Hm... might need to rethink that title in the future. Anyone got ideas...? Also, as I was editing, I noticed my voice started gradually becoming more exhausted and dragged-out as the video went on. It starts to stretch and really lose a lot of energy... Maybe it's a side-effect of forcing myself to try and intentionally speak slowly and clearly. Does anyone else feel that's also the case? The obvious followup to this video would be Red. And that'll eventually be made. But I might consider wanting to examine the game design of something non-Pokemon related for a momentary change of pace.
I didn't really notice your voice losing energy too badly towards the end of the video - I found it interesting and enjoyable throughout. Also, I would just like to say that the Rowlett art you use in your videos is flipping adorable.
@@sealcuddl3r Thanks. I'd love to take credit for the art, but unfortunately I can't. It's all from the Sun/Moon anime. Rowlet is remarkably expressive
I haven't finished the video yet because I don't have time, but I am 14 minutes in and haven't noticed a difference in your voice. Not sure how helpful that is, maybe I will come back to let you know when I have available time.
To be honest, I really like your calm way of explaining things, as opposed to that fast-talking ramble that seems to be the norm these days - yesterday I even had to set a video (not yours ;) ) on 0.75 speed to be able to understand what the pokétuber was saying. So keep up the good work! :)
As the strongest protagonist in history fought the stringest rival of the modern day, professor Oak asks the player: "If you were to fight Blue, who would win?" "If I was ambushed and didn't get to heal ahead of time, I might have a little trouble" "But would you lose?" "Nah, I'd win."
@@GoldenOwl_Game Were you hoping to see Jujitsu brainrot because you thumnailed "Nah, I'd win", or did you thumbnail "Nah, I'd win" because you were hoping for Jujitsu brainrot?
Blue`s surprise encounter in Cerulean city has to be one of the biggest bullshits I witnessed in Pokemon as a kid. Because I had just completed Mt Moon and decided to explore the new city before going to the Pokemon Center, only to be ambushed and defeated in that fight, but worst of all is that since I didnt entered the City`s pokemon center, I respawned at the pokemon center before the Mt Moon, meaning I had to pass that zubat infested place again
that fight is also one of the hardest ones too imo as usually you will be more underleveled then Blue at that point in time if you haven't specifically grinded somwhere
Actually, I just realized somerhing. Most of the ambush are a trick the game play on you as well. If you learn to heal as soon as you arrive in a new city (and you will, as stated previously), you'll almost always be at full health. The only exceptions are the SS Anne and Silph Co battle . There is a bed in Silph Co, and you're expecting another Giovanni fight (though seeing how easy he was before, you may feel confident enough to handle him without heal), but that one is absolutely his most brutal and unfair fight. If you compare this to the Barry fight in Canalave, where you are *inside* the city (instead of just outside like Blue), he's playing surprisingly fair.
I don't think that's BS.... you had an easy chance to heal yourself and you missed it......... like, you just skipped the next Pokemon center..... If you went there, not only would you probably have won, but even if you lost, it wouldn't be that far..... So you learned your lesson....
Encounters with Blue suffering from a Mandela effect may be more true than we thought. My guess is that since our first experience with him was when we were children, we really took it to heart that he's our rival, our competition, our enemy; so many people years down the line end up remembering him, both in gameplay and story, as a bigger menace than he actually was. Kinda makes it feel like Blue was this one kid you still have a grudge on because all you remember is how you always got into fights with him and never felt like giving it a bit more thought.
His presence is always felt, because he's always a step ahead. His name being on every Gym statues is such a simple and effective trick! He doesn't even have to be present to get to you.
Same. Despite playing those games a ton since I was a kid, I actually never noticed how he was genuinely trying to be helpful and was attempting to consider you as his equal underneath all that arrogance. His attitude was getting to me too much as a kid and as I grew up, I kinda just skipped his dialogue without paying attention. I assumed he was a bully, but now I can see that he never was. It was all in my head. 😂
What about everybody that didnt experience him first? Which would be the majority at this point, by far. Silver was my first game. I played gen 3 more than any other. Lets just be real, most rivals suck. Its that simple. Him being amongst the best has less to do with how well he was written and used and more to do with how poorly the others are in contrast. Which always happens because he is the archetype for rivals in pokemon. As they put more effort into writing them, he slides further and further. Nemona and Kieran are probably both better than Blue by most peoples estimates, so I really dunno how much time is actually blinding anyone.
This does make me appreciate what Hop does in changing his team around so much during his existential crisis. It means you are kept guessing somewhat over what his actual team will be.
As annoying Hop was, he did have some nice Shiftings in his team. And then there's Hau who just straight up tries to murder you, once you reach the third island... (figuratively speaking of course) But i think my favorites are Cheren and Bell(Is that her name in English?) as well as N. Heck Probably N period. He always has a new Team consisting of the locally found Pokémon which is awesome and surprisingly hard. Also these 3 have also do the whole 'let's jump you at unexpected times' like Gary does. when i've played B/W the first time, i was always super paranoid when reaching a new milestone/city/whatever and ran straight to the Poké-center.
I honestly think Blue being ingrained as a jerk in so many people's minds is because of the anime. Gary was an actual jerk, flaunting his riches to bumbling Ash, vandalizing a sign once just to boast to Ash (I think it was "Gary was here, Ash is a loser"?) and usually talking down to Ash whenever they met. Only in later seasons did we get some developments that made him more sympathetic, like the two making a promise over two halves of a pokeball and him generally being portrayed less and less like a spoiled but gifted rich kid. In the games, something else I personally really like about Blue as a rival is that he has some really rare pokemon the player wishes they had. Abra at the point Blue adds it to his team is really annoying (or hard) to catch, because Great Balls aren't as affordable yet (or even available), Alakazam is both strong AND desirable because it required additional hardware (and friends). Even his starter could be seen as that, especially in Yellow. The fact he mentions having caught the incredibly rare Cubone in Lavender Tower also plays into this. I absolutely agree on the assessment that he usually ambushes you. I kind of wish the games did that at least sometimes. I'm not saying "crush the player" but that desire for fairness sometimes really hampers things. Gamedesign can enhance story telling, but if a character isn't allowed to ambush you OR have slightly stronger (or more) pokemon than usual trainers to adhere to a certain difficulty standard, they stop being a rival and become just another slightly more talkative trainer NPC. Hau and Hop taking on the role of the weaker one (they both start to question themselves as they lose more and more) makes a lot of sense keeping this in mind, but it doesn't really feel like a rivalry at that point. I actually like the arcs of these characters, I just don't think they fit the rival title.
Does Hau question himself? He always seemed like he was having too much fun. Doesn’t he get curbstomped by Gladion and go, "good game, you're really strong,". Whilst Gladion is questioning his sanity, "why are you happy, you idiot! I just destroyed you."
@@intergalactic92 I don't remember how much focus it gets, but he does at some point start to get more serious when he realizes there's more on the line than just fun. I'm currently replaying the original Sun because I can't remember if it's actually fleshed out in that version though. It's been too long. Hop in Sword and Shield honestly feels like Gamefreak wanted to revise (or rehash, if you are particularly uncharitable) the idea of Hau, but more obviously.
I think the thing that makes Buttface different from all other rivals was that he was basically your brother.... He wasn't a rival as in somebody you needed to beat or surpass..... he wasn't someone who needed to respect you or vice versa.... he was just straight up your brother.... even if not blood related... Oak viewed both of us as his grandkids, his sister made sure both of us got maps... and Oak was always baby sitting us and watching our journey.... In fact, Buttface is almost easier to know than most of the other rivals because if you have a brother or a friend that's kinda a rival, then you kinda understand both Red and Buttface. Only kids without siblings AND friends might have a hard time understanding, but they can just borrow from media... In the end, Red is supposed to be us and Buttface our brother/best friend. It's just that simple...
You may be into something. The best rivals in the series has that same kind of relationship. Hugh in BW2 is a great example of a more positive sibling relationship. He's willing to push you because he believes in you and now you'll help him with his goals. Hop being the little brother you have to push around is also a great explanation of what makes him interesting, and why he can be so divisive. His true Rival being his actual brother (in more ways than one) helps a lot
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740And if you yourself have siblings or a close childhood friend, you can fill in the gap yourself... It's easier with Blue because you are supposed to overlap yourself more in the game...
Something I did feel with Blue is not that we were playing catch, rather, we take longer to do things because we have to fix all the stuff that he doesn't. The first mandatory rival battle after the first one, on Nugget bridge, he comes back after seeing Bill's rare pokemon, but he doesn't even bother to mention that the man running the Nugget challenge is a Rocket member, or did anything to help Bill. Granted, Bill's accident could have simply ocurred in the time period between his arrival and yours, fair enough. On the SS Anne, though, he did know that the captain was sick, but didn't bother helping him, instead just walking away with the Cut HM and calling him names behind his back. It's you who gives him a massage to help him feel better. In the Pokemon Tower, we can give him a bit of a break because he is mourning the loss of his Raticate, but surely he did know about the kidnapping of Mr Fuji and how the rockets were in the tower, killing Cubones and disturbing the dead. Heck, he even casually says he doesn't even think there are any Marowaks left, uncaring of the killings. In Silph, he casually is waiting on the room containing the teleporter that leads to Giovanni, yet Giovanni was doing as he pleased, so either he tried to defeat him but failed (unlikely, seeing as he had his team at full hp and was just waiting for you) or he didn't even try. A third option is he did try, failed, and only let you go for Giovanni if you were good enough to beat him so he knew you would stand a chance. All in all, he probably takes less time to accomplish things because he "skimmed" through the game instead of doing things like we as the player do.
The raticate theory is fun to think about but it lacks compelling evidence, especially since Blue already swapped out his Rattata for a Raticate(we know this because Rattata evolves at level 20, the Raticate Blue had was level below that) so he just boxed it, and Raticate is bad pokemon to have on a champion level team so there’s no reason for him to use it over his stronger pokemon like arcanine and alakazam
@@fellowpassenger_54-67 It may have been the same Raticate as its somewhat implied that trainers who have a special relationship with their Pokemon can cause early evolution (which would make the Raticate death theory even more tragic).
Three things I want to mention to add to your video: 1) Blue _absolutely_ challenges you on defeating Team Rocket. You encounter him in Silph Co. right before Giovanni. While the mechanical reason is undoubtedly to have a fight to drain resources before fighting the main boss of that area, the narrative implication is that Blue would be the one to face Giovanni if you lose. Blue would be the hero of Saffron City if Red failed to defeat him. 2) While it's easy to see Blue's attitude as more positive and joking as an adult, this is 100% jerk material for a 10 year-old. The simple addition of a "Smell ya later!" anytime you interact with him makes much of his dialogue seem more flippant and condescending, especially for a kid. What's even better is that Blue grows through the entire journey and that bristly demeanour slowly softens as you both mature from your journey across Kanto. Blue _is_ devastated by his unusually short reign as champion, but has the maturity to understand that being champion isn't everything. It's really no wonder that he and Red become best buds as the series goes on as their childish, hot-headed rivalry becomes a more mature, push-you-to-your-best one. 3) I really love how you highlighted the design of Blue ambushing you as a difficulty slider. You can even see that slider being dialed in through each encounter. Blue starts off literally asking to fight in the safest possible condition, right after you get your pokemon, but slowly starts ambushing you farther and father away from poke-centres as your journey progresses, culminating in Silph Co where you're at the farthest possible point away from healing and the least prepared. This then regresses as the ambushes become softer but his team becomes more fully formed and challenges you straight up. Amazing design!
Especially, because it makes sense. As he fights you more 'honestly', he learns about your team and strategy, and prepares for good fights against skilled Trainers with strong teams- like the Elite 4.
Your section around Blue's dialogue has a Mandella Effect feel to it: I remember him being way more cocky and unlikeable. Maybe my/our recollection was influenced by the anime version of the character, and/or I don't remember him fondly due to the difficulty spikes and ambushing when I was playing these games as a child. Great video, as usual!
Honestly, your points on Blue from a game design standpoint make sense. Personally, my favorite Roval in the series became Nemona. With her I feel we got a good blend of Blue ambushing you, lore allusions to how it's not too difficult for the player to beat her (she is LITERALLY power gaming you to make you her ultimate challenge), and her (stalkerish yandere) behavior of showing up at gyms based on badges yoh collected to feed her insatiable battle lust and see the progress of her efforts make her fun as a character. As well as her being designed team wise to where even an experienced player knowing what to expect gets too cocky she can come close to whooping your ass. Before that it was Wally cause ORAS did a fucking amazing job of taking expectations and subverting them. You mop the floor with him once, and you don't see him again for a long time. But of you check the gym statues from Lavaridge on, his name is there. He got there first. You didn't even see him do it. Then the pay off at the END of Victory Road (as opposed to the begining) where he appears, waiting for you, after you're worn out, and declares intent to beat and gets the single most BADASS FUCKING THEME IN POKEMON blaring as you take him and see he now has a Key Stone. That is hard to beat, but Nemona's personality and game design merita plus her story edged her out a win.
Wally definitely benefited greatly from the remakes. ORAS in general was a pretty fantastic remake when it came to fixing many of the game’s original flaws
@@stephenford5661 He really needed an update for sure. In my first playthrough of R/S i completely forgot he existed until you stumble upon him in victory road.
