News Pokemon XY & Z Discussion

[Hidden Mew]

Yeah, Ash having a strong bond with Greninja doesn't mean that it won't be left at Professor Oak's place. The most we can expect is a group farewell with all of his Kalos Pokemon before he heads off to a new region, similarly with what happened with his AG team. It would be nice if they had an extra emotional or personal farewell for Greninja in particular, but I don't see that happening.

 

[Kirby4ever]

Yeah, Ash having a strong bond with Greninja doesn't mean that it won't be left at Professor Oak's place. The most we can expect is a group farewell with all of his Kalos Pokemon before he heads off to a new region, similarly with what happened with his AG team. It would be nice if they had an extra emotional or personal farewell for Greninja in particular, but I don't see that happening.

When Ash left his AG team and went to Sinnoh, Aipom followed him to the boat to Sinnoh and Ash didn't notice her until later.

 

[Hidden Mew]

When Ash left his AG team and went to Sinnoh, Aipom followed him to the boat to Sinnoh and Ash didn't notice her until later.

Oh yeah. I forgot about that detail. I don't see Greninja following Ash into the next region. That would be pretty neat and depending on the connection Sun/Moon has to Kalos, it might not be impossible, but I don't see Ash having his psudeo Mega Evolved Greninja with him traveling on a new journey.

 

[Gengarzilla]

When Ash left his AG team and went to Sinnoh, Aipom followed him to the boat to Sinnoh and Ash didn't notice her until later.

Theeeeen he traded her off. Not that I'm complaining, but it somewhat kills the moment on the boat in retrospect.
Or that's just me.

 

[Kirby4ever]

Since Ash always get a new starter in the new region.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Theeeeen he traded her off. Not that I'm complaining, but it somewhat kills the moment on the boat in retrospect.
Or that's just me.

The trade didn't really bother me because it wasn't like Ash wanted to get rid of Aipom. Both he and Dawn made the trade because they wanted their Pokemon to be happier and not forced into a battle style that they weren't all that into doing. Plus, they were still able to see each other, so it wasn't like Ash traded it away to a complete stranger. Dawn giving away Ambipom for that ping pong tournament, on the other hand, ruined the whole subplot for me, especially when she shouldn't have gotten that Togekiss.

 

[Deadman]

Well, frowning over Aipoms conclusion now is pointless, even if it was a bummer.
However, regarding Grenninja, I have a tingleling feeling, it will be another Charizard. It will want to stay at the ninja village to become stronger and/or faster because if he's in sync with Ash, it hurts him when he gets hit and the best way to prevent that, would be to become fast enough, nothing hits it. And what better place to train speed than a Ninja village?
For last Poke, Ash got one Ice type already but never really had a Ghost type (Hunter doesn't count, he never cached it in a Pokèball) and it just so happens, there are a few potential (part)Ghost types that could come in, Phantump and Honeedge (or the respective evo-line) that hadn't much of a showcase so far. I certainly like that better than Bergamite. Anyway, I digressed far enough, this should rather be continued in the Pokemon Evolution/Capture thread.

 

[Max1996]

It will want to stay at the ninja village to become stronger and/or faster because if he's in sync with Ash, it hurts him when he gets hit and the best way to prevent that, would be to become fast enough, nothing hits it. And what better place to train speed than a Ninja village?

It has already been confirmed that Ash-Greninja/Satoshi-Gekkouga will be in the upcoming movie (seen in the trailer). Unless Ash/Satoshi decides to get Greninja/Gekkouga to come specifically for the big fight against the villain's Mega-evolved Pokemon, chances are that his Pokemon will not stay behind.

 

[Deadman]

It has already been confirmed that Ash-Greninja/Satoshi-Gekkouga will be in the upcoming movie (seen in the trailer). Unless Ash/Satoshi decides to get Greninja/Gekkouga to come specifically for the big fight against the villain's Mega-evolved Pokemon, chances are that his Pokemon will not stay behind.

I was talking about it leaving at the end of XY&Z. Seems like it sounded different than that.
I picture it like this; Important league match where only Grenninja is left in Ashs Team. After hard fighting and Ash getting up and up again when he weakens do the hits Grenninja takes, he'll still loses and is pretty beaten. Greninja feels guilty for that and it just happens so, that someone from the ninja village was present or calls upon Ash after then because he saw it. Somehow it goes in the direction that Grenninja wants to go there to train and Ash understands that.
So that's about Ash loosing the league and Grenninja leaves his team for now. The rest will stay at Oak/Scymores Lab or Scymore just wants to study Grenninja about how the pseudo-mega-evolution can be possible. Since this doesn't seem as nice to me, I hope not this way, although we can't deny such a possibility.

