The Pokémon franchise is a perfect example of Nintendo and Game Freak’s family-friendly gaming philosophy. With its bright and cartoony world, a cast of adorable critters and easy-to-follow progression, there’s a ‘My First Hand-Holding RPG’ vibe about the whole experience. Or so they’d have you believe.
The fact of the matter is, though, there are some super vicious things going on behind the scenes. Pokémon battles aren’t the happy playfights that those inexperienced with the franchise may think they are. Pokémon will smash their own shells, trap their opponents’ souls in limbo (like something from a high-stakes match in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime) and even violently explode to get the victory. Here are some of the most horrific moves and attacks in the series.
10 Guillotine
We’re going to start this list off strong, with the Normal-type one-hit KO move Guillotine. Naturally, this move is the domain of Pokémon with large pincers, and sees them using their mighty appendages to tear mercilessly at their foe.
Needless to say, that’s the sort of thing that’s going to smart in the morning. All one-hit KO moves sound equally devastating, but they also share a crucial flaw: their accuracy is abysmal. Therefore, we can’t rate Guillotine any higher because you’ll avoid a good pincer-ing entirely a lot of the time.
9 Shell Smash
The status move Shell Smash is a bit of an odd one. The fact that smashing your shell somehow dramatically increases your offenses and speed (while lowering your defenses) is a strange little slice of Pokémon logic. Still, it’s one of the most formidable setup moves in series history, so we’re not going to argue with it.
This boosting move is also an oddity because you don’t really see Pokémon actually harming themselves in battle (beyond recoil damage, which is quite common) to gain an edge. Still, the boost is so significant that it’s not really that much of a hardship for them.
8 Spirit Shackle
As we’ve already mentioned, this is some Yu-Gi-Oh!-level stuff right here. The signature move of Gen VII starter Pokémon Decidueye, this Ghost-type attack has 80 base power and prevents the target from switching (unless Decidueye itself does).
How does it do that? Well, as the animation shows, Decidueye fires an arrow that firmly affixes the opponent’s shadow to the floor. That’s terrifying on a level we didn’t know we could be terrified on. Still, the move only has average power and the secondary effect is hard to make the best use of.
7 Burn Up
If you’ve tried your hand at competitive Pokémon, you’ll know that things can get super heated around here. These aren’t just casual battles, friends. The stakes are high.
In the Pokémon universe itself, this is also the case. It’s not really any surprise that certain moves demand a little too much of the battlers, then. The Fire-type attack Burn Out is a hugely powerful special move that actually uses up all of a Fire Pokémon’s flames, their very essence, and leaves them Typeless (until they switch). Yes, it’s just a very strong move with a drawback to balance it, but the whole idea of that makes us more than a little uncomfortable.
6 Double-Edge
Speaking of Pokémon pushing themselves much too far in the name of battle, we have another very strong attack with a drawback to match: Double Edge. There are several other moves with heavy recoil in the series, such as Flare Blitz and Brave Bird, but Double Edge gets the nod here for the frankness of the move’s in-game description: “A reckless, life-risking tackle in which the user rushes the target. This also damages the user quite a lot.”
In a world where opponents and wild Pokémon aren’t killed but simply faint, a move that’s explicitly labeled as ‘life-risking’ is more than a little worrying to see. At the same time, though, that’s just flavor text and attacks this powerful need to be balanced with an HP cost.
5 Healing Wish
Our next status move is Healing Wish (or the Cresselia-exclusive Lunar Dance, which essentially has the same effect but restores PP too). This move is the ultimate example of taking one for the team, seeing the user faint in exchange for fully restoring the ally that switches in after them.
From the perspective of a Trainer in the franchise’s world, that’s a heck of a thing to ask of a valuable team member you’ve bonded with. It’s a fantastic move, that has won many seemingly lost matches in spectacular fashion, and no Pokémon were actually harmed in the using of it, but it’s an uncomfortable concept nonetheless.
4 Thunder Wave
The series has always made a huge deal of the fact that battling Pokémon aren’t really being harmed, that they love to battle just as much as their Trainers do, all of that happy stuff. Still, they go through some very rough things in the line of duty, and it’s not just damage from straight-up attacks that they have to worry about.
The pesky Paralysis status is especially cruel, for its in-universe connotations as well as its easy-spam nature and potentially game-changing effects from an RNG perspective. Firing a weak electrical charge calculated to do no actual damage but inflict the status on the foe is just plain nasty.
3 Spirit Break
We’re getting into the nitty-gritty now, friends. Let’s kick off our rundown of the top three most vicious moves in Pokémon with one of Grimmsnarl’s signature moves: Spirit Break.
While Spirit Shackle pins the foe’s ‘shadow’ in place, this Fairy-type attack takes things a stage further. “The user attacks the target with so much force that it could break the target’s spirit,” the game casually explains, leaving us wondering what on earth that actually means.
Are we talking literally? One look at Grimmsnarl’s furious face suggests we are. Still, its secondary effect of reducing the opponent’s Special Attack is quite tame and it has high-if-average power, so it ranks third.
2 Head Smash
Well, the move’s name alone probably tells you all you need to know here. Spoiler: it’s the user’s head that’s getting smashed, not the opponent’s.
As we’ve already seen, recoil moves in Pokémon are devastating attacks that deal a percentage of the damage to the user. In those terms, the Rock-type Head Smash is the most dangerous of all, causing the attacker to take half the damage they deal themselves. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver describe this little doozy as a “life-endangering attack,” which probably tends to be the case when you charge head-first into a Duraludon’s steely hide at top speed. Now that’s an ouchie.
1 Self-Destruct/Explosion
We’ll be honest here: this is a joint entry only because Self-Destruct sounds even more horrifying. It’s a fair bit weaker than Explosion, after all (200 base power compared to Explosion’s 250). Regardless, though, this is the big one. Nothing says ‘messed-up Pokémon attack’ like your critter destroying itself to cause a huge explosion (somehow), right?
Now, in a lot of situations, this move is totally impractical to use. A Ghost-type casually switching in is enough to utterly ruin your whole month. That doesn’t change the fact that a well-timed Explosion can be utterly devastating, as is the whole idea of the move existing really.
NEXT: Top 10 Competitively Viable Galar Region Pokémon
