Every Weird Evolution in Pokemon Ranked (Gens 1-9)

Finally its here! I've been whining about the less straightforward pokemon evolutions so is here my entire extended thoughts on the matter. I think as much as I complaining learning how to evolve and get some of the rarer ones is fun by itself. also my first time trying some big escapade so let me know what you think!
Intro 0:00
Criteria 1:40
Exceptions 2:51
Annihilape 3:31
Galarian Farfetch'd 4:43
Hisuian Qwilfish 6:49
Stantler 8:48
Hitmon Line 10:13
Feebas 13:15
Hisuian Basculin 15:09
Pancham 18:30
Milcery 21:12
Goldhengo 25:28
Tandemouse 27:55
Kingambit 29:27
Palafin 33:23
Melmetal 34:51
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Twitter: / star_drew2
#pokemon #pokemonscarletandviolet

[@grlluigi]

HATER ALERT 🚨

[@jkh2004]

Something about Hisuian Qwilfish and Stantler, is that the pokedex research tasks give a _very_ subtle hint on how they evolve. Qwilfish has tasks to use Barb Barrage and Strong Style moves, and Stantler to use Psyshield Bash and Agile Style moves. If you were trying to fill out their entries as efficiently as possible, it isn't a stretch to come up with the idea to use the required moves in the required style.

[@BlazingAzureTheta]

Yeah that's what I thought too. I actually got Overquil by accident trying to fill out some of Qwilfish's entries.

[@MousaThe14]

Yeah I feel the game giving you a guide through the Pokédex requirements Legends Entries makes this easier for a normal person to figure out on their own.

[@AnimaLepton]

Yeah, I was going to say, it's not even subtle. If you work on their Pokedex entries, and see that those two can be done together, you'll "naturally" try and knock those out at the same time and therefore get the evolution.

[@SeanORaigh]

Not really. Every Pokemon has moves and styles that increase their research level, but it's not truly fair to say that doing something as ridiculous as using a bad Pokemon like stantler with a bad move like psyshield bash and in a bad style like agile 20 whole times just to evolve it is hinted at by the research tasks.

[@frousteleous1285]

@@SeanORaigh But it really is. The research requirements require you to do two different things that can be done at the same time. If both are done at the same time, you will get to that evolution just fine, just as @AnimaLeption said. It's also made clear that Stantler evolves, so you would be trying anything that the game has given to you. Stantler being "bad" or one of the only two battles styles being "bad" is completely opinion based and has no merit on the evoltuion method itself.

[@wowthatsprettycoolhuh]

Special mention to Feebas for being potentially locked out of evolution; if you max out its sheen without reaching the beauty requirement, it won't eat any more pokeblocks and you have to get a new one to evolve

[@AnimaLepton]

Fortunately only an issue in Gen III and IV. ORAS got rid of sheen so you can feed it infinitely, and every other game from B/W onwards just makes it a trade evo with the Prism scale

[@MajoradeMayhem]

Literally happened to me. The Sheen mechanics make no damn sense.

[@edenengland1883]

technically you can lock a vast majority of pokemon out of evolution, its not really unique to feebas, just "easier" with feebas (although you do still really have to go out of your way to lock yourself out of evolving it)

[@ASMRDoodlez]

I did that as a kid. I didn't even know how hard it was to catch one, and I probably got its beauty within 10 points of evolving. I then leveled it up to 100 because kids really don't have much to do.

[@treespawned7844]

Also true for Meltan if you transport it to any game other than Go.

[@JKaelynVictoria]

can't wait for gen 10 when i have to evolve my ben shapiro coded calico cat pokemon by watching 100 hours of the daily wire and connecting it to myNintendo

[@JKaelynVictoria]

this video is an INSANE banger btw if that wasn't clear

[@apocrypha5363]

He would be so impotently furious about being a calico, since they're (aside from very rare mutations,) all female. 😂❤😊

[@Terminaut1]

Then it'd be Brett cooper cat

[@RideDatDonkey97]

​@@Terminaut1Brett Cooper more like Butt Pooper

[@Guimhj]

A competitor for worst sentence ever uttered

[@klhx]

female bisharp need a Queen chess piece evolution tbh. they should let bisharp become a parallel for the ralts/kirlia line

[@justins340]

I just named mine Queengambit

[@hexterspectre1191]

honestly I never noticed how much the Pawniard line mirrors the Ralts line before reading this comment. the Pawniard line’s typing perfectly counters the Ralts line’s (Dark > Psychic, Steel > Fairy), all of them seem inspired by knights or at least medieval combat to some degree (yes, even Gardevoir - its original name was Sirknight after all) and while Gardevoir and Gallade’s dex entries often focus on them defending and protecting people they care about, the Pawniard line’s dex entries are mostly about how brutal and merciless they are. it kinda makes me think about an in-universe JRPG where a Gardevoir and a Gallade are heroes who go on a quest to defeat the evil overlord Kingambit!

