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Why are the rivals so nice now?

Nyarlathotep

Eldritch Abomination
if they don't have similar goals, have no interest in battling

But they do have interest in battling.
The difference is that their main goals are not to be the champion.

I see no problem on that, in fact, it just make them more interesting to me as characters.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
But they do have interest in battling.
The difference is that their main goals are not to be the champion.

I see no problem on that, in fact, it just make them more interesting to me as characters.

They don't battle you enough. Hugh is more interested in Team Plasma than he is with you, Brendan/May drops out too early, and Wally only really battles you, like what, twice? If he was serious about trying to beat you, you'd see him much more often than that. I don't mind different characterization, that spices things up, but the point of a rival is to battle you periodically to test you, and none of those three do that often enough
 

Covert Cactus

<--- Halloween shiny
i think the most well-made rival is Hugh. He is your friend and supports you, but he also has his own motives for training and at the same time is your rival and does his best to surpass you as a trainer.

Hugh was a lousy rival. He rarely battles you. His only motivation is to beat TP and get purlion back. 90% of what he says are "you are about to feel my rage" (lol wut) and "where is my sister's purrlion?!?! you will pay for this team plasma". It would have been better if he were just a support character and not your rival. His rivalry felt forced and did not feel like a rivalry at all. Gamefreak should have given us a different rival and kept hugh more on the side like bianca. ;474;
 

Nyarlathotep

Eldritch Abomination
They don't battle you enough.

That is true. Hugh barely battle you for 80% of the game.
I liked the huge amount of battles against Cheren and Bianca in Black & White.

I would have liked one more rival besides Hugh in Black 2 & White 2. We had Cheren and Bianca before, why not a boy and a girl again?
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
That is true. Hugh barely battle you for 80% of the game.
I liked the huge amount of battles against Cheren and Bianca in Black & White.

I would have liked one more rival besides Hugh in Black 2 & White 2. We had Cheren and Bianca before, why not a boy and a girl again?

Actually, depending on your definition, you could also count N as a rival in BW1. I don't mind multiple rivals, as long as you battle them both a decent amount of times throughout the game. I didn't like how they handled the rivals in RSE, for example, since they appear on and off throughout the game. There wasn't really much point in having them as two different people.
 

slyfincleton

A melting cone...
Hugh was a lousy rival. He rarely battles you. His only motivation is to beat TP and get purlion back. 90% of what he says are "you are about to feel my rage" (lol wut) and "where is my sister's purrlion?!?! you will pay for this team plasma". It would have been better if he were just a support character and not your rival. His rivalry felt forced and did not feel like a rivalry at all. Gamefreak should have given us a different rival and kept hugh more on the side like bianca. ;474;

Hugh is also in it for the chance to have a journey with pokemon. I personally think that Hugh's hatred of Team Plasma was well defined, and that it gives him depth as a character. I will give you that he doesn't battle you enough and that his "catchphrase" is a little annoying. but that doesn't make him a lousy rival. That's my opinion and you are entitled to yours.
 
I would have liked one more rival besides Hugh in Black 2 & White 2. We had Cheren and Bianca before, why not a boy and a girl again?

but then people are going to complain about the girl wanting to succeed in contests or other stuff and not being better than you lol

which i actually like that ones who admit that they are weak but they fight you anyway. not everyone needs to be kick your *** strong.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Hugh is also in it for the chance to have a journey with pokemon. I personally think that Hugh's hatred of Team Plasma was well defined, and that it gives him depth as a character. I will give you that he doesn't battle you enough and that his "catchphrase" is a little annoying. but that doesn't make him a lousy rival. That's my opinion and you are entitled to yours.

Trying to become stronger than you is what defines a rival to begin with, though. It's nice to have that kind of depth, but not at the expense at what makes him a rival in the first place.

not everyone needs to be kick your *** strong.

If all goes well, they'll never beat you anyway.
 

KingMinun

Dawn/Sinnoh Fan!
Dunno what it is about this rival, but Hugh is my favourite rival so far, I'm only in Castelia, but I'm loving him, he's a great rival, prefer him to my old favourites Green and ??? and Barry.
 

!jirachi!

3/4 dead...
i d'ont like the rivals these days i own them to easily :)
 

Silver Bolt

Undying flames
Guess they wanna show the kids that a rival isn't always someone you hate. I say it's a good thing because this new rival's turning out to be my favorite so far. Unless he somehow becomes really dumb by the end of the game.
 

Dragontamer1011

Well-Known Member
I prefer it this way... Having him seem more like a friend just seems better to me then having him be a jerk.
 

empoleon49

Dawn's number 1 fan™
Barry was the best rival. He had a solid personality, wasn't too much of a jerk, but wasn't overly friendly. That said, I have no problem with rivals being jerks, or rivals being friendly, as long as they're fun to verse.
 

Seiryu

Resident dragon
That is true. Hugh barely battle you for 80% of the game.
I liked the huge amount of battles against Cheren and Bianca in Black & White.

I would have liked one more rival besides Hugh in Black 2 & White 2. We had Cheren and Bianca before, why not a boy and a girl again?

