Here's Why Pokemon Rivals Are Not Jerks Anymore

In traditional Pokémon games, you embark on a journey to become a Pokémon Master alongside a rival, with whom you will meet frequently and fight as you head for the Pokemon League. This is certainly still the case in Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, but unlike your sufficient enemy in the original version of Yellow, your rival in the Switch games is much more friendly, advising you and even offering you sometimes gifts when you meet.

This is not new to the series. While your rivals in Pokemon Red and Blue and their followers, Gold and Silver, were idiots, they have all been much friendlier since, especially Hau and Lillie of Pokemon Sun and Moon, who also frequently give you items for you help. In a recent interview with Pokémon director Junichi Masuda, we asked why it would seem that the series has moved away from the worst rivals of previous games.

"I think the main reason our rivals were a fool at first was that we could only express what we could express with the pixels," Masuda told GameSpot via an interpreter. "You can not do much with this kind of little sprite on the screen, so we worked harder to characterize them through dialogue and give them some personalities.

"Moreover, since it is only dialogue and there is not much on the screen, it does not give such a severe impression, even if they are jerks, I think, now we have HD graphics and the graphics are even more impressive.If you also make him a fool, the impression will be much stronger for the players.Another thing, for my part, it's is that I feel that people with these kinds of personalities are just not as accepted by the players as they were at the time. "

Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee will be available on Nintendo Switch on November 16th. We recently learned a lot of game details, including how to get the new mythical Pokemon, Meltan. You can read more in our practical impressions of Let's Go.