Current Events > Anyone else prefer when Pokemon had actual rivals?

(+) Yeah! (+)

When people would get upset that they lost, instead of what we have now where it's basically you just battling your cheerleaders every other town? I'm looking at you Hop/Hau

Bring back Gary, Paul, Silver

we almost had it with Bede but they gave up halfway

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Don't most rivals get all mopey during the game once you beat them enough times?


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MrFingers07 posted...

Don't most rivals get all mopey during the game once you beat them enough times?

aw shucks i just keep losin to ya! good luck with the elite four!

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Gary: I kept losing to you so i killed your mom! Smell you later!

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Barry was too genki for me to not be annoyed by him, but I think he was the closest I ever came to liking the "friendly" rival archetype.

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i mean it's pokemon

it's for 5 year olds

I agree. I rewatched the original a few years ago and noticed how much world-building and minor distraction adventure they had. Now, everything is just round robin tournaments of the same handful of characters or "Omigosh, it's my old friend {___} who loooooves {____} Pokmon and has the personality quirk of {____}! I haven't seen you since the {_____} Cup! Let's battle!" Or, of course "Hello, Ash! Here are nine rare Pokmon in a sampler pack because you're the specialest boy."

Cilan needs to fuck or eat a Pokmon already and leave the rest of us alone.

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Hop definitely gets upset at losing to you constantly.

And he's also visibly upset when he loses to you at the Pokemon League. He may say words of encouragement, but his gestures and facial expression speak louder.

There's also the part of the game where he goes to battle your other rival Bede offscreen, gets his ass kicked, and mopes around for a while.

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Isn't Hop pretty cool?

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Hop is the most bummed out and emotionally distressed of the rivals after a certain amount of losses.


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Tbf to Hop, he takes it pretty hard at times. He's just got a positive outlook but you can tell he gets frustrated. Probably cried once like the baby he is.

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in Hops case, he just sucks. No idea how he got through some of the gyms, maybe he pulled an Ash and people gave it to him out of pity

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Well that's cause the first gym leader is Silo. Sorry I meant Milo. I feel like they actually want a decent number of challengers to make it through the gyms in Galar because it's good for business. Hop is probably stronger than generic challengers. Maybe.

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Bede exists.

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dude literally chose a pokemon weak to your starting pokemon, that should tell you all you need to know about his skills as a trainer. I think I even one shotted him in the post story with my Zacian

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Who the fuck is Paul
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LinkDaLunatic posted...

it's pokemon

it's for 5 year olds

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lilORANG posted...

Who the fuck is Paul

People are talking about the anime for some dumbass reason


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I suddenly just remembered how annoyed I was that the rival in Ruby/Sapphire never battled you with the final evolution of their starter so there was just a blank spot in the Pokedex.

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Yeah I liked Blue and Silver

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lilORANG posted...

Who the fuck is Paul

The best rival Ash has ever had.

Yeah, I would put him over Gary, even.

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TC made a topic about Rivals and didnt even mention the best one

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Blue is the only rival to become champion.

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Akagami_Shanks posted...

When people would get upset that they lost, instead of what we have now where it's basically you just battling your cheerleaders every other town? I'm looking at you Hop/Hau

Bring back Gary, Paul, Silver

we almost had it with Bede but they gave up halfway

Gary
Silver
Barry

Paul is anime
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Yeah, I don't think they need to be asshats who hate you, but the "I'm your energetic best friend you never asked for" type seems to be a major over-correction.

Hop is there worst rival they've ever come up with. Like, Hau was bad. But Hop was an even worse version of him lol.

Ironically despite it skewing to a younger demographic, Trace in Let's Go was one of the better ones in recent years, because he was a bit more refined compared to other rivals.

I thought Bede was good, as a secondary rival. Same with N in B&W. If N were your main rival, is say he would've been the best one ever tbqh.

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N was the best rival

Glacion was cool too

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LostForest posted...

Trace

was only good cause you could name him

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Tappor posted...

was only good cause you could name him

I thought he was decent enough just because he was played pretty straight and ditched the hyperactive, saccharine bestie bullshit.

Like the champion battle against him, he was pretty intimidating, compared to anything Hop or Hau ever did lol.

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Yeah I miss when the rival was an asshole and actually had feelings and cared about the battle outcome as opposed to "I'm your best friend!"

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Nothing tops gary and his convertible full of escorts lol

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The new rivals should be better, since GF is actually trying to give the new rivals basically a character arc. But they either screw it up or don't go far enough and it makes the character worse. I don't want the rival to just be a dick.

