#263 - #264: Zigzagoon & Linoone

Zigzagoon in TCG art.

Only after the dark types Poochyena and Mightyena we encounter the generic rodent of this generation, Zigzagoon. It's basically just a curious-natured raccoon or badger Pokémon with zigzaggy fur and the tendency to restlessly maneuver between things that have caught its interest in a zigzag fashion, hence its name. Its lowest stats are its attack and special attack, so it's not very strong, which is the reason why it often plays dead during battles to fool opponents. Bulbapedia states that Zigzagoon is based on a tanuki, or a Japanese raccoon dog, but they're often thought of as mischievous but gullible and absent-minded creatures, being pictured as tricksters, masters of disguise and shapeshifters. Zigzagoon is none of these things; it doesn't have a mischievous nature and its battle style sure as heck doesn't make it gullible or absent-minded. Aesthetically, it looks like an ordinary raccoon rather than a raccoon dog, too, so sometimes Bulbapedia just sells us a bunch of raccoon shit. Even its foreign names don't refer to raccoon dogs in the slightest; the Japanese word araiguma, the French raton and the Korean neoguri all mean 'raccoon' - just 'raccoon' - while the Japanese anaguma and the German Dachs both mean 'badger'. No raccoon dog bullshit to be found here.

Linoone hugging a Quilava. So sweet.

Zigzagoon evolves into Linoone fairly early on, though, and it's upon evolution that the badger aspect starts to make sense. While its name still refers to it being based on a raccoon, Linoone looks more like badger than Zigzagoon does, and it seems that weasel-like creatures such as the stripe polecat may have been the inspiration for Linoone's design as well. Linoone is faster than Zigzagoon, being able to run 60 miles p/h in a straight line. It has to stop before it can take a turn and due to that it often fails to catch prey. Again, Bulbapedia refers to a couple of legends that speak of weasel-like creatures, especially the ramidreju in Cantabrian mythology (Cantabria is a historical community located in the north of Spain) due to this creature's desire for gold and Linoone's obsession with round obects, but even these seem a little unconvincing. Zigzagoon and Linoone are nothing but your average, ordinary early-game rodents, and not even good ones at that when you compare them to the generic rodents of other generations. Raticate's hidden ability is Guts and it has recently even received a brand new Alola Forme set to appear in Pokémon Sun and Moon, which will drop in a few weeks; Furret is slightly bulkier and stronger than Linoone and is much, much more adorable; Bibarel may very well be one of the most disliked Pokémon out there, but its access to the Simple ability and the move Curse may make it a force to be reckoned with; (let's not address Watchog's competitive utility here); and Diggersby has acces to Huge Power as one of its abilities, along with STAB Earthquake, which is easily one of the most popular moves in the games.

Linoone locked in an embrace with Furret. And yes, I chose this
image mainly because it involves Furret. Any opportunity to
post an image with a Furret in it is a good opportunity, dammit!

And to add insult to injury, Smogon doesn't even provide any X and Y movesets for Linoone (or Gen VI in general). With a little thinking you could come up with a moveset yourself, but the only viable Linoone is one you evolved from a Zigzagoon with Extreme Speed obtained in Ruby and/or Sapphire or one you obtained from the Jump Festa event in Japan or the World Championships in Korea, which were both held in 2015. You'll have to pray it has an Adamant nature so you can make maximum use of Belly Drum, which is a move that maximizes its attack stat in exchange for half of its HP and works best when Linoone is holding a Sitrus Berry to gain back some health. It's a risky tactic and may not always work, but Extreme Speed allows Linoone to sweep pretty much everything but ghost-, rock- and steel-type Pokémon after a Belly Drum boost. As for the two remaining moveslots, Linoone does have a decent physical movepool: it has access to some nice moves like Play Rough, Seed Bomb, Shadow Claw, Gunk Shot, Iron Tail and even STAB Last Resort, which hits fucking hard after a Belly Drum boost but can only be selected after all other moves have been used.

Linoone is... alright, I guess? I'm pretty neutral towards it, to be honest, but I don't hate it by any means. It'll get a passing grade from me, if only because its capacity of learning handy field moves - including Surf, mind you - makes it a perfect HM slave. I'm sorry I don't have anything more exciting or spooky to review for Halloween, but I'm reviewing all Pokémon in numerical order and it was Linoone's turn today. By the way, we don't celebrate Halloween in the Netherlands, so I honestly couldn't care less. I just thought I'd mention it because it's all over my goddamn Twitter timeline. Jesus fucking Christ.

Rating: 3/5