Friendly Rivalries: An Assessment

I boarded the ferry with Professor Kukui, my friend and rival Hau, and the office supplies bandit and we traveled by map to the second island, Akala Island, to continue the Alola challenge.  Apparently there are three challenges on Akala Island with three different Trial Captains.  One of these captains, Mallow, and the Kahuna of the island, Olivia, greeted us at landfall.  I did my best to come up with an appropriate joke for the situation, but all I could think of was "it's really sweet that Marshmallow would come to greet us."  Clearly I shouldn't quit my day job anytime soon.
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Continuing with the trend started in Generation 4 (yes I said Generation 4,:fight me about it), Pokemon Sun offers you the "rival is your friend" plotline.  I have spoken with my similarly-minded friends about this and we came to the conclusion that the whole friendly rival thing doesn't quite work the way that Nintendo/Gamefreak would hope it does.  I would say that the reason for this failure is in the nature of the game as a whole.

Let's look at Gen 1 and 2 as the counter-examples.  These two games had ruthless, tough, mean-spirited rivals that are always one step ahead of you with tough pokemon and tough attitudes.  Blue was cocksure and ambitious.  He had no reservations about admitting that he was out to show the world that he is the best; he was always quick to demean and belittle the main protagonist--the player character.  Gen 2 had Silver--an actual pokemon thief.

"Geez, Silver calm down"

Fast forward to Generation 4, 5, 6, and now 7 and the player's rivals are all childhood friends or new friends of the player character.  Gen 5 tells you, the player, outright that the characters Bianca and Cheren have been your friends from childhood.  The Band of Pokemon thieves in Gen 6 were all one-note character stereotypes (of course the big buy is into dancing, of course the small whiney kid is into collecting and analyzing data, of course the girl is scared of everything--because who cares about breaking down gender and character tropes in artistic media, right?) and they were all presented as friends who are competing with you.

Generation 7's rival character is Hau and Hau's character trait--Hau's only character trait--is that he likes to eat malasada. Woo.

The reason that Blue and Silver always make the short list of everyone's top Pokemon NPC countdowns is because their implementation was in line with the player's expectations of the medium of the videogame.

One plays a video game to be challenged.  A game is a puzzle--it's a thing that needs to be solved.  It's a set of obstacles that present themselves to the player such that the player has an innate desire to push on and overcome these same obstacles.  The reward is coming out on top.  "You did it!  You won!"  In a game you're trying to overcome the odds--it's a natural outcome of the medium.  There's something working against you.  As a direct result of this, it's really easy to put together a mean, intimidating rival for your game.  Your rival, especially in pokemon, is the personification of the game--the game is trying to beat you and your rival is working against you in that same way.  On the other hand, it's nearly impossible to implement a friendly rivalry that works.

The best way to rationalize it is that a friendly rivalry, even in Pokemon, breaks game flow.  It's hard to get a player to care about an NPC.  That's even before we factor into the equation the fact that these same NPC's lack dimension.  It's hard to care about a cardboard cutout--and no amount of Tierno's dancing, nor Hau's joking about food is going to get me to care about them.  It's hard to get someone to care about your video game character as a friend, but it's easy to identify an enemy.

That's why friendly rivalries so easily fall flat on their faces.  In a show or in a book or a comic, these characters could be written in such a way that they are more sympathetic and, dare I say it, friendly.  However, in the medium of "video game", the friendliness of the rivalry undercuts the rules of the game.

If the game is trying to beat you, the avatar and personification of that very same game should be as heckling and mean as well.  It's easier to pull off--and it's just plain better motivation to get good, son.

And this one?  Honestly I don't even know what I should be feeling here...

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Wasn't that a nice diversion?  Here I am teaching you all these things.  You're gonna be so smart by the end of this play through.

I ran into Sina and Dexio, Professor Sycamore's assistants) from Pokemon Y version.  Sina challenged me to a battle.  This was actually interesting for me because I had never seen what kinds of pokemon either one of them uses.  Turns out, she uses Ice Pokemon: Delibird and Glaceon.

