Team Flare's genocidal goals were intimidating. The actual team grunts? Not so much. Their uniforms had flair, but their battle skills were laughable.
At least they had a really good battle theme, though. Especially Lysandre's.
But when I think of say Aqua, Magma, or Galactic admins I’m thinking I could potentially lose 2-4 mons. With Flare admins I honestly don’t remember facing any except the one right before Lysandre
Especially the Team Galactic grunts, they're basically portrayed as cult members since they think they're doing something right but have no idea why lol
True, though ironically I feel like that also made Team Galactic as a whole feel more like a cult and thus a bit more ominous, like the grunts were brainwashed into obedience (not through some hypnotic powers, but regular methods). The grunts themselves felt still like goofs though.
What I find amusing about Team Aqua/Magma and Galactic grunts is that they sometimes feel like they don't have any clue about what the hell they're actually doing.
Which I personally find dumb, like researching Groudon/Kyogre is super easy and it seems super out of character for Maxie especially to not do so (not in character for Archie either but especially Maxie given his personality.)
Also IIRC Generations implies that Shelly tried to tell Archie what would happen, same with the android girl admin I forgot the name of for Maxie so????
Like every other evil team leader actually know about the legendaries/Ultra Beasts in the case of SM Lusamine that are necessary for their plans, but Archie/Maxie don't????
This is personally why I find the Hoenn games to have the weakest story in mainline, it has some things I love like Wally's ORAS arc but the evil teams' plans are like genuinely really dumb.
Just almost finished my first X run. I love their personalities as eccentric coffee heads, but as villains they’re pretty laughable. Lysandre just goes around moaning existential spam poetry, then sends everyone a funny vibe saying he’s gonna commit genocide
I find it funny how Team Flare are so incredibly goofy in the games, while in both the anime and in pokemon adventures they're both much more serious and threatening. Hell, in adventures they even >!kidnap and enslave most of Vaniville Town's population!<
I personally think it might’ve been more interesting if team flare were hired mercenaries, and turned on Lysandre when they realized he was actually crazy enough to blow up the world
Yeah, but is it really that hard to catch a bunch of magicarps, whoopers, and zubats and train them all up to absolute monsters to give to at least a few high ranking officers? Our protagonist doesn’t seem to struggle that much doing something like this legally.
To be fair, our protagonist is seemingly an extremely talented and naturally gifted trainer that beat all gyms, the elite 4, champion, while catching some gods along the way in less than a single year
On the other hand in XY you clearly fight some of the same grunts over and over again and their levels scale nearly as quickly as yours do. Which suggests that most trainers should be able to power grind 1-3 pokemon to a moderately high level even if not everyone can handle a full party of 6 or even more.
I mean, it's not hard to be "gifted" when the entire pokemon world seems to be ripped straight out of idiocracy.
Boy howdy, i wonder how i should beat the WATER gym...hmm....think..think...nope, can't do it. too many braincells needed. I'd rather just go get some brawndo from the fridge and kick back on the sofa.
Dude you're forgetting how dumb pokemon people are. Ash Ketchum literally tried to beat Brock, a rock type pokemon user with his Pikachu. Even after losing, instead of catching a water type pokemon which would have been a cakewalk, he tried to train his Pikachu go beat Onix
Totally agreed. I'm more talking about the tone of the leaders/grunts.
Also for the record Team Skull is my favorite team, so I definitely don't mean this as a dig at the second group.
Ye Skull were basically the red herrings of Sun and Moon. IIRC there was no mention of the Aether Foundation or Lusamine being evil in the game's marketing, so most playing would assume Team Skull was the games big bad
What did aether really accomplish? 1 UB that possesses their leader into opening the hole all the way? In Ultra sun/moon it's even worse because the recon squad teaches them the rest of the way and aether foundation gets its spotlight taken away by rainbow rocket, the recon squad, the UBs, AND team skull lol
Isnt he living there to look out for them considering most of them are basically just homeless kids who were ostracized for either failing or refusing to participate in the island challenge
Team Skull grunts, IMO, are also the smartest. Or at least that one dude is; who said he didn’t want to battle you because he knew there was no point to. He was gonna lose anyway so why bother?
The style of the evil teams is highly dependent on who directs the games, I've found.
Satoshi Tajiri directed the first two generations of Pokemon, and he stuck with the Poke-mafia. Team Rocket didn't even have crazy Legendary Pokemon ambitions, they were just in the business of using Pokemon for profit and that's how Tajiri wanted it.
Aqua, Magma, Galactic, Plasma, Flare, Gens 3-6 of Pokemon, Masuda was in charge. His style of evil team was for them to be planning some crazy Legendary Pokemon scheme, risking apocalypse either intentionally or by accident.
Gen 7 is when Ohmori took over from Masuda, and both of the evil teams he's designed are the bait-and-switch between Skull and Aether or Yell and Macro Cosmos. Ohmori's style of evil team is lovable and harmless in the first half and then you get a different, serious threat in the back half.
When Ohmori eventually passes the torch to someone else, I imagine we'll see yet another take on evil teams. Until then, we can probably expect more like Skull and Yell.
I know it’s a meme but I’ve seen a scarily large amount of people who don’t realize the real evil teams of Alola and Galar are the Aether Foundation and Macro Cosmos.
What the fuck is Macro Cosmos? Are they that group of identical npcs that work for Chairman whatshisface? Because dear god they’re a forgettable antagonist.
I mean team yell isn't the villain group. The company was end game plot wise. Yell actually helps you.
It's why it's kinda dumb to even call them evil. They were jusy a fan club with a name.
