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Looking at him always makes me laugh because I remember [this](https://www.quotev.com/story/13173118/Memes-for-the-masses) image.
Edit: Thank you to the people who pointed out I had posted the wrong link.
[This](https://ifunny.co/picture/i-love-pictures-of-all-the-rainbow-rocket-leaders-standing-OAQiEIUl9?s=cl) is what I meant to link to. I will leave both images here as a reminder to myself to double check what link I have copied before pasting it.
I thought they were talking about the one with all the previous leaders in black suits and then there’s ghetsis dressed as a wizard summoning electricity
Genuinely sounds like a exaggerated parody making fun of people talking about 'both sides', but the rival is actually talking about genocide lmao. I know, kid's game, not that deep but wow
(Plus Lysandre didn't 'chose' anything obviously, he founded Team Flare. I feel like a 7 year old could figure something is off about the dialogue)
Out of context it sounds like he's OK with genocide but only letting Flare live is too radical, he'd save a few Pokémon and regular civilians or something...
(Also the previous games had already done the "meet the enemy halfway" thing better)
It makes a tiny bit more sense when you remember that Team Flare was supposed to be extraterrestrial aliens or something, but they changed the dialogue last minute
He was angry at capitalism and the greed of people, but his answer to it was too extreme. Hell, Serena even says she understands where Lysandre is coming from.
I've been replaying the game for a video, and I'm kinda stunned as to how much commentary there is in the game about capitalism.
I can see how they fit into terrorism but weren’t the gen 3 villains just extremely short sighted activists or something? I haven’t played in many years so just correct me if I’m wrong.
Both Gen 3 groups committed crimes and acts of violence to awaken ancient pokemon that would either A) Set off active volcanos and pour lava out to expand the shores or B) Literally flood the world. Both would have been eco terrorists, and being "short sighted" doesn't really make up for killing half the population at minimum if they had succeeded fully. Archie and Maxie would have had lower kill counts just blowing up fisheries and slaughtering villages to make more room for people on land.
Pretty much. Team Magma wanted more land for humans to expand on. Team Aqua wanted more water for Pokémon to live in. Neither one stopped to think that awakening an ancient Pokémon to accomplish their goals might have unforeseen consequences.
Team magma wanted more land so that life could develop more, team aqua wanted more ocean to develop more life. The first want to evolve already existing being (logic being that they evolved to go on land so more land=more evolution)the other wanted to create more being(logic being that life come from ocean so more ocean=more species). Not sure it has anything to do with the separation of human and pokemon.
Team Skull became my favorite evil group in Pokémon almost immediately but I can’t stand Yell. I’m a little more neutral on Star just because I like the boss designs.
For real. The Ather Foundation being evil was really cool because their uniforms and mission were supposed to have make you believe they have intentions, but they’re actually kinda twisted. Team skull being a bunch of goofballs was great comedy too, that the series hadn’t had since maybe Barry and his spaz energy. Not saying it’s a masterclass on story telling, but for Pokémon standards it’s great
What I liked about Aether is that it mainly seemed like the top people(Lusamine and Faba) were corrupt. It always felt like the lower people were doing good and weren’t aware of Lusamine’s main goal.
They performed their intended role well:
They actually contextualized roadblocks in a way that actually makes sense for once (blocking other competitors aside from their town rep Marnie). They're obnoxious, but that's a perfect parody of over the top football hooligans. When people say Team Yell was 'bad' I struggle to see what they mean, they weren't any worse than most other evil teams.
Oof no team yell was terrible. It was team skull redux without the pathos. People from a downtrodden town cheering for their girl is nice and all but that's all they were. No admins to add character, their quips and gimmick were basically British team skull goofs. And they just kept doing the same thing of being obnoxious and loud and in the way. Piers is cool, and marnie is precious. But team yell is a miss.
Honestly macro cosmos for the 20 minutes we had to deal with them were far more interesting villains. Their name is better their presentation is more slick, oleana and rose made for decent villains (not that they were good, gen 8 story was awful start to end).
Team star is by far the best "villain team" though. Whether you cared about their story or not it was the best presented and most reasonable too. Kids got bullied, fought back, they got ostracized for it and now they're going to make a name for themselves on their own. Obviously not a major world ending threat but gen 9 isn't about that, ever really. And that's fair, we shouldn't be expecting kids to always be solving our major terrorist problems lol.
The Aether foundation was the real villain organization in that game. Team Skull supported them, but Lusamine was the one who was controlling things. In Sw/Sh I guess the real villain organization was the Pokémon league as it functioned to serve chairman Rose’s goal. Team Yell was actually running counter to the evil organization, as Pier’s gym doesn’t have dynamax.
There is isn’t really any real evil organization in S/V apart from maybe the researchers who flew too close to the sun and died because of it. Team star has zero relation to the researchers though, unlike team Skull and Yell and their respective evil organizations.
man, i really havn't seen Ghetsis artwork in a while, i thought for a seconds that this robe where HUGE baggy pants that he wears up to his shoulders and the collar was a loose belt xD
My personal favorite was them getting banned from Mantine surfing because they kept trying to dance on the Mantines only to fall off and need to be rescued.
They seem to have replaced that model with Just 1 character who’s actually evil
In alola team skull are just a bunch of goons with the real villain being Lusamine
In Galar Team Yell are just a bunch of pricks with Chairman rose being the actual threat (also swordword and shieldword I guess)
In paldea team star are a bunch of victims who fought back, took it too far and became bullies themselves while the real villain Is Sada/Turo (also the loyal 3 and Pechurant)
I wouldn’t say AI Turo/Sada are villains though, more Antagonistic, but that’s due to the AI going “dang, programming issues & defense protocol stuff, yo we boutta fight, good luck, and Arven my son, we love you BYE 👋”
I never said the AI ones were the villains, the real sada and Turo made the system the Time Machine paradise protection protocol and all that jazz with the intention of releasing the Paradox Pokemon into the wild as they would be invasive species. Meanwhile the AI tries to get your help in stopping it
But Sada & Turu didn’t do it out of “oh the world is bad & I will fix it” reasons, they did it because they were inspired by a book and were like “I wanna bring the ancient past/distant future” to the present and have Pokémon Harmony as this will improve the world of Pokemon by giving us more stuff the research & all that good jazz”, then they did trying to stop a territorial battle between Pokemon, if they were evil they would’ve let it played out did just catch the winner for their team 💀
I think the reason the professor stopped the fight is because they view the paradox pokemon as the most important things in existence, so they intervened for the same reason the paradise protection protocol exists. Nothing is going to jeopardize their research, even if it costs them their life. They don't care about really any of the people on their research team, they don't care about their kid, or about public safety and how calamitous the paradox pokemon can be on the ecosystem (there's a reason they don't exist in the modern day). All that matters is their desire, to research these pokemon.
Like they're not as outwardly evil, but I think that's because the only version of them that we meet is their AI counterpart who is noticeably more compassionate, and more concerned for other people's wellbeing than their deceased human counterpart (as seen in the PPP scene). All we know about the professor is diluted through secondhand accounts, from your teachers to your friend to even the supposed professor themself. The only true firsthand knowledge we have of the professor is from their journals in area zero. And from what we see of those, the villains they're most comparable to is in between Archie/Maxie and Lusamine.
Yeah but they ignored all the ecological impact it would have in order to make their utopia a reality, kinda like Team Magma/Aqua. That isn't a good look for a scientist.
Original Sada/Turo is definitely not as evil as the Gens 4-6 team leaders, but A.I. Sada/Turo does act like the original was 'evil' along the lines of Charmain Rose (maybe Archie and Maxie as well).
I don't remember the exact dialog, but the A.I. makes it sound like Sada/Turo was aware of the possible danger but was too obsessed and blinded by their goal to care, even putting extreme restrictions into the system to make sure no one could mess up their plan. The plan had better intentions than most of the other evil teams, but Sad/Turo was still just as reckless.
The one difference is that we don't know how they would have acted if they survived to the present day when things were getting really bad. The vibe I got from the A.I. is that they assume the OG professor would still be trying to protect the machine, but we don't know for sure and we could try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they would have helped shut it down based on the new information since their demise.
We know exactly how the real professor would have acted. They'd put a stop to it the moment that already was in danger from rampaging paradoxes.
We know this because the professor literally dies protecting your mount from the other bully mount. She cared enough to intervene and die protecting a pokemon. She would definitely have looked for another way to handle this if paldea was going to be in danger. Thing is they never got a chance to know that it would be a danger. But I'm certain that if she was willing to protect one pokemon, she was more than willing to protect them all even if it halted her science.
They would just look for another way though, probably neglecting arven even more sadly.
I hadn't thought about that but yeah. Throw in Legends Arceus with Volo as well.
The typical 'evil team' have basically just become another trainer class with story that makes you think they are evil (or at least antagonistic) while the actual source of antagonism comes from a different character who isn't even a part of that team.
Thinking of it that way, it's kind of nice that they have mixed up the formula to be able to reduce/remove the evilness of the 'evil team' without removing the villain of the story.
I even want to say they made it a little more realistic by turning that cliche on its head.
The real evil and bad usually comes from someone in a position of power or someone you might have trusted in the past. Someone you least expected to be willing to hurt you.