 

[Kairyu]

All the focus that could have gone to a 6th capture is now being used for Ash-Greninja(please get rid of cut).

Ah, so I'm not the only bothered by the fact that Ash's fully evolved water starter has a move that's more suitable for a base stage beginner Pokemon. Greninja's moveset is probably the worst of all of Ash's fully evolved Pokemon. Aerial Ace is really underwhelming as well, it's essentially Cut version 2.

 

[Master Cyrus]

I still really don't want them to bring Goodra back. I'd be so upset and disappointed if they rushed through Goodra's development and released it only to bring it back for the League.

It's possible they were planning on something else for the 6th member but then S&M happened and they wound up not having enough time for it so goodra gets to come back.

 

[Perpetual_Phoenix]

Can we just talk about Iris a bit? Is anyone else glad she hasn't made an appearance yet?

She was just unbearable in Best Wishes.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Well, frowning over Aipoms conclusion now is pointless, even if it was a bummer.

I wouldn't describe it as pointless. What's done is done of course, but I don't think it's pointless to still be upset over it. I'm still upset over a lot of decisions they've made throughout each series.

It's possible they were planning on something else for the 6th member but then S&M happened and they wound up not having enough time for it so goodra gets to come back.

I still have my doubts about Sun/Moon messing up their plans for a sixth member. They should have been aware of the games for quite some time. They still probably don't know everything, but I think Game Freak would keep them at least somewhat in the loop so that they can include new Pokemon in the next movie, possibly XY if they do what happened at the tail end of BW and start working on the next series too. Plus, Ash has had an empty slot on his team for a long time. I really don't know what they could have been supposedly planning that would require them to keep that slot empty for the majority of XY. That would already be kind of questionable to me.

Besides all that, bringing Goodra just because they supposedly couldn't do their plans for a sixth Pokemon would still be pretty terrible, stupid and down right bad writing. Goodra's story is done and they made a big deal about releasing it. There would be no good reason to bring it back after all of that, especially when Ash has his Noviern now. He shouldn't need his overpowered Goodra handed back to him on a silver plate just because he has an empty slot. Not to mention it would make the type balance in his XY look even worse. He already has three part Flying Pokemon. He doesn't need two Dragon Pokemon on his team to boot.

 

[Misty-Moo]

I'm not going to read back through all the posts since I was last here, so apologies if anyone's already said this, but what about an Ice type for Ash's sixth Pokemon? Our heroes are bound to travel through snowy terrain on the way to meeting Wulfric.

 

[NinjutsuSen]

Besides all that, bringing Goodra just because they supposedly couldn't do their plans for a sixth Pokemon would still be pretty terrible, stupid and down right bad writing. Goodra's story is done and they made a big deal about releasing it. There would be no good reason to bring it back after all of that, especially when Ash has his Noviern now. He shouldn't need his overpowered Goodra handed back to him on a silver plate just because he has an empty slot. Not to mention it would make the type balance in his XY look even worse. He already has three part Flying Pokemon. He doesn't need two Dragon Pokemon on his team to boot.

So bringing back his Gliscor was also then a terrible decision, since he had both ground anf flying types in his team making four pokemon having ice type weakness, three of them 4x and his arc also be done before? Also what does "writing" mean for you? Because it doesn't make sense if he does come back even if previous pokemon also return?
If they will do a decent job of explaining why Goodra actually returns, then it would be the same like Gliscor, which appearance for only a single battle for the sake of the Paul vs Ash instead of using his Gible would also be that dumb.

Good writing should mean explaining and pacing the development, confrontations etc. good enough to be plausible and not rushed. We've already seen Goodra battling against some opponents and tanking the development it needed and that more of less rushed into 10 episodes, but these episodes are still key episodes for it's development and the conclusion on the swamp was finishing it's development. Now what do you want to see now? Ash catching a pokemon 20 episodes before the series with less to no development with a more weak moveset like Gible, no pokemon, in which the league battles would really suffer or bringing back his Goodra that already got it's development and what would make the most logical sense right now?

 

[Litten]

I'm not going to read back through all the posts since I was last here, so apologies if anyone's already said this, but what about an Ice type for Ash's sixth Pokemon? Our heroes are bound to travel through snowy terrain on the way to meeting Wulfric.

I feel like they'll have already passed through Snowbelle by July, and since there's no Ice-type with the cast on the Movie 19 poster, I don't foresee one being caught by that point.

