GF took that personally and then every single one of these problems happened/was amplified when Dynamax came to be, which is around the time I noticed a lot of the Mega negativity take a backseat even if not necessarily disappear. Got some perspective.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
While I did liked the concept of Dynamax, the execution all-around felt too half-baked to male it worth it, and it does not help that the mechanic itself went too far. Kaiju battles are a potential, but this ain’t cutting it.
But that doesn’t stop me from deprecating Mega Evolution. If anything, I used to be very positive with Mega Evolution, despite issues of their own. But as time passes, while cutting it is not an ideal solution, I did realizes that the flaws were way worse than I thought.
Between too much bias on fan favorites, abysmal balancing act with Mega Evolution, pushing things too far with Mega Rayquaza and the Primal Reversions, tiring out too fast with the designs, the risk of far worsened item bloating and so on… I don’t think Mega Evolution returning is going to please everyone if some of these flaws aren’t addressed, or worse, have these flaws amplified to the point people don’t want them anymore.
Also not only that, but Dynamax amplified/created all of those problems while being significantly less interesting than both Z-Moves and Mega Evolution both from a gameplay and a flavor point of view.
Regardless of what you think about Mega Evolution from an execution standpoint, one cannot deny that Megas are genuinely interesting and in many ways fun both from a gameplay and flavor standpoint. Mega Evolutions are effectively an evolved form of the mon who Mega Evolves, they have a brand new appearance that is a progression of their original form, they are the pinnacle of their evolutionary line. And there's a lot of new designs that came from it. And battle wise, they have higher stats in some areas, in many cases different abilities, new type combos, different stat builds, and whatnot: they're like a new and stronger Pokemon. It's a very fun mechanic, with the Pokemon capable of it basically unlocking their "ultimate forms", with the flashy new and standout designs, and mechanically they change with new battle capabilities or just being stronger overall.
Dynamax on the other hand isn't anywhere near as interesting. It's not only insanely overpowered and broken, but mechanically it's active for three turns, involves spamming Max Moves for stat boosts/weather/terrain, and then wears off. No fundamental stat boosts to the Pokemon either: it's a temporary generic HP boost but the rest of the Pokemon's stats are fundamentally similar. But flavor wise it's also pretty bland: it's basically "haha Pokemon goes giant". No new design, it's literally just the mon but super large. Now there are a few cases where they do have a new design, Gigantamax, but in those cases gameplay wise that's still not as unique as Mega Evolution, as there are no stat changes, ability changes, or anything: just a unique signature G-Max Move which can be in many cases inferior to the base Max Move. There's not enough of a difference there to justify the different special form that mon has access to, unlike Megas where the mon fundamentally changes in many ways and gets stronger in a genuinely fun way.
I suppose that's where my issue with Dynamax as a mechanic is: aside from the fact that it was insanely busted and overpowered and required no skill for its use, it's just too boring for how strong it is. The generic version of it is literally "haha Pokemon goes giant sized", and while there's a "special" version of it that changes appearance, the ones who got it feel cynically motivated and there's not enough of a difference between their special G-Max forms and the generic Dynamax version to justify the different form (it's literally just one special move that can be in many ways inferior to the base Max Move), and mechanically it's also basically nothing more than an HP boost and special generic high powered moves that cause powerful secondary effects to an extremely overpowering degree: in other words, it's overpowered in a really boring way. There's no real depth to the mechanic whatsoever.
Even Z-Moves, while not as interesting to me as Mega Evolution or Terastal, had more interesting things going for them because status Z-Moves had a variety of interesting effects if used with certain non-damaging moves to a point where you could feasibly justify even using otherwise useless or situational non-damaging moves on a moveset for an interesting effect with a Z-Crystal in tow.
A lot of the Gmax moves had the same or very similar animations than their max move counterpart, and all of them but the Galar starters' had identical base powers to their max move counterpart, which made them feel even less like unique moves in their own right and more like "it's just the regular max move but we swapped out the effect for a different effect".
Cheryl.
Celesteela is Life
Not sure if this is unpopular now but I'm gonna say it anyways. I still have my problems with Z-moves but I do miss how they made pretty much EVERY move useful. Event-exclusive stuff like Happy Hour and Celebrate became actually good moves with Z-power, Conversion became one of the most interesting moves Pokemon's ever had with its Z-move's effect, and even Splash had niche uses with a random +3 Attack boost. Where I have problems is with how hard it buffed already attacking moves, but I definitely miss its effects on other usually useless moves.
