Unpopular opinions

I got nothin for Tobias or Cameron. They both suck.
Here's my hot take: Ash should have won the actual Conference and then had his loss against the Sinnoh Elite Four (my understanding being that challenging them is a privilege allotted to exceptional trainers like the Tournament Champion). We already got a taste of how overwhelmingly powerful a lot of trainers like them are throughout the season, so they already serve as the "someone better" to strive for challenging without having to invent a "screw you" trainer. It's also just a better ending to the Ash/Paul rivalry, with Ash proving his methods over Paul's but still having a ways to go himself. Ironically Tobias kind of reminds me of early episode Paul, the guy who would look for and catch already-strong Pokemon before proceeding to win his major battles (the Aerial Ace Starly, the origin for his catching Chimchar, Ursaring, the Gliscor leader), so his stomping Ash kind of regresses in that plot if anything.

As for Alain, from a logic point of view he makes enough sense being able to beat Ash considering how close the battle came, Ash-Greninja being a Mega in all but name, and Alain's Mega-Zard X having been shown to throw down with a Gauntlet and not get immediately stomped by the Rampaging Primals during the Mega Evolution Special (Titans that both in game and in-lore are Apocalypse causing entities). The issue was moreso from meta factors on Ash's side (more people watched the main Anime than the Mega Specials, Ash has a much longer history trying to win the League, and there was a MASSIVE arc about Ash and Greninja bonding and syncing up to reach the point Alain kind of enters our view of the story at)
 
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To throw my hat in the ring on Tobias, I don't mind that he has a Latios - actually, I like it a lot! I strongly dislike the notion that any Legendary (even the likes of Arceus) should be one-of-a-kind or unique, so I think a Trainer as evidently skilled and devoted is a worthy user of a Legendary. I think it's also a great testament to his skill to have Ash overcome a Legendary, even if he ends up losing in the end. While much more minor, I like the random guy with a Heatran that's registering for the Lily of the Valleyy Conference for similar reasons. Legendaries should be rare and very limited in their usage for sure, but one canonically-talented trainer having a Latios is not only fine to me, but actively adds to the League.

With that said, I think the Darkrai on top of Latios is a bit excessive. Like, Darkrai is still the least of Tobias' problems as a character - the complete absence of build-up, a non-existent personality, a design that tries too hard to be cool - but two legendaries is a bit much. Owning one legendary is a mark of prestige and devotion - not anyone can just find a Legendary - but a second is just a bit of an asspull (even if you ignore the whole mythical/legendary stuff, which I'm not sure is canon in the anime or not).
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
To throw my hat in the ring on Tobias, I don't mind that he has a Latios - actually, I like it a lot! I strongly dislike the notion that any Legendary (even the likes of Arceus) should be one-of-a-kind or unique, so I think a Trainer as evidently skilled and devoted is a worthy user of a Legendary. I think it's also a great testament to his skill to have Ash overcome a Legendary, even if he ends up losing in the end. While much more minor, I like the random guy with a Heatran that's registering for the Lily of the Valleyy Conference for similar reasons. Legendaries should be rare and very limited in their usage for sure, but one canonically-talented trainer having a Latios is not only fine to me, but actively adds to the League.

With that said, I think the Darkrai on top of Latios is a bit excessive. Like, Darkrai is still the least of Tobias' problems as a character - the complete absence of build-up, a non-existent personality, a design that tries too hard to be cool - but two legendaries is a bit much. Owning one legendary is a mark of prestige and devotion - not anyone can just find a Legendary - but a second is just a bit of an asspull (even if you ignore the whole mythical/legendary stuff, which I'm not sure is canon in the anime or not).
You really don’t think in-universe Arceus at least should be unique?
 
You really don’t think in-universe Arceus at least should be unique?
No, and honestly I'm still opposed to the idea of a creator god Pokemon even after all these years. Even Dialgia and Palkia being (essentially) gods of space and time is a touch too far for my tastes, but Arceus simply being an omnipotent god is just... for lack of better phrasing, anticlimactic? Thankfully there's still a lot of Arceus that's shrouded in mystery (particularly its relationship with Unown) - and as of PLA, an Arceus in Pokemon form is closer to an avatar, an extension of the being itself, than the full god, so I can enjoy it a bit more in that context. But still, being able to reduce the origin of Pokemon to "Arceus did it" is just really lame in my opinion, even if there's a bit of ambiguity as to what Arceus is and how it creates things.

Let's compare it to another 'first Pokemon', Mew. Mew didn't create anything, it's just a bit of a genetic clusterfuck that can use a bunch of moves, so any speculation about it being the ancestor of all Pokemon is just that - speculation. It's rare not because it's an Actual God and only appears to the worthy, it's rare because it's a shy little guy with a low population that hides away in dense rainforests and remote islands, making it a very elusive species. Mew is an enigma in terms of its links to life, but its rarity and mystique makes for a much more engaging story to me than Arceus ever was, before or after PLA.

All of this to say, I don't like Arceus' story role, and PLA lore makes it outright canon that Arceus (in the form that we capture it) is not unique. So no, Arceus shouldn't be unique if you ask me
 
To throw my hat in the ring on Tobias, I don't mind that he has a Latios - actually, I like it a lot! I strongly dislike the notion that any Legendary (even the likes of Arceus) should be one-of-a-kind or unique, so I think a Trainer as evidently skilled and devoted is a worthy user of a Legendary. I think it's also a great testament to his skill to have Ash overcome a Legendary, even if he ends up losing in the end. While much more minor, I like the random guy with a Heatran that's registering for the Lily of the Valley Conference for similar reasons. Legendaries should be rare and very limited in their usage for sure, but one canonically-talented trainer having a Latios is not only fine to me, but actively adds to the League.

