Pokemon Analyzation #3: Zigzagoon Line

     Greetings to all of you, and welcome back to another Pokemon Analyzation, the series where I take a certain Pokemon or evolutionary line and review everything about it. Today, I will be talking about Zigzagoon and its evolution, Linoone. Let's not waste any time, and go straight into the analysis. So without further ado, Let's take an in-depth look at these, uhh... geometry raccoons. Nailed it.




Name: Zigzagoon and Linoone




Description: In my personal opinion, Zigzagoon has one of the best designs for any basic Pokemon, period. Raccoons are pretty cool animals in my opinion, and I can't believe that it took three generations to finally get a raccoon Pokemon (Then again, it took four generations for a penguin Pokemon to exist, so... yeah). I just like the zigzag design on Zigzagoon, and color scheme really helps too. As for Linoone, I think that the design works great for the evolution. It isn't my favorite normal design, my favorite generation 3 design, or even my favorite normal generation 3 design, but it still looks cool.


Battle Style:

Generation 3: Linoone has a cool design, it's based off of an amazing animal, and it's not good in battle. It learns a lot of amazing moves, but its stats don't compliment it well. Its only stat that goes over 80 is speed, with the only other one coming close is HP. It has Belly Drum, so if you want to give it a Sitrus Berry and use Belly Drum. However, Linoone's base attack stat is 70, so it won't be doing as great of a job as other normal Belly Drum setters like Snorlax and Ursaring.
   If you still think that Linoone is power, I guess it does learn great moves that can support Belly Drum, like Return, Shadow Ball, and Double Edge. This Pokemon does have decent potential on the battlefield, it just isn't for me.

Generation 4: The physical/special split occurred, and Linoone still isn't that much of use. It did get better in some aspects, but not by much. It inherited the ability, Gluttony, which might be useful in some way, I just can't see it. It does learn some cool new moves, like Facade, Shadow Claw, Gunk Shot, and Super Fang now, so there's that. Unfortunately, it is still doomed to mediocrity and there are tons of better normal types at this point.

Generation 5: Linoone got Quick Feet as a hidden ability in this generation, which raises speed when inflicted with a status condition, and... that's about it. It has not changed at all. Next game.

Generation 6: Once again, nothing really changed. It's not that Linoone's move pool isn't versatile, it's that Linoone's usable move pool isn't versatile. It learns some amazing special moves, but do you really want those on a Pokemon with a base special attack of 50? It gets Play Rough in this generation and... that's it. I feel like there isn't much hope for Linoone in the future and it's doomed to forever to be flat out average.



Personal Experience: Just by looking at the battle style section, you would probably think that I would never recommend picking up a Zigzagoon or Linoone and that it's unusable and I had a terrible time with it. However that is FAR from the case.
     I honestly have never used Zigzagoon or Linoone other than just an HM slave, which is a Pokemon you use on your team strictly for HM moves.. However, these Pokemon are the best HM users out there. Not only does it learn so many HM moves, but it has an interesting ability, Pickup. With Pickup, Zigzagoon and Linoone can randomly get countless great items. And with that, in one playthrough, I have gotten so many Super Potions, a dozen Full Heals, three Rare Candies, two Proteins, and so many more cool items, FOR FREE. Even though my Zigzagoon was never used in battle, it was one of the greatest members of my team.




Overall Rating: Don't use it competitively. Just don't. Plenty of normal type Pokemon like Snorlax, Ursaring, and Stoutland do Linoone's job way better. When playing casually, however, I would greatly suggest using it for HM moves. Not only can you travel far with it, but you also acquire a wide variety of valuable items along the way, provided that you got the proper ability. Linoone is not great on the battlefield, but well over useful on the field field.



7 Balance Badges out of 10


   I'm glad I did the first 3 reviews on Venusaur, Ampharos, and Linoone. They are three entirely different Pokemon, got three entirely different critiques, and still got the same relative overall score. It goes to show that a Pokemon can be mediocre at one thing and well make up for it in another. Venusaur, as I said in my review, is amazing in battle, I just didn't have much attachment to it like I did with other starters. Linoone, as I said in my review, is not that good in battle, but I had an amazing time with it during the main story. And Ampharos had a tiny combination of both; not outstanding in any category, but still good. There is no single strict criteria on what makes a Pokemon good, but a combination of a bunch of aspects.
 
   Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next week for my review on Emolga, except for the fact that I will be posting new stuff this weekend. What will I be posting? It's a suprise, you'll have to wait until Friday. Bye!