[@gloweye]

I strongly agree that they can get away with ten times the complexity if there's sufficient hints in the games. Like for Milotic, put a random contest girl NPC somewhere who wonders aloud how beautiful a Feebas could become with proper effort.

[@GreatBeanicus]

I actually got Runerigus on my own by accident but couldn't figure out why. I'd been training in the area and had passed under the arch plenty of times. Had to look it up after the fact. Like the idea, but it's not great execution. And really all we need for the inkay thing is an NPC saying something like "I dropped my pokeball and it landed upside down. My inkay copied it and suddenly evolved!"

[@Kekistani_Insurgent]

I was thinking a girl doing a handstand early on at the first beach. She’d start gushing about how she loves gymnastics and standing upside down, but would then mention her surprise at her Inkay copying her and evolving, finishing it off with a detail about how it was specifically at the end of a battle. What I guess I’m saying, is that there’s a multitude of ways this could be done, and it just isn’t done

[@dancinginthedust9899]

Can we also mention that like 90% of the time the Inkay wouldn't even register the DS being upside down, so most of the time it wouldn't even work

[@jazzercise300]

Yea, always wondered about that

[@thetalker.7304]

And now they close down the dc servers

[@FlareStorms]

​@@thetalker.7304no, they're still up. For now

[@browserjunior4707]

Farfetch’d is interesting cause the difficulty is solely dependent on if you’re lucky or not. If you’re lucky and get the Leek item you could theoretically get it almost immediately and if you have a Dire Hit you can always get a Guaranteed Crit. The issue then becomes finding a trainer or Pokémon tanky enough to handle 3 Crits.

[@anacondra2293]

I just got a really low farfetch then found the beefiest magikarp I could find

[@2shy2guy52]

I caught a farfetch'd on route 5(?) and found a metapod in the wild area after I beat the game.

[@user-wi2lv5lr3v]

I just taught it false swipe until I got 3 crits.

[@Wailerman]

High level Metapod

[@theccarbiter]

Do trainers just not carry three Pokémon anymore ?

[@bewearstar9462]

Surprised mantyke isn't in this video it only evolve from level up with a Remoraid in your party

[@ianfinrir8724]

That kinda makes sense, though.

[@clv735]

​@@ianfinrir8724it does?

[@samelol8149]

​@@ianfinrir8724only if you have ever seen the pre gen 6 sprite of the manta ray

[@ianfinrir8724]

@@samelol8149 Well, considering I stopped playing at Gen 3...

[@waltascher]

@@samelol8149Pre gen IV. Ironically the gen that introduced Mantyke and its peculiar evolution is the same one that got rid of the clue to its evolution.

[@bathestyles6525]

Surprised you didn’t add Nincada’s “evolution” to Shedinja. That blew my mind as a kid

[@najoheuer]

Yes, and it's super unintuitive too. It's really rare to be running around with an empty slot in the party. I doubt many people naturally discovered Shedinja

[@theccarbiter]

@@najoheuerI mean that early in the game it’s not unheard of

[@elijahpadilla5083]

​@@theccarbiterBy the time you're at the levels Nincada becomes Shedinja/Ninjask, at least in Hoenn, you'd have just defeated Wattson and be either on the way to or in the middle of going after Norman. Considering how loaded the early game is for Hoenn, and all the HMs you need, you could definitely have a full team by that point.

[@Jlaps941]

@@najoheuerand you have to have an extra regular poke ball in your bag since Gen 4, or you still won’t get Shedinja

[@dushyantsingh5674]

But that's not technically an evolution as the nincada evolves into ninjask only but a random shedinja joins your team. So nincada did not evolve into shedinja.

[@wootmasterzorsx]

I’m willing to give Wyrdeer and Overqwil a break since they have the research tasks to act as a hint on what to do. “Okay, I wanna fill the Dex, what do I do for Stantler? Psyshield Bash 40 time? Okay. And agile style moves? I’ll just do two things at once, save some time.” Not everyone will do that, but it’s there as something to at least hint the player along. Basculin gets an even bigger pass since I don’t want it fainting when I do all this using Wave Crash Dex stuff.