With that said, I think the Darkrai on top of Latios is a bit excessive. Like, Darkrai is still the least of Tobias' problems as a character - the complete absence of build-up, a non-existent personality, a design that tries too hard to be cool - but two legendaries is a bit much. Owning one legendary is a mark of prestige and devotion - not anyone can just find a Legendary - but a second is just a bit of an asspull (even if you ignore the whole mythical/legendary stuff, which I'm not sure is canon in the anime or not).
My issue is that Tobias doesn't really exhibit any sense of skill before he's introduced with Darkrai, so the Legendaries feel more like a shortcut to say he's special than depicting a character worthy of the kind of chops you describe. Like, someone like Paul managing to capture and draw legitimate battle ability out of a legendary would work for me because he already has an established skill to work from, plus a character to explore the situation through (how does Paul's style interact with a Pokemon that has much less reason to obey him simply for being a trainer?)

I also just don't think it's a good place for the anime to go with the Legendary choices, because there are a lot of Legendaries that are established as "people should stay separate from these," which the Latis come across as in Heroes compared to, say, the Birds, with the anime also not being a setting where capturing Legendaries is a "normal" endeavor to approach (compare the manga where people capture the Kanto birds off-screen, the Beasts team up with people, or Pryce capturing Lugia and Ho-oh is something that goes relatively unnoticed until used). It just ends up feeling incongruent with how the anime handles it even when these do happen (heck, even Goh capturing Suicune is tenuous as a capture and done under an extreme emergency situation)
 
Hot take: I actually didn't like Ash winning the Alola League. He's gotten beat everywhere else so far, so him winning in Alola serves to prove that Alola doesn't have any good trainers. Ash winning a League should have involved an established League so we know they're powerful, explain what mental/skill/personality issue has kept Ash from winning in all previous challenges, and then show him overcoming it. And not just generic "power of friendship/believe in yourself" options, actually explain why a guy who has been doing this for however-many seasons and Leagues can't win and then set the story up so it's believable that he'd move past it.
 
Hot take: I actually didn't like Ash winning the Alola League. He's gotten beat everywhere else so far, so him winning in Alola serves to prove that Alola doesn't have any good trainers. Ash winning a League should have involved an established League so we know they're powerful, explain what mental/skill/personality issue has kept Ash from winning in all previous challenges, and then show him overcoming it. And not just generic "power of friendship/believe in yourself" options, actually explain why a guy who has been doing this for however-many seasons and Leagues can't win and then set the story up so it's believable that he'd move past it.
This kind of feels like the inverse of the Tobias discussion above:
  • If you believe that Ash should win, finally winning in Alola is natural but Tobias being above his weight class requires extra explanation
  • If you believe that Ash shouldn't win, getting stat-checked is expected but there needs to be extra explanation to win a real league
I personally come down on the "Ash shouldn't win" side because I value the battle mechanics as the game does them and that's something Ash plot armours through instead of learning.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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To throw my hat in the ring on Tobias, I don't mind that he has a Latios - actually, I like it a lot! I strongly dislike the notion that any Legendary (even the likes of Arceus) should be one-of-a-kind or unique, so I think a Trainer as evidently skilled and devoted is a worthy user of a Legendary. I think it's also a great testament to his skill to have Ash overcome a Legendary, even if he ends up losing in the end. While much more minor, I like the random guy with a Heatran that's registering for the Lily of the Valleyy Conference for similar reasons. Legendaries should be rare and very limited in their usage for sure, but one canonically-talented trainer having a Latios is not only fine to me, but actively adds to the League.

With that said, I think the Darkrai on top of Latios is a bit excessive. Like, Darkrai is still the least of Tobias' problems as a character - the complete absence of build-up, a non-existent personality, a design that tries too hard to be cool - but two legendaries is a bit much. Owning one legendary is a mark of prestige and devotion - not anyone can just find a Legendary - but a second is just a bit of an asspull (even if you ignore the whole mythical/legendary stuff, which I'm not sure is canon in the anime or not).
I myself also don't mind Tobias (at least him using Darkrai, Latios felt like a ass-pull; if it was up to me I would have made the rest of his team Pokemon with the Abilities Vital Spirit, Insomnia, or Early Bird with Dark-type resistance aka his "these are the Pokemon I used to catch Darkrai": Primeape, Ariados, Honchkrow, Houndoom & Shiftry; but it is what it is). Aside from Latios, I think the other issue with Tobias is that he truly came out of nowhere. Maybe if they had started building him up before the League they could have at least shown they were planning this from the start and they didn't just create him right when they started writing the League episodes (which I wouldn't be surprised was the case, but let's pretend Tobais existed as at least a vague concept of the next trainer to defeat Ash they had in mind).

  • I'd say right after Ash gets his 5th Badge (Fantina's Relic Badge), at the end of the episode we cut to the end of another Gym Battle: Roark's and we see his Rampardos fall over KOed. We switch shots to see his opponent hidden in a dust cloud, camera pans over to reveal his trainer, a man with long blue-gray hair and wearing a dark red cloak, smiling. The dust cloud doesn't clear, but we see a silhouette of his Pokemon with a glowing blue eye.
  • Several episodes later, we get the episodes with Roark & Byron and sometime during those episodes Roark tells Ash about a powerful challenger he faced and we cut to flashback of a continuation of the battle, the dust cloud clearing to reveal a Darkrai (luckily, not only has the Darkrai aired at this point, but when Ash & co. got to Canalave they had to deal with a Darkrai causing trouble so they can flashback to Darkrai & Cresselia battling (which I would have made more dynamic instead of just slamming into each other)).
  • Another few episodes later, at the end of Ash winning the Icicle Badge from Candice, we cut to Byron accepting a Gym Challenge and saying he heard about him from his son, asking for the stranger's name. He introduces himself as Tobias and sends out Darkrai as they begin the battle.
  • At the end of the episode where Ash & co. leave Sunyshore, the episode after Ash defeats Volkner for the Beacon Badge, Volkner has officially reopened challenges to the public and the first one to challenge him is Tobias. Tobias reveals this will be his 8th Badge, showing his Badge Case (it would be the in-game Badges, aka the same Badges that Ash gets, minus the Beacon Badge). He sends out his Darkrai and Volkner says he heard about a powerful trainer using a Darkrai, Tobias smirking and saying maybe then Volkner would be the first trainer to defeat his Darkrai. We get a quick series of still shots of Darkrai knocking out the ace's of all the other Sinnoh Gym Leaders, and at the end we see Darkrai knocking out Volkner's Luxray.
  • And from there we get to the League episodes.