The bolded part is also what I had issue with Mega Salamence, Mega Metagross, Gen 8 Zacian, Calyrex and it’s two steeds, Magearna, Mega Rayquaza, Palafin’s Hero form, both Koraidon and Miraidon (moreso the latter), Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, and I’d argue Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle. Of course the last one being overpowered compared to the sorry excuse of a joke called Delibird is pure hilarity, but that’s not the point.
What they have in common is snowball like crazy or focus so much on damage and speed that it counters and checks are too limited even in friendly online plays, because GF keep forgetting how too important Speed stat is. Most of them are far less problematic in Doubles, due to nature of Double targeting and more ways for Speed Controls, which is why the power creep is not immediately apparent for Game Freak as VGC is Double-oriented. Even then, Gen 8 Zacian, Shadow Calyrex and Magearna still took things too far without bringing anything new to the table.
Personally? I thought megas were super cool! I was also 10 years old when they were revealed. Now that I'm 20, I still really like a bunch of the designs, but I'm not torn up that they're gone.
Thats the whole point. They couldn’t really give a fuck about Singles because its not the official meta.
Its interesting to me of course, since there are barely any double battles in game.
Also unpopular opinion that is more competitive than ingame but w/e; team preview ruined competitive. Thats why I’ve only ever played Randbats when I occasionally go back on PS. You don’t get to see your opponents teams ingame, and it limits any gimmick/surprise strategies severely. Booooring.
I'd point that TECNICALLY singles also has a official meta, that being BSS, which however follows significantly different ruleset than 6v6 singles.
The bring 6 pick 3 format, item clause, no transfer moves, etc significantly change the dynamics of the game.
As for team preview... while I agree that team preview kills most gimmmick and surprise strats, I disagree that it ruined competitive.
I would point to Freezai's video about open team sheets where he goes over a similar point: while it does reduce the amount of viable options, there are some toxic mechanics at play during actually big events with the information games, where people would basically be punished for playing early, being famous, or just having their match shown.
With knowledge of the opponent teams, the result of the match is more dependant on the skill of the players.
The bring 6 pick 3 format, item clause, no transfer moves, etc significantly change the dynamics of the game.
As for team preview... while I agree that team preview kills most gimmmick and surprise strats, I disagree that it ruined competitive.
I would point to Freezai's video about open team sheets where he goes over a similar point: while it does reduce the amount of viable options, there are some toxic mechanics at play during actually big events with the information games, where people would basically be punished for playing early, being famous, or just having their match shown.
With knowledge of the opponent teams, the result of the match is more dependant on the skill of the players.
Agree, I am a big fan of both the BSS and VGC format, where you actually can carry separate team styles, multiple gimmick users (like multiple megas in gen 6-7) or "specific counters" without actually gimping yourself, and pick the ones you feel most appropriate for a given match.
Disguise nerf was probably due to Mimikyu being the best Pokemon in BSS. Since most of the West is unaware of BSS, Mimikyu has always been one of the best Pokémon in BSS thanks to Disguise being a Free Focus Sash, and that huge in 3v3 since it is very fast paced format. It has been very versatile as well, ranging from Swords Dance to Curse and Trick. People would often Sash Mimikyu as well in Gen 7 prior to the nerf.Dunno if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I'd say that Mimikyu should get rebuffed in some way. Might be my blind hatred towards the electric rat, or my salt towards the Disguise nerf, I just want my lil rag to be good again.
Yes. Give every move a base power boost(or BP+bonus effect)? Boring. Make Mirror Move boost your attack and call a Z-Move? That's interesting and requires timing to use properly.
So Dynamax made every non-attack move Protect+ because of course it did.
I definitely agree, Dynamax could've been taken a more interesting way instead of "oooo big nombrs big ataks monke brain go hohohohohoho".
They could've even just gone with Protect moves going to Protect+ while stat boosts and whatnot had some cool lookin' effect like Z-Moves did.
Hm, I'm curious to see what they would do for Gen 10. 10 is a pretty significant number, and though the super mechanics are linked to a certain generation GF can just as easily decide another region has the super mechanic (whether it be naturally or something manmade). I've thought up of a possible plausible way of combining the mechanics together (as well at letting you use them multiple times), so I'm sure GF can too.
