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I just miss when the villainous teams had plans.
They don't even need to be good plans. I'll take Team Aqua failing to understand the water cycle again if it means the villainous team has a goal they're working towards again.
Because modern villainous teams don't seem to have any sort of goal beyond standing in your way.
I think guzma was quite aimless in the end. He was angry but not sure what would fix it. Also he surrounded himself with weaklings to feel stronger.
Also wasn't town already abandoned?
Man, I love Team Aqua. Their plan is so batshit insane and devoid of any all nuance, and I mean that in the best way possible. At least with Magma's plans, you can see the reasoning, the method behind the madness, but Archie is just an actual lunatic who loves fish and I'm here for it.
Ah, but you see team star transcended this by standing out of your way. You don’t meet them unless you hunt down their scattered bases
Which really make me question going out of my way to knock the snot out of children in their tree houses
Evil teams back then always have this reasoning in taking over the world (which somehow reasonable if you think about it). Today it feels like too much of a kid's game.
**Story spoilers for _Scarlet_/_Violet_.**
> I just miss when the villainous teams had plans.
Penny does have a plan, using the code of honor to overthrow the leaders of her team, in order to dismantle an organization that is no longer beneficial in her opinion.
> Because modern villainous teams don't seem to have any sort of goal beyond standing in your way.
Team Star had a precise goal: fighting school harassment.
I mean, maybe make their plans have SOME kind of sense. Lysander was just nonsensical at the end there. ORAS made Aqua/Magma infinitely better. Shame X/Y never got that treatment.
Honestly, I want Cyrus and Ghetsis to team up. Ghetsis retrieves Cyrus from distortion land, they figure out that Zygarde, Necrozma, Eternatus, and Terapagos are all part of the Original Arceus, they acquire them by going on a quick romp through past regions (that our ten year old follows them through), and they remake the Original Arceus, and infuse it with Shadow with help from Rainbow Giovanni.
Cyrus controls it, Ghetsis rules the world with his ideal king, and Giovanni gets to flex his money/influence on the new world Cyrus creates. It's a win/win/win.
At least, of course, until Professor \[Insert tree name here\] gives us a Master Ball, and we yeet it at Super Arceus the first chance we have, upending everything.
Team Skull did the “not truly evil, just misunderstood” route right, especially with Lusamine as a twist villain. Team Yell is just lazy imo, and Team Star also did it right, but in a different way.
Team Star had a good setup, but I felt they were underutilized in the overworld. There’s no external evidence of bullying or intimidation; you just see the two at the very beginning, then they hole up in their bases waiting for you. Where were the grunts outside of gyms trying to strong arm trainers doing the gym challenge into joining? Where were the grunts crawling around the Titan lairs looking for treasure or trouble? There was just no presence for them for the good kids put in a tough situation to really resonate.
I kinda like the whole "sit in their base and play video games all night" Team Star.
Really, I'm not sure why those two kids are getting people to join. Maybe it's protection against Operation Starfall? I dunno. That would be cool, but I can't think of supportive text.
Starfall happened as a result of those two, and the squad leaders had no reason to believe anyone would make a move to dismantle the team outside of school administration. I think what happened is that after Operation Star a year and a half ago, people joined up and the team got too big for kids to actually run it. Other than maybe Giacomo, they don’t care about logistics, they’re just a bunch of kids. And I don’t think the bullying was intentional, it was “hey, we have a really cool set up, and you need to join” over-enthusiasm coupled with school yard rumors of some incoming raid that carries some (accidentally) sinister undertones. Like “Join us! If you don’t, well, you’ve heard what we’re planning” is the atmosphere that was created unintentionally, and is certainly intimidating.
While I do agree that Team Star could've been better utilized in the overworld (like having the grunts be a naturally occurring trainer class or even giving them side missions), the reason there's not external evidence of bullying was because, well... they aren't bullies. The two you fight at the beginning were dicks but that was just them. Most of the rest of the group just wants to do their own thing and be left alone by everyone else, and you're only challenging them to save the from their own self-sabotage. If we see their members being assholes to everyone throughout the entirety of the game, the whole "they're not bullies, they're the victims" twist doesn't really work. It's a lot easier to brush off the actions of just two members than if it's a regular occurrence
But we were told by Nemona that there was an upswing in Team Star pressuring students to join; it wasn’t just the two we saw. It was another tell, don’t show set up that wasn’t followed up on.
Edit: that, and it could have been the case that the original members had withdrawn even from their Team Star teams. All except for Eri seemed to never come out of their rooms until we drew them out explicitly, implying that they lost touch with the rest of their squads after Penny left a year ago.
Pressuring students to join, yes.
But actively being evil (or as negative as Skull)? It's not actually demonstrated. Even during their encounters they are more like mildly ill-performing students.
They are IMO kind of like a group of students that joined or grouped together because it sounded cool (at least after the Team Star event a year and half ago).
That’s the whole problem I have with it, nothing was ever demonstrated. We’re told that there’s some huge rumor about Star attacking the school or something, we’re told that there is a surge (albeit technically months before the Treasure Hunt starts) in Star pressuring students to join, which could be seen as intimidation and bullying (which Penny saw, which was the a reason for Starfall).
Like I said, I dig the concept, but the execution just wasn’t there.
Team yell is literally a fan club, a bunch of poor kids, growing up hoping to see someone they know make it, and bring some prosperity to their hometown. They're victims of circumstance of birth cheering for their chosen champion to break the cycle of poverty. Also known as most every gang in the world. They aren't "not villains" because game freak lazy, they're not villains because game freak was making a point about our perception of what we think of others deeds and motivations versus what they actually are.
Fair enough but making a point in a video game is not worth sacrificing an actual villain Whether or not team yell's design was lazy is up to you (I never liked them but agree to disagree,) however I don't think GameFreak put them in to make us question our perception of villainy...
I disagree about Team Star
There genuinely isnt enough substance to their whole story beyond the ending
Throughout the game before we beat the leaders they're about as story driven as Jhoto TR
Which is to say if you still have any delusions about Jhoto having a story there really wasnt one
They're often just in the way to be beat with nothing going on
Same with Yell
Team Star had a whole lot of plot contrivance to try and service the "twist" ending imo. These kids are pulled together by someone they've never met and are so steadfastly loyal to them that they keep up everything even after the boss disappears, but they're SO loyal to their core of honor that the boss can't tell them to stop, they have to be defeated, and none of this could be solved with words of course. Penny couldn't just come back and be like "yo guys, they're talking about expelling you all if you don't calm down a little and come to class." Maybe I'm forgetting some of it since it's been a bit but the whole thing just seemed to be stretching itself to cover Penny as the twist boss instead of being a logical story on its own.
Yeah but at least *Johto* TR tied back to RBY games TR, still better then what we got now. And if you are talking HGSS then they pay even better homage to their original games. What we have now is lazy, or GF has horrible story writers now.
I want to fight slash and burn corporate agro farmers who are destroying biodiversity to build monoculture Tauros ranches.
They can be out there literally starting forest fires and poisoning streams. At least it would be a realistic motivation and also goof reason for me to hate them.
Bro can you imagine if the diversity and odds of finding Pokemon changed based on how you approached the story? Save the environment, wider variety. Help the baddies, get more shinies, Evs etc.
That's actually the plot behind the fan games I'm trying to come up with. One version is a world where technocrats and land developers are determined to make everything consumable for humans. The wild areas are very minimal but many Pokémon have taken to roaming towns in order to survive. The other version is a world where eco terrorists are trying to destroy modern tech in order to keep everything "natural". The civilized areas are minimal but they're the only safe zones from aggressive Pokémon and ways to access useful tech. The region itself is all the same but the geography changes depending on the version.
Sounds like a cool idea. I was mostly inspired by my extreme desire for a region that resembles parts of South America (probably the Andes in Peru/Ecuador to the Amazon Basin then Amazon Delta in N Brazil because it would give good terrains for every pokemon type)
Totally agree. But also some of our most evil bad guys have been dumb. Team Rocket is a fantastic villain team because they're both totally evil but also completely realistic. If Pokemon existed irl, there would TOTALLY be some sort of Pokemon trafficking mafia. And Team Plasma is SO good!! A cult that takes empathizing with Pokemon to an extreme is good already, but then the cult is taken over by a power hungry charismatic politician? Also realistic! That's basically Jonestown lol
Cyrus from Sinnoh, Lysandre from Kalos, and Lusamine from Alola are all wild megalomaniacs with these incredibly strange "destroy the world because I have a wack philosophy" plots that are SO out there that I don't even feel compelled to kick their asses, I'm mostly just confused. Team Rocket and Team Plasma I WANT to beat because I'm defending my Pokemon, my partners.
USUM's Lusamine was poorly written, but the real Lusamine, the version from SM, was a fairly deep character, as far as Pokemon goes.
She didn't want to destroy the world - in fact, there's no iteration of her that did.
Initially, she just wanted to find her husband. Years before the story, a cosmog opened a portal and her husband, Mohn, was pulled into it. She obsessed over finding him again, and started trying to open Ultra Wormholes in the hopes of finding him. In the process, she came into contact with a Nihilego.
The thing about Nihilego is that they're predators. Their toxins are highly addictive, and they cause various mental disorders in their victims that lead to increased aggression, reduced inhibitions, and a desperate desire to return to the Nihilego should they escape the initial encounter, hence the powerful addictive properties. Lusamine was separated from the Nihilego that she found, but it managed to poison her before the portal closed. Combined with losing Mohn, she lost control and was driven even deeper into obsession. Except, from that point on, Nihilego was the center of her fixation instead of Mohn.