It's not much more, but I feel it would be better build-up as we learn little-by-little about this Darkrai trainer (first a cameo, than confirming he uses a Darkrai, than we learn his name, & than we learn his Darkrai is undefeated before) and just see how fast he got his Gym Badges (In just 26 episodes he defeated Roark, Gardenia, Fantina, Maylene, Wake, and challenge/defeating Byron; and just as Ash won his final Badge we learn Tobias has also defeated Candice and challenging/defeating Volkner just in time for the League).

Because Tobias was an interesting challenge for Ash and Ash's Sceptile defeating Darkrai was a major moment. Sadly it was spoiled with Tobias than sending out a Latios, even though I feel Tobias would have still won had he just gone with a normal team from then on (using the team I suggested, Tobais sends out Houndoom which weakens Sceptile forcing Ash to switch to Swellow who defeats Houndoom, Tobias sends out Honchkrow which defeats Swellow, Ash sends in Pikachu but Tobias switches for Shiftry but it gets defeated by Pikachu, Tobias sends out Ariados which webs up and poisons Pikachu before switching in Primeape which defeat Pikachu, Ash sends out Sceptile who defeat both Primeape and Ariados but gets webbed up, finally Tobias defeats a weakened & slowed down Sceptile with Honchkrow). But eitherway I don't hate Tobias as other people do (so in my book Cameron is really the only trainer who's victory or Ash was bad; especially since we already had Virgil and his much more interesting Eeveelution team).

Oh, and while I agree I wouldn't mind seeing more trainers with the "lesser" Legendaries, I would also still like them to treat the mascot Legendaries and other equal Legendaries/Mythicals as deities as that what makes them so awe-inspiring. These Pokemon could and have tried to end the world or at least the region they're located in with relative ease. In the games we catch them because of "rule of cool" and we're a super special trainer deemed worthy of using them, but outside of that I would prefer they're treated like a physical god which they're a parallel to.

Arceus is simply a visage of the true Llama God, so there could be multiple
Arceus: YOU CANNOT GRASP MY TRUE FORM!

Dawn: Um, you look sorta... llama-ish?
Arceus: Wha-?
*POOF*

Arceus: ... I guess this is what I look like now... Where did this ring around my abdomen come from?


I also just don't think it's a good place for the anime to go with the Legendary choices, because there are a lot of Legendaries that are established as "people should stay separate from these," which the Latis come across as in Heroes compared to, say, the Birds, with the anime also not being a setting where capturing Legendaries is a "normal" endeavor to approach (compare the manga where people capture the Kanto birds off-screen, the Beasts team up with people, or Pryce capturing Lugia and Ho-oh is something that goes relatively unnoticed until used). It just ends up feeling incongruent with how the anime handles it even when these do happen (heck, even Goh capturing Suicune is tenuous as a capture and done under an extreme emergency situation)
Well in regards with the Legendary Birds context is important. You're thinking of the group in the Orange Islands back when Pokemon was just the 151 plus some sneak preview of the upcoming Gen II Pokemon. For those particular Legendary Birds capturing them is a bad idea because they were guardians of a set of islands which apparently held power over major ocean currents; when they vanish things go unbalanced which results the current to become turbulent which causes rough seas and extremely dangerous weather phenomenon all over the world. So catching them is a bad idea. However since then we've seen a few of the Legendary Birds who don't seem to be particularly doing anything, they're free agents so likely catching them won't cause a cataclysm (or at least befriending them and allowing you to use them in battle, ala Noland and his befriended Articuno).

In general I don't think there would be any issue if the following Legendaries/Mythicals were used by a trainer: Legendary Birds, Mew, Legendary Beasts (Normal & Galarian), Legendary Titans (+ Regigigas), Eon Duo, Deoxys, Lunar Duo, Heatran, Manaphy (+ Phione), Shaymin, Swords of Justice, Forces of Nature, Victini, Meloetta, Diancie, Hoopa, Volcanion, Magearna, Marshadow, Zeraora, Meltan family, Kubfu family, & Zarude.

As for all the others, the anime either confirmed they're one of a kind or catching them would be either very difficult/cause issues (such as with Celebi & Jirachi).

Of course still, such trainers should be very rarely seen, unless maybe the point of the episode is a batch of these trainers are meeting up for whatever reason. Also, as seen with Goh's Suicune, just because Goh caught it doesn't mean it sticks around. His Suicune comes and goes as it pleases and I don't think he ever uses it, at most Professor Cerise and his staff gather data on it from observation when its around (also missed opportunity not having an episode where Eisune appears and demands seeing Suicune). Infact I think they could have also used Goh's Suicune to bring back Tobias and give him some backstory (I could come up with a whole episode idea but I'll skip it as this post is already long; long story short they meet Tobias who helps Goh and Suicune bond).