So these are facts, where's the (unpopular) opinion?
Maybe give it a Signature Move that works alongside the changes: Patch Up. Only works if Disguise is broken. When used it repairs Disguise and heals Mimikyu 1/16th of its max HP every turn unless Disguise is broken again.Dunno if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I'd say that Mimikyu should get rebuffed in some way. Might be my blind hatred towards the electric rat, or my salt towards the Disguise nerf, I just want my lil rag to be good again.
Or maybe give Mimikyu the Pikachu treatment; make that an item. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’d agree with any kind of buff that goes with Mimikyu’s Disguise, but I’d avoid further discussion on that due to dangerously close to the line of “no-wishlisting” rule.
It does, however, reminds me something.
Game Freak is given too much credit of their once-broken but now mostly well-done Pokémon battling mechanics, and wasn’t criticized enough for a truly lack of other consistently good mechanic since the second generation. Or sixth if you count better access for EVs gains.
Even putting aside the whole issue of “generational / regional gimmicks” discussion, I feel like GF didn’t commited enough with many potential ideas by either doing them poorly right at the beginning or simply dropping them the next generation, or worse both, even if there are potentials. Time constraint for post-Gen 5 Pokémon is the culprit, but this problem is already dated back in the very first generation.
One example of poorly done game design, but mercifully improved later on, are the Dragon-type and the Ghost-type back in RGBY. There is only one line per type, namely Dratini line for Dragon and Ghastly for Ghost, representing their rarity, especially the former… And then it goes down the drain once you discover that the moves the type in question brought the type pretty much non-existent offensive-wise. The following are:
Dragon-type: Dragon Rage (only 40 HP of damage), and that’s it. This means the Dratini line is left without actual STAB, and Dragonite doesn’t even learn any Flying-type moves without the use of transfer (in this case, Fly), making this a double-whammy.
Ghost-type: Lick, Night Shade, and Confuse Ray. This makes Ghost to fares better, but not by much. The two moves, Night Shade and Confuse Ray, cannot get STAB bonus. The only damaging move that can get STAB is Lick… running on a paltry 20 BP (rather than acceptable-for-early-game 30), even with the 30% chance of Paralysis into account. Night Shade is good to whittle down low-HP bulky foes, but that’s it, leaving the Ghastly line a lack of reliable Ghost STAB down the line. Doesn’t help both types runs on the Ghastly line’s lower Attack back in the first three generations, either.
I just think that the gameplay itself really clutches well after the steady improvements up until the sixth generations, which is a good thing. If the gameplay started to regress, such as worsened balance of the type chart, or RNG-based mechanics going into overdrive, people would end up liking modern Pokémon a lot less, since if it is the case, even the other clutches, being the Pokémon and characters themselves, wouldn’t be enough to keep the old and new fans alike invested as they‘ll watch the anime or read the manga instead.
It does, however, reminds me something.
Game Freak is given too much credit of their once-broken but now mostly well-done Pokémon battling mechanics, and wasn’t criticized enough for a truly lack of other consistently good mechanic since the second generation. Or sixth if you count better access for EVs gains.
Even putting aside the whole issue of “generational / regional gimmicks” discussion, I feel like GF didn’t commited enough with many potential ideas by either doing them poorly right at the beginning or simply dropping them the next generation, or worse both, even if there are potentials. Time constraint for post-Gen 5 Pokémon is the culprit, but this problem is already dated back in the very first generation.
One example of poorly done game design, but mercifully improved later on, are the Dragon-type and the Ghost-type back in RGBY. There is only one line per type, namely Dratini line for Dragon and Ghastly for Ghost, representing their rarity, especially the former… And then it goes down the drain once you discover that the moves the type in question brought the type pretty much non-existent offensive-wise. The following are:
Dragon-type: Dragon Rage (only 40 HP of damage), and that’s it. This means the Dratini line is left without actual STAB, and Dragonite doesn’t even learn any Flying-type moves without the use of transfer (in this case, Fly), making this a double-whammy.
