I Am Already Not Excited For The Next Console Cycle

It has been four years since the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series. I’ve been console gaming since my early youth, starting with the original PlayStation. By the time of the PlayStation 2, I had learned to expect consoles to iterate and evolve, and that the next horizon would happen sometime later on.

However, I wouldn’t ever think about the following console. I loved my PlayStation 3 and knew a PlayStation 4 would follow, but it was never more than a reality I did not think about.

Yet, during this console cycle, at only four short years in, I am noticing and thinking of the next cycle. And I am constantly dreading the reality.

I suppose it was Astro Bot that helped my eyes crack open. Celebrating everything Sony has accomplished through the PlayStation brand (with the noticeable exception of Square Enix properties) truly reminded me how much these cycles have given us. I enjoyed Astro Bot, although admittedly not to the GOTY sentiment I see from other fans and publications, but remembering the previous PlayStations' lives did show me how much the PlayStation 5 has not had much of a life after all.

There has been a focus on remastering classics from the PlayStation 3, and pointless remasters of PlayStation 4 games which occasionally are barely five years old. The live-service games came and went, leaving no lasting impressions or sometimes even a first impression, such as Foamstars of the disastrous launch of Concord.

To shift gears and discuss Microsoft and the Xbox Series of consoles, we are still waiting on the promised games such as the Perfect Dark reboot and the next chapter for Halo. The rut has yet to end, and the console has become little else but a “Game Pass machine”.

I was content with the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and every Nintendo handheld I’ve ever owned. While I did know to expect a horizon, I was still able to love living in the moment. I can’t do that with the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series, as even though I do find them stronger versions of their previous console interactions, that is all they feel like. I turn on my PS5 or my Series X and feel like I’m still playing my PS4 or Xbox One but with better user interfaces.

There have been console exclusives I’ve loved, as I heavily enjoyed Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. But when it comes to console exclusives I truly only think of the ones from Nintendo as of late. And with their next console already teased, I actually do see myself excited as long as it’s little more than a more impressive Nintendo Switch.

Which is a funny contrast, and there is instead a growing fear from me for both Sony and Microsoft in how their consoles don’t feel like anything but an upgrade. Xbox’s limbo for the past decade has made things feel like they are moving sideways instead of forward, their momentum is completely stagnant. I can’t be excited anymore as I stopped expecting a comeback, and I even stopped subbing to Gamepass. I’d rather just play my back catalog instead of pretending I’m hyped.

For PlayStation, it’s the growing discomfort in their comfort zone. I may enjoy Spider-Man 2 more than Astro Bot, but the refreshing genre contrast of Astro Bot is still what I would prefer to see more of. PlayStation has enough third-person sandbox story games, as good as they may be. I feel this is a major reason for the disgust I and many others had for the announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro. When all the games look the same anyway, due to playing the same anyway, what’s the selling point that they will now be a few pixels sharper? Variety is a better spice than 8K and 120 FPS.

I can think hard about the Nintendo Switch, but I lose my train of thought with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. They lack the identity that the Switch so easily earned, and after four years on the market with no drop in price, it’s hard not to worry.

Realistically, both companies have plenty of time to learn, but it’s more than fair to say I’ve waited long enough. If this console cycle feels stagnant and samey, it worries me this is a rut too hard to move out of.

I trust Nintendo to innovate even if the next console is little more than Nintendo Switch 2. I don’t currently trust the PlayStation 6 to be anything but a PlayStation 5 Pro. I worry that Xbox doesn’t even try to do anything besides revamp the Series until it sells or they give up.

There are great games right now, and plenty of places to play them. But I worry the next console cycle will feel like nothing. Not even an upgrade. Only time will tell.

What Was Special About Rare

I’ve been tackling my backlog this year, harder than usual. I planned it out back in January, but it’s been May and June when I really started crossing off game after game. The biggest reason for this is that I suddenly felt like going back to Rare Replay.

