Latios is a legendary Dragon/Psychic Pokémon first introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. It's the male counterpart to Latias; typically it appears as a minor or event-only legendary, but it gets a bigger role in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Latios is one of my favorite Pokémon, and has been for a long time! ^_^

Description

Latios is highly intelligent, being smart enough to be able to understand human speech. It is docile and dislikes fighting.

Like Latias, it has psychic abilities strong enough to telepathically communicate with others, and floats in the air. It has the ability to refract light off its downy feathers to change its appearance and even turn invisible.

Latios has the ability to project its thoughts and memories into the minds of others. It also has the ability to share what it's seeing with Latias.

Latias and Latios travel in small herds that rarely make contact with other species. The only specific places they are found in the wild in-game are the Southern Island near Hoenn and the Dreamyard in Unova - in all other games they are available in, they either roam the region or are summoned by a specific item.

With the Latiosite, Latios can Mega Evolve; as Mega Latios, it gains the ability to reach high speeds - up to Mach 4, in fact!

Lore

Latias and Latios both are associated with souls and dreams, though not as much as, say, Celebi with forests or Lugia/Kyogre with the sea.

The Soul Dew, a held item that only affects the two, is described to be the solidified spirit of a Latias or Latios; the creation of a new Soul Dew is shown in Pokémon Heroes, confirming this. The Enigma Stone, an event item in HeartGold and SoulSilver, is a Soul Dew that has been excavated from the ground.

Southern Island, where the two reside in the Hoenn games, is frequently described as being dreamlike. During the part of the Hoenn remakes where you and Steven Stone travel there, Steven describes being there as feeling as if he is walking in a dream or illusion. The description on the map for Southern Island in those games also mentions that a mysterious veil prevents most people from approaching the island.

In Black/White 2, a NPC suggests that Latias/Latios was drawn to the Dreamyard because of the dreams lingering there.

Trading Card Game

I don't know much about actual TCG gameplay - while I do collect the cards, I do so only for the artwork - but Latios has a lot of interesting and pretty cards!

In the EX Delta Species expansion, Latios got a card where it was Lightning/Metal! That's two gimmicks in one - Delta Species, which are cards with abnormal typing, and dual typing (usually not done in the TCG). The illustration is cute, too - it shows Latios hanging out around the Holon Research Tower, an area in the TCG world.

Latios has three different Water-type cards, all connected to the Delta Species gimmick: two in EX Holon Phantoms, and one ex card in EX Dragon Frontiers. The artwork for the ex card is very nice! The wavy patterns in the background and overlaid on Latios are very mesmerizing... It kind of reminds me of the wavy texture of water in old ROBLOX games pre-terrain.

Latios has matching cards with Palkia and Zekrom, oddly enough. The XY Promo full-art card shows it flying around Palkia, Palkia's card from the same set shows it being attacked while Latios flies behind it, and Zekrom's card shows it and Palkia fighting as Latios flies nearby. I wonder what caused them all to be at the same location at once..?

I do have three Latios cards of my own - numbers 077/191 and 203/191 from Surging Sparks, along with the HGSS Promo Latios. The latter is one of the older cards I own, and one of my favorites. It has a matching Latias card, and when put together the illustrations show them flying together. The sky backdrop is really pretty..

Merchandise

Huge shoutout to Soital for documenting their own collection, which I used as reference for this section! It's hard to research Pokemon merchandise because there's just so much - especially for popular Pokémon like Latias and Latios - so stumbling upon their collection is the entire reason why this section is as long as it is.

This first piece of merch I'd like to highlight is this action figure produced by TOMY, which has features like poseable arms/wings and lights/sounds that play when a button is pressed. It's honestly really cool and it's a shame that there aren't any other figures like this, or even a Latias counterpart...

Latios is one of the few TFG figures part of the Groundbreakers expansion to be officially released before the Trading Figure Game was discontinued. It later got a figurine in the spiritual successor to the TFG, Pokémon Duel.. but that game has also since been discontinued.

As part of the Poké Lids project, Latios got a manhole cover in Higashimatsushima, a city located in Miyagi Prefecture (in Japan). Here, it's paired with Lapras, the offical 'Support Pokémon' for Miyagi Prefecture. There's stickers, keychains, and badges of this available.

As far as both Latis together go... In 2019 there was the Riding on Latias & Latios line, which featured Latios and Latias giving Pikachu a ride throughout Hoenn. Plushies, keychains, bags, badges, and even more exist from this line! There's even a tissue box cover out there.. because clearly, when people think of merchandise, they think of tissue boxes.

The duo also got their own Game Boy Advance model! This was sold in Japan starting in July 2002. Legitimate ones go for a lot online nowadays, since they haven't been sold for a long time. I personally think it'd look better if it were white with blue/red highlights, but the colors used are super pretty nonetheless.

This gorgeous shikishi board was sold in 2019 as part of a blind bag-type thing, in a set centered around Hoenn. I only discovered it while making this shrine, but it's already become my favorite piece of official Lati art! The greens are just lovely to look at, hehe..

Other Cool Trivia

• Latios is obtainable without limited-time events or DLC in Ruby, Emerald (mutually exclusive with Latias), SoulSilver, Black 2, Omega Ruby, and Ultra Sun.
• In side games, Latios is also obtainable without limited-time events or DLC in Channel, Pinball Ruby & Sapphire, both Trozei games, every PMD game except the Light/Stormy WiiWare games and Gates to Infinity, Ranger: Guardian Signs, every Rumble game except for the first, the 3DS Picross game, and Shuffle.
• The official origin of Latios' name (as revealed in the Teraleak) comes from the ancient Greek dialogue Timaeus, written by Plato.