Now we move onto the last of the three Kanto starters: Squirtle. Squirtle is, simply put, absolutely adorable. Turtles and tortoises are some of my favourite animals ever, and Squirtle’s sheer cuteness made it appeal to me so much. While Bulbasaur is my favourite now and Charmander was my pick when I first played the postgame of SoulSilver at 10, it was Squirtle who stole my heart for most of my teenage years and particularly through the Mega Evolution era of the series. Squirtle also gets bonus points for being fun in Smash Bros much like Ivysaur did (Charizard had enough to talk about as is and the other two do most of the work for Pokemon Trainer), being very fun as a faster character who doesn’t have to bear the brunt of being so easily knocked out when you can easily swap to Ivysaur. It’s a beautifully simple blue turtle with delightful colouration and adorable demeanour, and I love it dearly.

Moving onto Wartortle, it iterates on Squirtle in a lot of interesting ways, looking fiercer with wing-like ears and a more imposing tail, with a darker blue to convey its personality more effectively. This all sounds positive, but I think Wartortle suffers from another kind of middle stage blues that’s basically the opposite from Charmeleon. Wartortle really offers a lot to love, but unfortunately these things are all lost, like tears in the Rain Dish, as Wartortle retains almost none of the things it develops after evolving from Squirtle when it eventually evolves into Blastoise. This is most likely due to them being entirely separate evolution lines for a long time, as evidenced by datamines of leaked Red and Green prototypes with data showing two Water turtle evolution lines, with a hypothetical Wartortle evolution and Blastoise pre-evolution being cut during development. While Wartortle has so much to like, given almost none of it sees long term use it’s a little hard for it to leave a lasting impression, when Blastoise takes an entirely different route.

Now as for Blastoise itself? It’s a really cool design in its own right. Blastoise is for people who think subtlety is for cowards and the giant cannons, while obtuse and lacking in an a particularly compelling reason for suddenly being here, are very fun and give an immediate wow factor to rival Charizard’s intuitive draconic coolness well. The idea that it’s classified as the Shellfish Pokemon is utterly baffling, but that’s small potatoes. Unfortunately, I think Blastoise has always struggled to stand out mechanically and has quite a boring stat line, which shouldn’t be the be all, end all but does make it quite bland to use in-game. Its very interesting coverage options being locked behind Egg moves doesn’t help with this, though I will say Blastoise as a Shell Smash abuser isn’t something I’ve had a chance to use yet. I bring this up because it somewhat undermines the water cannon fantasy (though to be fair the modern tragedy of Blastoise’s 3D animations does that more). Ultimately though, Blastoise is a great design, I just wish it used more of what makes Wartortle a great design and that lack of cohesion leaves me wanting.

Mega Blastoise and Gigantamax Blastoise do nothing to rectify that discrepancy, but that’s not really what those mechanics are meant to give. These Blastoise forms are all cannon, all the time. Personally, I like Mega Blastoise committing to being so goofy and over the top, and only wish that all its interesting Mega Launcher coverage was available naturally rather than breeding with a Clawitzer, and that its very cool ability was useful for more than a total of 6 moves (only 4 of which it actually learns). The fact that not even this form of Blastoise really gets to use its cannons makes it feel a little underwhelming and the lack of incorporation of the flavour of its ability into one you’d train during the story of X & Y really combines to make it feel like something is missing. Ultimately, Mega Blastoise is a fun, exaggerated design but feels quite clunky and like it’s left not really having a defined interesting niche or role. Gigantamax Blastoise, however, I think is the better design of the two enhanced Blastoise forms. The darker colours of its body and shell, and more cohesive cannons work a lot better than Mega Blastoise’s more obtuse triple cannon aesthetic in my view. After all, what’s better than 3 cannons? 31 seems like a good shout, and these ones actually get used in animations, finally! Gigantamax Blastoise never really got much chance to shine but was certainly a nice thing to have while it lasted.

Final verdict: 8/10 – There’s so much to love, but a lack of cohesion in design elements leaves progression feeling clunky and less satisfying