Articuno, or as I like to call it, a "cold one."

144: Articuno

At last, we hit our first Legendary Pokemon. And the start of another (until recently) tradition of introducing three Legendary Pokemon in a thematic trio. First here, we start off with the Three Legendary Birds!

Pokemon's humble beginnings really show when you compare these Legendaries to ones from today. Modern Legendary Pokemon tend to be based on mythical stories, folklores, deities, and even in-universe are also those things. These three are treated a lot more like the Pokemon equivalent of cryptids, or at the very least are exceptionally rare Pokemon, since there seems to be the heavy suggestion they're not one-of-a-kind.

Articuno is the one I like the best out of these three, with it being simple but elegant. I like the ways it conveys an ice motif without just having chunks of ice on its body, like a long swoopy tail and a diamond-like head crest of what seems to be hardened feathers, plus the white "beard" it has. Out of the three, it definitely looks the most like a mythical folklore creature that would have fables told about it. The only things I'd change about its design would be to make its tail look just a smidge more like an aurora borealis, or maybe even give that treatment to its wings. And also it could do with having those red eyes emphasized more often, just because it really makes them stand out on a creature that is otherwise covered in soft, muted blues. That and it'd be terrifying to see those eyes peering out of the thick flurry of a blizzard.

Personal Score: 8/10

I could really use a comb.

145: Zapdos

I've honestly covered my current thoughts on Zapdos about the best I could when I reviewed its Galarian variant on the original blog. For a while I just couldn't put a finger on why I just couldn't buy Zapdos. It's a competent enough bird design, even if the ridiculously spiky angle is a bit predictable as far as Electric creatures go. But it's just... missing something. Something so fundamental that it's almost like it's the wrong species.

And yeah, Galarian Zapdos here really shined some light on that. While I'm not overly a stickler for realism in my critter design, when animal inspiration and attention to detail is such a big deal in Pokemon, it kinda stands out when Zapdos just looks a little too implausible for flight. Plausibility is an aspect of design I consider a lot with Pokemon in particular since, in the end, these are supposed to be animals in an at least somewhat grounded world. So when they turned Zapdos into a flightless ostrich-like bird, that's when the design finally clicked with me.

But back to Kantonian Zapdos, it is wicked-looking enough on its own to be sure. I really like the shape of its head in particular. Just yeah, its wings just look a bit more like they're meant for a flightless bird rather than something actually meant to be soaring through the air. But hey, at least these days, we got both flavors of Zapdos for viewing pleasure!

Personal Score: 6/10

By god, why did you set Fearow on fire?!?

146: Moltres

Moltres unfortunately gets the really short end of the stick here. While the other two are unique and at least a little bit cool, Moltres is kind of just every fire-bird I've ever seen. I guess I'll give it credit for not going with an obvious phoenix angle, but even so. It's a bird that's on fire, and that's all there really is to say about it. It's not bad, just a little underwhelming, especially when compared to the other two.