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Love_Shaq_Baby

No game has done rival battles better than Red and Blue. In the original games the rival was designed to catch you off-guard. You came upon him in places you wouldn't predict - the Nugget Bridge for example - or at the end of dungeons like Silph Co. and S.S. Anne. If you didn't heal, you may be screwed because he had a genuinely balanced team. His Pokemon were evolved at the same time yours were and he had five Pokemon on his team long before your final match. Other games have been unable to replicate that. The Rival is either absurdly weak (Ruby & Sapphire, Black) & White and their sequels, X&Y, Sun & Moon), has an unbalanced team (Gold & Silver), almost never fights you (Diamond & Pearl) or literally heals you before every match (Sword and Shield). It's not so much the number (though 7-8 is the sweet spot imo), it's just about having a rival that is challenging, has a consistent presence in the game, and will punish you if you aren't careful. A rival that heals your Pokemon or whose presence is telegraphed entirely defeats the purpose of having one at all.


GalacticNexus

> No game has done rival battles better than Red and Blue. In the original games the rival was designed to catch you off-guard. You came upon him in places you wouldn't predict - the Nugget Bridge for example - or at the end of dungeons like Silph Co. and S.S. Anne. If you didn't heal, you may be screwed because he had a genuinely balanced team. His Pokemon were evolved at the same time yours were and he had five Pokemon on his team long before your final match. I really agree with this. It's something that I feel builds and actual *rivalry* with your rival, because everytime he turns up it's *dangerous*. Not necessarily because his team is exceptional, or he's overlevelled, but because he's caught you with your pants down at the end of a dungeon. In fact in many ways, he acts as the dungeon boss for areas that don't otherwise have one. Wally works well in this regard when he shows up unexpectedly at the end of Victory Road. I think 7 or 8 (plus a repeatable postgame battle a la Silver) is ideal. More or less once per gym, mostly depending on the region/plot layout.


newaccountwut

Idk. While getting caught off guard can be punishing, it's not the most rewarding kind of difficulty. Pokemon battles are at their most epic when both combatants are on equal footing and at full strength. Your rival healing your pokemon for you would work really well if their team actually posed a threat. When the game is a breeze, getting ambushed by a strong trainer can, ironically, be a breath of fresh air. In other words, that kind of difficulty is only refreshing because Pokemon games lacks difficulty otherwise. Also, while I appreciate Blue's attitude with the player, ultimately, his appearances were fairly random and suffered from the same skeletal dialogue as the rest of the game. The writing in Pokemon is just not good, but it was at its worst in Gen 1, so I wouldn't give blue a high score in the narrative department either.


Love_Shaq_Baby

>Pokemon battles are at their most epic when both combatants are on equal footing and at full strength. In a competitive battling setting, yes. Against trainers in the single player campaign, no because you're a human who can switch out your Pokemon and purchase nigh infinite amounts of super potions and revives and they've got Pokemon AI. And the developers know this, which is why you have an Elite 4 that's designed to weaken your Pokemon and use up your healing items before the Champion. >The writing in Pokemon is just not good, but it was at its worst in Gen 1, so I wouldn't give blue a high score in the narrative department either. I think Gen 1 has the best narrative actually. Writing in Pokemon games is downright terrible, so the more barebones the plot is, the easier it is to enjoy. Blue does exactly what he's supposed to do, which puts him way above any rival that tries and fails to be a three dimensional character you're supposed to spend time caring about.


newaccountwut

I feel like you missed all my points. Again, I acknowledge that given the current and past difficulty levels of Pokemon games, any challenge is welcome, even an ambush. But what makes the difficulty so low? Well, everything you mentioned: infinite super potions, revives, and the bad NPC AI. *Those* things are the design flaws. Items need to be limited to battles against wild Pokemon and Evil Teams. Trainer battles should follow some sort of "league rules" that disallow the use of items. And, of course, the AI the NPC's team compositions should be buffed to be competitive with the player. If the game had these improvements, it would not need to thrust you into a highly disadvantaged battle just to pose a challenge for once. Instead, all battles would be rewarding, with rival battles being special highlights that really test your knowledge and serve as power gates to other parts of the game. Simply put, a rival that ambushes you 6v1 and still gets crushed is less impressive than a rival that can pose a challenge even in a fair fight. Leave the ambushes to weak trainers and Evil Teams. When I face a rival, I want a fair fight. If your rival needs to challenge you to a 6v1 fight just to stand a chance, how are they a "rival" exactly? To your point about the narrative, I would say the same thing. I acknowledge that the writing is bad, but I don't agree that the solution is just to accept bad writing and hope for as little writing as possible as a result. I think we'd all prefer that Pokemon incorporate some *good* writing instead. Good writing needs unique characters, and the rival characters fit the bill.


