Shing! Sparkle sparkle.

302: Sableye

Whoa! More than one Ghost type Pokemon, now they're really spoiling us! Sableye is an interesting little cave goblin, overall stout and hunched over. It hides away in caves digging up gemstones, which is apparently its favorite food. As denoted by the big diamonds it has for eyes. It's not just a neat visual for a ghost, but is also a funny alternative to cartoon characters whose eyes turn into dollar signs at the prospect of becoming rich.

For our money though, Sableye could be a bit more. It's always felt like a Pokemon that should've evolved into a taller, lankier thing with unsettling crystalline growths on its body. Sableye just feels weird as a stand-alone Pokemon. Furthermore, we feel like the guy is also mistyped. It's clearly been given the Ghost/Dark typing for the lack of super effective weaknesses, but Rock/Ghost could've been a neat typing too. Especially since Ghost would've negated Rock's weakness to Fighting! Sableye is even outclassed by the same-typed Spiritomb a generation later and doesn't even have the "weak to nothing" gimmick anymore thanks to Fairy! Poor guy could use an update.

Sableye itself though is a cute enough design, seemingly based on a particular western cryptid that's one of the lesser-known ones by today. The Hopskinsville Goblin! Which, it's hard to deny Sableye is the spitting image of, though it's funny they incorporated an alien visitor cryptid as a cave-dwelling ghost of all things.

The creeper's tryin' to steal our stuff again!

Mega Sableye:

Hmm, not quite what we meant, especially since Megas were apparently a temporary measure, in which Sableye's gone back to being an awkward lonesome Pokemon with no evolution. Like, maybe let's not do form gimmicks anymore if there's no intention to keep them around, for exactly this reason?

Anyway, Mega Sableye is a rather simple Mega that changes Sableye itself very little, mostly just making its eyes red and some gold teeth as a funny touch. Its main feature though, being the fact that the gem in its chest has grown a ton and it now hides behind it like a shield. Cute! It's nicer as one of the more lowkey Megas, which do have a tendency to go overboard.