Onto another family of Pokemon that had a Baby Pokemon crudely sellotaped onto it, Jigglypuff’s family is very much a mirror of Clefairy’s in many way, right down to being a much bigger deal in early Pokemon than it is nowadays and both evolving via Moon Stone.

Unfortunately, one of the ways in which it’s alike is another worthless filler Baby Pokemon being added to the series. Igglybuff is perhaps slightly better than Cleffa all things considered, but both fall at the same first hurdle of asking whether the Pokemon needed to exist in the first place at all. The unkempt tuft of babyish hair that has yet to become Jigglypuff’s hair swirl could be interesting but the complete lack of ears is just not an interesting way to make a Pokemon look less developed and leaves it feeling incomplete and lopsided as a design, which regardless of intent isn’t good.

Jigglypuff, the sleeper reaper of Melee, in addition to its reputation as a headache for Smash Bros fans lives a secret double life as an incredibly underwhelming Pokemon. Through the anime, Smash Bros, and merchandise, Jigglypuff was definitely touted as one of the BIG important Pokemon back in the Red and Blue days, though it faded fairly quickly into the background and nowadays it appears to have been largely supplanted in its role by Pokemon like Eevee instead. It’s an inoffensive design but it’s not particularly engaging the way Clefairy is and feels largely like a cheap shot for merchandising pink things for the sake of it. This lack of anything to really care about in its design combined with an oversaturation of advertising has left me feeling pretty tired of this thing overall. Jigglypuff is also the basis of the first of many Paradox Pokemon I’ll be alluding to, in the Fairy/Psychic Scream Tail, which I won’t be reviewing in full just yet (Paradox Pokemon will be separate unlike forms and evolutions), but I will say despite it feeling like the Paradox Pokemon most there as Gen 1 pandering and the least interesting of them, it does expand on Jigglypuff’s most interesting traits in a positive and constructive way.

Sadly, the same cannot necessarily be said about Wigglytuff, who is once again a relatively ignored evolution of a famous Generation 1 Pokemon. Wigglytuff employs some rabbit-like elements upon using its Moon Stone. It’s immediately obvious why Jigglypuff is the more iconic of the two, as Wigglytuff doesn’t get to keep the more instantly recognisable balloon shape and instead just becomes more of a glorified stuffed animal. As a result of this it doesn’t really feel like a particularly thoughtful use of the Fairy typing and doesn’t really do much with it other than exist as a semi-counterpart to Clefable and entrench the unfair stereotype that Fairy is the resident type for generic cute things. It’s decently cute and its role in Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky is certainly a memorable and lovable one, but speaking more generally about it as a Pokemon, I really don’t think Wigglytuff hits the mark all that well.

Final Verdict: 3/10 – a passed over relic of old advertising without interesting features that inspire returning to it