[@cinnasauria]

Oh, one you didn't mention was Sliggoo evolving into Goodra if levelled over 50 while it's naturally raining in the overworld. Some of the older games have location-specific evolutions too, like Glaceon and Leafeon. You'd think that "being in a magnetic field" sounds pretty specific until you see Runerigus. It's funny that that got something so ridiculous while the others were simplified to use evolution stones instead.

[@psuedonym9999]

Special mention as to why this made both of my Sliggoos (in both Y and Legends: Arceus) not evolve until *after* the credits. In the case of Y, I just didn't know about its evolution method. Ditto for Doublade, and it doesn't help that the only 2 Dusk Stones you can get outside of super training and inverse battles were in a side cave that I think I was blocked out of until the post game (but in any case I wasn't too interested in anyways) and from a Flare grunt in Laverre City... in the postgame. But by Legends: Arceus, I had already learned from my previous mistake... or so I thought. My Pokemon team in general was being kept unevolved somewhat past their evolution levels, both to fill out their research tasks more and to actually be able to use each of their stages in battles sufficiently (due to lack of of trainers in this game). I thought "ok, I'll evolve my team into their final forms after the 5th noble". Little did I inow that there was a certain plot tunnel brewing on the horizon, and that plot tunnel had a curious effect on the sky, which *prevented* the weather from being anything but, well, you know. And this only affects Sliggoo.

[@metademetra]

So when I saw "spinning" on Serebii, I thought that meant there was a dedicated machine for making Alcremies. I would very likely spin randomly in my playthrough, but there's no way I would know I would need to spin a VERY PARTICULAR WAY to get the Alcremie I want

[@TuftyTaltan]

At the very least spinning will always get you an evolution, if you want a particular kind then you probably looked them up and can look up the next step, though I guess you'd have to get a new milcery to be fair

[@apocrypha5363]

I was peeved when I realised that the fact I'd said: "No, why would I want my Bonsly to learn Mimic, Mimic's barely useful, don't bother, Bonsly!" Meant i couldnt get a Sudowoodo... But, meh, Bonsly's super cute so keeping it was fine.

[@treespawned7844]

There is always the move relearner for that

[@Kekistani_Insurgent]

If not for the Move Reminder, I would have locked myself out of a shiny Mr Mime this way. I thought it was just a friendship evolution…

[@klhx]

"how was i supposed to know that Fire Red and Leaf Green didn't have an in-game clock - as a child?" this one is so real. all i wanted was umbreon, so imagine my disappointment...

[@SockieTheSockPuppet]

The Arceus Mons have hints to the evolution process in the PokéDex.

[@denpadolt9242]

Honestly shocked that nobody mentioned Karrablast and Shelmet. They both evolve via trade... but ONLY with each other. If you trade a Karrablast for any Pokemon other than a Shelmet, it won't evolve, and vice versa. They're the only Pokemon in the entire series that work like that, and since they aren't version exclusives, you wouldn't be trading two mediocre Bug-types with a friend unless one of you already knew about the evolution thing. Plus, this was in Gen 5, before almost every other similarly arcane evolution method.

[@obits3]

Crazy Idea: A Pokémon that evolves by having six of it in your party. All six combine leaving one Pokémon. Even Crazier Idea: You can only have a shiny of the evolution by having six shiny versions of the pre-evolution in your party. Stats are averaged. Ability is based on the majority or random if there is a tie.

[@TyBonafede]

exeggcute

[@Robokittenremix]

Falinks gets a baby form

[@psuedonym9999]

Another crazy idea: a poison type bird pokemon based off of a plague doctor. How do you evolve it? Simple. Level it up... With P O K É R U S

[@TuftyTaltan]

​@@psuedonym9999 Nooooo you villain! That's brutal

[@elijahpadilla5083]

Introduce a "spirit of vengeance" type mon that can only evolve if another of its kind is in your party that fainted in battle, and it then won said battle.

[@ianfinrir8724]

17:08 The reason Galarian Yamask evolves with 49 HP has to do with the idea that a person's soul leaves their body after 49 days after death. And the Malamar evolution is a reference to an old playground rumor that Lickitung evolves that way.

[@psuedonym9999]

I have never heard of that rumor.