Jetpac Refueled is surprisingly pretty fun for how limited and arcadey it feels. Perfect Dark is incredibly fun to skate around blasting the enemies away, and honestly, I feel it’s disappointing sequel PD Zero is more mediocre than outright bad. I was stuck in Grabbed by the Ghoulies many years ago but somehow I picked it up again this year and managed to beat not just that level I was stuck on, but made it to the end that same night. A bit of an odd game but a gem that needed better sales. Kameo turned out to be fairly average, but still a fun enough game with interesting gameplay concepts.

I still need to jump back into Blast Corps, and Jet Force Gemini, but I somehow found time to play the ancient games like Gunfright and Jetpac original.

And okay, you likely just care what I think of Banjo-Kazooie. The original was beaten by me a long time ago and it’s pretty much Rare’s most competently made game. Not my personal favorite, but the one I think has the least issues. Can’t say the same for either sequel, but don’t get me wrong, I’m actually in the camp that finds Nuts & Bolts to be pretty good! The vehicles are fun and the open choice in how to win the puzzles is a great change-up to the formula even if hardly anything else feels like classic Banjo.

Of course, Tooie is also classic Banjo, and I’m sorry but I did not have a good time with it. I think every idea offered is a nice addition and I think the story and jokes are a step above the first game, but the ideas don’t gel with each other and instead just drag the gameplay down by a lot. It probably has Rare’s best final boss but honestly, that’s not saying as much as you might think.

Rare, or Rareware, (or Ultimate Play The Game if you wanna get really retro), really are one of my favorite developers for the classic games scene. Sure Insomniac offered great gems but Rare I did not grow up with and yet still find charm when I play their back catalog.

So if I could explain Rare games in just a few words, what are the phrases that come to mind?

Well for starters: Unfair difficulty!

Credits: Microsoft, Rare, Bandai Namco, Fromsoftware

Heed my advice on this, when you play any of Rare’s older games, either play a game where you have infinite lives by default, or open the options menu to give yourself infinite lives. And even then, good fucking luck my guy. I cannot for the life of me beat Snake, Rattle, and Roll. The bullshit final boss, (who’s just a hopping severed foot by the by, which is also a standard enemy type so hello there blatant recycling), is programmed to instantly fully heal back all health after a set time of not taking damage. That time frame seems to be a second or so. Rare Replay lets you rewind time and I still somehow magically miss or go just too slow and the damn foot goes back to full health. It’s asinine even for the NES, the kind of thing I’m positive a play tester told them was bad and got promptly ignored. If you can beat this thing without the cheat codes, I think you’re made of crack.

Don’t know how I would have beaten Gunfright if not for the rewind feature, either. You have to win twenty duels with AI that just moves around randomly and shoots whenever. And yes, it’s random, because when I would rewind they’d move to entirely different patterns than the last time. You just have to guess better than a fortune teller if you want to beat it “correctly”.

Banjo-Kazooie is a pleasant breeze, part of the reason I consider it Rare’s best-made game. I won’t ride on Tooie’s harsh difficulty too much as I already said I don’t like it, so let’s continue with pointlessly hard Rare games I do like.

Well, Nuts & Bolts does sometimes break its own rules and expect you to roll with it, such as how I only earned three Jiggies in Terrarium of Terror because I’d just had enough of that level’s BS. Ghoulies like I already said I was stuck on, but frankly that game’s just hard because there are a lot of rules you can suddenly have to obey, and the camera controls take a bit to get used to, not to say it’s the worst camera Rare ever made.

Allow me to share with you my favorite Rare games. I’d place Banjo-Kazooie in third place really, and Viva Pinata is such a blast (even with its problems) that I have to give it the silver medal. And maybe you’ve guessed it, but my all-time fav is Conker. And while it is in my personal top ten games, boy do I have a hard time recommending it to people because it’s also one of the hardest games I’ve ever beaten.

If you’ve never played Conker, but have heard of it, I’m sure there’s one of two thoughts going through your head. Either: “How is the funny squirrel game hard?” or “How is the allegedly funny squirrel game hard?” Conker’s humor has aged poorly for some, but not everyone. Same for its story, I have seen people criticize how slapdash and random the plot points are but I think that works as a parody of 3D platformers since, well, that’s also how it works in those games. You just jump from one completely different area to the next, the only reason this time it’s a joke is because Conker’s just a sociopath alcoholic trying to get home.