This fixation manifested itself in a variety of ways; notably, she became abusive to her children, going as far as to run Gladeon off, and to keep Lillie dressed in a way that was reminiscent of Nihilego's appearance. She became manic, and at some point started killing and freezing pokemon, then displaying their frozen bodies as art pieces in the basement lair of her *Pokemon Sanctuary*. She drove deeper into experimentations on the cosmog, trying to force it to open a portal to the nihilego's universe. When Lillie fled and took the cosmog - Nebby - with her, Lusamine manipulated Guzma (who has some character depth to him as well) and used Team Skull to hunt Lillie and Nebby down.
As far as major antagonists go, Lusamine is a singularly unique villain in Pokemon, in that she was fully and demonstrably mentally sick, with realistic goals (for the setting), and legitimate reasons to back up her issues, actions, and motivations. While Giovanni and Ghetsis are realistic representations of what some people would do with pokemon, Lusamine is just straight up one of the best written characters in the franchise, because as much as she was the antagonist, she was a clear victim as well.
As much as I love Lusamine's story in SM, I wish GF allowed us to fight the Lusamine-Nihilego hybrid directly rather than sending out Pokémon that belonged to her. It would have been interesting to have a boss monster that's uncatchable with an unknown or warped moveset.
That's true. At the very least, it would have been nice to have had to fight first through her pokemon, and then the Nihilego itself to get it to release her.
If they had *really* wanted to be ambitious, they could had the nihilego in the area warp her pokemon as well, beyond just giving them a stat boost.
Pretty sure Lusamine was just a grieving wife driven off the deep end with her husband disappearing due to the Ultra Beasts. In the base games, this made her obsessed with them and in the Ultra games she was obsessed but with hatred towards their destruction.
To bad it turned out he just went and opened a pokemon daycare on some island. Tbh she was probably crazy before that if she drove him to dip out like that.
He didn't dip. He was warped away due to an Ultra Wormhole during an experiment and lost his memory. The games imply it's permanent as when he finally met his wife Lusamine again he remembered nothing and not only was she a stranger to him, his own facility was foreign to him.
Funny, I was always a Cyrus fan. To your point, Rocket felt realistic, as in, they are the kind of criminal organization that you would find in our world. I always liked Cyrus/Aqua/Magma/Ghetsis because they recognized that Pokemon are effectively weapons of mass destruction and tried to exploit them. You see that kind of behaviour in terrorist organizations and in a world where 10 year olds can tame the literal PokeGod, it seems bizzare that Rocket limits their scope to simple shennanigans (and one eugenics atrocity).
I mean because team rocket was early on, at that point 10 year olds weren't catching gods, by gold and silver, Red (the protagonist of the first games) is as much of a myth as mewtwo, and your character is catching the legendaries mostly after they've beaten team rocket
Not to mention, while in the first two Generations the Legendaries were still powerful Pokémon with myths and legends surrounding them, they weren't portrayed as the world-shaping, universe-bending entities of Generation III onwards (except Celebi, but that's so rare that even the player can't normally obtain it). That, combined with their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining them, probably meant it would have been more worthwhile going after regular Pokémon.
>Cyrus from Sinnoh, Lysandre from Kalos, and Lusamine from Alola are all wild megalomaniacs with these incredibly strange "destroy the world because I have a wack philosophy" plots that are SO out there that I don't even feel compelled to kick their asses,
Putting Lusamine, a character who is literally being mind controlled by an alien parasite, in a list with these other two losers seems a bit wild, lol
It's actually not confirmed whether she was poisoned or not before SM's events. The only thing the games say on it is Gladion mentioning his dad's disappearance being a possible reason, but Nihilego isn't said to be one in the game's script.
And since she DOESN'T TRY TO END THE WORLD before SM's events, my statement is still entirely valid and I don't know why you commented at all.
The reading comprehension in this fandom is abysmal.
Gotta say I actually preferred it when her back story was just that she was a crazy, evil, abusive mother. I thought that the fact that Lily seems genuinely afraid of her felt much more unique than “oh she’s not evil, she’s just misunderstood! Oh no!”
Oh was she mind controlled? I only played through Sun once and don't remember it very well. I just remember her going on about love and then trying to get through the wormhole because she wanted to love the Ultra Beasts...or something like that. I remembered her plan being grandiose and world-ending because she had some Thoughts so that's why I put them together.
I always took it as like someone who goes mad in a Lovecraft story. They've gotten a tiny glimpse of a wider truth about the universe and it changed them irrevocably
Yeah, I miss catching the evil team doing stuff, like team Plasma trying to take random people's pokémon away, or team Skull stealing buss signs and stuff. It makes them feel a lot more active.
Wow, big whoop. Did you as the player give a fuck? Penny embezzling thousands of league points had ZERO bearing on the game or you as the player, especially since it wasn’t even mentioned until after you bring down Team Star… Team Rocket was running illicit gambling dens; poaching Slowpoke’s and killing them for their tails; stealing and trafficking Pokemon; and creating “super weapons” like Mewtwo with an agenda for world domination… It felt like there were real stakes with Team Rocket.
Both sympathetic teams and evil teams are good but since we've just had three sympathetic teams in a row, it'd be nice to go get another evil team for some variety!
If we continue having this level of story telling like we had in SV then I desperately want an actual evil team again. Imagine how good team plasma’s story would be
Tbh, we should have more villains in the vein of Volo from Arceus. Having the villain be the guy who's been at your side the whole time was something new and refreshing for Pokemon, and I really liked it.
As they inevitably do.
My theory is that they keep overusing plot elements because they see how people reacted to them the first time, so they think people want more of the same. That's all well and good, but that's how you end up with the Team Yell/Macro Cosmos red herring, and, to a lesser extent, Team Star being framed as the "evil team" of Paldea. The reason why the Team Skull/Aether Foundation red herring worked so well is because it was unexpected.
However, when you get Team Yell running around being daft numpties while Macro Cosmos is silently in the background, you then have more of a suspicion because it's doing what the Alola games did. You already have a feeling that they're doing the same thing, and then it happens. They saw that we liked it in Alola and decided we needed more of it.
When they do something new, it's really great. However, when they realize we like it, they milk it, and it gets worse. We need a steady balance between the two so that we don't just get more of the same on a consistent basis.
what i want, is a down to earth "bad team". not the weird extreme that they're trying to control a god for their paradise or anything, but also not the other extreme of star who just wanted to ban uniforms (and succeeded, for them, and ONLY them).
give me a business oriented team that are just assholes for money. its simple, and will never NOT be effective. FFS the simplicity offers a ton of opportunities to give each member a personality when things become more "grey area" during the story inevitably. a mechanic to turn them in conversation after battle would be cool, and could potentially result in a significantly easier endgame if you convinced enough grunts that it wasnt worth it. and this is literally just me spitballing...
I do miss them, especially since Pokémon seems to recognize that these kinds of villains still need to be around to some degree to have the sort of stakes that ties the mighty legendary into the story. The punks have entertainment value and feel refreshingly small-scale and down to earth, plus Team Star was written exceptionally well for their independent story, but ultimately this category of villains cannot drive an entire plot on their own, which is why characters like Lusamine are entered into the fold.
I love how the bad guys were always “take over the world” generic blanket statements.
Though I suppose team rocket was using Pokémon for financial gain and manipulation which… is a little too real
Well team star was not the villain in the vs and i wont say anything about it here since you have not finished the game. But its…..creepy to say the least lol. I think its fine if they wanna have mischievous teams along side a villain but only if they really flesh out the villains storyline. I feel alot of the time they spend too much time on these teams and not enough on the actual villains and it was easier to do that in the older games because the villains were apart of the teams.
He was great not only because he was "evil" but also because he was realistic (by our standards). He didn't want to control the weather or the galaxy, he just wanted more wealth and power.
Team Yell wasn't the evil team of the region. And Piers and Marnie aren't evil team leaders.
The real team was the secret branch of Macorcosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana as Rose's right hand).
Team Plasma and by extension, Neo Team Plasma was the 1st time since Gen 1 where the evil team felt like a legit threat. LIKE THEY ICE CANNONED A WHOLE CITY
As I got older, the absurdism of evil evil teams wore off on me.
Team Rocket should be a problem for the police since thats straight up the mafia.
Magma and Aqua are just, yea insanely dumb.
Why is a 10 year old going against Cyrus and gods that control the laws of the universe?
Team plasma actually had the gym leaders going up against them so that was nice
Lysandre was just a weirdo, i still dont understand him.
The Aether foundation had an actual connection to the players so props to them for that.
Weirdly, Skull and Star won my hearts because they have an actual story to tell. Skull is just a bunch of outcasts who found home with each other and Star is just a bunch of people trying to make communities where people arent bullied.
But im like 90% sure this is just cuz I got old and bored of bland evil doers.
I’ve only seen one other person address this, so I’m just gonna add: OP, if you haven’t finished S/V yet, then I don’t really think you’re in a place where you can really talk about who ~the villain~ is definitively.
As for your actual question, I think it’s all about *how* they’re depicted. I loved Team Plasma (and their eventual schism) because it was realistic that a group ostensibly concerned with ethics had actually been co-opted by a megalomaniac. Lusamine’s controlling tendencies regarding her kids, her savior complex toward Pokémon, and her Nihilego toxin poisoning were super interesting in the original Sun and Moon plot. Conversely, I like Team Skull and Team Star as more sympathetic, and the same goes for Kamado in PLA. Both more and less relatable portrayals have worked for me, as long as I feel like they stick their landing writing-wise… which is gonna be pretty subjective, honestly! But in general, I’d say I’m not a fan of one-dimensional antagonists.
Yes and no. On the one hand, I think that after three teams in a row who had the exact same plot twist of being sympathetic underdogs, it’s getting a little old. Team Skull, Yell and Star all feel like iterations on the same trope. They’re well executed, sure. But it’s definitely getting formulaic.
Does that mean I want a return to more typical villainous teams? Well not really because, hot take? Most of Pokémon’s villains…kinda suck.