Funny fact from the French localization: Pokemon Red and Blue, when translated in French actually took many creative liberties (for the better I think) where most of the characters speaks in a very "unique" way, a bit similar to what 90's kids would actually say. It derived mostly on non-essential dialogue like NPC trainers. Blue is no exception. He actually bullies you way more than in the english version. Almost every sentences have the word "minable" in it, that you could translate to "pathetic, pitiful". Similar to what a school bully would do. Instead of "beating you as a warm up for the Pokemon League", he would instead "break you in half. Even your mother would only recognise you by the color of your schoolbag" You could also see the shift in Blue's way of talking to you, from normally at first, then talking you down as soon as he gets the pokedex (and the whole thing turns into a competition) and finally talking in a more "mature" way as the champion, as if he doesn't need to bully you anymore, he's literally the strongest trainer. This "bullying" was toned way down on the Fire Red and Leaf Green remake to follow the orignal source more thoroughly. Pokemon Red and Blue is quite the "anomaly" of the series regarding French translation. And now Pokemon is a bit "too big" to allow such divergences.
great video, I loved it, and I think almost all of your points are spot on. I do think you’re being a little generous to Blue though when you describe him as ‘respectful’: beyond stuff like ‘smell you later’, ‘you stinker’, ‘you’ll never catch up’, Blue starts the game by deliberately choosing the Pokémon your starter will be weak to and deliberately tells his sister to *not* give you a map. In context, i don’t think it’s a Mandela effect to think of him as a jerk: even when he gives positive advice, in context it’s supposed to be condescending
One of the problems with modern rivals that blue doesn't have is that there is a dissonance between the rival's role in gameplay and their role in the story. Rivals as gameplay devices are obstacles. They interrupt your adventure to injure your pokemon. However, GF has been consistently setting these characters up as your friends, people you're supposed to be happy to see. The game tries to set up the rival encounter in the narrative as some sort of treat when in reality it is a challenge. The cognitive dissonance this creates causes the players to reject a large section of the narrative's premise. They experience... *ludo-narrative dissonance.* Blue doesn't have this issue because he is presented in the narrative as a nuisance. The game is set up with the idea that the player will find him annoying and frustrating and sets narrative expectations to that effect. This is why Blue works so much better as a character than most other rivals.
I find Scarlet and Violet to be the best overall solution. They separate the notion of friend and rival completely Nemona, Arven and Penny aren’t rivals at all. They are well and truly friends and rarely fight you. Nemona only becomes your rival by the end Kieran is arguably the best example. He starts out as a friend, has his character development turn him into a rival/antagonist, then eventually develop back into a friend
Even then, Kieran is only fought four times, across two DLCs, evenly. Kieran may be the jerk rival we want, but even he too follows the less frequent battles route.
This is a good watch. You pointing out that Blue ambushes you when you are likely not prepared reminds me of this reddit thread I once read. The OP had a discussion of how designing pokemon battle difficulty is harder because, unlike most turn band RPGs, the powered balance is symmetrical rather than asymmetrical. Maybe it's a topic you can delve into. Another topic I think would be interesting to explore is the relationship between the Pokémon game difficulty and the "options" the player has access to. Like how later gets the player has access to dragon and ice types much earlier in the playthrough than in earlier gens
I really haven't thought about Blue's dialogue in so long. I am pretty sure I remembered him as coming off as a jerk? But maybe I was just some spiteful kid feeling annoyed that this guy was always ahead of me hahah.
Even with Golden Owl's pointing out the rival's dialogue being actually sorta neutral... I can't help but hear "smell ya later!" In a condescending sneer
@@amiablereaper For all that's fair, in the gen 3 remakes, Blue was more of an asshole. After you beat him in Nugget bridge and he leaves, he comes back only to tell you he feels sorry for you, calls you a gossip, and gives you a practically useless key item.
I think he’s fairly calloused in the Pokémon Tower: “Hey, ! What brings you here? Your Pokémon don't look dead! I can at least make them faint! Let's go, pal!” It’s not the worst, but that’s pretty tasteless for a graveyard.
@@trumpeterjen Blue was also there mourning his own Pokemon, so in hindsight it feels like that might just be his way of trying to dust himself off and not appear sad and mopey. Some people use dark humor to cope.
Also, on a different note, rival fights tend to work better when there's no real way to massively overpower them - you mentioned Kirby? Aside from a handful of circumstances (like Forgotten Land's power-up shop), Kirby always keeps the same max health and attack power throughout the game, so fights against King Dedede or Meta Knight are always going to be around the same level of challenge (only dipping or raising slightly depending on which power Kirby's wielding). Or take the fight against Akhos and Malos in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, at the end of Chapter 3 (of 10) - at that point, the player's limited to equipping two Blades onto each Driver (aside from Tora, who gains his second Blade in Ch. 4, and Vandham, for story reasons) instead of three, and they don't have access to the more powerful Core Chips, Aux Cores, or Accessories, and level grinding is an absolute pain in XC2. They're doing just fine against the wildlife, but after resting at the Fonsa Myma inn - BAM, boss fight against two of the main villains (and rivals, as it later transpires). This fight is tough, as Akhos and Malos are both powerful foes in their own right, and love to use attacks that disrupt the party (such as lowering Blade Affinity, which means your attacks are weaker and Arts take longer to recharge, and you move slower too, among other effects). This challenging fight fits in perfectly with the accompanying cutscenes and narrative - it's definitely *not* a case of "you're steamrolling, except SURPRISE you're losing in the cutscene!" that some games like to pull. How about removing "levels" altogether, and taking a look at a successful visual-novel series? Ace Attorney, primarily the first game - in this game, the main prosecutor is Miles Edgeworth, who is described as having a perfect win record and doing anything he can to maintain that (with rumours, later debunked, of _forging_ evidence). He's cold and cunning in his first appearance (the second case, of five), confident that the defendant (Maya Fey, accused of sororicide) *will* be found guilty. When the player, as Phoenix Wright, manages to overcome the odds and pull out a last-second victory, Edgeworth is stunned, as his win record is now irrevocably shattered. He appears to still act the same in the third case, only to show signs of changing for the better when he goes out of his way to question his own witness (something rarely done by prosecutors in the series) in order to provide Phoenix with more info. Despite that, he's still a tricky opponent in court. It's only in the fourth case that his character growth is accelerated, as it's now HIM in the defendant seat, with his cruel and heartless mentor Manfred von Karma as the prosecutor, with the case having direct ties to Edgeworth's traumatic past. He's forced to rely on the man he never wanted help from - forced to swallow his remaining pride and accept Phoenix's legal aid. Edgeworth also appears in the fifth case, this time as a rather more helpful, yet still highly shaken, adversary, marking the starting point of the concept of defense lawyer and prosecutor helping each other to uncover the truth that the relationship between the two men evolves into. He makes a reappearance at the end of the second game (Justice For All) in order to use his police connections to help find a kidnapped Maya, and in the third game (Trials and Tribulations) he also helps crack the incredibly bizarre murder case at Hazakura Temple. Several years later, Edgeworth returns in Dual Destinies as the Chief Prosecutor, reprising his role as Phoenix's opponent and ally in the final case, to solve both the courtroom bombing and another bombing at a space agency. Miles Edgeworth is proof that rivals can start out antagonistic and incredibly prideful, yet rather organically evolve over the course of time to become actual trustworthy friends, sharing a common interest despite supposedly being "on the other side".
I feel this is also why generally the mdoern games usually have multiple rivals, cheren bianca and N, the army of rivals in gen 6, Hau and gladion, Hop, Bede and Marnie, arguably arven counts for base sv alongside nemona. Because this means you have to fight each rival less often while still letting teh developers put down a recurring rival battle somewhere and the player willr ecognise the character and hopefully be excited by fighting this rival they havent seen in a while, this also allows their team to change more between encounters since gaps are wider.
I think the origin of him showing up outside of a cave has its origins in the “Gary Motherfucking Oak” meme where he just shows up any time you were exhausted or beating you to successes. I recall one specific one joking about a player coming out of a tunnel only to suddenly get ambushed, more for comedic effect rather than it being accurate.
I'm starting to wonder if Blue's jerk personality isn't partialy because of the anime, also him saying smell ya later might, which caused us player to preceive him as a jerk when in reality he actualy isn't.
Great vid! I think the cave ambush Mandela effect mostly comes from other battles in other games. (Like Silver and Wally as you mentioned) I think N ambushes you at the end of chargestone cave but it's been a while since I played black and white. Because Blue is generally seen as the gold standard of rivals and he did ambush the player often enough, it seems natural to misremember the games that way. I think that it's a similar situation to Cynthia where the character has been hyped up for so long that we as a fanbase (and game freak themselves it seems sometimes) remember Blue as only the best attributes of all of the rivals, or at least the early ones.
I love Blue as a rival and he's probably my favorite one despite his simplicity. Glad you addressed his dialogues not being actually a jerk. I barely got affectes by them as back in the day I had to play Pokemon with English cartridges before knowing English at all as they didn't come in my language, so I guess I didn't have that text bias. The Mandela effect I believe comes mostly from both the memes online and his anime counterpart Gary Oak aa many people interchanged them as if they were the exact same character and not alternate universe counterparts. Gary himself was more of an ass but even then at one point he got his character growth arc that made him closer to Blue, before retiring and becoming a researcher. Ash and him ended in good terms too and also in other recurrent reappearances he had he also brought some insight, guidance and help for Ash to develop from the current issue holding him back. With all of that, once I knew English I replayed FRLG and the og RGB and truly his dialogue wasn't the jerk dude people were claiming him to be, just like you said, just a competitive friend encouraging us to get better and both growing from each other's strengths. It felt like a nice rivalry to have imo and why I enjoyed seeing him return to Alola with Red for nostalgia.
I specifically remember being utterly floored when I played FireRed for the first time and fought Blue at the top of Rocket Tower. For context, i'd grown up with the anime first so to me the rival was, at heart, Gary Motherfucking Oak even if i'd named him something silly. I was CONVINCED he was going to help me beat the Rocket boss the way Gary fights team rocket in the show (Battle of the Badge fucking slaps), and even teams up with Ash on occasion. Perhaps it's my own fault for reading characterizations that the rival is never given in-game, but damnit i was genuinely seething with rage when that boy abandoned me and made me fight Giovanni myself
I think the Mandela effect with Blue at the end of a cave is one of two things 1. He is the first major fight after two caves in the game, Mt. Moon and Rock Tunnel. In both cases you pass a Pokémon Center to get to him though so you should be at full health for those fights. 2. They are just mixing him up with Silver or Wally who were both fought at the end of Victory Road.
The thing with me is... I never felt Blue was a major obstacle. Even as a kid I was a bit cautious about my pokemon's HP, I'd always revive my pokemon right away and I was willing to go back and heal up. I might have gotten caught off guard but I was almost always expecting a battle... So I always whooped him. And I never cared he was ahead of me; I'm a guy that likes to go at his own pace. If anything, to me it feels like he was speed running and rushing through things while I was taking it slower and taking the time to raise my team good, proper and right. He was the hare, rushing to the end. I was the tortoise and stomped him at the end. Honestly; it's all the other champions that I can struggle with on my first go because I don't know what they have the first time while with Blue I know what to expect. Don't get me wrong, he's a solid rival for the time and era he was made but I was always like 'whatever, I'll whoop you one more time'.
Wally does ambush you at the end of Victory Road, He may just be standing there but you still have to make it through the whole thing to rechallenge him. Even if you clear out the trainers you still have to avoid or tough through the Wild Encounters before any rematches. I remember as a little kid having to redo that one at least once and vividly remember dreading it when i played the other version. Also the battle theme he gets in ORAS makes him so cool he has to be considered a Rival
I think Blue's perception as a rude rival is coloured by the anime, since most people see Blue equal to Garry, and Garry is a complete asshole. There's also the fact that you kick Blue's ass more than once, and he still seems to think he's the hottest trainer in the world. It's only after you become champ that grudgingly admits you're better.
I didn't realize just how misrepresented Blue is in most fanworks until I watched this video. Thanks for bringing this to my attention! It's wonderfully structured and written as well.
Blue was always, in my head, because of the lack of backstory, my neighborhood friend who decided to be cocky about being better than me at Pokemon specifically. I didn't have any need for a backstory, because I just inserted my friends into his backstory. Whoever I named him after would be the rival. It was a brilliant move to just make Blue familiar with you, and be your neighbor, and then never elaborate on his backstory.
The newer rivals always felt like they existed just to have a rival like character in the game and nothing else. (or for the sake of tradition, I guess?) I've always maintained that not every rival has to be like Blue, but they need interesting fights. I don't think anyone would complain about a rival being "too nice" to you if they weren't a complete pushover and justified their decision to battle you instead of wasting your time. I like how you pointed out the changes in how the rival character approaches the player over the games. It does show how a perception of a character is not just their personality, but how they interact with the player and when that interaction happens. I do think we lose a bit of engagement with Pokemon games by not having surprise encounters from the rival. While they can be frustrating getting into unprepared, they make the player want to prepare for them in the future. Not having this along with the game becoming easier across the board makes for less interesting rival fights in my opinion. It's better to have the rival be dynamic in how they approach you instead of being just another NPC standing in your way.
Majima Everywhere doesn’t work in an open world though. It works really well in a sandbox context What makes it fun is the sheer ludicrous variety in encounters, which is possible because the game world itself is relatively small yet full of activities. In order to replicate that, Pokemon would need to severely scale down the size of its world. Open world games are too spread out and huge to make this system work reliably
@@GoldenOwl_Game pokemon battles are also very different to Yakuzas action combat so having it more spread out, and not quite as common makes sense. Just because I said they should use the system doesn't mean it should be 100% unaltered. At the end of the day it's just a randomly spawning boss fight that has a number of scripted, funny locations as well. Also the cutscenes are peak comedy. It also works really well with Namonas running gag of being a stalker. Imagine walking around the wilderness then an exclamation point pops over your head. A short cutscene plays, where we see a pair of binoculars sticking out of a tree. Suddenly Namona leaps out of the tree dramatically to battle you. You can very easily just setup a number of random triggers based on environmental factors like that. Then some kinda cool down to prevent her from becoming too tedious. Of course game freak is far to lazy to make such a system, but it would work.
