It’s time yet again for another edition of Legendary Pokemon of the Week. For this week’s post, I’m going to be covering a Legendary Pokemon that wasn’t really a favorite of mine at first, but quickly grew on me after I learned about its alternate form. Presenting the final “Mythical Pokemon” of the Generation 6 games, Hoopa.
I wasn’t all that impressed with Hoopa when it was first officially revealed. It’s Psychic/Ghost typing was a pretty interesting combination, but beyond that it wasn’t that interesting a Pokemon to me. My tune quickly changed though when I found out about Hoopa’s Unbound form, a picture of which can be seen above. When I saw that Hoopa Unbound was a Psychic/Dark-Type and had a height of over twenty-one feet, I was pretty stunned. It turned out that Hoopa’s Unbound form is also in fact its true form.
Hoopa is actually based partly on the classic genie. It uses the magic rings or hoops that it creates as portals to move things from one place to another. In he beginning, when Hoopa was in its Unbound form twenty-four seven, its avarice and greed were so great that it used its rings to plunder entire castles. In the anime, it was show that Hoopa would use its rings to summon other Legendary Pokemon to do battle with it in order to show off its strength. The collateral damage from these battles was so great that the people of the village that Hoopa frequented were forced to take extreme measures.
Thus the item known as the Prison Bottle was created in order to contain Hoopa’s incredible power. In the anime, the man who created the bottle called upon the power of Arceus in order to forge it. After the bottle was used to drain and contain Hoopa’s power, it was reduced to the small spirit form known as Hoopa Confined. At the moment, the Prison Bottle is only available in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. In order to obtain the bottle, the player has to take Hoopa into a Poke Mart, at which point one of the clerks there will give the player the bottle after telling the story about how he got it from some creepy old dude. When the player uses the Prison Bottle, Hoopa will be able to take on its Unbound form for three days, though the transformation will immediately be undone if Hoopa is put into the PC or left at the Pokemon Day Care. I’m guessing that the three-day time period is a reference to how genies grant three wishes.
Signature Move 1: In addition to having two different forms, Hoopa also has two different signature attacks. This first attack, which is the signature move of Hoopa Confined, is a Psychic-Type attack called Hyperspace Hole. With this attack, Hoopa appears to use one of its ring portals to get near the opponent and launch a sneak attack. The nice thing about this attack is that it can bypass annoying moves like Protect. Hoopa Unbound can of course use this attack too, but its power is a drop in the bucket compared to Hoopa’s other signature move.
Signature Move 2: Hoopa Unbound’s signature attack is a much more powerful version of Hyperspace Hole known as Hyperspace Fury. With this attack Hoopa surrounds the opposing Pokemon with its ring portals and launches its floating hands through the rings to pummel the opponent. Unlike Hyperspace Hole, which is a Psychic-Type special attack, Hyperspace Fury is a Dark-Type physical attack. In addition to having more power than Hyperspace Hole as well at the same effect of being able to bypass moves like Protect, Hyperspace Fury also has the added bonus of lowering the opponent’s defense stat. It should also be noted that Hoopa Confined is unable to use Hyperspace Fury even if the attack is in its move pool, due to its true power being sealed.
That pretty much covers it for this week’s post. Next week, I’ll be covering a Legendary Pokemon that the Anime News Network once named as the number one Pokemon we wouldn’t want to exist in the real world. Until next time, stay tuned.
