{"id":127412,"date":"2022-08-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-135751"},"modified":"2022-08-20T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T15:00:00","slug":"feature-every-pokemon-game-narrative-ranked-from-best-to-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/08\/20\/feature-every-pokemon-game-narrative-ranked-from-best-to-worst\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Every Pok\u00e9mon Game Narrative, Ranked From Best To Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Pok\u00e9mon games aren\u2019t going to win a Hugo Award<\/a> anytime soon for their narratives, but that doesn\u2019t mean our many myriad adventures forwent interesting story beats. From Kanto to Galar, quirky villainous teams have strived to dominate Pok\u00e9mon and people, trainers have risen up to stop them, and Legendary Pok\u00e9mon have almost always shown up to wreck some Pok\u00e9Havoc.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Pok\u00e9mon Presents<\/a> for Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet and Violet<\/strong><\/a> revealed that the region of Paldea will have three separate stories. With the ninth Generation of Pok\u00e9mon on the horizon, what better time to rank all the stories that came before?<\/p>\n

Despite what we said in the headline, we’ll start with the worst first. Read on to find out which Generations \u2013 and their remakes \u2013 we think had the most engaging stories and which we found laughably nonsensical…<\/p>\n

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Generation VIII – Sword, Shield, Isle of Armor, and The Crown Tundra<\/h2>\n
\"GenVIIIArt\"<\/a>
Image: The Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We wish there was a letter grade lower than F to award Gen VIII\u2019s story. Game Freak managed to take the worst parts of a Pok\u00e9mon story and pack them into Galar. Hop, instead of simply being a boring rival, comes off as legitimately annoying \u2013 especially during battle. His character arc of wanting to defeat his brother to become the Champion of Galar never comes to fruition as the player defeats him at every turn and becomes Champion instead. In fact, Pok\u00e9mon Sword and Shield<\/strong><\/a> would have fared better if we took the role of Champion Leon\u2019s younger sibling and Hop had a separate role.<\/p>\n

Hop isn\u2019t even the worst of it. Team Yell, the villainous team in Galar, simply acts as an annoying fan club for another League challenger, somehow becoming more forgettable than Team Flare (which we’ll get to). And at the story\u2019s climax, antagonist Chairman Rose interrupts the championship match with Leon to bring about the \u2018Darkest Day,\u2019 which basically means destroying the Galar region by awakening Eternatus.<\/p>\n

Rose does this to prevent an energy crisis predicted to happen\u2026one thousand years in the future. He could\u2019ve waited until after the championship match, don\u2019t you think? His plan doesn\u2019t even make sense \u2013 awakening Eternatus, a Pok\u00e9mon capable of destroying Galar, so there won\u2019t be a Dynamax energy crisis in the far future. What?<\/em><\/p>\n

A weak post-game quest doesn\u2019t save Sword and Shield, nor does the admittedly fun characters introduced in the Isle of Armor<\/strong><\/a> and Crown Tundra<\/strong><\/a> DLC.<\/p>\n

Rank: An obvious F for Flapple<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Generation VI – X and Y<\/h2>\n
\"GenVIArt\"<\/a>
Image: The Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s stories live and die on their rivals and villains. Unfortunately, the four<\/em> rivals in Pok\u00e9mon X and Y<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Serena\/Calem, Shauna, Trevor, and Tierno \u2013 collectively have as much character growth as a Magikarp left forgotten in a PC box. Team Flare doesn\u2019t fare much better, and neither does their leader, Lysandre. In the story, his goal is to use Xerneas\/Yveltal\u2019s power to activate the \u2018ultimate weapon\u2019 in order to kill all people and Pok\u00e9mon because humanity sucks, or something, and he wants to make everything more beautiful. The whole thing is rushed and comes tacked onto the latter half of the game, like Game Freak forgot about Lysandre until development was almost finished.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a 3000-year-old King that reunites with his lost flower Pok\u00e9mon, creating one of the most meme-worthy scenes in Pok\u00e9mon history<\/a>, yet somehow this is less nonsensical than Gen VIII.<\/p>\n

Rank: F for Floette<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Generation IV – Diamond, Pearl, Platinum<\/h2>\n
\"GenIVArt\"<\/a>
Image: The Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prior to Gen IV, Game Freak continually improved upon the stories that came before. Here, they dropped the Pok\u00e9Ball. An intriguing villainous team? Not here. Team Galactic leader Cyrus makes a few pretentious appearances before bowing out after an anti-climatic battle in Pok\u00e9mon Diamond and Pearl<\/strong><\/a>. What about a rival with depth? Unfortunately, Barry\u2019s about as deep as the shallow end of the pool in Misty\u2019s gym.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon Platinum<\/strong><\/a> helped by giving Cyrus a proper conclusion after Giratina sucks him into the Distortion World. And we\u2019d be lying if we said we didn\u2019t enjoy the lore surrounding the Legendaries of Sinnoh or appreciate Cynthia as one of the better Champions \u2013 and definitely the most frightening. But even with these few saving graces, we struggled to remember significant plot points even after playing Pok\u00e9mon Brilliant Diamond<\/strong><\/a> not too long ago.<\/p>\n

Rank – D for Drifblim<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Generation I – Red, Blue, and Yellow<\/h2>\n
\"GenIArt\"<\/a>
Image: The Pok\u00e9mon Company<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We can\u2019t fault the original Pok\u00e9mon games too much for lacking a sophisticated plot on the original Game Boy. Pok\u00e9mon Red and Blue<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s simple story of an adventure to collect eight gym badges and defeat the Elite Four laid the foundation for every game that came after.<\/p>\n

In Gen I and its remakes, Team Rocket causes a lot of trouble to keep things moving, from burglarising a home to steal the TM Dig, causing a hostage situation with Mr. Fuji that resulted in the death of a Marowak, and infiltrating Silph Co. to steal the plans for the Master Ball. The reveal of Giovanni, Team Rocket\u2019s boss, being the eighth gym leader blew our pre-pubescent minds. The rival \u2013 Blue, Gary, ButtFace, whatever \u2013 also added a layer of animosity we wished they\u2019d bring back to later Generations.<\/p>\n

The remakes \u2013 Pok\u00e9mon FireRed and LeafGreen<\/strong><\/a>, Pok\u00e9mon: Let\u2019s Go Pikachu and Eevee<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 add a few extra pieces of lore to the thin plot, yet nothing significant to make the story stand out.<\/p>\n

Rank: C for Charizard<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pok\u00e9mon games aren\u2019t going to win a Hugo Award anytime soon for their narratives, but that doesn\u2019t mean our many myriad adventures forwent interesting story beats. From Kanto to Galar, quirky villainous teams have strived to dominate Pok\u00e9mon and people, trainers have risen up to stop them, and Legendary Pok\u00e9mon have almost always shown up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}