Summary
- Some rivals in Pokemon are forgettable while others become memorable characters in the gaming industry.
- May and Brendan are lackluster rivals who give up easily and lack depth in the games.
- Ambitious rivals like Bede and competitive ones like Silver add depth and challenge to the Pokemon gaming experience.
Pokemon changes things up sometimes. One thing that never changes, however, is the iไnclusion of one or more rivals. These characters are pitted against the player over and over again, serving as checks to ensure your team of pocket monsters is appropriately leveled for the challenges ahead. Some rivals feature in the main pl𝐆ot significantly. Others just sort of show up and leave as they please.
The 21 Strongest Psychic-Type꧙ Pokemon, Ranked
Psychic-types are some of🔯 the 𓂃strongest Pokemon in the games. These are the best of the best.
With so many Pokemon games, not to mention multiple scriptwriters through the years, it was inevitable that the quality of our chief challengers would vary. But that variance is tremendous, ranging from several of the franchise's most forgettable NPCs to some of the most memorable characters in JRPG history. Let's take a look at t🍷he best and worst of the bunch.
Updated December 26th, 2024 by Hilton Webster: Pokemon rivals are a core aspect of the series, a new beloved character to match you along your journey. We've updated this article with some details on the latest rivals and all their wider appearances.
23 Brendan
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Players who select a female avatar in the Generation III games will fac🐷e off against Brendan. He shares a lot of lines with May, but at one point implores the plaไyer to “fight with knowledge.” Unfortunately, he never takes his own advice to heart.
In Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, as well as their improved third version Emerald, he never even fully evolves his starter. He gives up fighting you long before that happens. This is remedied to a point in remakes OmegaRuby💦 & AlphaSapphire, but only as a post-credits endeavor.
22 May
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𒐪Those who opt for a male avatar instead in Generation III will go up against May. At one point, May begins a bout against the player with the following brilliant line: “I’m not so good at battles.” Maybe it shouldn't surprise us, then, that - just like Brendan - she gives up fighting you in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
Hoenn is a fun place, but the two 𝓀ri🍸vals do not contribute to its quality at all. Thankfully, she's much more fleshed out when she appears in the anime and the manga.
21 Trace
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Trace serves as the player’s rival in Let’s Go Pikachu & Let’s Go Eevee. The poor kid is saddled with a bizarre setup; in the Let’s Go universe, original rivals Red and Blue have already completed their journey, which makes it seem as though Let’s Go is a direct sequel to Gener♊ation I (when in fact it’s a messy alternate scenario).
In this timeline, Red never dealt with the sad Lavender Town events involving Marowak’s ghost. He never had to save Saffron City from a Team Rocket takeover, nor did he push their nefarious leader Giovanni to ditch Kanto for a happier life. Frankly, Red is kind of a loser here, presumably just marching from gym to gym on his merry way to the win. What does any of this have to do with Trace? It shackles him with a forced story that echoes Red’s 🌠(and importantly, does not feel like Blue’s whatsoever) but always feels off and unearned.
20 Bianca
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Bianca isn’t a bad character. Her bumbling natu♉re is cute and quirky, and in the tradition of Generation V’s somewhat darker tone, her father practically disowns her for a while because she wants to be a Pokemon Trainer. Bianca has a clearly defined arc and a satisfying conclusion that’s furthered by her role in Black & White’s direct sequels.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Ev💖ery Pokemon That Can Learn False Swipe
False Swipe is perhaps the best move to use when catching new Pok🔯emon, 🃏so here is every Pokemon that learns it naturally.
This doesn’t make her a good rival. She chooses the starter with a type disadvantage to your own, she never fights particu🍌larly 𒈔well, she’s constantly questioning why she’s even battling you, and there’s just no sense of satisfaction involved in defeating her. It’s all rather fitting, but frankly, knocking out her beloved Pokemon doesn’t feel like a victory; it feels like slapping a friend.