Calem/Serena had an actual arc where they actually have an issue with losing to you all the time, but instead of them growing at all, they just kind of die inside.

Hau is basically just walking around the entirety of Sun/Moon and never does any real development and he really doesn't need to be there.

Hop has a whole character arc, but is ruined by cutscenes every 5 seconds and Hop just kind of giving up his dream of actually being a good trainer, and just suddenly decides that he wants something else at the end. Really botching the end of the story there.

Marnie and Bede also had potential, but they aren't given enough time to actually develop enough to be really likeable characters.

I liked the Black and White 2 rival a lot. Felt like it was their story and we were on the sidelines supporting them. Was a nice change of pace.

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Hop is the best rival we've had since Gen 2.

Bede is basically just Gen 2's ??? with a more questionable gender.

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At least we haven't gotten shit-tier rivals like those three dorks in Kalos again. Hop and Hau are def lame, though.

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Hop is fine. People over exaggerate how hyper he is. He's more cocky than anything else and you have to humble his ass everytime

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I don't need a likeable character, I want someone that feels good to beat. Hop is fucking joke, seriously all of his battles are a waste of time and I felt nothing about his little pity tantrum, that he wasn't good enough because well its true, he was garbage. You have the first 2 game rivals basically keeping up with you every step of the way and then the others are like "Tehe I guess as long as you my friend beat me I can't be mad!" no no we need some kind of conflict otherwise we have to fall back to team rocket or something

Paul in the D/P anime was awesome. He kicked Ash's ass every step of the way, he probably shouldn't have lost the final match against him but even so, it was a satisfying win, it meant Ash became stronger as a Trainer too, and yeah he was a dick, but people liked him.

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Gen 2 Rival is a cardboard cut-out brat. He's literally just Hop with an attitude. Hop also gets badges before you do btw

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One way to make it better would be to allow the rival to actually beat the player character and still let the story continue. Then you have the option or reloading or just letting the game continue. That way, it could allow more development of the rival depending on if they continually lose or sometimes win against the player.

nemu posted...

One way to make it better would be to allow the rival to actually beat the player character and still let the story continue. Then you have the option or reloading or just letting the game continue. That way, it could allow more development of the rival depending on if they continually lose or sometimes win against the player.

They should actually make the battles HARD. You shouldn't be whooping his ass over the natural course of the game, i should be in life or faint battles every time we meet up, I know that might make the game too hard for the poor kids who apparently can't play anything except on the easiest difficulty

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Akagami_Shanks posted...

They should actually make the battles HARD. You shouldn't be whooping his ass over the natural course of the game, i should be in life or faint battles every time we meet up, I know that might make the game too hard for the poor kids who apparently can't play anything except on the easiest difficulty

I mean, none of the battles in-game are particularly hard except maybe the champion battle, its tough to keep that idea the whole time. Hop kind of had this with him changing his team up throughout the midgame, but how do you expect the game to be hard?

Blue and Silver were never really hard either.

Pokemon is rock paper scissors. You cant make it hard without making it tedious

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I miss having them show up when you least expect it with your team already half dead. Now its all like oh hey let me heal your pokemon first buddy.

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yeah, would be nice if the rival is not going to be part of your harem at the end

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When did they stop?

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Proto_Spark posted...

I mean, none of the battles in-game are particularly hard except maybe the champion battle, its tough to keep that idea the whole time. Hop kind of had this with him changing his team up throughout the midgame, but how do you expect the game to be hard?

Blue and Silver were never really hard either.

like having trainer levels scale with your pokemon

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slmcknett posted...

At least we haven't gotten shit-tier rivals like those three dorks in Kalos again. Hop and Hau are def lame, though.

X and Y were the worst games of the series, bar none. Almost exclusively because of that band of idiots following you around and interrupting your game with their absolutely worthless interactions. I'm actually positive that game had the largest amount of unnecessary dialogue and cut scenes of any other in the series. God I hated those additions.

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Miz_iZ_AwSOme_X posted...

Gary
Silver
Barry

Paul is anime

Gary is anime as well.

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Pokmon should just stop having stories entirely.

Just let us go wherever the fuck we want (as long as we can survive) and make Gym Leaders endgame content with level 100 competitively designed teams.

No more friendly rivals. No more asshole rivals. Just..... let those of us who only really care for competitive play work on our teams immediately.
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