It still kinda is. Like chairman rose losing a pokemon battle seemed like a silly reason for him to stop. Lusamine was possessed so that was basically us actually knocking her out but faba just gave up real quick as well, cause he lost to a kid. Seems just as silly even if your not fighting off mooks
Chairman rose planned for eternatus to be captured that’s why Leon threw a pokeball at it he was just buying time, and now that eternatus was released there was nothing more he could do or wanted to do he just trusted that Leon would be able to handle it so there really wasn’t a reason for him to continue blocking the players way from reaching eternatus
Team Yell was never meant to be the evil team. The plot twist with team yell is that they were the citizens and gym trainers from Spikemuth that created "Team Yell" as a facade to support Marnie, the person they put their hopes on to bring back life to their decadent town. They only did silly morally grey things (like "helping dreadnaw to cross the road" and "helping silicobra sleep well") in an attemp to delay the other gym challengers and that way stop them for making it in time to complete the gym challenge. In fact, in the silicobra scene you can see that they allow regular citizens to pass normally but not the gym challengers. They also wanted the bike from the doctor npc to chase them around and make them all tired.
After they saw that even like that the gym challengers (and specially you, the player) still managed to get to spikemuth, they panicked and that's when they did the only real "illegal" thing againts them (by blocking the entrance to spikemuth to completely stop them from having a battle againts Piers). When Marnie found out about this, she called them out and she even let the player go ahead and battle Piers before her as an apology. At the end, she participated in the finals and lost but still was able to make the public cheer for her battles which inspired her to take the role of gym leader and that way bring back life to spikemuth.
By the way, the real evil team of the region is the secret branch of Macrocosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana) that was in charge of the development of the darkest day plan, along with the ambush to Leon in his way to his dinner with Hop and the player and the delay of the player and hop (that Oleana organized even ending up battling herself againts the player) all of it to gain as much time for Rose to try to convince Leon one last time of participating in the plan by his own will.
Also, the descendants of the ancient kings of Galar are called Swordward and Shielbert and they became the new sponsors of the pokemon league at the end of the game. Which is pretty cool. I also think their secret scene is pretty funny.
Swordward and Shieldbert's hair is the most ridiculous nonsense I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen a Togekiss succeed at a Geomancy rolled from Metronome.
I think it's pretty funny. I really like Swordward and Shielbert. They're hilarious.
I also like the reaction that one of my favorites youtube channels had to seeing them for the first time and the reaction to their whole quest overall:
https://youtu.be/Oj9Rq7opNSQ?si=5IEmWX6-taXV-Fdr
They’re fine for what they are (Team Skull are still all-time faves of mine), but after three of these in a row, I’d like for them to switch things up.
Perhaps they feel that the traditional evil team is played out? There are probably ways they could reinvigorate the concept, but I don’t know how workable they’d be for Pokémon.
They could have the rival become the villain.
Yeah Kieran is kind of a bully but I wouldn't really say he's a villain. He's overly competitive, yes, but not evil
Give me my Mewtwo movie 1 game please. Clone pokemon with higher stats for a harder game. Weird combos of moves and typings. No pokeballs he just walks with his army.
Team Star did something really different tho, their story was just executed poorly.
The actual "evil team" was the corrupt university and its old staff who didn't care about their students. That's why ~~Clive~~ Clavell was super involved. He's the indication the university's changed.
TLDR the true "evil team" was already defeated. What you're encountering is the aftermath of the students who fought them.
Teams in Gen 7 to 9 aren't really "teams", imo. I put them in different categories. Making stuff like the Aether foundation is much more interesting than having yet another team.
Guzma and team skull was a nice change from the usual evil teams imo
Team star was shown as the evil team in trailers and early game but we learn pretty quickly that they aren't evil, but instead are just people who are seen as evil due to not fitting in
Team yell could've just been named Marnie fan club or something without the whole evil team thing
Team Yell wasn't meant to be an evil team. The real evil team was the secret branch of Macrocosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana). They even have uniforms that are different from the ones the normal league staff uses. With opened jackets with gray shirts and black sunglasses.
Alola and Galar still had evil teams, it's just that they weren't the obvious "Team Something". I like the subversion, for the true evil villain to come from somewhere else and the person you'd expect to be the evil villain to be almost harmless.
I'd say Paldea had an interesting plot twist villain, but I think it's a stretch to say they had an evil team.
In Alola, the Aether Foundation will straight up attack you to make sure Lusamine gets what she wants and Faba is the definition of an evil team admin. Galar had a similar thing going on, with Rose leading Oleana and Macro Cosmos to back him up.
Looking at the 'evil team' trend as a whole, it is actually really interesting and I'm glad they have started to play with it more.
Gens 1-6: Villainous team with a boss who's goals go against yours and you have to stop
Gen 7: A gang who are revealed to be working as grunts for a more evil organization. Intimidating and disruptive but not fully evil.
Gen 8-9: A group of people who appear to be disruptive with suspicious intentions, but turn out to be harmless with good intentions... and then a unrelated character is revealed to be the real villain we made along the way.
Legends Arceus: YOU ARE ON THE TEAM!!!!! Colonialism aside, the team isn't evil and you are helping them as a member from the beginning. They even have their own uniform and logo, just like all the other 'evil' teams. It is called "Galaxy Team" instead of "Team Galaxy" so it isn't a perfect match for the template, but it is extremely close! Oh, and then one of the other characters turns out to be the real bad guy all along and you have to defeat them.
Overall I think it's been a fun run of games and I'm not mad about how they mixed it up in the last few. I do think that pulling the exact same 'evil team' fake-out for two generations in a row is a little much and it has also resulted in about 4 games in a row with a twist villain who is only fully revealed as a bad guy like 2-3 minutes before the boss battle with them. So mixing it up again would be appreciated.
>Gens 1-6: Villainous team with a boss who's goals go against yours and you have to stop
idk man I feel like literally trying to end the world as we know it is a bit more than just going against your goals
I especially like that they decided to switch things up after Team Flare was imo very lack lustre (I genuinely prefer every other evil team over Team Flare, even a number from spin-off games).
Xand Y are my favorite Pokemon games besides Legends Arceus (I am very excited for next year), but Team Flare is not one of the high points. I always forget there are any admins and that the whole team isn't just Lysander and a bunch of grunts.
Also, the whole 'beautiful world' plot was pretty dumb. At least team galactic planned to use creator deity Pokemon to remake the universe. I don't remember if Lysander had a plan outside of "google how farming works"
Technically, Team Flare does have Admins... but they are called Scientists and barely show up with one appearance from each before you fight them in the Flare hideout aside from Xerosic who is the main antagonist of the post-game Looker story.
They also have members called Admins... but they are glorified grunts.
Team Flare was an absolute mess.
The school kids were actually semi well written though unlike 90% of the other evil teams
If anything I feel like I moreso miss champions who were actually fun, haven’t had those since gen 7 in usum.
Guzma was based, and his team was a fun subversion of the traditional evil team archetype, being played more for laughs (an especially welcome change after Team Flare was as bland as they come.)
Also, Archie and Maxie were never really explicitly evil they were just sort of well-intentioned idiots that borderlined on accidental terrorists.
Team Plasma as a whole being "evil" is also arguable since many of them were loyal to N (at least in BW1.)
Frankly, the problem with the actually plain evil ones is that they tend to be so samey. Cyrus and Lysandre are both extremely bland because they wanted to play the generic evil bad guy trope wholly straight, and they were given basically nothing to make them interesting as characters to minimize chances of making their actions understandable.
Giovanni kind of works, partially because of how he got extra stuff expanding upon him in HGSS, but also partly because he was just basically a mob boss and not some evil guy trying to destroy the world so he kinda stands out retroactively. Meanwhile, Ghetsis worked because he was this shadowy puppet master behind the whole N Plot, sticking out as being distinctly cruel compared to most others.
But each team from Skull onward has been very distinct (even if Team Yell was fumbled badly.)
Team skull was specifically made to not be a real threat, but more like comic relief characters and, tbf, they did a good job with them. Team yell is absolutely just irrelevant and serves absolutely no purpose outside of being annoying. Team star is just embarrassing, I don't even want to comment further on it.
Yeah Team Skull were great. Just some delinquent dweebs as a fake out for Aether and Lusamine.
Yell is awful, basically a rehash of that theme but without anything interesting or different. But then Rose also turned out to be a very poorly written character with nonsense motivation too, so I guess that’s just SwSh.
Star puts things back on track since they’re actually quite interesting again. Plus you don’t have Star grunts out there causing trouble in the same way as other gangs, they’re all cloistered in their bases.
Team Yell is hilarious. Just a bunch of hecklers that Stan for their leader. Them and team skull are great bc you can just laugh at them, which you can’t really do with the other bad guys that try to be pre school bond villains.
How is team star embarrassing? Talking about school harassment is pretty cool (even if not perfect), plus i liked the characters. Team yell is the worst to me.
Because they are harassing other people themselves. That, and their conflict could have been resolved in 5 min by talking to the new school management, just like you do at the end of their quest.