Hot take: I actually didn't like Ash winning the Alola League. He's gotten beat everywhere else so far, so him winning in Alola serves to prove that Alola doesn't have any good trainers. Ash winning a League should have involved an established League so we know they're powerful, explain what mental/skill/personality issue has kept Ash from winning in all previous challenges, and then show him overcoming it. And not just generic "power of friendship/believe in yourself" options, actually explain why a guy who has been doing this for however-many seasons and Leagues can't win and then set the story up so it's believable that he'd move past it.
Not to mention the Alola League had a few BS moments, particularly the Ash Vs Hau battle where Hau was screwed over twice during that battle. Also I thought the first part of the League where it was a free-for-all was dumb and came with some other BS moments like Ilima's Eevee knocking out Plumria's Salazzle so in the end only Guzma was the Team Skull member in the tournament.
 
They should have killed Arven's dog.

Think about it. Arven runs around, gathers the Herba Mystica, saves YOUR legendary, but Mabosstiff is too far gone. Tragic, etc. Then while he's mourning, his parent calls, asks for a favor, doesn't even comment on him. The call ends, Arven rages, comes to terms with his grief, then Houndstone walks over and drops the ball in Arven's lap so he can play. You could do a really good story about handling grief with that, toss in some interesting parallels to the Professor story in the endgame, but nope. They had a real dog mon and a ghost dog mon in the same gen and didn't do anything with it.

Also, why aren't Penny/Nemona used better in the endgame? Penny's story is about tech being used to isolate yourself, Nemona's character is about never knowing when to dial it back from 11. And yet neither of them has anything to say about a Professor who isolates themself from their family in order to over-focus on their work.
 
Finally, I’ve discovered a thread where I can talk crap about Gen 4! I have a few things I will talk about:

-Cynthia is not as different a fight as people make it sound like. I beat her first try, and I was playing BDSP, which does not do these games any justice besides being more difficult and the health bars go down faster. ORAS Steven and Kukui were harder.

- Tepig is an above average starter. If it and torchic had traded release dates, (so that it wasn’t the third fire/fighting type in a row) people would hate it a whole lot less. Also if tepig came out in gen 3, Emboar would have gotten a mega, and it would have been SICK.

-I hate Fuecoco. I hate every aspect of Fuecoco. It’s derpy face, it’s horrid middle stage, how dirge is Fire/Ghost even though they just did that with hisui Typhlosion, and how annoying dirge is to play against in competitive. Unlike the other two starters of gen 9, it has no character to it’s evolutions. Sprigatito is a cat that wants attention, so as it evolved, it became a magician. Quaxly cares a lot about how it looks, so it became a dancer through evolution. Idk how being a singing croc that’s dead ties into Skeledirge’s roots as a fuecoco.
 
They should have killed Arven's dog.

Think about it. Arven runs around, gathers the Herba Mystica, saves YOUR legendary, but Mabosstiff is too far gone. Tragic, etc. Then while he's mourning, his parent calls, asks for a favor, doesn't even comment on him. The call ends, Arven rages, comes to terms with his grief, then Houndstone walks over and drops the ball in Arven's lap so he can play. You could do a really good story about handling grief with that, toss in some interesting parallels to the Professor story in the endgame, but nope. They had a real dog mon and a ghost dog mon in the same gen and didn't do anything with it.

Also, why aren't Penny/Nemona used better in the endgame? Penny's story is about tech being used to isolate yourself, Nemona's character is about never knowing when to dial it back from 11. And yet neither of them has anything to say about a Professor who isolates themself from their family in order to over-focus on their work.
I also feel like the endgame story needs a refocus, but coming from the other direction. I end up thinking of the Professor and the Professor-AI as separate characters, so the issues with over-focusing on their work aren't the fault of the final boss. As far as the interaction with the AI itself goes, we the player are just there to crush their dreams with the harshness of reality. A role that I can't help feel is out of place for the kind of media a mainline pokemon game is. It feels like the AI's story is desperately missing either a "here's how your passion can fit in" (show the AI prof, who was presumably not been keeping up with every development in the rest of the world, tyrunt/porygon?) moment or a "don't feel bound by the path your parent/creator set for you" moment.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
- Tepig is an above average starter. If it and torchic had traded release dates, (so that it wasn’t the third fire/fighting type in a row) people would hate it a whole lot less. Also if tepig came out in gen 3, Emboar would have gotten a mega, and it would have been SICK.
Tepig itself is fine, (though is overshadowed by the other starters in its gen) but Emboar is just a poor design and with no gimmicks to save it.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Yes I agree. But Blue, on the other hand....
I've come to appreciate Blue a lot more in recent years, as he's the only rival in the first few generations who actually perseveres with trying to complete the Pokedex (as you'd expect from Professor Oak's grandchild). Not until Trevor in XY (who I'm also quite fond of) was there a rival so dedicated, all the other ones do a dreadful job.
  • Brendan/May are stated to have already been a trainer for some time prior to meeting them in RSE, but eventually basically concede "you're better than me at both battling and collecting" and go home instead of continuing on. If you complete the Hoenn Dex in Emerald and get your Johto starter, they admit that it's your hard work that's getting them the National Dex.
  • Dawn/Lucas straight-up tell you throughout DPP that they're not doing well at filling the Pokedex, and basically end up doing nothing by the end of the game except standing around (in BDSP they seem to be doing a bit better). Even their younger sister says that she wants you to do better than them!
  • Neither Cheren or Bianca makes a great success of filling the Pokedex, though they do find success in other areas.
Going back to Blue, I was always intrigued by his line "I assembled teams that could beat any type", as I used to think that meant that he'd literally trained up multiple alternative teams. That's not something the original games really support though obviously he swaps out Pidgeot and Rhydon from his team in FRLG and has a slightly different roster in HGSS, and by SM/USUM he's got multiple different Pokemon in his pool of usable species at the Tree.

