I know I’m a little late with this week’s post, sorry about that. I got a little side tracked this morning. Anyway, we now come to a pair of Legendary Pokemon who are two of the first Legendary Dragon Pokemon. I speak of course of the Eon Duo, Latios and Latias.
There aren’t any myths or legends about Latios and Latias outside of the pair from that one movie (which I’ve actually never seen). But there do seem to be more than one of each. In the anime there was even a Latias in the possession of a Nurse Joy, and a Latios was used by Ash’s final opponent in the Sinnoh League (along with that cool Darkrai). One of their abilities is the ability to refract the light around them to take on different forms and appear as humans. As far as stats go, Latios can be considered the sword, while Latias is the shield. Latios has a higher attack and special attack stat, while his counterpart, Latias, has a higher defense and special defense.
Hangout: The Eon Duo first showed up in Generation Three as two more of those annoying Roaming Pokemon. And that generation was the one where Roaming Pokemon became a lot harder to capture, as they could for some reason flee while still asleep (which still makes no sense). One thing that made it even harder to catch these two was that because they could fly they could also hide out on the water routes, and there were a lot of those in the Hoenn Region. Initially, it was thought that Latios and Latias were version exclusives, with Latios being found only in Ruby and Latias being found only in Sapphire. But later on it was revealed that there was an item known as the Eon Ticket, which would allow the player to sail to an island known as Southern Island. There, the player could challenge and capture Latias in Ruby and Latios in Sapphire, and the captured dragon would have the item known as Soul Dew.
Latios and Latias made a return in HeartGold and SoulSilver, and just as before they were seemingly version exclusives, with Latios being in SoulSilver and Latias being in HeartGold. And just as in Generation Three, the two were Roaming Pokemon, but this time hid out in Kanto. But there was of course a way to get both dragons in one game without trading. After getting a wi-fi event item known as the Enigma Stone, the player can take it to the Pewter City museum, where after being examined becomes a Soul Dew. With the Soul Dew in hand, a ticked off Latios or Latias (depending on the version of the game) will appear in Pewter City and can be battled. Finally in Black 2 and White 2, the dragons make a return and can be found in an area known as the Dream Yard after beating the game. They won’t be roaming Pokemon like before, but you do apparently have to play a little game of tag with them before they’ll do battle.
Signature Moves: Latios and Latias have two different signature moves all their own. Latios’s signature move is in the form of Luster Purge. Luster Purge is a powerful (and cool-looking) blast of light that can lower the opponent’s special defense stat. Which is perfect for an offensive Pokemon like Latios. Latias, meanwhile, has the signature move, Mist Ball. Being the opposite of Luster Purge, Mist Ball has a chance of lowering the opponent’s special attack, making it harder to overcome Latias’s strong special defense.
Soul Dew: I decided I couldn’t do this post without talking about the signature item of the Eon Duo, the Soul Dew. Soul Dew is a hold item that can give a fifty percent boost to the special attack of a Latios or the special defense of a Latias. From what I’ve read, the boost from Soul Dew was so large that it was banned from official tournaments. And when used in places like the Battle Tower in the came, the effects of Soul Dew are negated. One last thing to note is that the anime has implied that the Soul Dew is actually the crystallized soul of a dead Latios.
First of Their Kind: One major thing I should mention before closing this post is that Latios and Latias are the first Legendary Pokemon to have known genders. It’s actually pretty obvious when you look at them though that they’re the same species of dragon. Latios is the male of the species while Latias is the female. I was actually a little excited when I played Sapphire for the first time and saw that Latias was female. I thought I could use her to breed an army of super Pokemon (boy that sounded evil). But later on a friend told me that Latios and Latias couldn’t be bred in captivity. So that put an end to my plans, but when I thought about it I wasn’t at all surprised.
That covers it for this week’s post. Next week I’ll be covering a group of Legendary Pokemon that I didn’t really like at first but sort of grew on me. So until then, stay tuned.
