Rattata, Raticate (plus Alolan variants)
Next up is the archetype of the Pest. Or small mammal I guess. Most of them aren’t typical real-world pest analogues, but they sure feel like it when you’re fighting dozens of them in the early game. Rattata is just straight up a rat, tho, so pretty classic pest. The Pokedex talks mostly about how it breeds rapidly, lives everywhere, and chews up everything so it’s literally just a purple rat. The purple makes it weirdly distinct and it was even my favorite pokemon for a while in elementary school. I usually use one early on any time I play a Kanto region game.
Raticate loses the wild coloring but it looks a lot weirder, proportion-wise. It becomes much more of a giant mouth, with scarier teeth that look like they’d take your whole hand off if you got too close. Rodent teeth are terrifying when you see them - and its real life inspiration, the coypu, really demonstrates just how little you want to deal with those fangs.
Looks like you would get tetanus or something if it bit you. I really like Raticate, tho. It’s always been one of my favorites - never in the top twenty or anything, but always one I look on fondly. It starts the trend of me digging the pokemon that you usually see with the villainous gang of the series. I weirdly don’t have a lot in particular to say about it, cuz it’s mostly just an aquatic rat, but I really like it. It’s simple and mean and cool.
Gen 7 brought the idea of regional variants into the games. I thought about waiting until those generations to go over the newer forms that appear, but I’m already talking about Mega Evolutions and Gigantamax, so I don’t see much of a point in dragging it out. So here’s the dark-typed Alolan cousins!
A black color scheme is definitely less exciting, but the weird almost spiky hairiness of Alolan Rattata is pretty fun. Not sure if I liked the mustache vibes of these whiskers, but I’m actually okay with it. Not super different. I still like it.
Again, not too strong of an opinion either way on the black coloring, but I like the chubby cheeks, more unkempt fur, and kinda groovy flower belly pattern. Apparently Alolan Raticate is a picky eater, and is even said to Ratatouille-style help out a certain restaurant figure out its ingredients and dishes. I like the mob boss personality it has, sending out Alolan Rattata to go gather only the best food for their big boss. I don’t particularly prefer one regional variant over the other, as I could imagine both have puffy cheeks some of the time and that’s fun.
