Steven was kinda shocked at first when i entered the champion hall in Pokemon Saphire - Kinda understandable when you have a level 100 Swampert & 5 Zigzagoon with Rare Candies sticking all over their fur as a team
@@jarrodnisly3333 to be fair this pickup tatic was only really op in ruby/saphire. They realized quickly how broken the drop chances were. So if you played mostly FR/LG or Emerald this wouldnt have been as game changing
Something else worth noting about Rayquaza's strongest soldier: Espeed has been turned into an Egg move for it as of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and Smeargle and Arcanine are both easily obtainable: this means you can teach your little Buddy the art of Greased Lightning without needing a Gamecube Game. This should also hold true in all newer games, but USUM is the last time Megas were a thing, so this is the last chance you have to style on things like Primal Kyogre
I always love seeing "trash" Pokémon have value for in-game play. It's a nice reminder that Pokémon isn't all numbers and stats. Zigzagoon definitely reigns supreme for its utility, but Furrett has always been my personal favorite Route 1 Rat. It's just so cute! Also actually useable in doubles. Special shoutout to Bidoof, who with its ability Simple can turn Charge Beam into Nasty Plot and fire off boosted Surfs and Ice Beams like nobody's business.
I remember in Alpha Sapphire, Steven wiped nearly my whole team with his stupid mega metagross, but who came in clutch? My Ziggy, my beloved Linoone, 10-20 levels below everyone else, finished him off with surf. Love your hm buddies and they'll love you back
Nice story!!! I really hope Hoenn Zigzagoon can get more tools to be able to shine!!! As well as all the other Early routes birds and rodents pokemon!!!
Shoutout to Raticate in generation 1. A rocket grunt had a lv16 Raticate in Mt. Moon and it was so overpowered they had to replace it for the remakes. That just shows how important context really is. Fire Emblem taught me that the final map isn't the most important benchmark. If you get through a game smoothly thanks to those rodents and swap them out for a late pseudo-legendary if applicable (I guess Metagross for B2W2 could work), you'll have a breeze of a game since you covered all the bases. Even though I'm more of an early bug dude since they tend to have useful utility for the whole game, sometimes you just gotta demolish your game in half with that ludicrous STAB level 9 Headbutt
@@Brespawn3 I'm a gen 1 expert, I nuzlocke that game like 15 times per year and I tend to get smoked if I pick that battle without a fully evolved Nido. I usually just avoid him, it's almost mandatory
More Pokémon underdog stories would be nice. I always thought Taillow was the surprise star of gen 3 with the guts ability and facade, but Zigzagoon being great too shows that Hoenn has great early selection of Pokémon.
I agree! that is the kind of thing that compels me about these games at large. I guess I just want to be careful about the concept so they don't totally devolve into meta breakdowns and the story stays intact. anything with guts and facade is good in my book
That's part of why gen 3 is so great IMO. I can't think of a single early game pokemon that I wouldn't want to use. Most of them have awesome 3rd stage evolutions with some fun and unique moves. Shroomish, whismur, ralts, aron, alongside many of the others mentioned here
@@-FFFridge disagree. most early bug-types have a very nice utility of being an early game powerhouse that can get you out of a sticky situation or simply run through weaker teams, almost like a 'jeigan' if that term means anything to you. i will admit beautifly isn't the best, but dustox works wonders. can easily carry you through brawly with confusion.
wtset here, thanks a lot for the shoutout! funnily enough i also have another battle tower team featuring linoone where it is used to set up another early game rodent in furret for a massive +6 omni-boosted rollout sweep. can't link it here but it can be found on the fourth post of page 50 of the smogon frontier forum thread that is linked in the description
In Alpha Sapphire, when Steven's Mega Metagross swept me, I went back to my save and looked for a way to beat it. Ultimately what I came up with was Belly Drum / Shadow Claw Linoone coming in on a Hyper Beam recharge, my final Pokémon to win the fight. That made Linoone a favorite of mine forever.
My current emerald cartridge has 5 lvl 91+ linoone for earthquake drops, and I’m currently leveling other linoone to get unlimited focus punches and rests. And also dozens of free proteins, hp ups, pp ups, and rare candies. Truly a play through mvp.
I genuinely think Zigzagoon is the number one best Pokémon in the game in Ruby and Sapphire. That is because Pickup is absolutely broken in RS. In every other Pokémon game afterwards, the quality of items you get from Pickup scales with your level. However, in Ruby and Sapphire, the same item table was used for every level. This item table includes Ultra Balls, Nuggets, and best of all, Rare Candies. All these overpowered items are available from the very start of the game, so if you were to use a team of five or six Zigzagoon, you'll be farming amazing items throughout your whole playthrough. This is EXTREMELY useful for the Professor Oak challenge which is very grind heavy. In regular playthroughs, five Zigzagoons and your starter make the game easy. You can even go with six of them and use one of them as your main for maximum item gathering. It's a ridiculously overpowered strategy I've used many times before which absolutely blows through the game. I'm not surprised they nerfed it in every subsequent game.
