SIGNATURE MOVES GAINED: Overdrive
and Eerie Spell
Pokémon: Kricketot-Galar
New Typing: Bug/Electric
New Abilities: Lightning Rod /
Run Away (hidden ability)
{Shed Skin replaced by Lightning Rod}
New Stats: 037 HP / 025 Atk / 041 Def / 025 SpA / 041 SpD / 025 Spe = 194 BST (same as regular Kricketot | Kricketot-Sinnoh)
New Moves: Eerie Impulse, Electric Terrain, Heal Bell, Lunge, Recover, Signal Beam, Snarl, Thunder, Thunder Shock, Thunder Wave, Thunderbolt, U-Turn, Volt Switch
Removed Moves: Night Slash, Slash, X-Scissor
Height: 1'00" | 0.3 m (same as regular Kricketot)
Weight: 4.9 lbs. | 2.2 kg (same as Kricketot-Sinnoh)
Flavor/Design: Kricketot actually has one of the cutest and maybe underrated designs in the game, possibly due to the absolutely garbage mon its currently doomed to dead-end into upon evolution--poor little guy. As such, the only visual difference betwen this and regular Kricketot would be that its antenna are stiffer, probably yellow or even golden, and probably have zigzag shape similar to depictions of lightning bolts like Pikachu's tail. I can see the end and sides of said antenna being rounded or otherwise blunt since something that stab the hell out of you generally isn't perceived as cute or cuddly.
Pokémon Sword: "The Kricketot of the Isle of Armor have stiff antenna that never knock together and instead serve as lightning rods that seem to help them mimic sounds."
Pokémon Shield: "They are generally skittish unless they sense a thunderstorm or another significant electrical source coming their way. Then become immensely stubborn about investigating them."
Not much to say about the little guy otherwise except that I find it funny that Joltik is bulkier than a mon physically bigger and fatter. It makes Kricketot seem all the more like a living plush toy, which is a bit ironic given my second entry, but that's skipping ahead.
{evolves from Kricketot-Galar when leveling up to level 10 or higher}
Pokémon: Kricketune-Galar
New Typing: Bug/Electric
New Abilities: Lightning Rod /
Technician (hidden ability) {Technician replaced by Lightning Rod}
New Stats: 077 HP / 070 Atk / 051 Def / 070 SpA / 051 SpD / 065 Spe = 384 BST {-15 Atk, +15 SpA}
New Moves (as Kricketune-Galar): Overdrive
Removed Moves: (same as Kricketot-Galar)
Height: 3'03" | 1.0 m (same as regular Kricketune | Kricketune-Sinnoh)
Weight: 56.2 lbs. | 25.5 kg (same as Kricketune-Sinnoh)
Flavor/Design: And here we come to a variant of the infamously worst two-stage mon evolution in the game. We don't have to stop here, unlike regular Kricketune at present, but it's still painful outside of getting access to that sweet, sweet Overdrive.
Pokémon Sword: "It uses its electrical abilities to manipulate the sounds of its music, including their volume. The more electricity it channels, the louder it can be."
Pokémon Shield: "It is a technical genius when it comes to music. It replicate a non-vocal song flawlessly after hearing it just once."
As far as the visual design of this, while Kricketune is nowhere near as cute as Kricketot, which is clearly another failure on Kricketune's part, its visual design isn't otherwise bad. So I wouldn't say it "needs" much of a change. As such, I imagine its main difference would be that its arms are rounded and blunt, which is why its lost all of slashing moves, so that it's better at playing, uh, itself. Otherwise, its antenna would stick up instead of drooping down into thinner rods, likely being shorter due to this, and its moustache would be in a zigzag lightning bolt pattern but likely still black. That's all.
{evolves from Kricketune-Galar when leveling up while knowing both Bug Buzz and Overdrive at once}
Pokémon: Orkrickestra ("orchestra" + "cricket" =
tongue-twist-er oar-crick-es-tra)
New Typing: Bug/Electric
New Abilities: Lightning Rod /
Proper Conductor* (hidden ability) *{Proper Conductor is just a differently named Punk Rock clone.}
New Stats: 097 HP / 080 Atk / 076 Def / 110 SpA / 111 SpD / 060 Spe = 534 BST {+20 HP, +10 Atk, +25 Def, +40 SpA, +60 SpD, -05 Spe = +150 BST}
New Moves (as Orkrickestra): Eerie Spell, Calm Mind
Removed Moves: (same as Kricketot-Galar)
Height: 5'03" |
Weight: 77.7 lbs |
Flavor/Design: And we come finally get back to the Kricketune "fix" idea I was alluding to last slate even though this amusingly isn't the remotely similar to my would-be fix for canon Kricketune otherwise. In fact, this idea came on a whim due to
Wiktionary's foreign word of the day for March 10th being a Chinese word that essentially means "electric cricket" apparently, at least when translated literally. That basically speaks for itself as far as inspiration for this goes really between that and the vaguely Chinese theming of the Isle of Armor, with this just being no longer constricted to abilities that didn't really help it from last slate since the only ones that made sense were the largely redundant Infiltrator and the somewhat mediocre on this Neuroforce.
Pokémon Sword: "One is a master musician by itself, and so many are sublime symphony. If you encounter two or more together, you will never forget it."
Pokémon Shield: "It prefers not to fight if possible and instead just travel playing and teaching music to others. If provoked, however, then it can defend itself sounds that put Toxtricity to shame."
I'm unsure how this would look visually beyond "bigger, actually useful Kricketune(-Galar)", but I'm a bit too tired to think about it having gone backwards. As such, I will note that the decision to give this Eerie Spell too was something I went back and forth on, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't break it and it at least uses it far better than Slowking-Galar ever could at present even with the lack of actual PSychic type STAB this has.