Pokémon General Thread

Part of me WOULD like to go back and play the older games from the DS era...the other part doesn't want to deal with garbage like Hidden Machines, leveling each Pokémon slowly rather than all at once, among other issues that later games don't have.

Is Barry REALLY considered a Base-Breaking Character? This entry puzzles me as everywhere I've seen seems to point to him as one of the best rivals in the series, or at least the only good Friendly Rival. But I wanna check before deleting this entry outright

• Barry, as the years have passed, has slowly been receiving more scorn from the fanbase. Some people find Barry Adorkable and a worthy rival that does try to get tougher at the same rhythm as you do, and undergoes some important Character Development by the hands of Team Galactic that lets him take it more seriously, especially in Platinum where his team eventually becomes the strongest of any rivals in any Pokémon game. Others think his energy gets annoying later on in the story and that he is not nearly as badass as Blue in Gen I and Silver in Gen II. Recently, many of Barry's detractors have also painted him as the "original friendly rival" that created the massive amount of blasè rivals that would be later decried. Defenders of Barry will point out that he is still driven by a desire to one-up the player character despite his losses, and that not only his Heroic BSoD happens due to the villainous team, but his character development happens in time in the story rather than at the very end and that it involves a great case of The Dog Bites Back. Fans also feel it’s unfair to blame Barry for starting the trend when both of his predecessors (Brendan/May and Wally) were friendly rivals as well. Whereas his detractors will dismiss these points and say that despite this and his team becoming much stronger (especially in Platinum), the damage to his personality and to the development of future rivals is already done.

Edited by Mariofan99 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 2:02:08 PM

yes that's a pretty fitting entry on Barry.

Honestly, I barely remember anything about Barry except that he's hyperactive.

And also I decided to start over in "Legends: Arceus", figured starting with Cyndaquil will make the Early Game Hell far easier.

Edited by wooden-ladybug93 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 5:11:21 AM

People have opinions on Barry?

I honestly am neutral on him though. I don't hate him or like him. He's just...there.

And for occasional battles to progress the story. I forget what the trope is for this.

I remember he's prone to running into people, fining people, and being involved in a 12-vs-12 battle^note Double Battle against Team Galactic admins IIRC in one of the Sinnoh games (Platinum, I think).

I always suffer an And Then What? after beating the champion. I have no interest in those battle places (the kind that make you fight in 3-vs-3 battles with level 50 non-legendary Pokémon, which means I'm likely going to lose).

I've always found him a pretty good rival. Definitely a massive upgrade over Hoenn's offerings, at worst.

I remember people finding him annoying but I don't remember people having strong opinions on Pokemon characters apart from being horny for Cynthia.

And the anime version of Loreli.

And Lusamine.

And... <BONK>

I remember people finding him annoying but I don't remember people having strong opinions on Pokemon characters apart from being horny for Cynthia.

Well, people care about the game characters now. But that really started around gen 7

Caring about human character definitely didn't start with Gen 7. Your perspective must be warped by how forgettable most of the XY cast was. People always cared about them to some extent and there was tons of fan art of the human characters in Gen 5. I just checked and N still has way more pictures on Pixiv than any Gen 7 character does.

Aside from Serena (where the anime probably did 90% of the work), did any XY character manage to pop off?

Hex Maniac.

x2 Maybe Clemont (again mostly the anime) and Korrina.

Maybe Shauna as well (she did have an adorable design and that one moment in Parfum)

Tierno on the Japan side for whatever reason.

I just learned a weird fact. Every Pokemon can shrink down to minuscule size, which is how they can fit into a Pokeball, and to that I say:

So would you guys say Barry’s hatedom is large enough to be Base Breaking? Or is it more apathy than dislike

OK, so maybe they automatically use the move Minimize outside of battle in order to get into the Pokeball, even if they can't learn it as a battle move.

yes as that might have been in a period of time where Barry was hated when gen 4 was new.

Re: Battle Places: That's how I usually spend my time in Pokemon games after becoming Champion and completing the Pokedex; in fact the lack of such battle places in SV is why I decided not to get it.

Re: Pokemon Shrinking: I found that to be an intriguing explanation for how Poke Balls work, though I prefer the idea of Pokemon become pure energy instead.

I still wonder why, if they truly intend on sticking to the "All Pokemon can shrink" concept, they never made Minimize a "Universal" move like Protect.

The whole Pokemon shrinking thing is probably one of the stupidest canon explanations if have ever heard, up there with the Sonic franchise having humans and Islanders living on different planets before they fixed this immediately, and some of the more outlandish crap to come out of J.K. Rowling's mouth shortly before it was revealed she was a TERF.

I'll stick with the matter to energy thing personally, with any scenes showing the inside of a Pokeball being merely how the Pokemon themselves see themselves within one.

I really liked the shrinking after I realized it finally explained why you can't catch a fainted Pokemon. It's because they shrink away and your trainer loses sight of them.