The way I see it, Kyogre is surrounded. What's under the ocean? That's right, more earth.

Groudon: Im surrounded by water but I dont care, lemme square up against this overgrown fish! Kyogre: Come at me bro! Youre literally standing on a small island! You could barely fit on it! Lol! The protagonist: Meh.... **starts fishing nearby**

Chairman Rose just came out of nowhere with his villain reveal and he wouldn't even have been a villain if he just did his job as chairman foe the championship battle then took a nap. Leon even said he was willing to help, just the next day. Things would have gone better the next day too as by that time you would have become champion and helped out as well.

chairman rose was so close to being a great villain. the battle theme when you fight him alongside the animation of him looking down at his ultraball like he is doubting himself or his actions before he clutches it tightly showing that its too late to go back and he has to finish what he has started is a great moment that doesn't need any dialogue.

What’s under the Water? That’s Right! More Land!

Groundon and Kyogre fighting in Gen 3 is the most iconic moment since it reminds me of a Kaiju Battle.

I like the Hoenn games for raising the stakes and being more story focused they set a standard for the franchise, it's just a shame the themes about the balance of nature went totally unappreciated, there is a difference between not being interested in the plot and being dumb, the fact that people still think Teams Aqua & Magma hated land & water is insane.

What leads up to it is just as important to me. What kept me hooked story wise was seeing the two teams fighting for their ideals all the while knowing both sides were wrong. Extremism is bad, and emerald did an amazing job at teaching that lesson through its story.

Chairman Rose and Lysandre could have been good villains, but they suffer by bad writing and idea execution. I not asking for perfection, but good writing.

This one of the crazy fights kyogre 🐋 🌊 and Groundon 🦖🌋

You are right that the writing saves the better storylines from being contrived, but I argue that the end of the world would have occurred if Ghetsis and Sada/Turo (well, at least the original ones) had their way. 1. Ghetsis, driven by his insatiable hunger for power, would have N expand his rule to other regions, potentially leading to them becoming the governing force of the world. Eventually, Ghetsis realizes that N's wavering heart is showing itself as he sees more cultures and customs, so he betrays and leads Team Plasma by himself. In Neo Team Plasma, most of Team Plasma were far more loyal to Ghetsis and their beliefs about world domination than N's. Really, only N's sisters, Rood, and a few grunts would be angry at Ghetsis if he cast aside N. In BW2, they (Team Plasma) would freeze the entire world. For example, Drayden's entire city got iced, and that was a Kyurem that still needed to be at 100%. So it would be the same outcome as Team Plasma conquering the world. But faster, since Ghetsis has a big red button in Kyurem to threat people, who disagree agree with him. 2. The Paradox Pokemon would have destroyed the entire world; Ai sada/turo claims that the current ecosystem in our timeline isn't the same as theirs, and they will be the ultimate invasive species. One that has no predators and basically no food chain to hold them.

I think the Pokémon Adventures manga done an excellent job at making the stories personal for the RS and E arc. I will be talking about spoilers so be warned. About the Ruby and Sapphire arc: The end of the RS arc is basically Pokémon Emerald. Having the climax involve Wally climbing the tower to summon Ryquaza as his own personal growth was amazing. Having Ruby try to save Sapphire after he confessed his love to her, Norman sacrificing himself for Ruby as well as having Courtney, Maxie, Archie *and* Norman all die really escalated the stakes and made it amazing. And I'm not even getting into Ruby's character development when he didn't want to save the world with Sapphire. About the Emerald arc: A lot of stuff happened between the RS and the FRLG arc but the sum it up, having all the dex holders at that point team up to defeat Archie was absolutely great. Endgame if it was good. And the character development of Emerald to save Jirachi? Absolutely amazing. TL;DR: Read the Pokémon Adventures manga.

yeah. Gen 6 and Gen 8 had the worst plots in terms of villains. Glad Gen 9 doesn't even have a villain.