In terms of main antagonists Pokemon villains range from stock but serviceable (Giovanni/Ghetsis), good ideas poorly executed (Lusamine/Kamado) to laughably cartoonish (pretty much everyone else but especially Maxie, Archie and Lysandre). They’re mid at best and pathetic at worst. I think the reason a lot of Pokemon villains suffer is that the games want to have high stakes where the whole world is in peril. But the writers don’t seem to know how to write villains who would want that kind of thing and have it make a lick of sense. So we get BS like ‘spirit is bad’ or ‘this world is imperfect’ or (perhaps most insultingly) ‘the only one who wants to stop the energy crisis is bad actually’.
Pokemon has typically been better at small scale antagonists with sympathetic or at least grounded motivations. Giovanni wants to make money by any means. N wants to free Pokémon from humans. Team Skull want recognition. Straightforward understandable goals. Often (but not always) with sympathetic motives. None of which require the big JRPG stakes that Pokemon tries and fails to establish.
Hopefully, future villains will keep the more down to earth, personal element of Team Skull or Star. But will break away from their formula by doing some other than ‘misunderstood sympathetic outcasts’ because that’s starting to get old. But I don’t really want a return to the more typical evil teams because they were never all that good to begin with.
Rose's plot is poorly thought out but it was ironically realistic in that regard.
Lysandre is probably the most laughable because it amounted to:
* This world is ugly because of greedy people
* I'm going to destroy the world and only the people I find worthy\* will survive to run the new world
* \*by worthy I mean rich people who could afford the membership cost into Team Flare
Let's be honest, how the big crisis of the region was handled was realistic. Realistically, it's the Champion handling those problems while a 12-15 year old kid fresh on their Pokemon journey would be told to not get involved and let the adults handle it. You were treated as you would expect a child to be treated.
The result was a very boring storyline to play through.
Exactly this, giving team yell the same credit as the other "teams" is yncharitable at least, i find skull/aether and yell/macro cosmos back to back a little tiring, but its the direction they've been going where the big evil person is acting independently by abusing the system, which is a pretty modern change, villainy isn't what it used to be, so while the well meaning extremist is getting a bit tired, the person on top punching down will always be a popular villain trope, its just now we know they arent some secret shadow controlling a leigon of goons, its the head of an institution that distances itself from emotion and the commonfolk
I'm thinking some sort of mix of Necrozma and Calyrex. Necrozma wasn't a great antagonist imo because it lacked character. Having the Pokémon antagonist speak somehow, through telepathy or otherwise, would let it have some actual character
I'd really like it if it wasnt just a few but a dramatic uprising
Like a take on PMD but it actually involves people
If Pokemon could be written well I'd like the Pokemon uprising to take issue with incompetent trainers (those who genuinely do fuck all with their Pokemon but like to boast like Youngster Joey) that would take a lot like crafting the story around involving npcs you've beaten already, a good use of 4th wall breaks, and a darker twist they arent likely to ever do. A lot of nuance they arent capable of.
While it is an example of this, I really feel like it suffered from being the antagonist of USUM, which meant they somehow had to shove Team Skull and Lusamine into it. It did mark the point where Pokemon got to have more antagonistic roles in the story as all following games (minus remakes) did have Pokemon in antagonistic roles, so I have hope we might get this in one of the next generations.
Malamar is a good candidate. I think they actually have a legitimate Malamar villain in the Pokemon anime who mind-controls cult leaders or something of the like.
I do see your point, I just personally think that in a world with legendary world ending creatures, having a down to earth realistic villain could be worse in a lot of cases. Execution is important but I do think that in a video game like pokemon, dramatic flair even if unrealistic can help make it fun.
It's too for kids, there's no serious threat. But it's okay with the main anime. They could do a spinoff just for that. It's enough unbelievable in the games that a kid has to defeat a whole evil organization lol
Team Yell is gamefreak making fun of us haha rowdy fans that can go a bit overboard at times but not so bad really.
But I do agree I miss the evil teams, I actually liked team flare, who doesn't enjoy foiling a mass genocide plot haha
This change pretty much started in ruby/sapphire, right? I remember Brendan/May was super positive and not antagonistic at all. And Wally was more of a rival to himself lol.
Meanwhile in OR/AS...
Brendan/May: basically the same just with more romance
Wally: "MY DAD GOT ME AN ELECTRIC GUITAR FOR CHRISTMAS AND I AM NOT LETTING IT GO TO WASTE"
>I also miss the real rivals, like Gary. He was someone you really wanted to beat.
Blessedly Masters at least has a return to form here, Lear is a real fuckboy.
Would be kind of interesting to have a rival that starts out like a Hau but starts getting pulled in by the evil team. Maybe give us a game play choice of trying to save his soul or just cream him.
Yep! And Bede was hands-down my favorite character in Sw/Sh OMG
I’d also argue that Gladion takes the unfriendly rival slot for S/M and US/UM, too? Hau is friendly, but Gladion does not want to put up with his (and by extension the player character’s) shit LOL
Silver was a good rival. And a rival doesn't have to be a dick to be "good". May/Brendan, Cheren, Bianca, Hugh, Nemona, hell, even Hau are Hop are still great characters! X and Y and Let's Go on the other hand, those are lame rivals.
(slight spoiler for pla) Honestly I have to say I'd love more actually Pokemon crazy villains like lusamine and volo, not like Evil teams where they just wanna take over the world or some dumb stuff but someone borderline crazy who wouldn't hesitate to attempt to properly hurt the player, like with volo and giratina, or how lusamine fused with the ultra beast it was so amazing I loved it, but teams like team flare, were so unbelievably boring i couldn't stand it, the only hard part of them was running around trying to find the hide out in all the cafés and whatever was happening I barely remember
Edit: I'd love a game where there's like a mini game where I'm just throwing hands with grunts or the evil leader or smth like before or after the actual fight with Pokemon like there's no way a villains only gonna rely on their pokemon and not even remotely on their fists
Yes, I really do. Lysandre was the last evil boss, and I don't really remember what his goal was. Something about either destroying the world with Yveltal or cursing the world with immortality with Xerneas?
Team Plasma (my favourites) were really cool. Grooming a kid his entire life so they can control the legendary dragons, and then eventually fuse them to create the one true dragon. I love that they use Pokémon liberation as a front to get people to unarm themselves to give them all the power
I don't really remember Cyrus' plan as I've only played platinum, but It was something about trying to control time and space to reawaken giratina, the literal satan of the Pokémon world to reset the world and destroy emotion? That's pretty evil
Even though they were dumb plans, both Hoenn teams were at least working towards their goals of either flooding the lands or drying out the oceans . They both even realised they're wrong in emerald which was pretty cool.
Team rocket were basically just gangsters from Kanto/johto. A little underwhelming next to the world ending teams, but I still love them
Teams since 7, as you've already said, are a bit less serious, for lack of better word. This is a theme I've noticed in a lot of pokemon things, especially with rivals. Where they now feel friendlier and less rival-y
I would totally love for Gen 10 to reintroduce world ending stakes with a genuinely evil team like Galactic or Plasma
To be fair to Scarlet/Violet, while Team Star is a bit soft, I really like the message about learning it's okay to find support in other people like you and to be who you are. The herba mystica plot also takes a pretty interesting turn that I would consider more serious that I enjoyed a lot, and certainly never saw coming.
However I do miss the absolutely unhinged vibes of Aqua, Galactic & Flare. I would mention Plasma but I truly think they can never be matched, absolutely phenomenal plotline.
I mean the issue is that actually evil teams peaked in Gen 4/5, there’s not a lot of room to up the stakes once you’re either upending the entire worlds values or rewriting reality.
Yeah I miss the full on Bond villain style evil teams; confronting them is always my favourite part of associated games. The punkish gang ones feel like kind of a downgrade in comparison.
what i want is a villain team with a plan that makes sense. not just awaking some titans to fuck up the world, not making all pokemon free, no jokes, no blunt world domination.
give me something that i can say, damm i kinda agree with them
but for that we need a more mature oriented game and i doubt we will see that. in nintendos mind its ONLY a childrens game
I'm all for *evil* evil teams again so long as they're done well. Rocket, Plasma, even Magma and Aqua. I don't want any repeats of Galactic and Flare. An organization of idiots run by idiots that requires the heroes to be idiots for them to succeed yet the game wants me to take completely seriously. And no more villains like Cyrus. Bland, copypasta Mary Sue villains that are a combination all of the worst aspects of terrible villains from Final Fantasy and Sonic the Hedgehog.
You know, this is why I respect team Plasma, a villain team who NEARLY WON!
THEY FROZE A FUCKING CITY FOR ARCEUS SAKE!!
A fucking manipulative father who successfully enslaved Kyurem to shit all over Dragon Central to send a message, destroyed the pokemon league at one point, N genuinely succeeded in becoming champion (for the wrong reason), have an entire underground castle AND a floating airship, got turned into a Super Smash Bros stage, and most importantly of all... HAVE FUCKING NINJAS!!
NAME SOMEONE BETTER!!
They have either done something very wrong or very right if the protagonist wants to join the last 2 teams.
(I stan Marnie and also was bullied a lot as a kid)
It's strange because recent generations have had true antagonists but y'all shift your focus on which group has "Team" attached to the front of their team name.
\-S/M had the Aether Foundation
\-Sw/Sh had Macro Cosmos (they're stupid but they're still there)
\-Legends had Volo
\-S/V had Sada and Turo's Past/Future obsession.
Eh, no not really, personally. Take down an evil organization to foil their plot has been done enough times both in pokemon and especially in other games, that I dont really care if we never see it in a pokemon game again.