Actually, Hugh will battle you a good six or seven times over the course of the full game. This's roughly the standard for most rivals; Blue, for example, also fought you seven times during the story, as did Cheren; Silver, meanwhile, fought you six times (five during the main game, then once more at Mt. Moon), as did Barry. The outliers are Bianca (five), Brendan/May (up to four in Ruby/Sapphire and five in Emerald), and Wally (two, though one might argue that he simply picks up where Brendan/May left off, for six or seven rival battles total). Note that I'm leaving off the rematchable final teams in these numbers out of fairness for Brendan/May, who lacks one.

The likely reasons that it feels as though you don't battle Hugh as much are many. For one, his battles are largely loaded towards the back end of the game; you go a full five gyms--roughly half the main game--without facing him, from before Cheren at Floccesy Ranch all the way to after Clay at the Pokemon World Tournament, and the final battles take place in the post-game! Building on that, this is a fairly long game, particularly unlike the gen 2 games; you have the same amount of rival battles spread out over...I almost want to say nearly twice the time and distance. There is also the fact that you see him many times without him challenging you; contrast with, say, Blue, who fought you very nearly every time you saw each other. However, this only serves to make him the most visible and active rival, rather than least; exactly how many times does he go into battle alongside you? Quite a few, right? About five times, I believe.

And then there's the matter that you brought up: that we're back down to just one rival. And let's be honest: Black/White kind of did spoil us for rival battles; one could be confident that when they reached a new city or got another badge, yet another challenge would be waiting just around the corner. However, it did not spoil us for actual boss fights--assuming you count rival battles as boss fights, of course; I do. In fact, part of the reason I'm perfectly okay with N and Ghetsis being the only Plasma leaders we fight in BW is precisely because of the twelve total battles with Cheren and Bianca. Conversely, the reason I'm okay with Barry only getting six battles in Platinum is because of the eleven battles against Galactic's higher-ups, and the reason I'm just peachy with Hugh only getting six or seven battles is (besides how many times we see him in battle regardless) because of the three battles with Colress, the four(?) with Zinzolin, and the numerous battles with the Shadow Triad, not to mention the loads of optional post-game bosses.

I got nothing on the exact reason we're back down to just one rival, but I'm pretty okay with whatever so long as the sum total of miniboss and boss fights remains roughly the same.

And as it turns out, them not being abrasive, self-righteous douchebags makes them more endearing as characters. After all, the main games have gradually gotten a little more plot/character intensive as the gens have improved; it hasn't just been the gameplay and Pokemon selection, after all.

Indeed. In fact, I'd argue that the tendency towards friendlier rivals is actually a direct result of the creators' desire to create characters with actual character arcs and development. These things generally imply something that's positive as a whole--the character working to become a better person, or at least garnering more sympathy from the audience. It's theoretically possible for a character to "develop" into more of a douche--a worse person--but such a thing is more typically referred to as regression rather than development, it does not generate the same feeling of progression that one gets from positive development, and even when it does happen, it's traditionally treated as the lowest possible point for that character, before actual (positive) development occurs (assuming the character is not a villain). And if it's done badly--which, more often than not, it is--the end result is stagnant, one-dimensional, and generally just kind of terrible.

Furthermore, I believe that the writers also have the desire to give us different rivals. And not just different in that they have different sprites and names, but also in that they have different stories to tell. Blue is your traditional boring dickhole. Silver is a troubled youth who ultimately learns that being a dickhole isn't a good way to go through life. Brendan/May only wants to help Professor Birch with his research and is about as casual as can be. Wally is the ultimate underdog story, the sickly small-town kid with big dreams who manages, against all odds, to step up and become your final challenge before the biggest of the big boys. Barry is a hyperactive but nice kid who dreams of following in his father's footsteps as a great trainer. Cheren starts his journey with huge dreams and learns that being the best isn't all there is to life, while Bianca starts off just wanting to have fun and ends up finding herself along the way, and both discover the true nature of their limitations. And finally, Hugh starts off on a quest for vengeance and learns that the Team Plasma of "today" isn't the same as the Team Plasma from five or even two years ago--essentially, that people, and the opinions and beliefs that those people hold, can change.

Honestly, I kinda believe the writers realized that there are only so many ways one can write an unsympathetic character, especially one who's not an out-and-out villain, and that there's just a whole lot more potential for nuance with sympathetic and friendly characters. You want an unsympathetic douche who remains an unsympathetic douche? We got one already, and Blue is just about as boring, stagnant, one-dimensional and generally objectively terrible as such a character can possibly be.
 

Durbe

I'm tired
I personally think it's probably because the games are directed for younger children; they might not understand why the rivals are slightly more mean towards you.
I do prefer Blue and Silver, but I think it's more logical for them to have friendlier rivals like Barry and Hugh for that reason.
It's also likely that if they continued with such rivals, they'd start hurling threats and maybe the children will be affected by that and learn from it. Parents would not want that.

Another thing to note is that every rival has their own personality, their own character, and their own development.
 
Rivals have lost it all. The last good rival was silver! I honestly thought hugh was going to be a good character, but he was exteremly dissapointing
 
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