5th Gen You're Not Legendary, You're Just the Sun

As far as I'm concerned, within the canon of the games, Volcarona is at least as legendary as Manaphy/Phione. You did make a lot of good points. Also, about the Attract thing, I know that Mew and Arceus can learn Attract, even though they can't use it.

I see your points. I believe it was intended as a legendary, but as they developed, they realized it was unnecessary and continued on their merry way

Many people thought Lucario was legendary before Diamond and Pearl came out. It, too, has a pre-evolved form, and therefore isn't considered legendary. More or less, the point of Iron Island was to receive Riolu (originally, that is).

Personally, I don't think Volcarona was originally intended to be legendary, and neither was Lucario, but it may have been pseudo-legendary. After all, Hoenn's pseudos were Metagross and Salamence, so there's no reason Volcarona wasn't intended to go down that path.

The Attract thing is strange and out of place, though.

I first considered Volcarona a legendary, but c'mon, I know they wouldn't make a legendary so stealth rock weak.

...then again, there's Articuno and Moltres. I suppose that destroys my point.

Ieyasu said:

Many people thought Lucario was legendary before Diamond and Pearl came out

Click to expand...

Agreeing with this person here. Though it's possible that many others have considered Lucario a legendary just because of it's overrated popularity at the time and(correct me if I'm wrong), the movie, in many people's eyes, kind of reinforced that "legendary" point, though to be honest, I'm not quite 100% sure about this because I'm not really sure whether the movie featuring Lucario came after the D/P games were released and whatnot.

Anyway, I think I'm ranting on and on too much, and I've already given my perspective on the topic, so I probably should end this post now.

Volcarona's strength still might be misleading to others, and that might be why its also considered a legendary or something, but then again....I'm guessing Genesect stole Volcarona's title of bug-type legendary.

Oh well. :(

Ok so I think the breeding point isn't all that relative with the Manaphy situation. But I do think the icing on the cake is the evolution. This makes the Larvesta line non legendary as far as I can tell. And I feel like because Alder used one he'd either be a cheap champion, had it been a legendary Pokemon, or exempt since it's not legendary.

Welp, old thread. Wowzers.

I used a Volcarona myself. I don't see it as a legendary Pokemon - but a pseudo-legendary is definitely possible. Perhaps the one in the Relic Castle WAS a sun god of sorts to the ancient civilization. That could be why it was there. But then how does that random Ranger have an egg?

I really think it's a pseudo that was seen as legendary by a particular group. That makes the most sense to me.

Pseudo makes sense to me. Honestly I think it has the potential to be classed as a legendary and it certainly has the background (just watch the anime - it being captured almost breaks the Earth!), but I think it's stats are a tad too low for that, most legendaries tend to have over base 550. Although that's not the biggest issue; the biggest issue is that it's a readily available Pokémon. I know Larvesta aren't catchable in the wild, but I have no doubt that they will be in later generations just like with what happened to Eevee so a legendary Pokémon wouldn't be able to be caught so easily. And even if they don't make it a wild Pokémon in the future, the fact that it's breedable and every trainer gets one is more than enough to suggest it's not a legendary in my opinion. The idea of legendaries is that they're somewhat unique and incredibly rare, but if every trainer has countless numbers of them then I don't think that can really be the case :(

I'd agree with Ozzy and say pseudo-legendary cos I think it has the potential but not the stats to break as a Legendary since as Ozzy mentioned, most Legendaries have a BST of 550 or more. Also, Volcarona is readily available in the game and even though you can't Larvesta other than through an egg I guess they might make it catchable in the wild in later generations and if that even doesn't happen, it is able to breed so therefore every person should be able to get one. The idea behind Legendaries is uniqueness and being rare and if Trainers had lots of them (*cough* Tobias *cough*) I don't think that would be the case.

However, Volcarona has loads of potential in battle. A combination of Bug Buzz, Quiver Dance and Fiery Dance can prove threatening to opponents that stand in its way.

My responses to the first post:

1. Spot at the end of the PokeDex
BW organized their PokeDex rather nicely and, for the most part, had the Pokemon ordered in approximately the order you would find them in the wild. It only makes sense for Volcarona to be placed after Hydreigon--you can catch Deino in Victory Road but you have to wait until post-game to catch Volcarona.

2. Myths
Volcarona, meet Unown.

3. Relic Castle and the Encounter
Volcarona had an entire floor to itself, Unown had an entire area.
Setting Unown aside for a moment, though, I'd like to mention Rotom; not a legendary, not a pseudo-legendary, but the Old Chateau was pretty much designed for it. You went in there, saw some ghosts with a possible relation to Charon, got the Old Gateau, and caught Rotom (with a definite relation to Charon).

4. Attract
I can't deny that this is an interesting piece of information; however, the reason behind denying Volcarona the ability to infatuate could simply be one of gameplay fairness. Or it could have simply been designed as a genderless Pokemon originally. Nothing legendary about that; just ask Magnemite.

I don't think Volcarona was designed as a legendary originally; perhaps a pseudo-legendary, but to be honest I see nothing odd about giving some focus to a super-cool non-legendary in-game. We have non-legendary event Pokemon now--Volcarona can do what legends do without being one! He's just that great.