But fuck me the difficulty needed to calm the hell down. The zombies are practically impossible, the war sections demand perfect platforming despite the controls being honestly not perfect themselves, I remember my high school theatre teacher had played the game too and complained about the electric eel but frankly, somehow I had no issue there.

As for my worst moments: I died countless times to the spinning underwater saw blades. Ugh, and the final boss, Jesus, if you ever want to send me into a spiral just put on the most monotone British accent you can muster and go “Throw out the alien, and shut the bloody door.”

And on top of that, Conker has another boss who may be the hardest in all of gaming: Its own camera. I hear a lot about FromSoftware setting the scale for hard games, but not a single person calls the camera controls hard in those games, so there is unironically a good chance Conker is harder thanks to the game actively fighting back at plenty of times. There is nothing harder than a tough fight where you’re looking the entirely wrong way and can't do much of a thing about it.

I still love the game, and I still want to play it again soon despite how much it grinds my teeth into dust. All that said, I should probably give the Live & Reloaded cut a chance. Less swearing but if the camera actually works then that’s a fine trade-off.

I think if you ask most people, (well okay most YouTubers), Rare was this incredible developer who delivered fun-first gameplay styles, with wacky and well-realized characters who often stack up to what’s currently out there. The kind of games that inspired the competition generations later. Many think it’s a shame they do nothing but Sea of Thieves now, but frankly well you’re “stuck” in your best-selling game ever and raking in more money than you ever did before, that’s the kind of horrible fate I think I’d wish on myself most days.

But Rare’s insistence on difficulty is the bigger talking point, I feel. It’s Rare who thought Snake, Rattle, and Roll should have an invincible final boss. It’s Rare who felt Conker needed a bad camera. And hell, if you think I’m only guessing or being overly negative, go check out two things.

In Rare Replay, there are loads of behind-the-scenes videos, and in one of them, a developer openly states how much fun they had changing Battletoads Arcade just for the sake of making it harder and harder. Even had the gall to admit it was just to sucker more quarters out of arcade patrons.

If that’s not enough, Chris Seavor had a short-lived commentary series for Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Where he notably struggled with the gameplay, and yet found the time to state how they were forced to change the camera controls for Live & Reloaded because “players like having control over that these days”. He then stated that he preferred the stiff and unresponsive camera of the original.

That’s Rareware, everybody! One of the greatest game developers of all time, who happened to love making players pissed off way more than needed. Some of the best of the best, truly, but my popped blood vessels have their own opinion.

Image copyright belongs Rare, Nintendo, and Microsoft, most images pulled from Xbox store page.

Celebrating (and criticizing) The Villains of Pokémon! (Just the games)

This year, 2021, is the 25th Anniversary of the Pokémon franchise. As with practically everyone else in my age group, I have a connection and history with the games and also the anime. Even when there isn’t an anniversary I enjoy reminiscing about my past with Pokémon and talking about my present and future with Pokémon. Some of the games I love to their core, some I honestly just think are okay with some very clever concepts or ideas, and even the one I really didn’t like still had some unique takes.

I think the biggest element, at the very least one of them anyway, that showcases both the strengths and the weaknesses of the series writing and immersion is the villainous groups you encounter and defeat as the protagonist. Sometimes the game has a great villain, one who sticks with you, one you are proud to say you defeated and whom you can’t help thinking about among many other video games baddies. Then there’s the complete clunkers, villains whom failed at depth or true motivation, felt flat on arrival and never became any better, but that admittedly you do can’t forget at the very least.

From the would-be fascists, to the organized gangsters, to the phoney animal rights groups, to the environmental extremists, to the juvenile delinquents. Evil is all over the map in the world of Pokémon and just like with Disney villains, these characters are a market all their own and thoroughly worth dissecting. So, let’s do so. Let’s look at them under categories instead of purely individually to save a bit of time and to help out some of the lesser characters. Some of them are my all time favorites, some are examples I’d use for what not to do.