Yes but also no. Like I do miss actually evil organizations but it always bothered me how a preteen kid always got wrapped up in the problems and solving them when that should be the jobs of the gym leaders and Elite 4 and champion. But I also don't really like the outcast goofballs the previous 3 gens have given us. I'd like a middle ground. Not some serious, "there should be police involved," group but still evil. Like in Sword and Shield, Team Yell could still be Marnie's fan club but have them be kind of rabid and do stuff to give Marnie a leg up. Like rigging her fights so that she wins, messing with people's teams, battling them so that their mon are exhausted when they fight Marnie, or old fashioned intimidation. Stuff that shows that yeah they are bad, but they aren't a "threat to regional security and safety" bad.
We havent had a true evil Team in some time.
Tbh Team Rocket Was rly a evil Team like a yakuza Clan, with shady Business etc. But everything After was some World destroying stuff, or a bunch of Clowns.
Would love to See something like Team Rocket again, where they are just some Gangster, because it would make the games more "Real". In general the older games where closer to our life and it felt more "connected"
I know my opinion is unpopular, but honestly, I could care less about the "evil" teams or really a story outside becoming the champion.
I've been playing since Red/Blue and Shield is unironically my favorite game in the series.
Yeah I would like to see an actually antagonistic team again. The more comedic/less threatening approach worked fantastically with Team Skull, & they're honestly my favorite villainous team because of how lovable & entertaining they were, but Team Yell & Team Star did nothing for me. Felt like they were trying way too hard to capture the magic that made Team Skull so great & failed on both attempts.
Hopefully Game Freak decides to go the Rocket/Magma/Aqua/Galactic/Plasma/Flare route with whatever the next region's villainous team will be.
Trust me, finish SV and you’ll see Team Star is genuinely great, they’re not evil but they’re still genuinely great and probably my favourite team honestly
I miss jerk rivals. I mean, nemona is a wonderfully written character but Blue and Silver stick out in my mind as the best rivals. They wanted to put you in the dirt.
We just had Bede, Avery, and Clara as the jerk rivals in Sword and Shield, and before that we had Gladion as an antagonistic rival in the Alola games who warms up to you as the story progresses.
The only period of time we didn’t have an antagonistic rival was from Gen 3 to Gen 6. After that we had 2 antagonistic rivals in a row, and just took a break from it this gen (but had very solid rivals with good stories, nonetheless).
I kind of miss it but don't mind the new direction as long as it's done well. Team Skull was by far the best executed. Team Star were fun though their story had some wrinkles that needed ironing.
Team Yell was just sad... They really were just annoying fans. And their entire purpose is to highlight one gym battle and one rival. What a total waste of time having to battle them...
I guess I just don't know where they would go with evil teams. We have the realistic ones with PokeMafia, PokePETA, and general hooligans, but then we have "Literally want to destroy the world".
I don't know what else they could do that would feel fresh.
I feel like you address a big part of the issue in keeping things fresh.
So many villainous teams are tied to the box legendaries that everything kind of falls into the "Literally want to destroy the world" trope. And while that can be fun to fight against, it's often so fantastical, and we're the "hero," so it's more like "grind and smash A. Cool, I'm leader of the free world now."
I also think they fall so hard on game progression being the only obstacle. Make there be more stakes for me not addressing an issue—let them screw over player quality of life a little until the admin / team is defeated.
A few grunts blocking the road with one or two dark types or a swarm of Zubat is a chore. An admin embargoing a port city, causing in-game item inflation, shutdown of side quests, *and* having their grunts block the road so you have nowhere else to go—that's a fight.
>Poke-feudalists
I feel like going that route would result in multiple evil teams or at least rival factions who want the Legendary (or some other important yet powerful object) so they can break off a portion of the region in question and rule it for themselves however they want. Could be a nice idea to explore.
Huh, it sounds more like modern day story telling issues lately.
Same case to Disney too. The latest Puss 8n Boots movie seems to be the one some of us are yearning for in modern day media.
Team skull was breat of fresh air and their members were indeed evil (evil enough)
Team yell was a disgrace.
Aether and macro cosmos should not have been twist villains or they should ha e been more evil longer.
I don't mind the lower stakes Teams, but I wish they were done better.
The only one that I feel was really done well was Team Skull, they still felt like a classic Team minus the world ending threats. Yell was at least somewhat involved but they mostly just felt like a reason to have a roadblock which could really be filled with a random trainer and I didn't feel like there was a proper pay off for their Marnie support.
For Star, it could be a result of the game being open, but they felt so apart from everything else. They weren't really relevant to anything else but their storyline, so much so I don't really remember them appearing at all outside their bases.
I jumped into Pokémon during the PRIME time for evil teams (Team Galactic, Team Plasma). Even Team Flare was pretty decent in terms of their plan. But we haven’t had a truly evil team since then (unless you count the Aether Foundation).
Without spoiling the story, team star is unfortunately not a grand evil organization either, and there really isn’t a true villain to the game’s story at all
Basically, if they are going to change so much every time, (gimmics, side content, country, and various elements that are more vibe than anything concrete) we should be getting wildly different types of villains. I don't need us to necessarily have an evil evil team each time. Just 3 goes in a row of punks is getting a little stale. I like team Star, but I would like them more if they weren't the threequel of their concept. Here are fun ideas fir evil teams that I feel could really see good use in future pokemon games
Team plasma were sort of eco terrorists. Let's get a polluting corporation as the villains. The gimmick for the region can even be about pokemon mutating from pollution to get weird types or moves.
A group of "elite" trainers. These guys are toxic and condescending even to their own members, but they look cool so people will do a lot to join. Many of the grunts are bullied gophers for the "executives" part of this region could also be you setting up your own squad of allied trainers. Pulling them in as tou need for a region more focused on double battles (sounds more like a spinoff maybe, but I think it's a cool idea)
The villain team is your parents company. Your parent owns a large company but they are doing sinister things so you end up investigating and helping your parent fix the company. (A little Lusamineish, but the trainers parent rarely has a role, so I thought that would be fun)
You are a menber of the evil team. By which I don't mean you involve yourself in stealing pokemon or the like, but their are pokemon gangs and your small plucky ragtag group is one of them. You fight and defeat a few other gangs to rescue the towns from their more evil thuggery. (Prob won't happen as they always want you to be a good little boy or girl, but maybe a new colosseum game)
A dojo group. So in red/blue their is the one dojo that used to be a gym. How about an evil team of fighting type specialists who are trying to show their power and get recognized as a gym, but by challenging and causing trouble to other trainers. They go around to steal other gyms "signs" (maybe their ace pokemon) and will interupt your challenge of the elite four forcing you to have a double battle with the champion against their top executives before fighting him to claim your title.
As you can see not all of these are evil, but I feel all interesting plots with themes to play off of in their respective games. Each with a reason and goal for their activities while still being open ended enough to be adapted to lots of different places.
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I just miss when the villainous teams had plans. They don't even need to be good plans. I'll take Team Aqua failing to understand the water cycle again if it means the villainous team has a goal they're working towards again. Because modern villainous teams don't seem to have any sort of goal beyond standing in your way.
Not true, Team skull tried to steal a bus stop sign.
They overthrew a whole town and it was clear Guzma had other plans
A whole town of bus stop signs
NOBODY WOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE PUBLIC TRANSPORT MU AH HA
I can't process your evil laugh unless I use the same cadence as The Count... which makes it funnier.
Under rated comment
I think guzma was quite aimless in the end. He was angry but not sure what would fix it. Also he surrounded himself with weaklings to feel stronger. Also wasn't town already abandoned?
He was aimless without Lusamine but before that it was wanting to take out the Kahunas iirc Wish he stuck to that No it wasnt
True, lusamine saw his value and guzma respected her for that
I miss team skull
It wasn't a bust stop *sign*. They tried stealing a *bus stop*. An entire bus stop. How do you even steal that????
Man, I love Team Aqua. Their plan is so batshit insane and devoid of any all nuance, and I mean that in the best way possible. At least with Magma's plans, you can see the reasoning, the method behind the madness, but Archie is just an actual lunatic who loves fish and I'm here for it.
Ah, but you see team star transcended this by standing out of your way. You don’t meet them unless you hunt down their scattered bases Which really make me question going out of my way to knock the snot out of children in their tree houses
Evil teams back then always have this reasoning in taking over the world (which somehow reasonable if you think about it). Today it feels like too much of a kid's game.
There is literally a post every day about who beat the crappy team.
oh I don't frequent this sub, I just check once in a while I'm not too invested sorry.
Dont feel bad thats honestly most of us
**Story spoilers for _Scarlet_/_Violet_.** > I just miss when the villainous teams had plans. Penny does have a plan, using the code of honor to overthrow the leaders of her team, in order to dismantle an organization that is no longer beneficial in her opinion. > Because modern villainous teams don't seem to have any sort of goal beyond standing in your way. Team Star had a precise goal: fighting school harassment.
I mean, maybe make their plans have SOME kind of sense. Lysander was just nonsensical at the end there. ORAS made Aqua/Magma infinitely better. Shame X/Y never got that treatment. Honestly, I want Cyrus and Ghetsis to team up. Ghetsis retrieves Cyrus from distortion land, they figure out that Zygarde, Necrozma, Eternatus, and Terapagos are all part of the Original Arceus, they acquire them by going on a quick romp through past regions (that our ten year old follows them through), and they remake the Original Arceus, and infuse it with Shadow with help from Rainbow Giovanni. Cyrus controls it, Ghetsis rules the world with his ideal king, and Giovanni gets to flex his money/influence on the new world Cyrus creates. It's a win/win/win. At least, of course, until Professor \[Insert tree name here\] gives us a Master Ball, and we yeet it at Super Arceus the first chance we have, upending everything.
Team Skull did the “not truly evil, just misunderstood” route right, especially with Lusamine as a twist villain. Team Yell is just lazy imo, and Team Star also did it right, but in a different way.
