Day 6: Blastoise

(BGM: Route 1 Theme from the Pokemon Anime)

So we're finally talking about our first starter Pokemon in this marathon today. What could be said about Starter Pokemon…Pokemons…Pokemen…the starters, that haven't already been said. They're the quintessential part of any Pokemon game, being the first monster that you embark on your journey with and all. And, more often than not, the starter stays with you throughout the whole journey, and they evolve into one of their respective games' strongest Pokemon, and most of them end up becoming fan favorites to boot (Some of those fan favorites you may or may not be seeing later on down the line).

Since we're using today to talk about one of these 27 magnificent creatures, I think it only makes sense to have the first starter we talk about be one of the original three starters from Red/Blue/Green/Yellow.

Venusaur is honestly my least favorite of the original trio, but he's still a good Grass-Type/Poison-Type with good Special Attack and Special Defense stats.

Charizard came very close to making the list. I mean not only is he the faster of the original starters, not only is his special attack stat fantastic, and not only does his Fire-Flying type give him immunity to Ground type moves, but he's a fire breathing dragon! And dragons are awesome! Consider him #51.

But then we get to the Pokemon we'll be talking about today…

Blastoise!

(Insert Blastoise cry here)


(BGM: Battle! Champion from Fire Red and Leaf Green)

I remember one episode of Family Guy where Stewie referred to the turtle as 'Nature's D-Student'...he clearly hasn't met Blastoise because this thing is a beast, both literally and figuratively.

Let's start by talking about that design.

Who'd have thought that an adorable little cutie like Squirtle would evolve into a giant monster turtle with twin cannons on his back! A lot of people give the original generation of Pokemons hit for having uninspired designs. To that I have two things to say. One, it's the first generation of Pokemon, but cut Game Freak some slack. And second, and I repeat, A TURTLE WITH TWIN CANNONS ON HIS BACK! How cool is that?!

Lyra: It's no fire breathing dragon.

Me: Beat it!

And when Mega Evolutions got introduced in Generation 6, with Blastoise being one of the Pokemon to get a Mega Evolution of his own, his design got even cooler! Now he's a literal walking tank with an even bigger cannon on his back, the blue parts of his skin looking like armor, and two smaller tanks on his wrists! You can see where I got the inspiration for Junior and his Dynamo Tortoise alias.

Lyra: Yeah, about that, when are you going back to making 'South Park Warzone Collection' stories?

Me: Persona 5 kind of took over my writing time.

Lyra: Of course! Damn Phantom Thieves take away everything; Your heart, your time, and my sanity!

And would believe I'm not done talking about Blastoise's appearance yet? Because when the DLC for Sword and Shield came around, Game Freak gave both Venusaur and Blastoise Gigantamax forms of their own, and in Blastoise's case, he looks like a freaking battleship! I seriously don't know how or where Game Freak comes up with these ideas.

Lyra: I can take a guess.

Me: 420, blaze it?

Lyra: 420, blaze it.

And now we finally come to Blastoise's stats and movepool. While Charizard and Venusaur specialize in attack (mostly special attack), the name of Blastoise's game is defense. His defense and special defense stats are 100 and 105 respectively, so he can take some abuse, even from grass and electric types.

And the stats on his Mega form, naturally, have even better stats than before! Now his physical defense is 120 while his special defense is 115…and he has a boost in both physical and special attack which went from 83 and 85 to 103 and 135, making Mega Blastoise a Pokemon that can not only take abuse but dish it out just as bad.

Blastoise also learns Shell Smash naturally to boost its attack stats as well as its speed, giving you the opportunity to strategize with him. However, if raising Blastoise's already impressive defense stat is your thing, it can learn Iron Defense.

But beyond that, Blastoise learns all of the water moves you'd expect him to learn like Hydro Pump, Surf, and Liquidation, as well as some other interesting moves like Ice Beam for Grass-Types, Earthquake for Electric-Types, and even moves like Flash Cannon, Dragon Pulse, Dark Pulse, Skull Bash, Zen Headbutt, and Aura Sphere if you want to play around with a diverse moveset.

Overall, Blastoise is the complete package. An interesting design that seems to get better with each new innovation the series introduces, as well as a diverse movepool and great defensive stats that make Blastoise a tank worth having on any Pokemon team.

I wouldn't say Blastoise is the best Water-type starter, but he's definitely in my Top 5 favorite Water-Starters.

Lyra: Charizard is still better!

Me: Nobody asked you!