Is there any way to tell the variety of Pumpkaboo besides visual comparison? (Legends: Z-A)?

Question

So in this game they renamed the 4 Pumpkaboo forms from "Average/Small/Large/Jumbo Size" to "Average/Small/Large/Jumbo Variety" to reflect the fact that each form can be any of the 5 sizes. It's confusing but I guess it makes sense, it's like if they're different types of pumpkin and each breed has its own size range. As a result, there are 20 different possible Pumpkaboos.

I caught a shiny Alpha Pumpkaboo. I know it's a Small Variety, but only because I've seen in the game's code that Small Variety Alpha Pumpkaboo always comes with Psychic learned. Its summary screen says XL size, since it's an Alpha. So it's a small-pumpkin that's very big by small-pumpkin standards. It looks about a similar size as a Jumbo Variety M-sized individual, and smaller than an Average Variety XL-sized one (also an Alpha, which is why I know it's Average).

I did notice that Jumbo Variety ones have a different cry, so you can easily discern that one. But I'm wondering if I would've been able to tell that my Pumpkaboo is a Small Variety without having had hidden knowledge from datamining, since I cannot find anything in the game that says so... Is there any other way to tell what an individual's variety is, besides just capturing all the other varieties of the same size and visually comparing them?

Comments

I ended up figuring out a solution that doesn't require you to have all 4 varieties of a particular size in order to compare them in the overworld. I will answer this tomorrow.

Answer 1

As far as I'm able to find, there isn't anywhere in the game that directly informs you on what variety an individual is. Feel free to comment if you've found a way to see it stated explicitly. The exception would be that if you've only ever encountered 1 Pumpkaboo, you can check which entry got filled in the Pokedex, but that won't work if you've already seen multiple.

I found an easy way to tell, however. In the summary screen, all Pumpkaboo of a particular variety look the same, regardless of their size classification. I took pictures of all 4 varieties as a reference:

As I noted in the question, Alpha Pumpkaboo and Alpha Gourgeists are set to always come with a Plus move that's normally only learnable through TM. I will note these as well:

• Small Variety Pumpkaboo - Psychic
• Average Variety Pumpkaboo - Flamethrower
• Large Variety Pumpkaboo - Dark Pulse
• Jumbo Variety Pumpkaboo - Rock Slide
• Small Variety Gourgeist - Sludge Bomb
• Average Variety Gourgeist - Fire Blast
• Large Variety Gourgeist - Shadow Claw
• Jumbo Variety Gourgeist - Giga Impact

Jumbo Variety has a unique cry, and Alphas of any variety have a separate unique cry.

By the way, here are the Pumpkaboo spawn rates for Wild Zone 15:

• 5% Small Variety (Daytime)
• 45% Average Variety (Daytime)
• 45% Large Variety (Nighttime)
• 5% Jumbo Variety (Nighttime)!