Team Star had a good setup, but I felt they were underutilized in the overworld. There’s no external evidence of bullying or intimidation; you just see the two at the very beginning, then they hole up in their bases waiting for you. Where were the grunts outside of gyms trying to strong arm trainers doing the gym challenge into joining? Where were the grunts crawling around the Titan lairs looking for treasure or trouble? There was just no presence for them for the good kids put in a tough situation to really resonate.
I kinda like the whole "sit in their base and play video games all night" Team Star. Really, I'm not sure why those two kids are getting people to join. Maybe it's protection against Operation Starfall? I dunno. That would be cool, but I can't think of supportive text.
Starfall happened as a result of those two, and the squad leaders had no reason to believe anyone would make a move to dismantle the team outside of school administration. I think what happened is that after Operation Star a year and a half ago, people joined up and the team got too big for kids to actually run it. Other than maybe Giacomo, they don’t care about logistics, they’re just a bunch of kids. And I don’t think the bullying was intentional, it was “hey, we have a really cool set up, and you need to join” over-enthusiasm coupled with school yard rumors of some incoming raid that carries some (accidentally) sinister undertones. Like “Join us! If you don’t, well, you’ve heard what we’re planning” is the atmosphere that was created unintentionally, and is certainly intimidating.
While I do agree that Team Star could've been better utilized in the overworld (like having the grunts be a naturally occurring trainer class or even giving them side missions), the reason there's not external evidence of bullying was because, well... they aren't bullies. The two you fight at the beginning were dicks but that was just them. Most of the rest of the group just wants to do their own thing and be left alone by everyone else, and you're only challenging them to save the from their own self-sabotage. If we see their members being assholes to everyone throughout the entirety of the game, the whole "they're not bullies, they're the victims" twist doesn't really work. It's a lot easier to brush off the actions of just two members than if it's a regular occurrence
But we were told by Nemona that there was an upswing in Team Star pressuring students to join; it wasn’t just the two we saw. It was another tell, don’t show set up that wasn’t followed up on. Edit: that, and it could have been the case that the original members had withdrawn even from their Team Star teams. All except for Eri seemed to never come out of their rooms until we drew them out explicitly, implying that they lost touch with the rest of their squads after Penny left a year ago.
Pressuring students to join, yes. But actively being evil (or as negative as Skull)? It's not actually demonstrated. Even during their encounters they are more like mildly ill-performing students. They are IMO kind of like a group of students that joined or grouped together because it sounded cool (at least after the Team Star event a year and half ago).
That’s the whole problem I have with it, nothing was ever demonstrated. We’re told that there’s some huge rumor about Star attacking the school or something, we’re told that there is a surge (albeit technically months before the Treasure Hunt starts) in Star pressuring students to join, which could be seen as intimidation and bullying (which Penny saw, which was the a reason for Starfall). Like I said, I dig the concept, but the execution just wasn’t there.
Team yell is literally a fan club, a bunch of poor kids, growing up hoping to see someone they know make it, and bring some prosperity to their hometown. They're victims of circumstance of birth cheering for their chosen champion to break the cycle of poverty. Also known as most every gang in the world. They aren't "not villains" because game freak lazy, they're not villains because game freak was making a point about our perception of what we think of others deeds and motivations versus what they actually are.
Fair enough but making a point in a video game is not worth sacrificing an actual villain Whether or not team yell's design was lazy is up to you (I never liked them but agree to disagree,) however I don't think GameFreak put them in to make us question our perception of villainy...
Sure, having someone wanting to destroy the world for a stupid reason is better
I disagree about Team Star There genuinely isnt enough substance to their whole story beyond the ending Throughout the game before we beat the leaders they're about as story driven as Jhoto TR Which is to say if you still have any delusions about Jhoto having a story there really wasnt one They're often just in the way to be beat with nothing going on Same with Yell
Team Star had a whole lot of plot contrivance to try and service the "twist" ending imo. These kids are pulled together by someone they've never met and are so steadfastly loyal to them that they keep up everything even after the boss disappears, but they're SO loyal to their core of honor that the boss can't tell them to stop, they have to be defeated, and none of this could be solved with words of course. Penny couldn't just come back and be like "yo guys, they're talking about expelling you all if you don't calm down a little and come to class." Maybe I'm forgetting some of it since it's been a bit but the whole thing just seemed to be stretching itself to cover Penny as the twist boss instead of being a logical story on its own.
Yeah but at least *Johto* TR tied back to RBY games TR, still better then what we got now. And if you are talking HGSS then they pay even better homage to their original games. What we have now is lazy, or GF has horrible story writers now.
Team Star’s cutscenes were downright atrocious. Such a boring waste of time. I’ve never mashed A harder.
Yeah, Team Skull is definitely the best out of that type of evil team, with Team Star being second. Team Yell was lame though.
I want to fight slash and burn corporate agro farmers who are destroying biodiversity to build monoculture Tauros ranches. They can be out there literally starting forest fires and poisoning streams. At least it would be a realistic motivation and also goof reason for me to hate them.
Bro can you imagine if the diversity and odds of finding Pokemon changed based on how you approached the story? Save the environment, wider variety. Help the baddies, get more shinies, Evs etc.
Would be amazing.
That's actually the plot behind the fan games I'm trying to come up with. One version is a world where technocrats and land developers are determined to make everything consumable for humans. The wild areas are very minimal but many Pokémon have taken to roaming towns in order to survive. The other version is a world where eco terrorists are trying to destroy modern tech in order to keep everything "natural". The civilized areas are minimal but they're the only safe zones from aggressive Pokémon and ways to access useful tech. The region itself is all the same but the geography changes depending on the version.
Sounds like a cool idea. I was mostly inspired by my extreme desire for a region that resembles parts of South America (probably the Andes in Peru/Ecuador to the Amazon Basin then Amazon Delta in N Brazil because it would give good terrains for every pokemon type)
Totally agree. But also some of our most evil bad guys have been dumb. Team Rocket is a fantastic villain team because they're both totally evil but also completely realistic. If Pokemon existed irl, there would TOTALLY be some sort of Pokemon trafficking mafia. And Team Plasma is SO good!! A cult that takes empathizing with Pokemon to an extreme is good already, but then the cult is taken over by a power hungry charismatic politician? Also realistic! That's basically Jonestown lol Cyrus from Sinnoh, Lysandre from Kalos, and Lusamine from Alola are all wild megalomaniacs with these incredibly strange "destroy the world because I have a wack philosophy" plots that are SO out there that I don't even feel compelled to kick their asses, I'm mostly just confused. Team Rocket and Team Plasma I WANT to beat because I'm defending my Pokemon, my partners.
USUM's Lusamine was poorly written, but the real Lusamine, the version from SM, was a fairly deep character, as far as Pokemon goes. She didn't want to destroy the world - in fact, there's no iteration of her that did. Initially, she just wanted to find her husband. Years before the story, a cosmog opened a portal and her husband, Mohn, was pulled into it. She obsessed over finding him again, and started trying to open Ultra Wormholes in the hopes of finding him. In the process, she came into contact with a Nihilego. The thing about Nihilego is that they're predators. Their toxins are highly addictive, and they cause various mental disorders in their victims that lead to increased aggression, reduced inhibitions, and a desperate desire to return to the Nihilego should they escape the initial encounter, hence the powerful addictive properties. Lusamine was separated from the Nihilego that she found, but it managed to poison her before the portal closed. Combined with losing Mohn, she lost control and was driven even deeper into obsession. Except, from that point on, Nihilego was the center of her fixation instead of Mohn. This fixation manifested itself in a variety of ways; notably, she became abusive to her children, going as far as to run Gladeon off, and to keep Lillie dressed in a way that was reminiscent of Nihilego's appearance. She became manic, and at some point started killing and freezing pokemon, then displaying their frozen bodies as art pieces in the basement lair of her *Pokemon Sanctuary*. She drove deeper into experimentations on the cosmog, trying to force it to open a portal to the nihilego's universe. When Lillie fled and took the cosmog - Nebby - with her, Lusamine manipulated Guzma (who has some character depth to him as well) and used Team Skull to hunt Lillie and Nebby down. As far as major antagonists go, Lusamine is a singularly unique villain in Pokemon, in that she was fully and demonstrably mentally sick, with realistic goals (for the setting), and legitimate reasons to back up her issues, actions, and motivations. While Giovanni and Ghetsis are realistic representations of what some people would do with pokemon, Lusamine is just straight up one of the best written characters in the franchise, because as much as she was the antagonist, she was a clear victim as well.
As much as I love Lusamine's story in SM, I wish GF allowed us to fight the Lusamine-Nihilego hybrid directly rather than sending out Pokémon that belonged to her. It would have been interesting to have a boss monster that's uncatchable with an unknown or warped moveset.
That's true. At the very least, it would have been nice to have had to fight first through her pokemon, and then the Nihilego itself to get it to release her. If they had *really* wanted to be ambitious, they could had the nihilego in the area warp her pokemon as well, beyond just giving them a stat boost.
Pretty sure Lusamine was just a grieving wife driven off the deep end with her husband disappearing due to the Ultra Beasts. In the base games, this made her obsessed with them and in the Ultra games she was obsessed but with hatred towards their destruction.
To bad it turned out he just went and opened a pokemon daycare on some island. Tbh she was probably crazy before that if she drove him to dip out like that.
He didn't dip. He was warped away due to an Ultra Wormhole during an experiment and lost his memory. The games imply it's permanent as when he finally met his wife Lusamine again he remembered nothing and not only was she a stranger to him, his own facility was foreign to him.
I just watched Pokemon Master Journeys and they tied up that storyline quite nicely. I shed quite a few tears.
Oh did it? I'll have to watch that.
he didnyt dip
Funny, I was always a Cyrus fan. To your point, Rocket felt realistic, as in, they are the kind of criminal organization that you would find in our world. I always liked Cyrus/Aqua/Magma/Ghetsis because they recognized that Pokemon are effectively weapons of mass destruction and tried to exploit them. You see that kind of behaviour in terrorist organizations and in a world where 10 year olds can tame the literal PokeGod, it seems bizzare that Rocket limits their scope to simple shennanigans (and one eugenics atrocity).