[Insert Sex pun here]

Too bad I had Growlie with me, huh?

Vs. Kahuna Hala

Prepared with the knowledge that I would be battling a Fighting Pokemon master, I assembled my most reliable squamates for the task.

Battle Team 2: The Fighting Frenzies

Vs. Kahuna Hala

...and apparently I also brought Slowpoke along for some reason.

I was unsure of whether or not the team I had selected would be over or under leveled.  I prefer to keep the game on the challenging side, so I didn’t want to take in, for example, my level 17 Oricorio with Air Cutter.  Or-chan is a little bit too strong for what I anticipated the Kahuna’s pokemon would be—somewhere in the 16-17 range.

I approached him back at Route 1 on the Melemele outskirts.  As a matter of fact, our battle arena was the very same stage where I had fought his grandson Hau and his Litten at the festival of our Lord and Savior the Kamen Rider Space blah blah Tapu Koko.  Indeed, it was the very stage where I had met and befriended Pako Pako.

With a weird sort of nostalgia coursing through my thoughts, I started the match.

Trumbeak vs. Mankey is the sort of battle that normally wouldn’t get even a footnote in any battling tactics analysis.  Even if Mankey is the same level as Trumbeak, level 14 in this case, it just plain can’t compete.  Trumbeak took one hard Karate Chop critical hit, but held on to defeat both Mankey and Hala’s second Pokemon Makuhita.

The Makuhita was able to weaken my lead, Pip Pip, to identically 1 HP, but Kahuna Hala now only had one pokemon left compared to my five remaining healthy switch-ins.  For the future, I need to remember to only bring in three pokemon per gym match to make it a fairer fight.

His third pokemon was a Crabrawler.  It knew the Fighting Z-Move “All Out Pummeling”.  Unfortunately for the Kahuna, Crabrawler wasted this move immediately against my 1 HP Trumbeak in the most spectacular sort of overkill that I have ever seen.  The animation for this move is insane and over the top and to see it strip off exactly one point of health made me make a ridiculous squeaking noise.

After I lost Trumbeak, I sent in Pokey for an admittedly boring exchange of Yawns and Confusions.  I won the match four turns later.

Choosing Pako Pako

Let me just say that this game has a LOT of cutscenes.  Professor Kukui met with me in my home and helped escort me to the next town over, Iki Town, to meet the Kahuna of the island Melemele there to get my first pokemon.  Whew, so many names of things!  Apparently, Kahuna are particularly strong trainers on each island, chosen by that island's totem guardian.  The totem of Melemele is apparently Electric Space Warrior Kamen Rider.

Naturally, the kahuna is suffering from "princess is in another castle syndrome" and I have to go off looking for him.  I stumbled across the "office supplies bandit" almost immediately, further proving my point that the introductory scene at Abstergo Industries was pointless.  Her pokemon is apparently purple puffball.

Purple puffball (probably a fairy type) is immediately attacked by a flock of spearows (and it's always spearow...the dicks...) and my character of course rushes to protect it.  I mean, that's kind of just what August does.  Anyways, bad goes to worse and I am eventually saved by the Electric Space Warrior Kamen Rider "Tapu Koko".  My total playtime right now is 30 minutes and it has all been cutscenes...

The Office Supplies Bandit is then revealed to be Professor Kukui's assistant Lillie and th Kahuna shows up because the plot called for it.

The pokemon choosing ceremony that followed was actually quite sweet.  You start the way one always does--by choosing the water type.  But after this, it involved your choice deciding whether or not to come to you.  The animators do a good job of showing the pokemon's initial indecision and eventual warm acceptance.  I used to volunteer at dog shelters and it's the same sort of look that the dogs would have when introduced to prospective new owners and it honestly made me tear up a little (I need a dog really badly).

I named my little Popplio "Pako Pako".  I can't believe I so quickly went from "grump" to "fangirl".

Current Squad:

Popplio/Pako Pako/lvl 5