• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Olivia's Grand Trial! The Hardest Pokémon Match Ever!! (979)

345ash-greninja

Auto-Memories Doll
Take that you stupid owl, lmao.
Rockruff winning it all makes this battle a bit better, but Ash still should have lost here. If he comes out of this series only having lost to Team Rocket and Gladion I will be very disappointed.

If it wasn't for the stupid owl dodging that brutal Continental Crush would've been impossible. Just saying.
 

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
Hm, personally, it was the best battle SM's had to offer, though I can't say it ranks anywhere close to the top tier of battles.

My own nitpick is that I feel the Rockruff issue came out of nowhere. I know, I know, the whole Pokedex description, and it's great that they're implementing it, but maybe they could have hinted at it a little earlier? (and no, fascination for evolved forms doesn't count...that happens all the time) Otherwise, it was a fine setup.

Anyway, while I thought the battle was great in the second half (first half was quite slow and I wasn't a fan of how Stealth Rock was used), I really wish they hadn't backpedaled on battles from how they were. Namely this need to constantly interrupt the action with talking. That was something they had lessened over the course of the series to the point it was practically nonexistent in XY, or at least never broke up the action. Here we had long stretches of the others commenting, the Pokemon returning to their trainers every couple of moves...it just felt choppy to me. This was something I noticed in the battle against Hala, too, though I thought it was an isolated incident at the time. Clearly, I was wrong. So that's really my big issue with it, even if I felt Ash doing his training thing with Rockruff was a little out of place (mostly because he was suddenly standing a cutaway later).

So, yeah, I just hope they tone down on the commenting and breaks in the future and let the battle and action take center stage. Oh, and I also kind of wish they'd stop having Ash avoid the Z-Move damage just by dodging it. One would think there'd be other strategies. (what is this? Second time now that he's avoided the full brunt of a Z-Move but still landed his own perfectly?)
 

Akkipeddi

All set to be a nice guy
Take that you stupid owl, lmao.
Rockruff winning it all makes this battle a bit better, but Ash still should have lost here. If he comes out of this series only having lost to Team Rocket and Gladion I will be very disappointed.

Rockruff may have beaten Lycanroc, but Rowlet was still the true MVP of this battle for helping to dodge Continental Crush and using that to destroy the stealth rocks, and not to mention, getting the Bloom Doom off to beat Probopass. I know Rockruff is close to evolving and hence its aggression, but when I saw that part, I was like 'stupid yappy puppy'. That part made Rockruff look like a Chihuahua and I hate that particular species of dogs.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
A good point to notice that Kukui realized Rockruff being aggressive towards Ash. :( And Rockruff has been acting so aggressive during the battle. It took out its own ally. It's a bit funny that all Ash did was dodge Olivia's Z move and I'm glad that Probopass took Rowlet's Bloom Doom. The battle was pretty entertaining and the Z moves were on fire! Ash has so much patience to deal with Rockruff's mistakes. So this is wohat would've happened if Litten didn't bother teaming up with Rowlet. Congrats on Ash winning! I liked that Rockruff fainted not too long after Olivia's Midday Lycanroc did though I did wish that Ash lost the battle. It felt like a tie. Also, Rockruff is evolving soon!!!!!
 
Last edited:

lemoncatpower

Cynical Optimist
Rockruff may have beaten Lycanroc, but Rowlet was still the true MVP of this battle for helping to dodge Continental Crush and using that to destroy the stealth rocks, and not to mention, getting the Bloom Doom off to beat Probopass. I know Rockruff is close to evolving and hence its aggression, but when I saw that part, I was like 'stupid yappy puppy'. That part made Rockruff look like a Chihuahua and I hate that particular species of dogs.

lmfao same here, I'll admit I wanted Ash to give him a boot to the face at one point
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
The battle was really underwhelming, and I don't know why Kahuna battles are suffering from this. The first half of the battle was really slow and I really didn't like how it was treated more like a 1v2 with Lycanroc standing behind Probopass most of the time. I also didn't like how basically all Pokemon were just tanking attacks one after the other and really didn't show that they were struggling all the much.

Once again, Ash commanded to dodge the Z-Move, and even though I knew it would happen, I really wish it would have had some kind of effect on Ash's Pokemon, instead of ruining Olivia's strategy altogether to which she wasn't even phased by. Like really, Gladion showed off Continental Crush better than the Kahuna who specializes in Rock-types. And why didn't she do the actual pose instead of the one Gladion did? It looked strange when she did it.

The animation was also pretty subpar until Ash used his Z-Move and Rockruff finished off Lycanroc. Speaking of, man that was so anticlimactic. He pretty much demolished Lycanroc with no effort, not even using a new move.

But alas, it was better than the Lurantis battle. Ash swept a Kahuna again. And no I don't count Rockruff's friendly fire KO as a loss for Ash as the battle would have ended the same, albeit most likely in an even more devastating way.
 

