Well, here he is: a Pokémon created entirely from submissions by readers of this blog, with the neatest ideas chosen by an interminable series of polls. Credits for individual contributions are all at the end.

Krakentoa, the Deep Flame Pokémon

Height: 22’7" – 6.9m

Weight: 492 lb – 223.2 kg

Black ‘dex entry: It occasionally bites rocks and ignites them to scare prey. The explosions are often mistaken for underwater eruptions.

White ‘dex entry: It absorbs heat by latching onto underwater vents. This makes it glow brighter, in turn attracting prey.

Black 2 White 2 ‘dex entry: They gather in groups and spew hot oil at Wailord pods. Then, the group emerges to feed on the remains.

Stats:

HP – 65

Attack – 92

Defence – 41

Special Attack – 123

Special Defence – 55

Speed – 125

Abilities: Illuminate, Sniper, Insomnia (DW)

Base experience yield: 221

EV yield: 2 SpAtk, 1 Spd

Base happiness: 70

Time to hatch egg: 26 cycles

Catch rate: 30

Experience growth: medium slow (max. 1,059,860 exp.)

Art by Adam Dreifus

Stat spread and movepool by Thatswhatbradsaid

Concept by Chewiana Jones

Pokédex entries by Lucas

Name by crazedgamer111

Species designation by Random Access

So. What do we take from this?

Well, personally, I felt the whole thing was really kind of a pain to co-ordinate and took far longer than it should have, but I suppose we did get a pretty cool Pokémon out at the end of it, right? I’m quite happy that he came out as a deep sea Pokémon, since the deep ocean is just fun to think about – dark, mysterious, alien – and I think we could do with more deep ocean Pokémon that aren’t legendary like Lugia and Kyogre. This guy does that quite nicely with the opposition to Wailord that we’ve got going. The vaguely mechanical steampunk-y appearance is also a nice contrast to the typically more organic style of aquatic Pokémon.

As far as battling aptitude goes, I think this is probably a nice balance. The ludicrous speed and multiple extremely powerful special attacks allow Krakentoa to fill a variety of offensive roles with gusto, but the Stealth Rock weakness, cardboard defences and uninspiring abilities hold him back from being truly ridiculous. Well, in theory at least. Goodness only knows how this critter would perform in practice.

I’m not sure I have much more to say here. I think I’ll just get on with trying to wrap up my White 2 playthrough journal (which, let’s be honest here, is getting ridiculous; I actually finished the game weeks ago, it’s just taking me this long to write it). Chris out.