Let's Talk About Pokemon - Origin Form Dialga and Palkia

 

Spoilers of the story is in this review, so if avoiding that is your thing, fair warning!

Finally, Pokemon Gun

Origin Form Dialga:

Saved these for last since they're essentially this game's main legendaries, it's honestly a bit of a shocker this game didn't come with a new form for Arceus. Instead, Dialga and Palkia picked up new Origin Forms like their disowned brother, and the state of these forms is a little unclear. The Pokedex states these to be Dialga and Palkia's "true" forms, another Pokedex entry implies these two are appropriating Arceus' form to become more powerful. All that's really known for sure is that they're angry, they're the reason why space-time begins to collapse during the story's climax, and one of these two is slated to be the final boss depending on which you picked in the first place.

And Dialga is... something to look at, that's for sure. We have to assume these two are like, visibly a mess on purpose in a bit like the same way the fused forms of Necrozma and Kyurem look messed up. This is Dialga trying its best to force itself into the shape of Dad and not quite getting there, ergo it's all gross and malformed-looking. It even features Arceus' waist-ring, but only part of it.

We've also seen some comments about how Dialga looks like it has a lodge in its throat because that's supposed to be its "punishment" for appropriating god, something to block it from using Roar of Time.  (Same goes for Palkia except losing its arms since it needs arms to use Spacial Rend) Except we don't really buy that because it can still use Roar of Time in this form, in fact using this weird throat-hole like a cannon. (And Palkia can still use Spacial Rend too of course)

Still though... as much as we both preferred Dialga before, we did also admit Dialga's biggest problem was being a visual mess and this certainly doesn't fix that, haha. In the end we feel like we can at least appreciate it for just being kind of fucked up and weird, but I dunno. It just feels like it goes too janky-looking in a way that looks more comical than otherworldly.

Personal Score: 5.5/10

I prefer a battle of wits, but you're unarmed.

Palkia Origin Form:

Palkia's always had the problem that it doesn't really look like a deity over space in any way. And this new Origin Form... still doesn't. I GUESS if you really want to stretch it, you could say it's gone and manipulated space to rend features from several animals together, making itself part horse, part bird, part dragon? Eh, that's still grasping at straws but it's there.

Palkia does at least feel like a significant upgrade from regular Palkia, actually. Palkia felt kind of generic, and this weirdo makes a much bigger impact for us, and it's only warmed up to us more over time. We never thought Pokemon's first shot at a centaur Pokemon was going to be a new alternate form for Palkia of all things.

It's also neater that you can almost see precisely how bad it's malformed itself to look like Arceus; its front legs looking like it elongated its own arms into the shape of grotesque horse legs. We've seen "fixes" for this form that give Palkia its arms back, but we honestly kinda prefer it armless. Just as some kind of fucked up dragon centaur that sacrificed its arms for an extra pair of legs, leaving it as an awkward man-torso on top of a horse body. It's absolutely dumb, but in an actually kind of cool way.

Also note, it has the "other half" of Arceus' waist ring. We almost took this to mean Dialga and Palkia were actually two halves of Arceus or something, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Upon completing the Pokedex, you just meet Arceus as-is.

Personal Score: 8.5/10

Overall, Legends Arceus' new mons is a sizable step up from Gen 8's base set of Galar Pokemon, granting there was only a handful of new designs this time. Not all of them were hits, and nothing here's rocked our socks off either, us only being SUPER impressed with a new form for a Pokemon that was already a favorite of ours. But trending toward "pretty dang pleasant" is better than Gen 8's dip into just... feeling a little mediocre in the Pokemon design department.

And, welp, that wraps up not only Legends Arceus but also Gen 8 for sure this time. We could've sworn PLA was about to get more DLC and introduce a new Hisuian Form or two but no such thing, we're just moving straight on to Gen 9. Which kind of stinks because we were REALLY hoping Gen 9 wasn't going to be coming out until 2023. But now that the dust has settled on the fact that it's happening now, sure, fine, whatever. It's probably been in development since development on SwSh's base game wrapped up and PLA was a side-project. It's hard to tell how much PLA DNA is in Scarlet and Violet but still.

While there is plenty of evidence SwSh didn't exactly have the smoothest development cycle, it's still worrying to see yet another new generation so soon, like Pokemon Company's not learned a thing in the whole "don't rush games out before they're ready" thing. Just PLEASE be out because it's actually ready. ): And not because Daddy Pokemon Company needs a holiday release ): ): ): We just want these devs to have the breathing room to make good designs consistently again. ): ): ): ): ): ): ):

So, given the promise of PLA, here's hoping Gen 9 is stepping back toward a good direction for Pokemon, both in terms of being a good game and putting out banger monster designs again. The starters look nice, for whatever that's worth. That's certainly a better start then Gen 8.

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