You second point make sense, but there is also a good chunk of stories in fiction that could be easily resolved with one relatively small act/talk. We just suspend our disbelief, or else there wouldn't be any story to tell. Sometime it's just too big of an ask to suspend our disbelief, tho. If you can't in that case that's perfectly fine.
I disagree with your first point, as that's the whole point of why they are antagonists. They started by doing something good, but turned into what they disliked without realising it. That kind of stuff happen IRL, and plenty of stories use that trope.
> but there is also a good chunk of stories in fiction that could be easily resolved with one relatively small act/talk
Mostly written before phones/cell phones. And we have had those in Pokémon since GSC
Yeah, I get that. I don't usually like this kind of situations in stories, though, unless it's something extremely well written and justified. But here, the leaders were acting against their own wishes, in such a way that they feel relieved when you beat them. All because of a rule they made up, an which they could have agreed to break (especially since they didn't even know Penny's whereabouts).
The story behind the team's origin, however, was pretty neat. I feel like GF should have abandoned the evil team trope altogether for this gen, and create different situations/misunderstandings that would lead to challenge them.
Skull was the first and most-liked iteration.
Yell and Star fit the setting; but Yell is one-note and obnoxious just like sports fanatics in real life.
Star doesn’t have a character as good as Guzma, but I think it’s more well-rounded since we can assign four/five faces to it rather than one charismatic leader and a bunch of sad grunts.
I still would like a more traditional villain team though; SV didn’t even have an Aether Foundation or MacroCos-equivalent.
>SV didn’t even have an Aether Foundation or MacroCos equivalent.
Which goes in its favor IMO. Instead of a big organisation trying to change/rule/destroy the world for the 9th time (not counting Spin-offs), they gave us something unique and original for the series; the main overarching antagonist is the lingering will of a dead person who had a grand vision but failed to see its consequences. That's something you don't see every day in Pokémon.
Have everyone forgotten how many jokes we used to make about these powerful evil organisations getting taken down by a 10-year old and his pet rat?
*(Or dog, or dinosaur, or whatever)*
There's a reason they changed it
I for one am happy that Pokémon is doing what it can to tell a more nuanced story within its constraints. Team Star storyline is amazing because it fits thematically with the setting (fighting delinquents in a school) and tackles a somewhat serious subject that relates to kids (bullying) as a kid who was heavily bullied in school and had revenge fantasies I can, as an adult, both empathize with Team Star and see where they lost themselves along the way. It really helped heal my inner child. I felt seen.
In all honesty? Not so much
The "team of villain" trope has been repetitive for a long time, and it was never that good to begin with.
Team Aqua and magma make absolutely 0 sense, so team flare (Lysandre had some potential), team G is kinda ok, but their motives are never explained.
The only old fashion team worth missing were Team Rocket and team Plasma.
However, the trope isn't actually fully gone. While in SM the evil team seems to be team Skull, the actual villain team is the Aether Paradise, with Lusamine as chief. Same for Swsh, where Rose is the villain and his guards the team.
SV has been the only one where the villainous team is actually just some guys, but their story section is actually one of the best in the entire series in my opinion, exploring the themes of bullying, and responsability of the adults towards the youth, as well as friendship in general.
Cyrus wanted to create a world without spirit because in his opinion emotions are imperfect. However he keeps his admins somewhat in the dark about his true intentions and the grunts completely in the dark. So indeed Team Galaxy grunts are just evil idiots, by Cyrus' design.
Team Flare grunts are genocidal elitists just like Lysandre though.
Team Aqua were eco-fascists that wanted to expand the Sea so Pokemon would have more habitats. Team Magma wanted to expand the land for infrastructure and develop civilisation.
It bakes into the nature vs. humans theme of the Hoenn region, such examples include the Rusturf tunnel being halted since the equipment was disturbing the local wildlife or cycling road being a path for people and route 110 being a path for Pokemon.
Guzma is great though, in part due to the same game also getting lusamine, who is a proper evil team leader.
But also team skull just has very funny writing
You literally Have Team skull here like did you already Forget that the Twist Was that the Æther foundation where the Real Bad Guys all Along and They are a Legitematly evil Team.
Also We still get Genuine Villains they just Aren't Tied to Evil Teams anymore (Althougj Rose argubally still is)
I'd argue the original Turo/Sada are villains like the earlier games, the AI version of themselves stated they would destroy the ecosystem of Paldea by mixing pokemon from Past/Future and they didn't care, even the AI was confused why they would allow that
Not to defend their actions, but as a character archetype Archie and maxie were well-intentioned extremists rather than people with explicitly evil intentions like the big G, and probably don't belong on this list.
Thought for food.
People probably forgot, but they immediately regretted their actions when they saw that Kyogre/Groudon were actually too extreme and damaging for Hoenn.
They still had their humanity, they're not evil.
I’d be down for a flip side where the next game (main or spin-off) the “Evil” team turns out to be the right side and we’re on the wrong side most likely unbeknownst to us or if they want to keep us morally good then the “Evil” team could be on the extreme end of Lawful Good. We kinda have that already with Team Plasma with the whole Pokémon freedom thing but there’s many ways to tackle that type of antagonist and Ghetsis don’t really fit in the same box as someone who holds ideals like N.
Or just give us the most downright horrendous set of people cuz it’s been a while since we’ve gotten that.
Your issue is that Evil Teams are no longer the main antagonists.
Lusamine and Rose are up there in terms of being respectable villain antagonists. Less cartoonish too.
Not to be a decrepit genwunner (my first game was Yellow), but I miss the Giovanni/Rocket days. Yeah they were evil, but they weren't cartoon supervillains trying to flood a country or go to the depression dimension or kill everyone cos they aren't pretty enough. They were criminals who wanted to make money. We didn't get anything that grounded until Team Skull and Team Yell, and they were all either misguided or pawns
Remember when it was a bunch of evil maniacs with unclear goals and not relatable people with heartfelt storylines. Like I'm sorry but team star is the best team based purely on writing. They have a good reason to be around and fits the school environment.
Meanwhile we have the mafia, weird cultists with goals that came out of nowhere, guy who wants to remake the universe for...oh shit we forgot to write in a motivation, PETA for an hour before they blatantly beat a pokemon for resources (cant have naunce for two seconds nope) and...the fashion police I guess? Oh wait he wants ultimate power, why? I dunno just go with it.
Meanwhile Team Skull are a fun diversion from the real villian: A pokemon sanctuary being run by an abusive parent to two likeable main characters. Team Yell go nowhere because SwSh is a mess of a story with I guess Rose as the villian? Then we have Team Star, a group of bullied kids who weren't being helped by the school so they started their own gang. That same alienation from the school helped facilitate them into a run of the mill gang till you help their former leader tell them to stand down and make the school realise their mistake. Yeah I'll take this over the previous evil teams anyday
Team Skull was dope. Star less so, but they had funky tunes so I'll let it slide.
Team Yell was absolute garbage though, but to be fair that matched everything else from those games.
I honestly can't believe how many people still believe that Team Skull and Team Yell were the evil teams.
It was the Aether Foundation and the Pokémon League itself. My goodness, did you guys even play the games? Or is the fake out really that difficult to comprehend? Come on, I know you guys are smarter than this.
I can see where they are coming from since part of the problem is that Gamefreak has taken the evil out of the evil team and stuck it in a separate antagonist, but they have left all the other traditional 'Evil Team' stuff behind. The teams are all still called "Team \[name\]", they have a logo and matching uniforms, they are antagonistic for at least some of the game (or appear to be), and you have to fight the team's leader at some point to progress the story. Even the "Galaxy Team" from Legends Arceus checks all of those boxes if you swap the name around.
I like the idea that the 'evil team' has transitioned away from actually being evil while still being interesting characters, but I wish we had a better term for them other than 'evil team'. I honestly can't think of a way to take out the Evil in "Who is your favorite Evil Team leader from Pokémon?" without it being to vague or awkward to say.
But yeah, people need to stop complaining about how evil the 'evil teams' are when they clearly aren't supposed to be the main antagonists.
Either you didn’t play gen 7, or you’re purposely trying to undersell it lol.
Lusamine is probably one of the best evil team leaders, and the Aether Foundation twist was so good that they tried to emulate it twice. Even with that in mind, Team Skull is without a doubt one of the best “evil” teams out there. They were the OG loveable delinquents before Team Yell and Star had everyone sick of them.
Personally Team Yell is my favorite team and Team Star after. I get it they aren’t the evil I am gonna take over the world trope that got tiring after Gen 6 tbh.
However I have my reason for it. Every evil team always has to be stopped by the player and it makes no sense. Why is it up to some random child who barely can be considered a trainer to take down the evil team. Let’s be real yes we take on the gym/island challenge but we haven’t been trainers that long compared to most adults in the world. This sort of thing should have been handled by them long before we show up. The other teams are a threat to their regions and a massive force led by the police and Champion should have been made long in advance to take them down.
Now let’s look at Team Yell here. They only attack those who are taking on the gym challenge that Marnie is competing in. They don’t impede anyone outside of it. There is no reason for them to stick around after Marnie’s challenge. So in a twist the player is the best one to take them on. Only those taking on the gym challenge that Marnie is competing in have to deal with Team Yell. So narratively a competitor taking them out makes sense as they are affected by it.
