#459 - #460: Snover & Abomasnow

Somehow I managed to take it upon myself to listen to every goddamn Eurovision song in existence during the past two and a half months. The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual song competition watched by more than 200 million people in Europe every year and has been around uninterrupted since 1956, with now over 1500 different entries, so it took a long time before I was done checking them all out. It totally explains my long absence from this blog, so I would like to apologize for that while I'm at it. But now I'm back, bitches! It's been a while since I posted a review - New Year's Eve, to be precise - so I wonder if I've still got it in me. Let's start where we left off, shall we?

Snover as depicted in TCG.

Today's topic is Snover, a cute little snow-covered tree Pokémon that is basically nothing more than a walking fir tree topped with a layer of snow. While its brown lower body resembles a pinecone of some sort, Snover is more likely to be the illegitimate love child of the Yeti and an evergreen tree. Sure enough, Snover live mainly on snowy mountains with little human contact, but they move to the lower reaches when the weather turns cold (Jesus fucking Christ, Snover, are you an ice-type Pokémon or what?) and returning to the summit in the spring, when it grows edible white berries with the texture of frozen treats along its midsection for some indiscernible reason. They are boldly inquisitive when it comes to humans, approaching them without fear and gathering around footsteps they find in the mountains. It's all very cute - even its 'hat' resembling three mountain peaks, which is a nice little touch - but Snover isn't nearly as fascinating as its evolution, as is the case with many basic-form Pokémon.

Abomasnow whipping up a blizzard. 

Abomasnow, whose name is an obvious play on the Abominable Snowman (a.k.a. the Yeti of Nepalese folklore), is where things start to get really interesting. This monstrosity is basically still a big walking tree, but the mustache-like appendages that cover its mouth remind me of Cthulhu, which is a classic creature within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities for being a gigantic octopus worshipped by cultists. It gives Abomasnow kind of a creepy appearance, that's for sure. Like its pre-evolution Snover, Abomasnow prefers snowy mountains to live in and appears only when snow flowers bloom. Once the flowers wither, it retreats to isolated areas, where it creates blizzards to hide itself from humans, even creating the legend of the Abominable Snowman within the Pokémon universe this way. The most interesting part about this is that Abomasnow is based on a certain phenomenon called juhyou, in which harsh winters in the northern prefectures in Japan cause landscapes to become white and ghostly and the trees to get completely covered in ice. It's an eldritch but stunning sight, and as the phenomenon only occurs in Japan, I have no doubt juhyou (literally 'frost-covered trees') were the main inspiration for Abomasnow's design.

Abomasnow is also the only name that is a play on the common term for a folkloric creature, as all of its foreign names suggest it has royal blood in some way. Its Japanese name Yukinooh (ユキノオー) literally means 'snow king' (yuki no ō); in its French and German names of Blizzaroi and Rexblisar, respectively, roi and rex both mean 'king', with roi being French and rex being Latin; and its Korean and Mandarin Chinese names of Nunseolwang (눈설왕) and Bàoxuěwáng (暴雪王) both contain the word wang, which of course means 'king' as well.

You'll see the actual Mega Abomasnow in a minute, but I wanted
to include this amazing piece of realistic fan art here for the sole
reason that it is outright terrifying. 

However, Abomasnow is all but a king in competitive play. Even when the sprouts on its back grow into huge-ass icicles as Mega Abomasnow, this Pokémon is nothing short of underwhelming. This is partly due to Abomasnow's terrible typing, as its grass/ice typing gives it weaknesses to no fewer than seven different types, one of them being a quadruple one to fire. Even its solid bulk (base 90 HP as well as base 105 defense and special defense) won't make it live a Fire Blast or a Flare Blitz, and there are a lot of people that have at least one fire-type coverage move on one of their competitive Pokémon, because fire is such a great offensive typing and resists all of Abomasnow's STAB moves. Mega Abomasnow is also excruciatingly slow as its back now has to support enormous shafts of ice, and I can only assume it has taken a hunched posture in order for its back to carry the weight of these icicles. It's not a terrible Pokémon to use, however, and a Brave or Quiet nature allows it to attack on both sides of the spectrum. With both physical and special STAB moves like Blizzard (100% accurate due to its ability Snow Warning summoning a hailstorm in battle), Wood Hammer, Giga Drain, Ice Shard (always hits first unless countered with another priority move or cancelled due to certain moves or abilities), Ice Beam, Energy Ball, Ice Punch, Seed Bomb and Avalanche (does double damage when acting last, but that's a plus with Mega Abomasnow's abominable speed star), you can expect this Pokémon to hit very hard. All moves vary in power and effect and could be tremendously useful, so pick whatever suits your needs. You could even opt to throw a few coverage moves like Focus Blast, Iron Tail, Earthquake, Outrage, Rock Slide, Shadow Ball and Brick Break into the mix or give its Swords Dance to give a boost to its attack. This here variety is why Abomasnow's Mega form is often used as a mixed attacker.

As for regular Abomasnow, I would not recommend using it whatsoever. It is significantly less bulky and offensive while it is only slightly faster, and it'll go down quicker than you can say "Motherfucker!" Yes, it has Soundproof, which nullifies all sound-based moves used on it, but it really doesn't matter if you're going to use Mega Abomasnow anyway.

The 'real' Mega Abomasnow.

Abomasnow is certainly an interesting Pokémon, and I have to admit that I quite disliked it when it was first introduced to us: it looked weird and creepy and it made me slightly uncomfortable. I have come to like this thing, however, even though it left me quite underwhelmed during the one time that I used it and its Mega in an X or Y playthrough. Its origins are interesting, however, and its Mega is a significant improvement compared to its original design, as it now looks like a terrifying, shaggy fur monster you don't want to encounter in the wild. It won't get a perfect rating by any means, probably not even in the future, but 4.5 stars ain't bad.

And we're off to a good start, aren't we? Just you wait until I'll be reviewing the next Pokémon on the list.

Rating: 4.5/5