19 Hau
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Hau is happy. He likes malasadas and he’s happy. He really, really likes malasadas, and he’sᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ really, really happy when he eats them. He wants to find lots of malasada shops as you traverse the islands of Alola together, and when other characters are unhappy he smiles at them with a goofy stare and inꦫvites them to be happy instead.
Whenever you defeat Hau in Pokemon ba🅷ttles, he looks disappointed for approximately half a second and then he’s happy again. Have we mentioned that Hau is happy? Also, he likes malasadas a lot. He plays a nice little role in Sun & Moon’s bleaker story bits, but he does so by, again, wanting sad people to be happy.
Hau is not a rival. Bu꧟t Game Freak claims otherwise, so here you go.
18 Klara
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Pokemon: Sword and Shield is bursting with rivals, which is on♌e of its finest aspects. Some are going to be better than others, of course. If they were all in the same tier,💞 well, they’d probably be named Brendan and May, and that would be a bad thing.
Introduced in the Isle of Armor expansion and serving as a Sword-only adversary, but she’s nowhere near as nifty as Shield’s stand-in. Klara does something bad at some point but apologizes afterward and that’s pretty much that. Isle of Armor’s short plot isn’t designed for a more complete scenario, which is fine, but the fact that she then settles back into noܫthingness doesn’t do Klara any favors.
17 Barry
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Barry keeps bumping into the player character, as in literally, and then he blames them for being slow on the uptake. He used to do this thing where he would fine you absurd amounts of money for your alleged tardiness, but this was scaled back in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl — presumably because it was never funny in the original Generation IV titles, and it wཧouldn’t have been any funnie🎃r today.
168澳洲幸运♛5开奖网: 14 Pokemon Most Known For Sleeping
🅠Some Pokemon are more interested in busting out some Zs instead of battling.
On the flip side, Barry packs some pretty impressive Pokemon against you on numerous occasions. And in the aforementioned remakes, he goes hard in the post-game with one of the toughest challenges in the series. It’s unfortunate that his personality never reflects this. Barry’s ambitions are cut short throughout your quest, and by the time you reach the climax against evil Cyrus of Team Galactic, he stಌraight-up admits he’s got no chance and bolts. Poor kid.
16 Hop
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A lot of players lament that Hop is basically just Hau 2.0, robbing Sword & Shield of a more interesting character. This isn’t necessarily true. Hop exhibits a greater degree of growth, and while he’s usually smi🔯ling and typically does want everybody to be hap🧸py, there are honest-to-Arceus moments when he’s depressed. Imagine that happening to Hau.
Hop’s starry-eyed worship for Galar League Champion Leon is his best and worst trait. On the one hand, it gives him a solid motivation to get stronger and there’s kind of a morbid sense that he views the protagonist as a stepstool to eventually dethrone his brother Leon. On the other hand, the way he drones on about how incredible Leon is, how perfect and mighty and unstoppable, not only undermines the apparent purpose of his quest but becomes increasinওgly irritating as the game goes on.
15 Calem
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In Pokemon X & Y, Calem and Serena are like the spiritual success🍰ors to Brendan and May. Very little distinguishes them from eac🧸h other, their scripts are eerily similar, and there's much less to say about Calem than Serena
What separates them from Generation III’s yawn-inducing duo is that Calem and Serena fa💧ctor into Kalos’ main plot to a far more appreciable extent. Female-designated players will fight alongside Calem when the proverbial Cyndaquils hit the fa♛n and Team Flare’s world-ending plan begins.
14 Serena
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Serena is Calem's counterpart in Pokemon X and Y. She fights alongside male pla🐽yers in the game, but, as with Calem, there's not much to say about her in that instance. The pair of them share a lot of dialogue and story beats.
In the anime, though, Serena really shines. She joins Ash on his journey and goes through a wo🦂nderful character arc alongside him - even cutting her iconic long hair!