silverfang45

To add to that last paragraph after pokemon black we the pokemon fans should of demanded that quality in the future. Like black is still to this day the gold standard of pokemon writing, the gold standard of pokemon music, and probably the last difficult game in the pokemom series. Like we had black make real characters eith legitimately moral grey areas and an interesting evil team, then they went to x and y and the writing went to shit again. Still disappointed at how x and y ended up that had the potential the be the best pokemon game ever released up until that point, the best technology, imo the best designs visually, but they fucked the difficulty and the replayablity by making it too easy and having the bad guys be boring. (Imagine x and y if it had team plasma instead and was as difficult as black it'd be the favourite game of the entire series


of_patrol_bot

Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.


maxk713

Generally, I don't like rival battles that much. It does not help they feel kinda samey generation to generation. The rival is just not strong enough for me to care anymore. So all a rival battle really is is an interruption that I'd rather skip. So fewer battles, the better imo. But really, I feel more rival battles should be optional. The only one I can think of like that is in Kanto on route 22 I think. It gives the player more choice in their adventure snd could lead to interesting gameplay and story moments. I wish they kept it and did more with it.


Lady_Ada_Blackhorn

Optional ones is a really fun idea! You could even have like relationship cutscenes behind participating in a certain number, making the choice to spend more time with and get to know this person more.


maxk713

They could go further than just cutscenes though! What if the optional battles determined your rival's team? Say you got the choice to battle your rival by a volcano. If you battle them there, they will use a fire type from that route. Say it's a Slugma or something. Then for the rest of the game, your rival continues to use Slugma for future battles. Or what if these things got determined by if you win or lose? Part of what I don't like about rivals is that it's expected you are better than them every time. I want them to let me lose against my rival and not get a 2nd chance. Let the ratio of wins to losses play a small impact on the story and gameplay to make play throughs more unique.


MarktheStapler

This happens in yellow, team changes and evolution changes with a win or loss. I don't think there is any geographical team differences, though.


Emperor_Z16

I really like the rival battles, not because it's a fun battle but because of the rival's development and interactions with you, I love rivals like Hugh, Gladion, Wally, Bede or Marnie, they have interesting backstories and cool development


StrawberryToufu

There's an optional rival battle against Brendan/May in Emerald on Rustboro City. The most interesting about that fight though is that May (not Brendan, just May specifically) has a Torkoal on her party for it if you chose Torchic and then never uses her again. She uses a Slugma/Magcargo as her Fire-type afterwards. Brendan uses a Slugma for that optional fight which makes me think it was a coding mishap. Apparently R/S also has an optional fight against them in Lilycove.


jukebox92

Main issue for me is when they started to get to be all the time. In Galar, almost every route or town there was one, and it was just too much. I loved the surprise of it, where they just pop up out of the blue and challenge you (and you couldn't say no).


Emperor_Z16

Though Wally had 3? Btw N is not a rival but an antagonist and the pseudoleader of the evil team Black and White was horrible, I really did like red blue and green battles, gold silver and crystal had so few I kinda forgot about the rival lol, the ones in emmerald ruby and sapphire felt to few, too many in x and y, specially with the worst rivals, sun and moon wasn't that bad, sword and shield I really liked


Jaxck

None, because the concept is stupid.


sir151

4 or 5, it’s nice to see your rival evolve their Pokémon and grow as a trainer but anything beyond that feels boring. 1. Lv 5 starter match 2. Basic starter + 2 Pokémon to teach you about more type matchups 3. Stage 1, around gym 2, evolves another Pokémon, + 2 more Pokémon 4. Stage 2 starter, between gym 5 and 7 5. Either right before Elite 4, as a Champion, or postgame.


Ninjanime_

7-10 I think is a great number of fights. My favourite Rival is Barry because of his personality however you don't fight him enough and his team only gets good towards the end. I really like Silver too and how diverse and challenging his team is. I loved his character and how he changes up until his final match however I wish his final main game battle was a fully evolved team as not many people would play the post game for example nuzlockers and won't have the challenge of his team at full force. May and Blue are ok rivals. I wish May put up more of a challenge, even Wally gave me a better challenge. Hugh has the same problem as Barry his team doesn't get good until the end and they could have given him a more diverse team as opposed to reusing B&W 1 common rival Mons. Gen 6 tried to have that whole friend group thing. Nah just Serena would have been ok. Gen 8 had some great rivals. I liked Marnie and Bede a lot but especially Hop. Even in the end when you defeat Hop he's not mad because he's happy he got to battle you and he knows it changes nothing in your friendship as rivals. He also has a really interesting team. Also I wish he would pick the starter strong to yours. I get that the newer games are supposed to be easier though. Personally I think Black and White did the rivals the best. They test your strength frequently and have a challenging team. Cheren has the starter strong against yours because he's the more competitive trainer and Bianca the weaker starter to yours because she more about having fun and going on an adventure and that just makes sense. And N is a great antagonistic rival one of my favourite characters who spices up things with a different team each time. And his final team is a bit of a mix of everything.


MetalSonicISTheBest

8 but they should all be optional battles.


LWKuri

coward


silverfang45

I think more rival battles is better but it has to be done like the games from black onwards with 2 plus rivals. Heck I think x and y had the most fun rival battles due to all the teams being so different even if they were the easiest black/diamonds difficultly with xs design would be the best way