Evil Team Discussion/Speculation

[Kallyle]

Yeah. Just because your series is aimed at kids doesn't mean you have to treat your older fans like children...

The formal needed to be shook up. Plots involving Legendary Pokemon and mystic artifacts had SEROUSLY gotten old. Though I'm not sure if they things they've tried to change it up have worked and they need to do better...

They haven't really delved into mystic artifacts though. All of the plot-relevant items have always been tied to/has been part of a Legendary Pokémon's power rather than their own thing. Not that I have faith Game Freak would bother to make such an artifact that isn't functionally linked to a Legendary Pokémon at this point.

 

[Dorothy]

They haven't really delved into mystic artifacts though. All of the plot-relevant items have always been tied to/has been part of a Legendary Pokémon's power rather than their own thing. Not that I have faith Game Freak would bother to make such an artifact that isn't functionally linked to a Legendary Pokémon at this point.

Well it would be silly if they didn't. The game revolves around the Pokemon, why would they have an artifact that isn't linked to one? Unless it was some kind of mind control device that would affect all Pokemon or something like that.

 

[Kallyle]

Well it would be silly if they didn't. The game revolves around the Pokemon, why would they have an artifact that isn't linked to one? Unless it was some kind of mind control device that would affect all Pokemon or something like that.

By linked to a Legendary Pokémon, I mean something along the lines of "this artifact is made possible due to a Legendary's existence, possibly being a fragment of it" or "this artifact allows a specific Legendary to regain the power it once lost." I'd be fine with a relatively independent artifact being guarded by a Legendary instead of its existence being explicitly revolving around said Legendary. I think an an ancient guardian protecting a dangerous artifact would be kind of cool actually.

 

[PinkIceFox]

Yeah they're either as subtle as a kick to the face, or comes literally out of nowhere with no real noticeable hint of 'hey I was evil the whole time'!

Spoiler: LEGENDS ARCEUS SPOILERS AHEAD WEE WOO WEE WOO

Lookin' at you, Volo. I had the villain spoiled for me before I started playing and I spent the whole game looking for the hints he'd turn on us. They weren't there. He was just our crazy tall myth hunting best buddy until 'oh by the way I am this game's cyrus TA DAAAA look at my swanky arceus cosplay imma go punch god at remake the world gimme your plates ALSO HERE'S GIRATINA'. Like right until the quest that would lead to our final confrontation, I had decided that the person who spoiled him being the villain must have been a lie. And then the final battle happened. Also no one with that many pokemon that evolve through friendship is legit evil fite me about it. Especially with one of them being the Togepi line. Reference to Cynthia's team be damned. Make better writing, gamefreak.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

i honestly don't get why legends needed a villain at all. the story didn't require it; Volo's villainy was just shoved in there for no real reason

 

[Beer&Nyquil]

Re: evolving through friendship, doesn’t Cyrus have a crobat? This is no worse than that. In fact, comparing the characters motivations, it makes more sense to me that this guy would have a togekiss

 

[Stef50S]

Another idea I have for the evil team is that the leader's main motivation would be to govern the region instead of trying to destroy it. In other words, the evil team (and anyone who ends up supporting them) will try to get their leader to be elected president or prime minister throughout the story. Similar to Ghetsis, the leader would make speeches about what they would do if they get elected but in reality they are actually promoting ideas that would make things worse for the population and region as a whole. Yes, it would be very generic but I believe this type of story would fit well in the pokemon world. This premise would simultaneously make the evil team serious and threatening as well as decrease the scale relative to previous games.

 

[Emelie]

I just hope we get a villain who we can have an emotional connection with. I wish Lillie and Cynthia were the protagonists of SM and PLA instead of the soulless protagonists who are just avatars.

Same goes for BW. N is great but what does our protagonist really think about him and his ideals? You can said that you see his point after the ferris wheel ride but that doesn't change the way these two characters interact with each other or the plot.

I would like to see dialogue options and maybe even alternate endings. In PLA you can choose between two characters but it just determines which legendary you get as if they are just extensions to those two Pokémon rather than interesting and unique characters on their own.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

I'm not sure if this is a weird take or not, but if Pokemon games continue to have two evil teams (With one being the true bad guys) I would like it if they treated the "false" evil team kinda like the Miss Fortune Sisters from PLA, where instead of this semi-big group that's mostly random grunts it's a smaller group of 3 or 4 characters you keep re-battling. So less of two evil teams where one isn't really evil and more an Evil team and an Antagonistic Duo/Trio/Quartet/Quentet/Whatever.

Of course I would prefer just one evil team but I think this could be a neat compromise Maybe just have them appear at less annoying times.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

i don't think they've ever done multiple evil teams. twist villains aren't evil teams.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

i don't think they've ever done multiple evil teams. twist villains aren't evil teams.

Aether Foundation very much counts as an Evil Team, even the grunts say thing that suggest that if I recall correctly.
Macro Cosmos is debatable because it seems like those "grunts" are just employee's doing their jobs rather than being evil.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Aether Foundation very much counts as an Evil Team, even the grunts say thing that suggest that if I recall correctly.
Macro Cosmos is debatable because it seems like those "grunts" are just employee's doing their jobs rather than being evil.

Aether was more of a charity with a corrupt leader. it's quite clear that not everyone in the organization was on board with what the leader was doing; most notably Wickie. as opposed to the other evil teams which were overtly pursuing a specific goal.

 

[Dorothy]

Aether was more of a charity with a corrupt leader. it's quite clear that not everyone in the organization was on board with what the leader was doing; most notably Wickie. as opposed to the other evil teams which were overtly pursuing a specific goal.

Semantics. Functionally, they are an evil team.