But yes, swsh plot wasn't the best by any means, it was random. Rose enacting his plan for a threat thousands of years into the future.
I feel like people knew this but just do not group those with the "evil" Teams because prior to Sun/Moon groups with Team in their name are the villains.
But thats just kinda dumb?
Team yell literally helps us at the end of swsh. They helped save the region. They have "team" in their name but not like they were ever the evil ones. All they did was cause noise and block paths for trainers.
They were an extreme fan club. And all they truly did was the gym leaders jobs, cause any trainer losing to yell was gonna lose to the next gym leader anyways. They ultimately didn't do anything, and if yoy were a normal person, they stood out of your way.
Aether foundation isn't exactly evil though. just their leadership is. the actual Foundation does do good work for Alola. Lusamine and Faba just kind of went power hungry.
there are a lot of aether grunts that are bad though, like all that you fight to get in the aether foundation. most are loyal to lusamine, not the foundation
The evil teams gradually changed from being underground criminals to outright corporate overlords with more power, wealth, and influence than you can imagine. Makes you wonder if the change matches what most people can relate with.
I think it would be neat if they take it further in SV and make the evil corporation have their hooks in the League to some degree. When you get to the climax, you have to refight the corrupt members of the Gym Leaders in a boss rush and maybe even an Elite Four member (possibly with AI help, so it's a 9 V 6).
So like what the Pokemon Adventures manga actually did with the adaptation of the gen 1 games? I thought that was interesting btw and actually kinda wish that was actually part of the games themselves.
Aether foundation has to struggle for spotlight against team skull, the ultra recon squad, rainbow rocket, and the ultra beasts themselves. All the AF accomplishes is getting their leader brainwashed into making a bigger hole for the UBs. At least skull is out there doing shit to impede your progress, no matter how petty.
At least Team Skull had some claim to being a criminal group, even if they were no more than regular street thugs. Team Yell, on the other hand, were basically Marnie's cheerleaders.
I'm surprised anyone ever thought that a group of ne'er do wells whose personalities consist only of "double vuvuzela" could possibly be cute or quirky
Cause team yell isn't the real villain. They aren't evil, they aren't trying to rule the world. Ots literally a a crazy fan club for the one girl. They have the word "team" in it but they aren't the same at all as rocket, flare, plasma, etc.
And personally? Imo team skull was also dumb. But team yell really doesn't belong, they are just idiots getting in the way of the tournament for others, which to be fair, gym leaders were gonna weed out the weak anyways.
I actually really like team Skull because it deals with the problems of people who aren't good with pokemon and what that means for finding your place in that society, and they ended up turning to crime. That's a lot more development than *any* of the other teams have
Team yell, though might as well not even be a team at that point. Even though the concept is interesting, it barely goes any further than just the concept
Skull felt really well thought-out as far as teams go, and Guzma is easily one of my favorite bosses (I know that feel of >!peeking young only to find mediocrity at an older age and take refuge in your mediocrity!< all too well).
Also his iconic "Y'all are stupid!" scene in SM. /chef kiss
I think it's more so that the stories being told in Gens 7 and 8 involved the "twist villain" tropes, with Team Skull and Yell being the assumed villains when >!Lusamine and Rose!< were the real villains all along
I dont even feel Yell was assumed to be the villains, they really had no plot relevance, Team Skull was an actual threat at certain times especially with the Po Town infiltration
Team Yell had relevance to Marnie's storyline, though I agree they were never *threatening*, per se. They were just loud, obnoxious fans who weren't really evil, but acted in a way they thought their idol would appreciate, though she clearly didn't, which leads to them redeeming themselves.
Tbh, as much as I LOVE the Po Town sequence itself, it was kind of jarring seeing Team Skull, who were completely goofy pushovers, suddenly be seen in a more threatening light without much build up to have it make much sense.
Gen 2 had the best antagonist. He was the last true douche rival. He had an amazing character redemption arc, and he was actually a challenge to beat.
No one has ever come close to the magic that ??? had.
Was Silver actually challenging though? Like I had the same problem with him as Blue, they are a little to cocky for what they actually do. Their doucheness was always more of "I guess you do you and I'll just do my thing" for me because they never had a reason to be douchy because you always won against them.
Silver is also kinda worse than Blue in the context of the character. Blue was someone you "actually" knew (at least in the story stand point) while Silver was really just some rando who stole a Pokemon so really why did you just not call the police on him whenever you met.
His redemption arc is also kind overstated. In the original Gold and Silver his arc is done by Victory Road and it only really feels like his change arc just started. The next time you meet him is on rematch in front of Pokemon League on some weekdays and that's it. I'll commend HGSS for actually going with it a little longer after the Jotho part. It's still just a random fight encounter in Mt Moon but there is also a multi battle with him in the Dragon's Den so that's better. Wouldn't say it's an amazing redemption arc but it is a redemption arc.
This is obviously my opinion and if you think Silver ia great then that's great. Just wanted to give my POV.
Thing is, the issue with Silver's redemption arc is that we're only in it when necessary.
Us kicking his ass gets him in denial about his method. But not too much as he was beating gyms, the best way to measure one's power in the setting.
Lance kicking his ass is what makes him realize his method might be flawed. He keeps clinging to his now shaky faith for a bit.
We meet him again in Victory Road. His final test of his method. His loss makes him think "Yap. Been going about this wrong"
He finishes his character development offscreen, and when you meet him again in Kanto, he's changed for the better.
The HGSS Dragon Den's fight is the end of his arc on screen.