I especially like the addition FRLG made to his arc, as you meet him a couple of times in the Sevii Islands and find that he's still very much focused on completing the Pokedex, fittingly having already received an egg from the Daycare. He's found on Six Island having presumably just caught the Heracross he later uses, but we never learn what was in the egg he got. Could have been a Larvitar but equally he probably caught all manner of species, so maybe not. I guess his eventual declaration that "we can't complete the Pokedex by staying in one place [the Sevii Islands]" marks the point where he decides he'd rather focus on battling, though he does mention that he'll keep "collecting Pokemon at my own pace".

For all his arrogant bluster, he is legitimately really good at filling the Pokedex, since he mentions already having obtained 40 species on the SS Anne and later mentions that he's been looking at the listing to figure out which species evolve. Clever boy. Of all the rivals, he's overall probably the most accomplished: Champion, Gym Leader, battle facility leader, Pokedex completionist. Yeah. He's definitely pretty cool.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I've come to appreciate Blue a lot more in recent years, as he's the only rival in the first few generations who actually perseveres with trying to complete the Pokedex (as you'd expect from Professor Oak's grandchild). Not until Trevor in XY (who I'm also quite fond of) was there a rival so dedicated, all the other ones do a dreadful job.
  • Brendan/May are stated to have already been a trainer for some time prior to meeting them in RSE, but eventually basically concede "you're better than me at both battling and collecting" and go home instead of continuing on. If you complete the Hoenn Dex in Emerald and get your Johto starter, they admit that it's your hard work that's getting them the National Dex.
  • Dawn/Lucas straight-up tell you throughout DPP that they're not doing well at filling the Pokedex, and basically end up doing nothing by the end of the game except standing around (in BDSP they seem to be doing a bit better). Even their younger sister says that she wants you to do better than them!
  • Neither Cheren or Bianca makes a great success of filling the Pokedex, though they do find success in other areas.
Going back to Blue, I was always intrigued by his line "I assembled teams that could beat any type", as I used to think that meant that he'd literally trained up multiple alternative teams. That's not something the original games really support though obviously he swaps out Pidgeot and Rhydon from his team in FRLG and has a slightly different roster in HGSS, and by SM/USUM he's got multiple different Pokemon in his pool of usable species at the Tree.

I especially like the addition FRLG made to his arc, as you meet him a couple of times in the Sevii Islands and find that he's still very much focused on completing the Pokedex, fittingly having already received an egg from the Daycare. He's found on Six Island having presumably just caught the Heracross he later uses, but we never learn what was in the egg he got. Could have been a Larvitar but equally he probably caught all manner of species, so maybe not. I guess his eventual declaration that "we can't complete the Pokedex by staying in one place [the Sevii Islands]" marks the point where he decides he'd rather focus on battling, though he does mention that he'll keep "collecting Pokemon at my own pace".

For all his arrogant bluster, he is legitimately really good at filling the Pokedex, since he mentions already having obtained 40 species on the SS Anne and later mentions that he's been looking at the listing to figure out which species evolve. Clever boy. Of all the rivals, he's overall probably the most accomplished: Champion, Gym Leader, battle facility leader, Pokedex completionist. Yeah. He's definitely pretty cool.
I’ll always love Silver as the best rival but yeah Blue is an easy second for me.
 

Ransei

Garde Mystik
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There is never going to be a plot worse than Sinnoh's (DPPt/Arceus movie/Giratina movie) in Pokemon.

Any butchery made to human characters in the series cannot overshadow the extreme butchery done in the execution of gods who were meant to define all of Pokemon lore and the universe(s) they shaped; Pokemon who were meant to be at the very pinnacle in terms of power-level. These Pokemon make digging into the lore feel meaningless at times because the games / movies expressed ridiculous amounts of plot armor against the entire lake trio, creation trio, and Arceus, in a manner either not as present or not as severe as in any other generation's media. Every time I bring this up people are like "isn't every Pokemon story like this?" The answer is no. No other generation gets this ludicrous amount of plot-induced stupidity.

For example, in Gen 6's case, Team Flare was able to get a hold of Xerneas/Yveltal by sneaking them into their base while they were sleep. Lysandre tried to get their life energy drained but they eventually woke up on their own, broke free from the weapon, took back their life energy, and showed Lysandre who was boss. - okay that's actually reasonable.

In Gen 3, Archie and Maxie raided building after building ran by human communities everywhere in order to gather the resources needed to access the legendary box art. They've obtained the resources and then reached out to Kyogre/Groudon, who then proceeded to break free, go out of control, and show Archie and Maxie who's boss - this is also reasonable.

A similar thing happened with BW as with Gen 3 except a legendary Pokemon willingly sided with the main antagonist of the game. N did not attempt to force Reshiram/Zekrom under his control.

In B2W2, Kyurem was captured and used. Okay sure, but conceptually, Kyurem is a soulless empty shell of a Pokemon deprived of any motivation to do anything but eat and sleep. It needs help. It needs to see the light in truth or ideals in order to gain the motivation to do something. This is a reasonable explanation for how Kyurem managed to get captured and used by Team Plasma in B2W2. Additionally, Kyurem was designed to be nowhere near the level of deities that control time, space, or all of existence. Kyurem is just able to freeze the world with ice. Not shape up entire universes or define the entire nature of Pokemon as we know it.

In Gen 7 the only legendaries captured by human antagonists were baby Pokemon. Aside from that, Necrozma managed to get control of Solgaleo/Lunala but Necrozma was designed to be a force above them anyway.

Gens 1 and 2 didn't really use their legendaries much in the plot aside from making them glorified trophies. Gen 9 turned their legendaries into glorified regular Pokemon with little substance.

Gen 8 simply had legendary Pokemon do their jobs. Nothing more.