And if you enjoy posts like this, be sure to check out my Patreon to help keep this blog floating!

- The Several Rockets -


Team Rocket is unavoidable in a Pokémon character discussion, whether or not you are focusing on just the villains. In some ways I’d argue this is even more true for the anime (which I will also be tackling the villains of), but to say they didn’t leave an impact on the games core formula would be a lie. If we never had Team Rocket, there wouldn’t be villains in these games. The original Red and Blue/Green is known today for still changing the world yet aging differently for many, and one of those ways is that the story is notably lacking. I’ll admit I only ever played the remake Fire Red, but as someone who’d started with Gold and Silver and constantly played Ruby and Emerald, it is clear there’s less of a focus on a true overarching narrative in the first games compared to gens 2 and onward but the sense of adventure itself works as a story, especially for immersion as the characters are given simple yet effective elements to connect to.

Team Rocket in Fire Red does feel a bit lacking in some regards because of this, they don’t really seem to have an overall plan and are just doing whatever they feel like as criminals. Not that this really is a bad thing, as the game is more in the slightly-forgotten genre of adventure, having meandering villains whom you still constantly come across do work to help sell that sense of going on a great journey. The manga and the anime do flesh out more of Boss Giovanni’s true goals, but as a criminal enterprise whom just so happens do be a gym leader is a good way to make just another boss fight feel more connected to the player’s journey, you get a final showdown with a character you’ve been directly fighting already, capping off both that part of the story and preparing you for the final stretch in the same blow. While the villains tended to get much more involved in following games, Team Rocket as a whole still gave players a unique NPC to battle against, where the stakes were higher and the chance for heroism could be felt.

Red Rockets.png

In fact, Team Rocket themselves became villains with more story than Team Rocket!

In Gold and Silver, Giovanni is stated to have just vanished and the organization is in dismay. They refuse to disband, instead, they are doing even dirtier deeds in an attempt to convince Giovanni to come back. The shift is noticeable when looking back-to-back. To give credit of course, in the first game a member does murder a Marowak off-screen, and it’s the darkest action any character commits in the game. As for Gold and Silver:

They cut off Slowpoke tails to sell them as goods while keeping the Pokémon alive and imprisoned, they mess with the radio frequencies around the Lake of Rage to drive the local Pokémon into a violent frenzy and forcibly evolve them to make them more profitable, and said signals are created with a group of Electrods they are clearly abusing in order to make them stressed and angry. Money and power were mentioned in the first games, but their sequels make it very clear those are the two things Team Rocket cares about, and lack any empathy for anything they could use to gain said money or power.

Along with the spike in evil actions we also gained a bit more character. The Rockets hierarchy ended up being given names, and the remakes Soul Silver and Heart Gold even gave them more unique designs and screen time. Petrel, Archer, Ariana, and Proton are now remembered characters specifically for these entries. Some were in the original versions, some even had a mention in the very first games, but fans remember Soul Silver and Heart Gold’s Rocket Executives for their cool designs and personalities. In some ways, Team Rocket is a more powerful team with Giovanni gone, since these four truly took charge.

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Although after Ultra Sun and Moon, I can’t finish speaking about Team Rocket without mentioning Rainbow Rocket. Sadly, I can’t talk about it too much, as while I bought Ultra Sun I ultimately gave it to my nephew as well as my 3DS before I played that much of it. I loved Pokémon Moon but like many fans I didn’t give the Ultra versions that fair a chance, and I’ve now since heard they changed up a lot more than I expected and have minor regrets, but not enough to fully regret giving away the device. Maybe they’ll get a Switch port, it’s not too unlikely with now much Nintendo is embracing the practice for this generation finally.

I do know whom Rainbow Rocket is though; a Giovanni from another reality where he won and learned how to jump realities, teaming up with other series villains whom also won in their continuities. It’s an interesting concept, especially considering just how different many villain’s goals were. Of course, the does also bug me. Archie and Maxie hated each other, but both would be appalled by Ghetsis and Lysandre, and while they might understand Cyrus though but the word is might. Ghetsis also was too self-centered to be a true team player but then again that might mean I’d be happily waiting for the expected twist. Without playing the game I can only say it’s an interesting idea with holes I have no idea if they filled up or smoothed out to work.

