Day 11: Sigilyph

(BGM: Route 4 from Pokemon Black & White)

The late Chuggaaconroy was right about one thing in regards to the Pokemon Black & White games; the Pokemon found on Route 4 and the Desert Resort are excellent!

Lyra: What do you mean when you say, 'late Chuggaaconroy', he's not dead.

Me: To me and many others he is.

Lyra: I know what he did was messed up, but we can't ignore his exist-

Me: Chuggaaconroy is dead to me and I never want to hear his name around here ever again! Capiche?!

Lyra: Okay, geez!

Anyway, there are quite a lot of Pokemon found on both Route 4 and the Desert Resort that I like a lot; the Darumaka line, the Scraggy line, Braviary and Mandibuzz in the sequels, the Baltoy line in the sequels, hell you even get the Plume Fossil, the fossil that turns into Archen which evolves into Archeops, in the Relic Castle which is in the Desert Resort.

I'm here to report that there are two more Pokemon native to these areas that we'll be discussing in this marathon. So let's talk about the first of these two Pokemon; the Psychic-Flying Avianoid monster himself…

Sigilyph!

(Insert Sigilyph cry here)

(BGM: Vs Trainer from Black & White)

God I love this freaky thing.

Let's talk about everything that makes this Pokemon tick, starting with its design. First off, I just want to say that as far as Pokemon designs go, it's pretty out there. At first glance, with its weird wings, matching tail, black claws, and color scheme, Sigilyph has the appearance of a hieroglyph that you'd find on a tomb wall. Rather fitting given the area that you find this thing in.

In reality however, Sigilyph is based on a combination of the Avian Nazca Lines in Peru and the kachina dolls created by the Native American tribe known as the Hopi, who reside in Arizona. The latter part of Sigilyph's inspiration also fits well given Unova is a region based on America…granted it's mostly the New York Metropolitan Area and parts of New Jersey, but it's still America.

Lyra: America! Fuck yeah!

Me: Now is not the time or the place for that, Lyra! Sit down!

The only complaint that I have about Sigilyph's design is that, based on the shape of its head, I really thought it would be an Unown evolution. Misleading evolutions seems to be a theme with Unova, given it's the same generation that made us think Bouffalant was a Tauros evolution and Alomomola was a Luvdisc evolution.

I'm going off on a tangent here, let's talk about Sigilyph's abilities next, and hot damn they are so good!

For starters, there's Wonder Skin which makes status moves more likely to miss Sigilyph. And then there's the even better Magic Guard, which protects Sigilyph from indirect damage such as poison, burn, Curse, Leech Seed, Stealth Rock/Spikes, and weather damage. The Life Orb doesn't even effect Sigilyph when it has this ability, so it's free to hold it and take advantage of the attack boost without having to worry about losing health every turn.

Also for a hidden ability, Sigilyph has Tinted Lenses which powers up 'not very effective moves', but that's honestly the weaker of Sigilyph's abilities, so moving on…

Sigilyph's claim to fame is having Special Attack and Speed as its highest stat, and boy do they give him some fun moves that cater to that Special Attack stat.

Being part Psychic and part Flying, Sigilyph can learn all of the essentials like Psybeam, Psychic, Air Slash, and Air Cutter for attacking moves, and even moves like Cosmic Power, Light Screen, and Reflect to cover up its weaker defense stats. And, as usual, the fun moves are hidden behind Move Tutors and TMs. Through these methods, Sigilyph can learn Flash Cannon to fight Rock and Ice Types, Shadow Ball to fight Ghost and other Psychic Types, Dazzling Gleam to take care of Dark Types, Heat Wave to give Ice Types another reason to fear you, Energy Ball to give Rock Types another reason to fear you, and Ice Beam for the sake of variety.

I can safely say with no uncertainty that Sigilyph is in my Top 10 Favorite Unova Pokemon, and my second favorite Pokemon that you can find in the Route 4/Desert Resort area, and it has its great design, abilities, and move set to thank for that.

Just wish that Sigilyph really was an Unown evolution. Oh well, I guess Unown will always be that useless Gen 2 Pokemon that nobody remembers or cares about…it had an interesting gimmick though, I'll give it that.