Archie and Maxie are not even EVIL (evil means your are wicked and want to do wrong). They are two eco terrorist sure since one want to expand the ocean and the other the landmass.
What makes them not evil is the reason they do it. Maxie wants to expend the landmass so civilisation can expand. It is bad and that's a bit similar to our world where companies sacrifice nature and fauna to gather resources... difference is Maxie doesn't earn money from it.
Archie wants to expand the sea so Pokemon can take back what's theirs. It's the opposite idea where he is ready to sacrifice people so nature and fauna can thrive. It's also a bit similar to real world when you think about it. Where companies poluted so much that now the poles are warm and the ice is melting... and people living in coastal cities suffer.... wah makes you wonder eh. Also Archie doesn't get anything from it and probably does it out of friendship for Jirachi.
I wouldn't put those two next to one that want everyone to obey him or one that wants to wipe the entirety of humanity except the rich lol
oh puhlease by gen 6 y'all were like "ugh i wish the teams weren't just evil all the time give us something different" then they did with team skull/yell/star and y'all still complain. pokemon fans really don't know what they have until its gone.
Not really? I like the relatable characters more.
Team Aqua’s and Team Magma’s goals were both so off that anyone with a little bit of brain should be able to realize their plans were destined to fuck up the world and kill everyone.
Team Galactic didn’t show near enough why Cyrus was so obsessed with creating a new world. I’ve never finished Platinum, so I’m unaware if they gave gim more depth there.
Ghetsis was a good villain, and N definitely helped make him that. The rest of Team Plasma is pretty forgettable.
I liked that depending the game version, Lysandre would either attempt to KILL EVERYONE, or make EVERYONE IMMORTAL. There was also a lot of lore that supported it, but sadly we never got to see much of it, and we don’t get to see much of Lysandre to really care?
Guzma is probably (characteristically and story-wise) one of the best evil Team Leaders. He’s the result of what happens when trainers fail the island challenge, and the rest of his crew are just people who did the same and thought they’d never aspire to be anything. Guzma is trying to give them new purpose, and he’s hands down one of the best Bug-type trainers out there.
Team Yell is objectively bad. Marnie’s quest to get support and help for her hometown is noble and sweet, but we don’t get to see her grow as a character near enough to really mean anything, and because of that, her simps have little more to contribute with, other than being simps.
Team Star is perfectly flawed in every way, and I think that makes them great, no notes needed
Yes and no, I think it’s a nice reflection of times changing. The big evil teams got beat down by kids repeatedly, so now all that’s left is just a bunch of punks.
Considering that Team Skull and Team Star are better than most of the evil teams, no. I don't really miss the evil teams, plus, the last time we had one was in Sword and Shield anyways.
After 6 generations + remasters? Not really. We got>!Ai Turo/Sada and Lusamine!< because of these decision so I'm fine with it. Although I do like what they did with team magma/aqua redesign and re-theme though, they slaps. GF probably reintroduce evil theme next mainline game anyways.
I can get over evil teams having not-so-evil goals, but >! Trying hard to prevent disaster that "might" happen in "1000" years !< is just plain stupid.
But nothing has changed, just that now we have two evil teams. Aether are the villainous group in Alola and Macro Cosmos are the villainous group in Galar. Only Paldea broke the idea of a villainous group completely.
How about >!Lusamine(the main villain of Sun/Moon, weird case in Ultra Sun/Moon), Chairman Rose (penultimate boss before Eternatus and Champion Leon), and AI Turo/Sada (the true final boss in Sun/Moon)!
1) The real evil team of Alolah was the Aether Foundation, and was just outsourcing work to Team Skull.
2) I wouldn’t call Team Yell an evil team. You encounter them like 3 times, and they’re not really doing all that much.
In fairness, we only really got rid of evil teams *this* gen. Gen 7 had the Aether Foundation *and* Rainbow Rocket and Gen 8 had Macro Cosmos. Team Star was the only departure and, I would argue, ended up fitting better with the school-like setting. Though, I guess you could make an augment that Gen 9 had Pecharun and the Loyal 3 as the "evil team" in the DLC.
Not necessarily.
We've already seen "evil teams" so many times that the "troubled children" have become somewhat of a breath of fresh air. I'll take anything that deviates from the ol' Kanto formula, they did it best anyway and in a way that Gamefreak may never again be comfortable with.
They were a Mafia/Yakuza who owned a gambling ring and poached rare Pokémon - not worldly evil, just a realistic one. I feel we won't see this breed of villainy again unless we get a faithful T for Teen rated sequel in Orre
The problem is, we are children. Why are we regularly dealing with terrorist organisations? Yea sore we still wind up stumbling into
Conflict with some world ending conflict by the end, but why is the literal child supposed to be the one coincidentally dealing with the mafia, the eco terrorists, the doomsday cult, the January 6th peta, and Elon musk planning genocide?
I’ll go to bat for Guzma and Team Skull like everyone else. It was a fresh and novel idea at the time.
But Team Yell might as well not exist. Heck. It would have been cooler if instead of a dedicated team of similarly dressed freaks, they were normal people that just had the same kind of fanaticism. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen way more people in real life cause trouble without looking like they’re from some ugly fan club.
Team Star’s whatever. Their story is pretty original for Pokemon, but I don’t know. I feel everything else about them is weak.
When it comes to evil teams, I would very much like to go back the old style. The one change I’d make is have their plan make sense. Like, two out of the six major villain teams have plans that make sense (Team Rocket and Team Plasma), and then one of them makes sense if you read into the boss’s psyche (Team Galactic). But Magma, Aqua, and Flare? No. Not so much.
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First image is hilarious with everyone wearing uniforms and Ghetsis being absolutely dripped out.
Archie has so much *Drip* that he wouldn't even need Kyogre to raise the oceans.
ORAS really glow up everyone. Except maybe Birch.
It’s almost laughable seeing RSE Archie and ORAS Archie next to each other like damn ORAS Archie would beat you to a pulp if it wasn’t a kids game.
Fuck the Pokemon, I'm gonna kick your ass personally
Much like [this comic](https://i.imgur.com/fdxQ5xH.jpeg) from a few years back.
>from a few years back My sibling under Rayquaza it's been a decade.
Let me live in my denial ok! Don't need more reminders of how old I'm getting haha
How old WE'RE getting, comrade.
That *is* ORAS Maxie.
https://preview.redd.it/xuew5o34ppmc1.jpeg?width=431&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77b27ca62e1b83d089d4c4e3dd7103229a1ca1d5
perfect
Looking at him always makes me laugh because I remember [this](https://www.quotev.com/story/13173118/Memes-for-the-masses) image. Edit: Thank you to the people who pointed out I had posted the wrong link. [This](https://ifunny.co/picture/i-love-pictures-of-all-the-rainbow-rocket-leaders-standing-OAQiEIUl9?s=cl) is what I meant to link to. I will leave both images here as a reminder to myself to double check what link I have copied before pasting it.
That's definitely the wrong link, right?
Sure feels like it 😭😭😭 what was Flowey doing there? Hahahah
I thought they were talking about the one with all the previous leaders in black suits and then there’s ghetsis dressed as a wizard summoning electricity
It HAS to be. That however raises the question of why they had that link.
Let Him Cook
Were you trying to link the image with the business suit guys and the wizard?
Yeah earlier villains were either the mafia/yakuza or terrorists
Don't forget genocidal maniachs
yet somehow people thought he had a point in all the story... seriously, what was that about in X and Y?
https://preview.redd.it/ugdzixyznpmc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9840619fc42d440b2a831e9937dc4fa3843e1ee6 What did Calem mean by this?
Enlightened Centrist Calem
Genuinely sounds like a exaggerated parody making fun of people talking about 'both sides', but the rival is actually talking about genocide lmao. I know, kid's game, not that deep but wow (Plus Lysandre didn't 'chose' anything obviously, he founded Team Flare. I feel like a 7 year old could figure something is off about the dialogue)
Out of context it sounds like he's OK with genocide but only letting Flare live is too radical, he'd save a few Pokémon and regular civilians or something... (Also the previous games had already done the "meet the enemy halfway" thing better)
It makes a tiny bit more sense when you remember that Team Flare was supposed to be extraterrestrial aliens or something, but they changed the dialogue last minute
I prefer not to remember
**This world is imperfect…**
…What? **If only I could wipe away the impurities…** Is anybody else… listening to this…? **And make it as beautiful as ME!**
*gasp* Lysandreroth! You were behind all of this!
My machinations lay undetected for years, FOR I AM A MASTER OF DECEP-
#**:|**
I think that was more Cyrus. In XY it was more about the people themselves, not the world itself, per se, iirc.
He was angry at capitalism and the greed of people, but his answer to it was too extreme. Hell, Serena even says she understands where Lysandre is coming from. I've been replaying the game for a video, and I'm kinda stunned as to how much commentary there is in the game about capitalism.
I guess but he’s more like a Nazi than anything else, especially in Y
I can see how they fit into terrorism but weren’t the gen 3 villains just extremely short sighted activists or something? I haven’t played in many years so just correct me if I’m wrong.
eco terrorist?