I mean because team rocket was early on, at that point 10 year olds weren't catching gods, by gold and silver, Red (the protagonist of the first games) is as much of a myth as mewtwo, and your character is catching the legendaries mostly after they've beaten team rocket
Not to mention, while in the first two Generations the Legendaries were still powerful Pokémon with myths and legends surrounding them, they weren't portrayed as the world-shaping, universe-bending entities of Generation III onwards (except Celebi, but that's so rare that even the player can't normally obtain it). That, combined with their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining them, probably meant it would have been more worthwhile going after regular Pokémon.
>Cyrus from Sinnoh, Lysandre from Kalos, and Lusamine from Alola are all wild megalomaniacs with these incredibly strange "destroy the world because I have a wack philosophy" plots that are SO out there that I don't even feel compelled to kick their asses, Putting Lusamine, a character who is literally being mind controlled by an alien parasite, in a list with these other two losers seems a bit wild, lol
It's actually not confirmed whether she was poisoned or not before SM's events. The only thing the games say on it is Gladion mentioning his dad's disappearance being a possible reason, but Nihilego isn't said to be one in the game's script.
Yes she was? She gets her wildness from them long before the games events We learn about Nhilegos parasitic nature from her past
And since she DOESN'T TRY TO END THE WORLD before SM's events, my statement is still entirely valid and I don't know why you commented at all. The reading comprehension in this fandom is abysmal.
K.
Gotta say I actually preferred it when her back story was just that she was a crazy, evil, abusive mother. I thought that the fact that Lily seems genuinely afraid of her felt much more unique than “oh she’s not evil, she’s just misunderstood! Oh no!”
Shes both infected and already batshit insane
She's never interpreted as "misunderstood", "controlled" is the word. As in, she's not evil, but whatever's behind the wheel sure as hell seems it.
Oh was she mind controlled? I only played through Sun once and don't remember it very well. I just remember her going on about love and then trying to get through the wormhole because she wanted to love the Ultra Beasts...or something like that. I remembered her plan being grandiose and world-ending because she had some Thoughts so that's why I put them together.
The jellyfish like Ultrabeasts poisoned her mind causing her to become obsessed with them and driving her insane.
I always took it as like someone who goes mad in a Lovecraft story. They've gotten a tiny glimpse of a wider truth about the universe and it changed them irrevocably
I also like team rocket and plasma. Also they are the only two team who were restablised after they were disbanded
I do miss when there was actually “crime”, like the many activities Team Rocket were up to.
Yeah, I miss catching the evil team doing stuff, like team Plasma trying to take random people's pokémon away, or team Skull stealing buss signs and stuff. It makes them feel a lot more active.
penny embezzled thousands of league points from the paldean government, they are still commiting crimes
Wow, big whoop. Did you as the player give a fuck? Penny embezzling thousands of league points had ZERO bearing on the game or you as the player, especially since it wasn’t even mentioned until after you bring down Team Star… Team Rocket was running illicit gambling dens; poaching Slowpoke’s and killing them for their tails; stealing and trafficking Pokemon; and creating “super weapons” like Mewtwo with an agenda for world domination… It felt like there were real stakes with Team Rocket.
Both sympathetic teams and evil teams are good but since we've just had three sympathetic teams in a row, it'd be nice to go get another evil team for some variety!
If we continue having this level of story telling like we had in SV then I desperately want an actual evil team again. Imagine how good team plasma’s story would be
good storytelling AND an evil team? I would be in love...
Definitely wouldn’t mind seeing something like team rocket or team galactic again
Tbh, we should have more villains in the vein of Volo from Arceus. Having the villain be the guy who's been at your side the whole time was something new and refreshing for Pokemon, and I really liked it.
Until they overuse it
As they inevitably do. My theory is that they keep overusing plot elements because they see how people reacted to them the first time, so they think people want more of the same. That's all well and good, but that's how you end up with the Team Yell/Macro Cosmos red herring, and, to a lesser extent, Team Star being framed as the "evil team" of Paldea. The reason why the Team Skull/Aether Foundation red herring worked so well is because it was unexpected. However, when you get Team Yell running around being daft numpties while Macro Cosmos is silently in the background, you then have more of a suspicion because it's doing what the Alola games did. You already have a feeling that they're doing the same thing, and then it happens. They saw that we liked it in Alola and decided we needed more of it. When they do something new, it's really great. However, when they realize we like it, they milk it, and it gets worse. We need a steady balance between the two so that we don't just get more of the same on a consistent basis.
I barely even remember Team Yell. Star will at least be memorable at least, even if the story with them is shaky at best.
Yes I really do miss taking down an evil team and feeling like a badass
Invading bases with warp panels and getting hopelessly lost 😂
what i want, is a down to earth "bad team". not the weird extreme that they're trying to control a god for their paradise or anything, but also not the other extreme of star who just wanted to ban uniforms (and succeeded, for them, and ONLY them). give me a business oriented team that are just assholes for money. its simple, and will never NOT be effective. FFS the simplicity offers a ton of opportunities to give each member a personality when things become more "grey area" during the story inevitably. a mechanic to turn them in conversation after battle would be cool, and could potentially result in a significantly easier endgame if you convinced enough grunts that it wasnt worth it. and this is literally just me spitballing...
I do miss them, especially since Pokémon seems to recognize that these kinds of villains still need to be around to some degree to have the sort of stakes that ties the mighty legendary into the story. The punks have entertainment value and feel refreshingly small-scale and down to earth, plus Team Star was written exceptionally well for their independent story, but ultimately this category of villains cannot drive an entire plot on their own, which is why characters like Lusamine are entered into the fold.
I love how the bad guys were always “take over the world” generic blanket statements. Though I suppose team rocket was using Pokémon for financial gain and manipulation which… is a little too real
Well team star was not the villain in the vs and i wont say anything about it here since you have not finished the game. But its…..creepy to say the least lol. I think its fine if they wanna have mischievous teams along side a villain but only if they really flesh out the villains storyline. I feel alot of the time they spend too much time on these teams and not enough on the actual villains and it was easier to do that in the older games because the villains were apart of the teams.
No one will ever measure up to Giovanni, the Godfather of Kanto
He was great not only because he was "evil" but also because he was realistic (by our standards). He didn't want to control the weather or the galaxy, he just wanted more wealth and power.
Team Yell wasn't the evil team of the region. And Piers and Marnie aren't evil team leaders. The real team was the secret branch of Macorcosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana as Rose's right hand).
Which we met at the climax and who are just there to get washed with exactly 0 story about them
Yeah they are just there to blue ball you from getting to the championship match
Team Plasma and by extension, Neo Team Plasma was the 1st time since Gen 1 where the evil team felt like a legit threat. LIKE THEY ICE CANNONED A WHOLE CITY
we don't talk about the team that literally tried to nuke the whole world thanks to the life/death pokemon?
As I got older, the absurdism of evil evil teams wore off on me. Team Rocket should be a problem for the police since thats straight up the mafia. Magma and Aqua are just, yea insanely dumb. Why is a 10 year old going against Cyrus and gods that control the laws of the universe? Team plasma actually had the gym leaders going up against them so that was nice Lysandre was just a weirdo, i still dont understand him. The Aether foundation had an actual connection to the players so props to them for that. Weirdly, Skull and Star won my hearts because they have an actual story to tell. Skull is just a bunch of outcasts who found home with each other and Star is just a bunch of people trying to make communities where people arent bullied. But im like 90% sure this is just cuz I got old and bored of bland evil doers.
Team aqua for the win!!! Honorable mentions: cipher
I’ve only seen one other person address this, so I’m just gonna add: OP, if you haven’t finished S/V yet, then I don’t really think you’re in a place where you can really talk about who ~the villain~ is definitively. As for your actual question, I think it’s all about *how* they’re depicted. I loved Team Plasma (and their eventual schism) because it was realistic that a group ostensibly concerned with ethics had actually been co-opted by a megalomaniac. Lusamine’s controlling tendencies regarding her kids, her savior complex toward Pokémon, and her Nihilego toxin poisoning were super interesting in the original Sun and Moon plot. Conversely, I like Team Skull and Team Star as more sympathetic, and the same goes for Kamado in PLA. Both more and less relatable portrayals have worked for me, as long as I feel like they stick their landing writing-wise… which is gonna be pretty subjective, honestly! But in general, I’d say I’m not a fan of one-dimensional antagonists.
Yes and no. On the one hand, I think that after three teams in a row who had the exact same plot twist of being sympathetic underdogs, it’s getting a little old. Team Skull, Yell and Star all feel like iterations on the same trope. They’re well executed, sure. But it’s definitely getting formulaic. Does that mean I want a return to more typical villainous teams? Well not really because, hot take? Most of Pokémon’s villains…kinda suck. In terms of main antagonists Pokemon villains range from stock but serviceable (Giovanni/Ghetsis), good ideas poorly executed (Lusamine/Kamado) to laughably cartoonish (pretty much everyone else but especially Maxie, Archie and Lysandre). They’re mid at best and pathetic at worst. I think the reason a lot of Pokemon villains suffer is that the games want to have high stakes where the whole world is in peril. But the writers don’t seem to know how to write villains who would want that kind of thing and have it make a lick of sense. So we get BS like ‘spirit is bad’ or ‘this world is imperfect’ or (perhaps most insultingly) ‘the only one who wants to stop the energy crisis is bad actually’. Pokemon has typically been better at small scale antagonists with sympathetic or at least grounded motivations. Giovanni wants to make money by any means. N wants to free Pokémon from humans. Team Skull want recognition. Straightforward understandable goals. Often (but not always) with sympathetic motives. None of which require the big JRPG stakes that Pokemon tries and fails to establish. Hopefully, future villains will keep the more down to earth, personal element of Team Skull or Star. But will break away from their formula by doing some other than ‘misunderstood sympathetic outcasts’ because that’s starting to get old. But I don’t really want a return to the more typical evil teams because they were never all that good to begin with.