[@thirdwheel9938]

I'm pretty sure the 49 is because "shiku" (49 in japanese) means "painful death"

[@ianfinrir8724]

@@thirdwheel9938 I'm just telling the way I heard it

[@aviemoreno9721]

That "ooh, good job Qwilfish" killed me bruh 😭😭😭 good video, been watching em all morning, keep it up

[@JaxDaHax1]

My man included Pancham evolving with a dark type in the team, but missed Mantyke evolving with a remoraid

[@Vandel96]

for farfetched, i think you can equip a leek and use slash to guarantee crits, so not really hard as wild farfetched have 50% chance of holding a leek

[@pageclayton6850]

It's simple to just use false swipe

[@psuedonym9999]

@pageclayton6850 read the comment you're replying to again.

[@pageclayton6850]

@@psuedonym9999 I don't understand your comment? The most difficult part about evolving galarian farfetch'd is that you have to get all 3 crits in a single battle, and if you use false swipe instead of Slash, you can get all the critical hits on a wild pokemon instead of having to track down someone with specifically 3 or more pokemon to fight.

[@psuedonym9999]

@@pageclayton6850 There's plenty of story trainers that have 3 or more pokemon. Why avoid using leaf blade and not have a 100% chance of a critical hit for each strike?

[@TheRedSmarty]

Something to account for is that the traditional Pokémon games are intended to be played alongside other people. These Evolutions (outside Legends: Arceus) were likely designed with that in mind. As a group effort. For weird specific Evolutions in Legends: Arceus, the Pokédex research tasks hint at them.

[@Aerafuz]

Yeah but considering the Pokémon community as a whole with their "I don't want to talk to other people" mindset, it's fairly easy to get people like Droomish who will play a game solo and complain that they have to interact with others in order to get Pokemon. More often than not complaining about having to interact with other people, in social networks that allow them to find people who could trade with (and trade back) fairly.

[@UltimateFunBilly]

Annihilape is also hinted at if you take Jacq’s classes.

[@jasontheslate]

For strong and agile style evolution moves i think there is the pokedex entry of these pokemons that you complete like that. So you can do that in game without guide if you try to complete those

[@GreatBeanicus]

This is actually how i ended up evolving both of them. I actually really like poison types and wanted to figure out how to get qwilfish to evolve. So i did its dex entries and evolved it

[@molberding5]

It’s probably not something you’d figure out immediately while playing (it took me a little bit to put the reasoning together and I do agree they should give more hints), but the idea of Pawmo into Pawmot is that it builds up static electricity, or rubs its pads like a defibrillator (likely why it gets Revival Blessing). That might also be why it gets more hair when it evolves. It’s standing up from all the electricity

[@shogundy1]

Runerigus can take all of my pain, anger and fury for being my last Dex enter in Sw/Sh >:(

[@fiddlewheelx]

Gholdengo to me makes sense... You are on a treasure hunt, the Gimmieghoul horde gold coins, and then when you get a max of those coins you get the greatest treasure of all: a cool best friend made of gold who can do snowboard tricks.

[@roaringthunder115]

It was so hard getting the leader bisharps to spawn. Like you said, it’s so much sense, but it’s so hard to get them to spawn without a sandwich.

[@DrawnToast]

I don't know, Finizen evolving into Palafin was a bit convoluted. I don't remember an NPC talking about it, but maybe it was me who missed it. Though Palafin is worth it because it's ridiculously overpowered.

[@lavenderlele]

You mean you DON’T know every random evolution method down to the minute details?? Hmm skill issue bc personally I know all things ever ✋🏻🙄 (jk this video is epic and very thorough)

[@droomish1]

I know no things always!

[@spindash64]

I’d move Feebas to Milotic from F to D-, simply because as bad as it is, it doesn’t deserve to be seen as equal to the badness of Runerigus: -first of all, they dang well KNEW by 2019 that this was a stupid idea, while in 2003, bizarre secretive methods were a way to get more playtime to a game. That doesn’t excuse such tedium, but it does explain it better. -secondly, much like Gyarados, it seems like Milo was _supposed_ to be just a bit of a secretive, rare Pokémon. They went overboard, but they did have a reason -third of all, _thematically_ the evolution for Milotic is fantastic. You need to take the ugliest thing in the world, and MAKE it beautiful before it can evolve into the most beautiful. It’s the same idea as Magikarp being the weakest Pokémon in Red and Blue, and it being seemingly self defeating to train such a weak fish Again, it’s still a nightmare, but at least if you succeed, you can feel satisfied. You don’t get that with Rock Mummy

[@absollnk]

Defense for the runeregis evolution method: it's suuuuper funny

[@Kekistani_Insurgent]

The Runerigus thing is a bit worse- the damage can’t be from weather effects at all

[@Zeke931]

I think Tandemaus would be better if it started as one Maus and randomly accumulated more over time.