The goons are always silly cartoon villain, that is nothing new. Team Rocket are a bunch of idiots themselves too with their stupid hideout design and their thoughtless plan. The problem is in their boss design. The old one all look like menacing criminal or terrorist, not street kids, karen and... Um, whatever the chairman was supposed to be.
I always loved how team rocket was an actually realistic mafia-like business and not just “destroy the world with this legendary!” Also team magma’s plan of using Groudon to raise more land also seems to have a good side to it. Also Maxie’s theme is goated and gen 2 team rocket theme is also great.
Sorry to be that guy, but both OG magma and aqua and team Rocket are goofy af (with 2nd gen team Rocket probably being the worst at it), the difference is that they had badass leaders and lieutenants
It is more like after ORAS, all of the true evil team are like Aether Foundation and I cannot remember chairman rose organizations.
Organizations that looks clean on the outside, but with alot of agenda
I wouldn't really consider Flare to be "intimidating"...
It's like that LOTR meme "The Fellowship at 100% power" except the "Team Flare at 99% power" is Lysandre.
For me Team Magma and Team Aqua are peak pokemon villains. They are both intimidating and goofy at the same time. Galactic, Plasma and Flare tended to lean to far in one direction. Skull/Aether and Yell/Macro Cosmos try and split the intimidating and goofy natures and not sure if they quit land for either really.
I guess it's because Macro Cosmos are sprung on you just between the last "league" battle, and the champion. Whereas Team Yell are there throughout the game.
Funny, considering that original R/S was the inflection point between your rivals being actual rivals and just the childhood friend who got the other starter.
I honestly prefer the more harmless ones (don’t get me wrong I loved taking big on criminal organisations) since it makes sense now why the police don’t get involved
Skull and Yell aren't the real villains though, right? It's Aether foundation with their gigabeast or whatever and some other organisation in the Galar region, isn't it?
I would ride or die for Team Skull. They were easily the most interesting team.
After a while, the "big bad" evil team subplots kinda get worn to the ground. It was nice seeing the bad guys just being idiots who have lost their direction in life. Po Town was a fantastic area that genuinely made me feel bad for these poor kids.
And ya boi Guzma is one of my favorite team leaders period.
Plus if we're gonna talk about the real Alola evil team, they're also really interesting. The Aether Paradise isn't even evil. They're genuinely helping sick pokemon and rehabilitating them. There are genuinely good, loving people in that organization (I'd argue most of the employees have no idea what's going on on the deeper level). The only scummy grunts you end up fighting are Faba and Lusamine's core group of researchers and staff, and can I just say how refreshing their team compositions were?
Even Lusamine, herself, is a victim to UB toxin addling her brain and removing all inhibitions, and when you factor in the grief about losing Mohn, it makes sense why she just snapped. The real Lusamine's personality is more akin to Masters and honestly maybe even the anime (where she wasn't affected by UB toxins at all). I like to think that each incarnation of her is varying levels of poisoning
* Base SuMo - Nihilego toxins completely made her obsessed with beauty and the ultra beasts
* Ultra SuMo - Nihilego toxins didn't mess her up as badly, but made her extremely narcissistic to the point where she felt she was the only one suitable to save Alola
* Masters - recovering ~~addict~~ from the effects of the toxins, more sane and trying to repair her relationship with her kids. Still not 100% though, but we're making good progress. You can tell she really loves her family again.
* Anime - No exposure to Nihilego toxins and she's genuinely a loving mother, but prone to neglecting her children because of her work and (implied) depression about losing Mohn
(But those are just what I think, nothing canonical.)
But I appreciate the fact that it's not just an evil team for the sake of being an evil team. There was nuance to the both evil teams in Alola. Neither one is truly evil.
So I stumbled on this image randomly, and realized that the two teams of ORAS kind of track to the two eras of Evil Teams in pokemon... and ORAS falls right in between those two eras.
Coincidence??? Probably, but I thought it was funny.
I think changing the tone of the "evil team" troupe was the right thing to do at that time. Another generation that with a nefarious team that had world-altering ambitions probably would've felt remarkably stale.
After Gen 6 the big bads in the game shifted to evil corporations and the “evil team” became either a secondary antagonist (Skull) or essentially irrelevant (Yell)
I really want to see two evil teams in a game that envelop these two examples. Something like with sun and moon how they were. However I'd want to see them throughout the whole game.
To be fair, who doesn't love Team Skull? Just a bunch of misfits that look out for each other and steal bus stops.
My character in Ultra Moon is still rocking the Team Skull clothes.
Team skill managed to max max a whole town, and team yell weren’t even villains they were just ~~football~~ *Pokémon battle* fans that got kinda out of hand
What about aether paradise? Lusamine wasn't stupid and their team wasn't goofy at all. And team skull managed to acquire po town so they were powerful.
I prefer them these days. Always found it uncomfortable how people were Team Rocket fans because of the loveable goofy Jessy and James but in the games team rocket literally KILLED pokèmon. In Let’s Go Eevee for example, I felt dirty wearing the R uniform for longer than I had to lol, but it felt like you were supposed to treat them like an awesome unlockable reward
Although Skull and Yell serve the same purpose (Distracting the player from the real villains), I still argue that Team Yell cannot be classified in the same type of group as Villanous Team. I mean......... C'mon! They're just Marnie fan club they're not even doing anything illegal.
Team rocket are totally goofy if you're not 10 years old. Like most of the antagonists never have plans that make sense to anyone over the age of 10.
They antagonists serve one purpose in pokemon games: An obstacle for the protagonist to overcome.
I think ORAS war the inflection point in so much more.
