Gotta beat them all

Crossovers are everywhere. Akira from Virtua Fighter is heading for Dead or Alive, Link and Ezio have appeared in Soulcalibur games... even Nintendo's most sacred mascot has appeared in the Sega-made Olympic tie-in. But despite countless spin-off games, Pokemon haven't ventured any further than Nintendo's own Super Smash Bros series. Which got us to thin🤡king: What would games be like if every boss was a Pokemon? To find out, we've Photoshopped Pokemon into 9 of our favourite games.

First up is Geodude - one of the original set of Pokemon. He's made of rock, which means he only needs to be bigger and he could star in Shadow of the Cꦺolossus as one of the Colossuseseses. Colossi. Problem is, he naturally levitates, meaning he'd be really difficult to climb on. Also, he's 100% rock, so you can't even stab him in the head. Geodude = win.

Squirtle as... Bowser

The famous Mode 7 scaling boss from Super Mario World on SNES is a turtle at hearℱt. So is Squirtle. And who needs a Koopa Clown Car when you've got a Jigglypuff-copt♔er? No-one, that's who.

Pikachu as... Elec Man

The classic Mega Man boss Elec Man uses electricity to frazzle our hero.🌃 Pikachu is an electric mouse and loves spamming Thundershock. We've made him a bit bigger here because the thought of a giant Pikachu is scarier than a small one. Mega Man looks like he agrees.

Magikarp as... Magician Type 0

The supe𒐪r-creepy Magician from the end of The House of the Dead is a quality final boss. Similar to🌠 Magician's unforgettable line, Magikarp (which sounds a bit like 'Magician') SHALL DESTROY EVERYTHING. With Splash.

Psyduck as... Psycho Mantis

Metal Gear Solid's brilliant fourth wall-smashing Psycho Mantis uses psychic abilities to become near-impossible to defeat (unless you plug into controller port two, of course). Psyduck is a Psychic-type Pokemon who... has a really bad headache. We can only imagine how tetch⛎y that makes him.

Mankey as... Andross

The disembodied monkey head boss from Star Fox 64 is even ꦗmore stern when he l🐭ooks like Mankey. Don't aim for his nose - shoot him in the eye!

Porygon as... SHODAN

System Shock's virtual menace SHODAN is far more threatening in the form of Porygon. Slightly transparent and made up of flat-shaded planes, it just keeps on ad🦹vancing. Your gun is not very effective. Welcome to your worst nightmare.

Tepig as... Ganon

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess contains a nod back to classic antagonist ꧑Ganondorf's rather piggy past. So what better replacement than Tepig? Stand back when he lets loose with his thunderous 'MIIIIIH!' attack. You don't want to get in the way of that.

Piplup as... Penguin

One of Arkham City's nastiest villains is replaced by cute-as-a-button Piplup, who is a penguin Pokemon. See what we did there? Clearly, Batman is having none of it. It's far too silওly.

But what do you think? Can you think of an even better Pokemon/boss switch-out? If you can, or if you just need to talk about what you've just seen to ease your now-tꦺroubled mind, then let it all out in the comments.