Underrated Pokemon

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I think the fur is supposed to look like a magician/sorcerer robe. Considering Delphox draws inspiration from RPG mages, its fur is likely meant to invoke a sort of robe that many magicians wear.

I think Delphox is an incredibly cool design though. Even though its 3D model doesn't really do it justice, it's a really pleasant and naturalistic design that invokes the mage aesthetic while also invoking a bit of both western mage and kitsune. I also love how smug and confident it looks especially in the anime, and when it uses Mystical Fire? Damn that's the coolest shit ever. The anime did Delphox justice and really sold how awesome it really is.



The attack animations for Delphox are pretty nice too. The middle one is when Delphox uses Mystical Fire, which is just really, really cool looking in-game.

But while Delphox is indeed pretty underrated and awesome, let's also proceed to talk about a starter who's even more underrated, imo.

And of course, it's Chesnaught.



Okay yeah. Chesnaught is far and away one of the most underrated starters ever imo. I don't know why people dislike the Chespin line, because Chespin itself is adorable, Quilladin has a funny design but is still cute in its own right, but Chesnaught is just so damn cool. It's the perfect blend of badass, tough, and intimidating in a way that feels really neat. It invokes the appearance of the armadillo, which is darn cool, combined with the look of a matured chestnut. And that chestnut shell is perfect for the "Warrior/Knight" aesthetic Chesnaught's got going for it, and it's built in such a way that it invokes the appearance of a knight's cape! It's so perfect. And while it may seem like it lacks the personality of Chespin and Quilladin, it really doesn't: it's more serious and battle ready for sure, and devoted to defending its allies with its great shield that can withstand even a bomb blast (which in itself is epic), but underneath its intimidating and tough appearance it's still a big sweetheart. Look!




I mean look! Chesnaught is still incredibly cute and sweet in its own right and even though it's also a beast and a badass, it still retains the cuteness and lovability that Chespin has.

And can we mention its animation when it protects, especially Spiky Shield?



THAT'S SO COOL! Chesnaught can conjure up one big shield with its arms and it looks so damn cool in doing it. There's so much to love about this mon!

It's unfortunate that it lives vastly overshadowed by Delphox and Greninja, because the latter two just have more raw appeal to different audiences at large, but Chesnaught is a wonderful Pokemon in its own right and deserves more appreciation imo, it's just plain awesome in every aspect.
 
Greninja's probably my least favorite of the three, but it feels kind of unfair to say. It's not Greninja's fault that they decided to make it the next Lucario and use it so much that it became tiresome, but that doesn't make me less bored with it.
Question: what were your opinions on the three when you first saw them, before overexposure had a chance to take effect?
 
Quilladin is horrid. Though Chestnaught more than makes up for it (though the shiny should be its normal color)
Delphox I stated
Greninja's fine, but the overexposure and stupid DBZ form hurts it
 

The Mind Electric

Calming if you look at it right.
Question: what were your opinions on the three when you first saw them, before overexposure had a chance to take effect?
I was a kid when the games came out, and I picked Delphox probably just because it was the Fire one and I had previously rolled the Unova games with Emboar. I thought it was cool then, and I still do because Fire/Psychic is a sweet typing. I was young enough that my memory of this time period is foggy, but I think I thought the other two were fine, just not as cool as the Fire one.

Then again, I did pick Totodile in HG as a kid even though it's not Fire, so maybe I just thought Delphox looked the coolest. I don't really remember.
 
Question: what were your opinions on the three when you first saw them, before overexposure had a chance to take effect?
I always choose the Fire starter when playing a new generation, so I would have chosen Fennekin no matter what, but...
Since I love foxes, I fell in love with it at first sight. Fennekin is still one of my favorite Pokemon!
I also love how it turns into a mage, since I prefer to play with magic-oriented jobs in RPGs.

Chespin looked cute (and still is cute), and I love how Chesnaught turned out. It just fits the role of a tanky warrior perfectly.

Froakie looked ugly to me.
It STILL looks ugly to me.
Greninja may be good to use, but I still don't like it.
 
In my case the Chespin line is the only one of the three Kalos starters I actually like, Chespin itself in particular.

The Froakie line is fine, but nothing memorable in terms of looks.

And the Fennekin line is so horrendous-looking in all three stages that I prefer to think it does not exist.
 
First up:

:sm/Samurott:
Samurott
Samurott is a Pokemon I haven't always liked. Generally I preferred Dewott a lot more, and I still wish Samurott was a bit more like him, but I've recently grown to love this dude. I really like the colors going on. The nice gold shell armor to the amazing blue for his body. He has a dope mustache and beard, and just looks tough as nails. But what really solidified him as my favorite water type is his Swords. Yeah, he uses Swords. Look at his model in Pokemon Home and he just pulls out a huge fucking sword out of nowhere and it looks awesome. I think he'd be in contention for my second favorite Pokemon (Dragonite will always reign supreme) if he did follow more design beats from Dewott, most notably being bipedal, but as it stands he's still in my top 10 (as if that's a bad thing)
I agree on Samurott. It's not my favorite starter but it's up there. Solid design with the helmet being my favorite part, doubling as a shell alluding to pure Water typing as well as a kabuto to tie to the samurai theme. Very pleasing color scheme as well of blue and gold.

