Judge a Pokémon Express: Edition Two

Codraroll

At first glance, Bewear looks like a big, dumb teddy bear. I find this rather unfortunate. It's not like Bewear's design is bad, but its stock pose in official art makes it look a lot dumber than it is upon closer inspection—the same type of problem that Garbodor suffers from. Seen in other poses, Bewear looks a lot more interesting, cute, and well designed, but its official art and in-game model (as seen in trailers) definitely do not do it justice. Bewear suffers badly from poor posing. It does not convey any sort of personality or traits beyond "hello kids, I'm a bear."

That being said, even though the pose is the worst thing about Bewear's design, it is not the only thing holding it back. Bewear is shaped like a bean with assorted appendages glued on. Its arms, legs and tail are very crude and simple, lacking apparent joints or digits. Its face is very bland and generic, and the only thing separating the head from the body is an abrupt change of color. The "bowtie" tufts of hair add some features to the face, but it raises the question—why does Bewear have a bowtie?

All in all, Bewear's design is neither good nor well posed. I do like its name, though.

Codraroll

I'm not sure whether I can comment on Mimikyu's design at all. Like Tangela, Shellder, and Diglett, the design leans heavily on what you don't see. Mimikyu appears to be all covered up by a crudely made cloth doll, only showing a pair of eyes, a skirt-like feature showing under the cloth, and occasionally a limb of some sort.

The concept of Mimikyu deserves to be praised, though. A small, shy creature disguising itself to protect itself and to make friends. It's sad, sweet, and an original idea for a Pokémon design. It also appears to allow for disguises in several different styles, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Mimikyu disguised as other Pokémon as more info is revealed.

Codraroll

This strange, little arthropod Pokémon is reminiscent of a horseshoe crab, which also is the design basis for Kabuto. However, Wimpod elegantly avoids being a mere Kabuto copy, with its segmented body, large eyes, and anchor-like silhouette. The gray-and-purple color scheme is also unusual for Bug and Water Pokémon alike. Overall, Wimpod manages to be an original design despite sharing a design basis with previous Pokémon.

On a detail level, I must say I'm not that impressed Wimpod's eyes. Not only are they frozen in a permanent squint, the lower eyelids line up almost too well with the border between the body's two colors. It's as if the eyes were put in place first and the line drawn later. Its upper eyelids somehow arch in the opposite direction of the lower, giving the visible part of the eyeball a weird inverted arch shape. Wimpod's antennae also irk me as an engineer; they narrow to a point near their "roots" rather than widen, so their anchoring to the body is very flimsy. It looks like they would fall off at the slightest touch, or for that matter in a light breeze.

This is all nitpicking, though. I like Wimpod's design, and I can't wait to see it in play. Its flavour text mentions that it runs from approaching people, but it will approach them itself as long as they stand still. Wimpod also picks up garbage and dropped objects. I can imagine several ways to translate this into overworld mechanics. Here's hoping Wimpod delivers!

Codraroll

At a glance, Bounsweet is very reminiscent of Cherubi. A round, pink fruit underneath a tuft of green leaves. Bounsweet has a pure Grass typing, two preexisting and already widely distributed abilities, and it does pretty much nothing in its reveal trailer. Unless it evolves into something interesting, Bounsweet appears to be a very generic "dex-fodder" Pokémon. Then again, Cherubi evolved into something (technically) interesting, and it is still dex fodder.

There are silver linings, though. Bounsweet's flavor text is full of dark humor. They are commonly used as air fresheners, but they are sometimes accidentally eaten by curious Pokémon drawn by the scent. It can only move in jolly, carefree-looking bounces, so it gives off the impression of blissful happiness even when running from mortal danger. It is also mentioned that Bounsweet fight by rotating its calyx. Could this be a hint of a helicopter-like evolution?

Lastly, with the calyx "hair", face and color scheme, Bounsweet reminds me a lot of Smoochum. I can't be the only one, right?

Codraroll

• "Quick, what is the most Hawaiian thing you can come up with?"
• "Uh, a Kolohe? You know, that flower thing you wear around your neck?"
• "Brilliant! Make it a Pokémon! You have two minutes!"

That's roughly how I first imagined the design process for this Pokémon started. It must have been followed by an argument about whether excluding a secondary Grass typing from Flabébé was a smart enough move to warrant repeating. Comfey is literally 80% flowers, yet it retains a pure Fairy typing.

That being said, in its defense Comfey is not technically a ring of flowers. It's a small, bird-like creature carrying a ring of flowers. Knowing that, I immediately like it a lot better, even though its design concept is the exact same as that of Flabébé, only with more flowers and an added string. The "creature carrying object" (or "object-carrying creature"?) concept has been done with a lot of Pokémon previously, but this must be the first time the object is so much larger than the creature holding it.

Comfey's core design is an orange ball with a smiley face and fabulous, green hair. It's a simple design, yet effective, although Comfey itself is a little hard to spot among its flowers. Once you spot it, though, and learn from flavor text what you're looking at, Comfey is a lot more likable than it appears at first glance. Kudos to Game Freak for making a Kolohe-carrying Pokémon that is not a Hula dancer.

Codraroll

Despite horses being a common and diverse family of animals on Earth, we have had very few Pokémon based on them. Ponyta is technically a pony (it's in the name), Rapidash is an unicorn, so is Keldeo (unless you count it as a Kelpie—either way, not a horse), and Blitzle and Zebstrika are zebras. Straight-up, honest-to-Arceus, no-fluff horses have not yet been featured in Pokémon until Mudsdale. So, how does our first horse hold up?

I like it. At first glance, you notice its earthen colors. Brown, black, and red work together to reinforce Mudsdale's Ground typing. Its heavy mane and thick mud cover almost make it look armored. You can see traces of a very generic-looking horse underneath all the padding, but the padding is part of the design after all, so Mudsdale is definitely not generic!

Mudsdale's eyes hold a lot of emotion too. Are they droopy and sad, or determined and stoic? Hard to tell underneath that mane. Mudsdale is definitely lugging around a lot of extra weight, with all the mud on the mane, tail and hooves. Perhaps a good wash and a shave would make it happier—or deeply embarrassed? In any case, Mudsdale looks like a good companion and a solid worker. It will find its way onto many players' teams, possibly mine included.