Why turn Normal types into Normal/Fairy types?

Niko Collins

Niko Collins

Psychoanalytic Red Mage
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    Ever since X & Y came out I noticed that the pokemon I could beat easily have gotten a bit more difficuilt. For example...like the title says, the normal types like Cleffa and its evolutions, Snubbull and Granbull are now Normal/Fairy which I guess is supposed to make them more usable...but it makes them more annoying and a ***** to actually take out. An optimist might say that it gives them more weaknesses to exploit, but honestly who wants a Pokemon with more weaknesses for opponents to exploit. When they were just Normal, they really only had one real weakness: Fighting or a real strong Rock move. Now I don't know what a Normal/Fairy type's weak to. I gueess I'm being nitpicky, but seriously! Did an annoying little Pokemon like Jigglypuff need an extra type?!? He was annoying enough without the now added headache of figuring what to do to take the little marshmallow out!!

    I digress...but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought this. So please! Tell me what you think?
     
    First, Snubbull and Granbull were not made into Normal/Fairy, but 100% straight-up Fairy. It's likely because they were based on a creature in Celtic mythology whose name meant "dog fairy".

    Clefairy's evolution line becoming pure Fairy made sense, considering they do have actual fairy wings on them. But then there's Jigglypuff, who doesn't appear to be based on a fairy-like creature although it is a popular cute Pokemon among female fans and Fairy is a very feminine type based on the designs of most of its Pokemon.

    Also, a dual Normal/Fairy-type is only weak to Poison and Steel attacks which are the same types a pure Fairy-type is weak to. Normal's only weakness (Fighting) is cancelled out and instead of having no resistances and just a Ghost immunity, it now has resistances to Dark and Bug and complete immunity to Dragon. A pure Fairy is also resistant to Fighting.
     
    A handful of normal types were switched to the fairy type probably during their creation they didn't think any of the other types would fit so normal became a default type I imagine.
     
    I was ecstatic they changed a lot of Normal types to Fairy. First it made encounters somewhat fresh again and required a small but incredibly welcome learning curve. Second was it added diversity and balance. I don't want to ever sleepwalk through an initial playthrough of a new game. I want to learn and struggle before being rewarded.

    Absolutely zero gripes about the changes. Loved it.
     
    I think part of it is also that Fairy type is mostly represented by pink and white Pokemon, and Jigglypuff, Clefairy, Togepi, Mime, and Snubull all share the characteristic of being pink or white. I like the changes because they improved a lot of Pokemon and turned their fighting weaknesses into neutralities or even resistances! They made Togekiss and Azumarill who were already pretty good and improved them further too, and Togekiss went from taking neutral damage from fighting moves to resisting it x4. :)
     
    well the snubbull and cleffa line were changed to solely fairy just so you know.

    The only pokemon made normal fairy are azurill (who will evolve anyway) and the igglybuff line. Also mega audino. By becoming normal/fairy their weaknesses changed from only fighting to poison and steel, yet they still have an immunity from ghost types. If you don't have a poison or steel type move to take them out with try combating them with a bulky pokemon. Like a bulky water.
     
    The reason they were converted to Fairy... well actually there's two reasons for that. Gameplay wise, it was to rebalance some previously overlooked Pokemon, and simply changing types was much easier than leaving them as is and designing a horce of Fairy types. But there's a story reason as well; all of Gen VI takes place in an alternate universe, where Mega Evolution and the Fairy type are a thing. In this timeline, Pokemon that were Normal type in the old timeline are Fairy type here, which explains why the Pokemon you import change types upon arrival.
     
    As Mew and Crystal said, adding Fairy-type to older generation Pokemon alongside creating new ones helped add more balance as well, and as Crystal pointed out most Fairy-types are predominantly pink and white in colour, likely because the former is labelled as "cute" (which most Fairy Pokemon are) while white is viewed as a "light or good" colour and when you look at the fact Fairy is super-effective on Dark-types, it's a case of the good defeating the bad and black represents bad, so white is essentially the opposite of that.

    The changes also added more balance to gameplay, as it sees several Normal-types lose their Fighting weakness, either becoming neutral (such as Jigglypuff's line and also Mawile, while not a Normal-type, is still a notable one to benefit from this) or a resistance (such as the Snubbull, Clefable and Togepi's line). It also helped some Pokemon better on the competitive side as well, notable examples being Togekiss, Azumarill, Gardevoir and Mawile. Newly created powerful Fairy-types such as Sylveon and Diancie also help balance the competitive scene making Fairy a well-deserved shake-up.
     
    Adding Fairy types to Normal types makes them not utterly useless. Sure normal types have the bonus of wide movepools, but having Fairy types makes Dragons less terrifying, it makes Normal types better. Granbull for example, maybe you wouldn't use it during your playthrough or competitive, but at least its not useless
     
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