Battle wise, in-game I've found Samurott to be very good. It's crowning achievement for me was in B2W2 when I won all tournaments of the PWT with Samurott as my lead. In particular it matches up well against the tough dragons you'll face. It's normally slower so it'll take a hit but it's bulky enough to survive one hit and hit back with Ice Beam. After which point it's normally in Torrent range so it can hit back quickly again with Aqua Jet to clean off what little HP is left of its opponent. Surf and Megahorn are all it needs to round off its set and its stats complement these moves quite well.

Overall I just think Samurott is a solid Pokémon design and battle wise that's been criticized too much over the years. Probably one of my top five favorite starters.
 
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Question: what were your opinions on the three when you first saw them, before overexposure had a chance to take effect?
(not who you were asking, but)
When the initial stages were revealed, I loved Fenniken as an adorable fire fox, was meh on Froakie, and thought Chespin looked silly.
When the final evos were revealed, I hated that Fenniken became a generic humanoid mon, thought Greninja's tongue was silly/gross, and thought Chesnaught came out pretty cool.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
How on earth has no-one mentioned Paras(ect) yet?
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If there was a poll done for weakest evolved Pokemon ever, Parasect might well qualify. A lacklustre stat spread coupled with quite possibly the worst typing in the game was never likely to add up to good results. Bug/Grass is a spectacularly poor typing which results in not one but two 4x weakness - Fire and Flying, two very common attacking types, and a typing which manifested itself twice in Gen I in the form of two very powerful and popular Pokemon. The odds were against it from the start.

Bug/Grass didn't end up being unique to the Paras line. The Sewaddle line and Wormadam-G share the typing, but that's it (which is a surprisingly small number, really. Bug and Grass are pretty similar typings, so you'd expect to see them intersect more often). But, by dint of having been around since Gen I, Paras and Parasect are the only Pokemon to ever have 3 double weaknesses. Yes, in Gen I, Poison was super-effective against both Bug and Grass, meaning that the Paras line was doubly weak to Fire, Flying, and Poison. Nasty stuff.

While Parasect's moveset in Gen I wasn't as terrible as the vast majority of Pokemon in that era, it's still far from great. It didn't learn a single move with over 80 base power on its own; Gen I's janky TM list has just enough options to cobble together a passable moveset, but the only decent STAB move it got was Solarbeam, which had a pretty huge drawback. There weren't any decent Bug moves back then, so that was it.

Later gens added a few new fun tricks to Parasect's arsenal, but none of them were good enough to pluck it from obscurity. They remain one of the few remaining Gen I families to never get any serious alterations or upgrades; while Gen VI graciously buffed the base stats of a few older families, Parasect got nothing, and it's never had a Mega Evolution, regional form, or further evolution. It has always felt, to me at least, like a distinctly unglamorous Pokemon family. Never hugely popular, and never used by any prominent NPCs. Even Pokemon Go has snubbed it - it was, along with Spearow, the Hitmons, Ditto, Snorlax, and Mew, the final Kanto family to be made available shiny, and notably has been virtually nonexistent in the wild for long stretches of the past two or three years outside of events. Which is incredibly frustrating because I think shiny Parasect looks fantastic and I'd like to hunt it.

And oh, of course it was Dexited. Frankly I expected nothing less.

But for all this, I do think Parasect has a lot of redeeming features. It does have a somewhat usable Attack stat, but it's pretty clear that Parasect was meant to be the bridesmaid, not the bride - it's the ultimate team supporter, especially in Doubles. It learns an absolute grab-bag of interesting moves with tricky side effects, including a truly stunning array of Egg moves like Grassy Terrain, Rototiller, and Wide Guard, and is perhaps most famous for being one of the small handful of species with access to Spore. The biggest boon it ever received, IMO, was getting Dry Skin for a second ability in Gen IV. Sure, it isn't gamebreaking, but it's a pretty neat ability, and definitely its best choice - well, Fire attacks are already OHKOing it, so increasing the damage they do isn't much of a heavy price in return for an immunity and passive healing under the right weather. It's a nifty ability which actually makes it a semi-usable and funky choice on Rain teams in conjunction with its supportive options.

It's also just a genuinely cool design which is both cute (in a certain light) and ever so slightly creepy - and the lore behind it is interesting, mimicking real-world parasitism as it does. Hell, it's actually pretty fun to use in-game. I used a Paras on my last run through HeartGold and had a blast with it... but then I do enjoy using weaker species for a bit of extra challenge, so you can judge that for yourself.

But yeah. For such an objectively poor Pokemon there's a lot to like about the Paras line. If nothing else, I just love rooting for the underdog. Finding the beauty no-one else can see... you get the gist. It's legit one of my favourite Gen I mons.

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ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus


One that recently came to mind for me is a particularly overlooked Gen 5 Pokemon. No, this isn't one of those hated on Pokemon that everyone bashed back in the day. These two are more a case of "Oh, that exists?". In other words, forgotten about.

