5th Gen Rival battles

I must be the only person who doesn't mind this. They took a different route with the Rival which was alright to me; it was nice to have a Rival that wasn't always trying to compete with you for the Champion title, wanting to be stronger than you, or something along those lines. He had a different focus, and that was to help his sister and defeat those who brought misfortune on her.

Also for those who are complaining that he doesn't ever have a full team he does have one post e4 at Undella. Pretty sure he does at the other place you fight him; don't remember off the top of my head though. And for some reason he surprised me showing up right before exiting Victory Road despite it happening in almost every other generation. Whoops.

In B/W, you battled your rivals too much... In this game you didn't battle him enough, and he only caught a new Pokemon every century and a half.

I like him as a rival, but they didn't give him much screentime...

I had hoped it would be after some nice guy with a doctors degree/ after pkmn center to heal my pokemon...
not much screentime? i think they got him quite a lot of screentime. just didnt battle that often

The fact that you fought your rival limited times (and the fact he has limited team, even up to the Elite Four) did bug me alittle bit, but that epic battle music makes up for it. Is it me, or does his theme almost sounds like it should be made in 8 bit and featured in a mega man fan game?

...I didn't really mind that I couldn't battle my rival too often during the story. For me, he was more like a friend that would 'spar' with me from time to time...

The only real difficulty in his battles was the one right before the League. I didn't know I had to face him then, and by then I was down to a Gigalith and an Arcanine, with no revives and only 2 Hyper Potions (Somehow I won...) T.T

BinaryPeaches said:

I must be the only person who doesn't mind this. They took a different route with the Rival which was alright to me; it was nice to have a Rival that wasn't always trying to compete with you for the Champion title, wanting to be stronger than you, or something along those lines. He had a different focus, and that was to help his sister and defeat those who brought misfortune on her.

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I feel the same way too, I always felt that the rival battles were too much sometimes, and sprang up when I was unprepared. I also liked being part of a team with Hugh, and the double battles with Plasma and in the sewers were good. It was refreshing to have a rival with less selfish motivation, even though he is still quite childish.

If one considers the number of times one teams up with him as well, it's probably a similar number in total to the rival battles of other games. 'Rival' is really quite an obsolete term by now. I like that he actively helps in gameplay terms, although I would have to agree with Zinzolin that his single-minded pursuit throughout the story is very narrow-minded; he could've seen a lot of character development if Pokemon stories were all that deep, so that's what I think was missed out on.

morrison said:

I actually thought i was being immature calling my rival dork, bu he really is a dork . meh. I am glad i didnt have to battle him too often, I hated it when he came up on victoryroad and i hadnt have any potions left and only 4 pkmn were fit more o rless.

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And he only has four monsters himself; doesn't that just make it an even fight?
I'd like to see a rival sometime have levels and items scaled to what the player has... then even if one is prepared, (s)he can't just be steamrolled.

Yep, they were lacking. It was fun to had your Pokemon gain more experience from Rival Battles. I was irritated when he just runs off and b..ch about Team Plasma.