And yes, Giovanni and surprisingly Archer make their appearances in the Let’s Go games, doing the same good job that is there in the originals but just somehow better for me personally this time around.

Money grubbing and heartless, Team Rocket became iconic and started the trend of needing to defeat evil before becoming the Pokémon Champion. Although sometimes those villains are more evil than others, even when talking about just the Rockets.

So less go for something even less evil than the nicer Rocket members. Let’s talk about the teams who kind of only barely qualified.


- The Punk Youths -

Villains whom are really nothing more than rascals are the newest idea. Because of that, we only have two examples. Team Skull, and Team Yell.

pokepunks.png

Despite both having similar ideas; taking a more obnoxious type of youth and making them the bad guys, purposefully downplaying a role usually saved for genuinely evil or at least dangerously misguided type, Skull and Yell proved to be very different characters at the end of it.

Skull were actual delinquents, showing up wherever they were just to annoy and pester the local townsfolk. Further into the story you end up realizing these are, kids, mostly homeless and unwanted kids at that too. Even with some of the misguided villains we had before, they ended up becoming the least evil and most sympathetic types we came across in the series. Even second-on-command Plumeria ends up coming across as a tough-love motherly figure just trying to keep everyone happy and in-line, and real boss Guzma just reveals himself to be a bit of a stand-offish punk who’s more easily used than he thinks.

Yell doesn’t even do things as bad as that. They are just the fans of trainer Marnie, and are way too loud in their embarrassing levels of support. In short, they’re sports fans with a favorite player. They don’t have a leader, unless you want to count Marnie as they certainly see her as one, even if she certainly doesn’t. Sword and Shield reenvisioned the Pokémon journey as a grand sport that only a lucky few were even able to truly last in, so having obnoxious sports fans whom aren’t actually evil in the slightest were pretty much a perfect antagonist for that type of adventure. Some fans felt Yell was either not used the best or was too close to Skull, but as I said, I think they worked great and were radically different under a similar sounding outer layer.

Both teams had one big similarity too; both were eventually red herrings to the true villain. Skull traded off for a villain whom really stuck with me, and Yell led to a villain I genuinely was hoping wasn’t going to happen as that one felt like a repeat and nowhere near as interesting. But, those villains did also at least have different personalities, so they will be in their own sections. Honestly, let’s do the latter next:


- The Well-Intended -


Sometimes the worst of crimes come from the best intentions. The Pokémon franchise has no problems showing those kinds of bad guys, and their intentions varied, even as much as the very first time they tried it.

revamped aqua and magmas.png

As I said in the third part of my Games I Played in 2020 list, Pokémon Emerald is my favorite game. As such, you better believe I can talk at length about Team Magma, although maybe not as much about Team Aqua. See, I started Gen 3 with Ruby, so Aqua was originally a group of heroes or anti-heroes at first to me, until they showed their evil sides in Emerald alongside Magma yet while still opposing them.

Magma’s goal was to heat up the Hoenn region, feeling that there is not enough land for the Pokémon that live on it and using any means they can to do so. Aqua feels there isn’t enough ocean for all the Pokémon in it and want to cause a massive rain to expand the seas, again using any methods. In Emerald you admittedly spend more time fighting Magma, but considering Maxie and Archie’s different personalities it’s more fitting for the both of them. Maxie is the more intelligent and calculating one, while Groudon is on his radar it seems to be his final idea instead of his only one, he’d rather try out the volcano first and he even has another last ditch effort he planned in advance with the rocket fuel. As for Archie, he’s more aloof yet brutish, his only goal is Kyogre and as such every thing he does is just part of that one plan, and while it does have it’s steps they also do sometimes seem to just be randomly thought up at times.

