6th Gen Friendly Rivals?

Well I had pleasure beating the rivals as late as 5th gen. Barry was very annoying since he was always one step ahead, like Blue. I mean, even if you speedrun the game, Barry will beat you (this is obvious but you have to wonder how the brat manages!). And Cheren was so smug that I enjoyed spanking his Pokémon time and time again.

Serena wasn't a bad rival IMO. Considering she was supposed to be a prodigy, I had motivation to beat her.

Hikamaru said:

I actually don't miss the days of "competitive and brash" rivals. Friendlier rivals don't really affect the experience for me, but I know for some people they think it's getting overdone.

But then again this is a game targeted towards kids, so some sacrifices had to be made, and maybe that's why I think they decided to deviate from the trash-talking rivals and make them more friendlier to the player.

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Malva trash-talks a bit so the kid targeted demographic isn't the problem. But Malva isn't a rival. Guess they're trying to encourage friendly competition instead of pure enmity between rivals/ competitors in real life.

I was a disappointed when I first played but it grew on me. Overall though I would prefer the old way like gary.

Even though it doesn't change the major gameplay for me,I personally find the rivals being friendly is much better, it makes Pokemon games much friendlier imo.

I like the friendlier rivals as well, and thought that Serena's character arc was just as compelling as it needed to be for her to fit into her niche snugly. Blue's snide remarks were always irritating to me, but in X/Y I actually read the dialogue. If you want to trash talk, you can play Call of Duty, or a rom hack. I don't think it has a place in Nintendo's big picture.

Pendraflare said:

I certainly get why some people didn't like the rivals in this game. I myself didn't really care for them either, except Serena/Calem, who I like that they want to get stronger and I do tend to feel sad for them when I beat them. The others though? No thanks, and it wasn't helped by how infuriating the bridge fights were in my recent Blue Mono-Color. Took me several tries to finally get past them, which sucked.

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I actually enjoy friendly rivals. Well, perhaps they're too friendly in X/Y, but I generally like them