But even so, Elgyem and Beheeyem are pretty cool and creative Pokemon. I believe a big reason they're overlooked is because they're kind of eh in battle, granted they're competent battlers, but competitively they're a bit frail and outclassed while in-game Gothitelle and Reuniclus are available earlier and are easier to raise because of the in-between middle stage, leaving less room for Elgyem and Beheeyem to shine. Meanwhile in the same location you can find Elgyem there's Litwick, who evolves into the incredibly iconic and epic Chandelure. It's easy to see why Beheeyem doesn't stand out.

Elgyem and Beheeyem are literal aliens, creatures who came from outer space. That in and of itself is fascinating, but these are strange aliens that communicate using strange signals and can even manipulate and possess Pokemon and humans, something we saw in the anime. Elgyem is apparently from a U.F.O. long ago. Galar even apparently links them with Dubwool which makes them even more mysterious. Their names in English stem from L.G.M (Little Green Man) and B.E.M (Bug-eyed Monster) which is a pretty interesting play on words with regards to how people referred to extraterrestrials. Even the Japanese name stems from BEM too.

Their designs in a vacuum aren't so bad either, Elgyem is pretty cute, but Beheeyem is really interesting. It looks like it's wearing a trench coat and a fedora which is very interesting but it just looks very funny and unique in a sense. Yeah I know it doesn't outwardly look like a trench coat and fedora at first glance but that's also what makes it so neat: it's a pretty subtle design. I think the alien motif of their designs really comes across well in the designs here especially with the weird eyes, the Psychic typing, and their alien like strange robotic designs.

Another hilarity is that Beheeyem can always learn TM51 prior to Gen 8 even when it was changed to Steel Wing. Likely an oversight, but it's also an indirect parallel to Area 51.

Not to mention Beheeyem's anime cry is funny as hell:


Plus an episode around Beheeyem, where Beheeyem talked through Meowth and called Ash and Team Rocket idiots, leading to one of the funniest moments in the anime ever.


A very overlooked Pokemon, but one that is nonetheless creative and brilliant and a great way to implement popular media extraterrestrials into the roster of Pokemon. It's not well known amongst the crowds and is unfortunately thrown into an overshadowed position, but that doesn't make its design any less interesting.
 
On the subject of UFO's, I'm a big fan of
:blipbug: :dottler: :orbeetle:
It's an early-game bug, except that it's used basically for the inverse of what those are used for. It's basically useless at routes until 30, but with always-on XP share that's not a big deal. It's a dual-screener at lvl 10, which is much earlier than you usually see that without TMs. And having screens up IS a big deal in a game with Dynamax, especially if you don't use it yourself(I do not). And then at high levels(say, just before the fighting gym), it's a decently fast/bulky Psychic type with all the standard Psychic support options and a STAB that's SE against Psychic-types. It's an odd option for in-game, but I found it massively useful every time I've tried it.
 
:dp/breloom:
I don't know what the consensus is on Breloom but I think he doesn't get nearly enough love. He passes some good checks for me:

Good design. He's very distinctive and even cute. I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to be but I get the feeling of a mushroom dinosaur, which is awesome. I love his color scheme too. Green and red are my favorite colors, and the tan actually works well here. I also really like his stretchy arms. Apparently it's also officially as tall as Lucario? Definitely fits the size more than the former. Short lil' Mush

Competitive viable history. While it ended it's competitive streak rough in UUBL in Gen 7 before being dexited, Breloom had a pretty nice competitive history. Being gifted with 2 really good abilities such as Poison Heal and Technician will do that for ya. He's also got a pretty nice attack stat, even if everything else is somewhat meh/bad. It also has access to the rare Spore which is what makes him really good. Breloom's honestly the only Spore user who doesn't make me want to pull my hair out. I mean the competition is slim anyway. Amoonguss, Shiinotic, and Parasect? Lol.

I need more love for this mushroom friend
 

I think Dhelmise is severely overlooked. Despite being ghost/grass type, it has a unique ability called Steelworker that gives STAB to steel type moves. Dhelmise also has a wide movepool that complements its solid attack stat. On top of that it has a flashy shiny with red seaweed. How can you go wrong with that?
 
Salazzle is EXTREMELY underrated.
With its speed and ability 'corrosion', it can toxic any pokemon. It is an extremely good steel counter on poison teams, especially in monotype @ pokemonshowdown.com as it can use flamethrower or fire blast.
I think Corrosion is a meh ability on a Fire type. Why would a Salazzle want to poison a Steel type instead of burning him with Fire Blast or other ?
 

Samtendo09

Ability: Light Power
is a Pre-Contributor
I think Corrosion is a meh ability on a Fire type. Why would a Salazzle want to poison a Steel type instead of burning him with Fire Blast or other ?
To poison a certain Heatran for example, or poison other Poison-type like Toxapex or other bulky Poison-type that would resist Fire.

Though I do not think it will hurts for Corrosion to be given to another Poison-type that don’t have STAB that is super effective against either Poison or Steel.
 

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