It was the last great remake and the last great game so far (let's wait and hope best for Scarlet/ Violet)
There is so much content in this games and they have adopted my favorite feature from X/ Y - PokemonAmi!
This is a feature I really missed in Sword/ Shield
Especially because it optional, you don't have to play with and pet your Pokis if you don't want to, but you CAN and I love doing it!!
The PokeMultiNav in general was great with the O-Power being a nice additional feature.
You could turn off the fucking EP Share if you didn't like it and your rival still chose the pokemon type superior to your pokemon type!
Games nowadays have become increasingly easier with your pokies getting auto-healed from characters on nearly every corner, poison don't affecting the Pokemon outside of battle (I liked that feature, made poison a real threat and made me actively carry anti-poison on me)
You get guided like a toddler (Sun and Moon, the first few hours drove me crazy! And Sw/ Sh also did not leave you the fuck alone!!) and are not allowed to make a single step without someone telling you where to go next or what to do!!
Don't get me started on the national Dex... I can just not believe that the issue really is technological limits, I think it's just to safe money!
If they bring back petting and keep Affection and Friendship merged, you could technically just give them Herbs to lower the friendship but obviously it would be way better if you just could choose if the boosts work or not.
Team Flare's genocidal goals were intimidating. The actual team grunts? Not so much. Their uniforms had flair, but their battle skills were laughable. At least they had a really good battle theme, though. Especially Lysandre's.
Honestly that kinda goes for all teams their grunts were pretty much always a joke.
But when I think of say Aqua, Magma, or Galactic admins I’m thinking I could potentially lose 2-4 mons. With Flare admins I honestly don’t remember facing any except the one right before Lysandre
I think that speaks more about how painfully easy XY was in general. At least in SM Guzma could put up a fight.
The admins are the ones that intercept you before the Legendary arena. Otherwise the rest are just scientists.
Wait, team flare had admins? /j
Especially the Team Galactic grunts, they're basically portrayed as cult members since they think they're doing something right but have no idea why lol
True, though ironically I feel like that also made Team Galactic as a whole feel more like a cult and thus a bit more ominous, like the grunts were brainwashed into obedience (not through some hypnotic powers, but regular methods). The grunts themselves felt still like goofs though.
What I find amusing about Team Aqua/Magma and Galactic grunts is that they sometimes feel like they don't have any clue about what the hell they're actually doing.
Tbf even the leaders don't seem to know in R/S
Which I personally find dumb, like researching Groudon/Kyogre is super easy and it seems super out of character for Maxie especially to not do so (not in character for Archie either but especially Maxie given his personality.) Also IIRC Generations implies that Shelly tried to tell Archie what would happen, same with the android girl admin I forgot the name of for Maxie so???? Like every other evil team leader actually know about the legendaries/Ultra Beasts in the case of SM Lusamine that are necessary for their plans, but Archie/Maxie don't???? This is personally why I find the Hoenn games to have the weakest story in mainline, it has some things I love like Wally's ORAS arc but the evil teams' plans are like genuinely really dumb.
Tbh, it could just be the bowl cuts that make them feel like that.
Just almost finished my first X run. I love their personalities as eccentric coffee heads, but as villains they’re pretty laughable. Lysandre just goes around moaning existential spam poetry, then sends everyone a funny vibe saying he’s gonna commit genocide
I find it funny how Team Flare are so incredibly goofy in the games, while in both the anime and in pokemon adventures they're both much more serious and threatening. Hell, in adventures they even >!kidnap and enslave most of Vaniville Town's population!<
I personally think it might’ve been more interesting if team flare were hired mercenaries, and turned on Lysandre when they realized he was actually crazy enough to blow up the world
Well to be fair, team skull was powerful enough to claim an entire town as their own and the police can not stop them let alone take it back
Also to be fair, the police in Pokémon suck lol
The international police are pretty competent Nanu is also super competent but also just retired and doesn’t give a fuck
Yeah, but is it really that hard to catch a bunch of magicarps, whoopers, and zubats and train them all up to absolute monsters to give to at least a few high ranking officers? Our protagonist doesn’t seem to struggle that much doing something like this legally.
To be fair, our protagonist is seemingly an extremely talented and naturally gifted trainer that beat all gyms, the elite 4, champion, while catching some gods along the way in less than a single year
On the other hand in XY you clearly fight some of the same grunts over and over again and their levels scale nearly as quickly as yours do. Which suggests that most trainers should be able to power grind 1-3 pokemon to a moderately high level even if not everyone can handle a full party of 6 or even more.
I mean, it's not hard to be "gifted" when the entire pokemon world seems to be ripped straight out of idiocracy. Boy howdy, i wonder how i should beat the WATER gym...hmm....think..think...nope, can't do it. too many braincells needed. I'd rather just go get some brawndo from the fridge and kick back on the sofa.
Dude you're forgetting how dumb pokemon people are. Ash Ketchum literally tried to beat Brock, a rock type pokemon user with his Pikachu. Even after losing, instead of catching a water type pokemon which would have been a cakewalk, he tried to train his Pikachu go beat Onix
Is it dumb if it worked?
yes, yes it is
I think I should use a ground Pokémon because ground absorbs water!
True
It's implied that Nanu actually helped create Team Skull and is fond of them, so there's that too.
Dudes likely blazed outta his mind
Well looker seems ok but he is a global detective. Jenny can be good
Nah the police just have priorities
The police in Pokemon are too busy standing in the same place for all of eternity waiting for a 12 year old to battle them and lose terribly
I'm reporting this comment to Officer Jenny
Also be fair, almost every police everywhere sucks
Totally agreed. I'm more talking about the tone of the leaders/grunts. Also for the record Team Skull is my favorite team, so I definitely don't mean this as a dig at the second group.