[@CardKingAce14]

what about shedinja, kubfu and mantyke, they all have some pretty unique evolution methods.

[@turna1216]

I love number 5 where your DS lite had to register you going over 120mph for 10 minutes straight, while being underwater, on the 8th day of the week in order to evolve your mon

[@TFSthegreat]

As a kid I was able to intuit Feebas's evolution method from knowing the lore of both Pokemon, and doubt that was a particularly unique experience. Too harsh on poor Milotic :(

[@spindash64]

I do think it’s really cute and funny that you have to take the world’s ugliest fish and give it the mother of all makeovers to evolve it

[@heromedley]

good it deserves it

[@PokeDeses]

It also helps that most water moves were beauty moves, so intituively it made sense to pump up beauty for any water pokemon.

[@theccarbiter]

No it was a very unique experience

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

In defense of the Arceus evolutions, they have research goals to use that move, and research goals to use strong/agile style moves, so it's sensible enough that someone trying to complete the research would use those moves in strong/agile style and eventually meet the evolution criteria.😊

[@eimeartheirishstitcher]

I didnt even realise Pawmo evolved by walking until I went to complete the dex and had to look up Rellor's evolution. I just had Pawmo at the front of my party and it got sent out in Let's Go mode a bunch

[@WOLFxLORD]

Sirfetchd was defo annoying, but that's as far as I'd go. False swipe made actually getting the evolution a breeze once i knew how to trigger it. And the evolution and process make complete sense. It basically shows your duck squire is a good enough swordsman that he can exploit enemy weaknesses consistently. Making him worthy of knighthood. It's super silly, but it's exactly why he's my favorite galarian pokemon.

[@MousaThe14]

Oh I love telling people this one, there is actually a musician outside of Medalli that talks about and loves Pawmo tells you how Pawmo evolves after you battle them. The process doesn’t make sense but the game does tell you. I didn’t know about Palafin’s NPC though, that’s news to me

[@CarolineDain]

This video is was so good your ox couldn’t even handle it!! 😤 loved the video!!

[@droomish1]

thank you Caroline 🥰 I appreciate you so much!!!

[@MulletMan_Gaming]

Palafin at level 38 is a reference to Superman, Action Comics #1 came out in 1938

[@TuftyTaltan]

Good thing it didn't come out in the 70s or something!

[@TheReZisTLust]

I had a Dolphin named echo in my main team and i didnt know it evolved at all until a Twitter post, I didnt want to get spoiled for mons so i didnt play online.

[@roaringthunder115]

I knew Pawmo had an evolution and used it in my playthrough. I would never know about the method of evolution as I tried using thunder stones and stuff. Once I was told the method I tried using it but kept accidentally running so I just boxed it and used a tera raid to get Pawmot in my pokedex.

[@catsungdae]

i played through the entire game with my pawmot named "Lil Chunk"--- i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little frustrated when i found out the 2000 something steps thing was what it took to get the silly little rat with anime hair, ESPECIALLY after they messed up pokemon following you.......... i was constantly having to wait for pawmo to catch up or i'd have to send it out again because it was just so slow. if the pokemon followed like in HG/SS, then it'd just feel like the exact same process as hatching eggs but you're walking with them instead of carrying them. i have several not so fond memories of the whole process. also add in that i didn't know if you had to do the steps and then level them up once AFTER it felt like we ran enough steps, which had me leveling it up paranoid i ran an extra 5000 steps for no reason since theres no way of knowing how many steps close you are to the evolution... it would've been so much more bareable if it was a friendship evo or if, even better, they fixed pokemon following you 💔

[@heromedley]

the kingabit quest is actually pretty fun if a bit ridiculous. really want you to go around and make your bisharp the strongest in the area by beating other bisharp its so funny

[@Jlaps941]

Don’t get me wrong I love Kingambit, the only thing I hate is that you can’t really do it randomly. You have to knowingly put in the effort, and I like when my mons evolve without me having to think about it. You have to find 3 specific Bisharps in one specific area and it can take a quite a bit of time getting the Bisharp pack leaders to spawn without a dark or steel sandwich.

[@peckser5alltheway]

Love content like this

[@mkjirak]

Kingambit is a chess piece that can only move one square at a time in any direction. That's why its overworld animation stops and starts. It's moving on an invisible chessboard.