Let it be known that Raticate is great, often gets guts so it’s even better. Furret might not be as strong but makes up for it in cuteness. Zigzagoon (not Linoone) will give you loads of items and as someone who has used one up till like level 50 (because it’s a shiny) I can tell you that’s it’s surprisingly good, or at least not as bad as you’d expect. Haven’t really used Bidoofyet, but the whole Stoutland line is also awesome and I regularly use it. The gen 1 normal types are very good cute and useful
As someone who _has_ used Bibarel, it's secretly incredible: Water/Normal hits almost every Pokemon in the series for neutral damage, as there are very few ghost or steel types with a Water Resistant typing This means that Bibarel, despite low stats, will do consistent Damage to most enemies even in the late game. And all 3 abilities are excellent: Unaware: the "worst" ability, it "only" denies the enemy from getting any stat increases vs Bibarel. That Swords Dance Garchomp is still doing neutral damage, Bibarel doesn't give a crap Simple: doubled stat stage changes. Charge Beam now doubles Special Attack instead of 50% more. Curse now doubles attack and defense instead of 50% more. Amnesia TRIPLES Special Defense instead of doubling. It also multiplies negative effects, but the result still lets Bibarel hit insane numbers Moody (Hidden): ...I shouldnt need to explain this one, but this ability got BIDOOF banned from Ubers. Not Bibarel, BIDOOF "PUNY GOD"
Can confirm, Bibarel is super underrated in single player. Water/Normal with STAB Headbutt is ridiculous early game coverage, Simple Defense Curl/Amnesia/Curse is strong, and HM utility is nice. If Work Up existed in Gen 4, this thing would be a beast.
It's a huge pet peeve of mine that the fan community calls the early Normal types "rodents", because the minority of them are. Rattata, Bidoof, Skwovet and if you count the expanded cast, Tandemaus are the only early route rodents in the series. That's 3 out of 9 (or 4 out of 12 with the expanded count) gens that have rodents. Let alone rats, of which there's ONLY Rattata. Sentret is a mustelid (ferret), Zigzagoon is a mustelid (badger), Patrat is a meerkat (mongoose, of which the closest relative is the hyena), Bunnelby is a rabbit which are not rodents, Yungoos is also a mongoose, Lechonk is a pig, and if we include the 'expanded' roster, then we also get Lillipup (dog) and Wooloo (sheep). Give Zigzagoon its due. It's not a rat. It's a badger. Badgers rule.
@@spindash64 I’ve always liked bibarel, Never used it though past like gym 2 tho. You have access to Gyarados, which kind of fills the same niche but better IMO.
I have a Zigzagoon story, or as I like to call it; Wally's Worst Day Ever. Early on in Omega Ruby, I grabbed a Zigzagoon, and it was doing pretty well. At one point, it learned Pin Missile. Ziggy was at the head of my party when the first battle with Wally and the Ralts he just got happens. My Zigzagoon outspeeds him, and Pin Missile being super effective because psychic is vulnerable to bug type, Wally's Ralts gets knocked out turn 1, before it has a chance to even do anything. At that point, my Zigzagoon evolves into a Linoone. And, of course, being a trainer battle, I took his wallet, because the game makes you take money from defeated trainers.
My first shiny pokemon was a linoone on the used copy of Ruby I got, and even though I lost it in the many resets that cartridge went through, the speedy little badger is still one of my favorites. It provided young me so much move coverage and made my runs much easier. Love this little guy.
Funny thing, despite being called "rodents" or "regional rodents" or "rodent archetype" only 4 of 9 regions thus far have used an actual rodent: - Kanto, mouse/rat (Rattata and Raticate) - Sinnoh, beaver (Bidoof and Bibarel, the first major twist on the archetype via being dual typed with Water upon evolution) - Unova, prairie dog/groundhog (Patrat and The Ugly One, being a soft reboot of all 4 generations to this point condensed into a single entirely new region) - Galar, squirrel (Greedent) Twice, it's been a mustelid (major predator of rodents) - Sentret/Furret, being ferrets - Zigzagoon/Linnoone, being badgers Once, it's been a mongoose (which is more like the weasels than a rodent) Once, it's been a lagomorph (which is sometimes mistaken for a rodent due to similar function of regenerating incisors) Once, it's been a pig
linoone carried my emerald team until a multi hit move crit her late game and it was the only time i stopped a nuzlocke not because i failed, but because it genuinely hurt to lose a pokemon i went from being certain she'd die early, to a pokemon who was easily the ace of my team. fly high, biscuit. you were the pokemon to make me realise stats weren't everything, even on a nuzlocke.
The role of the HM user tends to be looked down on but I never really saw it that way. That's just a mon you've trained for something important other than battling, but battling isn't everything at least according to the themes of the games. I think if anything it could have been a lot more interesting if expanded on - balancing teambuilding focus on power and mobility would adjust the difficulty but also adjust how many rewards, optional areas, and shortcuts you can access throughout the game. With HMs being removed the rats have lost a big niche that made them useful on playthroughs.
Zigzagoon is probably my favorite early route rodent Mon. So many uses with hms and cool design But I do enjoy how they started changing the typings later on to make them more interesting to get with bidoof and taloneflame
talonflame MOVED me when it was released! a concept like this can remain really familiar and foundational but still receive that type of variation? they were cooking for sure
Not to mention the Zigzagoon line got the buff rodent treatment with Obstagoon in Gen 8! Great video man, I truly thought this was gonna be an HM Slave video at first, but I was very wrong towards the end and actually learned a lot!