@@GoldenOwl_Gamewhat’s the difference between the two? I tried looking it up, but it was just as confused as before. Actually, this sounds like a good video idea
If they did a rival like Blue again, mainly in having them ahead of you and when you just exited an area with low health, I thought of the idea of such a rival being the kid of an evil team leader similar to Silver but without the parental abandonment. Perhaps they like fighting you due to it being fun and perhaps their parent enables them since it distracts the protagonist when they take note of a kid who’s hindering the evil team’s operations.!
Side note, i dont know if the weather institute had a pc back in the original Ruby Saphire Emerald, but in the remakes there is a pc there, so you can just drop your pokemon there then withdraw them and they are full hp, thats what i did.
CrossCode handles this in a cool way by having you real-time race your party members through the dungeons. In terms of gameplay, it's a hidden timer, but it's still cool to have them talk about how well everyone did.
Blue is still one of my favorite rival characters, and not just in Pokemon. Since he started out when you did, and was always a step ahead it was a good measuring stick. I do get the point that maybe being ambushed by your rival could seem unfair, and evolution of the rival character was a good thing, Blue just left a much longer lasting impression on me. The ambush tactic as a way to artificially increase the difficulty was a good point (taught me to always carry potions and revives) I think it would be cool to take the multiple rival formula and have one designed like that, you could make them obcessed with beating you if you want, but someone not above trying to get an unfair advantage (I think you could make a great character arc out of that) and then another that is more narrative driven too, like Nemona. I don't think Blue is outdated at all because when I think of Pokemon rivals he comes to mind first. When I think of video game rivals he's close to the top of the list (Miles Edgeworth is another one that comes to mind immediately)
Huh, didn’t know people thought he came out of caves. I guess I played RBY so many times I never forgot his exact appearances. Except he always managed to ambush me at the Silph building because getting to the top floor is such a happening and time consuming experience I just forget he’s going to be there. Anyhow, it’s amazing looking back how much a lack of depth and unfair ambushes have been why we hold Blue in such high regard. I mean, it makes sense but it’s also like, a weird tradeoff. We have a character people love to hate because there isn’t much of a character there. And it involves using unfairness to make him harder rather than, like, I dunno, tactics or something. Like strategic switching out or using battle items. Admittedly the modern rivals don’t use those either but you get the point. It just means that we thought was hard was a product of a design philosophy I’m not sure many these days would completely agree with. Fairness seems like such a delicate design balance… Also you really laid out something I never understood over the past few years. The redemptive reading of RBY Blue’s personality. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been more sensitive but I never once saw him as friendly, but one of those bullies that tells everyone that you’re friends and then mistreats you behind their backs. But between the dialogue you display plus his limited character allowing people to read what you want into him,it’s making more sense to me now why people would see him as more of a friendly jerk than I would. I think Nemona is my favorite rival of all because she has the right balance of everything we’ve had so far for rivals.
I think a lot of people, at least when we were kids in the early days projected Gary from the anime on to Blue, and that's largely why he's remembered for being a dick.
Blue literally showed me who the strongest pokemon in the game were. I had to relook in my pokedex the first time to find out how to get gyrados. It was a humbling experience to learn it evolved from magikarp.
While the end of cave is strictly a Mandela effect, I think I know what causes. It's a long road to Celulean City through Mt Moon, especially if you wander around in Mt Moon. If you make the mistake of not immediately healing at the Pokemon Center and try to explore Cerulean and go north, guess who's there? That's why some people have the "damn, should have saved/healed" feeling.
I dont know why but blue always felt like a close friend closer than the nicer rival while still feeling like a genuine rival it always felt like hed have your back if necessary despite both of you competing to be better that competition also felt less hateful and more like trying to improve together trying to see who got to the goal faster it was more like having a fun thrilling race with an equal you were closer to and understood and who understood you back unlike anyone else.
Something to note about some of the more modern rivals is that losing still allows you to progress in the story. There are some noticable exceptions that are usually story related, but besides those, there's really no drawback with slightly different dialog. It can be annoying to be gatekeeped from more content (especially if it can help you level up or strengthen your team to get the rival back later), but its also makes you think more about your strategy and team composition, which is great in my opinion.
Blue's "ambushes" are quite effective when you're new to RBY (or FRLG - still the best Kanto games, those are), and thus were occasionally repeated for future rivals - like Barry ambushing you right outside Pastoria Gym, for instance, or how Bianca ambushes you right before entering Striaton City. The main issue with ambushes is that, if you replay the game enough times, the spawn points become second-nature, foiling the "trap". For example, I've long since learned Blue's spawn points, along with that of Silver and Barry, so I know to heal and save before walking forward. That's not really something the game can help, but oh well.
For me, even as someone new to Kanto, I was never surprised for long. After the first couple of ambushes, I ended up overcorrecting. I healed after every couple of trainers. I overleveled. I became afraid to explore unless I was ABSOLUTELY SURE I was ready. That's not to say I made the game unplayably easy-my idea of overleveling was maybe 5-6 levels higher back then, since grinding has never been my strong suit. But the fact that I was almost always at full health if I had a choice in the matter made it so that the ambushes never had much impact for me. So the veterans are already used to it and know when to heal for maximum safety; the newer players can easily get pressured into just healing way too often for the slightest infraction due to not wanting to lose to something that they deem as unfair, or they just barrel through anyway due to the lack of real consequence for losing a battle in Pokémon. In any of these cases, the ambush strategy loses it's effectiveness incredibly quickly for most people.
I wonder if Blue would have been more notable if his “ambushes” led to the player losing, but there is no blackout and he’s allowed to laugh in your face and walking away, forcing you to wait for the next time you see him.
You know. This video got me thinking about something in particular. Does Pokemon really need to follow the 'rival' troupe? Especially by your definition, it feels a lot of time certain "rivals" would work better just as our companions or just stand alone characters. But we as Pokemon fans still throw them into the rival troupe because of our expectations of every Pokemon game having to have a rival. Pokemon has had quite a few troupes through its life that feel like they have to be in every Pokemon game, otherwise the fan base claims "it doesn't count". Gyms being a perfect example of this. Sun and Moon proved to me that you can slightly change to structure and name and still get as good of a "gym experience" as long as you keep the core concept. The shadow Pokemon games don't have a single required gym battle and yet still capture a "core Pokemon experience", at least to me. I guess I'm just rambling as a ponder at what point does keeping to the troupe that makes a series iconic actually hurt the series?
Imagine if the first games introduced both a female protagonist named "Blue/Green" and a female rival named, Daisy(but de-aged to 11). With Red & Green as siblings. While Daisy's brother is always named "Gary". And the League was written to be recently-invented canonically(but it's a tournament like in Gen 8). While the Elite Fours were just Gym Leaders(making 12 in total, but only 8 Badges are required). While Red/Green defeated Gary/Daisy in the finals and became the world's first Champion. How'd that experience have been like? How'd you all have liked that from your altered memories?
You know what boggled my mind as I became an adult? The fact that none of you never take any chances and don't save habitually. Blue never ambushed me. I never lost to him nor had teammates so low I couldn't use them. I barely if not _EVER_ had to use any healing items mid battle and even then it was a once per save file moment against a rando on a route that wasn't Blue. I don't want to say "skill issue" like a f***ing tool and I want to look you all in the eyes as equals and treat you well but I don't know what else to say about this. I don't even want to brag, this legitimately bothered me growing up. I didn't understand why this was a problem for people. I'm sorry, though. Don't wanna make you all feel bad. But yeah, his theme and the memes about him and his anime counterpart scream "I'm better than you and I know it". ....HOLY SH*T I'M BLUE. I AM SO SORRY. DEAR ARCEUS ABOVE, YOU DID NOT DESERVE THE ABUSE, I AM SO SORRY. I AM NOT GOING TO SLEEP WELL TONIGHT.
Glad I didn't see this video until now! Did a little pokemon red nuzlocke a couple nights ago and really felt he was my characters friend more so than enemy, just my rival through and through.
One thing I wished got analyzed was the Rival’s theme in the original game. The most important part is the short pause near the beginning which breaks up the song, which signifies how the rival battle is breaking up your adventure suddenly. It also gives the feel that nothing stops him, but that things stop for him whenever he gets there, from the player to even his own theme song (which gives off this “I’m invincible” feeling). That pause is also the thing that every remix of the song forgets, removes, or doesn’t properly replace. Even Gamefreak makes that mistake.
I don't even hate Blue. I just like him. He's here to become the fucking Champion, and he's eager to test himself against any worthy foe - of which you are one. And post-champion battle, Oak is unnecessarily cruel to him. Poor kid didn't deserve that shit.
Thanks. He’s quite a simple character. Obviously, complex characters can achieve higher ceilings, but it’s easy to forget just what you can still accomplish with simplicity, provided it’s handled well.
Blue is a simple meal, well made. Dude's a kinda cocky kid from your hometown who likes (trying to) showing you up a bit. And thats all there really needs to be to it!
B&W are my favorite games for the rival experience. Having 3 rivals (I feel like N counts) all in different roles with different attitudes and different battle difficulties was really fun and kept things fresh. Then they followed it up in gen 6 with a scattershot of completing uninteresting pushovers posing as rivals and we've not really managed to get back up to that gen 5 peak, even if S&V felt like a step in the right direction. Though personally, I'm happier with rivals not being ambush predators and instead having a fair and equal fight. Only problem is that none of the rivals post gen 5 have even been remotely difficult. I get pokemon is supposed to be kid friendly and accessible, but I distinctly remember being a dumb kid who was bad at the game and deeply enjoying getting my ass handed to my by difficult fights in gens 1 and 2 before I had a better grasp of the games. The Whitney and azalea town Silver fights are some of the ones that stuck with me the most, and are remembered most fondly, to this day.
I personally feel like it would be funny if Pokémon fully leaned into the annoying jerk idea of rivals and had someone who constantly annoys you after big battles and comes with bullshit rng strategies in matches where if you lose to him once you don’t get to rematch him in the same area. Also he only stops this if you manage to beat him once. Plus he should have a really punchable design, a mean personality and after the champion fight if you lose to him every time he just shows up and faces you after your win.
Always a step ahead of you from the journey to catching pokemon and becoming champion. He makes you want to surpass yourself and beat him which the final battle basically makes for the perfect victory Other rivals seem to fall flat for the most part being friendly and or picking the weaker type making it less of a challenge. Nemona is cool and funny how she nearly used her champion team against us at the start. Blue is just special as he's motivated
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 isn't Hugh the guy looking for a lepard or something. He's not that interesting. The Rivas for bw/2 are just there. They had so much opportunity to make them more interesting unless you count N but he's basically the protagonist
@@ivanbluecool Yes, he is. And while he isn't the most complex character, he's pretty good. For once, he's really the protagonist of BW2. Not as compelling as a character than N, sure, but still a nice variation
I enjoyed Nemona as a rival precisely because she spends 90% of the game not even being your rival. She’s just your friend and you have to earn the rivalry
I think an 'ambushing' rival could work a lot better if losing was not as punishing as in Gen 1: Losing should be an option. The consequence for losing a rival battle could be a bit of humilliation and then moving on with a fully healed party. Maybe have the rival taking score along the way. It feels more natural for each side in a rivalry to take some W's along the way.
I think blue is confused with Gary being I'm sure most people watched the anime well before they could play the games. Guess it didn't help that my first Pokémon game was yellow.
Proposition: Make your rivals team scale based off your current teams levels. Alternatively give them xp relative to how much your team has as well. However I worry this would make it easy to metagame (making your current team weak) or discourage trying different Pokemon.
I don't think they should worry too much about fights acting as roadblocks or being a little frustrating to get past. It's rewarding to overcome those moments so long as they're at a good spot that isn't interrupting something else. I'd much rather get stuck on Blue at the entrance to the Pokemon League than in Silph Co. for example. Fights like Silph Co. work best if the rival leaves right after and doesn't hold you there any longer regardless of whether you win or lose. Meanwhile fights like the one at the nugget bridge are perfect for holding you up until you beat them just because the scenario around them is lower stakes. I would like to play a version of R/B/Y where this was taken into consideration. You might miss out on some wins but you can always challenge yourself to beat them on a later playthrough once you know there's a risk of missing out the win. It adds replay value.
Blue made me have a crush on him, then hate him and finally pity him in just one game. Now that I'm an adult, I'm pretty happy seeing him doing better than just being a jerk that ambushes me when I'm not prepared for a battle.
I think Blue's team also had an impact on how he felt strong too. He tends to have higher-level Pokemon than others in the area, and early on you likely won't have a way to counter his starter. He also gets a lot of rare Pokemon, or at least those you won't see without going out of your way, which makes his battles more distinct, not to mention the type variety. But he's also held back by bad moves, which makes him feel tougher than he really is, similar to the Elite 4.
The greatest sin I have seen in a video game by the game designers is Gen 2's Pokemon Master Red use a Full Restore, if not several. Not because of difficulty, that I welcomed. But because it would have been completely out of character for him to do so. Red is too elite of a trainer to rely on Trainer items. Now, Blue? _OH, TOTALLY._ He has the skill to not have to do it, but he'd do it anyways for an extra F*** YOU because he could and because he'd know it'd bother an elitist trainer that thrives on battles.