This is why I have enjoyed playing Pokemon games over the years so much. Every game offers something different to a degree overall, which makes me look forward to seeing what Game Freak comes up with next. And as someone who enjoys Honen a ton, when I first saw that climax in Emerald, I was amazed at just how powerful Rayquaza was, hence why he's become one of my all time favorite Legendaries. As for my personal favorite campaign, I'd say it's a tie between Gen 3, (Both the originals and ORAS versions,) and Gen 8 with the sports anime feel the games had going for them. Keep up the great work Gator! 😉

i kinda prefer if we got more villains that we got to know personally and became friends with, like with Volo or the AI professors. a threat emerges, but they are not actively participating or they withhold information from you until the very last moment. I think villains like that really gives them a sense of cleverness because they will eventually see the faults in their plans and is able to make or prepare a backup. like if Xerosic became the acting leader of Team Flare creating the means to get either one of the Aura duo and preparing the ultimate weapon. But in all that Chaos, Lysandre is doing his means to create a necessary plan b or something similar to secure that his goals are met and fool proof to the player. I always think a villain who's plan succeeded without the player thwarting it makes better characterization. just look at Master Albert in Mega Man ZX Advent and you'll know what i mean. while in the prospect of crafting his plans. Lysandre would often interact with you from time to time, not giving away his status as the villainous leader but instead tries to open your mind to the current state of the region(in this example: beauty and ugliness) as well as assess how much of a threat you will become.

Not gonna lie, I think Emerald had my favourite implementation of the evil team/legendary story. The effects that Groudon and Kyogres powers have feel more tangible than say Dialga or Palkia, and I think really perfectly encapsulated the themes of there being balance within nature. Throw in Archie and Maxie thinking they know best, and underestimating the power of nature feels like a strong message of telling us to let nature take its course. While SV/Area Zero has surpassed it in my mind as the best climax, I adore Emeralds to no end.

From the equivalent of the mafia to ecoterrorism, Ego terrorism, regional Domination, "beauty" reconstruction, universal wormholes, kaiju rampages, and finally invasive past/future species from a time machine. One thing is for sure that Pokemon has some wacky stories for a kids game series.

What about Digimon? Almost Every Digimon series ends with the final villain trying to merge Human World with Digital World to rule both of them.

I think it'd be interesting if, when you look at other villains, if you compared their game versions to their Adventures/Special versions. Lysandre in particular is a massive upgrade in the manga compared to the games.

*Spoilers for the Adventures/Special manga* I think this effects the Pokémon manga as well. I grew up reading the Kanto and Johto sagas, so I was quite excited to read the Hoenn saga that I missed out on when I was younger. And I loved it, but I felt like the finale really dragged on. Due at least in part to the cataclysmic stakes. It felt like the whole region was blowing up on repeat for like a week over that many chapters. I didn't know how anyone was still alive. And while there are personal stakes involved, Ruby and Sapphire finally share all their feelings and history, and Ruby makes up with his dad for the most part, but just watching these titans blast each other with energy for so long made me feel like putting it down and just skipping to Sinnoh. There's like forcefields and time dilation, and I just did not care about this near as much as little Yellow struggling to stop Lance from destroying all of humanity. Those are high stakes, but it's much shorter for one, it's broken up over this whole island where we get the Kanto kids and Team Rocket Gym leaders fighting agianst the Elite Four, so everyone there feels valuable. It was cool seeing all of Hoenn's gym leaders mobilize, but their fighting felt so indistinct. Johto also had a big finale, and I start to zone out at points during that, but the mystery building up to it was so compelling I could stick around. Plus it's more poignant, and I love how the Adventures manga is allowed to make gym leaders into villains. You'd expect Pokémon would see that as breaking away from the brand because gym leaders are usually so squeaky clean and have basically no depth. But Adventures Pryce is scary, and his story is so sad. Hoenn had great characters and I love how they expanded on Norman and his relationship with Ruby. But Archie and Maxie are the villains in the games and the manga, and I'm just not getting as many original concepts like "What if the Elite Four wasn't a part of the Pokémon League but instead they're a eco-terrorist organization who want to use a magic island to summon a super powerful Pokémon to destroy all humans except for them?"

One of the biggest issues with Pokémon stories is the lack of interplay between story and gameplay, I think this is often called ludonarrative synchronicity. We hear about how ugly and bad the world is from Lysander, but we never see it. We hear about how the world needs more water or land in Hoenn, but all we see is harmony between them. The motivations of the evil teams don't emerge from the game world we experience, and it makes it much harder to take them seriously. The reason most consider BW to have the best story is because the plot and the game world are directly connected. Team Plasma talks about Pokémon liberation, something many have already thought about before these games came out. The motivation for Team Plasma is directly derived from a logical analysis of the Pokemon world. I think Game Freak can write solid stories when they give themselves the chance to, but they so often shoot themselves in the foot.