Calling Zigzagoon a rodent is absolutely wild, regardless of whether you think it's a raccoon or tanuki / 'raccoon dog' Not to be 🤓 but rodents are an entire order of the class mammalia, which contains the usual suspects- rats, mice, beavers, groundhogs, and more. Raccoons and tanuki, however, are from the order carnivora. Carnivora has two main suborders, caniformia and feliformia (dog-like or cat-lile). Both are in caniformia, but that's where their relation splits! Caniformia has several sub groups, which have more sub groups, etc etc. A nested hierarchy. Tanuki can be found within the canidae family which is in the superfamily canoidea, which itself is within the caniformia infraorder of 'cynoidea'. So, mammalia -> carnivora -> caniformia -> cynoidea -> canoidea -> canidae. Raccoons are in the family procyonidae which is in the superfamily musteloidea, in the infraorder arctoidea. This looks like mammalia -> carnivora -> caniformia -> arctoidea -> musteloidea -> procyonidae! The order rodentia (rodents) does make up a huge percentage of mammalians, though. Over 70% of mammal species are from the orders rodentia, chiroptera and soricomorpha alone, apparently. Feel free to roast my ass for saying so much for so little reason.
my favorite generic earlygame birds are staraptor and talonflame whether or not they actually qualify as “generic” is debateable given their stat spreads, good movepools, and in talonflame’s case, having a different primary type, all qualities that make them stand out from all the generic normal/flying types
I love linoone! It's definitely one of my favorite normal types. The ability gluttony is amazing on it too since, after a belly drum, you can activate the healing berries that normally only activate at 25% hp. Typically, you would have to use a sitrus berry on a belly drum user, so it's excellent to get that extra healing. Also, if anyone plays gen 7 like I still do, you can actually breed extreme speed onto zigzagoon in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon!
There needs to be a Chatot video. My boy gets too much hate. I mean, what's not to love? High speed, U-Turn, STAB Hyper Voice, Mirror Move, Nasty Plot.
my favorite generic earlygame birds are staraptor and talonflame whether or not they actually qualify as “generic” is debateable given their stat spreads, good movepools, and in talonflame’s case, having a different primary type
I was playing PokeMMO trying to search the Dex to, coincidentally, find a Pokemon to give a Zangoose I had Belly Drum as an Egg Move. And then, I hear you mention Linoone has Belly Drum, and I had just caught Zigzagoon earlier. And yet again, Zigzagoon serves us well, yet again.
This definitely misses the fact that linoone also got a fairly good hidden ability in Gen 5 and then regaining Extreme speed in Gen 7 making it stand out even more. With a tiny bit of set up it could keep up in UU and OU again 4 gens later. belly drum and either a berry to regain full health or a flame orb to increase speed with hard to counter coverage. It realistically needs 1 free turn to sweep an entire team in Gen 7 if it gets the chance. Ofc it fell off in gen 9 because of powercreep.
I feel like everyone's been sleeping on Greedent. In single player (at the very least) I swear my Greedent absolutely *carried* my entire Shield playthrough, and basically single-handedly took out most Gym Leaders and the Champion. I was astonished, expecting her to be just an early game rodent I'd drop like I do in most generations I come across them. But Greedent has some BULK and some serious staying power- so, so good at outlasting so many opponents just by being a greedy fat squirrel stuffing her face, sleeping and then stomping all over the opponents. Greedent is amazing.
one of the best pokemon videos of all time, even though it underrates raticate (guts) and bibarel (simple). speaking of, those 2 deserve the same treatment. brilliant work bro.
Really awesome video and appreciate that it covers the Battle Frontier! Idk why, but I thought you'd throw in that a much faster way to obtain the coveted Belly Drum + ESpeed combo would be to do the Battle Pike glitch where you make Linoone's moves turn into Sketch to then learn Extremespeed (for $0.00)
Thanks to this little 'goon I've understood the sheer power of an early Pickup Pokemon. More points for common right from the start and being capable of learning a lot of HMs. Meowth in FR/LG, Pachirisu/Aipom in DPPt, Lillipup in gen V games, Bunnelby in X/Y... They all became my auto-includes thanks to this little fella. Altough in terms of in-game teams I wish there were more Pokemon being able to become powerhouses later in the game so leveling up for better Pickup tiers would be more fun and didn't feel like playing with a team of 5. I might be wrong but in my experience only Linoone, Ambipom and Diggersby share this distinction of being fully evolved Pickup users.
Shoutouts to the level 85 Suicune named Yappinator. Nice video! Some sound effects could've been a bit quieter, IMO, but it was really nice seeing an easy to dog on Pokemon getting some love!
Zigzagoon is one of my very favorite pokemon of all time. I get weird looks when I tell people that. But it just has such a great design. It was a core member on my team in Ruby and i spent hours using Covet with my Linoone to collect HeartScales from Luvdiscs simply because I could. It also became my core team member in Little Cup when I played semi competitively. We love Zigzagoon in this house.
Minor note about Linoone's Belly Drum: it maxes ATK, so it can do more than quadruple the ATK if the 'mon had previously taken an Intimidate or other ATK drop.
For a nuzlocke I did in SoulSilver I had a furret who happened to not fall behind in levels. Thanks to the move tutor giving him headbutt he could always deal serious damage, and with sucker punch + picking up the TM for shadow claw he was able to sweep through Morty’s gym completely untouched
Greedent at one point was the best pokemon in Unite. I only mention it because you used Unite footage of a skwovet getting trashed, but even post nerfs that thing was still a farm stealing monster.