Team Galactic were actively messing with Pokemon gods, whether it was Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit, Palkia, or Dialga. Almost all of them canonically had the power to see what Galactic were doing well ahead of time and intervene. All 5 of these Pokemon had every capability possible to avoid the situations they were stuck in. Uxie could dismantle Team Galactic just by opening its eyes and even know what Galactic were doing before the team even reached it. Azelf can manipulate or remove their will, even control them for its own desires. Mesprit could play around with their emotions. All 3 could've done the exact same thing they usually do when you see them; just randomly disappear into somewhere far away. They could have done that to escape as the very last resort if that was ever needed, which it wasn't. Dialga is the embodiment of time. The literal nanosecond it appeared out of its portal it could have ended up in 50 different points of time simultaneously to stop Team Galactic from ever getting a hold of the Red Chain. Palkia could've just erased Cyrus within that same timeframe. Giratina was just shoehorned into the same climax as DP to save the day, with no real explanation until 13 years later with Legends Arceus. Giratina's lore barely even got fleshed out in Platinum. All we did was "enter its home". It's honestly less so than Xerneas/Yveltal (who got more than you'd probably expect but a lot of information is given by random NPCs in houses) but people disagree because "Distortion World looks cool". Aside from this, in Giratina's movie, Giratina got captured by an antagonist while alive, active, and awake, and nearly died to a machine, very much unlike the case with Xerneas and Yveltal, despite representing a concept beyond Xerneas and Yveltal. Arceus was... well, https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/unpopular-opinions.3530232/page-492#post-9432356. Unlike Kyogre, Groudon, Xerneas, Yveltal, they were not able to defend themselves from abuse/being misused/mishandled by antagonists. Unlike Reshiram/Zekrom, they were not willingly siding with the antagonist. Unlike Cosmog, they weren't babies designed to be among the weakest of Pokemon, and unlike Kyurem, all of their power-levels were above and beyond for the series. Gen 4 truly did more harm than good to Pokemon lore thanks to their stories. It's shown by how for example, people believe Arceus to not be the defining Pokemon in series lore due to how it almost died to a meteor and got defeated by silver water.

At the end of the day, the Gen 4 legendaries and mythicals were intended to be Pokemon far beyond every other box art in terms of power and relevance in the lore, but were simultaneously treated as the most pathetic ones. This severely lessened the value of Pokemon lore and theories in general imo and it's shameful.

/end rant
 
Last edited:
There is never going to be a plot worse than Sinnoh's (DPPt/Arceus movie/Giratina movie) in Pokemon.

Any butchery made to human characters in the series cannot overshadow the extreme butchery done in the execution of gods who were meant to define all of Pokemon lore and the universe(s) they shaped; Pokemon who were meant to be at the very pinnacle in terms of power-level. These Pokemon make digging into the lore feel meaningless at times because the games / movies expressed ridiculous amounts of plot armor against the entire lake trio, creation trio, and Arceus, in a manner either not as present or not as severe as in any other generation's media. Every time I bring this up people are like "isn't every Pokemon story like this?" The answer is no. No other generation gets this ludicrous amount of plot-induced stupidity.

For example, in Gen 6's case, Team Flare was able to get a hold of Xerneas/Yveltal by sneaking them into their base while they were sleep. Lysandre tried to get their life energy drained but they eventually woke up on their own, broke free from the weapon, took back their life energy, and showed Lysandre who was boss. - okay that's actually reasonable.

In Gen 3, Archie and Maxie raided building after building ran by human communities everywhere in order to gather the resources needed to access the legendary box art. They've obtained the resources and then reached out to Kyogre/Groudon, who then proceeded to break free, go out of control, and show Archie and Maxie who's boss - this is also reasonable.

A similar thing happened with BW as with Gen 3 except a legendary Pokemon willingly sided with the main antagonist of the game. N did not attempt to force Reshiram/Zekrom under his control.

In B2W2, Kyurem was captured and used. Okay sure, but conceptually, Kyurem is a soulless empty shell of a Pokemon deprived of any motivation to do anything but eat and sleep. It needs help. It needs to see the light in truth or ideals in order to gain the motivation to do something. This is a reasonable explanation for how Kyurem managed to get captured and used by Team Plasma in B2W2. Additionally, Kyurem was designed to be nowhere near the level of deities that control time, space, or all of existence. Kyurem is just able to freeze the world with ice. Not shape up entire universes or define the entire nature of Pokemon as we know it.

In Gen 7 the only legendaries captured by human antagonists were baby Pokemon. Aside from that, Necrozma managed to get control of Solgaleo/Lunala but Necrozma was designed to be a force above them anyway.

Gens 1 and 2 didn't really use their legendaries much in the plot aside from making them glorified trophies. Gen 9 turned their legendaries into glorified regular Pokemon with little substance.

Gen 8 simply had legendary Pokemon do their jobs. Nothing more.