[@iMac9991]

as soon as he said "this one is an automatic F, 'cause what the hell" i knew it would be inkay LMAO

[@living_paladin_esterias2048]

small distinction, but for Bisharp the requirement is knocking out 3 Bisharp holding the leaders Crest item, that heads of Pawniard groups spawn with like 90% of the time. This means that in a hypothetical situation where you caught a Bisharp from one of those groups and it held the item, you could have another team member trick it onto lower level single spawn Bisharp to get the evo easier. The item does nothing besides mark wild Bisharp as "leaders" that count towards the evo tracker

[@TuftyTaltan]

I feel like a Bisharp knocking out 3 Bisharp should have been enough criteria. My problem with it is the Evo's goofy sitting pose and the item doing no other function at all!

[@BuddyWright93]

I like how they handled inkay in GO. Where the evo button is, it says “Inkay needs some help evolving! Can you find out how to help inkay?” And there’s a big ¿ right above it. I was determined to figure it out on my own without just checking the internet. Since malamar just looks like a bigger inverted inkay, my first guess was that I needed to walk a certain distance with inkay as my buddy with my phone upside down in my pocket. Then after a while, I just thought “Wait, do I just need to flip my phone upside down while checking inkay?” I did, and I could evolve it! It was such a cool moment, and it blew my wife’s mind. Shame it apparently wasn’t that easy in the games since inkay’s cute and malamar has a really cool type combo with its dark/ psychic. I always use it in the psychic league.

[@zaneaura84]

I actually really like Inkay's design and evolution since the Pokemon is upside down for it. Plus I was an interesting child who was upside down over the edge of my bed from time to time so it didn't actually require me to do anything different to get and I didn't think his method was real at first because of that

[@Frank_D]

I will say that I can see some kid discovering Inkay's evolution because they were hanging off the bed upside down while playing. Kids sometimes have weird posture. That being said, it's actually a more difficult evolution on the Switch because you can turn the console upside down, but if it still detects a pro controller that's currently turned on, it will not evolve, even if you put the pro down and use the joycons on the unit. I had to Google "Why isn't my Inkay evolving with an upside down Switch?" to figure it out.

[@KevinEontrainer381]

I always love cryptic evolution methods. And I love that its staying

[@grlluigi]

I think im owed a milotic

[@droomish1]

me too now that you mention it

[@zebramussels141]

You forgot some of the evolutions in Gen IV that required you to be in a specific area. For example, Leafeon, Glaceon, and Magnezone.

[@m2pt5]

Inkay/Malamar also evolves on Switch by turning it upside down, but only in handheld mode.

[@Jlaps941]

And you can’t have a pro controller connected either, which is likely if you’re playing docked with a pro controller, undock to evolve it, and the controller will still be connected. It took me 15 minutes of frustration to figure this out

[@topazlight1586]

Gholdengo's Pokedex entries imply that its new body is comprised of the 999 Gholdengo Coins plus the one it was already holding, which would be the more explicit reason for its evolution working how it does, for what it's worth!

[@TuftyTaltan]

Wouldn't the Pokedex entry be hidden until you got Gholdengo though? Adds a lore reason but no hint

[@Chairman_Wang]

Why the different scoring between the grades of the annihilape and the other two who you cover are use “x” move y times? Exact same mechanic?

[@jozajab6849]

I think they could have hinted at Inkay’s evolution method by having an NPC say something like “did you know that Inkay always turns upside down before it evolves? I should try sitting upside down to see if something happens to me too!”

[@LoudWaffle]

Malamar's evolution method is so obnoxiously absurd (requiring physical actions in the real world, outside of the game) that it gets an automatic S from me lmao. I agree with your criteria and that it fails all of them, but precisely because of that it wraps around to being amazing. Though it also helps that once you know about, it's incredibly simple to do unlike many of the other evolution requirements. Milcery on the other hand, as much as I love it AND I DO, just the fact that the fruits required to evolve it are random rewards you can only try to get once per real-life day drops it down to a B for me. If they were buyable it would have been perfect.

