Was it the right decision to make rivals friendly with the player character?Were games better when the rival was an asshole?
>>59029130Gen 1 rival was more cocky than an asshole; Silver was really the only "asshole" rival.I think the bigger issue is turning the rival into spineless fags who don't try or care about winning.But, relevant to your picture, they Game Freak should've let you date your rival like they hinted at doing with Shauna.
>>59029130>when the rival was an assholeThe one time in gen 2?
>>59029144>forgetting gen 1
>>59029137Someone hurt his feels in his ai slop general so now he's taking it out on the rest of the board.
>>59029138>But, relevant to your picture, they Game Freak should've let you date your rival like they hinted at doing with Shauna.Didn't they do something similar in ORAS?
>>59029145More of cocky/arrogant shit-talker than an asshole. He's a more realistic boyhood guy friend than some huggy-feely fag.
>>59029130>>>I'm brown and I have to post slopYes, yes you are.
>>59029145Blue wasn't a dick. Try playing the games before talking about them.
>>59029130
>>59029149I guess you watch the fireworks or something with May after beating the game, but it's about as deep as the moment they give you with Shauna in X/Y.
>>59029130Friendly is OK, but overly friendly is boring. There should be some tension in a rivalry, and the rival should feel like their own person instead of existing just to suck the MC's cock. I'm playing White now for the first time and I kinda like Cheren as a rival who is friends with you, but also has his own personality and flaws.
>File DeletedMods = Gods. Fuck coomers
>>59029201>ai thread still on catalogJannies = faggots
The issue isn't whether or not the rival is cocky, friendly, "too" friendly or whatever else. The issue is that a lot of them are friendly in the same way with a very basic personality. Like, I'm sure you have friends with different personalities, but a lot of the rivals have the same personality. If they all acted like Blue, it would also get old. It's like if every Team Villain had the same goal, or if every Champion had the same personality. Variety is fun.Some of the alt-rivals have been done more different (Gladion or Marnie for example) but the main rival is always the same. Being different doesn't necessarily have to mean being more antagonistic to the player, it can just mean being friendly with a different personality.
>>59029262What was wrong with Cheren?
>>59029210Jannies =//= mods though
>>59029275Not that anon (and he didn't mention Cheren at all), but he's probably the weakest of the main characters in BW. Bianca has a very distinct arc and character, N's alright and has connections to the main theme of the game, but Cheren is just kinda there in comparison. His arc of wanting to be the strongest, but being asked why he wants that and not having a good answer is a start, but he never quite figures it out which feels like they just didn't have a plan more than something intentional. If you asked me what Bianca would be doing in the future without information from B2W2 I could tell you with relative certainty. If you asked me the same thing about Cheren I might hit on Gym Leader and it does provide a good end to his character arc, but that's more of a guess rather than knowing what the character is.Ask me about Hau next, I've got another entire essay on that guy.
>>59029315>HauI fucking hate that faggot almost as much as the faggot pajeet that followed him in Gen 8
>>59029315What did you think of Wally?
>>59029291Okay, mods = faggots. Happy?
>>59029138This.Blue was generally pretty supportive, he was also smug.Brendan/May were similarly kinda dismissive of you, until you mind break them at Lilycove. Barry just can't stand how SLOW you are and is mashing your text boxes. Silver is outright hostile, and only chills into a more competitive rival after Lance fucks his ass and calls him a bitch. Gen 5 and 6 to an extent (Bianca was always kinda portrayed as something... else, while gen 6 has more competitive rivals than friendly), but then really 7 started making your rivals just present their asshole to you at all times, giving rise to the "haha you fucked me up bad, here, take a bunch of max revives, a team top off, and a rare candy I probably should have used haha" rivals like Hau, Hop, ect. Gladion and Bede have to become absurd anime characters to not overly hurt the player's feelings, because they aren't gaping themselves for you. None of them are real, believable people, they're just cocksuckers.
>>59029326Wally is just funny to me. He's this kid who has every disease who for some reason has a unique sprite that you see for a catching tutorial, one battle that feels like a joke, then suddenly he ambushes you at the end of the game when you've completely forgotten about him and is actually competent. It also means the character that has been your rival the entire rest of the game doesn't even have a fight with you where they use the final evolution of their starter. I appreciate the balls on whoever okayed that, it's way better than Silver's pro-wrestling ass character development even if it's completely wack.>>59029320SM Hau is a garbage waste of space, but USUM Hau completely changes how you see him. I don't blame you for either not playing USUM or not paying attention during it, the cutscenes are fucking miserable. Hop is just Bianca's character arc with none of the development. Genuinely the worst rival in the series, and this is after SM Hau and every single XY rival. Thank god Nemona has a personality, that already puts her in the top percentile.