Ghost-type: Lick, Night Shade, and Confuse Ray. This makes Ghost to fares better, but not by much. The two moves, Night Shade and Confuse Ray, cannot get STAB bonus. The only damaging move that can get STAB is Lick… running on a paltry 20 BP (rather than acceptable-for-early-game 30), even with the 30% chance of Paralysis into account. Night Shade is good to whittle down low-HP bulky foes, but that’s it, leaving the Ghastly line a lack of reliable Ghost STAB down the line. Doesn’t help both types runs on the Ghastly line’s lower Attack back in the first three generations, either.
I just think that the gameplay itself really clutches well after the steady improvements up until the sixth generations, which is a good thing. If the gameplay started to regress, such as worsened balance of the type chart, or RNG-based mechanics going into overdrive, people would end up liking modern Pokémon a lot less, since if it is the case, even the other clutches, being the Pokémon and characters themselves, wouldn’t be enough to keep the old and new fans alike invested as they‘ll watch the anime or read the manga instead.
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For the Dratini family lacking a STAB move in Gen I, I feel this isn't much an issue as Dragons are only SE against themselves. By not having a Dragon move it oddly assures that, unless you're packing an Ice-type Move, a Type you'll likely only have to deal with Dragon-types at the point of facing the Elite Four, Lance's dragons will be a force to reckon with, especially Dragonite. And yes, this does result with the only Moves which Dragonite can use with its Attack being Normal, though this is also Dragonite we're talking about: it hits hard without STAB and it's Special stat is good enough (especially back then) it can make use of elemental coverage. Oh, and of course it gets plenty of handy Status Moves to make it even more of a pain to deal with (not that any of Lance's dragons in Gen I did that, though Gen II & III they did). If you had the patience to catch & raise a Dratini into a Dragonite, it's not going to be lack of STAB moves which will be an issue.
And for the Ghastly family lacking a STAB, well as fate would have it, even if it did have a decent one in Gen I, it still wouldn't have mattered (for the most part). Ghosts were meant to be the main counter to Psychic-types... and the made a mistake of making Psychic resist Ghost in Gen I! Combine with them also making the Ghastly family part Poison which is weak to Psychic (and Ghost don't resist Psychic), well I'm curious how good of a counter they would have been. This is all "fixed" in Gen II (in quotes because we also have the issue of Ghost being a Physical category so the Ghastly family couldn't even get the full benefits of its STAB until Gen IV!), though that doesn't mean the Ghastly family were out. With a high Special and Speed and learning just enough useful Special & Status Moves, a lot of Gengar may have been one-trick ponies but it was a trick they were pretty good at.
If anything, Dragonite and Gengar showed that Type isn't everything. They had no STAB, but their stats were high enough in the right places where they were still OU, above many other Pokemon who did have a usable STAB but not the right stats.
While not as widespread as a type change or pre-gen 4 attack availability, I've personally felt that changes in gens 8 and 9 have reduced my enthusiasm in addition to the general dislike of cut options.
Issue 1: hazard and removal creep
You could probably trace the changes in entry hazard performance back farther, but gen 8 is where it came to a head for me. Effectively, it feels that effects like U-turn, Volt Switch, and Regenerator were designed in a period where hazards were strong (gen 4-5, post-Rocks and pre-Defog) and became overwhelming when gen 8 favoured hazards much less. Gen 9 has seriously increased availability for Spikes and decreased it for Defog, but even so a rapid back-and-forth on an important aspect doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that future generations (or even gen 9 DLC) will be in a good spot.
Issue 2: sanitized
I really like the high availability of percentage-based passive damage. I feel that it helps to keep high-BST mons (or ingame, level advantages) humble. While hazards are within that category, they aren't doing much against a single threat or an AI that doesn't switch. Giving nearly every mon access to a solid Damage-Over Time was great. It was one of the things I thought about when comparing Pokemon to other battle systems. But we don't have it anymore. I'd be open to something like what happened with Scald, giving a lesser replacement if Toxic was deemed too strong, but right now it feels like any potential enjoyment of a non-Natdex format in gen 9 (which can just ignore the lack of Toxic on older mons) is being carried entirely by Salt Cure. That's pretty much the opposite of a place to experiment.
Nothing said they’re bad, quite the contrary. I do find it funny how the type doesn’t really dictate a Pokémon viability all that much except maybe Ice (for too many weaknesses for just one resistance, simple as that), and it’s how all other stats and mechanics are assembled together.