I believe Blue would be even better if all his battles except for the Champion fight would be loseable. You beat him? Congrats, move on. He beats you? Ok, move on. He is meant to be always ahead of you, so message received. Only in the champion fight then it would be required for you to best him, for plot reasons. Before that, allowing him to beat you without stopping game progress would help build his presence as the ultimate challenge that needs to overcome after E4.
I'm gonna defend Blue's rep as a Rude Rival. He tells us "Smell ya later." That implies that we stink! In the remakes he calls us a gossip. On the SS Anne he insults the captain instead of helping him. In Pokemon Tower he jokes that our pokemon don't look dead, but he can make them faint. If we get the optional battle in Viridian City at the start of the game, he chides us for heading to the Pokemon League without badges, even though we are probably just exploring, and it was he who bee lined for the League without badges. He doesn't ever try to stop Team Rocket, even hindering us with a battle. Those ambush battles feel so cheap and cowardly. If all of this seems minor, it is. But to an immature young kid, it matters. He didn't hurt my body, he hurt MY PRIDE! :D It's like beefing over what game system you own. As an adult, I can look past his petty remarks and actions, although they are still annoying. But that is because I am an adult, with experience and maturity. As a kid playing these games, he had the intended effect. Also, you say that he treats us like an equal, but I say that he doesn't suck up to us like modern rivals. I don't want to be patronized or idolized. I just want someone who will look me in the eye, win or lose, and not be scared of me. That won my respect from Blue, and Nemona as well. Even if they lost, it was just another step on their path, not a setback. Maybe instead of saying we want jerk rivals, we want strong rivals. Ones who don't choose the pokemon weak to ours. Ones who don't fall apart when we inevitably beat them and make us wonder if we are the bad guy. Ones who become a boring chore that only exists because pokemon games must have a rival.
Only the SS Anne fight really goes the way you talk about, with Blue ambushing you when you have reduced HP. Every other time you're right near a Pokémon centre or somewhere you can heal up with no penalty other than the time it takes, or you're just leaving a town so you've definitely just healed up. The SS Anne one comes after you've probably been in a bunch of rooms, but most of the others come after moments of peace. Even the Pokémon Tower fight isn't that far into the area so you should be on relatively good terms. And in the Champion fight you've just been through hell and have likely just fully healed with items, maybe missing only a few PP on your important moves. The rest of the video is great, but I think this one point kinda falls apart.
Great video Owl. I really hate how they've dumbed down the rivals in recent games and made them super easy. Its not even a challenge anymore the game holds your hand at every instance.
Jerk Blue might be viewed harder because of Gary Oak in the anime. Looking just like the guy and now being able to hear the condescending tone Gary has might taint how people viewed Blue.
The 'jerk rival' comes less from diologue, and more a mix of Anime & gameplay. Without voice acting, Gary is the basis for interpreting Blue's tone. The Adventure manga even kept his cocky, 'better than thou' mentality, though it made any malice an interpretation on Red's part (which most of the fanbase does as well). The sucker-punch of his battles is big. Too much of Pokemon is 'fair' (which you brought up in the Volo video), so anyone whose played any Pokemon game before can wipe the floor with every challenge up to the champion. Because we have the experience & are basically doing a New Game+ every region. The rivals being the only fights in the series to break this 'fair' rule before Volo makes them so much more memorable - most Pokemon fans have Blue, Cynthia, and Volo as their only main-story defeats in the series. Everyone despises ambush spawns in games like Fire Emblem, but they're an important part of making Blue a good rival. Silph Co's fight is harder than Giovanni, which makes the fact he stands as a roadblock instead of help even more frustrating. Silver is the only other rival to do this, and is the only other 'jerk rival' in the series.
Love the video. Did have to listen to it at 1.25 and 1.5 speed a lot though. Your voice is nice to listen to, but just a little bit slow for long form videos.
Thank you for the feedback I did notice it felt a bit TOO sluggish as I was editing it. Focusing too much on clear pronunciation made it sound really dragged out and unenergetic. I’ll try reading at a more normal pace for my next project
I'd argue that recent pokemon games don't have "real" rivals. Aside from Nemona, who is a great rival, in SW/SH, Hop is a joke. When I feel like I'm the bully, I don't consider that a good rivalry. Marnie is bland if cute. Bede had potential, and if he was the rival from the start to the end, he would have a great claim. But he shows up later, and washes out early, which robs us of a good rivalry. Sun and Moon has Hau, who doesn't seem to care, and annoys me with his slowpoke attitude. We also have Gladion who is better, but has other things on his mind than being our rival, which make sense, but robs us of a potential good rivalry. X/Y is out of my experience, but it seems to have so many "rivals" that the word loses all meaning. From what I have learned, it really seems to be the worst gen in regards to rivals. Gen 5 and back have good to great rivals. Cheren is a classic try hard who learns the pecking order. N is the autist I love to beat. Bianca is not really a rival, I feel like I'm cheering her on more. Hugh is a great friendly rival. Barry is annoying and strong, so I want to beat him up. Brendan/May are surprisingly weak willed, quitting part way through, though they are likeable. Wally is a good story, but I feel like gen 3 was the weakest of the old school rivals. Silver is a sociopath who is legitimately a bully that you want to crush. And Blue is great, as has been said.
I have had many, MANY thoughts about Blue throughout my life. I started my Pokémon Journey with Ruby, went back to Yellow for two gyms, and then moved on to Emerald and Leaf Green (on top of Colosseum, Gale of Darkness, and Blue Rescue Team). My experience with Blue in Yellow and Leaf Green started out as thinking he was just annoying as a character. His dialogue never motivated me to beat him next time; it motivated me to be annoyed every time I heard that theme while I was walking. The ambushes felt cheap to me. I was never galvanized; I just grew overly cautious. Overleveling, rushing back to the Pokémon Center every few battles no matter where I was, saving CONSTANTLY to avoid losing money through what I felt was no fault of my own. When a gym leader bested me, it felt like they bested me. When I'm in the middle of a HOSTAGE SITUATION, and there's suddenly Blue deciding to fight me when I was supposed to be fighting the big boss? Well, I had already been going back to the Pokémon Center way too often by then, so that wasn't an issue. And I feel that's a huge issue that Blue has as a rival. Honestly, even at full health and overleveled, I was challenged by him. I think he makes for an excellent roadblock. But as a rival? I either felt inconvenienced or nothing at all. And his dialogue made those encounters feel pointless too. If he is constantly saying how much further ahead he is and that the losses don't matter, then why invest any of my time to my victories? Blue quickly became a tiny brick wall in the road that I just needed to kick over every now and then-sometimes I'd stub my toe doing that, but it never felt like he MATTERED. The only time I really took notice of him was when he challenged me in Silph Co. (which I still consider to be beyond "jerk rival" and into straight up malicious due to literally saying that he was just waiting for you; he even acknowledged that Team Rocket slowed you down) and the champion battle (for hopefully obvious reasons). For the rest of them? I just treated him like any other battle. Again, if he didn't care, why should I? The biggest draw of rival battles, to me, is the way you see their teams evolve alongside yours. With so many VERY different trainers all the time, seeing the familiar rival team is refreshing. Seeing those familiar teams grow and gain more power is, likewise, incredibly fun. The real reason why most of the rivals don't hit hard as obstacles is the overall lack of balancing in most of the games. Gens 1 and 2 are more tedious than difficult, refusing to give most Pokémon any options to be good. Gen 3, on the other hand, had a great balance between difficulty and accessibility. The amount of times a new player would get stomped by that Route 110 May/Brendan battle is staggering, even WITH that "you can go heal" stipulation you mentioned in your video. But as time went on, the rivals took a massive dip in difficulty-but so did the whole game. I went through ORAS without using the Exp. Share and ultimately ended up 10 levels under everyone-and yet, I feared only Norman (who I specifically hard-countered with a Dexnav Shroomish), Victory Road Wally, and Steven. This is a fundamental issue that defangs ALL battles: rivals, evil team leaders, whatever. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon did a bit better with the difficulty, but they didn't give you any real rivals. They gave you friends (Hau) and antagonists (Guzma, somewhat Gladion). Sword and Shield were the first games past Gen 5 to give you a proper rival, and it gave three. Bede could have been a great modernization of the Blue formula, but you battle him so few times-the fact that he has a monotype team doesn't help him much. And Marnie, though slightly better than Bede on a team composition standpoint, just remains both mechanically and narrative flat. So yeah, not as good as they could be, but the ideas were there. Klara and Avery were also decent with this, especially with how the ACTUALLY CHEAT in their "final battle" with the player. Meanwhile, Scarlet and Violet gave Nemona and Kieran. Nemona does something that most rivals don't do: she makes you hold the L. You don't get punted back to the Pokémon Center after a loss. You don't get an instant do-over to invalidate your loss as an "Oops, the game caught me off guard". No, you HOLD that loss. That, combined with her pushing me to get stronger, was more galvanizing than Blue EVER was to me. The only way to reset was to ACTUALLY reset-and that's still admitting defeat to me. Meanwhile, Kieran's negative character arc matches well with his rapidly-escalating mechanical difficulty that makes me start off as thinking he's not much of a threat (especially compared to Carmine, who starts off stronger but falls off fast) and then suddenly smacks you in the face with some well-constructed teams that surely would defeat a lot of people if it wasn't for the fact that most people power-leveled to level 100 by the time the DLCs were released. (As an aside, did you know that you battle Kieran EIGHT TIMES over the course of the DLC? That's the same number as with Blue, Cheren, and Hau. I didn't catch that while playing! The only trainers to exceed this are Nemona and Hop, and that's because they're a part of multiple storylines.) I think if they keep going with the varied characterizations and tweek the game balance better overall, people will be taking notice of rivals as legitimate threats again. The most recent games have taken great strides make rivals both interesting and challenging. I believe that Blue utilizes frustrating gameplay mechanics in a way that COULD be legitimately galvanizing if the characterization was on point. I think a jerk rival who actively ambushes the player could be incredibly compelling; add some in-universe nods to it being an intentional character decision rather than simply being frustrating game design, and people would love to hate them. Add in some flavor of cheating like Klara/Avery or a legitimate negative character arc like Kieran or (nearly) Hop, and the resulting rival could overthrow Blue as the go-to example of "what a Pokémon rival should be". Add in a friendly rival alongside this jerk rival, one with a much different approach but an equal drive to get stronger and push the player (maybe taking traits from Nemona, Hau, and Hop), and that dichotomy could bring so much interest into the rival battles. And if there are scenes where the two rivals show themselves to be, in tern, rivals to EACH OTHER (something that Sword/Shield tried and failed to do between Hop and Bede), that could bring a whole new dimension to this rivalry that simply wouldn't exist with only one of them. Blue is a great obstacle. He is a measuring stick for your progress-while everyone else tests your adaptability or planning skills, Blue forces you to contend with a strong, balanced, CONSISTENT team that you might not be prepared to battle at any given time. Training yourself to beat Blue specifically can easily leave you vulnerable to the Gym Leaders and random bosses of the game. Trying to prepare for everything may leave you behind when it comes to taking down Blue. I appreciate him as a recurring wall. But that's all he felt like to me: a wall. A fun wall to see every now and then (NOT during a terrorist hostage situation please), but a wall nonetheless. The Pokémon Company could do with figuring out why people liked Blue so much and to bring SOME of those traits back in whatever recurring rivals or antagonists they make in the future. And honestly, I think they're getting there, slowly but surely.
![[Game Designer Explains] Designing a Superboss, feat. Red from Pokémon](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8FMjZHckZm0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Game Designer Explains] Designing a Superboss, feat. Red from Pokémon](/img/tr.png)
![[Game Designer Explains] The Reasons behind the Difficulty of Whitney's Miltank](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_MqYfoj5HPA/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Game Designer Explains] Se Jun Park's World Champion Pachirisu](/img/n.gif)
Hm... might need to rethink that title in the future. Anyone got ideas...?
Also, as I was editing, I noticed my voice started gradually becoming more exhausted and dragged-out as the video went on. It starts to stretch and really lose a lot of energy... Maybe it's a side-effect of forcing myself to try and intentionally speak slowly and clearly. Does anyone else feel that's also the case?
The obvious followup to this video would be Red. And that'll eventually be made. But I might consider wanting to examine the game design of something non-Pokemon related for a momentary change of pace.
Smell Ya Later! : Why Blue was actually great.
I didn't really notice your voice losing energy too badly towards the end of the video - I found it interesting and enjoyable throughout.
Also, I would just like to say that the Rowlett art you use in your videos is flipping adorable.
@@sealcuddl3r Thanks.
I'd love to take credit for the art, but unfortunately I can't. It's all from the Sun/Moon anime.
Rowlet is remarkably expressive
I haven't finished the video yet because I don't have time, but I am 14 minutes in and haven't noticed a difference in your voice. Not sure how helpful that is, maybe I will come back to let you know when I have available time.
To be honest, I really like your calm way of explaining things, as opposed to that fast-talking ramble that seems to be the norm these days - yesterday I even had to set a video (not yours ;) ) on 0.75 speed to be able to understand what the pokétuber was saying.
So keep up the good work! :)
As the strongest protagonist in history fought the stringest rival of the modern day, professor Oak asks the player:
"If you were to fight Blue, who would win?"
"If I was ambushed and didn't get to heal ahead of time, I might have a little trouble"
"But would you lose?"
"Nah, I'd win."
"Are you the best rival because you're Blue, or are you Blue because you're the best rival?"
There’s the Jujutsu brain rot I was hoping to see
@@GoldenOwl_Game Were you hoping to see Jujitsu brainrot because you thumnailed "Nah, I'd win", or did you thumbnail "Nah, I'd win" because you were hoping for Jujitsu brainrot?
