179: Mareep
Mareep's a darling, simple little electric sheep. It's nice and fluffy, and the addition of blue to the usual black and yellow color scheme of Electric types is pretty nice. It's adorable that it's little more than a big ball of wool with feet, tail, and a head. Sheep in as simple a shape as you can get. I do however really like how it crosses over with thundercloud aesthetics, a thing I wish got carried throughout the whole line, because combining that with an electric-powered sheep is pretty dang clever.
Personal Score: 7/10
180: Flaaffy
Flaaffy is one a handful of Pokemon I didn't think much of for a while, until recently when I rediscovered this long-lost and forgotten cutie and ended up loving it. Flaaffy is quite a simple design, so I understand why it's not widely revered as even one of Gen 2's best Pokemon. But at the same time I just love anything that's fluffy and huggable. And Flaaffy is just too darn cute!
It's a lovely bipedal sheep that's adorably simple, cute, and looks like it doesn't quite accomplish such a feat by trying too hard. Or goes overboard on the anime looks. I like the nice color scheme that's unconventional for Electric types. Pink and black along with the blueish colors look nicer than you'd think. Flaaffy isn't mind-blowing, but still a very pleasant design.
181: Ampharos
Ampharos is another one of those designs I'm a little mixed on. I'm glad it's branched off into being more its own thing, but I still wish it kept some of its sheepy aspects. It looks so naked with no wool! That and I thought the thundercloud aesthetic was the line's whole point, but eh. Also kinda wish it kept Flaaffy's pink.
Ampharos is a nicely designed vaguely-sheep creature though. It's a strange mish-mash of features with sheep horns, flippers, and overall cartoon dragon-like proportions. Still though, it somehow manages to work very nicely together as a fun critter design that once again, isn't pushing any envolopes, but is still a very respectable design in its own right. I think I overall like Flaaffy just a LITTLE bit more, but I still think Ampharos is pretty neat.
Personal Score: 8.5/10
Mega Ampharos:
Mega Ampharos:Based on my gripes with Ampharos, you might thing I like this one better but... ehhhh... that's not quite what I had in mind. Mega Ampharos is one of the more amusing Megas, with mostly just a full head of hair all of the sudden and its tail turned all bushy. There's most definitely an appeal to be had in dopey Ampharos developing majestic hair, at the very least. It also picks up an Electric/Dragon typing, which it feels like it should've had in the first place anyway, but oh well.
Just, eh, Mega Ampharos just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't highlight the strengths of the design and what it adds just feels like meaningless doo-dads. They managed to both do too much and not enough at the same time. The gems dotting the tail feel like a bit much, and the horns look... I hate saying it... look poorly drawn to me? Like, what happened there? Those aren't even goat horns or anything like that. Just, bleh. Maybe there was a solid idea there but the execution is just a miss for me.
Personal Score: 4/10
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