Pokemon of the Week: Lickitung and Lickilicky

Well, someone asked me a few weeks ago to review Lickitung, and I can't for the life of me remember who it was I promised. So whoever you are, you better appreciate it! Especially because in my opinion, Lickitung is just another of those pointless pokemon to make up the numbers and add material to perhaps one or two anime episodes of Pokemon.

Well look at it firstly, it is fat, pink and has a big mouth and a big tongue. So essentially, it is Michael Moore without a beard.

Everything about this pokemon from its concept to its attacks and stats are unappealing to me. For a start, it is a normal Pokemon- in more than one sense of the word. Normal by type, and totally un-special in every other way. Only able to learn moves like tackle, slam and take down (note: basically ALL variations on just tackle... ¬¬), you can never hope to be super effective or beat anyone with one of these. You would have to be a considerably higher level than your opponent which isn't always feasable, and it totally cancels out the experience you may have with type effectiveness. If you have been playing for as long as I have, type effectiveness is not something you want to throw away or underestimate.

Curiously, Lickitung was not actually able to learn the move 'lick' until generation II, which I think is a massive faux pas by the creators.
Another interesting Lickitung fact is that in other languages, its name is just as onomatopoeia-based. In german, its name is just "Schlurp". Well that is obvious. In french, it is called "Excelangue". This is my favourite, because it just translates as 'excellent tongue'. Wayne Campbell would be proud.

In the later games they decided Lickitung should evolve for some reason, just like the rest of the unevolving Gen I Pokemon like Electabuzz and Tangela. And so I present to you, ... Lickilicky...

I am not even going to bother with this Pokemon, because everything I have said about Lickitung still applies in terms of crapness.