LogFAQs > #880538545

Zeus posted...

Few problems with that: First, the past two generations have done a tremendous job building up multiple characters. Every gen we have the same sense of crisis but it wasn't until recently that we had recurring characters and substance to those characters; in previous generations, the only time you seemed to run into a NPC again was if they wanted to battle.

Second, the character you chose to highlight has reasonably good explanation for her weakness, given that she grew up in an extremely sheltered environment and her Pokemon partner is so damn weak. When another character left his sheltered environment, he had a pretty strong partner who could actually battle so it's more natural he turned out stronger.

Third, there's very little precedent for video games with a world at stake where you care about the characters (outside your team, anyway). Most of the NPCs in the majority of games are basically unnamed.

I don't consider a character simply showing up more than once "good character development".
Even though less time was arguably spent on them than Lillie, I liked your Black/White friends and X/Y friends more than Lillie and Hau.

The reason Lillie is weak and defenseless was flimsy to begin with as she claims she doesn't like Pokemon harming each other, but chooses to view your battles from the very beginning because the story wants her to be around instead of her just leaving. She than chooses do do nothing to improve her helplessness despite having goals and being assaulted multiple times when people try to steal Nebby. It's actually strange for someone to do absolutely nothing to try and stop being defenseless and improve their situation after being assaulted multiple times, which, makes you lose empathy for her. We're talking about the Pokemon world, where kids are E4 members and Champions. It's even worse because she lets go of her previous belief that Pokemon battles are bad very early in the game, but she still doesn't do anything to try and stop being helpless.

Even N, who intentionally was raised to believe that Pokemon being made to fight was bad, was not so dense as to think he could get anything accomplished without being a Pokemon Trainer himself, and so he became one, and become a good one at that (beating the E4 and the Champion), despite not liking the idea of it, because he had conviction.

It's fine that you only care about your "party" or "team" when a crisis in a story happens, a story is bad when it has failed to get you to care about anybody in the game this crisis effects, you don't have to care about everybody. Or the other flaw in which many Pokemon games fall into, that of which is the crisis or the motivation or reason behind it is stupid, even if it is apocalyptic.
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The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him. They're all complacent sheeple. Passion fights, but reason wins.