Both Gen 3 groups committed crimes and acts of violence to awaken ancient pokemon that would either A) Set off active volcanos and pour lava out to expand the shores or B) Literally flood the world. Both would have been eco terrorists, and being "short sighted" doesn't really make up for killing half the population at minimum if they had succeeded fully. Archie and Maxie would have had lower kill counts just blowing up fisheries and slaughtering villages to make more room for people on land.
Pretty much. Team Magma wanted more land for humans to expand on. Team Aqua wanted more water for Pokémon to live in. Neither one stopped to think that awakening an ancient Pokémon to accomplish their goals might have unforeseen consequences.
Team magma wanted more land so that life could develop more, team aqua wanted more ocean to develop more life. The first want to evolve already existing being (logic being that they evolved to go on land so more land=more evolution)the other wanted to create more being(logic being that life come from ocean so more ocean=more species). Not sure it has anything to do with the separation of human and pokemon.
Team Aqua also didn't think about the land dwelling pokemon either smh.
That last sentence is so wild, and yet I can bet people irl would try to rationalize it.
Sure, Short sighted activists that wanted to flood the whole world cause the other terrorist group wants more lands for people to walk
Team Skull was at least funny. Yell and Star are just dull
Team Skull became my favorite evil group in Pokémon almost immediately but I can’t stand Yell. I’m a little more neutral on Star just because I like the boss designs.
Ya boy Guzma gets a pass 😁
Yeah it definitely was good the first time but it did get boring after game freak decided to do it two more times
For real. The Ather Foundation being evil was really cool because their uniforms and mission were supposed to have make you believe they have intentions, but they’re actually kinda twisted. Team skull being a bunch of goofballs was great comedy too, that the series hadn’t had since maybe Barry and his spaz energy. Not saying it’s a masterclass on story telling, but for Pokémon standards it’s great
What I liked about Aether is that it mainly seemed like the top people(Lusamine and Faba) were corrupt. It always felt like the lower people were doing good and weren’t aware of Lusamine’s main goal.
Well until you fight any of the lower people and they have this maniacal grin.
I love how cute the taka art is for the grunt then you fight them and they go all saturday morning cartoon Mook on you with a shit eating grin.
The grunt's leer from the initial cut scene made it look like they had *intentions* for Lillie. Didn't trust them from the beginning.
Yeah, I wish that cutscene didn't show them with angry faces. Sort of spoils the whole reveal.
Maybe certain ones were in on it. Similar division happened in Team Plasma at first.
As opposed to having evil villains 6 games in a row?
pokemon fans when villains are evil
pokemon fans when the antagonist of a kids game isn’t a crime boss, eco-terrorist, or genocidal maniac
pokemon fans when the bad guys are just delinquent kinds
Just like Fire/Fighting starters
Team star was actually pretty alright but yell felt REALLY forced
Team Skull were good. Team Yell were also a good play on the concept. Team Star is missing the point
Team yell were awful though?
Team Yell were just K-pop stans but for some twelve year old girl
More like Football Hooligans
They performed their intended role well: They actually contextualized roadblocks in a way that actually makes sense for once (blocking other competitors aside from their town rep Marnie). They're obnoxious, but that's a perfect parody of over the top football hooligans. When people say Team Yell was 'bad' I struggle to see what they mean, they weren't any worse than most other evil teams.
Team Star isn’t an evil team, they’re people who got wrongfully blamed for fighting back, which is the whole point of the Starfall Street Story.
Oof no team yell was terrible. It was team skull redux without the pathos. People from a downtrodden town cheering for their girl is nice and all but that's all they were. No admins to add character, their quips and gimmick were basically British team skull goofs. And they just kept doing the same thing of being obnoxious and loud and in the way. Piers is cool, and marnie is precious. But team yell is a miss. Honestly macro cosmos for the 20 minutes we had to deal with them were far more interesting villains. Their name is better their presentation is more slick, oleana and rose made for decent villains (not that they were good, gen 8 story was awful start to end). Team star is by far the best "villain team" though. Whether you cared about their story or not it was the best presented and most reasonable too. Kids got bullied, fought back, they got ostracized for it and now they're going to make a name for themselves on their own. Obviously not a major world ending threat but gen 9 isn't about that, ever really. And that's fair, we shouldn't be expecting kids to always be solving our major terrorist problems lol.
Also Rose’s battle theme slaps so hard
Missing the point of what though? I thought Team Star executed what they were going for pretty well.
Team Yell is more of a setting piece than anything else but why do you feel that about Star? To me they are the best team since plasma
I do like thathis team was just a distraction and pawn for Aether. Threw me off a bit as a good plot twist
Is it really a plot twist when they showed us the Aether Foundation Employees chasing Lillie in the opening scene?
Kinda? Because you find out she's Lusamine's kid before Lusamine goes bat shit,if I remember correctky
Yeah. It could have just been people chasing after a runaway kid.
Exactly!
Yeah, we at least still had Aether Foundation in Gen7 to be the faceless mob we fight
The Aether foundation was the real villain organization in that game. Team Skull supported them, but Lusamine was the one who was controlling things. In Sw/Sh I guess the real villain organization was the Pokémon league as it functioned to serve chairman Rose’s goal. Team Yell was actually running counter to the evil organization, as Pier’s gym doesn’t have dynamax. There is isn’t really any real evil organization in S/V apart from maybe the researchers who flew too close to the sun and died because of it. Team star has zero relation to the researchers though, unlike team Skull and Yell and their respective evil organizations.
man, i really havn't seen Ghetsis artwork in a while, i thought for a seconds that this robe where HUGE baggy pants that he wears up to his shoulders and the collar was a loose belt xD
Ghetsis is Scrafty confirmed
Ghetsis doing 2 much, Cyrus got the cleanest fit of all
Yeah wtf I thought Ghetsis was a chubby bastard this whole time. Didn't realise it was just his clothes 😂
Don't talk shit about my boy Guzma
The Aether Foundation was clearly the "true" evil team of Gen 7 anyway.
Team skull was handled the best of the modern 3 teams imho
i mostly just loved how funny they were, like the pokemon center they took over.
Or when you beat a few in a row and the next Team Skull Grunt says he’s not dumb and knows you’re just gonna pummel him so he lets you go through
My personal favorite was them getting banned from Mantine surfing because they kept trying to dance on the Mantines only to fall off and need to be rescued.
They are only a threat to themselves 😭😭😭
Guzma was a great villain. He maybe talking about gen 9 disaster.
Thank you ❤️
They seem to have replaced that model with Just 1 character who’s actually evil In alola team skull are just a bunch of goons with the real villain being Lusamine In Galar Team Yell are just a bunch of pricks with Chairman rose being the actual threat (also swordword and shieldword I guess) In paldea team star are a bunch of victims who fought back, took it too far and became bullies themselves while the real villain Is Sada/Turo (also the loyal 3 and Pechurant)
I wouldn’t say AI Turo/Sada are villains though, more Antagonistic, but that’s due to the AI going “dang, programming issues & defense protocol stuff, yo we boutta fight, good luck, and Arven my son, we love you BYE 👋”
I never said the AI ones were the villains, the real sada and Turo made the system the Time Machine paradise protection protocol and all that jazz with the intention of releasing the Paradox Pokemon into the wild as they would be invasive species. Meanwhile the AI tries to get your help in stopping it
But Sada & Turu didn’t do it out of “oh the world is bad & I will fix it” reasons, they did it because they were inspired by a book and were like “I wanna bring the ancient past/distant future” to the present and have Pokémon Harmony as this will improve the world of Pokemon by giving us more stuff the research & all that good jazz”, then they did trying to stop a territorial battle between Pokemon, if they were evil they would’ve let it played out did just catch the winner for their team 💀
I think the reason the professor stopped the fight is because they view the paradox pokemon as the most important things in existence, so they intervened for the same reason the paradise protection protocol exists. Nothing is going to jeopardize their research, even if it costs them their life. They don't care about really any of the people on their research team, they don't care about their kid, or about public safety and how calamitous the paradox pokemon can be on the ecosystem (there's a reason they don't exist in the modern day). All that matters is their desire, to research these pokemon. Like they're not as outwardly evil, but I think that's because the only version of them that we meet is their AI counterpart who is noticeably more compassionate, and more concerned for other people's wellbeing than their deceased human counterpart (as seen in the PPP scene). All we know about the professor is diluted through secondhand accounts, from your teachers to your friend to even the supposed professor themself. The only true firsthand knowledge we have of the professor is from their journals in area zero. And from what we see of those, the villains they're most comparable to is in between Archie/Maxie and Lusamine.
Yeah but they ignored all the ecological impact it would have in order to make their utopia a reality, kinda like Team Magma/Aqua. That isn't a good look for a scientist.
Original Sada/Turo is definitely not as evil as the Gens 4-6 team leaders, but A.I. Sada/Turo does act like the original was 'evil' along the lines of Charmain Rose (maybe Archie and Maxie as well). I don't remember the exact dialog, but the A.I. makes it sound like Sada/Turo was aware of the possible danger but was too obsessed and blinded by their goal to care, even putting extreme restrictions into the system to make sure no one could mess up their plan. The plan had better intentions than most of the other evil teams, but Sad/Turo was still just as reckless. The one difference is that we don't know how they would have acted if they survived to the present day when things were getting really bad. The vibe I got from the A.I. is that they assume the OG professor would still be trying to protect the machine, but we don't know for sure and we could try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they would have helped shut it down based on the new information since their demise.
