Cresselia has a blue, swan-like body with a yellow underside, and two magenta tufts that form an arc across her chest. The yellow ornaments on the sides of her head give her head the appearance of a crescent moon. Cresselia also has glowing, pink, ring-like wings on her sides and back with paw like protrusions resting on Cresselia's chest.
Gender differences
Cresselia is a female-only species with no male counterpart, but rather a genderless counterpart.
Special abilities
Cresselia has the power to dispel the nightmares, including ones induced by Darkrai, and in return induce pleasant dreams. She can also heal psychological scars if the sufferer looks at her. Some fans say Cresselia is the "Sandman" of the Pokémon world.
She appears to be gentle, worrying for the ill and giving peace to those tormented by Darkrai. However, as seen in the anime, she can be quite hostile towards her counterpart, Darkrai.
In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2, her opposition to Darkrai becomes clearly evident, with the story showing scenes of Cresselia chasing it.
Habitat
Cresselia lives at Fullmoon Island. It also travels around the Pokémon world, dispelling the terrible nightmares others suffer and chasing Darkrai.
Cresselia made her debut appearance in the anime in Sleepless in Pre-Battle. Cresselia normally comes to its shrine on Fullmoon Island during a certain time of the year when a Darkrai also comes by to cause nightmares. It may also leave its feathers, which people find to help stop the nightmares. It the episode, Cresselia helps Ash and the other residents of Canalave City get better sleep by stopping Darkrai.
Cresselia appears on the Spear Pillar stage as one of three Pokémon who appear in the center (the others being Dialga and Palkia). Cresselia acts completely different than the other two in terms of attacks she uses. She'll often shoot Psycho Cuts around the field, and sometimes shoot one large Psycho Cut as if it were a boomerang, hitting anyone that touches it.
Trophy Information
A Lunar Pokémon. Cresselia appears on Fullmoon Island and, once discovered, flies around different areas of Sinnoh. Its signature move, Lunar Dance, causes Cresselia to faint but recovers all the HP and cures the status conditions of the next Pokémon its Trainer sends out. Cresselia excels at recovery techniques and is unusual in that it appears only in female form.
Game data
NPC appearances
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2: Cresselia has made it her mission to foil Darkrai's plot of plunging everyone in the world into an endless nightmare. After healing Azurill of its nightmare, she joins the player's team as a guest in Dark Crater. After defeating Darkrai, Cresselia will offer to officially join the team.
Pokédex entries
This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation IV.
|- style="background:#F584A8"
| colspan="13" | Bold indicates a move that gets STAB Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only from an Evolution of this Pokémon A colored initial indicates that the move is not available to be tutored in this game, while a colored background indicates that the move is available.
|}
|}
Cresselia can be seen as an opposite of Darkrai, as Darkrai causes nightmares, where Cresselia prevents them. Also, their islands are shaped and named opposite of each other, and their types are frequently known as opposites.
Furthermore, in the TCG, one of the attacks on Darkrai 3/106 of Great Encounters, Darkness Pursuit, has a base damage of 100 if Cresselia is the opposing Pokémon. Otherwise, it deals 50 damage.
Cresselia is one of three legendary Pokémon that has a definite gender, the other two being Latias (a female-only species) and Latios (a male-only species).
Cresselia's three main colors (pink, yellow and blue) are the same as the main colors of the Lake guardians.
Cresselia is the second Pokémon with information about it relating it to an aurora, the first being Deoxys.
In Deoxys's case, it can project aurora-like light patterns, as shown in Destiny Deoxys, while in Cresselia's case, it can release aurora-like particles from its tail, and can learn Aurora Beam.
Cresselia is one of two non-water types that can learn Aurora Beam; with the other being Delibird.
Cresselia also learns Psychic in the highest level of any Pokemon, 93.
Cresselia's Super Smash Bros. Brawl trophy information mentions that she "excels at recovery techniques", yet she does not learn Recover, considered to be one of the standard recovery moves. She can only learn Rest, Psycho Shift, and Moonlight to heal herself (although she can heal others with Lunar Dance at the cost of her own health).
Origin
Cresselia is based after a swan with features of heavenly bodies such as a crescent moon-shaped head and rings like Saturn's around its body.
Cresselia shares characteristics with Sarimanok, a colorful being from Philippine mythology.
Name origin
Her name is derived from crescent, referring to a phase of the moon. The selia in her name may be derived from Selene, the Greek goddess of the Moon.
This Pokémon article is part of Project Pokédex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each Pokémon species, as well as Pokémon groups and forms.
For other sprites and images, please see Cresselia images on Bulbagarden Archives.