My bias for Zigzagoon aside, I thought that it was a great video because it wasn’t just a fluff piece. You had pertinent information for both Emerald players and collectors.
Great vid showing off the many great overlooked capabilities of Zigzagoon! But I just can’t get over how Linoone’s design looks like a worse version of Furret :/ Zigzagoon looks different but better than Sentret, but Furret looks like a better version of Linoone!
I played through emerald with only route 1 Pokemon (zigzagoon, both wormple evolutions, and mightyana) and Linoon + belly drum cleared the entire elite 4 for me
This encouraged me to try out zigzagoon in my current emerald playthrough. Was going to trade over a zangoose from ruby as my final member, but saw this video and grabbed the egg from pokemon box. definitely a bigger powerhouse than I had thought. threw a pp max on that extreme speed, and let it rip. Makes me want to run a Mightyena in my next gen 3 playthrough to see how it fares in comparison. Will try to breed another zig with trick for that battle frontier strat, too.
Whenever I think "zigzagoon", I think of the first battle of Pokemon Colosseum in front of that cool scrappy train diner And how they have evolved into linoones on the refight
zigzagoon fan cam
Zigzagooners Unite!
@@piranhalettuceThat sounds a bit like something else...
Zigzagoonian Army is the Strongest!
"i strapped a go pro to my zigzagoon"
Magdalena Bay was a nice touch
My favorite part about zizagoon is that he's just a zig zag raccoon. Something about that is so adorable
And it evolves into line badger.
No he’s a rat
@@tylerpetersen6226 Badgertar, master of all four garbage cans
Steven was kinda shocked at first when i entered the champion hall in Pokemon Saphire - Kinda understandable when you have a level 100 Swampert & 5 Zigzagoon with Rare Candies sticking all over their fur as a team
I just discovered this method of game play, and I'm wondering how it took me 20 years lol
this is the most classical definition of a goon squad, excellent work
@@droomish1"goon squad" ☠️
@@jarrodnisly3333 to be fair this pickup tatic was only really op in ruby/saphire.
They realized quickly how broken the drop chances were.
So if you played mostly FR/LG or Emerald this wouldnt have been as game changing
@@nsp6590got a problem with henchmen?
"I got mine for 240$..."
Thanos: "A small price to pay for zigzagoon."
this is an investment and it WILL pay dividends
Oh hi.
@@bivcbmtgstgtssscqcrddgtrsm2257 I love that we keep watching the same vids 😂
@@bivcbmtgstgtssscqcrddgtrsm2257 Hi!!
I used a rom of the US version on my modded wii. Nintendont ftw
Never underestimate the power of a belly drum extreme speed linoone
Gengar.
@@TheModdedwarfare3 linoone can also learn suckerpunch
@@ScarletRebel96substitute
@@ScarletRebel96uses shadowball in gen 3 ou for gengar as well
Can Zigzagoon or Linoone not learn Foresight? Furret could ;)
Something else worth noting about Rayquaza's strongest soldier: Espeed has been turned into an Egg move for it as of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and Smeargle and Arcanine are both easily obtainable: this means you can teach your little Buddy the art of Greased Lightning without needing a Gamecube Game. This should also hold true in all newer games, but USUM is the last time Megas were a thing, so this is the last chance you have to style on things like Primal Kyogre
Not necessarily the LAST. We can still hold out hope for the second Legends entry.
I always love seeing "trash" Pokémon have value for in-game play. It's a nice reminder that Pokémon isn't all numbers and stats. Zigzagoon definitely reigns supreme for its utility, but Furrett has always been my personal favorite Route 1 Rat. It's just so cute! Also actually useable in doubles.
Special shoutout to Bidoof, who with its ability Simple can turn Charge Beam into Nasty Plot and fire off boosted Surfs and Ice Beams like nobody's business.
I like Furret in Pokemon Colosseum for Follow Me support, yeah.
"Look at me. _I_ am the walker now"
Simple Swords Dance Bibarel w/ Aqua Jet and Quick Attack gets my nod
Nah, Moody is somehow even more broken. With Leftovers, Protect, Substitute etc, you can stall enough to sweep ANYTHING.
extreme speed belly drum sweeping
@@paulloy8728when I first found out they'd given it that moveset in sun/moon I tried to make it work in OU so hard lmao
10:41 love the little edit of the Zigzagoon hitting the map like a dart. so cute!
The Persona sound effect only added to the perfection lol
I remember in Alpha Sapphire, Steven wiped nearly my whole team with his stupid mega metagross, but who came in clutch? My Ziggy, my beloved Linoone, 10-20 levels below everyone else, finished him off with surf. Love your hm buddies and they'll love you back
Gotta love hm slaves. Steven was always a pain in the ass
Nice story!!! I really hope Hoenn Zigzagoon can get more tools to be able to shine!!! As well as all the other Early routes birds and rodents pokemon!!!
