Consider: "Rival" is actually an outdated term and

Rival was never officially-recognized Game Freak/TPCi terminology.

>>27258822
Rival is just an archetype to describe the trainer who started the same time as you and battles you frequently. There's a sense of competition describing someone as a "rival" and GF already tried establishing a "Pokedex rival" with Trevor in X and Y after Brendan/May fell flat and didn't actually compare Pokedexes with us.

>And because we use the word "rival", Genwunners come out of the works to whine about how future characters aren't as cool or act as actual rivals the way Blue does.

"Rival" is just fine, even if Serena/Calem were pathetic. Silver, Barry, and Cheren ranged from good to great despite not being from Gen I and had the same goal: To be the most powerful trainer.

>>27258822
Personally, I don't dislike the idea of having a few other recurring trainers that you're on friendly terms with, but I DO want a return to the old kinds of Rivals. Blue and Silver, y'know?

If you ask me, a good Rival gives you some kind of REASON to want to be better than them. Friendly sport is all well and good, but without that spark of true competition, how else are we supposed to get invested in our quest to be the very best, like no one ever was?

>>27259150
Silver=Barry>Cheren
Agree?

>>27259273
Definitely. Think about the B/W reveals more, they should have just made Bianca a strict Pokedex rival like Trevor since she was never gonna be a threat and just inflated the number of rival battles since Cheren was so competitive and N showed up on occasion too. Cut her battles and just make her a Pokedex check; if you saw more than her she'd give a rare evolutionary stone, reinforcing the focus on filling up the Pokedex and better building her character to become Prof. Junipers assistant in the sequels.

Cheren was alright, and he was the standard "Rival" of the game. N was somewhat different as he had more plot relevance and, not to sound preachy, was sort of an "Ethics" rival. Since he always challenged our ideals and reflected the idea of Pokemon being free by always changing and releasing his team.

Blue=Silver>Barry>Hugh>Cheren>every other rival
As you can see the new rivals are pretty much shit to the point at which they can't even be considered rivals anymore.

>>27259470
I don't often see Hugh over Cheren. I tend to overlook Hugh a lot since he's probably the most "bro" rival of the bunch. He also wasn't that threatening only challenging us with four Pokemon before the E4. Postgame his team jumps up to six but by then I stopped caring about his development.

What do you prefer in him?

>>27259702
At least to me his story was interesting. He was also the last rival before they all turned into "You're so good at battling, I'm never gonna be as good as you, lemme shove these compliments up your ass!"

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>>27259859
That's another thing I hate about the recent "Rivals". They waste no time and spare no expense in telling us just how immensely amazing we are at everything we do.

I like being recognized for being a badass, but I want to prove that I am one first, goddammit.

Shoving so many compliments down our throat right out of the gate is like putting a Dragon Dick Dildo in the hands of an overenthusiastic Man-Hulk and telling him to go to town on the ass of an unprepared virgin. It's thoroughly uncomfortable, and we're probably going to resent them for it for the foreseeable future.

>>27259859
Yeah his motivations were good. I guess I expected more of a challenge from the only rival who raised his starter from an egg. He was probably just handed the egg like us with our starter but part of me wanted to believe he would be a better rival after taking the responsibility of caring for a Pokemon egg and his motivation to rescue his sister's stolen Purrloin.

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What they did with him was enjoyable, but he really could have used more mid-game development.

>>27260257
Agreed. Only two battles in the main game wasn't enough to flesh him out despite his Victory Road battle being pretty great.

>>27258822
>And because we use the word "rival", Genwunners come out of the works to whine about how future characters aren't as cool or act as actual rivals the way Blue does.

You say that like the XY rivals, and seemingly the SM rivals (just read Hau's character description on the official Pokémon website and tell me he doesn't sound like a malasada-themed Tierno).

Some newer rivals are fine like Barry and Cheren, and I didn't mind Hugh or ORAS Wally, but all of those characters had a competitive side to them (except arguably Hugh, but he was aggressive enough toward Team Plasma that I still enjoyed him). When your "rivals" are limp-dicked pussies who don't actually try to rival you at all, it becomes a problem.

I am going to assume a rival is properly Blue, Silver, and Barry. The others...They are either the other PC with the roles reversed, or they are something I find impossible to describe, and when I think about it, it is a trope that I have only seen in anime. It doesn't exist anywhere in Western works. There is nothing I can think to call it, but indeed they don't possess an antagonistic role of any kind.