The 20 Best Pokémon Evolutions

Image via Complex Original

Pokémon #321

Evolves from Wailmer

Wailord is one of the most ridiculous Pokémon of them all. It evolves at level 40 from the relatively tiny Wailmer, but Wailord is anything but small. In fact, it's the biggest Pokémon of them all (so far, at least).

Yes, it's bigger than the Pokémon that created the universe, the one that's in charge of earthquakes, and the ones that are literally dinosaurs. And the most ridiculous thing is that it lives in a tiny ball that you can carry around.

#591

Evolves from Foongus

At level 39, your Foongus will evolve into an Amoongus, a fairly undesirable grass and poison type monster. So what?

There's one reason that we love the horribly-camouflaged Amoongus: its first form is shaped like a ball, but it literally grows a pair when it evolves. Testicle jokes! Yes.

#563

Evolves from Yamask

Ghost Pokémon are often ridiculous—in fact, the whole concept of ghost Pokémon is just plain absurd. How can you trap and control a ghost? Why would it even listen to you? What were they when they were alive?

That question was answered for Yamask, which are spirits that used to be humans. The weirdest part is that when a Yamask evolves, it becomes Cofagrigus, a poorly-named sentient sarcophagus that's capable of turning people into mummies. It's a major WTF moment in a series full of them.

#103

Evolves from Exeggcute

The three-headed monster known as Exeggutor evolves from a five-and-a-half-headed monster known as Exeggcute. Get it? Because it's cute. Or something.

The loss of two and a half heads isn't even the strangest part, though. It's that those eggs somehow grow into a palm tree that has—you guessed it—eggs instead of coconuts. Were they really seeds and not eggs, or did the designers of the original 150 Pokémon simply hit a wall and start combining nonsensical ideas like "trees" and "eggs"?

#208

Evolves from Onyx

Steelix was one of the coolest Pokémon of the second generation in Gold and Silver, the first new batch to be introduced since the originals took the world by storm. It was a big fucking deal to kids everywhere, including yours truly.

Steelix is a great evolution for two reasons: it introduced the then-new Steel type to the world, and also demonstrated that Pokémon that previously couldn't evolve might gain new forms in future games.

#80

Evolves from Slowpoke

Slowbro is a mandatory entry on every list of Pokémon evolutions. Critics of the more recent games like to claim that the designers are running out of ideas, which is why there are now monsters based on coffins, ice cream cones, and garbage bags. But the Slow family is proof that Pokémon never made sense to begin with.

How does a Slowpoke evolve? By getting bit in the ass by a Shellder. Literally. Even weirder is Slowbro's evolution Slowking, introduced later. The Shellder moves up to its head and becomes a psychic clam-crown. And what does the Shellder get out of it? No idea.

#292

Evolves from Nincada

Not only is Shedinja one of the strangest Pokémon, but it also evolves in the weirdest way of any of them. When its previous form Nincada evolves into Ninjask, if you have an extra spot in your team then Shedinja will also appear in your party.

It's a Ghost and Bug type, but it's literally just the shed skin that the Nincada produces when it grows. Is it the ghost of the Nincada? How is that possible if the Nincada isn't dead? Does another spirit appear to inhabit the skin? What the fuck is that about? If you don't have an extra party spot, does the shed skin still come to life, or do you just throw it away like garbage? Too many questions and zero answers.

#319

Evolves from Carvanha

Hopefully you understand instintively why Sharpedo is an awesome evolution, but just in case let us spell it out for you: it is a combination of a torpedo. And a shark. It's a Sharpedo.

And it makes the list because its previous form, the dinky little Carvanha, is neither a shark nor a torpedo. It may be a piranha, but since when do piranhas and sharks have anything to do with one another? Only the twisted logic of Pokémon can connect those two things.

#212

Evolves from Scyther

Scizor was another gen-2 Pokémon that helped introduce the concepts of the Steel type and new evolutions for previously existing monsters. It also showed that steel could be red, which is cool.

The best part about Scizor is that it logically should not be as deadly as its predecessor, Scyther, considering its big, green scythe blade-arms have been turned into stupid crab claws for some reason. Yet it still manages to kick major ass.

#474

Evolves from Porygon2

Porygon has the distinction of being the only Pokémon to our knowledge that must be traded twice before it can reach its final form. The first time you trade Porygon with an Upgrade Disk to make Porygon2, then you do it again with a Dubious Disk to evolve it into Porygon-Z.