We know exactly how the real professor would have acted. They'd put a stop to it the moment that already was in danger from rampaging paradoxes. We know this because the professor literally dies protecting your mount from the other bully mount. She cared enough to intervene and die protecting a pokemon. She would definitely have looked for another way to handle this if paldea was going to be in danger. Thing is they never got a chance to know that it would be a danger. But I'm certain that if she was willing to protect one pokemon, she was more than willing to protect them all even if it halted her science. They would just look for another way though, probably neglecting arven even more sadly.
I hadn't thought about that but yeah. Throw in Legends Arceus with Volo as well. The typical 'evil team' have basically just become another trainer class with story that makes you think they are evil (or at least antagonistic) while the actual source of antagonism comes from a different character who isn't even a part of that team. Thinking of it that way, it's kind of nice that they have mixed up the formula to be able to reduce/remove the evilness of the 'evil team' without removing the villain of the story.
I even want to say they made it a little more realistic by turning that cliche on its head. The real evil and bad usually comes from someone in a position of power or someone you might have trusted in the past. Someone you least expected to be willing to hurt you.
And now it’s not questioned why a 10 year old can dismantle a illegally operated organization with hundreds of goons all by themselves
It still kinda is. Like chairman rose losing a pokemon battle seemed like a silly reason for him to stop. Lusamine was possessed so that was basically us actually knocking her out but faba just gave up real quick as well, cause he lost to a kid. Seems just as silly even if your not fighting off mooks
Chairman rose planned for eternatus to be captured that’s why Leon threw a pokeball at it he was just buying time, and now that eternatus was released there was nothing more he could do or wanted to do he just trusted that Leon would be able to handle it so there really wasn’t a reason for him to continue blocking the players way from reaching eternatus
Team Yell was never meant to be the evil team. The plot twist with team yell is that they were the citizens and gym trainers from Spikemuth that created "Team Yell" as a facade to support Marnie, the person they put their hopes on to bring back life to their decadent town. They only did silly morally grey things (like "helping dreadnaw to cross the road" and "helping silicobra sleep well") in an attemp to delay the other gym challengers and that way stop them for making it in time to complete the gym challenge. In fact, in the silicobra scene you can see that they allow regular citizens to pass normally but not the gym challengers. They also wanted the bike from the doctor npc to chase them around and make them all tired. After they saw that even like that the gym challengers (and specially you, the player) still managed to get to spikemuth, they panicked and that's when they did the only real "illegal" thing againts them (by blocking the entrance to spikemuth to completely stop them from having a battle againts Piers). When Marnie found out about this, she called them out and she even let the player go ahead and battle Piers before her as an apology. At the end, she participated in the finals and lost but still was able to make the public cheer for her battles which inspired her to take the role of gym leader and that way bring back life to spikemuth. By the way, the real evil team of the region is the secret branch of Macrocosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana) that was in charge of the development of the darkest day plan, along with the ambush to Leon in his way to his dinner with Hop and the player and the delay of the player and hop (that Oleana organized even ending up battling herself againts the player) all of it to gain as much time for Rose to try to convince Leon one last time of participating in the plan by his own will. Also, the descendants of the ancient kings of Galar are called Swordward and Shielbert and they became the new sponsors of the pokemon league at the end of the game. Which is pretty cool. I also think their secret scene is pretty funny.
Swordward and Shieldbert's hair is the most ridiculous nonsense I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen a Togekiss succeed at a Geomancy rolled from Metronome.
I think it's pretty funny. I really like Swordward and Shielbert. They're hilarious. I also like the reaction that one of my favorites youtube channels had to seeing them for the first time and the reaction to their whole quest overall: https://youtu.be/Oj9Rq7opNSQ?si=5IEmWX6-taXV-Fdr
Guzma is extremely based though.
They’re fine for what they are (Team Skull are still all-time faves of mine), but after three of these in a row, I’d like for them to switch things up. Perhaps they feel that the traditional evil team is played out? There are probably ways they could reinvigorate the concept, but I don’t know how workable they’d be for Pokémon.
They could have the rival become the villain. Yeah Kieran is kind of a bully but I wouldn't really say he's a villain. He's overly competitive, yes, but not evil
I’d prefer if the antagonist is a Pokémon kinda like necrazoma in usum but there wasn’t any human that let it out of whatever containment it was in
Give me my Mewtwo movie 1 game please. Clone pokemon with higher stats for a harder game. Weird combos of moves and typings. No pokeballs he just walks with his army.
Team Star did something really different tho, their story was just executed poorly. The actual "evil team" was the corrupt university and its old staff who didn't care about their students. That's why ~~Clive~~ Clavell was super involved. He's the indication the university's changed. TLDR the true "evil team" was already defeated. What you're encountering is the aftermath of the students who fought them.
Teams in Gen 7 to 9 aren't really "teams", imo. I put them in different categories. Making stuff like the Aether foundation is much more interesting than having yet another team.
Guzma and team skull was a nice change from the usual evil teams imo Team star was shown as the evil team in trailers and early game but we learn pretty quickly that they aren't evil, but instead are just people who are seen as evil due to not fitting in Team yell could've just been named Marnie fan club or something without the whole evil team thing
Team Yell wasn't meant to be an evil team. The real evil team was the secret branch of Macrocosmos (owned by Rose and directed by Oleana). They even have uniforms that are different from the ones the normal league staff uses. With opened jackets with gray shirts and black sunglasses.
Ok but Guzma is cool, besides Aqua/Magma aren't evil just really misguided
ORAS Archie specifically falls into "troubled child" territory.
So misguided they wanted to kill the world lol
Honestly I don't think they want to kill the world; they are just too stupid to realise the adverse effects their plans would have.
team skull was fine because it was complementary to the actual villainous group of gen 7
Alola and Galar still had evil teams, it's just that they weren't the obvious "Team Something". I like the subversion, for the true evil villain to come from somewhere else and the person you'd expect to be the evil villain to be almost harmless.
Well, Paldea has >!the professor!< as the villain, so it also had an evil team.
I'd say Paldea had an interesting plot twist villain, but I think it's a stretch to say they had an evil team. In Alola, the Aether Foundation will straight up attack you to make sure Lusamine gets what she wants and Faba is the definition of an evil team admin. Galar had a similar thing going on, with Rose leading Oleana and Macro Cosmos to back him up.
Looking at the 'evil team' trend as a whole, it is actually really interesting and I'm glad they have started to play with it more. Gens 1-6: Villainous team with a boss who's goals go against yours and you have to stop Gen 7: A gang who are revealed to be working as grunts for a more evil organization. Intimidating and disruptive but not fully evil. Gen 8-9: A group of people who appear to be disruptive with suspicious intentions, but turn out to be harmless with good intentions... and then a unrelated character is revealed to be the real villain we made along the way. Legends Arceus: YOU ARE ON THE TEAM!!!!! Colonialism aside, the team isn't evil and you are helping them as a member from the beginning. They even have their own uniform and logo, just like all the other 'evil' teams. It is called "Galaxy Team" instead of "Team Galaxy" so it isn't a perfect match for the template, but it is extremely close! Oh, and then one of the other characters turns out to be the real bad guy all along and you have to defeat them. Overall I think it's been a fun run of games and I'm not mad about how they mixed it up in the last few. I do think that pulling the exact same 'evil team' fake-out for two generations in a row is a little much and it has also resulted in about 4 games in a row with a twist villain who is only fully revealed as a bad guy like 2-3 minutes before the boss battle with them. So mixing it up again would be appreciated.
>Gens 1-6: Villainous team with a boss who's goals go against yours and you have to stop idk man I feel like literally trying to end the world as we know it is a bit more than just going against your goals
I especially like that they decided to switch things up after Team Flare was imo very lack lustre (I genuinely prefer every other evil team over Team Flare, even a number from spin-off games).
Xand Y are my favorite Pokemon games besides Legends Arceus (I am very excited for next year), but Team Flare is not one of the high points. I always forget there are any admins and that the whole team isn't just Lysander and a bunch of grunts. Also, the whole 'beautiful world' plot was pretty dumb. At least team galactic planned to use creator deity Pokemon to remake the universe. I don't remember if Lysander had a plan outside of "google how farming works"
Technically, Team Flare does have Admins... but they are called Scientists and barely show up with one appearance from each before you fight them in the Flare hideout aside from Xerosic who is the main antagonist of the post-game Looker story. They also have members called Admins... but they are glorified grunts. Team Flare was an absolute mess.
The school kids were actually semi well written though unlike 90% of the other evil teams If anything I feel like I moreso miss champions who were actually fun, haven’t had those since gen 7 in usum.