Team Galactic were actively messing with Pokemon gods, whether it was Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit, Palkia, or Dialga. Almost all of them canonically had the power to see what Galactic were doing well ahead of time and intervene. All 5 of these Pokemon had every capability possible to avoid the situations they were stuck in. Uxie could dismantle Team Galactic just by opening its eyes and even know what Galactic were doing before the team even reached it. Azelf can manipulate or remove their will, even control them for its own desires. Mesprit could play around with their emotions. All 3 could've done the exact same thing they usually do when you see them; just randomly disappear into somewhere far away. They could have done that to escape as the very last resort if that was ever needed, which it wasn't. Dialga is the embodiment of time. The literal nanosecond it appeared out of its portal it could have ended up in 50 different points of time simultaneously to stop Team Galactic from ever getting a hold of the Red Chain. Palkia could've just erased Cyrus within that same timeframe. Giratina was just shoehorned into the same climax as DP to save the day, with no real explanation until 13 years later with Legends Arceus. Giratina's lore barely even got fleshed out in Platinum. All we did was "enter its home". It's honestly less so than Xerneas/Yveltal (who got more than you'd probably expect but a lot of information is given by random NPCs in houses) but people disagree because "Distortion World looks cool". Aside from this, in Giratina's movie, Giratina got captured by an antagonist while alive, active, and awake, and nearly died to a machine, very much unlike the case with Xerneas and Yveltal, despite representing a concept beyond Xerneas and Yveltal. Arceus was... well, https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/unpopular-opinions.3530232/page-492#post-9432356. Unlike Kyogre, Groudon, Xerneas, Yveltal, they were not able to defend themselves from abuse/being misused/mishandled by antagonists. Unlike Reshiram/Zekrom, they were not willingly siding with the antagonist. Unlike Cosmog, they weren't babies designed to be among the weakest of Pokemon, and unlike Kyurem, all of their power-levels were above and beyond for the series. Gen 4 truly did more harm than good to Pokemon lore thanks to their stories. It's shown by how for example, people believe Arceus to not be the defining Pokemon in series lore due to how it almost died to a meteor and got defeated by silver water.

At the end of the day, the Gen 4 legendaries and mythicals were intended to be Pokemon far beyond every other box art in terms of power and relevance in the lore, but were simultaneously treated as the most pathetic ones. This severely lessened the value of Pokemon lore and theories in general imo and it's shameful.

/end rant
dUzura6smog.png

(I absolutely agree with this post)
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
There is never going to be a plot worse than Sinnoh's (DPPt/Arceus movie/Giratina movie) in Pokemon.

Any butchery made to human characters in the series cannot overshadow the extreme butchery done in the execution of gods who were meant to define all of Pokemon lore and the universe(s) they shaped; Pokemon who were meant to be at the very pinnacle in terms of power-level. These Pokemon make digging into the lore feel meaningless at times because the games / movies expressed ridiculous amounts of plot armor against the entire lake trio, creation trio, and Arceus, in a manner either not as present or not as severe as in any other generation's media. Every time I bring this up people are like "isn't every Pokemon story like this?" The answer is no. No other generation gets this ludicrous amount of plot-induced stupidity.

For example, in Gen 6's case, Team Flare was able to get a hold of Xerneas/Yveltal by sneaking them into their base while they were sleep. Lysandre tried to get their life energy drained but they eventually woke up on their own, broke free from the weapon, took back their life energy, and showed Lysandre who was boss. - okay that's actually reasonable.

In Gen 3, Archie and Maxie raided building after building ran by human communities everywhere in order to gather the resources needed to access the legendary box art. They've obtained the resources and then reached out to Kyogre/Groudon, who then proceeded to break free, go out of control, and show Archie and Maxie who's boss - this is also reasonable.

A similar thing happened with BW as with Gen 3 except a legendary Pokemon willingly sided with the main antagonist of the game. N did not attempt to force Reshiram/Zekrom under his control.

In B2W2, Kyurem was captured and used. Okay sure, but conceptually, Kyurem is a soulless empty shell of a Pokemon deprived of any motivation to do anything but eat and sleep. It needs help. It needs to see the light in truth or ideals in order to gain the motivation to do something. This is a reasonable explanation for how Kyurem managed to get captured and used by Team Plasma in B2W2. Additionally, Kyurem was designed to be nowhere near the level of deities that control time, space, or all of existence. Kyurem is just able to freeze the world with ice. Not shape up entire universes or define the entire nature of Pokemon as we know it.

In Gen 7 the only legendaries captured by human antagonists were baby Pokemon. Aside from that, Necrozma managed to get control of Solgaleo/Lunala but Necrozma was designed to be a force above them anyway.

Gens 1 and 2 didn't really use their legendaries much in the plot aside from making them glorified trophies. Gen 9 turned their legendaries into glorified regular Pokemon with little substance.

Gen 8 simply had legendary Pokemon do their jobs. Nothing more.


Team Galactic were actively messing with Pokemon gods, whether it was Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit, Palkia, or Dialga. Almost all of them canonically had the power to see what Galactic were doing well ahead of time and intervene. All 5 of these Pokemon had every capability possible to avoid the situations they were stuck in. Uxie could dismantle Team Galactic just by opening its eyes and even know what Galactic were doing before the team even reached it. Azelf can manipulate or remove their will, even control them for its own desires. Mesprit could play around with their emotions. All 3 could've done the exact same thing they usually do when you see them; just randomly disappear into somewhere far away. They could have done that to escape as the very last resort if that was ever needed, which it wasn't. Dialga is the embodiment of time. The literal nanosecond it appeared out of its portal it could have ended up in 50 different points of time simultaneously to stop Team Galactic from ever getting a hold of the Red Chain. Palkia could've just erased Cyrus within that same timeframe. Giratina was just shoehorned into the same climax as DP to save the day, with no real explanation until 13 years later with Legends Arceus. Giratina's lore barely even got fleshed out in Platinum. All we did was "enter its home". It's honestly less so than Xerneas/Yveltal (who got more than you'd probably expect but a lot of information is given by random NPCs in houses) but people disagree because "Distortion World looks cool". Aside from this, in Giratina's movie, Giratina got captured by an antagonist while alive, active, and awake, and nearly died to a machine, very much unlike the case with Xerneas and Yveltal, despite representing a concept beyond Xerneas and Yveltal. Arceus was... well, https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/unpopular-opinions.3530232/page-492#post-9432356. Unlike Kyogre, Groudon, Xerneas, Yveltal, they were not able to defend themselves from abuse/being misused/mishandled by antagonists. Unlike Reshiram/Zekrom, they were not willingly siding with the antagonist. Unlike Cosmog, they weren't babies designed to be among the weakest of Pokemon, and unlike Kyurem, all of their power-levels were above and beyond for the series. Gen 4 truly did more harm than good to Pokemon lore thanks to their stories. It's shown by how for example, people believe Arceus to not be the defining Pokemon in series lore due to how it almost died to a meteor and got defeated by silver water.