 

[Hidden Mew]

So bringing back his Gliscor was also then a terrible decision, since he had both ground anf flying types in his team making four pokemon having ice type weakness, three of them 4x and his arc also be done before? Also what does "writing" mean for you? Because it doesn't make sense if he does come back even if previous pokemon also return?
If they will do a decent job of explaining why Goodra actually returns, then it would be the same like Gliscor, which appearance for only a single battle for the sake of the Paul vs Ash instead of using his Gible would also be that dumb.

Good writing should mean explaining and pacing the development, confrontations etc. good enough to be plausible and not rushed. We've already seen Goodra battling against some opponents and tanking the development it needed and that more of less rushed into 10 episodes, but these episodes are still key episodes for it's development and the conclusion on the swamp was finishing it's development. Now what do you want to see now? Ash catching a pokemon 20 episodes before the series with less to no development with a more weak moveset like Gible, no pokemon, in which the league battles would really suffer or bringing back his Goodra that already got it's development and what would make the most logical sense right now?

Gliscor was a different situation completely. It was sent off to do training, so it was more similar to what happened to Charizard or Squirtle. Just because other Pokemon came back doesn't mean it would be perfectly fine for Goodra to come back. Goodra coming back would be more like say Butterfree or Lapras joining Ash's team again. I know that Lapras did appear again, but it didn't join Ash's team and was there to provide more closure with Lapras becoming the new leader of its group. Goodra's story is done and unlike with Lapras, there isn't a good excuse for Ash to just run into it again by chance. It is living with its friends protecting the wetlands, not going off to do some training or be with someone who could send its Pokeball back to Ash. There's really nothing story-wise for them to do with Goodra at this point. Plus, Gliscor came back because Ash wanted to use the same Pokemon in his first full battle with Paul in their League match, so there was a good in-universe reason behind bringing it back besides Ash needed something to fill in the last slot. I really don't see them having a good reason for Goodra's return at this point.

As for the typing issue, I'm aware that Ash's teams have had typing issues before. This is not a problem exclusive to the XY team, but I do think it's more pronounced than others simply because there's too many Flying types. It was okay with two since they were different enough, but throwing in three with Noibat was pushing it. With DP team, I don't think that the issue with three Ground types was as bad simply because Torterra didn't become a part Ground type until it evolved, Gible was the only one with Ground type moves I think and they all had different movesets to give them more variety. There is variety in the XY team's movesets, but the typing issue is a bit more apparent. It also doesn't help that Noibat did so little and I don't have a lot of faith in its evolution being anything other than forced at this point.

As for what I want to happen, I wouldn't be opposed to another late addition capture. I'm surprised with some of the Gible complaints I've seen lately. I always thought that Gible was well received and for a last minute capture, it was handled pretty well. It actually got a nice bit of screentime, had some training with Ash and did help him win an important League battle. All things considered, it was handled fine. I just wish that he had caught Gible first instead of Gliscor, but I was never a big Gliscor fan anyway. I don't think I heard much complaining about Gible before this whole mess with Goodra started. If he doesn't make any more captures, then I'd be fine with having Ash use some of his older Pokemon to use for full battles. Seeing some of his older Pokemon again would be neat and DP showed that they could bring back his older Pokemon without outshining his new ones. As for what option makes the most logical sense, it would probably be using his older Pokemon. It would depend on when the League starts exactly, but if they aren't interested in giving Ash a new Pokemon if the trailer for the new movie is any indication, then just using his older Pokemon would work the most. The only advantage I can see with Goodra coming back would be that they wouldn't have to spend time developing it, but it would outshine most of his other XY Pokemon, especially Noivern most likely. Not to mention it would make me wonder why they bothered to release it only to bring it back. It wasn't like Ash needed an extra free slot to capture Noibat.

None of the writing around Goodra has been what I'd considered good. All of the development was rushed and they spent far more time telling the audience that Goodra had gotten stronger than actually showing it through training. Goodra was a poorly written mess and full of wasted potential. Bringing it back just because Ash has an empty slot would still look like bad writing to me, at least at this point. I wouldn't be too surprised if they did bring it back because of Goodra being a relatively popular sixth generation Pokemon, but my opinions on Ash's XY team will fall even more if they do go that route. Goodra's whole storyline still bothers me, so bringing it back would be basically giving Ash back his overpowered Dragon on a silver plate would just make the problem worse for me.