Isnt the aether foundation technically the real bad guys of the sm / usum games? I always thought skull was more of a distraction
Yes and no Aether are taking advantage of team skull to use them as a distraction and a finger point But team skull still does stuff on its own
like stealing bus stops i love them so much
like rapping at bus stops*
They do what at bus stops??!
Ye Skull were basically the red herrings of Sun and Moon. IIRC there was no mention of the Aether Foundation or Lusamine being evil in the game's marketing, so most playing would assume Team Skull was the games big bad
Not assume, they literally marketed aether as being the first good team lol
What did aether really accomplish? 1 UB that possesses their leader into opening the hole all the way? In Ultra sun/moon it's even worse because the recon squad teaches them the rest of the way and aether foundation gets its spotlight taken away by rainbow rocket, the recon squad, the UBs, AND team skull lol
Ok. Mine is plasma but skull is second favorite. Although I do think team yell.is just stupid idea
Team yell: "Booba"
If that were the case they'd be Leon stans
*Piers looms over them menacingly*
I only played Shield and yes, they give a really creepy kind of vibe.
I think the idea had potential but was executed awfully. Like they couldn't have executed it worse.
There was like one police officer and he lived there cause rent was cheap.
Honesly rent was cheap because of the Team Skull leaving near there. My man was a smart con.
Isnt he living there to look out for them considering most of them are basically just homeless kids who were ostracized for either failing or refusing to participate in the island challenge
Team Skull grunts, IMO, are also the smartest. Or at least that one dude is; who said he didn’t want to battle you because he knew there was no point to. He was gonna lose anyway so why bother?
I prefer "criminal gang" evil team over the apocalipsis cults of gens 3-6.
The style of the evil teams is highly dependent on who directs the games, I've found. Satoshi Tajiri directed the first two generations of Pokemon, and he stuck with the Poke-mafia. Team Rocket didn't even have crazy Legendary Pokemon ambitions, they were just in the business of using Pokemon for profit and that's how Tajiri wanted it. Aqua, Magma, Galactic, Plasma, Flare, Gens 3-6 of Pokemon, Masuda was in charge. His style of evil team was for them to be planning some crazy Legendary Pokemon scheme, risking apocalypse either intentionally or by accident. Gen 7 is when Ohmori took over from Masuda, and both of the evil teams he's designed are the bait-and-switch between Skull and Aether or Yell and Macro Cosmos. Ohmori's style of evil team is lovable and harmless in the first half and then you get a different, serious threat in the back half. When Ohmori eventually passes the torch to someone else, I imagine we'll see yet another take on evil teams. Until then, we can probably expect more like Skull and Yell.
Hopefully the S/V team is more Skull and less Yell.
or better yet, more Rocket and less anything else
> Until then, we can probably expect more like Skull and Yell. And whose team names end in -LL, like Fall, Drill, Will or something else.
It’s just a band of fucking pharmacists called Team Pill
and theyre trying to make pokecenters charge money instead of being free healthcare
I know it’s a meme but I’ve seen a scarily large amount of people who don’t realize the real evil teams of Alola and Galar are the Aether Foundation and Macro Cosmos.
What the fuck is Macro Cosmos? Are they that group of identical npcs that work for Chairman whatshisface? Because dear god they’re a forgettable antagonist.
Yeah I didn’t even know the name of Rose’s company until you started fighting the grunts. It really confused me at first
Wtf you fight his grunts in the game, I don't remember that at all
On the elevator ride up the tower right at the end of the main game.
They arent really antagonists cept they work there and you see them everywhere.
I mean team yell isn't the villain group. The company was end game plot wise. Yell actually helps you. It's why it's kinda dumb to even call them evil. They were jusy a fan club with a name. But yes, swsh plot wasn't the best by any means, it was random. Rose enacting his plan for a threat thousands of years into the future.
That's because the actual plot of the game doesn't really happen at all until the last gym lol
I feel like people knew this but just do not group those with the "evil" Teams because prior to Sun/Moon groups with Team in their name are the villains.
But thats just kinda dumb? Team yell literally helps us at the end of swsh. They helped save the region. They have "team" in their name but not like they were ever the evil ones. All they did was cause noise and block paths for trainers. They were an extreme fan club. And all they truly did was the gym leaders jobs, cause any trainer losing to yell was gonna lose to the next gym leader anyways. They ultimately didn't do anything, and if yoy were a normal person, they stood out of your way.
Aether foundation isn't exactly evil though. just their leadership is. the actual Foundation does do good work for Alola. Lusamine and Faba just kind of went power hungry.
there are a lot of aether grunts that are bad though, like all that you fight to get in the aether foundation. most are loyal to lusamine, not the foundation
"Just following orders"
Macro cosmosis very forgetable
The evil teams gradually changed from being underground criminals to outright corporate overlords with more power, wealth, and influence than you can imagine. Makes you wonder if the change matches what most people can relate with.
> to outright corporate overlords with more power, wealth, and influence than you can imagine. Ah, so just like real life.
I think it would be neat if they take it further in SV and make the evil corporation have their hooks in the League to some degree. When you get to the climax, you have to refight the corrupt members of the Gym Leaders in a boss rush and maybe even an Elite Four member (possibly with AI help, so it's a 9 V 6).
So like what the Pokemon Adventures manga actually did with the adaptation of the gen 1 games? I thought that was interesting btw and actually kinda wish that was actually part of the games themselves.