>>59029355>Brendan/May were similarly kinda dismissive of youWhat? No way. Gen 3 rival was the outset of the faggy "lol I don't really give a shit" trend. It would've been fine if it hadn't become a trend since Brendan/May was always focused more on helping Prof. Birch than becoming the champion or something, but I don't remember them ever having a dismissive or superior attitude.
>>59029326NtaI think Wally was actually really good, and is a good bookend to Brendan/May.Brendan starts a bit before you, teaches you some things, and doesn't really take you seriously, until you kinda spring up and mollywhop him. Wally is a shit kid you help get going, who is dying of leukemia or some shit, then he shows up later with a single underlevelled Kirlia as a speed bump outside of Wattson. Then the motherfucker springs up out of nowhere as the single strongest pre-elite 4 trainer.YOU just went through what you put Brendan through. You (probably) won, you're the main character with some combination of an overlevelled starter, a box legendary, or a well put together team with good moves, but imagine if you hadn't, how demoralizing that would be. ...which is what you do to Brendan/May, when they say "you know what, fuck it, I'm going home, this isn't fun anymore".
>>59029373>Hop is just Bianca's character arc with none of the development.Even that description is too generous. Bianca never had ambitions of becoming the champion; it was really just a coming of age story for her.Hop wanted to surpass his brother but was consistently a spineless faggot.>SM Hau is a garbage waste of space, but USUM Hau completely changes how you see him. I don't blame you for either not playing USUM or not paying attention during itI played Ultra Sun, but I don't recall there being a huge difference between the two Haus. I might not have finished it though, now that I'm thinking about it.
>>59029373>I don't blame you for either not playing USUM or not paying attention during itYeah, spoonfeed me a bit fampaiI'mma be real, I ignored and mashed through every single piece of Hau's dialogue because I hated him to begin with, so I have no idea the depths of depravity he apparently occupies
I don't consider Wally a rival at all. You only fight him twice.
>>59029386Brendan has one. He has much better writing than NPC May, who is the patient zero for "friendly rival" shit. But the fact Brendan outright gives up makes him an infinitely bigger bitch than her, or Blue and Silver. While it's funnier, it's disappointing and the "Wally is the true Rival" meme only occurred because Wally's actual role as the Psychic Gym Leader was cut for Tate & Liza
>>59029447>Wally's actual role as the Psychic Gym Leader was cut for Tate & LizaHuh, I never knew that. Makes sense though.Man, so many good ideas in Pokemon get scrapped in development.
>>59029402>>59029420It might be a bit subtle, or might just be me, but let me try phrasing it this way. If you read some optional dialogue, Hau was a sensitive child so Hala went easy on him, leading to Hau's laid back personality. Gladion criticizes him for not being serious. You literally have an optional dialogue option that's basically making fun of him and it's one of the few times he reacts with anything other than retarded puppy optimism. You're basically ahead of him the entire game. So you're sort of the Blue to his Red. This comes to a head with Aether Paradise, where him being a weak piece of shit gets Lillie kidnapped. In SM, he decided he's a useless piece of shit, then disappears from the plot entirely until post-game where he's the mandatory first title defense like he earned anything. Genuinely just a waste of screen time in a game where Lillie is already wasting tons of screen time. USUM has a few subtle differences that dramatically change this. He instead decides to actually take training seriously, and we see him in the Hala and Ultra Beast cutscene which shows he's actually doing it. Then during your final trial, you see him trying to finish the trials he didn't complete. Finally, once you beat the Elite 4, he comes in shortly after completing the Blue/Red thing that was kinda sorta going on before. I know I'm hyping up extremely basic character stuff, but it's fucking Hau I'm impressed they managed to get anything out of it at all. And it's in USUM, a game nobody who didn't play SM played and nobody paid attention to any of the cutscenes in because you basically already watched half of them.
>>59029466I seee.It's almost sad that they tried to fix this, in I think the first game that a lot of people just didn't buy.
>>59029315Thoughts on Barry?
>>59029130I’d rather a friendly rival who knows their place than a seething retard of a “jerk” whose team doesn’t match their cockiness. If you’re going to be an asshole at least put up something resembling a challenge.
>>59029818NTA but I like him. He's confident, not a pushover (in gameplay or character), and he has his own little character gimmick to set him apart.
>>59029818Also ntaI think he's pretty funny, and a little self-aware nod to players who do not give a single shit, mash through all dialogue, and just go. I don't think he's groundbreaking or anything, not my favorite, but I like him.