There are so many crazy things about this. Who the hell decided Porygon needed an evolution to begin with? The damn thing lives inside a computer. And is it just us or does Porygon-Z look completely bonkers? Does the Dubious Disk screw with its programming or something?

#186

Evolves from Poliwhirl

We love Politoed for finally giving some closure to the Poli line that begins with Poliwag. Imagine this: you're a little tadpole. You grow into a bigger tadpole and gain some arms. Then you evolve into an even bigger tadpole. And that's it.

That's what Poliwrath's evolutionary line was like before Politoed was introduced in Gold and Silver. Now if only it wasn't useless in a fight.

#350

Evolves from Feebas

We learned in Pokémon Red and Blue that the dumbest fish Pokémon will evolve into the coolest monsters. So when the unbelievably pathetic Feebas was introduced and we trained it up to level 50 without anything happening, we thought we were getting a lesson in making assumptions.

As it turns out Feebas will evolve into the beautiful and powerful Milotic—but only if it feels pretty enough. Literally. Later games added the ability to evolve it with a trade, but we'll never forget how dumb we felt trying through sheer will to force Feebas to evolve.

#???

Evolves from Eevee

We don't know much about Sylveon at this point except that it's one of the first of the new Fairy types being introduced in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y that we've seen. It also brings the total number of Eevee evolutions up to a ridiculous eight.

Most importantly, it gives us hope that we'll eventually see a Dragon-type Eevee evolution. They keep making new ones, after all, and they've already covered other cool types like Dark and Psychic. Imagine! They could call it Drageon. It practically designs itself.

#508

Evolves from Herdier

Stoutland is the final form of a completely unremarkable and boring three-stage evolutionary line that begins with Lillipup and sort of resembles sheep dogs.

But what other Pokémon grows an incredible 'stache when it evolves?

#635

Evolves from Zweilous

Hydreigon is one of the latest evolutions in the game, tranforming from Zweilous at level 64. For many players that's higher than they'll be when they beat the Elite 4, making Hydreigon truly a late game Pokémon.

More importantly, it's a Dark-type dragon with three fucking heads. After Tyranitar we thought we'd seen the most badass Pokémon design possible, but we were clearly wrong.

#282

Evolves from Kirlia

Gardevoir and its two previous forms are of the extra creepy anthropomorphic variety of Pokémon that resemble humans to an uncanny degree. It starts out as a toddler with Ralts, then turns into a ballerina and eventually into an elegant lady.

The thing is Gardevoir can be a male or a female, proving that in the world of Pokémon gender is not necessarily tied to one's physical appearance. That's a great message.

#478

Evolves from Snorunt

Froslass is one of the creepiest evolutions in the game. It's not uncommon for a Pokémon to change elements when it evolves, but it is exceedingly rare for it to add a Ghost type, as is the case with Snorunt to Froslass.

Combine that fact with the method of evolution—exposing a frosty Ice Pokémon to a burning Dawn Stone—and it's clear that you're not evolving Snorunt when you turn it into Froslass. You're murdering it and making it into a ghost.

#51

Evolves from Diglett

Dugtrio has always been one of our personal favorites for its speed and attack power. But it never occurred to us as kids just how strange it is, and not only because it apparently doesn't have a body under those heads (what is even going on in that picture? Is Brock throwing it like a pie?).

Further, Dugtrio is simply three Digletts. We know it. They know it. Why even pretend? They're not even held together by magnetism like the three Magnemites that make up Magneton.

#149

Evolves from Dragonair

Dragonite is so cool that it got a Pokédex number even higher than the legendary birds in the first generation of Pokémon games. The only monsters above it were Mewtwo and Mew, the rarest of the rare.

Even better was the fact that it evolved from the rather unimpressive Dratini and Dragonair. Back in the day before we knew how things worked we may have written Dratini off as some weird eel thing and moved on. But then we would have missed the only dragon-type monsters in the entire original Pokédex.

#130

Evolves from Magikarp

Magikarp is the classic example of a surprise evolution. It was difficult to stumble on by accident, since if you didn't know about Gyarados then you'd have to be really bad at Pokémon to keep Magi around in your party for long.

But if the stupid little carp splashed its way up enough levels it would eventually transform into one of the most badass Pokémon of them all, even to this day when there are hundreds and hundreds. Apparently it has something to do with a Japanese folklore tale, but all we care about is that Gyarados can learn Outrage, Earthquake and Thunder.

Did we miss any good ones? What are your favorite Pokémon evolutions? Add them to the discussion in the comments or on Twitter.