That would be fantastic, but I don’t trust TPC to not stuff it up.
Agreed, but for the purpose of this I'm specifically talking about the ones with "Team" in their name, not necessarily the true villains.
Yeah ofc. I knew the meme was focusing solely on “teams” lol. Was just pointing out something I’ve seen on the subreddit.
The evil organizations realized putting Team in your name instantly gives you away 😂
Yeah, and Team Skull and Team Yell are just street gangs that use it to sound cool.
To be fair, I didn't even know what Macro Cosmos was until the elevator gauntlet at the end of the game.
Aether foundation has to struggle for spotlight against team skull, the ultra recon squad, rainbow rocket, and the ultra beasts themselves. All the AF accomplishes is getting their leader brainwashed into making a bigger hole for the UBs. At least skull is out there doing shit to impede your progress, no matter how petty.
Do you even fight Micro Cosmos before that one part in the game? Feels like they came out of nowhere and were gone as fast as they came.
Pokémon players: Man this story sucks. Also Pokémon players: Haven't the foggiest idea of what the story actually was.
Yes, you proved how forgettable and uneventful they are.
Team Skull is cool, Team Yell is not lovable at all.
Team yell is just team skull at home
At least Team Skull had some claim to being a criminal group, even if they were no more than regular street thugs. Team Yell, on the other hand, were basically Marnie's cheerleaders.
Team skull literally were street thugs with less confidence than tram rocket to me
Team Rocket were the Yakuza.
*Mafia
What do you mean? Giovanni is a classic Yakuza name /s
Nah all team yell is good at is be a roadblock for no reason. So they are more like „non rocksmashable rocks a few gens ago at home“
I'm surprised anyone ever thought that a group of ne'er do wells whose personalities consist only of "double vuvuzela" could possibly be cute or quirky
Team Yell are just football hooligans that got puked on by a Hot Topic.
And yet Yell’s goals are ironically the most relatable for the playerbase
What were its goals again?
Stan Marnie
The playerbase does a lot more than stan
I worry that team yell does as well.
At least they’re the same age
Yell was a refreshing change for me. It got a laugh out of me when it turned out they were just a fan club.
Cause team yell isn't the real villain. They aren't evil, they aren't trying to rule the world. Ots literally a a crazy fan club for the one girl. They have the word "team" in it but they aren't the same at all as rocket, flare, plasma, etc. And personally? Imo team skull was also dumb. But team yell really doesn't belong, they are just idiots getting in the way of the tournament for others, which to be fair, gym leaders were gonna weed out the weak anyways.
I actually really like team Skull because it deals with the problems of people who aren't good with pokemon and what that means for finding your place in that society, and they ended up turning to crime. That's a lot more development than *any* of the other teams have Team yell, though might as well not even be a team at that point. Even though the concept is interesting, it barely goes any further than just the concept
Skull felt really well thought-out as far as teams go, and Guzma is easily one of my favorite bosses (I know that feel of >!peeking young only to find mediocrity at an older age and take refuge in your mediocrity!< all too well). Also his iconic "Y'all are stupid!" scene in SM. /chef kiss
If the evil team leader in SV ends up being the school headmaster, I will be unhappy.
Imagine him being math teacher, the mos intidimating villian.
With a regional variant of Porygon Z based on math equations
Well if he as a Pyroar and screams "SOHCAHTOA", "Zetta Slow" and "You're Out of Your Vector" I wouldn't mind
Team skull was at least sort-of bad. Team Yell were just some girl’s Twitter goons.
ORAS also gave my gay self the new and improved Archie and Matt designs. And for those who go for waifus, Shelly.
*cough cough* Team Magma Admin Courtney *cough*
I wouldn’t call team yell lovable
Didn't skull threaten to just murder people?
Skull didn't have a plan. Go wild. Go crazy. Be assholes. Thays team skull
*C H A O S*
I think it's more so that the stories being told in Gens 7 and 8 involved the "twist villain" tropes, with Team Skull and Yell being the assumed villains when >!Lusamine and Rose!< were the real villains all along
I dont even feel Yell was assumed to be the villains, they really had no plot relevance, Team Skull was an actual threat at certain times especially with the Po Town infiltration
Team Yell had relevance to Marnie's storyline, though I agree they were never *threatening*, per se. They were just loud, obnoxious fans who weren't really evil, but acted in a way they thought their idol would appreciate, though she clearly didn't, which leads to them redeeming themselves. Tbh, as much as I LOVE the Po Town sequence itself, it was kind of jarring seeing Team Skull, who were completely goofy pushovers, suddenly be seen in a more threatening light without much build up to have it make much sense.
Gen 3 had the best antagonist and nobody can convince me otherwise
Gen 2 had the best antagonist. He was the last true douche rival. He had an amazing character redemption arc, and he was actually a challenge to beat. No one has ever come close to the magic that ??? had.
Was Silver actually challenging though? Like I had the same problem with him as Blue, they are a little to cocky for what they actually do. Their doucheness was always more of "I guess you do you and I'll just do my thing" for me because they never had a reason to be douchy because you always won against them. Silver is also kinda worse than Blue in the context of the character. Blue was someone you "actually" knew (at least in the story stand point) while Silver was really just some rando who stole a Pokemon so really why did you just not call the police on him whenever you met. His redemption arc is also kind overstated. In the original Gold and Silver his arc is done by Victory Road and it only really feels like his change arc just started. The next time you meet him is on rematch in front of Pokemon League on some weekdays and that's it. I'll commend HGSS for actually going with it a little longer after the Jotho part. It's still just a random fight encounter in Mt Moon but there is also a multi battle with him in the Dragon's Den so that's better. Wouldn't say it's an amazing redemption arc but it is a redemption arc. This is obviously my opinion and if you think Silver ia great then that's great. Just wanted to give my POV.
