THE DREEEEEEEPY FAMILY

WHAT!? "DREEPY!?" You mean like "Dreary" and "Creepy?!" I'd have already liked the sound of that before I ever saw it, and what a perfect follow-through on everything advertised! This precious baby is a dragon/ghost ghost type with just about the most wonderful design that ever could have had, from the flippers it dangles like the sleeves of a spooky specter to its big, yellow potoo-bird eyeballs.

In fact, Dreepy captures much of what I loved about the scrapped beta Pokemon CROCKY, except that I think I like this little floating salamander even more, especially since they made it a ghost type! And yes, a salamander, but not just any salamander!

Dreepy is a Diplocaulus, a prehistoric amphibian with a splendid boomerang-shaped skull that has puzzled scientists for generations and enthralled me since I was a toddler. It's great to see another relatively obscure prehistoric animal here, and a lot of fun that it's a ghost type rather than a fossilmon; it's even acknowledged as the spirit of an extinct species, still haunting the places that were once its aquatic home millions of years in the past! I feel like those of you disappointed by the Frankensteined fossils were thrown a bit of compensation here, with a Pokemon that might have been a fossil find in any other generation.

On one last note for this tage, Dreepy also shares some similar vibes to "Eerie" from Super Mario World, another "prehistoric ghost" and a design I always really liked for whatever reason. I'm not so sure this is coincidence; I know this generation's art director is a pretty big Nintendo fanboy, even by Gamefreak standards.

Dreepy evolves into Drakloak, and I want to say I don't love it as much, but it's still pretty nice even if I think its fighter plane motif is actually kind of unnecessary. What really matters is that Dreepy is still there. You just get both! Drakloak is said to dote on its Dreepy so lovingly that if it loses it, it will look for any small creature to replace it, so we all know we're probably getting an anime episode where the ghost of a newt adopts Pikachu, or maybe Meowth, or maybe whatever new baby Pokemon Ash is charged with advertising.

The final stage, Dragapult, is definitely the new coolest "pseudolegendary" I think there's ever been. The Goomy line was so close, but this is one that ends on a perfectly high note. I love the black and magenta of the head, the flatness of its skull, the thin narrow eyes, all four of its lovely spiky-toed amphibian feet and that beautiful, ghostly tail that actually fades to transparency towards the end, not to mention you get TWO bonus Dreepies! They only look a little bored because the Pokedex says they cannot wait to be launched at high speed, which is represented by the Pokemon's "Dragon Dart" signature move.

My one and only critique, and it is still not enough to affect the rating in any way, is again that I don't think they needed to hammer the "airplane" aspect this bluntly, but I can't think of how I'd tone it down in a way that I'd like, since I'm already used to how perfectly thin and pointed its skull is. I guess I'm just glad the final stage has pointed ends instead of the middle stage's unnaturally square-shaped ones!

Not to knock any fan artists out there, but if you look at most people's idea of a dragon/ghost Pokemon, they always tend to go for something with a similar feel to the game's last example, Giratina, or some other dramatically menacing skeletal phantasm. Instead, Pokemon's second-ever use of the typing goes to a comical, floating Carboniferous newt that shoots its babies off of its head like rockets. That's the kind of unexpected absurdity that truly does make Pokemon feel like Pokemon, and the kind of thinking I wish we'd gotten more of from this particular generation.