For both being environmental extremists, both basically using forced climate change to gain what they think they want, and both seeing their error of their ways almost as soon as their plan comes true, Magma and Aqua were still radically different in terms of how and why and they’ve both stuck with me over the years even if you don’t have to twist my arm to make me admit I like Magma more.

Speaking of Magma, while both teams have higher ups whose names I remember (Tabitha, Shelly, Matt), it’s Courtney who has my attention the most and that is now true for many others. She’s basically a grunt with a good design in the original Ruby, a psycho who is still redeemable in the manga, and even more psycho and somehow redeemable in Omega Ruby. She’s loved for her design and for being easily the darkest character from both teams, while not really erasing this gens ideals of having anti-villains who mean well yet don’t understand what they are really doing. Courtney might love fire, but she was still a flawed human willing to earn up and do better. All of which is very impressive for a character that ended up being cut from Emerald!

Now when it comes to the rest of the well-intended, we pretty much have solo characters and a half-example for a team. So, let’s start with an example I feel, may honestly be the weakest example we’ve had, so I guess spoiler warning for Sword and Shield:

Rose fucker.png

Chairman Rose spends a good deal of Sword and Shield feeling like a goofy and well-meaning CEO. However, the last CEO from a Pokémon game turned out to be the true villain, and since there was also a team of rebellious youths as the fake-out villains, myself and many others assumed well in advanced Rose was going to turn evil. And unlike the previous twist villain, Rose fell completely flat for me.

I was really hoping Team Yell and rival Bede would be as evil as the characters got, just obnoxious fans and a mean spoiled rival whom both turn out not evil by the end, which really worked for the overall adventurous atmosphere. I suppose I can say one thing good about Rose is that at least his motive is far different, Rose believes that true tragedy must befall the world in order for it to truly prosper afterwards. There’s a myth in Galar about that exact thing happening, and with the philosophy of “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”, sure, I can see why someone might be deluded enough think it really is the best thing. He’s still evil, but he counts as well-intended which makes him different from the last twist villain yet ultimately a lot less interesting.

He’s not just another twist villain after a twist villain, he’s also just a character who feels more flat than the last twist villain. Even his design doesn’t feel as good, his own henchwoman seemingly has more character, and while I do still like the game he’s from I will say he’s not only the weakest part of it, he’s now one of the weakest villains from the games and it already starting to be the first one I’m forgetting about. There’s one whole team I despite more, but I won’t forget them, and that might mean Rose is technically the weakest villain in the whole game series.

So we’ll now go from weakest solo villain, to a group whom I have started to understand a bit better over the years. I don’t know if they entirely count for this slot, but whenever I think them over, I kind of realize they almost fit here as there’s a sympathy I feel for two different reasons. One is that how the whole group is just being duped, and one is how the leader duping them has reasons the game did a decent enough job making the sympathy come through. It’s not who you think I’m talking about, believe it or not, I’m talking about Team Galactic and Cyrus:

Cyrus fucker.png

Who you likely thought I was going to talk about, he’s next.

Honestly, I think even as much as I used to really not like Team Galactic or Cyrus, thinking back on my Platinum experience there’s a dramatic irony and tragedy there that while not as well-written as it should have been, is worth revisiting to try and really understand their plight.

So that starts the question, what exactly is Team Galactic after? I don’t mean Cyrus, whose end goal is to create a new dimension purely for himself, I mean what do Team Galactic actually want? That’s the thing, I still really don’t know what the individual members want. Sure, it’s been over seven years since I last played Platinum, which is still the version with the better writing for Team Galactic from what I understand, but I really don’t know what Team Galactic was trying to do.

And neither did they.

The grunts, Charon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, they all believed in what they were told was Cyrus’s vision but every single one of them was being played. While the Commanders where closer to Cyrus than the grunts, and did a lot of the scientific work for him, they were always going to be cut out of the final goal and that ultimately means they were doing all this work for nothing at all. Considering some grunts even mention building a better world, they end up counting here for that reason. Some Galactic members really thought they were doing evil to build a new world, not to destroy everything for the sake of one lonely man.