[@views2004]

I think the strong 20 uses of barb barrage is fun thematically because doesn’t it sound a little overkill? Ya know, like the name

[@catsungdae]

my favorite "if you don't have a guide or internet access then you're fucked" evolution method HAS to be galarian yamask and the

[@blakejohnston8961]

Off topic but I like that you don't look stuff up first play through. My first game was blue version and I picked bulbasaur. It evolved at 32 not 36 like my friends blastoise and my brothers charged so when oak tells you you won the game because you raised your pokemon so well and they love you blah blah blah.. 7 year old me truly believed I was the reason bulbasaur evolved early due to lack of instant information like today. Nothing wrong with having the info at all but definitely seemed more fun when everything was a guess and discussion with friends

[@TheSeptet]

I managed to get a Feebas and Milotic as a kid, but only after reading a guide and spending literal days systematically fishing up and down that stupid river trying to find it, then breeding dozens of them until I found one that liked the Beauty blocks. I was able to help all my friends get it afterwards, tho

[@ArendAlphaEagle]

Wurmple evolves into either Silcoon or Cascoon at level 7 based on its personality value. This value is invisible in-game, so whether you get Silcoon or Cascoon is essentially entirely random. It's not the most frustrating thing in the world though, given that Wurmple evolves at such a low level, and that Wurmple is a very common find in most games it's available in. Some games also have Silcoon and/or Cascoon in the wild too, and they're not that rare either; if that's the case, then one could skip that whole shebang with Wurmple. Also thankfully, the Indigo Disk DLC changed Hisuian Qwilfish's evolution method to be more like traditional move evolutions: now it just needs to have learned Barb Barrage as it levels up.

[@skalty9868]

Bisharp could totally mention in its Pokédex entry that they fight each other for power and imply a level above Bisharp

[@calamaria9221]

I'm still so salty I never caught a Feebas. I spent days trying to fish one up. At least I was able to catch an Eevee, which had a low spawn rate in only one location as well.

[@Sailor-Khione]

You know what's funny? In oras I just got tons of high tier dry pokeblocks and just stuffed feebas with them to evolve it. I found it fairly easy. But maybe that's because I knew how to do it. Oh and when i tried to evolve pawmo into pawmot, it was frustrating even though i knew what to do (took a guide) the 2nd time was way eaiser for my shiny one.

[@MagusAgrippa8]

True satisfaction is managing to evolve three different Tyrogue into each of the Hitmons at the same time.

[@TuftyTaltan]

This comment made me do the satisfied face meme

[@Jlaps941]

Another problem with Milotic, in Gen 3 specifically, is that a dead game battery makes it much harder to have enough berries to make dry pokeblocks. Unless you already know about using a nature that likes that flavor, it’s easy to run out of berries or max out its sheen and be locked out of getting Milotic

[@honeyslime7178]

Tbf tho, you have a LOT of "defeat Pokémon with agile/strong style" research tasks. Would be better if there where ones for using evo moves in certain ways. I also would put primeape lower since I didn't get annihilape without looking up a guide, because using a certain move 20 times, still is not very likely if you don't use a Pokémon very often.

[@gsuaveyt]

Pawmot learns revival blessing because its a defibrilator

[@tevani1]

I would say for the PLA evos, you kind of is hinted to it with their "tasks" to register them in your dex as it usually will say "times seen using (move) in (style)", so they would get a pass for me. the Farfetch'd one however... yeah you have the stick item, but still.. that's basically just luck still.

[@outofideasexe]

I think the legends games hint at these evolutions through the "see x use strong/agile style move y amount of times"

[@Avalinara]

I’m less mad about the Arceus ones because the Pokédex gives you hints if you’re trying to fill out the research goals

[@pixality7902]

Its funny that inkay inspired this video. Thats the first one I thought of when you were explaining the premise of the video. I guess they expected us to shake/throw our DS when we couldn't figure it out.

[@treespawned7844]

So a few notes about Meltan/Melmetal: -You do not need Let's Go to do this, you can do it just as well with Pokémon Home, and yes that was already true at the time of this videos recording, as I did that in early 2022. -If you transport a Meltan to any game other than Go, you can never evolve it, as you can never trade it back to Go and it can only evolve there. So you can never have a Meltan on your team and be like "i'm gonna evolve it now", nope. The moment a Meltan leaves Go it will remain as that forever. -While on the bright side: 400 Candy is a lot, but it is easier with Meltan than with any other Pokémon in Go that needs that much, as you get that Item that you can infinetely spawn them with, you just need enough Pokéballs and if possible some berries to assist you. It is WAY harder to evolve any other Pokémon that requires 400 Candy to evolve such as Magikarp, Swablu or Stufful as you gotta wait for these to spawn naturally and that can take ages. They even have the audacity to add the requirment "Evolve a ..." to some quest to waste your time, e.g. Evolving a Magikarp is part of the Quest to get a Mew.