Zipper4242

Bewear is the most powerful being in the universe.
What really stood out to me was the music of this episode- fantastic! I liked hearing Alola! again at such a critical point, I love when they put in the theme songs at such critical points in the battle (such as Ash v. Sawyer and Ash v. Conway). Nice of them to reuse older pieces such as the BW League theme, the XY trainer theme (which is slightly overused by now but I kind of don't care because it's so fitting for this kind of stuff) and (the nostalgia!!) that gym theme (do you think that the use of that foreshadows gyms in USUM?). Does anyone know the name of the music that was played when Olivia used Continental Crush? I may be crazy, but I swear I heard a bar of the Kanto and Johto trainer battle themes in that...

As for the battle itself, I think that this was by far the best battle of the series and even better than some XY(Z) battles in terms of skill and strategy (although I hoped Rowlet would do Bloom Doom while asleep lol). One of the things I absolutely adored about XY(Z) and DP were the interactions between the Pokemon and it seems like they're doing that again here in SM- By far the best part of this episode for me was the characterization of Rowlet and Rockruff.

I give it
7.8/10 Too much water






Just kidding lol 9.5/10
 
Last edited:

Bortgreen

Captain Pikachu is EPIC
Hm, personally, it was the best battle SM's had to offer, though I can't say it ranks anywhere close to the top tier of battles.

My own nitpick is that I feel the Rockruff issue came out of nowhere. I know, I know, the whole Pokedex description, and it's great that they're implementing it, but maybe they could have hinted at it a little earlier? (and no, fascination for evolved forms doesn't count...that happens all the time) Otherwise, it was a fine setup.

Anyway, while I thought the battle was great in the second half (first half was quite slow and I wasn't a fan of how Stealth Rock was used), I really wish they hadn't backpedaled on battles from how they were. Namely this need to constantly interrupt the action with talking. That was something they had lessened over the course of the series to the point it was practically nonexistent in XY, or at least never broke up the action. Here we had long stretches of the others commenting, the Pokemon returning to their trainers every couple of moves...it just felt choppy to me. This was something I noticed in the battle against Hala, too, though I thought it was an isolated incident at the time. Clearly, I was wrong. So that's really my big issue with it, even if I felt Ash doing his training thing with Rockruff was a little out of place (mostly because he was suddenly standing a cutaway later).

So, yeah, I just hope they tone down on the commenting and breaks in the future and let the battle and action take center stage. Oh, and I also kind of wish they'd stop having Ash avoid the Z-Move damage just by dodging it. One would think there'd be other strategies. (what is this? Second time now that he's avoided the full brunt of a Z-Move but still landed his own perfectly?)

Actually, in episode 15 Rockruff was a bit violent too, just not like this
 

p96822

Evolve me please
The battle was really underwhelming, and I don't know why Kahuna battles are suffering from this. The first half of the battle was really slow and I really didn't like how it was treated more like a 1v2 with Lycanroc standing behind Probopass most of the time. I also didn't like how basically all Pokemon were just tanking attacks one after the other and really didn't show that they were struggling all the much.

Once again, Ash commanded to dodge the Z-Move, and even though I knew it would happen, I really wish it would have had some kind of effect on Ash's Pokemon, instead of ruining Olivia's strategy altogether to which she wasn't even phased by. Like really, Gladion showed off Continental Crush better than the Kahuna who specializes in Rock-types. And why didn't she do the actual pose instead of the one Gladion did? It looked strange when she did it.

The animation was also pretty subpar until Ash used his Z-Move and Rockruff finished off Lycanroc. Speaking of, man that was so anticlimactic. He pretty much demolished Lycanroc with no effort, not even using a new move.

But alas, it was better than the Lurantis battle. Ash swept a Kahuna again. And no I don't count Rockruff's friendly fire KO as a loss for Ash as the battle would have ended the same, albeit most likely in an even more devastating way.

You know if he didn't dodge the Z move Rowlet and Rockruff would have taken too much damage and would have knock both of them. Then for Gladion using the Z-move on Team Rocket there is one different between that and this episode. They had no way of dodging the giant rock from the sky that would blast them off. If Team Rocket had jet packs or some way of dodging the attack then I could compare Gladion using the Z Move in Session while Olivia miss the move entirely. There a complete different of the situation that Team Rocket was in compare to Ash. If Ash used Pikachu or Litten then Ash wouldn't have no way of dodging the move unlike Hala which was much smaller Z move then Continental Crush.
 

Nebbygetinthebag

Well-Known Member
This episode was good,The strategy off Ash was really clever and I like the animation of Bloom doom Also Poor Rowlet it was knock out by Rockruff,Bad dog.
Overall this episode was really good,I really like the Battle through I was quite disappointed that Ash didn't loose the battle but oh well at least Rockruff defeated Lycanroc. I give it a 9/10.
 
Last edited:

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
You know if he didn't dodge the Z move Rowlet and Rockruff would have taken too much damage and would have knock both of them. Then for Gladion using the Z-move on Team Rocket there is one different between that and this episode. They had no way of dodging the giant rock from the sky that would blast them off. If Team Rocket had jet packs or some way of dodging the attack then I could compare Gladion using the Z Move in Session while Olivia miss the move entirely. There a complete different of the situation that Team Rocket was in compare to Ash. If Ash used Pikachu or Litten then Ash wouldn't have no way of dodging the move unlike Hala which was much smaller Z move then Continental Crush.

