The Legendary Birds

I almost can't believe we've come this far already. We're almost all done with the first generation! We've hit our first legendary pokemon, extra-powerful creatures who can be caught only once per game, and traditionally can't be bred. In Red and Blue, this status was limited to only five total pokemon, which kept "legendaries" feeling like something special. Later generations would be positively lousy with the things, and they've remained for the most part my least favorite designs and concepts in the franchise.

For what they are, though, the legendary birds aren't bad. Articuno, the flying/ice type, is surprisingly cute and innocent looking for a huge ice-elemental monster, more like some sort of sweet little bluebird than the falcon or hawk it was probably supposed to invoke.

Zapdos was actually always my favorite of this trio; it's both the strangest and most menacing looking, and I'm not sure it's intentional or not, but the one bird it brings to mind is a hummingbird. A really, really big, terrifying hummingbird, which kind of makes sense for en electric type.

Finally, we've got Moltres, which I can't honestly think of a whole lot to say about. It's everything you expect from a fire-type bird. It's a bird, and there's fire on it. Alright. Back in the day, it certainly felt like something extra cool due to its legendary status, but it's no Zapdos.

The legendary birds are A-okay.

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