How Alolan Sandshrew ruined it all...

So recently this igloo Sandshrew species has been revealed to live in Alola. As PC's Sandshrew Lord¹ I felt like I should share my thoughts on it.

A seemingly unrelated fact is that I'm a huge fan of pixel art. I adore how every single small square can be part of the bigger picture, not even necessary big, to make it something entirely new. Fascinated by the type of art, I started practicing it as well, starting simple with easy Pokémon fusions of, as you'd probably guessed, Sandshrew, giving myself the challenge to make a Sandshrew of every of the 18 types. Here's a couple of them:


I was about halfway done (I left out the utterly terrible ones above, like Slugeshrew which was just ew²) with the sprites, had the base stats and move sets all in a spreadsheet for no reason³ and had the main story of a possible mini hack with them all worked out in my head. And then there's an official Sandshrew with different types, making my little project instantly meaningless. Sigh...

Ah well, it wasn't like I had the time to make such a thing anyway and I'm going to need some more practice in spriting to do those types I deemed to be more challenging (such as steel and flying). Besides, I have ideas for like three more fan games.

Oh yes, about the Alolan Sandshrew... I have to say I really like it, even considering all my rambling above. Its igloo-ish appearance is pretty cute and it's type combination is certainly interesting. I can say the Alolan Sandslash is a lot cooler⁴ than the regular one for sure. Now if only their names had still made sense in their new forms...

1: It's a super official title, meaning uh... nothing, but that's a detail.
2: Okay, a fusion of Sandshrew and Grimer is supposed to look ew, but you know what I mean.
3: Sometimes I just do random things, I can't really help it. Resisting such urges is hard...
4: Both literally and figuratively.