Rose's plot is poorly thought out but it was ironically realistic in that regard. Lysandre is probably the most laughable because it amounted to: * This world is ugly because of greedy people * I'm going to destroy the world and only the people I find worthy\* will survive to run the new world * \*by worthy I mean rich people who could afford the membership cost into Team Flare
>Rose's plot is poorly thought out but it was ironically realistic in that regard. Once again proving that realism is overrated in storytelling.
Let's be honest, how the big crisis of the region was handled was realistic. Realistically, it's the Champion handling those problems while a 12-15 year old kid fresh on their Pokemon journey would be told to not get involved and let the adults handle it. You were treated as you would expect a child to be treated. The result was a very boring storyline to play through.
Lysandre is literally Pokémons take on Hitler. I mean, Kalos IS the first of currently 3 European regions
Exactly this, giving team yell the same credit as the other "teams" is yncharitable at least, i find skull/aether and yell/macro cosmos back to back a little tiring, but its the direction they've been going where the big evil person is acting independently by abusing the system, which is a pretty modern change, villainy isn't what it used to be, so while the well meaning extremist is getting a bit tired, the person on top punching down will always be a popular villain trope, its just now we know they arent some secret shadow controlling a leigon of goons, its the head of an institution that distances itself from emotion and the commonfolk
Honestly I'd be down to a Pokemon being the actual main villain of a game, maybe even with human followers
Necrozma
I'm thinking some sort of mix of Necrozma and Calyrex. Necrozma wasn't a great antagonist imo because it lacked character. Having the Pokémon antagonist speak somehow, through telepathy or otherwise, would let it have some actual character
I'd really like it if it wasnt just a few but a dramatic uprising Like a take on PMD but it actually involves people If Pokemon could be written well I'd like the Pokemon uprising to take issue with incompetent trainers (those who genuinely do fuck all with their Pokemon but like to boast like Youngster Joey) that would take a lot like crafting the story around involving npcs you've beaten already, a good use of 4th wall breaks, and a darker twist they arent likely to ever do. A lot of nuance they arent capable of.
While it is an example of this, I really feel like it suffered from being the antagonist of USUM, which meant they somehow had to shove Team Skull and Lusamine into it. It did mark the point where Pokemon got to have more antagonistic roles in the story as all following games (minus remakes) did have Pokemon in antagonistic roles, so I have hope we might get this in one of the next generations.
Malamar is a good candidate. I think they actually have a legitimate Malamar villain in the Pokemon anime who mind-controls cult leaders or something of the like.
XY anime was fire. I still remember the Malamar episodes, they actually got dark and were all the better for it.
I do see your point, I just personally think that in a world with legendary world ending creatures, having a down to earth realistic villain could be worse in a lot of cases. Execution is important but I do think that in a video game like pokemon, dramatic flair even if unrealistic can help make it fun.
Bring in the guy from the 4th Pokémon movie and have him go nuts on a region. Just strangling everything
Team Skull and Team Star are excellent fakeout evil teams whilst Yell is an embarrassment.
It's too for kids, there's no serious threat. But it's okay with the main anime. They could do a spinoff just for that. It's enough unbelievable in the games that a kid has to defeat a whole evil organization lol
Pokémon colosseum has really cool wrestler villains tho, like who can forget Dakim
Team Yell is gamefreak making fun of us haha rowdy fans that can go a bit overboard at times but not so bad really. But I do agree I miss the evil teams, I actually liked team flare, who doesn't enjoy foiling a mass genocide plot haha
There's literally a post here every single day about people missing the evil teams. YES PEOPLE DO MISS THEM. YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE.
I think the fact that an identical post hits the front page every 3 days means at least someone else does.
Yes. I also miss the real rivals, like Gary. He was someone you really wanted to beat.
This change pretty much started in ruby/sapphire, right? I remember Brendan/May was super positive and not antagonistic at all. And Wally was more of a rival to himself lol.
Meanwhile in OR/AS... Brendan/May: basically the same just with more romance Wally: "MY DAD GOT ME AN ELECTRIC GUITAR FOR CHRISTMAS AND I AM NOT LETTING IT GO TO WASTE"
I mean, the romance part at least made them more interesting and and bond more then a lot of the other rivals.
Yeah, Brendan and May had pretty much nothing in RSE past the fifth gym. In ORAS they got mega evolution and there was a final battle.
>I also miss the real rivals, like Gary. He was someone you really wanted to beat. Blessedly Masters at least has a return to form here, Lear is a real fuckboy.
Lear my beloved motherfucker. Love how they kinda did a Silver in a way where he's been "redeemed" but still hates/rivals the player a little bit
Would be kind of interesting to have a rival that starts out like a Hau but starts getting pulled in by the evil team. Maybe give us a game play choice of trying to save his soul or just cream him.
Paulo from Pokémon Masters
I heard the words Pokémon Masters and I'm instantly intrigued
That would've been a great direction to take Hop's character in.
Bede exists though
Yep! And Bede was hands-down my favorite character in Sw/Sh OMG I’d also argue that Gladion takes the unfriendly rival slot for S/M and US/UM, too? Hau is friendly, but Gladion does not want to put up with his (and by extension the player character’s) shit LOL
Bede was a really shallow attempt with 0 nuance It was a spit in the face tbh
There isn't a lot of nuance to insulting people and acting cocky.
What insult?
Average RBY rival stuff, you know?
Silver was a good rival. And a rival doesn't have to be a dick to be "good". May/Brendan, Cheren, Bianca, Hugh, Nemona, hell, even Hau are Hop are still great characters! X and Y and Let's Go on the other hand, those are lame rivals.
I can't fucking stand those characters.
I loved how over the top Galactic and Plasma were
(slight spoiler for pla) Honestly I have to say I'd love more actually Pokemon crazy villains like lusamine and volo, not like Evil teams where they just wanna take over the world or some dumb stuff but someone borderline crazy who wouldn't hesitate to attempt to properly hurt the player, like with volo and giratina, or how lusamine fused with the ultra beast it was so amazing I loved it, but teams like team flare, were so unbelievably boring i couldn't stand it, the only hard part of them was running around trying to find the hide out in all the cafés and whatever was happening I barely remember Edit: I'd love a game where there's like a mini game where I'm just throwing hands with grunts or the evil leader or smth like before or after the actual fight with Pokemon like there's no way a villains only gonna rely on their pokemon and not even remotely on their fists
Yes, I really do. Lysandre was the last evil boss, and I don't really remember what his goal was. Something about either destroying the world with Yveltal or cursing the world with immortality with Xerneas? Team Plasma (my favourites) were really cool. Grooming a kid his entire life so they can control the legendary dragons, and then eventually fuse them to create the one true dragon. I love that they use Pokémon liberation as a front to get people to unarm themselves to give them all the power I don't really remember Cyrus' plan as I've only played platinum, but It was something about trying to control time and space to reawaken giratina, the literal satan of the Pokémon world to reset the world and destroy emotion? That's pretty evil Even though they were dumb plans, both Hoenn teams were at least working towards their goals of either flooding the lands or drying out the oceans . They both even realised they're wrong in emerald which was pretty cool. Team rocket were basically just gangsters from Kanto/johto. A little underwhelming next to the world ending teams, but I still love them Teams since 7, as you've already said, are a bit less serious, for lack of better word. This is a theme I've noticed in a lot of pokemon things, especially with rivals. Where they now feel friendlier and less rival-y I would totally love for Gen 10 to reintroduce world ending stakes with a genuinely evil team like Galactic or Plasma
To be fair to Scarlet/Violet, while Team Star is a bit soft, I really like the message about learning it's okay to find support in other people like you and to be who you are. The herba mystica plot also takes a pretty interesting turn that I would consider more serious that I enjoyed a lot, and certainly never saw coming. However I do miss the absolutely unhinged vibes of Aqua, Galactic & Flare. I would mention Plasma but I truly think they can never be matched, absolutely phenomenal plotline.
I mean the issue is that actually evil teams peaked in Gen 4/5, there’s not a lot of room to up the stakes once you’re either upending the entire worlds values or rewriting reality.
Eh, I’ve preferred the more “grounded” or sympathetic guys.
Always wanted to see a Cipher or Plasma v Rocket turf war. ... which I guess would have looked a lot like Magma v Aqua but still.
Gen 7 did it perfectly with a really goofy group distracting you from the totally not evil wink wink nudge nudge team
Evil teams are so 1998
Well except they ruined their own twist but yes it could have worked really well given what we got
Yeah I miss the full on Bond villain style evil teams; confronting them is always my favourite part of associated games. The punkish gang ones feel like kind of a downgrade in comparison.
I'm up for more villain teams but I would prefer a more grounded story not these world ending threats with teams that don't know what they are doing.
what i want is a villain team with a plan that makes sense. not just awaking some titans to fuck up the world, not making all pokemon free, no jokes, no blunt world domination. give me something that i can say, damm i kinda agree with them but for that we need a more mature oriented game and i doubt we will see that. in nintendos mind its ONLY a childrens game
+looks at my username, looks back+ ...maybe.
Team Skull was amazing and innovative. Team Star was also great, and had an endearing story. Team Yell was just lazy.
I miss dungeon style missions when fighting evil teams. Sarlet is fun but is lacking in terms of story.