And that’s Cyrus ultimately too, a lonely man who feels nothing anymore and just wants something for himself. He’s still more evil than Magma, Aqua, even Rose and Giovanni, but when you dive into how he turned out this way there is a sympathy that’s not completely unfounded.

Team Galactic is as uneven as I felt they were the first time I played, but honestly, only now am I realizing that was more intentional than I thought. They are a group of people who do not really know what their own motives or end goals actually are. It’s why there’s so many genuinely malicious members and so many jokesters who are not taking anything seriously. I won’t defend some decisions from Gen IV, and am happy they didn’t come back, but Team Galactic are far more interesting than I once considered them to be.

And now dear readers, we talk about the sympathetic well-intender you were expecting:

You know you’re popular when you get a Nendoroid

You know you’re popular when you get a Nendoroid

Natural “N” Harmonia, one of if not the most popular of Pokémon game villains. N’s goal is to change the Pokémon world, because after multiple friendships with wild and abandoned Pokémon he not only learned how to understand what they are saying, he learned exactly how often Pokémon are abused and mishandled by their trainers. In reality this is a good thing to want, it’s morally sound, it’s just both the methods he is using and the people truly behind him that put in on the path of villainy.

And yet, N is also the most successful villain in the franchise too. NPCs who oppose him fully in the start end up listening to him in the end anyway, he gains respect from those who initially brushed him off. N does change hearts and minds, and more impressive, he even changed the hearts of real life players. Like I said, N is possibly the most popular villain to this day, and after Black and White, there was a bigger focus on Pokémon being your dear friends whom deserve your love and attention. This was part of the idea of course, The Pokémon Company was ready to start deconstructing their premise, and with one great villain they sure as hell did.

N was thoughtful, charming, sympathetic, considerate, regretful, the most successful villain from Pokémon was the one who wasn’t actually evil at all. It’s easy to see why Team Plasma was divided between members who truly saw him as their king, and members who actually knew what the real goal was.

So with that said, we have to go to the type of villains who are the opposite of N. From the character who does not ultimately count as evil, to the ones who count as nothing but evil.

- The Purest Of Evil -


The Pokémon Company clearly likes sympathetic anti-villains, considering they ended up being the biggest category. And yet, when they decide to take off the gloves and let the players fight against real evil, we got characters who were truly frightening in how far they were willing to go. While I found one to be one of their least interesting examples, the other two will stay with me for their haunting glare alone. Let’s start with the most recent, the twist villain of Sun and Moon:

Lusamine fucker.png

So again I need to state I barely played Ultra Sun, but did hear about the differences in story. I know that Lusamine was given a new reason to search for the Ultra Beasts, a sympathetic motive and retool. Honestly, while again I didn’t play it, I can consider that sympathetic take a reason why I didn’t finish it.

Look, my love for Team Magma and Plasma should have made it clear I do heavily enjoy villains with depth and sympathy, however, there are plenty of times where being sheer evil is the more interesting character. Lusamine in regular Sun and Moon is an emotionally distant and abusive parent, she sees no value in her children nor employees as anything other than a means to an end, and her end is nothing but an obsession she just plain has. She has no real grand reason for the obsession, she just has it and it’s enough to drive her to the lowest of actions. She’s vile and cruel, one of the most disgusting characters the franchise ever saw, and it’s why I enjoyed defeating her so much. Sometimes a villain is a villain, someone who does not really have a heart and who can’t be talked down, and Lusamine was one of the few in the game side of the franchise. A true wicked mother that is more real than some people may want to admit. Like Rose, there was also a feeling she wasn’t nearly as nice as she was letting on, but unlike Rose there was legitimate foreshadowing and her character fit the story a lot better.

Sun and Moon are still great entries for many a reason, and while I’m sure there’s tons of merit in Ultra Sun and Moon, I’ll take the truly terrible and irredeemable bastard we got with Sun and Moon Lusamine any day.

But just because true evil can be interesting, that doesn’t always mean it is:

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While I have a bit more appreciation for Platinum and it’s villains as the years grow on, I think I dislike X and Y and Team Flare even more the older I get. I understand the competitive side was finally allowed to flourish starting here and I won’t take that away from anyone, yet I still have to stick with my guns that the story and characters from this generation are still the weakest and worst of the games.