Shoutout to Raticate in generation 1. A rocket grunt had a lv16 Raticate in Mt. Moon and it was so overpowered they had to replace it for the remakes. That just shows how important context really is. Fire Emblem taught me that the final map isn't the most important benchmark. If you get through a game smoothly thanks to those rodents and swap them out for a late pseudo-legendary if applicable (I guess Metagross for B2W2 could work), you'll have a breeze of a game since you covered all the bases. Even though I'm more of an early bug dude since they tend to have useful utility for the whole game, sometimes you just gotta demolish your game in half with that ludicrous STAB level 9 Headbutt
That lv 16 Raticate killed 2 of my mons in a Nuzlocke of Blue I tried to do years ago.
@@Brespawn3 I'm a gen 1 expert, I nuzlocke that game like 15 times per year and I tend to get smoked if I pick that battle without a fully evolved Nido. I usually just avoid him, it's almost mandatory
The raticate grunt was removed in Yellow tho
@@danielcarrilho5217 you know what? Let's pretend yellow qualifies as a remake :D
To be fair, Raticate(as well as Greedent and Bibarel for that matter) become scary once they learn Super Fang.
More Pokémon underdog stories would be nice. I always thought Taillow was the surprise star of gen 3 with the guts ability and facade, but Zigzagoon being great too shows that Hoenn has great early selection of Pokémon.
Meanwhile, Wingull gets some goofy good typing + moves for the game, and Poochyena eventually gets Intimidate for a mid game tank
I agree! that is the kind of thing that compels me about these games at large. I guess I just want to be careful about the concept so they don't totally devolve into meta breakdowns and the story stays intact. anything with guts and facade is good in my book
That's part of why gen 3 is so great IMO. I can't think of a single early game pokemon that I wouldn't want to use. Most of them have awesome 3rd stage evolutions with some fun and unique moves. Shroomish, whismur, ralts, aron, alongside many of the others mentioned here
@jek__ dunno, dustox and beautifly kinda suck gameplay wise
@@-FFFridge disagree. most early bug-types have a very nice utility of being an early game powerhouse that can get you out of a sticky situation or simply run through weaker teams, almost like a 'jeigan' if that term means anything to you. i will admit beautifly isn't the best, but dustox works wonders. can easily carry you through brawly with confusion.
wtset here, thanks a lot for the shoutout! funnily enough i also have another battle tower team featuring linoone where it is used to set up another early game rodent in furret for a massive +6 omni-boosted rollout sweep. can't link it here but it can be found on the fourth post of page 50 of the smogon frontier forum thread that is linked in the description
Ah that's why everybody was always wonder trading zigzagoons in the 3DS games
In Alpha Sapphire, when Steven's Mega Metagross swept me, I went back to my save and looked for a way to beat it. Ultimately what I came up with was Belly Drum / Shadow Claw Linoone coming in on a Hyper Beam recharge, my final Pokémon to win the fight. That made Linoone a favorite of mine forever.
And this made possible ONLY because Steel type was nerfed in Gen 6 😂
i was NOT expecting to see a zigzagoon edit today but here we are
that's the droomish difference
My current emerald cartridge has 5 lvl 91+ linoone for earthquake drops, and I’m currently leveling other linoone to get unlimited focus punches and rests.
And also dozens of free proteins, hp ups, pp ups, and rare candies. Truly a play through mvp.
Emerald clone glitch for the win!
Nope, they’re all authentic 😁
This editing mad me zigza-goon all over the place
The Zigzagoon fandom is dying! Thumbs up if you're a true Gooner!
More of a Nooner
Good one 😂
Don't forget about a special shiny Zigzagoon with a leichi Berry you get for fixing the Berry glitch in Ruby and sapphire
I genuinely think Zigzagoon is the number one best Pokémon in the game in Ruby and Sapphire. That is because Pickup is absolutely broken in RS. In every other Pokémon game afterwards, the quality of items you get from Pickup scales with your level. However, in Ruby and Sapphire, the same item table was used for every level. This item table includes Ultra Balls, Nuggets, and best of all, Rare Candies. All these overpowered items are available from the very start of the game, so if you were to use a team of five or six Zigzagoon, you'll be farming amazing items throughout your whole playthrough. This is EXTREMELY useful for the Professor Oak challenge which is very grind heavy. In regular playthroughs, five Zigzagoons and your starter make the game easy. You can even go with six of them and use one of them as your main for maximum item gathering. It's a ridiculously overpowered strategy I've used many times before which absolutely blows through the game. I'm not surprised they nerfed it in every subsequent game.
Let it be known that Raticate is great, often gets guts so it’s even better. Furret might not be as strong but makes up for it in cuteness. Zigzagoon (not Linoone) will give you loads of items and as someone who has used one up till like level 50 (because it’s a shiny) I can tell you that’s it’s surprisingly good, or at least not as bad as you’d expect. Haven’t really used Bidoofyet, but the whole Stoutland line is also awesome and I regularly use it. The gen 1 normal types are very good cute and useful
Furret stole all our hearts with the walk. Seriously, it was my first plushie and I'm known as a plushyless cheapskate!
I use Furret on nearly every playthrough in every game it's available in. It's my favorite Pokémon, bar none.
