#488: Cresselia

Cresselia radiates an air of beauty and grace.

Legendary Pokémon are relatively popular in general, and Cresselia is actually no different, but this Pokémon is annoying for two simple reasons. The first is that it's usually a roaming Pokémon in the Gen. IV games, which makes it a bitch to find and a bitch and a half to catch, as it has the tendency to run away one turn after it appears. Indeed, you'll have to come prepared if you're hunting for this thing and immediately put it to sleep with Spore or prevent it from fleeing with Mean Look. The second reason why Cresselia is annoying is its competitive usage, because its amazing base 120 HP as well as its base 120 defense and 130 special defense make it a tough cookie to crack. With a Calm or Bold nature you can crank up Cresselia's defenses even more (especially when you invest the right amount of EVs in the right stats), while the Leftovers heal it a little bit at the end of every turn. For more durability on the battlefield, most Cresselia have a moveset consisting of at least Moonlight, Toxic and maybe also Protect, while a move like Psychic provides excellent STAB damage in case of emergency. At least it needs something to attack with, right? Substitute might be a better option instead of Protect, while Reflect and Light Screen extend its longevity on the battlefield even further and Lunar Dance lets it faint in favor of fully recovering the Pokémon that is sent out after Cresselia.

And as Cresselia is tanky enough already, you could run an offensive set consisting of Calm Mind, Psychic, Moonblast and Ice Beam - Shadow Ball, Energy Ball and Signal Beam are good options as well, depending on what you need - although a Modest nature is surely recommended because of Cresselia's mediocre base 75 special attack. Boosting its special attack and special defense with Calm Mind every turn will definitely pay off in the end, though.

Cresselia engulfed in undulating light, while Darkrai is looking
on in darkness.

But Cresselia is ultimately more interesting in terms of design, origins and overall flavor. This Pokémon shares characteristics with the Sarimanok, a legendary fowl of the Maranao people who originate from Mindanao, one of the most southern islands - and the second largest at that - in the Philippines. This bird, whose name derives from sari ('cloth' or 'garment') and manok ('chicken'), has become an ubiquitous symbol or Maranao art and is often depicted with colorful wings, a feathered tail and a profusely decorated head. It is said to be a symbol of good fortune. Furthermore, the constellation Cygnus derives its name from the Latinized Greek word for 'swan', and considering Cresselia's crescent moon motif and the aurora-colored planetary rings around its body, it is more than possible Cygnus has been an inportant inspiration for Cresselia. While it's true that Cresselia looks very swan-like, it is mainly based on the shape of the crescent moon (its name may have even been inspired by Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon) and makes up one half of the Lunar Duo, the other being Darkrai. Darkrai is said to induce nightmares in people, however, while Cresselia is known to prevent or cure them, which manifests itself in the games by having the player cure a Sailor's son with the Lunar Wing found on Crescent Isle. What's more, those who sleep holding Cresselia's feather are assured of joyful dreams.

Shiny Cresselia is absolutely gorgeous!

And that's exactly why I like Cresselia more than the other half of the Lunar Duo. Don't get me wrong; Darkrai seems like an interesting enough Pokémon, but its design is weird and I am not usually drawn to Pokémon that tend to be portrayed as purely evil. There's a certain movie that actually contradicts that, but I'll talk about that when it's Darkrai's time to shine on this blog. The main reason why I love Cresselia so much is its design. In my opinion, Game Freak went out of their way to make it as graceful and beautiful as it could be. I would compliment them on Cresselia's shiny as well, if it weren't for the fact that from Gen. II to Gen. V shinies were created by simply letting the game's code switch up a Pokémon's color palette until they got a decent-looking shiny, while truly handmade shinies didn't appear until the sixth generation. I won't deviate from the topic by nitpicking too much about whether or not Game Freak is fully responsible for creating Cresselia's shiny, because at the end of the day it is still one of the most gorgeous shinies I have ever seen (the purple definitely helps!), but I just thought I'd mention it. If you look past its annoying catching method, Cresselia is just an amazing Pokémon overall - design- and flavor-wise as well as competitively. It may be one of the most average Pokémon out there when it comes to offense, but there is an excellent move that can fix that to some extent and it's still one of the best tanky support Pokémon to use in the competitive metagame.

Holy shit, because I barely even use it I never realized how much I really love this Pokémon.

Rating: 5/5