They really wasted Chairman Rose's potential. He could have been the modern Giovanni. What's worse than a mob boss who doesn't hide the fact that he's a criminal but no one can apprehend him because he pretty much controls the region? Well, maybe a billionaire who has a very positive reputation who can do lots of morally skewed things that are all technically legal.

As much as i love gen 4 (mostly platinum like everyone else. Surprise Surprise.) but it was the gen that basically jumped the shark in terms of climax, like where do you go to after wanting to destroy the universe?

Platinum was always my favourite, just wish arceus was involved, just like how he’s not really in legends arceus till the very last minute which I found disappointing. Mainly just because it’s basically just dialga palkia and giratina again instead of something more like arceus and the jewel of life

In Gen 3 I was a fan of Team Cipher as villains rather than Team Aqua and Magma. They feel like a logical step up from the threat of Team Rocket (stealing Pokémon for sinister purposes) and the whole closing their hearts thing fits well with the friendship and companionship theme of the series

They be having a midoff 🎉

Ironic, since saving the world was a big part of the appeal to Pokémon for me for years

So i kinda always read ghetsis as destroying the status quo then just ruling unova being a jumpimg off point to bring it to the rest of the world

The titan battle in emerald is my favorite. Since we get to see all 3 legends at the same time.

And then there is team skull stealing street signs

I love your format of your video, its really good

This was a very interesting topic to hear about! And it got me thinking too. As you said Team Plasma scaled things back but they also changed things quite a bit, with their apparent goal being to liberate pokemon and say that everything we’ve known for the past some years has been wrong, before it’s ultimately revealed to be a con (I say “ultimately” but it really it gets ruined by *one* scene I can go on a whole tangent about, but I won’t unless some asks because I don’t want to rant in comment But simply put Team Plasma could’ve been a *lot* better without one. worthless. moment.)

Waiting for the day where a villain group of influencers try to take over the region!

I recently was looking at an image of all of the Pokémon by scale from a side view up through Generation VI, and I realized that Primal Groudon was even longer than Mega Steelix, so I estimated Groudon's and Primal Groudon's lengths using the Pythagorean Theorum and found that Groudon is about 24'06" from nose to tail while Primal Groudon is about a whopping 36'09" from nose to tail. If that's accurate, then Primal Groudon is the fifth longest Pokémon after Eternatus, Wailord, Dondozo, and Alolan Exeggutor. Incredible.

shang-chi, the fifth treasure of ruin

A another interesting video by GaterEx

With this video, you should followup on talking about Archie, Maxie, Team Aqua and Magma...if you haven't already.

Pokemon mystery dungeon: explorer of sky Best plot for pokemon games

Pokemon is so bad now that i dont want there to be a story. I literally just press A or B to get through it so i can do what i actually want. Its so stupid it takes an hour plus to get through the opening. For all its fault, RBY made it quick.

This is why I honestly preferred the stories of Gens 1 and 2, being more about local issues rather than global catastrophe. I hate that every game starting from Gen 3 has to have the legendary be the plot device of every story. It seriously cheapens the value of legendaries in my opinion, if they're just always just both gonna be front and center of every game, but also required to face off against in the story, instead of being a reward for exploration and puzzle solving like before. What if that same sequence in Emerald happened, not because the main story dictated it must, but because of something the player does just exploring optional areas and triggering things. Like say, you go through some molten cave, not because Team Magma is there but just because you found it and you want to see what's at the bottom. You find the magma orb or whatever it was, and by picking it up, you awaken Groudon, who then starts rampaging around the region. He doesn't just stand there menacingly, but basically becomes the semi-roaming legendary he was in post-game Emerald. Weird weather on routes, and YOU unleashed this natural disaster. And until you go and catch him, he'll keep randomly disrupting the weather on routes he randomly moves between every so often. Same with Kyogre. Wouldn't that be much more interesting, and feel much more rewarding to capture them, instead of just doing it cause a group of guys got together and removed the orb while you were doing your gym challenge?

I personally think Lysandre is underrated and misunderstood.

i definitely think Lysandre shouldcbe next. I think he is pretty unappreciated

Man, these anime are jumping all over the place...

I never noticed that after gen 4, any "world ending stakes" game is seen poorly. I don't think a story that ties into the world collapsing automatically means the Pokemon story will be bad, I just think that the 2 times they've done it have been in stories with uninteresting characters or ones that feel whole fully out of place in SwSh's case.