"Throughout the region and the pokemon league, I alone am the champion"
Blue`s surprise encounter in Cerulean city has to be one of the biggest bullshits I witnessed in Pokemon as a kid.
Because I had just completed Mt Moon and decided to explore the new city before going to the Pokemon Center, only to be ambushed and defeated in that fight, but worst of all is that since I didnt entered the City`s pokemon center, I respawned at the pokemon center before the Mt Moon, meaning I had to pass that zubat infested place again
It's a learning experience. Always visit the Poké Center first.
that fight is also one of the hardest ones too imo as usually you will be more underleveled then Blue at that point in time if you haven't specifically grinded somwhere
Actually, I just realized somerhing.
Most of the ambush are a trick the game play on you as well.
If you learn to heal as soon as you arrive in a new city (and you will, as stated previously), you'll almost always be at full health.
The only exceptions are the SS Anne and Silph Co battle . There is a bed in Silph Co, and you're expecting another Giovanni fight (though seeing how easy he was before, you may feel confident enough to handle him without heal), but that one is absolutely his most brutal and unfair fight.
If you compare this to the Barry fight in Canalave, where you are *inside* the city (instead of just outside like Blue), he's playing surprisingly fair.
The Ship battle would like to have a word with you. :D
I don't think that's BS.... you had an easy chance to heal yourself and you missed it......... like, you just skipped the next Pokemon center.....
If you went there, not only would you probably have won, but even if you lost, it wouldn't be that far.....
So you learned your lesson....
Encounters with Blue suffering from a Mandela effect may be more true than we thought. My guess is that since our first experience with him was when we were children, we really took it to heart that he's our rival, our competition, our enemy; so many people years down the line end up remembering him, both in gameplay and story, as a bigger menace than he actually was. Kinda makes it feel like Blue was this one kid you still have a grudge on because all you remember is how you always got into fights with him and never felt like giving it a bit more thought.
My theory is because the anime.
Blue's anime counterpart Gary MOTHERFUCKING Oak was a complete fucking douchebag.
His presence is always felt, because he's always a step ahead.
His name being on every Gym statues is such a simple and effective trick! He doesn't even have to be present to get to you.
Same. Despite playing those games a ton since I was a kid, I actually never noticed how he was genuinely trying to be helpful and was attempting to consider you as his equal underneath all that arrogance. His attitude was getting to me too much as a kid and as I grew up, I kinda just skipped his dialogue without paying attention. I assumed he was a bully, but now I can see that he never was. It was all in my head. 😂
What about everybody that didnt experience him first? Which would be the majority at this point, by far. Silver was my first game. I played gen 3 more than any other.
Lets just be real, most rivals suck. Its that simple. Him being amongst the best has less to do with how well he was written and used and more to do with how poorly the others are in contrast. Which always happens because he is the archetype for rivals in pokemon.
As they put more effort into writing them, he slides further and further. Nemona and Kieran are probably both better than Blue by most peoples estimates, so I really dunno how much time is actually blinding anyone.
Also Gary in the anime is a real dickhead, I think that's why I remember Blue as being so mean
This does make me appreciate what Hop does in changing his team around so much during his existential crisis. It means you are kept guessing somewhat over what his actual team will be.
As annoying Hop was, he did have some nice Shiftings in his team.
And then there's Hau who just straight up tries to murder you, once you reach the third island... (figuratively speaking of course)
But i think my favorites are Cheren and Bell(Is that her name in English?) as well as N. Heck Probably N period. He always has a new Team consisting of the locally found Pokémon which is awesome and surprisingly hard. Also these 3 have also do the whole 'let's jump you at unexpected times' like Gary does. when i've played B/W the first time, i was always super paranoid when reaching a new milestone/city/whatever and ran straight to the Poké-center.
I honestly think Blue being ingrained as a jerk in so many people's minds is because of the anime. Gary was an actual jerk, flaunting his riches to bumbling Ash, vandalizing a sign once just to boast to Ash (I think it was "Gary was here, Ash is a loser"?) and usually talking down to Ash whenever they met. Only in later seasons did we get some developments that made him more sympathetic, like the two making a promise over two halves of a pokeball and him generally being portrayed less and less like a spoiled but gifted rich kid.
In the games, something else I personally really like about Blue as a rival is that he has some really rare pokemon the player wishes they had. Abra at the point Blue adds it to his team is really annoying (or hard) to catch, because Great Balls aren't as affordable yet (or even available), Alakazam is both strong AND desirable because it required additional hardware (and friends). Even his starter could be seen as that, especially in Yellow. The fact he mentions having caught the incredibly rare Cubone in Lavender Tower also plays into this.
I absolutely agree on the assessment that he usually ambushes you. I kind of wish the games did that at least sometimes. I'm not saying "crush the player" but that desire for fairness sometimes really hampers things. Gamedesign can enhance story telling, but if a character isn't allowed to ambush you OR have slightly stronger (or more) pokemon than usual trainers to adhere to a certain difficulty standard, they stop being a rival and become just another slightly more talkative trainer NPC. Hau and Hop taking on the role of the weaker one (they both start to question themselves as they lose more and more) makes a lot of sense keeping this in mind, but it doesn't really feel like a rivalry at that point. I actually like the arcs of these characters, I just don't think they fit the rival title.
Does Hau question himself? He always seemed like he was having too much fun. Doesn’t he get curbstomped by Gladion and go, "good game, you're really strong,". Whilst Gladion is questioning his sanity, "why are you happy, you idiot! I just destroyed you."
@@intergalactic92 I don't remember how much focus it gets, but he does at some point start to get more serious when he realizes there's more on the line than just fun. I'm currently replaying the original Sun because I can't remember if it's actually fleshed out in that version though. It's been too long. Hop in Sword and Shield honestly feels like Gamefreak wanted to revise (or rehash, if you are particularly uncharitable) the idea of Hau, but more obviously.
I think the thing that makes Buttface different from all other rivals was that he was basically your brother....
He wasn't a rival as in somebody you needed to beat or surpass..... he wasn't someone who needed to respect you or vice versa.... he was just straight up your brother.... even if not blood related...
Oak viewed both of us as his grandkids, his sister made sure both of us got maps... and Oak was always baby sitting us and watching our journey....
In fact, Buttface is almost easier to know than most of the other rivals because if you have a brother or a friend that's kinda a rival, then you kinda understand both Red and Buttface.
Only kids without siblings AND friends might have a hard time understanding, but they can just borrow from media...
In the end, Red is supposed to be us and Buttface our brother/best friend. It's just that simple...
You may be into something. The best rivals in the series has that same kind of relationship.
Hugh in BW2 is a great example of a more positive sibling relationship. He's willing to push you because he believes in you and now you'll help him with his goals.
Hop being the little brother you have to push around is also a great explanation of what makes him interesting, and why he can be so divisive. His true Rival being his actual brother (in more ways than one) helps a lot
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740And if you yourself have siblings or a close childhood friend, you can fill in the gap yourself...
It's easier with Blue because you are supposed to overlap yourself more in the game...
Something I did feel with Blue is not that we were playing catch, rather, we take longer to do things because we have to fix all the stuff that he doesn't.
The first mandatory rival battle after the first one, on Nugget bridge, he comes back after seeing Bill's rare pokemon, but he doesn't even bother to mention that the man running the Nugget challenge is a Rocket member, or did anything to help Bill. Granted, Bill's accident could have simply ocurred in the time period between his arrival and yours, fair enough.
On the SS Anne, though, he did know that the captain was sick, but didn't bother helping him, instead just walking away with the Cut HM and calling him names behind his back. It's you who gives him a massage to help him feel better.
In the Pokemon Tower, we can give him a bit of a break because he is mourning the loss of his Raticate, but surely he did know about the kidnapping of Mr Fuji and how the rockets were in the tower, killing Cubones and disturbing the dead. Heck, he even casually says he doesn't even think there are any Marowaks left, uncaring of the killings.
In Silph, he casually is waiting on the room containing the teleporter that leads to Giovanni, yet Giovanni was doing as he pleased, so either he tried to defeat him but failed (unlikely, seeing as he had his team at full hp and was just waiting for you) or he didn't even try. A third option is he did try, failed, and only let you go for Giovanni if you were good enough to beat him so he knew you would stand a chance.
All in all, he probably takes less time to accomplish things because he "skimmed" through the game instead of doing things like we as the player do.
Did his Raticate really die? I like to think he just sent it to his sister because it wasn't working for his team.
The raticate theory is fun to think about but it lacks compelling evidence, especially since Blue already swapped out his Rattata for a Raticate(we know this because Rattata evolves at level 20, the Raticate Blue had was level below that) so he just boxed it, and Raticate is bad pokemon to have on a champion level team so there’s no reason for him to use it over his stronger pokemon like arcanine and alakazam
@@fellowpassenger_54-67 It may have been the same Raticate as its somewhat implied that trainers who have a special relationship with their Pokemon can cause early evolution (which would make the Raticate death theory even more tragic).
Three things I want to mention to add to your video:
1) Blue _absolutely_ challenges you on defeating Team Rocket. You encounter him in Silph Co. right before Giovanni. While the mechanical reason is undoubtedly to have a fight to drain resources before fighting the main boss of that area, the narrative implication is that Blue would be the one to face Giovanni if you lose. Blue would be the hero of Saffron City if Red failed to defeat him.
2) While it's easy to see Blue's attitude as more positive and joking as an adult, this is 100% jerk material for a 10 year-old. The simple addition of a "Smell ya later!" anytime you interact with him makes much of his dialogue seem more flippant and condescending, especially for a kid. What's even better is that Blue grows through the entire journey and that bristly demeanour slowly softens as you both mature from your journey across Kanto. Blue _is_ devastated by his unusually short reign as champion, but has the maturity to understand that being champion isn't everything. It's really no wonder that he and Red become best buds as the series goes on as their childish, hot-headed rivalry becomes a more mature, push-you-to-your-best one.
3) I really love how you highlighted the design of Blue ambushing you as a difficulty slider. You can even see that slider being dialed in through each encounter. Blue starts off literally asking to fight in the safest possible condition, right after you get your pokemon, but slowly starts ambushing you farther and father away from poke-centres as your journey progresses, culminating in Silph Co where you're at the farthest possible point away from healing and the least prepared. This then regresses as the ambushes become softer but his team becomes more fully formed and challenges you straight up. Amazing design!
Especially, because it makes sense. As he fights you more 'honestly', he learns about your team and strategy, and prepares for good fights against skilled Trainers with strong teams- like the Elite 4.
Your section around Blue's dialogue has a Mandella Effect feel to it: I remember him being way more cocky and unlikeable. Maybe my/our recollection was influenced by the anime version of the character, and/or I don't remember him fondly due to the difficulty spikes and ambushing when I was playing these games as a child.
Great video, as usual!
Honestly, your points on Blue from a game design standpoint make sense.
Personally, my favorite Roval in the series became Nemona. With her I feel we got a good blend of Blue ambushing you, lore allusions to how it's not too difficult for the player to beat her (she is LITERALLY power gaming you to make you her ultimate challenge), and her (stalkerish yandere) behavior of showing up at gyms based on badges yoh collected to feed her insatiable battle lust and see the progress of her efforts make her fun as a character. As well as her being designed team wise to where even an experienced player knowing what to expect gets too cocky she can come close to whooping your ass.
Before that it was Wally cause ORAS did a fucking amazing job of taking expectations and subverting them.
You mop the floor with him once, and you don't see him again for a long time. But of you check the gym statues from Lavaridge on, his name is there. He got there first. You didn't even see him do it.
Then the pay off at the END of Victory Road (as opposed to the begining) where he appears, waiting for you, after you're worn out, and declares intent to beat and gets the single most BADASS FUCKING THEME IN POKEMON blaring as you take him and see he now has a Key Stone.
That is hard to beat, but Nemona's personality and game design merita plus her story edged her out a win.
I liked Wally in Ruby and Sapphire. and loved what they did to him in ORAS.
Wally definitely benefited greatly from the remakes. ORAS in general was a pretty fantastic remake when it came to fixing many of the game’s original flaws
@@stephenford5661 He really needed an update for sure. In my first playthrough of R/S i completely forgot he existed until you stumble upon him in victory road.
Funny fact from the French localization:
Pokemon Red and Blue, when translated in French actually took many creative liberties (for the better I think) where most of the characters
speaks in a very "unique" way, a bit similar to what 90's kids would actually say. It derived mostly on non-essential dialogue like NPC trainers.
Blue is no exception.
He actually bullies you way more than in the english version.
Almost every sentences have the word "minable" in it, that you could translate to "pathetic, pitiful".
Similar to what a school bully would do.
Instead of "beating you as a warm up for the Pokemon League",
he would instead "break you in half. Even your mother would only recognise you by the color of your schoolbag"
You could also see the shift in Blue's way of talking to you, from normally at first,
then talking you down as soon as he gets the pokedex (and the whole thing turns into a competition)
and finally talking in a more "mature" way as the champion,
as if he doesn't need to bully you anymore, he's literally the strongest trainer.
This "bullying" was toned way down on the Fire Red and Leaf Green remake to follow the orignal source more thoroughly.
Pokemon Red and Blue is quite the "anomaly" of the series regarding French translation.