As someone who _has_ used Bibarel, it's secretly incredible: Water/Normal hits almost every Pokemon in the series for neutral damage, as there are very few ghost or steel types with a Water Resistant typing
This means that Bibarel, despite low stats, will do consistent Damage to most enemies even in the late game. And all 3 abilities are excellent:
Unaware: the "worst" ability, it "only" denies the enemy from getting any stat increases vs Bibarel. That Swords Dance Garchomp is still doing neutral damage, Bibarel doesn't give a crap
Simple: doubled stat stage changes. Charge Beam now doubles Special Attack instead of 50% more. Curse now doubles attack and defense instead of 50% more. Amnesia TRIPLES Special Defense instead of doubling. It also multiplies negative effects, but the result still lets Bibarel hit insane numbers
Moody (Hidden): ...I shouldnt need to explain this one, but this ability got BIDOOF banned from Ubers. Not Bibarel, BIDOOF
"PUNY GOD"
My Raticate made it all the way to the Elite 4 in my most recent FireRed playthrough.
Can confirm, Bibarel is super underrated in single player. Water/Normal with STAB Headbutt is ridiculous early game coverage, Simple Defense Curl/Amnesia/Curse is strong, and HM utility is nice. If Work Up existed in Gen 4, this thing would be a beast.
It's a huge pet peeve of mine that the fan community calls the early Normal types "rodents", because the minority of them are.
Rattata, Bidoof, Skwovet and if you count the expanded cast, Tandemaus are the only early route rodents in the series. That's 3 out of 9 (or 4 out of 12 with the expanded count) gens that have rodents. Let alone rats, of which there's ONLY Rattata.
Sentret is a mustelid (ferret), Zigzagoon is a mustelid (badger), Patrat is a meerkat (mongoose, of which the closest relative is the hyena), Bunnelby is a rabbit which are not rodents, Yungoos is also a mongoose, Lechonk is a pig, and if we include the 'expanded' roster, then we also get Lillipup (dog) and Wooloo (sheep).
Give Zigzagoon its due. It's not a rat. It's a badger. Badgers rule.
Route 1 mammals maybe
Finally a video I can share when people ask me, "why Zigzagoon?" I get ask " Why Zigzagoon?" so often.
On a side note, I think Galarian Zigzagoon is a brilliantly simple redesign.
And he gets an awesome final stage. Would love to see a Hoenn take on Obstagoon. The boy deserves it.
Obstagoon looks disgusting
The civ 5 boat noise spoke to me
Used a simple bibarel in Pearl. Simple + swords dance + stab return = Overkill
Plus, it gets STAB on the 2 major HM types, meaning it can mule you around while still dealing some damage mid game
@@spindash64 I’ve always liked bibarel, Never used it though past like gym 2 tho. You have access to Gyarados, which kind of fills the same niche but better IMO.
I have a Zigzagoon story, or as I like to call it; Wally's Worst Day Ever.
Early on in Omega Ruby, I grabbed a Zigzagoon, and it was doing pretty well. At one point, it learned Pin Missile. Ziggy was at the head of my party when the first battle with Wally and the Ralts he just got happens. My Zigzagoon outspeeds him, and Pin Missile being super effective because psychic is vulnerable to bug type, Wally's Ralts gets knocked out turn 1, before it has a chance to even do anything.
At that point, my Zigzagoon evolves into a Linoone. And, of course, being a trainer battle, I took his wallet, because the game makes you take money from defeated trainers.
My first shiny pokemon was a linoone on the used copy of Ruby I got, and even though I lost it in the many resets that cartridge went through, the speedy little badger is still one of my favorites. It provided young me so much move coverage and made my runs much easier. Love this little guy.
I too bought my Extremespeed Zigzagoon at a Wawa down in Philadelphia.
The Gang Buys a Hacked Pokemon
Funny thing, despite being called "rodents" or "regional rodents" or "rodent archetype" only 4 of 9 regions thus far have used an actual rodent:
- Kanto, mouse/rat (Rattata and Raticate)
- Sinnoh, beaver (Bidoof and Bibarel, the first major twist on the archetype via being dual typed with Water upon evolution)
- Unova, prairie dog/groundhog (Patrat and The Ugly One, being a soft reboot of all 4 generations to this point condensed into a single entirely new region)
- Galar, squirrel (Greedent)
Twice, it's been a mustelid (major predator of rodents)
- Sentret/Furret, being ferrets
- Zigzagoon/Linnoone, being badgers
Once, it's been a mongoose (which is more like the weasels than a rodent)
Once, it's been a lagomorph (which is sometimes mistaken for a rodent due to similar function of regenerating incisors)
Once, it's been a pig
linoone carried my emerald team until a multi hit move crit her late game and it was the only time i stopped a nuzlocke not because i failed, but because it genuinely hurt to lose a pokemon i went from being certain she'd die early, to a pokemon who was easily the ace of my team. fly high, biscuit. you were the pokemon to make me realise stats weren't everything, even on a nuzlocke.
This video is why very mild autism can be a gift
The role of the HM user tends to be looked down on but I never really saw it that way. That's just a mon you've trained for something important other than battling, but battling isn't everything at least according to the themes of the games. I think if anything it could have been a lot more interesting if expanded on - balancing teambuilding focus on power and mobility would adjust the difficulty but also adjust how many rewards, optional areas, and shortcuts you can access throughout the game. With HMs being removed the rats have lost a big niche that made them useful on playthroughs.
Zigzagoon is probably my favorite early route rodent Mon. So many uses with hms and cool design
But I do enjoy how they started changing the typings later on to make them more interesting to get with bidoof and taloneflame
talonflame MOVED me when it was released! a concept like this can remain really familiar and foundational but still receive that type of variation? they were cooking for sure
Talonflame is the early route bird.