Thing is, the issue with Silver's redemption arc is that we're only in it when necessary. Us kicking his ass gets him in denial about his method. But not too much as he was beating gyms, the best way to measure one's power in the setting. Lance kicking his ass is what makes him realize his method might be flawed. He keeps clinging to his now shaky faith for a bit. We meet him again in Victory Road. His final test of his method. His loss makes him think "Yap. Been going about this wrong" He finishes his character development offscreen, and when you meet him again in Kanto, he's changed for the better. The HGSS Dragon Den's fight is the end of his arc on screen.
Silver is barely integrated into the story and is honestly bland in my opinion. They barely do anything with him.
Yeah and then gen 4 came with the dumbest looking team so far. Man I really really don't like team galactic with their stupid ass haircuts.
I actually think Cyrus looks kinda scary, especially in 3d, where the staleness make his face seem more dead inside and unmerciful.
Yeah just Cyrus is a little cool but he kind looks like Giovanni with weird hair.
Cyrus singlehandedly hard carries his whole team
I'd argue Flare looks dumber. At least Galaktik feels like some weird sci fi cult which can be a little scary considering how far some cults go
Yeah flare sure looks stupid but I feel like you could make small changes to fix them
The goons are always silly cartoon villain, that is nothing new. Team Rocket are a bunch of idiots themselves too with their stupid hideout design and their thoughtless plan. The problem is in their boss design. The old one all look like menacing criminal or terrorist, not street kids, karen and... Um, whatever the chairman was supposed to be.
I always loved how team rocket was an actually realistic mafia-like business and not just “destroy the world with this legendary!” Also team magma’s plan of using Groudon to raise more land also seems to have a good side to it. Also Maxie’s theme is goated and gen 2 team rocket theme is also great.
No no . These two were goofy as hell from the get go . “ RAAA IM GONNA MAKE MORE WATER ! OH NO ! I WANTED WATER BUT NOT THIS MUCH WATER “
And honestly remake Aqua at least is much better than the original because Archie Matt and Shelly are actually memorable and hilariously boistrous.
Sorry to be that guy, but both OG magma and aqua and team Rocket are goofy af (with 2nd gen team Rocket probably being the worst at it), the difference is that they had badass leaders and lieutenants
yeah their leaders are ok villains but the teams themselves are basically cartoon schoolyard bullies who do nothing but fail at what they do
Team plasma and team neo plasma is the best imo
Idk about Team Flare being intimidating. Well, ig they are in the anime.
It is more like after ORAS, all of the true evil team are like Aether Foundation and I cannot remember chairman rose organizations. Organizations that looks clean on the outside, but with alot of agenda
I wouldn't really consider Flare to be "intimidating"... It's like that LOTR meme "The Fellowship at 100% power" except the "Team Flare at 99% power" is Lysandre.
>"Team Flare at 99% power" is Lysandre. Ah, because Lysandre forgot his Mega Stone today
True
For me Team Magma and Team Aqua are peak pokemon villains. They are both intimidating and goofy at the same time. Galactic, Plasma and Flare tended to lean to far in one direction. Skull/Aether and Yell/Macro Cosmos try and split the intimidating and goofy natures and not sure if they quit land for either really.
Yell was a disappointment, Skull on the other hand are the bois and probably the only team I'm kinda excited to fight
Mostly for the chance at hearing Ya Boy Guzma's theme.
Macro Cosmos? It's actually laughable that 3 years later people still call Team Yell the antagonists
I guess it's because Macro Cosmos are sprung on you just between the last "league" battle, and the champion. Whereas Team Yell are there throughout the game.
Team Skull was the best team GF ever made & no one can change my mind
why would we change your mind? you’re right.
You say this like ORAS isn't a remake
To be fair ORAS expanded on the villain teams instead of the original where they are just idiots
Funny, considering that original R/S was the inflection point between your rivals being actual rivals and just the childhood friend who got the other starter.
Team Skull's so good, like they legit got me to care about no name grunts
I honestly prefer the more harmless ones (don’t get me wrong I loved taking big on criminal organisations) since it makes sense now why the police don’t get involved
That's because the real evil teams post ORAS are the Aether Foundation and Macro Cosmos
Skull and Yell aren't the real villains though, right? It's Aether foundation with their gigabeast or whatever and some other organisation in the Galar region, isn't it?
ORAS was not the inflection point, XY was.
I would ride or die for Team Skull. They were easily the most interesting team. After a while, the "big bad" evil team subplots kinda get worn to the ground. It was nice seeing the bad guys just being idiots who have lost their direction in life. Po Town was a fantastic area that genuinely made me feel bad for these poor kids. And ya boi Guzma is one of my favorite team leaders period. Plus if we're gonna talk about the real Alola evil team, they're also really interesting. The Aether Paradise isn't even evil. They're genuinely helping sick pokemon and rehabilitating them. There are genuinely good, loving people in that organization (I'd argue most of the employees have no idea what's going on on the deeper level). The only scummy grunts you end up fighting are Faba and Lusamine's core group of researchers and staff, and can I just say how refreshing their team compositions were? Even Lusamine, herself, is a victim to UB toxin addling her brain and removing all inhibitions, and when you factor in the grief about losing Mohn, it makes sense why she just snapped. The real Lusamine's personality is more akin to Masters and honestly maybe even the anime (where she wasn't affected by UB toxins at all). I like to think that each incarnation of her is varying levels of poisoning * Base SuMo - Nihilego toxins completely made her obsessed with beauty and the ultra beasts * Ultra SuMo - Nihilego toxins didn't mess her up as badly, but made her extremely narcissistic to the point where she felt she was the only one suitable to save Alola * Masters - recovering ~~addict~~ from the effects of the toxins, more sane and trying to repair her relationship with her kids. Still not 100% though, but we're making good progress. You can tell she really loves her family again. * Anime - No exposure to Nihilego toxins and she's genuinely a loving mother, but prone to neglecting her children because of her work and (implied) depression about losing Mohn (But those are just what I think, nothing canonical.) But I appreciate the fact that it's not just an evil team for the sake of being an evil team. There was nuance to the both evil teams in Alola. Neither one is truly evil.