I think his complaint is more that for the second Kahuna battle in a row, Ash has made the Kahuna look like the novice using Z-Moves, since Pikachu dodged almost the entirety of All-Out Pummeling and Rowlet and Rockruff dodged Continental Crush, then his Z-Moves (Breakneck Blitz and Bloom Doom) went off without a hitch and took their opponents out no problem. On top of that, Olivia seems novice because her failed Z-Move took out her own Stealth Rock strategy, so no matter what, if it had failed to take out the opponent, she would have ruined her own strategy. I'm pretty sure that's what he didn't like; not that the situations between the two uses of Continental Crush were different.
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
are my ears deceiving me or did I hear Olivia say "gym" twice, in regards to both her's and the melemele island trial?

Man Rockruff gone postal.
 

Satomine Night

The Power of Z!
I think his complaint is more that for the second Kahuna battle in a row, Ash has made the Kahuna look like the novice using Z-Moves, since Pikachu dodged almost the entirety of All-Out Pummeling and Rowlet and Rockruff dodged Continental Crush, then his Z-Moves (Breakneck Blitz and Bloom Doom) went off without a hitch and took their opponents out no problem. On top of that, Olivia seems novice because her failed Z-Move took out her own Stealth Rock strategy, so no matter what, if it had failed to take out the opponent, she would have ruined her own strategy. I'm pretty sure that's what he didn't like; not that the situations between the two uses of Continental Crush were different.
To be fair, it's probably somewhat easier for a fleet-footed (fleet-taloned?) bird to dodge a giant boulder falling straight down than it is for a wolf or a sentient nose to dodge an entire field of exploding flowers. If Ash had used any Pokémon other than Rowlet, Continental Crush probably would have crushed it. Why else do you think Olivia seemed so impressed?

I don't think this battle made Olivia look like a novice. After all, her strategy was giving Ash trouble at first. Instead, I think this battle made Ash look like the skilled Trainer he is. He came up with a good strategy that utilized Rowlet's speed and apparent incredible strength, since it's able to carry a 20-pound rock puppy and turned the tide in his favor.

I also think this battle showed, once again, that Z-Moves are not guaranteed finishers. In fact, one could almost argue using a Z-Move is a bit of a gamble, since it takes a lot out of the Pokémon (Lycanroc was visibly panting after using Continental Crush), but it's not guaranteed to always hit.
 

nuzamaki90

Well-Known Member
You know if he didn't dodge the Z move Rowlet and Rockruff would have taken too much damage and would have knock both of them.

Of course, I'm saying I wish it would have went more in her favor than being completely wasted like that. Like visually it was a huge explosion that went off but in reality it didn't affect anyone or anything. They could have at least had rock debris flying in the air that Rowlet and Rockruff needed to dodge or get hurt by. Instead, Ash literally made Olivia's Z-Move pointless, as not only did it do nothing to his Pokemon, but it also ruined her setup strategy.

I think his complaint is more that for the second Kahuna battle in a row, Ash has made the Kahuna look like the novice using Z-Moves

Pretty much. These Kahunas have been using Z-Moves for years but for some reason every time they use one, they do little to nothing. Meanwhile Ash perfects each one he uses, every time he uses it.
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
6/10 for the battle, but it's SM so ill take what I can get considering how rare battles are to begin with. Nothing was really wrong with it, some good strategy, development for Rockruff (that amoment with him and Ash near the end was fantastic by the way), but it was just very slow and dull in places and just kinda stiff. Also double battle was basically Rockruff/Rowlett vs Probass while Lyancroc stood in the background for most of it. After Olympia I have a very high expectation for how double battles should be conducted and this didnt really do it for me in that regard. But as a battle as a whole, it was alright
 

doofinc

get rillaboomed
So I just finished watching this battle and IMO it was pretty underwhelming. For some reason, the battle felt very slow. I can't tell if it was the slow animation or the lack of music in some sections but I wasn't too excited. Interesting how they reworked Stealth Rock. Obviously they couldnt use the game format but I was thinking more of rocks on the ground and it being painful to land on thus making them fly. Continental Crush was stupid. That was the slowest giant falling rock of all time. Bloom Doom pose looked good. Rip Rowlet carry. The only part I really enjoyed was the ending with Rockruff vs. Lycanroc at the end with the fast paced action. Overall liked Ash vs. Hala more.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
6/10 for the battle, but it's SM so ill take what I can get considering how rare battles are to begin with. Nothing was really wrong with it, some good strategy, development for Rockruff (that amoment with him and Ash near the end was fantastic by the way), but it was just very slow and dull in places and just kinda stiff. Also double battle was basically Rockruff/Rowlett vs Probass while Lyancroc stood in the background for most of it. After Olympia I have a very high expectation for how double battles should be conducted and this didnt really do it for me in that regard. But as a battle as a whole, it was alright

At least it wasn't the long dead Triple Battle.
 
Top