Bidoof(aka god): the stone that the builder refused shall become the cornerstone
feeling like zigzagoon in the pianta parlor today tysm droomish
Blue didn't toss out his Raticate, it died. That's why he was at the tower in Lavender Town
I know you were focusing mostly on gen 3, but I’m shocked you didn’t even mention that it got a very good final evolution in obstigoon in gen 8.
Not to mention the Zigzagoon line got the buff rodent treatment with Obstagoon in Gen 8!
Great video man, I truly thought this was gonna be an HM Slave video at first, but I was very wrong towards the end and actually learned a lot!
If it wasn’t for Dunsparce, Zigzagoon and Linoone would be my favorite normal types.
The editing is SO good! Super cool video, Drew!!
Calling Zigzagoon a rodent is absolutely wild, regardless of whether you think it's a raccoon or tanuki / 'raccoon dog'
Not to be 🤓 but rodents are an entire order of the class mammalia, which contains the usual suspects- rats, mice, beavers, groundhogs, and more.
Raccoons and tanuki, however, are from the order carnivora. Carnivora has two main suborders, caniformia and feliformia (dog-like or cat-lile). Both are in caniformia, but that's where their relation splits! Caniformia has several sub groups, which have more sub groups, etc etc. A nested hierarchy.
Tanuki can be found within the canidae family which is in the superfamily canoidea, which itself is within the caniformia infraorder of 'cynoidea'. So, mammalia -> carnivora -> caniformia -> cynoidea -> canoidea -> canidae.
Raccoons are in the family procyonidae which is in the superfamily musteloidea, in the infraorder arctoidea. This looks like mammalia -> carnivora -> caniformia -> arctoidea -> musteloidea -> procyonidae!
The order rodentia (rodents) does make up a huge percentage of mammalians, though. Over 70% of mammal species are from the orders rodentia, chiroptera and soricomorpha alone, apparently.
Feel free to roast my ass for saying so much for so little reason.
my favorite generic earlygame birds are staraptor and talonflame
whether or not they actually qualify as “generic” is debateable given their stat spreads, good movepools, and in talonflame’s case, having a different primary type, all qualities that make them stand out from all the generic normal/flying types
I love all of your content! your scripts employ the wonder of playing pokemon for the first time as a kid, exploring everything with a careful eyes
I love linoone! It's definitely one of my favorite normal types. The ability gluttony is amazing on it too since, after a belly drum, you can activate the healing berries that normally only activate at 25% hp. Typically, you would have to use a sitrus berry on a belly drum user, so it's excellent to get that extra healing. Also, if anyone plays gen 7 like I still do, you can actually breed extreme speed onto zigzagoon in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon!
I really enjoyed all the little edits and memes you put in this vid. The outro was really well done too
Zigzagoon has a very special place in my heart ever since one of my PMD BRT playthroughts
4:03 my favorite part 😭😭😭
Linoone is genuinely the most treasured member of my first Gen III playthrough. Rocky still holds a place of honor in HOME. I love you, Linoone.
*definitely* want more of this! I love this angle of looking at pokemon
Tony soprano swerving to avoid zigzagoon is peak comedy
Blue doesn't toss out his Raticate, it was funking murdered
And all of this without even mentioning the Galarian Zigzagoon line!
One difference isthat zigzagoon is a racoon therefore not rodent. They're procyon.
There needs to be a Chatot video. My boy gets too much hate. I mean, what's not to love? High speed, U-Turn, STAB Hyper Voice, Mirror Move, Nasty Plot.
AWW HELLZ YEAH!!! My mans Zigzaggoon!!!
The fan cam was so so good
4:03 Much appreciated the inclusion of Killshot by Magdalena Bay
Bro I love your channel. It’s just a love letter to the franchise. It’s so inspiring. Keep up the great work.
I'm zigzagooning to this video
This was a cool video! I'd really love it if you ended up making more like this one
The virgin HM Zigzagoon vs the chad HM Corphish.
Fellow Zigzagoon enjoyer detected. 🤩🤩🤩
Great video. I wasn't even aware of Linoone's Battle Frontier clout. Thanks for the shoutout~
your video and impact inspired!
my favorite generic earlygame birds are staraptor and talonflame
whether or not they actually qualify as “generic” is debateable given their stat spreads, good movepools, and in talonflame’s case, having a different primary type
I was playing PokeMMO trying to search the Dex to, coincidentally, find a Pokemon to give a Zangoose I had Belly Drum as an Egg Move. And then, I hear you mention Linoone has Belly Drum, and I had just caught Zigzagoon earlier. And yet again, Zigzagoon serves us well, yet again.
What else could have we expected of the Honey Badger pokemon! 😼😸
Obstagoon deserves a mention
This video is so awesome, you knocked it out of the park on this one! Linoone used to be my favorite Pokémon 😁😁
This definitely misses the fact that linoone also got a fairly good hidden ability in Gen 5 and then regaining Extreme speed in Gen 7 making it stand out even more. With a tiny bit of set up it could keep up in UU and OU again 4 gens later. belly drum and either a berry to regain full health or a flame orb to increase speed with hard to counter coverage. It realistically needs 1 free turn to sweep an entire team in Gen 7 if it gets the chance. Ofc it fell off in gen 9 because of powercreep.