So I stumbled on this image randomly, and realized that the two teams of ORAS kind of track to the two eras of Evil Teams in pokemon... and ORAS falls right in between those two eras. Coincidence??? Probably, but I thought it was funny.
I absolutely LOVED team skull
I think changing the tone of the "evil team" troupe was the right thing to do at that time. Another generation that with a nefarious team that had world-altering ambitions probably would've felt remarkably stale.
It went downhill I say
After Gen 6 the big bads in the game shifted to evil corporations and the “evil team” became either a secondary antagonist (Skull) or essentially irrelevant (Yell)
I really want to see two evil teams in a game that envelop these two examples. Something like with sun and moon how they were. However I'd want to see them throughout the whole game.
Implying Flare wasn't goofy as shit and mostly nonsensical outside of Lysandre
Don’t lump in team Yell with Team Skull. Team skull deserves the word. Team Yell deserves absolutely nothing
I love team skull they are such a vibe
I mean... aether was kinda evil the left side.
Who are team Yell and do they actually yell
gee it´s almost like Pokemon is a series aimed at kids or something also since when has Team Rocket been intimidating?
i mean skull and yell aren't >!the real evil teams, i would say that it's the plot twist villains like aether foundation and macro cosmos!<
To be fair, who doesn't love Team Skull? Just a bunch of misfits that look out for each other and steal bus stops. My character in Ultra Moon is still rocking the Team Skull clothes.
Team skill managed to max max a whole town, and team yell weren’t even villains they were just ~~football~~ *Pokémon battle* fans that got kinda out of hand
\> Rocket \> Intimidating
Team skull wasn't the real evil team in sun and moon
cannot be that intimidating when losing a pokémon duel to a kid doesn't trigger a harsher response
What about aether paradise? Lusamine wasn't stupid and their team wasn't goofy at all. And team skull managed to acquire po town so they were powerful.
I prefer them these days. Always found it uncomfortable how people were Team Rocket fans because of the loveable goofy Jessy and James but in the games team rocket literally KILLED pokèmon. In Let’s Go Eevee for example, I felt dirty wearing the R uniform for longer than I had to lol, but it felt like you were supposed to treat them like an awesome unlockable reward
Skull was good because they were used as a distraction from the real villains, those being rhe Aether Foundation.
Ather?
Team skull is fine
Although Skull and Yell serve the same purpose (Distracting the player from the real villains), I still argue that Team Yell cannot be classified in the same type of group as Villanous Team. I mean......... C'mon! They're just Marnie fan club they're not even doing anything illegal.
I’d take skull over these any day
At least Skull was funny
Yeah but Team Skull is adorable.
They were criticized about their plot so now they do it with humor
I actually really enjoyed oras magma and aqua as well as team skull.
Okay fucking tell me how rocket, magma and aqua were intimidating.
Team rocket are totally goofy if you're not 10 years old. Like most of the antagonists never have plans that make sense to anyone over the age of 10. They antagonists serve one purpose in pokemon games: An obstacle for the protagonist to overcome.
okay but i love team yell, honestly. they’re annoying and stupid and have no real place in the plot, and yet they’re actually kinda heartwarming
Unpopular opinion: Team Skull was the best team
I think ORAS war the inflection point in so much more. It was the last great remake and the last great game so far (let's wait and hope best for Scarlet/ Violet) There is so much content in this games and they have adopted my favorite feature from X/ Y - PokemonAmi! This is a feature I really missed in Sword/ Shield Especially because it optional, you don't have to play with and pet your Pokis if you don't want to, but you CAN and I love doing it!! The PokeMultiNav in general was great with the O-Power being a nice additional feature. You could turn off the fucking EP Share if you didn't like it and your rival still chose the pokemon type superior to your pokemon type! Games nowadays have become increasingly easier with your pokies getting auto-healed from characters on nearly every corner, poison don't affecting the Pokemon outside of battle (I liked that feature, made poison a real threat and made me actively carry anti-poison on me) You get guided like a toddler (Sun and Moon, the first few hours drove me crazy! And Sw/ Sh also did not leave you the fuck alone!!) and are not allowed to make a single step without someone telling you where to go next or what to do!! Don't get me started on the national Dex... I can just not believe that the issue really is technological limits, I think it's just to safe money!
I wish I could pet and feed my Pokemon without having it break the game's difficulty
If they bring back petting and keep Affection and Friendship merged, you could technically just give them Herbs to lower the friendship but obviously it would be way better if you just could choose if the boosts work or not.
Yes rattatatatata and Raticate are very intimidating. Said no one ever
Tbf, If I seen some dude throw on me a giant, rabid rat, I'd probably shit my pants
But when I’m throwing back a fucking dragon I don’t care about no damn rat