And now Pokemon is a bit "too big" to allow such divergences.
great video, I loved it, and I think almost all of your points are spot on. I do think you’re being a little generous to Blue though when you describe him as ‘respectful’: beyond stuff like ‘smell you later’, ‘you stinker’, ‘you’ll never catch up’, Blue starts the game by deliberately choosing the Pokémon your starter will be weak to and deliberately tells his sister to *not* give you a map. In context, i don’t think it’s a Mandela effect to think of him as a jerk: even when he gives positive advice, in context it’s supposed to be condescending
One of the problems with modern rivals that blue doesn't have is that there is a dissonance between the rival's role in gameplay and their role in the story.
Rivals as gameplay devices are obstacles. They interrupt your adventure to injure your pokemon. However, GF has been consistently setting these characters up as your friends, people you're supposed to be happy to see. The game tries to set up the rival encounter in the narrative as some sort of treat when in reality it is a challenge. The cognitive dissonance this creates causes the players to reject a large section of the narrative's premise. They experience... *ludo-narrative dissonance.*
Blue doesn't have this issue because he is presented in the narrative as a nuisance. The game is set up with the idea that the player will find him annoying and frustrating and sets narrative expectations to that effect. This is why Blue works so much better as a character than most other rivals.
I find Scarlet and Violet to be the best overall solution. They separate the notion of friend and rival completely
Nemona, Arven and Penny aren’t rivals at all. They are well and truly friends and rarely fight you. Nemona only becomes your rival by the end
Kieran is arguably the best example. He starts out as a friend, has his character development turn him into a rival/antagonist, then eventually develop back into a friend
Even then, Kieran is only fought four times, across two DLCs, evenly. Kieran may be the jerk rival we want, but even he too follows the less frequent battles route.
This is a good watch. You pointing out that Blue ambushes you when you are likely not prepared reminds me of this reddit thread I once read. The OP had a discussion of how designing pokemon battle difficulty is harder because, unlike most turn band RPGs, the powered balance is symmetrical rather than asymmetrical. Maybe it's a topic you can delve into.
Another topic I think would be interesting to explore is the relationship between the Pokémon game difficulty and the "options" the player has access to. Like how later gets the player has access to dragon and ice types much earlier in the playthrough than in earlier gens
I really haven't thought about Blue's dialogue in so long. I am pretty sure I remembered him as coming off as a jerk?
But maybe I was just some spiteful kid feeling annoyed that this guy was always ahead of me hahah.
Even with Golden Owl's pointing out the rival's dialogue being actually sorta neutral... I can't help but hear "smell ya later!" In a condescending sneer
Probably just anime revisionism lmao
Blue was friendly.
Gary was an absolute jerk.
@@amiablereaper For all that's fair, in the gen 3 remakes, Blue was more of an asshole. After you beat him in Nugget bridge and he leaves, he comes back only to tell you he feels sorry for you, calls you a gossip, and gives you a practically useless key item.
I think he’s fairly calloused in the Pokémon Tower:
“Hey, ! What brings you here? Your Pokémon don't look dead! I can at least make them faint! Let's go, pal!”
It’s not the worst, but that’s pretty tasteless for a graveyard.
@@trumpeterjen Blue was also there mourning his own Pokemon, so in hindsight it feels like that might just be his way of trying to dust himself off and not appear sad and mopey. Some people use dark humor to cope.
Also, on a different note, rival fights tend to work better when there's no real way to massively overpower them - you mentioned Kirby? Aside from a handful of circumstances (like Forgotten Land's power-up shop), Kirby always keeps the same max health and attack power throughout the game, so fights against King Dedede or Meta Knight are always going to be around the same level of challenge (only dipping or raising slightly depending on which power Kirby's wielding).
Or take the fight against Akhos and Malos in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, at the end of Chapter 3 (of 10) - at that point, the player's limited to equipping two Blades onto each Driver (aside from Tora, who gains his second Blade in Ch. 4, and Vandham, for story reasons) instead of three, and they don't have access to the more powerful Core Chips, Aux Cores, or Accessories, and level grinding is an absolute pain in XC2. They're doing just fine against the wildlife, but after resting at the Fonsa Myma inn - BAM, boss fight against two of the main villains (and rivals, as it later transpires).
This fight is tough, as Akhos and Malos are both powerful foes in their own right, and love to use attacks that disrupt the party (such as lowering Blade Affinity, which means your attacks are weaker and Arts take longer to recharge, and you move slower too, among other effects). This challenging fight fits in perfectly with the accompanying cutscenes and narrative - it's definitely *not* a case of "you're steamrolling, except SURPRISE you're losing in the cutscene!" that some games like to pull.
How about removing "levels" altogether, and taking a look at a successful visual-novel series? Ace Attorney, primarily the first game - in this game, the main prosecutor is Miles Edgeworth, who is described as having a perfect win record and doing anything he can to maintain that (with rumours, later debunked, of _forging_ evidence). He's cold and cunning in his first appearance (the second case, of five), confident that the defendant (Maya Fey, accused of sororicide) *will* be found guilty. When the player, as Phoenix Wright, manages to overcome the odds and pull out a last-second victory, Edgeworth is stunned, as his win record is now irrevocably shattered.
He appears to still act the same in the third case, only to show signs of changing for the better when he goes out of his way to question his own witness (something rarely done by prosecutors in the series) in order to provide Phoenix with more info. Despite that, he's still a tricky opponent in court.
It's only in the fourth case that his character growth is accelerated, as it's now HIM in the defendant seat, with his cruel and heartless mentor Manfred von Karma as the prosecutor, with the case having direct ties to Edgeworth's traumatic past. He's forced to rely on the man he never wanted help from - forced to swallow his remaining pride and accept Phoenix's legal aid.
Edgeworth also appears in the fifth case, this time as a rather more helpful, yet still highly shaken, adversary, marking the starting point of the concept of defense lawyer and prosecutor helping each other to uncover the truth that the relationship between the two men evolves into. He makes a reappearance at the end of the second game (Justice For All) in order to use his police connections to help find a kidnapped Maya, and in the third game (Trials and Tribulations) he also helps crack the incredibly bizarre murder case at Hazakura Temple. Several years later, Edgeworth returns in Dual Destinies as the Chief Prosecutor, reprising his role as Phoenix's opponent and ally in the final case, to solve both the courtroom bombing and another bombing at a space agency.
Miles Edgeworth is proof that rivals can start out antagonistic and incredibly prideful, yet rather organically evolve over the course of time to become actual trustworthy friends, sharing a common interest despite supposedly being "on the other side".
I feel this is also why generally the mdoern games usually have multiple rivals, cheren bianca and N, the army of rivals in gen 6, Hau and gladion, Hop, Bede and Marnie, arguably arven counts for base sv alongside nemona. Because this means you have to fight each rival less often while still letting teh developers put down a recurring rival battle somewhere and the player willr ecognise the character and hopefully be excited by fighting this rival they havent seen in a while, this also allows their team to change more between encounters since gaps are wider.
I think the origin of him showing up outside of a cave has its origins in the “Gary Motherfucking Oak” meme where he just shows up any time you were exhausted or beating you to successes. I recall one specific one joking about a player coming out of a tunnel only to suddenly get ambushed, more for comedic effect rather than it being accurate.
I'm starting to wonder if Blue's jerk personality isn't partialy because of the anime, also him saying smell ya later might, which caused us player to preceive him as a jerk when in reality he actualy isn't.
The anime version definitely upped the general jerkishness
Great vid! I think the cave ambush Mandela effect mostly comes from other battles in other games. (Like Silver and Wally as you mentioned) I think N ambushes you at the end of chargestone cave but it's been a while since I played black and white. Because Blue is generally seen as the gold standard of rivals and he did ambush the player often enough, it seems natural to misremember the games that way. I think that it's a similar situation to Cynthia where the character has been hyped up for so long that we as a fanbase (and game freak themselves it seems sometimes) remember Blue as only the best attributes of all of the rivals, or at least the early ones.
I love Blue as a rival and he's probably my favorite one despite his simplicity.
Glad you addressed his dialogues not being actually a jerk. I barely got affectes by them as back in the day I had to play Pokemon with English cartridges before knowing English at all as they didn't come in my language, so I guess I didn't have that text bias.
The Mandela effect I believe comes mostly from both the memes online and his anime counterpart Gary Oak aa many people interchanged them as if they were the exact same character and not alternate universe counterparts. Gary himself was more of an ass but even then at one point he got his character growth arc that made him closer to Blue, before retiring and becoming a researcher. Ash and him ended in good terms too and also in other recurrent reappearances he had he also brought some insight, guidance and help for Ash to develop from the current issue holding him back.
With all of that, once I knew English I replayed FRLG and the og RGB and truly his dialogue wasn't the jerk dude people were claiming him to be, just like you said, just a competitive friend encouraging us to get better and both growing from each other's strengths. It felt like a nice rivalry to have imo and why I enjoyed seeing him return to Alola with Red for nostalgia.
I specifically remember being utterly floored when I played FireRed for the first time and fought Blue at the top of Rocket Tower. For context, i'd grown up with the anime first so to me the rival was, at heart, Gary Motherfucking Oak even if i'd named him something silly. I was CONVINCED he was going to help me beat the Rocket boss the way Gary fights team rocket in the show (Battle of the Badge fucking slaps), and even teams up with Ash on occasion.
Perhaps it's my own fault for reading characterizations that the rival is never given in-game, but damnit i was genuinely seething with rage when that boy abandoned me and made me fight Giovanni myself
I think the Mandela effect with Blue at the end of a cave is one of two things
1. He is the first major fight after two caves in the game, Mt. Moon and Rock Tunnel. In both cases you pass a Pokémon Center to get to him though so you should be at full health for those fights.
2. They are just mixing him up with Silver or Wally who were both fought at the end of Victory Road.
The thing with me is... I never felt Blue was a major obstacle.
Even as a kid I was a bit cautious about my pokemon's HP, I'd always revive my pokemon right away and I was willing to go back and heal up. I might have gotten caught off guard but I was almost always expecting a battle... So I always whooped him. And I never cared he was ahead of me; I'm a guy that likes to go at his own pace.
If anything, to me it feels like he was speed running and rushing through things while I was taking it slower and taking the time to raise my team good, proper and right. He was the hare, rushing to the end. I was the tortoise and stomped him at the end.
Honestly; it's all the other champions that I can struggle with on my first go because I don't know what they have the first time while with Blue I know what to expect. Don't get me wrong, he's a solid rival for the time and era he was made but I was always like 'whatever, I'll whoop you one more time'.
Wally does ambush you at the end of Victory Road, He may just be standing there but you still have to make it through the whole thing to rechallenge him. Even if you clear out the trainers you still have to avoid or tough through the Wild Encounters before any rematches. I remember as a little kid having to redo that one at least once and vividly remember dreading it when i played the other version.
Also the battle theme he gets in ORAS makes him so cool he has to be considered a Rival
I think Blue's perception as a rude rival is coloured by the anime, since most people see Blue equal to Garry, and Garry is a complete asshole.
There's also the fact that you kick Blue's ass more than once, and he still seems to think he's the hottest trainer in the world. It's only after you become champ that grudgingly admits you're better.
I like to think in most battles Gary is purposely holding back
"Blue is never encountered at end of a cave", but Cheren, OMG, dude just catch you in a end cave!
I didn't realize just how misrepresented Blue is in most fanworks until I watched this video. Thanks for bringing this to my attention! It's wonderfully structured and written as well.
Blue was always, in my head, because of the lack of backstory, my neighborhood friend who decided to be cocky about being better than me at Pokemon specifically.
I didn't have any need for a backstory, because I just inserted my friends into his backstory. Whoever I named him after would be the rival.
It was a brilliant move to just make Blue familiar with you, and be your neighbor, and then never elaborate on his backstory.
The newer rivals always felt like they existed just to have a rival like character in the game and nothing else. (or for the sake of tradition, I guess?) I've always maintained that not every rival has to be like Blue, but they need interesting fights. I don't think anyone would complain about a rival being "too nice" to you if they weren't a complete pushover and justified their decision to battle you instead of wasting your time.
I like how you pointed out the changes in how the rival character approaches the player over the games. It does show how a perception of a character is not just their personality, but how they interact with the player and when that interaction happens.
I do think we lose a bit of engagement with Pokemon games by not having surprise encounters from the rival. While they can be frustrating getting into unprepared, they make the player want to prepare for them in the future. Not having this along with the game becoming easier across the board makes for less interesting rival fights in my opinion. It's better to have the rival be dynamic in how they approach you instead of being just another NPC standing in your way.
It's funny I have said that scarlet and Violet should have used the Majima anywhere system for its rival. Since it's perfect for an open world.
Majima Everywhere doesn’t work in an open world though. It works really well in a sandbox context
What makes it fun is the sheer ludicrous variety in encounters, which is possible because the game world itself is relatively small yet full of activities.
In order to replicate that, Pokemon would need to severely scale down the size of its world. Open world games are too spread out and huge to make this system work reliably
@@GoldenOwl_Game pokemon battles are also very different to Yakuzas action combat so having it more spread out, and not quite as common makes sense.
Just because I said they should use the system doesn't mean it should be 100% unaltered.
At the end of the day it's just a randomly spawning boss fight that has a number of scripted, funny locations as well. Also the cutscenes are peak comedy.
It also works really well with Namonas running gag of being a stalker.
Imagine walking around the wilderness then an exclamation point pops over your head.
A short cutscene plays, where we see a pair of binoculars sticking out of a tree. Suddenly Namona leaps out of the tree dramatically to battle you. You can very easily just setup a number of random triggers based on environmental factors like that.
Then some kinda cool down to prevent her from becoming too tedious.
Of course game freak is far to lazy to make such a system, but it would work.
@vivil2533 and it might even fix the problem with the game being, functionally, too big
@@GoldenOwl_Gamewhat’s the difference between the two? I tried looking it up, but it was just as confused as before.