Let’s not mix words here, Team Flare were a team of genocidal lunatics, self-obsessed fascists, they were purposefully meant to be the darkest and vilest villains yet, beating even last gen’s true monster. In so many ways I still can’t fathom, this all feel completely flat on it’s face.

Why was Team Flare constantly making really bad fashion jokes? Why was Lysandre so obviously evil to the point where it’s not even funny to joke about it? What was the point of having an Elite Four member mention off-hand that they were a member, as if that ultimately matters for a character we’d only see once and for a few minutes at most, why not a gym leader or the professor if you really wanted a shocking reveal?

If the point was to be sickened, to be shocked at the depravity, then they needed to cut the comedy by a lot. Yes, have some comedy to add levity, that’s more than acceptable especially for a kid’s game. But I ended up never taking a single member of Flare seriously, and for characters allegedly capable of killing all life, it’s an absolute shock that I could not be bothered. Even Galactic, back when I couldn’t stand them, felt more interesting and intimidating than this group of attempted mass murderers.

I will remember Lysandre as one of the biggest failures, so he will be remembered more often than Chairman Rose, but I hope something you may have noticed is that I didn’t name any of his followers. I do not remember their names, and I can’t be bothered to look them up. X and Y have more forgettable characters than other games, and sadly the ones I did remember were mostly the ones I hated, Lysandre being the biggest example. I am okay with villains who are pure evil, but it’s a character you really need to know how to write. They didn’t this time. Lysandra and Team Flare ended up so bland that any threat level they were clearly supposed to have just dried up every time one of them opened their stupid little mouths. To have characters with the power to kill all existence have absolutely no threat level is an embarrassment, let only any fictional villain with nothing interesting about them.

Which is an even bigger shock for a company that did it very right in every single way only one game generation before:

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The only solo villain I think can make the argument for being even more popular than N Harmonia, would be his adoptive yet abusive father Ghetsis Harmonia. Ghetsis goes to the depths of evil that no other Pokémon villain has yet to go to still. Adopting a child just to mold him into a mouthpiece, building a group under false pretenses while making absolutely sure to still fill it up with members who gleefully know what they were really up to. Ghetsis is the walking nightmare of the Pokémon mainline games, for years we’d heard about trainers who only saw Pokémon as nothing but tools, but all the past villains had some sort of redeeming relationship with their Pokémon as even the cold and emotionless Cyrus managed a friendship evolution of Golbat to Crobat. No such thing this time, Ghetsis’s choice of Pokémon only boiled down to what worked most effectively as a weapon, even carrying into the sequel where he now searched for a legendary Pokémon for the sole purpose of using it as nothing more than an ice cannon, even bragging about how he was positive anyone trapped in the ice would still stay alive and would only be able to watch the horrors without being able to do anything.

Team Plasma gets up to criminal activity under his care even when they are playing up their false good intentions, but once he’s caught and sheds the façade he barely maintained anyway, the team’s very appearance shows his true nature. No longer the white knights whom allied themselves with N, they now dressed like agents of terror and acted like them too.

Ghetsis is a level of evil we hear about in fairy tales and hope don’t really exist, making him the perfect counterpoint to N’s naïve yet good nature. He’s not remotely afraid to kill, he enjoys tormenting others, he wants to rule the world and most likely crush it to pieces soon after. Out of ever fight you’ll have, he’s the one you really want to completely beat forever, the world is better off with him no longer ruining it.

The mainline games have almost every type of villain; greedy gangsters, world dominators, misguided animal loves, hopeless cynics, obsession chasers, even as simple as loud jerks. You can’t love them all, at least I certainly couldn’t, but the mark is passed more often than failed and I’d say that’s very good especially with the amount of homeruns.

Tune in again soon for another discussion, where I look back at the villains from the TV series and movies. And as stated before, you can keep this blog alive with a simple pledge to my Patreon! Either way, thanks for stopping by and reading what I had to say this time.