Although, just because it worked once, or failed once, that repeating the archetype over and over for the Pokémon’s type will only ends up making the Type or archetype feels more rigid, as we’ve seen with how so many defensive Rock-type and Ice-type we got over time even with returning Pokémon into account.
Bug-type moving away from “mostly weak with few exceptions” archetype starting at the fifth generation is for the best, especially after the disastrous showing from Gen 4’s own Bug-type, of which even Yanmega got into an awkward position.
With his last episode airing, I'll slap out an Ash Ketchum hot take: I don't mind that he lost the League so many times. Yes, he's experienced, but winning the League every time would've been boring, and it made Alola/Journeys that much sweeter.
The excuses got worse as time went on, though. Losing to Ritchie? Another hot take but I'm good with it; Ash not being able to win over Charizard was a clear weakness of his and for it to bite him in the ass at the League made sense (though the sleep thing itself was dumb.) The focus of the Silver Conference was the battle with Gary; after that, having him to lose to someone with two unfamiliar Pokémon makes sense. Tyson in the Ever Grande Conference has a damn strong team and was the winner; there's no shame in losing to the guy who goes on to win. Alain is the real controversial one, and he certainly could've had a better team (cough UNFEAZANT cough) `but in hindsight, it's fine.
I got nothin for Tobias or Cameron. They both suck.
The excuses got worse as time went on, though. Losing to Ritchie? Another hot take but I'm good with it; Ash not being able to win over Charizard was a clear weakness of his and for it to bite him in the ass at the League made sense (though the sleep thing itself was dumb.) The focus of the Silver Conference was the battle with Gary; after that, having him to lose to someone with two unfamiliar Pokémon makes sense. Tyson in the Ever Grande Conference has a damn strong team and was the winner; there's no shame in losing to the guy who goes on to win. Alain is the real controversial one, and he certainly could've had a better team (cough UNFEAZANT cough) `but in hindsight, it's fine.
I got nothin for Tobias or Cameron. They both suck.
Yeah Tobias and Cameron are easily the most egregious cases of Ash losing because in different ways it was very obvious both were half-assed plot contrivances who explicitly served to eliminate Ash from the League after he defeated his main rivals, especially the former. In Sinnoh he had an amazing rivalry with Paul and Ash vs Paul in the League was a fantastic climax for Ash's Sinnoh journey, with the two rivals and their clash of beliefs finally coming to a head with Infernape vs Electivire being the big finale, both being long time rivals, and Infernape being the Pokemon Paul gave up on, but Ash gave a chance and trained, and this being the opportunity to prove Ash's beliefs and training methods to be ultimately superior, after Ash took the risk and unlocked Infernape's super-powerful Blaze, it paid off in the end with Infernape beating Electivire and Ash coming out on top.
It was pretty clear that Tobias was a bullshit, half-assed plot device who was created explicitly to eliminate Ash and maintain the status quo after Ash finally surpassed Paul. Dude shows up out of nowhere, uses legendary Pokemon that have no explanation as to why he even has them, and stomps everyone with his Darkrai. At least they made Ash look good in comparison to everyone else by having him KO both Darkrai and a Latios, ie defeating two legendaries consecutively, when everyone else got 6-0'd by Darkrai, but it was still a massive asspull and it was clear that they wanted Ash to beat Paul in an amazing climactic battle but were obligated to keep the status quo so they needed an emergency plot device by creating power creep.
Cameron is on the opposite end where he's just so insanely stupid that his winning against Ash just made the latter look embarrassing by losing to him of all people. Cameron was an extremely stupid and incompetent kid who often made stupid decisions, didn't know how to count or have a good sense of time, and used five Pokemon all the while despite his stupidity he was clad in extreme amounts of plot armor by having a Hydreigon and then his Riolu evolved into a Lucario during the battle and then cleaned up Ash's remaining team. It's even more embarrassing when Cameron proceeded to lose to Virgil afterwards and only KOed three of his mons.
Worse is that Cameron feels like a bad imitation of Ritchie, except he's "Ash but even more stupid". The Unova League ultimately felt like a poorly done mirror of the Indigo League, trying to pull the same story beats and the "failure is okay" mantra from that story arc without realizing what made Indigo work.
