Team Skull are Just the Delinquents Pokémon Needs

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When most people think “Pokémon villain” they think of Team Rocket, as Team Rocket served as the antagonists for the first two generations of Pokémon, and continue to serve as antagonists in the Pokémon anime. However, for Pokémon fans who primarily enjoy the Pokémon video games, Team Rocket haven’t held the villainous spotlight since Heart Gold and Soul Silver.Team_Flare_Scientists_XY_anime

Team Flare, the newest ensemble of Pokémon bad guys, while interesting in concept, were pretty uninteresting overall. A team lead by a brilliant and fashionable scientist driven mad by his desire to turn the world into a beautiful place should have been threatening, but due to the abysmally low difficulty level of Pokémon X and Y, and the spotty characterization of Lysandre and his goons had a distinct lack of flare. These issues, coupled with the fact doomsday lasers aren’t all that scary when manned by a bunch of dorks in goofy red suits, make
Team Flare rank pretty low on the scale of Pokémon baddies.

This issue was also present in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. While I was a huge fan of the aesthetic re-designs of Team Aqua and Team Magma, they ultimately only received a bit more characterization than their pixelated counterparts on the Game Boy Advance.

Thankfully, our drought of fearsome foes in the Pokémon universe seems to be over, with the unveiling of Team Skull, in Pokémon Sun and Moon.

Team Skull are just the gang of criminals that Alola needed, with visual similarities to eastern European thugs and Japanese street gangs, Team Skull’s aesthetic is much more grounded in reality, making them more intimidating than the technologically advanced pirates and mad scientists we battled in the past few Pokémon games.

Team Skull also has the advantage of being in a full 3D game. Sun and Moon’s graphical stylings, which are on par with games like Pokémon XD, give the artists at Game Freak many more opportunities to characterize the gang. Even in the small amount of footage we have, we can see how Guzma, the team leader, is both physically intimidating the way he stares down the muscular Kukui, and also confident in the way he squats and nonchalantly motions his Ariados to attack in battle. We can also see how expressive the team skull grunts are, they way they talk with their hands and strike a pose before battling.

It remains to be seen if Team Skull, and Pokémon Sun and Moon in general will offer up any sort of challenging gameplay, but based on the unique and charming characters and Pokémon we have seen so far, in the words of Guy Fieri “We’re riding this bus to flavortown!”

team_skull_plumeria300px-Sun_Moon_Team_Skull_Gruntteam_skull_guzma

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617 thoughts on “Team Skull are Just the Delinquents Pokémon Needs”

  4. alright guys were just three months away until we get our hands on Pokemon Sun and Moon,which means we need to collect all the Pokemon as fast as we can! XD

    Reply

  11. Hey anyone want to battle with me? I’m bored and my summer work put me on edge so I need a battle to calm down a bit.

    Reply

  13. I found some VERY VERY LEGIT 100% Leaks that i didn’t find in my head.
    -149 new pokemon
    -25 alolan forms (Rhyhorn line is now Ground/Fairy and is pink)
    – Z-Megas, changes the second type or adds a second type depending on the ring
    – Mega Charizard X gets a new ability called Plot amour its immune to alot of things and can run Dragon claw and Blast Burn.
    -Rockruff evolves into 4 different evolution depending how loud you howl into the mic.
    – Guzma’s main Pokemon is a Alolan Stunfisk who is Dragon/Dark and has a unique Z-move
    – Poppilo second type is determiend by gender
    – Litten nothing changes
    – Rowlet Removed due to be nuked by Litten
    – PJN HQ is a place in Alola

    Reply

  17. Hey guys, I know this may be off-topic, but I just have this weird theory running thru my head, and again I apologize if it has already been discussed, but I keep looking at Rockruff and can’t stop thinking that he might be the spiritual successor/antithesis to Eevee. I mean, what if, because of his typing, we can get all of other types that have not been used yet for eevee, like steel, rock, ground, dragon, bug etc… kinda makes you wonder if that’s the “secret”…

    Reply

    • i feel like if it was the opposite per say to eevee it wouldn’t have rock as its primary type, maybe like dark, that seems more opposite to normal, but tbh I have no clue I just wanted to feel relevant lol

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      • well, I do hope they do something along those lines. I mean, the Eevee family has always been close to my heart (Jolteon and Umbreon are my top 2) so, I guess it would no be totally crazy to think about a new split evolution family, due to all the Alolan Forms and the Gen 1 “revival”… I mean Eevee and it’s family are part of the “precursors” of the Pokémon world…

        Reply

  18. Guys I have something to talk about, so i was seeing a video of Verlis (pls dont hate me bruh) about that Pyukumuku Quest. And he showed us a post and there was a picture of a drew by hand Pyukumuku and a weird animal (maybe evo idk). I’ll share it here so you can help me if this is true or fake.

    Reply

  22. So I had this idea. What if we make music, but instead of sounds, we use thin…
    I’m just kidding
    My real idea is that I’m gonna take the notebooks I have for my classes, print out a 6-page long Expand Palm and cut it out. Then I’ll put each part of Expand Palm on my notebooks and it’ll be arranged in the order I have the classes with 1st Period having the feet and body and the others have the neck and last period has the head.

    Reply

  24. Wow, I just realized how lazy the designs are for the team flare “scientists.” There are really just a few clothing options mismatched in different combinations..The only stylized thing about them is the hair and goggles…even the poses in the picture above are almost all the same.

    Reply

    • that was their whole motive though I believe, their version of making the world beautiful consisted of having everything pretty much be all the same across the board for the ideals of Lysander, I think thats why they did it, that or they were going for the futuristic police state vibe where a lot of people see us wearing all the same outfits so no one stands out. It works really

      Reply

      • Honestly I’m gonna have to replay the game soon and analyze them better. All I remember is that their plans were random and just seemed like a messy amalgamation of past teams.

        Reply

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