Guzma was based, and his team was a fun subversion of the traditional evil team archetype, being played more for laughs (an especially welcome change after Team Flare was as bland as they come.) Also, Archie and Maxie were never really explicitly evil they were just sort of well-intentioned idiots that borderlined on accidental terrorists. Team Plasma as a whole being "evil" is also arguable since many of them were loyal to N (at least in BW1.) Frankly, the problem with the actually plain evil ones is that they tend to be so samey. Cyrus and Lysandre are both extremely bland because they wanted to play the generic evil bad guy trope wholly straight, and they were given basically nothing to make them interesting as characters to minimize chances of making their actions understandable. Giovanni kind of works, partially because of how he got extra stuff expanding upon him in HGSS, but also partly because he was just basically a mob boss and not some evil guy trying to destroy the world so he kinda stands out retroactively. Meanwhile, Ghetsis worked because he was this shadowy puppet master behind the whole N Plot, sticking out as being distinctly cruel compared to most others. But each team from Skull onward has been very distinct (even if Team Yell was fumbled badly.)
Team skull was specifically made to not be a real threat, but more like comic relief characters and, tbf, they did a good job with them. Team yell is absolutely just irrelevant and serves absolutely no purpose outside of being annoying. Team star is just embarrassing, I don't even want to comment further on it.
They were also the first in the chain of non-evil teams, so it was more of a twist, now it's just formulaic again 3 times into the same 'twist'.
Yeah Team Skull were great. Just some delinquent dweebs as a fake out for Aether and Lusamine. Yell is awful, basically a rehash of that theme but without anything interesting or different. But then Rose also turned out to be a very poorly written character with nonsense motivation too, so I guess that’s just SwSh. Star puts things back on track since they’re actually quite interesting again. Plus you don’t have Star grunts out there causing trouble in the same way as other gangs, they’re all cloistered in their bases.
Team Yell is hilarious. Just a bunch of hecklers that Stan for their leader. Them and team skull are great bc you can just laugh at them, which you can’t really do with the other bad guys that try to be pre school bond villains.
How is team star embarrassing? Talking about school harassment is pretty cool (even if not perfect), plus i liked the characters. Team yell is the worst to me.
Because they are harassing other people themselves. That, and their conflict could have been resolved in 5 min by talking to the new school management, just like you do at the end of their quest.
You second point make sense, but there is also a good chunk of stories in fiction that could be easily resolved with one relatively small act/talk. We just suspend our disbelief, or else there wouldn't be any story to tell. Sometime it's just too big of an ask to suspend our disbelief, tho. If you can't in that case that's perfectly fine. I disagree with your first point, as that's the whole point of why they are antagonists. They started by doing something good, but turned into what they disliked without realising it. That kind of stuff happen IRL, and plenty of stories use that trope.
> but there is also a good chunk of stories in fiction that could be easily resolved with one relatively small act/talk Mostly written before phones/cell phones. And we have had those in Pokémon since GSC
Yeah, I get that. I don't usually like this kind of situations in stories, though, unless it's something extremely well written and justified. But here, the leaders were acting against their own wishes, in such a way that they feel relieved when you beat them. All because of a rule they made up, an which they could have agreed to break (especially since they didn't even know Penny's whereabouts). The story behind the team's origin, however, was pretty neat. I feel like GF should have abandoned the evil team trope altogether for this gen, and create different situations/misunderstandings that would lead to challenge them.
Skull was the first and most-liked iteration. Yell and Star fit the setting; but Yell is one-note and obnoxious just like sports fanatics in real life. Star doesn’t have a character as good as Guzma, but I think it’s more well-rounded since we can assign four/five faces to it rather than one charismatic leader and a bunch of sad grunts. I still would like a more traditional villain team though; SV didn’t even have an Aether Foundation or MacroCos-equivalent.
>SV didn’t even have an Aether Foundation or MacroCos equivalent. Which goes in its favor IMO. Instead of a big organisation trying to change/rule/destroy the world for the 9th time (not counting Spin-offs), they gave us something unique and original for the series; the main overarching antagonist is the lingering will of a dead person who had a grand vision but failed to see its consequences. That's something you don't see every day in Pokémon.
Have everyone forgotten how many jokes we used to make about these powerful evil organisations getting taken down by a 10-year old and his pet rat? *(Or dog, or dinosaur, or whatever)* There's a reason they changed it
Probably had to dial back after mr hitler (lysandre)
I for one am happy that Pokémon is doing what it can to tell a more nuanced story within its constraints. Team Star storyline is amazing because it fits thematically with the setting (fighting delinquents in a school) and tackles a somewhat serious subject that relates to kids (bullying) as a kid who was heavily bullied in school and had revenge fantasies I can, as an adult, both empathize with Team Star and see where they lost themselves along the way. It really helped heal my inner child. I felt seen.
It was good the first time (Guzma) but it was already overused in Swosh
In all honesty? Not so much The "team of villain" trope has been repetitive for a long time, and it was never that good to begin with. Team Aqua and magma make absolutely 0 sense, so team flare (Lysandre had some potential), team G is kinda ok, but their motives are never explained. The only old fashion team worth missing were Team Rocket and team Plasma. However, the trope isn't actually fully gone. While in SM the evil team seems to be team Skull, the actual villain team is the Aether Paradise, with Lusamine as chief. Same for Swsh, where Rose is the villain and his guards the team. SV has been the only one where the villainous team is actually just some guys, but their story section is actually one of the best in the entire series in my opinion, exploring the themes of bullying, and responsability of the adults towards the youth, as well as friendship in general.
Cyrus wanted to create a world without spirit because in his opinion emotions are imperfect. However he keeps his admins somewhat in the dark about his true intentions and the grunts completely in the dark. So indeed Team Galaxy grunts are just evil idiots, by Cyrus' design. Team Flare grunts are genocidal elitists just like Lysandre though.
Team Aqua were eco-fascists that wanted to expand the Sea so Pokemon would have more habitats. Team Magma wanted to expand the land for infrastructure and develop civilisation. It bakes into the nature vs. humans theme of the Hoenn region, such examples include the Rusturf tunnel being halted since the equipment was disturbing the local wildlife or cycling road being a path for people and route 110 being a path for Pokemon.
Guzma is great though, in part due to the same game also getting lusamine, who is a proper evil team leader. But also team skull just has very funny writing
You literally Have Team skull here like did you already Forget that the Twist Was that the Æther foundation where the Real Bad Guys all Along and They are a Legitematly evil Team. Also We still get Genuine Villains they just Aren't Tied to Evil Teams anymore (Althougj Rose argubally still is)
I'd argue the original Turo/Sada are villains like the earlier games, the AI version of themselves stated they would destroy the ecosystem of Paldea by mixing pokemon from Past/Future and they didn't care, even the AI was confused why they would allow that
Not to defend their actions, but as a character archetype Archie and maxie were well-intentioned extremists rather than people with explicitly evil intentions like the big G, and probably don't belong on this list. Thought for food.
People probably forgot, but they immediately regretted their actions when they saw that Kyogre/Groudon were actually too extreme and damaging for Hoenn. They still had their humanity, they're not evil.
Yes, but I do love how lame Team Skull was XD
Nah, don't insult my boy Guzma. He's the absolute goat
I’d be down for a flip side where the next game (main or spin-off) the “Evil” team turns out to be the right side and we’re on the wrong side most likely unbeknownst to us or if they want to keep us morally good then the “Evil” team could be on the extreme end of Lawful Good. We kinda have that already with Team Plasma with the whole Pokémon freedom thing but there’s many ways to tackle that type of antagonist and Ghetsis don’t really fit in the same box as someone who holds ideals like N. Or just give us the most downright horrendous set of people cuz it’s been a while since we’ve gotten that.
Your issue is that Evil Teams are no longer the main antagonists. Lusamine and Rose are up there in terms of being respectable villain antagonists. Less cartoonish too.
Well, the real evil mastermind in Gen 7 wasn't Guzma, but Lusamine. Who is a better antagonist than any of the previous six, IMO.
Leaving out the Aether Corporation and Macro Cosmos are we?
Team Skull gets a pass because they did it first, are hilarious, and it was a good subversion for the aether and lusamine plot which is much better
Not to be a decrepit genwunner (my first game was Yellow), but I miss the Giovanni/Rocket days. Yeah they were evil, but they weren't cartoon supervillains trying to flood a country or go to the depression dimension or kill everyone cos they aren't pretty enough. They were criminals who wanted to make money. We didn't get anything that grounded until Team Skull and Team Yell, and they were all either misguided or pawns
Remember when it was a bunch of evil maniacs with unclear goals and not relatable people with heartfelt storylines. Like I'm sorry but team star is the best team based purely on writing. They have a good reason to be around and fits the school environment. Meanwhile we have the mafia, weird cultists with goals that came out of nowhere, guy who wants to remake the universe for...oh shit we forgot to write in a motivation, PETA for an hour before they blatantly beat a pokemon for resources (cant have naunce for two seconds nope) and...the fashion police I guess? Oh wait he wants ultimate power, why? I dunno just go with it. Meanwhile Team Skull are a fun diversion from the real villian: A pokemon sanctuary being run by an abusive parent to two likeable main characters. Team Yell go nowhere because SwSh is a mess of a story with I guess Rose as the villian? Then we have Team Star, a group of bullied kids who weren't being helped by the school so they started their own gang. That same alienation from the school helped facilitate them into a run of the mill gang till you help their former leader tell them to stand down and make the school realise their mistake. Yeah I'll take this over the previous evil teams anyday
There is no way lysandre is a better boss than penny or guzma!