 

[Epic Spheal]

I think what could be an interesting evil team for scarlet/violet, especially given the protags looking very young, is a reverse-team plasma but (ideally) played straight.

Just as long as we've had jokes about Pokemon being "glorified animal fighting," we've also had quips about the franchise allowing children to just go off on their own with creatures capable of summoning lightning and fire and whatnot. IF Team Plasma (at least the part of the team that was on N's side and not on Ghetsis') could argue that humans are bad for Pokemon, then another group could make the reverse argument. That Pokemon are too dangerous to be given to children and they shouldn't be trainers

We've seen in Pokemon legends that Pokemon can be terrifying and attack humans. Even in the modern-day, there's a child NPC in Galar who mentions the wild area is too dangerous and that younger kids have to take the trains to get around (not to mention while the Galarian pokemon don't use attacks, they will chase a trainer). Even all the way back to RBGY, you couldn't go into the tall grass without being warned of the danger.

If we want to go even further than that, thinking about how recently the rival characters have touched more upon the effects of losing and not being good enough, one could also argue a mental health reason. That so many kids go out thinking they'll be the next champion only to come back disappointed barely getting even a couple of gym badges (because for every Hau and Hop who make it close to the top but fail against the protag, there are countless kids who can barely get past the first gym/trial like Team Skull).

So a team that's against Pokemon training on the grounds that Pokemon are too dangerous, particularly for children could be an interesting. There arguments being that it's irresponsible to send children out in the world (the open world nature of SV could add to this) when they could get hurt and that with the (implicit) high rates of failure that you could be crushing to a child's mental health. The team could cite Team Skull's creation and how say in Galar most trainers don't even make it past Kabu (and this failure is shown worldwide on live television) as reasons why kids shouldn't be put in such physical/mental danger.

Essentially a bunch of helicopter parents, with the goal of showing that kids are tougher and more capable than they think.

The reason why I said ideally it would be played straight is because I'd like to see them really work with the misguided villain trope. The relationship between parents and children is always a tough one to portray especially in fiction and it would be nice if they showed the parents were wrong without straying into Lusamine or Ghetsis territory. Or you know having the villain trying to drum up support so they can reach their true goal of awakening a legendary to control the world. That being said, it would be kind of funny if there was a twist villain who made this group to ban kid trainers because they've seen how in past regions some kid always foil the plan. Kind of a meta plot (ban the kids, rule the world).

 

[colours]

probably gonna be an unpopular take but bear with me here... i'd rather an evil team that has already succeeded (to an extent) and rather the player's goal would instead be damage control over flat out preventing said goal from happening. allow me to elaborate.

i'm thinking in terms of pokemon colosseum/XD here for those of you old enough to remember that. in those games, shadow pokemon already exist, they're a thing by the time the game starts. so in that vein, the creation of shadow pokemon isn't something the player can do anything about (until XD), but rather the goal was instead to capture and purify them as a way of slowing down their efforts and limiting their spread. in those games, we see even well-meaning trainers with shadow pokemon because cipher kept giving them out as tournament prizes. but essentially, we as the player got to see the consequences of shadow pokemon play out in real-time which i think adds a bit of gravity and urgency to the situation. i do think, as a criticism, the lethality of shadow pokemon could perhaps be emphasized (as they can and will attack even trainers), but the spirit is definitely there and something i'd like to see, if that makes any sense ^^;

as another, perhaps odd example - one of the things i liked about team magma/aqua is that they have succeeded in their goals somewhat, they've just majorly screwed up and the player has to fix their crap (aka have rayquaza calm things down) before things got worse. granted, this is a different situation than the above in that they had zero idea of how bad things could've actually been, but the general idea is that i, as a player, want to feel the gravity of how bad things are/could be and actually feel the emotional rush of fixing the problem/putting the band-aid on things if possible rather than stop it at all from happening as is often the case. stopping the issue is noble and heroic, but reversing the problem and fixing it, imo, is more interesting from a storytelling standpoint.

i hope... all of this made sense.

 

[Beer&Nyquil]

that sounds cool

 

[SammyW27]

After what was shown in the trailer, I'm starting to think we might get an Aqua-Magma situation with a "Past" themed team fighting a "Future" themed team and the PC helping one in Scarlet and the other in Violet.

 

[Blob]

Team Tangelo and Team Raisin. They're opposing teams who want people to live in/away from the countryside. This is based on real world Spain which has a huge infrastructure issue in remote parts, where rural towns are being abandoned at a fast rate.

I'm thinking that team Tangelo wants everyone to move to the countryside and stop destroying local ecosystems around the ever expanding cities.
Team Raisin on the other hand thinks that it's best to completely abandon the already crumbling countryside buildings and instead to focus on rapid city growth.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Team Tangelo and Team Raisin. They're opposing teams who want people to live in/away from the countryside. This is based on real world Spain which has a huge infrastructure issue in remote parts, where rural towns are being abandoned at a fast rate.

I'm thinking that team Tangelo wants everyone to move to the countryside and stop destroying local ecosystems around the ever expanding cities.
Team Raisin on the other hand thinks that it's best to completely abandon the already crumbling countryside buildings and instead to focus on rapid city growth.

team Raisin sounds like a bunch of idiots tbh. i'm a city girl, but we need the countryside for things like food production.

 

[Skyward]

Yeah the professors being the opposite's evil teams makes so much sense to me, especially with both of their designs blending what I'd consider bad-ass mentor and disgraced scientist at the same time.

I could see the evil professor wants the trio master to speed up or reverse the flow of time, and a mark of their success could be kept to just the hub or an important area that has a past, present, and future version to keep the stakes (and development resources) low.