Actually, this sounds like a good video idea
If they did a rival like Blue again, mainly in having them ahead of you and when you just exited an area with low health, I thought of the idea of such a rival being the kid of an evil team leader similar to Silver but without the parental abandonment. Perhaps they like fighting you due to it being fun and perhaps their parent enables them since it distracts the protagonist when they take note of a kid who’s hindering the evil team’s operations.!
Side note, i dont know if the weather institute had a pc back in the original Ruby Saphire Emerald, but in the remakes there is a pc there, so you can just drop your pokemon there then withdraw them and they are full hp, thats what i did.
CrossCode handles this in a cool way by having you real-time race your party members through the dungeons. In terms of gameplay, it's a hidden timer, but it's still cool to have them talk about how well everyone did.
Blue is still one of my favorite rival characters, and not just in Pokemon. Since he started out when you did, and was always a step ahead it was a good measuring stick. I do get the point that maybe being ambushed by your rival could seem unfair, and evolution of the rival character was a good thing, Blue just left a much longer lasting impression on me. The ambush tactic as a way to artificially increase the difficulty was a good point (taught me to always carry potions and revives)
I think it would be cool to take the multiple rival formula and have one designed like that, you could make them obcessed with beating you if you want, but someone not above trying to get an unfair advantage (I think you could make a great character arc out of that) and then another that is more narrative driven too, like Nemona. I don't think Blue is outdated at all because when I think of Pokemon rivals he comes to mind first. When I think of video game rivals he's close to the top of the list (Miles Edgeworth is another one that comes to mind immediately)
Huh, didn’t know people thought he came out of caves. I guess I played RBY so many times I never forgot his exact appearances. Except he always managed to ambush me at the Silph building because getting to the top floor is such a happening and time consuming experience I just forget he’s going to be there.
Anyhow, it’s amazing looking back how much a lack of depth and unfair ambushes have been why we hold Blue in such high regard. I mean, it makes sense but it’s also like, a weird tradeoff. We have a character people love to hate because there isn’t much of a character there. And it involves using unfairness to make him harder rather than, like, I dunno, tactics or something. Like strategic switching out or using battle items. Admittedly the modern rivals don’t use those either but you get the point. It just means that we thought was hard was a product of a design philosophy I’m not sure many these days would completely agree with. Fairness seems like such a delicate design balance…
Also you really laid out something I never understood over the past few years. The redemptive reading of RBY Blue’s personality. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been more sensitive but I never once saw him as friendly, but one of those bullies that tells everyone that you’re friends and then mistreats you behind their backs. But between the dialogue you display plus his limited character allowing people to read what you want into him,it’s making more sense to me now why people would see him as more of a friendly jerk than I would.
I think Nemona is my favorite rival of all because she has the right balance of everything we’ve had so far for rivals.
I think a lot of people, at least when we were kids in the early days projected Gary from the anime on to Blue, and that's largely why he's remembered for being a dick.
Blue literally showed me who the strongest pokemon in the game were. I had to relook in my pokedex the first time to find out how to get gyrados. It was a humbling experience to learn it evolved from magikarp.
That intro made me laugh put loud. Liked the video just for that 😂
While the end of cave is strictly a Mandela effect, I think I know what causes.
It's a long road to Celulean City through Mt Moon, especially if you wander around in Mt Moon. If you make the mistake of not immediately healing at the Pokemon Center and try to explore Cerulean and go north, guess who's there? That's why some people have the "damn, should have saved/healed" feeling.
I dont know why but blue always felt like a close friend closer than the nicer rival while still feeling like a genuine rival it always felt like hed have your back if necessary despite both of you competing to be better that competition also felt less hateful and more like trying to improve together trying to see who got to the goal faster it was more like having a fun thrilling race with an equal you were closer to and understood and who understood you back unlike anyone else.
Something to note about some of the more modern rivals is that losing still allows you to progress in the story. There are some noticable exceptions that are usually story related, but besides those, there's really no drawback with slightly different dialog. It can be annoying to be gatekeeped from more content (especially if it can help you level up or strengthen your team to get the rival back later), but its also makes you think more about your strategy and team composition, which is great in my opinion.
Modern Pokemon fans can't understand beauty in simplicity
Blue's "ambushes" are quite effective when you're new to RBY (or FRLG - still the best Kanto games, those are), and thus were occasionally repeated for future rivals - like Barry ambushing you right outside Pastoria Gym, for instance, or how Bianca ambushes you right before entering Striaton City.
The main issue with ambushes is that, if you replay the game enough times, the spawn points become second-nature, foiling the "trap". For example, I've long since learned Blue's spawn points, along with that of Silver and Barry, so I know to heal and save before walking forward. That's not really something the game can help, but oh well.
For me, even as someone new to Kanto, I was never surprised for long. After the first couple of ambushes, I ended up overcorrecting. I healed after every couple of trainers. I overleveled. I became afraid to explore unless I was ABSOLUTELY SURE I was ready. That's not to say I made the game unplayably easy-my idea of overleveling was maybe 5-6 levels higher back then, since grinding has never been my strong suit. But the fact that I was almost always at full health if I had a choice in the matter made it so that the ambushes never had much impact for me.
So the veterans are already used to it and know when to heal for maximum safety; the newer players can easily get pressured into just healing way too often for the slightest infraction due to not wanting to lose to something that they deem as unfair, or they just barrel through anyway due to the lack of real consequence for losing a battle in Pokémon. In any of these cases, the ambush strategy loses it's effectiveness incredibly quickly for most people.
I wonder if Blue would have been more notable if his “ambushes” led to the player losing, but there is no blackout and he’s allowed to laugh in your face and walking away, forcing you to wait for the next time you see him.
You know. This video got me thinking about something in particular. Does Pokemon really need to follow the 'rival' troupe? Especially by your definition, it feels a lot of time certain "rivals" would work better just as our companions or just stand alone characters. But we as Pokemon fans still throw them into the rival troupe because of our expectations of every Pokemon game having to have a rival. Pokemon has had quite a few troupes through its life that feel like they have to be in every Pokemon game, otherwise the fan base claims "it doesn't count".
Gyms being a perfect example of this. Sun and Moon proved to me that you can slightly change to structure and name and still get as good of a "gym experience" as long as you keep the core concept. The shadow Pokemon games don't have a single required gym battle and yet still capture a "core Pokemon experience", at least to me. I guess I'm just rambling as a ponder at what point does keeping to the troupe that makes a series iconic actually hurt the series?
I'm gonna use this video to tell fire emblem players "ambush spawns are good, actually."
As a Fire Emblem player, I *HATE* ambush spawns... >_
Imagine if the first games introduced both a female protagonist named "Blue/Green" and a female rival named, Daisy(but de-aged to 11). With Red & Green as siblings. While Daisy's brother is always named "Gary". And the League was written to be recently-invented canonically(but it's a tournament like in Gen 8). While the Elite Fours were just Gym Leaders(making 12 in total, but only 8 Badges are required). While Red/Green defeated Gary/Daisy in the finals and became the world's first Champion. How'd that experience have been like? How'd you all have liked that from your altered memories?
You know what boggled my mind as I became an adult?
The fact that none of you never take any chances and don't save habitually.
Blue never ambushed me.
I never lost to him nor had teammates so low I couldn't use them.
I barely if not _EVER_ had to use any healing items mid battle and even then it was a once per save file moment against a rando on a route that wasn't Blue.
I don't want to say "skill issue" like a f***ing tool and I want to look you all in the eyes as equals and treat you well but I don't know what else to say about this. I don't even want to brag, this legitimately bothered me growing up. I didn't understand why this was a problem for people. I'm sorry, though. Don't wanna make you all feel bad.
But yeah, his theme and the memes about him and his anime counterpart scream "I'm better than you and I know it".
....HOLY SH*T I'M BLUE. I AM SO SORRY. DEAR ARCEUS ABOVE, YOU DID NOT DESERVE THE ABUSE, I AM SO SORRY. I AM NOT GOING TO SLEEP WELL TONIGHT.
Glad I didn't see this video until now! Did a little pokemon red nuzlocke a couple nights ago and really felt he was my characters friend more so than enemy, just my rival through and through.
Blue feels like a sibling rival to me
One thing I wished got analyzed was the Rival’s theme in the original game.
The most important part is the short pause near the beginning which breaks up the song, which signifies how the rival battle is breaking up your adventure suddenly. It also gives the feel that nothing stops him, but that things stop for him whenever he gets there, from the player to even his own theme song (which gives off this “I’m invincible” feeling).
That pause is also the thing that every remix of the song forgets, removes, or doesn’t properly replace. Even Gamefreak makes that mistake.
The worst thing Let’s Go did was replacing this man with Trace 🤮
Came immediately when I saw this notification
Another amazing video from the goat. Keep killing it man, your videos never miss!
Bruh, this is easily one of your best videos. Tons of good info
Plus too many of the friendly rivals make you feel bad for beating them so often.
I don't even hate Blue. I just like him. He's here to become the fucking Champion, and he's eager to test himself against any worthy foe - of which you are one.
And post-champion battle, Oak is unnecessarily cruel to him. Poor kid didn't deserve that shit.
I've become a big fan of this series of yours. Blue is a great character and there's a lot more that goes into him than people might realize
Thanks.
He’s quite a simple character. Obviously, complex characters can achieve higher ceilings, but it’s easy to forget just what you can still accomplish with simplicity, provided it’s handled well.
Blue is a simple meal, well made. Dude's a kinda cocky kid from your hometown who likes (trying to) showing you up a bit. And thats all there really needs to be to it!
B&W are my favorite games for the rival experience. Having 3 rivals (I feel like N counts) all in different roles with different attitudes and different battle difficulties was really fun and kept things fresh. Then they followed it up in gen 6 with a scattershot of completing uninteresting pushovers posing as rivals and we've not really managed to get back up to that gen 5 peak, even if S&V felt like a step in the right direction.
Though personally, I'm happier with rivals not being ambush predators and instead having a fair and equal fight. Only problem is that none of the rivals post gen 5 have even been remotely difficult. I get pokemon is supposed to be kid friendly and accessible, but I distinctly remember being a dumb kid who was bad at the game and deeply enjoying getting my ass handed to my by difficult fights in gens 1 and 2 before I had a better grasp of the games. The Whitney and azalea town Silver fights are some of the ones that stuck with me the most, and are remembered most fondly, to this day.
I personally feel like it would be funny if Pokémon fully leaned into the annoying jerk idea of rivals and had someone who constantly annoys you after big battles and comes with bullshit rng strategies in matches where if you lose to him once you don’t get to rematch him in the same area. Also he only stops this if you manage to beat him once. Plus he should have a really punchable design, a mean personality and after the champion fight if you lose to him every time he just shows up and faces you after your win.
You just discovered the player.
Always a step ahead of you from the journey to catching pokemon and becoming champion. He makes you want to surpass yourself and beat him which the final battle basically makes for the perfect victory
Other rivals seem to fall flat for the most part being friendly and or picking the weaker type making it less of a challenge. Nemona is cool and funny how she nearly used her champion team against us at the start.
Blue is just special as he's motivated
Hugh is also motivated.
Hugh is slept on honestly. One of the best rival with Blue
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 isn't Hugh the guy looking for a lepard or something. He's not that interesting. The Rivas for bw/2 are just there. They had so much opportunity to make them more interesting unless you count N but he's basically the protagonist
@@ivanbluecool Yes, he is.
And while he isn't the most complex character, he's pretty good. For once, he's really the protagonist of BW2. Not as compelling as a character than N, sure, but still a nice variation
I enjoyed Nemona as a rival precisely because she spends 90% of the game not even being your rival. She’s just your friend and you have to earn the rivalry
@@GoldenOwl_Game she's also kinda bored waiting for you to get on her level.as nobody else can give her that drive
I think an 'ambushing' rival could work a lot better if losing was not as punishing as in Gen 1: Losing should be an option. The consequence for losing a rival battle could be a bit of humilliation and then moving on with a fully healed party. Maybe have the rival taking score along the way. It feels more natural for each side in a rivalry to take some W's along the way.
I think blue is confused with Gary being I'm sure most people watched the anime well before they could play the games. Guess it didn't help that my first Pokémon game was yellow.
Proposition: Make your rivals team scale based off your current teams levels. Alternatively give them xp relative to how much your team has as well.
However I worry this would make it easy to metagame (making your current team weak) or discourage trying different Pokemon.
3:30, What? King Dedede is Kirby's Rival, dammit!
I don't think they should worry too much about fights acting as roadblocks or being a little frustrating to get past. It's rewarding to overcome those moments so long as they're at a good spot that isn't interrupting something else. I'd much rather get stuck on Blue at the entrance to the Pokemon League than in Silph Co. for example. Fights like Silph Co. work best if the rival leaves right after and doesn't hold you there any longer regardless of whether you win or lose. Meanwhile fights like the one at the nugget bridge are perfect for holding you up until you beat them just because the scenario around them is lower stakes. I would like to play a version of R/B/Y where this was taken into consideration. You might miss out on some wins but you can always challenge yourself to beat them on a later playthrough once you know there's a risk of missing out the win. It adds replay value.
I missed when rivals jumped you
Blue made me have a crush on him, then hate him and finally pity him in just one game. Now that I'm an adult, I'm pretty happy seeing him doing better than just being a jerk that ambushes me when I'm not prepared for a battle.