[@Jlaps941]

One funny thing is Melmetal is coded to learn thunder punch upon evolving, but will never get that chance 😂

[@thesaucylorax]

The Arceus evos are supposed to be because they are sorta hinted at if you look at the Pokédex requirements, but it also isn't great because most mons require using strong or agile moves x amount of times so the connection isn't an obvious one to make

[@MokohiChan]

God, I'm so happy I saw Gholdengo before bothering to try evolving Gimmighoul. I love mimics, so I loved Gimmighoul, but I do not care how strong and useful Gholdengo is. It looks ridiculous. It looks like a rejected cartoon mascot for string cheese. I refuse to bother using one. I could only imagine the rage if I hunted down all those stupid coins, just to get a Pokémon I hate, lol

[@frappompi]

I hate it too, feels good to be validated

[@jazzercise300]

Ghost/steel is an amazing typing and in general I love the new pokemon. Way more than gen 7 and 8 at least. That said yea its pokemon #1000 and it reminds me of the mascot for Applejacks back in the day. The paradox mons and goldhengo, competitive pokemon has turned into Dinosaurs and robots fighting a piece of a string cheese and ngiri pokemon. It's dumb.

[@scrunkore]

it's funny

[@coffee-ouji]

18:20 poggers best pokémon ever Azumarill

[@wombat4191]

Every single time there's one of these weird evolution methods, there has to be an in-game NPC (on NPC's) that tells in a conceivable way what you need to do. And that NPC should stand out and be easily findable. The instructions do not need to be totally explicit, a simple riddle can be enough. But there has to be something.

[@psuedonym9999]

About Galarian Farfetch'd: once you figure it out, it's actually easy to guarantee 3 critical hits in a row. Make sure it knows Leaf Blade and is holding a leek. If your wasn't holding one, they have a 50% chance of holding one in the wild (as opposed to Kantonian Farfetch'd's 5% chance), so it's easy to steal from them.

[@MajoradeMayhem]

Well this explains why my Inkay never evolved and I gave up and stopped using it at all.

[@theretodo4928]

Thanks for the Bomberman Hero OST

[@plentyofpaper]

A pair of honorable mentions for non-evolutions. Shedinja. Technically, it just appears in the party if you had an empty slot, while Ninjask evolved from Nincada. Still, new Pokemon, and it shares the same properties as the Nincada that triggered its existence (IVs, moves, stuff like that.) Phione's strange lack of evolution method to become Manaphy.

[@Ds_Neptune]

The Yamask one is just so stupid to me, like, it's not even sandstorm or anything, just that very especific arch with, for what I know, no lore whatsoever. Before that we had some area exclusive evolutions, like probopass on magnetic places or vikavolt on places with electricity in the air, at least those are logical, one attracts metals and the other evolves from a battery, but Yamask one is just so weird

[@isenokami7810]

I play Pixelmon, a Minecraft mod that has most of the Pokémon in it; for the Overqwil evolution, they were just like “…uh, let’s just make that a Water Stone evo.”

[@ja-vishaara]

Galarian Yamask has this fucked up evolution method, but the azu- *gets shot like JFK*

[@AdeptCharon]

FYI: there is literally an NPC a bit south from Medali, which specifically says that having Pawmo walk might cause it to evolve.

[@AdeptCharon]

I know this video is like a year old at this point, but I was surprised to not find any comment bringing it up.

[@thirdwheel9938]

I'm pretty sure the number 49 is considered a bad omen in Japan because of the way it can be read Just looked it up and it reads "shiku" which is painful death in japanese

[@Cherry-bh5py]

I think another factor is if it's stated anywhere in the game, g. Yamask is absolute bs because no npc and no text tells you to go to that rock with that specific amount of hp, but qwillfish and wyrdeer have their criteria as milestones on their pokedex entries

[@skeletorthebest7204]

You don’t have to KO specifically Bisharp with Pawniard around them; tricking the item onto a wild Bisharp and then KOing it works too

[@milkymilk53]

I never knew tyrogue evolved into the hitmons until i was playing sword. Last year...

[@trevorpacelli8056]

No, I'm pretty sure that Tandemaus does have a usual cutscene when it evolves into Maushold.

[@jeast9648]

I agree sirfetched is really cool. Especially after his episode.

[@lukeg4233]

It took me forever as a kid to figure out how to get a Shedinja in RSE

[@Kaenbyou777Rin]

honestly i strongly prefer any goofy weird method over any that forces me to do multiplayer or play multiple games (especially a spinoff i'm not interested in like GO)