I feel like everyone's been sleeping on Greedent. In single player (at the very least) I swear my Greedent absolutely *carried* my entire Shield playthrough, and basically single-handedly took out most Gym Leaders and the Champion. I was astonished, expecting her to be just an early game rodent I'd drop like I do in most generations I come across them. But Greedent has some BULK and some serious staying power- so, so good at outlasting so many opponents just by being a greedy fat squirrel stuffing her face, sleeping and then stomping all over the opponents. Greedent is amazing.
Zigzagoon is also one of the cutest of all time
Magdalena Bay - Killshot
In case anyone asks.
Love how you incorporate pop culture references into your content I laughed till I cried when Tony and Adriana swerved to miss hitting a zigzagoon 😂
I loved this analysis of the GOAT of normal types.
one of the best pokemon videos of all time, even though it underrates raticate (guts) and bibarel (simple). speaking of, those 2 deserve the same treatment. brilliant work bro.
Zigzagoon is one of, if not, my favorite pokemon of all time, so glad my cute little racoon is getting the attention they deserve
Really awesome video and appreciate that it covers the Battle Frontier!
Idk why, but I thought you'd throw in that a much faster way to obtain the coveted Belly Drum + ESpeed combo would be to do the Battle Pike glitch where you make Linoone's moves turn into Sketch to then learn Extremespeed (for $0.00)
Thanks to this little 'goon I've understood the sheer power of an early Pickup Pokemon. More points for common right from the start and being capable of learning a lot of HMs.
Meowth in FR/LG, Pachirisu/Aipom in DPPt, Lillipup in gen V games, Bunnelby in X/Y... They all became my auto-includes thanks to this little fella.
Altough in terms of in-game teams I wish there were more Pokemon being able to become powerhouses later in the game so leveling up for better Pickup tiers would be more fun and didn't feel like playing with a team of 5. I might be wrong but in my experience only Linoone, Ambipom and Diggersby share this distinction of being fully evolved Pickup users.
Another great video! You should make one on cool Pokédex entries. I used to spend hours as a kid reading them in my pokemon pearl save 😅
Shoutouts to the level 85 Suicune named Yappinator.
Nice video! Some sound effects could've been a bit quieter, IMO, but it was really nice seeing an easy to dog on Pokemon getting some love!
Zigzagoon is one of my very favorite pokemon of all time. I get weird looks when I tell people that. But it just has such a great design. It was a core member on my team in Ruby and i spent hours using Covet with my Linoone to collect HeartScales from Luvdiscs simply because I could. It also became my core team member in Little Cup when I played semi competitively.
We love Zigzagoon in this house.
You're my favourite Pokémon RUclipsr, always great vids!
Can't forget that Facade Guts Swellow that TRIVIALIZES the entire gen. Gotta love the early route birds.
Minor note about Linoone's Belly Drum: it maxes ATK, so it can do more than quadruple the ATK if the 'mon had previously taken an Intimidate or other ATK drop.
headbutt is pretty fun to use too, feels like the flinch chance increases with the speed stat, and pinmissile is good coverage too
What a goated Zigzagoon/Linoone supporter
Back to full videos! Love to see it.
zigzagoon has been a favorite of mine since gen 3. and even more so now with its regional form. ziggy is forever a legend on my team.
For a nuzlocke I did in SoulSilver I had a furret who happened to not fall behind in levels. Thanks to the move tutor giving him headbutt he could always deal serious damage, and with sucker punch + picking up the TM for shadow claw he was able to sweep through Morty’s gym completely untouched
Dude I love your videos, they're so wholesome and informative
He’s a recoon with zigzags. Zigzagoon. Funniest shit I’ve ever seen.
shoutout to the level 91 zigzagoon i had that kept picking up TM26 in emerald.
Greedent at one point was the best pokemon in Unite. I only mention it because you used Unite footage of a skwovet getting trashed, but even post nerfs that thing was still a farm stealing monster.
My bias for Zigzagoon aside, I thought that it was a great video because it wasn’t just a fluff piece. You had pertinent information for both Emerald players and collectors.
Great vid showing off the many great overlooked capabilities of Zigzagoon! But I just can’t get over how Linoone’s design looks like a worse version of Furret :/ Zigzagoon looks different but better than Sentret, but Furret looks like a better version of Linoone!
7:34 I had Pokemon Box back when it was bundled with Colosseum on release - I still have Colosseum to this day but somehow I lost Box over the years 😭
Not the Magdelena Bay song cameo!!! ❤ obsessed
I played through emerald with only route 1 Pokemon (zigzagoon, both wormple evolutions, and mightyana) and Linoon + belly drum cleared the entire elite 4 for me
Droomish with the Magdalena Bay zigzagoon fancam. It's why you're the best pokemon youtuber 🙌🙌
This encouraged me to try out zigzagoon in my current emerald playthrough. Was going to trade over a zangoose from ruby as my final member, but saw this video and grabbed the egg from pokemon box. definitely a bigger powerhouse than I had thought. threw a pp max on that extreme speed, and let it rip. Makes me want to run a Mightyena in my next gen 3 playthrough to see how it fares in comparison. Will try to breed another zig with trick for that battle frontier strat, too.
Whenever I think "zigzagoon", I think of the first battle of Pokemon Colosseum in front of that cool scrappy train diner
And how they have evolved into linoones on the refight