I think Blue's team also had an impact on how he felt strong too. He tends to have higher-level Pokemon than others in the area, and early on you likely won't have a way to counter his starter. He also gets a lot of rare Pokemon, or at least those you won't see without going out of your way, which makes his battles more distinct, not to mention the type variety. But he's also held back by bad moves, which makes him feel tougher than he really is, similar to the Elite 4.
Top 3 hardest battle on Pokémon FR
3: SNORLAX
2: Ice member of elite four
1: Blue's Pigey without Butterfree with speeches of Confucius
Blue has a simple & straightforward character, but it's (super)effective.
The greatest sin I have seen in a video game by the game designers is Gen 2's Pokemon Master Red use a Full Restore, if not several.
Not because of difficulty, that I welcomed.
But because it would have been completely out of character for him to do so.
Red is too elite of a trainer to rely on Trainer items.
Now, Blue? _OH, TOTALLY._ He has the skill to not have to do it, but he'd do it anyways for an extra F*** YOU because he could and because he'd know it'd bother an elitist trainer that thrives on battles.
I believe Blue would be even better if all his battles except for the Champion fight would be loseable. You beat him? Congrats, move on. He beats you? Ok, move on. He is meant to be always ahead of you, so message received. Only in the champion fight then it would be required for you to best him, for plot reasons. Before that, allowing him to beat you without stopping game progress would help build his presence as the ultimate challenge that needs to overcome after E4.
Yakuza reference in a Pokémon analysis video??? Peak content
Imaginary technique: LeafGreen
I think Hugh from Black 2/White 2 is a close second to Blue in terms of Pokemon rivals. A video on Hugh would be awesome😊
If it isn’t Gary Stu.
I think it’s also because we associate him with Gary whenever we think of Kanto rivals.
I'm gonna defend Blue's rep as a Rude Rival. He tells us "Smell ya later." That implies that we stink! In the remakes he calls us a gossip. On the SS Anne he insults the captain instead of helping him. In Pokemon Tower he jokes that our pokemon don't look dead, but he can make them faint. If we get the optional battle in Viridian City at the start of the game, he chides us for heading to the Pokemon League without badges, even though we are probably just exploring, and it was he who bee lined for the League without badges. He doesn't ever try to stop Team Rocket, even hindering us with a battle. Those ambush battles feel so cheap and cowardly.
If all of this seems minor, it is. But to an immature young kid, it matters. He didn't hurt my body, he hurt MY PRIDE! :D It's like beefing over what game system you own. As an adult, I can look past his petty remarks and actions, although they are still annoying. But that is because I am an adult, with experience and maturity. As a kid playing these games, he had the intended effect.
Also, you say that he treats us like an equal, but I say that he doesn't suck up to us like modern rivals. I don't want to be patronized or idolized. I just want someone who will look me in the eye, win or lose, and not be scared of me. That won my respect from Blue, and Nemona as well. Even if they lost, it was just another step on their path, not a setback.
Maybe instead of saying we want jerk rivals, we want strong rivals. Ones who don't choose the pokemon weak to ours. Ones who don't fall apart when we inevitably beat them and make us wonder if we are the bad guy. Ones who become a boring chore that only exists because pokemon games must have a rival.
Only the SS Anne fight really goes the way you talk about, with Blue ambushing you when you have reduced HP. Every other time you're right near a Pokémon centre or somewhere you can heal up with no penalty other than the time it takes, or you're just leaving a town so you've definitely just healed up. The SS Anne one comes after you've probably been in a bunch of rooms, but most of the others come after moments of peace. Even the Pokémon Tower fight isn't that far into the area so you should be on relatively good terms. And in the Champion fight you've just been through hell and have likely just fully healed with items, maybe missing only a few PP on your important moves.
The rest of the video is great, but I think this one point kinda falls apart.
Great video Owl. I really hate how they've dumbed down the rivals in recent games and made them super easy. Its not even a challenge anymore the game holds your hand at every instance.
Watching Ash in the anime made me think of Gary as an arrogant jerk, not a competitive friend
Jerk Blue might be viewed harder because of Gary Oak in the anime. Looking just like the guy and now being able to hear the condescending tone Gary has might taint how people viewed Blue.
The 'jerk rival' comes less from diologue, and more a mix of Anime & gameplay. Without voice acting, Gary is the basis for interpreting Blue's tone. The Adventure manga even kept his cocky, 'better than thou' mentality, though it made any malice an interpretation on Red's part (which most of the fanbase does as well).
The sucker-punch of his battles is big. Too much of Pokemon is 'fair' (which you brought up in the Volo video), so anyone whose played any Pokemon game before can wipe the floor with every challenge up to the champion. Because we have the experience & are basically doing a New Game+ every region.
The rivals being the only fights in the series to break this 'fair' rule before Volo makes them so much more memorable - most Pokemon fans have Blue, Cynthia, and Volo as their only main-story defeats in the series.
Everyone despises ambush spawns in games like Fire Emblem, but they're an important part of making Blue a good rival. Silph Co's fight is harder than Giovanni, which makes the fact he stands as a roadblock instead of help even more frustrating. Silver is the only other rival to do this, and is the only other 'jerk rival' in the series.
Love the video. Did have to listen to it at 1.25 and 1.5 speed a lot though. Your voice is nice to listen to, but just a little bit slow for long form videos.
Thank you for the feedback
I did notice it felt a bit TOO sluggish as I was editing it. Focusing too much on clear pronunciation made it sound really dragged out and unenergetic.
I’ll try reading at a more normal pace for my next project
He's Blue da ba dee da ba die
Blue reminds me of Sesshomaru from Inuyasha.
What game is that "Rewind Time" effect around 5:05 from? It's awesome! Seems familiar too, and is in an art style I really like
Ghost Trick, Phantom Detective
Absolutely fantastic game. Highly recommend it
@@GoldenOwl_Game Oh, cool. I downloaded the Switch version but haven't gotten to it yet. Looking forward to playing it more now
Casually using TFS clips. Alright. I'm subscribed now.
I'd argue that recent pokemon games don't have "real" rivals. Aside from Nemona, who is a great rival, in SW/SH, Hop is a joke. When I feel like I'm the bully, I don't consider that a good rivalry. Marnie is bland if cute. Bede had potential, and if he was the rival from the start to the end, he would have a great claim. But he shows up later, and washes out early, which robs us of a good rivalry.
Sun and Moon has Hau, who doesn't seem to care, and annoys me with his slowpoke attitude. We also have Gladion who is better, but has other things on his mind than being our rival, which make sense, but robs us of a potential good rivalry.
X/Y is out of my experience, but it seems to have so many "rivals" that the word loses all meaning. From what I have learned, it really seems to be the worst gen in regards to rivals.
Gen 5 and back have good to great rivals. Cheren is a classic try hard who learns the pecking order. N is the autist I love to beat. Bianca is not really a rival, I feel like I'm cheering her on more. Hugh is a great friendly rival. Barry is annoying and strong, so I want to beat him up. Brendan/May are surprisingly weak willed, quitting part way through, though they are likeable. Wally is a good story, but I feel like gen 3 was the weakest of the old school rivals. Silver is a sociopath who is legitimately a bully that you want to crush. And Blue is great, as has been said.
He’s a frenemy
What do you think of not having ambush spawns for Blue, but making the fights go away after 1 attempt, win or lose?
This would make we feel that he's a bad looser or a bully lol
When are you gonna evolve into Dartrix?
Kiiiiryu-chaaaaan~~~!!!
I have had many, MANY thoughts about Blue throughout my life. I started my Pokémon Journey with Ruby, went back to Yellow for two gyms, and then moved on to Emerald and Leaf Green (on top of Colosseum, Gale of Darkness, and Blue Rescue Team). My experience with Blue in Yellow and Leaf Green started out as thinking he was just annoying as a character. His dialogue never motivated me to beat him next time; it motivated me to be annoyed every time I heard that theme while I was walking. The ambushes felt cheap to me. I was never galvanized; I just grew overly cautious. Overleveling, rushing back to the Pokémon Center every few battles no matter where I was, saving CONSTANTLY to avoid losing money through what I felt was no fault of my own. When a gym leader bested me, it felt like they bested me. When I'm in the middle of a HOSTAGE SITUATION, and there's suddenly Blue deciding to fight me when I was supposed to be fighting the big boss? Well, I had already been going back to the Pokémon Center way too often by then, so that wasn't an issue.
And I feel that's a huge issue that Blue has as a rival. Honestly, even at full health and overleveled, I was challenged by him. I think he makes for an excellent roadblock. But as a rival? I either felt inconvenienced or nothing at all. And his dialogue made those encounters feel pointless too. If he is constantly saying how much further ahead he is and that the losses don't matter, then why invest any of my time to my victories? Blue quickly became a tiny brick wall in the road that I just needed to kick over every now and then-sometimes I'd stub my toe doing that, but it never felt like he MATTERED. The only time I really took notice of him was when he challenged me in Silph Co. (which I still consider to be beyond "jerk rival" and into straight up malicious due to literally saying that he was just waiting for you; he even acknowledged that Team Rocket slowed you down) and the champion battle (for hopefully obvious reasons). For the rest of them? I just treated him like any other battle. Again, if he didn't care, why should I?
The biggest draw of rival battles, to me, is the way you see their teams evolve alongside yours. With so many VERY different trainers all the time, seeing the familiar rival team is refreshing. Seeing those familiar teams grow and gain more power is, likewise, incredibly fun. The real reason why most of the rivals don't hit hard as obstacles is the overall lack of balancing in most of the games. Gens 1 and 2 are more tedious than difficult, refusing to give most Pokémon any options to be good. Gen 3, on the other hand, had a great balance between difficulty and accessibility. The amount of times a new player would get stomped by that Route 110 May/Brendan battle is staggering, even WITH that "you can go heal" stipulation you mentioned in your video. But as time went on, the rivals took a massive dip in difficulty-but so did the whole game. I went through ORAS without using the Exp. Share and ultimately ended up 10 levels under everyone-and yet, I feared only Norman (who I specifically hard-countered with a Dexnav Shroomish), Victory Road Wally, and Steven. This is a fundamental issue that defangs ALL battles: rivals, evil team leaders, whatever.
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon did a bit better with the difficulty, but they didn't give you any real rivals. They gave you friends (Hau) and antagonists (Guzma, somewhat Gladion). Sword and Shield were the first games past Gen 5 to give you a proper rival, and it gave three. Bede could have been a great modernization of the Blue formula, but you battle him so few times-the fact that he has a monotype team doesn't help him much. And Marnie, though slightly better than Bede on a team composition standpoint, just remains both mechanically and narrative flat. So yeah, not as good as they could be, but the ideas were there. Klara and Avery were also decent with this, especially with how the ACTUALLY CHEAT in their "final battle" with the player.
Meanwhile, Scarlet and Violet gave Nemona and Kieran. Nemona does something that most rivals don't do: she makes you hold the L. You don't get punted back to the Pokémon Center after a loss. You don't get an instant do-over to invalidate your loss as an "Oops, the game caught me off guard". No, you HOLD that loss. That, combined with her pushing me to get stronger, was more galvanizing than Blue EVER was to me. The only way to reset was to ACTUALLY reset-and that's still admitting defeat to me. Meanwhile, Kieran's negative character arc matches well with his rapidly-escalating mechanical difficulty that makes me start off as thinking he's not much of a threat (especially compared to Carmine, who starts off stronger but falls off fast) and then suddenly smacks you in the face with some well-constructed teams that surely would defeat a lot of people if it wasn't for the fact that most people power-leveled to level 100 by the time the DLCs were released. (As an aside, did you know that you battle Kieran EIGHT TIMES over the course of the DLC? That's the same number as with Blue, Cheren, and Hau. I didn't catch that while playing! The only trainers to exceed this are Nemona and Hop, and that's because they're a part of multiple storylines.)
I think if they keep going with the varied characterizations and tweek the game balance better overall, people will be taking notice of rivals as legitimate threats again. The most recent games have taken great strides make rivals both interesting and challenging. I believe that Blue utilizes frustrating gameplay mechanics in a way that COULD be legitimately galvanizing if the characterization was on point. I think a jerk rival who actively ambushes the player could be incredibly compelling; add some in-universe nods to it being an intentional character decision rather than simply being frustrating game design, and people would love to hate them. Add in some flavor of cheating like Klara/Avery or a legitimate negative character arc like Kieran or (nearly) Hop, and the resulting rival could overthrow Blue as the go-to example of "what a Pokémon rival should be". Add in a friendly rival alongside this jerk rival, one with a much different approach but an equal drive to get stronger and push the player (maybe taking traits from Nemona, Hau, and Hop), and that dichotomy could bring so much interest into the rival battles. And if there are scenes where the two rivals show themselves to be, in tern, rivals to EACH OTHER (something that Sword/Shield tried and failed to do between Hop and Bede), that could bring a whole new dimension to this rivalry that simply wouldn't exist with only one of them.
Blue is a great obstacle. He is a measuring stick for your progress-while everyone else tests your adaptability or planning skills, Blue forces you to contend with a strong, balanced, CONSISTENT team that you might not be prepared to battle at any given time. Training yourself to beat Blue specifically can easily leave you vulnerable to the Gym Leaders and random bosses of the game. Trying to prepare for everything may leave you behind when it comes to taking down Blue. I appreciate him as a recurring wall. But that's all he felt like to me: a wall. A fun wall to see every now and then (NOT during a terrorist hostage situation please), but a wall nonetheless. The Pokémon Company could do with figuring out why people liked Blue so much and to bring SOME of those traits back in whatever recurring rivals or antagonists they make in the future. And honestly, I think they're getting there, slowly but surely.
Me when rival
I just wish they designed rival battles to be losable now.
I always hated him for being a nepo baby