At the end of the day, the Gen 4 legendaries and mythicals were intended to be Pokemon far beyond every other box art in terms of power and relevance in the lore, but were simultaneously treated as the most pathetic ones. This severely lessened the value of Pokemon lore and theories in general imo and it's shameful.

/end rant
I’m sorry, your points are wonderful and logical but as a Gen 4 fan this is how I truly feel.

62A2C3E2-DA82-4A40-ADAC-C6E30965CB3F.jpeg
 
Giratina was just shoehorned into the same climax as DP to save the day, with no real explanation until 13 years later with Legends Arceus. Giratina's lore barely even got fleshed out in Platinum. All we did was "enter its home".
I disagree that this is a bad thing. The whole point in Platinum is that no one knows anything about Giratina; all we have are Cynthia's musings based on a few scraps of old legends, which she herself admits are just speculation. It creates an interesting question about Giratina's motivations: is it trying to save our world or does it merely sense a risk to itself and its home, intervening in an act of self-preservation? Once again I find myself in the OI forums defending the idea that less is more when it comes to Pokemon lore.

Tbh the problem with the Spear Pillar plot is less that Giratina was "shoehorned" in in Platinum and more that the original DP plot was so terrible, like the resolution is just that the Lake Guardians neutralise Dialga/Palkia because Cyrus was silly enough to let you release them. As a result, the final boss battle is rendered completely inconsequential in hindsight, whereas in Platinum you know that Cyrus' plan has already been foiled by the time you battle him and so you enter it knowing you're just putting down a dangerous sociopath so you can get back to your world.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Question
We know RS were not recieved well in terms of starting anew and no backporting. Masuda noted that the disconnect might've killed Pokemon if it didn't sell well

But what about DP's first reception? All I know is that people initially didn't like the Sp/Phys split, but the game itself I have nothing
I can't speak much for older fans of that time, and I definitely imagine a lot of the older playerbase had that latter sentiment out of resistance to change from what they once knew. Naturally since I was a kid at the time I don't know the full extent what the online fandom was like.

But what I can say as someone who was one of those kids who grew up with Diamond and Pearl (and Gen 4 as a whole) is that DP was incredibly popular back then among us kids. Pokemon saw a new insurgence in popularity at the time with the DS and DP's debut on it, much moreso than what it was like with RS, with the DS's insane popularity at the time Diamond and Pearl were pretty revolutionary back then. Just about everyone around me was playing it, Pokemon was cool among us kids.

And frankly as a whole it was just really cool and new for Pokemon. Gameplay wise, it had a lot going for it, between wireless multiplayer (and stuff like the Underground and whatnot), being able to play with people all around the world (not to mention the GTS), tons of awesome mons, and just a whole lot to love about it. Pokemon was cool again. It was basically a second wave, and people my age were the beginning of a second wave of kids getting into Pokemon with it after the first one from Gen 1+2 died down (and Gen 3 was stuck in a rut where it was, and still is, a more niche set of games in the grand scheme of the Pokemon franchise).

Of course as a whole in the grand scheme of things and especially looking back, DP in and of itself is on the eh side because it has a lot of flaws, and nowadays Platinum outclasses it hard, but for what it was and for its time it was pretty popular and brought in a massive wave of kids. It still had a lot of new and cool stuff for Pokemon.

I do imagine the older fanbase was probably more critical of it though (DP deservingly so admittedly), and that started the everlasting infinite loop of every Pokemon game getting shit on during its time and then years later when the kids who grew up with it join the internet fandom it gets praised as the greatest time of Pokemon that continues to persist to this day.

For people my age though? DP was the shit. Everyone around my age group was into it. It certainly helped that it was on an immensely popular portable console at the time but the Sinnoh era was quite popular at the time. Much, much moreso than Hoenn previously (Gen 3 is forever that awkward transitional generation in the grand scheme of things).

Take this from my perspective specifically, the perspective of someone who was a kid who started Pokemon with Gen 4 and grew up with Gen 4. Older fans and especially those who were engaged in online fandom back then will have a different perspective ofc.
 
I was 16 when Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released in Japan, so I remember the scanslations of the Corocoro Magazines up until release. The issue that revealed the Physical/Special Split gave specific examples of changed moves with Hyper Beam being Special and Ice Punch being Physical.

Some people were pretty upset. Pokemon like Typhlosion and Alakazam were going to lose their best coverage moves, and at the time many speculated that physical and special were going to be determined by whether or not the move made contact(Ended up not being the case since there were many physical non-contact moves, though most contact moves are physical, with the only exceptions in Gen IV being Petal Dance, Grass Knot, Wring Out, and Trump Card and the only others introduced since then being Infestation, Draining Kiss, and Electro Drift), so they were pre-emptively lamenting the loss of Rock Slide and Earthquake on a lot of Physical attackers, but some of things they were worried about changing category(like Crunch being Physical and Shadow Ball being Special) that ended up being correct also upset fans of Pokemon that used those moves as non-stab coverage(most of the complaining overall was based on Coverage moves rather than STAB moves). Also they had fears of Pokemon like Gyarados and Gengar becoming extremely overpowered since they would finally be able to use their higher offense with STAB moves.

Most of the people got over it after the game was leaked online and saw all of the category changes and, more importantly, many new moves created to fill the void of certain popular moves changing category(Like Dark Pulse).
 

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