Another of Generation 1’s early mascot Pokemon and something of a recurring presence in Kanto era promotional material, we now take a look at a Pokemon that, despite supposedly being Junichi Masuda’s favourite, has gone relatively underappreciated without any new forms or evolutions in the years since its introduction. Nice that this gives me a small break from the Meowth Manifesto of yesterday.

Psyduck is a more cartoonish take on a duck than some of the other bog standard animal designs in this generation. It does seem to take physical elements more from a platypus but really it strikes me mainly as something more trying to be like a slightly anthropomorphic take on a rubber duck or other typical cartoon depictions of yellow ducklings, with the key emotion being some vacant dead-eyed bewilderment to subvert the typically jolly expression you’d expect of a creature like this. The severe migraines caused by its psychic powers make it a pretty tragic creature, most often depicted either in pain or wholly disassociated from said pain, so I feel a little sad for it. That being said, it’s kind of sweet that this is Masuda’s favourite Pokemon, which I’ve always assumed plays into why it’s one of only two Pokemon evolution lines to have appeared in at least one version of every single regional Pokedex in the series. I do wish they’d do a little more with it if it’s going to be everywhere constantly though, because Psyduck feels like it’s missing something and could do with its evolution line being revisited, though it’s at least charming and funny.

Golduck is sadly a pretty massive drop in quality as it loses almost everything that makes Psyduck as charming as it is and just doesn’t offer anything close to that in return. To its credit, Golduck does not take the route of evolving into more of a bog standard realistic duck and completely throwing out the cartoonish elements. Instead it appears to take more inspiration from a more developed, menacing abstraction of a duck, this time being more monstrous akin to the mythological creature: the kappa. However, while this works as an interesting subversion of typical duck traits it still feels too plain with the very bog standard monotone body that’s just a single shade of blue and fairly minimal distinctive features. The fact that it has psychic powers and has evolved past migraines could be interesting but it doesn’t feel like Golduck does much with it – while I don’t think we really needed a third Water/Psychic family in Generation 1 necessarily, Golduck might as well have had it to get on board with the others. What we are left with instead is just an uninteresting pure Water type that doesn’t have anything going for it mechanically and fails to deliver on the setup and potential of Psyduck. Due to this and its relatively simple design, I’d have to say that Golduck, more than any other Kanto Pokemon, feels like a middle stage in waiting.

Final Verdict: 4/10 – Psyduck’s cuteness sadly can’t save this line from feeling underbaked and overexposed. A break from their perfect attendance record or a new evolution would suit them nicely.