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Normal-type Reviews: Spinda

We’re back for the Normal-type reviews, and today we’re going to focus on Spinda, a dizzy Pokémon who has a lot of unique variations! If you are ready with this one, please proceed.

Selected Fan Art (Artist: BriBriBlitz)

When you encounter a Spinda, it might not look like what the official art look like, because the spot patterns might be off. This is because Spinda’s main claim to fame is the different facial markings among species that you virtually never encounter the same one (if you do, you might forget that combination you saw before). The spirals on Spinda’s eyes and ears give an indication that this is a Pokémon that specialises in dizziness, induced by its constant spinning.

Spinda’s most well-known feature is its spot patterns. Unlike many Pokémon who has only one or a handful of patterns, Spinda has 4,294,967,296 different patterns on its face. That’s a lot, you hardly ever see two Spinda with the same face! While the snowflake has a much lower chance of encountering two identical patterns, you have to admit that number of different face markings is a lot. The different marks on Spinda’s face are based on the personality value of this Pokémon, so it can indeed produce that many different combinations. It should be noted that certain spots will completely overlap on Spinda’s face, so the actual number of observed combinations is smaller than said number. Amazingly, in the transition to 3D, the models kept the different patterns.

The different spots among Spinda is played out in the anime episode “Going for a Spinda”, where the Character-of-the day wants to find a Spinda with a heart-shaped spot. Long story short, they succeeded in finding one. Amusingly, Brock’s pursuit for a Spinda leads to him finding a broken-heart pattern, implying his failure among relationships with women. Whether or not finding a Spinda with a heart-shaped spot is possible in the games is not known since every spot is perfectly round, yet the shape of the heart has a corner.

Spinda is named after a panda, but there is something about it that doesn’t resemble a panda at all. It might be its ears, which are longer than either a panda bear or a red panda. It does take traits from either, mainly the overall shape of the body of a panda bear (except the ears) and the different facial markings of a red panda. Spinda’s red colouring could be based on the redness of the red panda or the brownish hue of the Qinling panda.

The dizziness aspect of this Pokémon is not only because it looks like it should be dizzy, it also has some skills to make others dizzy. In terms of looks, Spinda’s eyes and ears are spirals. A spiral is a symbol of dizziness because when you spin around, you feel disoriented. Perhaps its eyes are spirals because having partially-white eyes will make the spot overlap that sclera, and if that happen, its eyes will look odd. Interestingly, Spinda has four spirals, which is the same number of spots on its face: one on each ear and two on its face, so that’s why it also has spiral on its ears.

It is also somewhat dizzy-themed in battling. The way Spinda moves also imply that it looks kind of dizzy, as it moves as if it is stumbling in dizziness, as is the case in the 3D games. With this movement, it could confuse opponents with its stumbling motions. This leads to its (now-former) signature move Teeter Dance, which confuses everybody around it. Its abilities relate to confusion (except for one, which we’ll touch on later), where Own Tempo prevents confusion while Teeter Dance makes opponents miss quite often while it is confused. For moves, it has a few that are dizzy-themed like Dizzy Punch, Water Pulse, Rapid Spin and of course, Teeter Dance.

The problem with Spinda is that its stats are quite low, like they belong to a basic stage of a three-staged Pokémon. This makes it destined to be outperformed by most Pokémon because its stats are well-balanced, at 60 base points per stat. It does have Contrary, a useful ability that turns stat drops to stat gains, including self-inflicted ones such as Superpower. Spinda don’t learn Superpower naturally though, because it needs Dream World for one. Even then, Malamar could do this better thanks to its higher stats than Spinda, though Spinda does at least have Assist to call any move like say, V-Create.

In the face of over 700 different Pokémon species to compete for attention, Spinda will still stand out as a Pokémon that have many different facial markings. Spinda’s main claim to fame will most likely be a gimmick because its spots don’t offer anything of substance in battling, except for analytical opponents who can translate Spinda’s spots into statistical information. Basically, the twist in what makes Spinda unique makes it somewhat relevant.

TCG Card

It is not known whether Spinda is in a perpetual sense of dizziness, but this image certainly gives off that impression thanks to the way the angle of the scene is tilted, meaning that Spinda isn’t standing straight, but is instead leaning to the right. To get the big picture, turn the card so that the ground is straight.

Teeter Dance

Originally, Spinda was the only Pokémon who could learn this move naturally. However, there are two other learners who are eventually able to learn this move since they are dances. Anyway, this move is representative to Spinda for not only that, but because its motions could cause confusion to those around it, which is what this move basically does.

This move essentially confuses everybody that is around Spinda. Inducing confusion to every one of your opponents is beneficial mainly because it prevents them from doing anything, but unfortunately, this move has to be balanced by affecting your teammates too. Therefore, if you are looking to cause mass confusion in a battle with this move, you have to remember that your teammate(s) are going to be confused unless they have confusion immunity.

All in all, Teeter Dance is decently useful because it guarantees confusion, but at the cost of doing the same to your teammate(s).

That’s all for today’s article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it.