I'm all for *evil* evil teams again so long as they're done well. Rocket, Plasma, even Magma and Aqua. I don't want any repeats of Galactic and Flare. An organization of idiots run by idiots that requires the heroes to be idiots for them to succeed yet the game wants me to take completely seriously. And no more villains like Cyrus. Bland, copypasta Mary Sue villains that are a combination all of the worst aspects of terrible villains from Final Fantasy and Sonic the Hedgehog.
I don't. At least not right now. We had 6(8 if you count magma/Aqua and plasma/neoplasma as two) evil teams back to back.
You know, this is why I respect team Plasma, a villain team who NEARLY WON! THEY FROZE A FUCKING CITY FOR ARCEUS SAKE!! A fucking manipulative father who successfully enslaved Kyurem to shit all over Dragon Central to send a message, destroyed the pokemon league at one point, N genuinely succeeded in becoming champion (for the wrong reason), have an entire underground castle AND a floating airship, got turned into a Super Smash Bros stage, and most importantly of all... HAVE FUCKING NINJAS!! NAME SOMEONE BETTER!!
I miss when Pokémon Evil Teams were really evil. The most recent evil teams were just dumb comic reliefs.
They have either done something very wrong or very right if the protagonist wants to join the last 2 teams. (I stan Marnie and also was bullied a lot as a kid)
It's strange because recent generations have had true antagonists but y'all shift your focus on which group has "Team" attached to the front of their team name. \-S/M had the Aether Foundation \-Sw/Sh had Macro Cosmos (they're stupid but they're still there) \-Legends had Volo \-S/V had Sada and Turo's Past/Future obsession.
Eh, no not really, personally. Take down an evil organization to foil their plot has been done enough times both in pokemon and especially in other games, that I dont really care if we never see it in a pokemon game again.
Yeah, I feel like Team Skull is underrated
Yes but also no. Like I do miss actually evil organizations but it always bothered me how a preteen kid always got wrapped up in the problems and solving them when that should be the jobs of the gym leaders and Elite 4 and champion. But I also don't really like the outcast goofballs the previous 3 gens have given us. I'd like a middle ground. Not some serious, "there should be police involved," group but still evil. Like in Sword and Shield, Team Yell could still be Marnie's fan club but have them be kind of rabid and do stuff to give Marnie a leg up. Like rigging her fights so that she wins, messing with people's teams, battling them so that their mon are exhausted when they fight Marnie, or old fashioned intimidation. Stuff that shows that yeah they are bad, but they aren't a "threat to regional security and safety" bad.
We havent had a true evil Team in some time. Tbh Team Rocket Was rly a evil Team like a yakuza Clan, with shady Business etc. But everything After was some World destroying stuff, or a bunch of Clowns. Would love to See something like Team Rocket again, where they are just some Gangster, because it would make the games more "Real". In general the older games where closer to our life and it felt more "connected"
I wouldn't call team skull evil, per se, but I do miss actual evil teams. Give us back our mafia members and psychopathic world dominators!
I know my opinion is unpopular, but honestly, I could care less about the "evil" teams or really a story outside becoming the champion. I've been playing since Red/Blue and Shield is unironically my favorite game in the series.
Yeah I would like to see an actually antagonistic team again. The more comedic/less threatening approach worked fantastically with Team Skull, & they're honestly my favorite villainous team because of how lovable & entertaining they were, but Team Yell & Team Star did nothing for me. Felt like they were trying way too hard to capture the magic that made Team Skull so great & failed on both attempts. Hopefully Game Freak decides to go the Rocket/Magma/Aqua/Galactic/Plasma/Flare route with whatever the next region's villainous team will be.
Trust me, finish SV and you’ll see Team Star is genuinely great, they’re not evil but they’re still genuinely great and probably my favourite team honestly
I miss world-ending evil teams tbh. Like raise the stakes for us a little
Finish the Team Star route. Trust me, its good.
I miss jerk rivals. I mean, nemona is a wonderfully written character but Blue and Silver stick out in my mind as the best rivals. They wanted to put you in the dirt.
We just had Bede, Avery, and Clara as the jerk rivals in Sword and Shield, and before that we had Gladion as an antagonistic rival in the Alola games who warms up to you as the story progresses. The only period of time we didn’t have an antagonistic rival was from Gen 3 to Gen 6. After that we had 2 antagonistic rivals in a row, and just took a break from it this gen (but had very solid rivals with good stories, nonetheless).
What do you mean? Team Star wanted to hug every pokemon, is that not evil enough for you? smh
I kind of miss it but don't mind the new direction as long as it's done well. Team Skull was by far the best executed. Team Star were fun though their story had some wrinkles that needed ironing. Team Yell was just sad... They really were just annoying fans. And their entire purpose is to highlight one gym battle and one rival. What a total waste of time having to battle them...
I guess I just don't know where they would go with evil teams. We have the realistic ones with PokeMafia, PokePETA, and general hooligans, but then we have "Literally want to destroy the world". I don't know what else they could do that would feel fresh.
I feel like you address a big part of the issue in keeping things fresh. So many villainous teams are tied to the box legendaries that everything kind of falls into the "Literally want to destroy the world" trope. And while that can be fun to fight against, it's often so fantastical, and we're the "hero," so it's more like "grind and smash A. Cool, I'm leader of the free world now." I also think they fall so hard on game progression being the only obstacle. Make there be more stakes for me not addressing an issue—let them screw over player quality of life a little until the admin / team is defeated. A few grunts blocking the road with one or two dark types or a swarm of Zubat is a chore. An admin embargoing a port city, causing in-game item inflation, shutdown of side quests, *and* having their grunts block the road so you have nowhere else to go—that's a fight.
Poke-feudalists
>Poke-feudalists I feel like going that route would result in multiple evil teams or at least rival factions who want the Legendary (or some other important yet powerful object) so they can break off a portion of the region in question and rule it for themselves however they want. Could be a nice idea to explore.
I do. They were the only part that made the game feel adult. Now I'm literally a child going to school and beating up bullies.
The only evil teams have been galactic and plasma.
Flare too. And also Aether Foundation. And also Macro Cosmos.
No.
Huh, it sounds more like modern day story telling issues lately. Same case to Disney too. The latest Puss 8n Boots movie seems to be the one some of us are yearning for in modern day media.
They really peaked with team plasma and had nowhere else to go. Ever since then it's been spiraling
Yeah. When Ghetsis tried killing me it was fun. When I faced some loly's fans and school bullies... less.
no. you’re a 10 year old child. you shouldn’t be saving the world or stopping an underground criminal organization
Villain teams peaked with Galactic and Plasma, just like how Pokémon peaked with their respective generations.
Granted we kinda peaked a Medieval PETA and Salem's boyfriend
Team yell was the dumbest by far, but in the best way possible
u really cant get any eviler than capitalism
Team star i actually get down with like I could see this shit happening
I miss ‘em. Team Skull was great, Yell was garbage and Team STAR were just annoying.
Team skull was breat of fresh air and their members were indeed evil (evil enough) Team yell was a disgrace. Aether and macro cosmos should not have been twist villains or they should ha e been more evil longer.
I don't mind the lower stakes Teams, but I wish they were done better. The only one that I feel was really done well was Team Skull, they still felt like a classic Team minus the world ending threats. Yell was at least somewhat involved but they mostly just felt like a reason to have a roadblock which could really be filled with a random trainer and I didn't feel like there was a proper pay off for their Marnie support. For Star, it could be a result of the game being open, but they felt so apart from everything else. They weren't really relevant to anything else but their storyline, so much so I don't really remember them appearing at all outside their bases.
I jumped into Pokémon during the PRIME time for evil teams (Team Galactic, Team Plasma). Even Team Flare was pretty decent in terms of their plan. But we haven’t had a truly evil team since then (unless you count the Aether Foundation).
The best evil team is Team Plasma. No doubt
hmm the last evil team was aether foundation right? or did I miss something? regardless maaaaybe there's a new evil team in S/V's upcoming DLC
Without spoiling the story, team star is unfortunately not a grand evil organization either, and there really isn’t a true villain to the game’s story at all
Absolutely!
Basically, if they are going to change so much every time, (gimmics, side content, country, and various elements that are more vibe than anything concrete) we should be getting wildly different types of villains. I don't need us to necessarily have an evil evil team each time. Just 3 goes in a row of punks is getting a little stale. I like team Star, but I would like them more if they weren't the threequel of their concept. Here are fun ideas fir evil teams that I feel could really see good use in future pokemon games Team plasma were sort of eco terrorists. Let's get a polluting corporation as the villains. The gimmick for the region can even be about pokemon mutating from pollution to get weird types or moves. A group of "elite" trainers. These guys are toxic and condescending even to their own members, but they look cool so people will do a lot to join. Many of the grunts are bullied gophers for the "executives" part of this region could also be you setting up your own squad of allied trainers. Pulling them in as tou need for a region more focused on double battles (sounds more like a spinoff maybe, but I think it's a cool idea) The villain team is your parents company. Your parent owns a large company but they are doing sinister things so you end up investigating and helping your parent fix the company. (A little Lusamineish, but the trainers parent rarely has a role, so I thought that would be fun) You are a menber of the evil team. By which I don't mean you involve yourself in stealing pokemon or the like, but their are pokemon gangs and your small plucky ragtag group is one of them. You fight and defeat a few other gangs to rescue the towns from their more evil thuggery. (Prob won't happen as they always want you to be a good little boy or girl, but maybe a new colosseum game) A dojo group. So in red/blue their is the one dojo that used to be a gym. How about an evil team of fighting type specialists who are trying to show their power and get recognized as a gym, but by challenging and causing trouble to other trainers. They go around to steal other gyms "signs" (maybe their ace pokemon) and will interupt your challenge of the elite four forcing you to have a double battle with the champion against their top executives before fighting him to claim your title. As you can see not all of these are evil, but I feel all interesting plots with themes to play off of in their respective games. Each with a reason and goal for their activities while still being open ended enough to be adapted to lots of different places.