I'll throw in my two cents on the Kalos League and Alain though. As upsetting as that loss was (I would've loved to see Ash win but alas), Alain actually worked because he was a proper character who was the protagonist of his own story and while he was specifically the main rival of Ash during XY and XYZ, they gave him all the most impressive accomplishments in his own side series (the Mega Evolution specials) and structured XYZ's story in such a way that they could securely do whatever they wanted with the outcome of the battle from a storytelling point of view. The battle itself was great, and Ash and Alain were pretty much neck-and-neck being able to go down to the wire with each other. Ash-Greninja vs Mega Charizard X was a great showdown, despite the outcome, and Charizard only won because it had more endurance which is very believable when you see how it was trained during the Mega Evolution specials and whatnot.
But really it worked narratively because despite everything, the League itself wasn't the climax of XYZ's story, and it was still the rising action that was building up to the Team Flare crisis, which was the real climax of the story of XYZ, and what Ash, Alain, and Greninja's character arcs during that season were ultimately leading up to. Alain won in the League because he was trying to gather Mega Evolution energy and win and have his Charizard become the strongest Mega Evolved mon so he could be strong enough to protect the people he cared about (ie Mairin), and eventually became so focused on that that he lost sight of everything else. He won in the League claiming victory because of his determination to be the strongest for that reason, and him basically winning as someone who would have Lysandre's favor in his "new world", albeit Alain didn't know it.
Ash and Alain's rivalry and dynamic during XYZ was more narrative, and it all came to a head *after* the League battle with the Flare crisis. Because the two were on even ground with each other, they both benefitted from their battle in different ways tying into their character arcs at the time. Ash taught Alain how to have fun battling again, giving him an actually enjoyable battle, especially at the end with Ash-Greninja vs Mega Charizard X, with Greninja being the strongest opponent Charizard had faced and really pushing it to its limit, while Charizard being the powerhouse it was gave Ash and Greninja that push to mastering their Bond Phenomenon power and unleashing more and more of their true potential in doing so, ultimately coming through in the end with the giant orange Water Shuriken (which while didn't KO Charizard, left it limping and stumbling afterwards). And then it came to with Lysandre showing Alain his reward for winning: unleashing Zygarde and preparing to destroy the world to rebuild it anew.
Alain realizing he had been manipulated and used for a man's evil plans to destroy the world broke him, but then Ash's undying faith in the Alain he knew eventually brought him out of his guilt that he felt and brought him back to the light, ie actually using his strength to be the kind of person who can protect others, ie helping to take Lysandre down. Greninja and Ash together showed their stuff by using their bond to stop the Zygarde abomination and save Mairin's Chespie, and whatnot, and Ash, Alain, and Greninja worked with everyone else in Kalos to take down the big bad (and convince Zygarde to save the day). So ultimately the Kalos League narratively worked because it was building up to the Flare arc (which imo is my favorite villain arc in the anime and had genuinely great payoff for everyone). It ultimately went for the "Ash prevails over Alain on a moral level" angle, to a point where Alain privately considered Ash the one person he could not truly best.
Which is to say, that was the one time after Hoenn that they managed to make Ash losing actually work narratively in a way that still ultimately led to a satisfying conclusion for Alain and Ash's character arcs during that season, because they had a different climactic finale they were building up to (the Team Flare arc, which Greninja's story was also leading into), as opposed to just creating a last-minute plot contrivance to keep Ash from winning the entire thing (Tobias) or doing a poorly executed copycat of the Indigo League's "failure is okay" mantra (Cameron).
Hoenn itself was okay because the Hoenn League was whatever (Ash didn't have any major rivals in Hoenn and was just meandering through that region for the most part), and they made up for it afterwards with a long running Battle Frontier story arc, which Ash went through and ultimately won the whole thing by beating Brandon at the end and becoming a Battle Frontier Champion. So he got out of the Gen 3 anime with a notable accomplishment that felt satisfying.
That said, Ash winning afterwards in Alola and Journeys was admittedly satisfying, but they definitely ran out of excuses for those cases, since they mirror SM and SwSh which make a much bigger deal out of the player becoming a Champion, and Ash winning in those generations mirrored that. Especially in Journeys, because Leon is not only a character with his own story and arc, but his character arc also practically demanded nothing short of Ash's victory. Any other outcome would have been Leon's character assassination and render the entirety of Journeys' narrative pointless.