Summary
- Chikorita can now learn Disarming Voice, leading to speculation that Meganium will be a dual Fairy/Grass type.
- Meganium could be getting a regional form, like Typhlosion.
- If Meganium gains an additional type, it’s likely that Feraligatr will too.
The excitement of yesterday’s Pokémon Presents brought us a plethora of new announcements, including a new trailer for Pokémon Legends: Z-A and the announcement of a new Pokémon battler, Pokémon Champions.
We learned from the trailer that Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s starter Pokémon will be Totodile, Chikorita and Tepig. This mixing of generations is similar to the game’s predecessor, Pokémon Legends: Arceus which offered a choice between Oshawott, Rowlet and Cyndaquil. We also got to see a preview of that familiar Legends gameplay, as well as the new-look Lumiose City.
Kalosian Meganium?
A screenshot (above) shows a battle from Pokémon Legends: Z-A, where the player’s Chikorita knows Leafage, Razor Leaf, Leech Seed and… Disarming Voice. As pointed out by TaxingClock704 in a Reddit thread, Chikorita was previously unable to learn Disarming Voice, which is a fairy-type move. It should be noted that Chikorita was previously unable to learn Leafage too, but that’s a standard grass-type move and likely wasn’t in Chikorita’s move set because the move is much newer than Chikorita itself.
While there are non-Fairy types that learn Disarming Voice by levelling up, these are few and far between. They tend to be normal types, or Pokémon that eventually turn into dual-fairy types. The presence of Disarming Voice on Chikorita’s move list has created speculation that Game Freak could be turning Meganium (or Bayleef) into a dual Grass/Fairy type. It wasn’t standard practice in Generation Two for starters’ evolved forms to be dual-type, but it became more common in Generation Three with the introduction of Swampert (Water/Ground) and Blaziken (Fire/Fighting).
We’ve also seen Chikorita’s fellow Generation Two starter Cyndaquil’s evolved form Typhlosion gain a second typing through its Hisuain Typhlosion form, which is Fire/Ghost. This could also mean we’re getting a second version of Meganium that’s Grass/Fairy, or they could just be changing the typing of regular Meganium. Tepig’s final evolved form Emboar is already dual type (Fire/Fighting) but Totodile’s final evolved form Feraligatr is not, meaning the croc could also gain an additional typing if the speculation surrounding Meganium turns out to be true.
We still don’t have an exact release date for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, with the current window only narrowed down to “late 2025.”