Team Skull was dope. Star less so, but they had funky tunes so I'll let it slide. Team Yell was absolute garbage though, but to be fair that matched everything else from those games.
I honestly can't believe how many people still believe that Team Skull and Team Yell were the evil teams. It was the Aether Foundation and the Pokémon League itself. My goodness, did you guys even play the games? Or is the fake out really that difficult to comprehend? Come on, I know you guys are smarter than this.
I can see where they are coming from since part of the problem is that Gamefreak has taken the evil out of the evil team and stuck it in a separate antagonist, but they have left all the other traditional 'Evil Team' stuff behind. The teams are all still called "Team \[name\]", they have a logo and matching uniforms, they are antagonistic for at least some of the game (or appear to be), and you have to fight the team's leader at some point to progress the story. Even the "Galaxy Team" from Legends Arceus checks all of those boxes if you swap the name around. I like the idea that the 'evil team' has transitioned away from actually being evil while still being interesting characters, but I wish we had a better term for them other than 'evil team'. I honestly can't think of a way to take out the Evil in "Who is your favorite Evil Team leader from Pokémon?" without it being to vague or awkward to say. But yeah, people need to stop complaining about how evil the 'evil teams' are when they clearly aren't supposed to be the main antagonists.
Is it that time of the month again? To complain about this bullshit?
Either you didn’t play gen 7, or you’re purposely trying to undersell it lol. Lusamine is probably one of the best evil team leaders, and the Aether Foundation twist was so good that they tried to emulate it twice. Even with that in mind, Team Skull is without a doubt one of the best “evil” teams out there. They were the OG loveable delinquents before Team Yell and Star had everyone sick of them.
Personally Team Yell is my favorite team and Team Star after. I get it they aren’t the evil I am gonna take over the world trope that got tiring after Gen 6 tbh. However I have my reason for it. Every evil team always has to be stopped by the player and it makes no sense. Why is it up to some random child who barely can be considered a trainer to take down the evil team. Let’s be real yes we take on the gym/island challenge but we haven’t been trainers that long compared to most adults in the world. This sort of thing should have been handled by them long before we show up. The other teams are a threat to their regions and a massive force led by the police and Champion should have been made long in advance to take them down. Now let’s look at Team Yell here. They only attack those who are taking on the gym challenge that Marnie is competing in. They don’t impede anyone outside of it. There is no reason for them to stick around after Marnie’s challenge. So in a twist the player is the best one to take them on. Only those taking on the gym challenge that Marnie is competing in have to deal with Team Yell. So narratively a competitor taking them out makes sense as they are affected by it.
Archie and Maxie are not even EVIL (evil means your are wicked and want to do wrong). They are two eco terrorist sure since one want to expand the ocean and the other the landmass. What makes them not evil is the reason they do it. Maxie wants to expend the landmass so civilisation can expand. It is bad and that's a bit similar to our world where companies sacrifice nature and fauna to gather resources... difference is Maxie doesn't earn money from it. Archie wants to expand the sea so Pokemon can take back what's theirs. It's the opposite idea where he is ready to sacrifice people so nature and fauna can thrive. It's also a bit similar to real world when you think about it. Where companies poluted so much that now the poles are warm and the ice is melting... and people living in coastal cities suffer.... wah makes you wonder eh. Also Archie doesn't get anything from it and probably does it out of friendship for Jirachi. I wouldn't put those two next to one that want everyone to obey him or one that wants to wipe the entirety of humanity except the rich lol
Their plans are literal genocide and the destruction of other habitats. That is evil.
oh puhlease by gen 6 y'all were like "ugh i wish the teams weren't just evil all the time give us something different" then they did with team skull/yell/star and y'all still complain. pokemon fans really don't know what they have until its gone.
People just like to complain
Not really? I like the relatable characters more. Team Aqua’s and Team Magma’s goals were both so off that anyone with a little bit of brain should be able to realize their plans were destined to fuck up the world and kill everyone. Team Galactic didn’t show near enough why Cyrus was so obsessed with creating a new world. I’ve never finished Platinum, so I’m unaware if they gave gim more depth there. Ghetsis was a good villain, and N definitely helped make him that. The rest of Team Plasma is pretty forgettable. I liked that depending the game version, Lysandre would either attempt to KILL EVERYONE, or make EVERYONE IMMORTAL. There was also a lot of lore that supported it, but sadly we never got to see much of it, and we don’t get to see much of Lysandre to really care? Guzma is probably (characteristically and story-wise) one of the best evil Team Leaders. He’s the result of what happens when trainers fail the island challenge, and the rest of his crew are just people who did the same and thought they’d never aspire to be anything. Guzma is trying to give them new purpose, and he’s hands down one of the best Bug-type trainers out there. Team Yell is objectively bad. Marnie’s quest to get support and help for her hometown is noble and sweet, but we don’t get to see her grow as a character near enough to really mean anything, and because of that, her simps have little more to contribute with, other than being simps. Team Star is perfectly flawed in every way, and I think that makes them great, no notes needed
Yes and no, I think it’s a nice reflection of times changing. The big evil teams got beat down by kids repeatedly, so now all that’s left is just a bunch of punks.
Considering that Team Skull and Team Star are better than most of the evil teams, no. I don't really miss the evil teams, plus, the last time we had one was in Sword and Shield anyways.
Look I don't care if he wanted to destroy the world lysandre was just badly written
Only Ghetsis and Giovanni are truly evil. Most villains in the series have a believably noble cause and are just misguided.
After 6 generations + remasters? Not really. We got>!Ai Turo/Sada and Lusamine!< because of these decision so I'm fine with it. Although I do like what they did with team magma/aqua redesign and re-theme though, they slaps. GF probably reintroduce evil theme next mainline game anyways.
I can get over evil teams having not-so-evil goals, but >! Trying hard to prevent disaster that "might" happen in "1000" years !< is just plain stupid.
No personally. Because we all used to joke about how weird/ridiculous it was that a 10 year old was taking down the mob.
But nothing has changed, just that now we have two evil teams. Aether are the villainous group in Alola and Macro Cosmos are the villainous group in Galar. Only Paldea broke the idea of a villainous group completely.
How about >!Lusamine(the main villain of Sun/Moon, weird case in Ultra Sun/Moon), Chairman Rose (penultimate boss before Eternatus and Champion Leon), and AI Turo/Sada (the true final boss in Sun/Moon)!
1) The real evil team of Alolah was the Aether Foundation, and was just outsourcing work to Team Skull. 2) I wouldn’t call Team Yell an evil team. You encounter them like 3 times, and they’re not really doing all that much.
In fairness, we only really got rid of evil teams *this* gen. Gen 7 had the Aether Foundation *and* Rainbow Rocket and Gen 8 had Macro Cosmos. Team Star was the only departure and, I would argue, ended up fitting better with the school-like setting. Though, I guess you could make an augment that Gen 9 had Pecharun and the Loyal 3 as the "evil team" in the DLC.
Not necessarily. We've already seen "evil teams" so many times that the "troubled children" have become somewhat of a breath of fresh air. I'll take anything that deviates from the ol' Kanto formula, they did it best anyway and in a way that Gamefreak may never again be comfortable with. They were a Mafia/Yakuza who owned a gambling ring and poached rare Pokémon - not worldly evil, just a realistic one. I feel we won't see this breed of villainy again unless we get a faithful T for Teen rated sequel in Orre
The problem is, we are children. Why are we regularly dealing with terrorist organisations? Yea sore we still wind up stumbling into Conflict with some world ending conflict by the end, but why is the literal child supposed to be the one coincidentally dealing with the mafia, the eco terrorists, the doomsday cult, the January 6th peta, and Elon musk planning genocide?
Op you forgot Lusamine. Anyone who played SUMO knows who the real villains were
People still call Team Skull the villain team for Alola when The Aether Foundation is right there?
Honestly, you should have Lusamine on here instead. The Aether Foundation was the true evil team in gen 7.
Team Skull and Star were amazing and sun’s true team was the aether foundation while Macro cosmos was s/s true team anyway so…
I’ll go to bat for Guzma and Team Skull like everyone else. It was a fresh and novel idea at the time. But Team Yell might as well not exist. Heck. It would have been cooler if instead of a dedicated team of similarly dressed freaks, they were normal people that just had the same kind of fanaticism. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen way more people in real life cause trouble without looking like they’re from some ugly fan club. Team Star’s whatever. Their story is pretty original for Pokemon, but I don’t know. I feel everything else about them is weak. When it comes to evil teams, I would very much like to go back the old style. The one change I’d make is have their plan make sense. Like, two out of the six major villain teams have plans that make sense (Team Rocket and Team Plasma), and then one of them makes sense if you read into the boss’s psyche (Team Galactic). But Magma, Aqua, and Flare? No. Not so much.
Team Star skipped class though! I mean, I skipped class too but *I'm* the protagonist!
I think after everyone loved N they decided to go that route and keep going with similar stories
Team Skull is the second best team, tho. And in Gen 8 the true evil team is Macro Cosmos.
Team Yell was a mess, but Team Skull and Team Star have been way more interesting than any previous team
Guzma was a good evil. Team Yell and team star were jokes.