So last time I looked at Jynx, and this time I’ll be looking at the Vanillite family. There are a few reasons I like Vanillite.
First of all, Ice types aren’t quite sparse in Black/White, but Vanillite is available early on. In Red/Blue you could get some Ice types fairly early, through trading for Jynx or evolving Shellder (which required a Super Rod). In Gold/Silver you had to wait for the Ice Cave. You could get a Shellder earlier with a Good Rod, but you couldn’t evolve it until you got to Cerulean. Ruby/Sapphire wasn’t any better, with Ice types not becoming available until you got to Mossdeep, in Shoal Cave (unless you count Castform or Kecleon. Don’t count Castform or Kecleon).
Finally, even in Diamond/Pearl, you were stuck waiting till the routes south of Snowpoint. The trend here seems to be that you get Ice Types somewhere around the 7th or 8th gym. Vanillite on the other hand, can be found in the Cold Storage, south of Driftveil, where the 5th gym is. As an Ice lover, being able to catch an Ice type so early on is great to me. I hope X/Y follow this.
Secondly, Vanillite is freakin’ cute. And even if you hate the concept that it’s designed on, you have to admit the design for Vanilluxe is good. It’s not overdone, it has a reasonably simple color scheme that still manages to show a good amount of detail, and it’s not blatantly ice cream cone colored. So even if the idea of a Pokémon based on an ice cream sundae bothers you, you should agree it was executed quite well.
A lot of people have a problem with it being based on an ice cream cone. Many people have the same problem with Trubbish/Garbodor, being based on inanimate objects. A common argument against this is that Pokémon has done this forever. Grimer/Muk being based on toxic sludge, Voltorb/Electrode being living Pokéballs, Magnemite/Magneton based on Magnets, etc. I saw an infograph once of a breakdown of all the Pokémon based on inanimate objects in each of the games, and it showed that there have been either as many, or less, of these as there used to be (I wish I had the link, to at least give credit). When you think of all of the possible inanimate objects an Ice Pokémon could even be based on, there isn’t a whole lot. An ice cube? Boring. A snowflake? Cryogonal. A refrigerator? Rotom. I’m not saying there needs to be one, but I don’t see what’s so wrong with it.
Although it resembles ice cream, it appears as though it’s just a solid ice base forming the cone with a more snow-like covering resembling ice cream. Not that it helps that it’s not actually MADE of ice cream.
Regardless of what you choose to think of the Vanillite line, I like it. I hope in the next gen we’re not flooded with Pokémon based on food (I’m looking at you, Swirlix), but when it’s done occasionally like this I’m okay with it, and I like it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I haven’t decided if I want to do a part 3, but stay posted!
