Day 35: Gardevoir & Gallade

Here she is, boys, the original Poké-heartthrob. The one and only, Miss Hoenn 2002 herself, Gardevoir.

(Insert Gardevoir cry here)

(BGM: Battle! Diantha from X & Y)

The idea of Gardevoir being many young Pokemon fans' sexual awakening aside, this Psychic-Fairy type has earned every right to be called one of Hoenn's best Pokemon and one of the best Psychic types.

As usual, let's talk about her design first. She has a very elegant look to her. The helmet on her head looks like a well-groomed haircut, and the flesh surrounding her body is made to look like a beautiful, flowing dress. At risk of sounding creepy, this is a beautiful Pokemon both inside and out. What I mean by that is Gardevoir is very protective of her trainer as shown by some of the Pokedex entries she has.

Because of that, Gardevoir has earned the title of the 'Embrace Pokemon'. She embraces her trainer as her own and vows to protect him/her with her life. And I don't know about you, but I love a woman who is dedicated to the person she truly cares about.

And her beauty gets increased further when she Mega Evolves into Mega Gardevoir, where it looks like she's wearing a white, strapless wedding dress…I love it! All we need is a veil and we're all set.

Going into abilities, Gardevoir has Trace, which allows her to copy her opponent's ability. There's Synchronize, which makes it so if she has a status inflicted upon her, then her opponent will be inflicted with the same status. And then there's her hidden ability Telepathy, which makes it so she won't take damage from a teammate in double or triple battles. While most of these abilities are situational, when the time comes for them to come into play, they really come in handy, especially Synchronize.

But when she Mega Evolves, Gardevoir's ability becomes Pixilate, which not only causes any Normal Type moves that Gardevoir may have to become Fairy-type moves, but they increase in attack power. So, hypothetically, you could have a Fairy-type Hyper Beam on your side! Hell yeah!

Next, we have Gardevoir's typing of Psychic and Fairy. You could argue that because of the introduction of the Fairy-type that Gardevoir got nerfed when compared to her appearances in Generations 3, 4, and 5, as she now has a weakness to Poison and Steel types…but then again, by having the Fairy-type, Gardevoir is now immune to Dragon type attacks, gains neutral resistance to Dark and Bug types, and resists Fighting types even more. I personally think that her new Psychic-Fairy combo works.

As for her stats, Special Defense and especially Special Attack are Gardevoir's jam, especially when she Mega Evolves (Side note, Mega Gardevoir gets a tiny boost in Physical Attack and more noticable boost in Speed). As you'd expect, she gets a lot of Psychic and Fairy type moves to play with such as Psychic, Moonblast, Dazzling Gleam, Future Sight, and even Calm Mind to boost her Special Attack and Special Defense even further. But for other moves, we have Thunderbolt, Shadow Ball, Aura Sphere, Energy Ball, Focus Blast, Charge Beam, and Magical Leaf for her to take advantage of.

All around great and powerful moves for a beautifully badass gal like Gardevoir. Now, this would be where I'd end things if not for the fact that…

(End BGM)

There's an alternative evolution.

Yup, in Generation 4, Game Freak introduced the Dawn Stone, which evolves Pokemon if they're a certain gender. As of right now there's only two Pokemon that can make use of a Dawn Stone. A female Snorunt can become Froslass, while a Male Kirlia can become…

Gallade!

(Insert Gallade cry here)

(BGM: Battle! Wally from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire)

Oh yeah! Now we're talking!

For those of you who thought Gardevoir was too feminine for your male Kirlia to evolve into, Game Freak has your back because Gallade is here for you!

Much like Gardevoir, Gallade has a very elegant and heroic appearance, looking like a brave knight with his helmet now resembling that of a gladiator, and having extendable blade arms! Also like Gardevoir, Gallade is an honorable Pokemon always looking to protect his trainer and aid his allies in battle. And just like Gardevoir, Gallade has his own Mega Evolution where his blade arms grow in size, look way more badass, and the flesh hanging from his back now looks like a flowing white cape. Yeah, Mega Gallade just might be one of, if not my favorite Mega Evolutions design wise.

For abilities, Gallade has Steadfast, which raises his speed every time he flinches. There's Sharpness, which powers up his slashing moves like Psycho Cut, Sacred Sword, Aqua Cutter, Aerial Ace, Slash, Night Slash, and Leaf Blade, all of which Gallade can learn! And for his hidden ability, he has Justified, which raises his attack power when hit with a Dark-type moves…make no mistake, you want your Gallade to have Sharpness (Shame it's only available in Generation 9, the generation it was introduced in…oh well)

As for when Gallade Mega Evolves, his ability becomes Inner Focus, which prevents him from flinching. A very helpful ability in my opinion.

As for Gallade's typing, rather than being plain Psychic or Psychic-Fairy, he becomes Psychic-Fighting and becomes a much better one than Medicham could ever hope to be, and that might be because of his stats and movepool.

Gallade's stats are pretty much Gardevoir's stats, only replacing a strong Special Attack stat with a strong Physical Attack stat, and when he Mega Evolves he gets a boost in Physical Attack, Physical Defense, and Speed.

And as for moves…dang, we already listed off some of Gallade's best and strongest ones back when he were talking about the Sharpness ability. But if, for whatever reason, those moves don't pique your interest, there's Close Combat, the elemental punches, Poison Jab, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Giga Impact, Zen Headbutt, and Draining Kiss for you to play with, and Sword Dance to boost his already busted Physical Attack stat.

There's nothing else to say about Gallade except he's freaking awesome!

So, with all of that out of the way, which of Kirlia's evolutions am I going with?

…

Duh, you've read the title, I'm choosing both.

They both are powerful in their own way, with Gardevoir being a good Special Attacker and Gallade being a good Physical Attacker, they both have beautiful and badass Mega Forms, they both represent the Psychic type well, they both have impressive movepools…they're just impressive Pokemon to have on any journey.

Granted, if I had to pick a favorite right now, like I'm in a situation where I have a gun to my head, I'd say Gallade is my personal favorite. But, honestly, Gallade and Gardevoir are so awesome that I really can't talk about one without talking about the other.

They make a perfect pair and they're both among my favorite Psychic types in the series…but for my absolute favorite Psychic type, well, we're still going to have to wait a while for that one.