Shroomish Report

Shroomish (the Mushroom Pokémon) is an uncommon Grass-type Pokémon found among forests within the Kanto, Hoenn and Paldea regions as well as the Unova region on rare occasions. While not exactly offensively-gifted enough to make much of an impact in most battles, Shroomish are fascinating creatures that can easily prove to be a great asset to the teams of developing trainers throughout the Hoenn region. Sure, they might not get access to a very wide variety of moves before evolving, but you would be foolish to approach these small creatures without some serious protection against status effects!

Shroomish are surprisingly close in terms of anatomy to the mushrooms they are related to and live a fairly simple lifestyle in a similar fashion. Instead of using photosynthesis to generate energy, Shroomish follow the path of traditional fungi and break down the decomposing remains of decaying plant matter in order to survive; in particular, they absolutely adore composting leaves. Shroomish will often remain hidden for days underneath large piles of composting leaves on the forest floor, never coming out to the light of day unless provoked or accidentally stepped on; while this enables them to remain hidden from the sight of the few predatory birds gutsy enough to attack them, this also tends to do Shroomish more harm than good in places that are walked through regularly by humans. Nonetheless, Shroomish are quite adept at remaining unseen by most creatures are able to hide themselves within no more than a few inches of composted material with ease simply by squishing their soft bodies down flat. The only time that Shroomish will ever actually appear in large numbers is after a rainstorm when all of the decaying matter on the forest floor becomes soaked; this makes leaves and even soil that is otherwise too dry to be palatable soft enough to easily be broken down and digested, in turn making even a small patch of ground a practical buffet for these small creatures.

Although Shroomish are not extremely powerful offensively and only have moderately high defenses, they are still not the best sorts of creatures to approach without due warning. Whenever Shroomish are startled or attacked by others, they quickly spray toxic spores from their head capable of inducing a wide range of status conditions, though the only substantially dangerous status moves they can generally produce before evolution in battle are the Stun Spore and Poison Powder techniques. Even so, these toxic spores are quite dangerous and can cause intense pain if inhaled and even have the potential to make trees and other plants wilt, making the otherwise defenseless critters extremely dangerous to be around. Moreover, Shroomish are particularly tough to handle in close quarters as a result of not only their potentially devastating Effect Spore Ability (or a Poison Heal Ability, which is equally dangerous in many situations and normally unique to the Shroomish family) but also the fact that they specialize in basic physical attacks just as much as they do special attacks. This will do them little good in battle within their current form, but for trainers willing to stick with them for the long haul, the advantages these creatures can provide to physical combat will become more than apparent after evolution.

Though they might not come off as something that should be rightly feared, Shroomish are great Grass-type Pokémon to have around regardless of whether you prefer physical and special attacks. They may lose the ability to utilize many of their more advanced moves upon evolving, but considering the benefits they gain in the long run, this a sacrifice more than worth making overall. Besides, you would be surprised to see just how much use these will creatures will get after evolving; being able to regularly douse an opponent in spores is nice, but it'll likely be even better when you can punch their lights out at the same time!

Professor Wormwood