/pokemon/nonpokes3.html He'd rather have a river dolphin, but I guess that doesn't fall under the spectrum of marine.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I mean now there is Inkay and Malamar so i think the squid idea is gone but i think Nintendo should start paying attention to websites like here and others.

    ReplyDelete