Squirtle and Squirtle and Squirtle Squirtle.

007: Squirtle

Squirtle has a bit more going for it than Charmander does, despite being partly the same as Charmander. It's still no Bulbasaur to me though. I appreciate it being so round. Round head, round body, round tail. Round Round. Round. Squirtle's got a charm to it I can appreciate.

War... tortle never changes.

008: Wartortle

Wartortle, like with Squirtle, is kind of the middle-ground of the middle-ground. It sticks out to me more than Charmeleon does, but I'd still rather have an Ivysaur. It's a bigger, smugger-looking version of its previous form just like the other two.

Now, its tail probably looks odd on the back of a turtle like that, but there's a reason for it! Wartortle has some ties to mythology, finding basis on the Minogame, which is an old turtle thought to have a big, fluffy tail. In actuality, it's just algae growing on said turtle's back. So at the very least, Wartortle has a bit of an “aha” moment that came with it for me.

The most canon Pokemon.

009: Blastoise

It's just a shame then that Blastoise just ditches it entirely. I mean, turtle with cannons is pretty cool, it just seems odd coming after something more based in folklore. Like a dropped character arc. Which is strange, cause you definitely could've kept the smoky tail but it looks like steam coming out of its rear when it fires out of its cannons. Or is that visibly too much like a fart? Oh, grow up! It could also be simple technological limitations, but even then the Pokedex did a lot of the heavy lifting to flesh out Pokemon in ways that simply weren't possible at the time, since it was such a simple 2D RPG.

That said though, Blastoise is another alright one. Though the cannons seem like an odd, inorganic addition. Hardly any other Pokemon has such a direct reference to firearms, and even the ones that do are much more subtle about it. Like how Remoraid looks like a revolver? Who even noticed that, looking at it for the first time?

But here's Blastoise. Literally with cannons on its back. Does that make it part machine? (If so, that's some Man-At-Legs stuff right there) Is it part of its skeleton? I'd imagine that would be the case. Skimming the Pokedex entries isn't giving me anything. The most I could find on it is Bulbapedia pointing out it could be based on the functioning tubes in some shellfish. Guess that's why it's classified as “Shellfish” oddly enough.

BLAM! KAPOW!

Mega Blastoise:

Mega Blastoise is about the quintessential Mega Evolution; take the Pokemon's defining features and amp them up to 11. So naturally, Mega Blastoise takes Engineer's advice and uses more Gun. Of the Kanto Starter Megas, this one's the one I'm the most -shrug- about. It's there. It's not Steel type for some reason. I appreciate what it does for Blastoise, and it's not an offensive design. It getting mini-shells for its arms is kinda cool, and I like that shape-wise it looks a bit like it's wearing a supersuit of armor like an Iron Man or Master Chief, at least a little bit. I would say what I would've done is do a more tank-like design where Mega Blastoise's main cannon is so heavy it has to stand on all fours, while patterns on its arms and legs are made to resemble tank treads a bit.