 

[NinjutsuSen]

Gliscor was a different situation completely. It was sent off to do training, so it was more similar to what happened to Charizard or Squirtle. Just because other Pokemon came back doesn't mean it would be perfectly fine for Goodra to come back. Goodra coming back would be more like say Butterfree or Lapras joining Ash's team again. I know that Lapras did appear again, but it didn't join Ash's team and was there to provide more closure with Lapras becoming the new leader of its group. Goodra's story is done and unlike with Lapras, there isn't a good excuse for Ash to just run into it again by chance. It is living with its friends protecting the wetlands, not going off to do some training or be with someone who could send its Pokeball back to Ash. There's really nothing story-wise for them to do with Goodra at this point. Plus, Gliscor came back because Ash wanted to use the same Pokemon in his first full battle with Paul in their League match, so there was a good in-universe reason behind bringing it back besides Ash needed something to fill in the last slot. I really don't see them having a good reason for Goodra's return at this point.

Goodra coming back could be done easily by the "the swamp need another protector" thing. Like Squirtle simply returning and leaving his duty as a fire brigade pokemon. And there was a man in the swamplands if you don't remember the episodes. They need to explain that properly. Unlike Butterfree and Lapras, Goodra stay in the same exact spot where Ash left it -> swampland between Lumiose and Laverre. If Ash is going only with five pokemon into the league, then bringing Goodra back would be a better excuse than "hey we bring Gliscor back because he battled Paul. If the "we use the same pokemon like in our first battle thing was really the point of bringing Gliscor back, why they didn't let Paul use the same pokemon to support such a battle? Now what would be worse writing?
Ash participating with only 5 pokemon making the league more repetive and not having a chance of full 6vs6 battles, or Goodra coming back?

s for the typing issue, I'm aware that Ash's teams have had typing issues before. This is not a problem exclusive to the XY team, but I do think it's more pronounced than others simply because there's too many Flying types. It was okay with two since they were different enough, but throwing in three with Noibat was pushing it. With DP team, I don't think that the issue with three Ground types was as bad simply because Torterra didn't become a part Ground type until it evolved, Gible was the only one with Ground type moves I think and they all had different movesets to give them more variety. There is variety in the XY team's movesets, but the typing issue is a bit more apparent. It also doesn't help that Noibat did so little and I don't have a lot of faith in its evolution being anything other than forced at this point.

The thing is that Torterra IS a ground type. That doesn't change the fact that more than the half of his team is weak to Ice moves and the most of them drastically. Goodra coming back would also cover the pokemon that is the typical tankier pokemon like Snorlax and is immune to electric type moves, that are the problem of the XY team. Gligar's evolution was similiar to Noibat. First doing nothing for 20 episodes, then showing some moves, a battle afterwards and then the evolution episode.

As for what I want to happen, I wouldn't be opposed to another late addition capture. I'm surprised with some of the Gible complaints I've seen lately. I always thought that Gible was well received and for a last minute capture, it was handled pretty well. It actually got a nice bit of screentime, had some training with Ash and did help him win an important League battle. All things considered, it was handled fine. I just wish that he had caught Gible first instead of Gliscor, but I was never a big Gliscor fan anyway. I don't think I heard much complaining about Gible before this whole mess with Goodra started. If he doesn't make any more captures, then I'd be fine with having Ash use some of his older Pokemon to use for full battles. Seeing some of his older Pokemon again would be neat and DP showed that they could bring back his older Pokemon without outshining his new ones. As for what option makes the most logical sense, it would probably be using his older Pokemon. It would depend on when the League starts exactly, but if they aren't interested in giving Ash a new Pokemon if the trailer for the new movie is any indication, then just using his older Pokemon would work the most. The only advantage I can see with Goodra coming back would be that they wouldn't have to spend time developing it, but it would outshine most of his other XY Pokemon, especially Noivern most likely. Not to mention it would make me wonder why they bothered to release it only to bring it back. It wasn't like Ash needed an extra free slot to capture Noibat.

Gible wasn't complained, because it was the first Dragon type Ash ever had (and we know how overrated they are). Even before Goodra came, the overall opinion of Gible was a split. The fact is, that Gible had absolute no important battle until the league and only learned Draco Meteor. Snorunt at least had a gym and many league battles as Glalie and that in about the same amount of episodes as Gible. And that could happen now if Ash is suddenly catching a new pokemon and since they are only a little more than 30 episodes left minus 6-9 episodes of the league. And since we haven't even heared about a new pokemon for Ash's team and the movie pretty much confirming no pokemon until July, I don't even think the writer, as unpredictibal as they are, are seriously thinking to give him a new poke a few episodes before the league. Now the league with only 5 pokemon? Pretty horrific like I mentioned before. Bringing Goodra back, how bad or good the writing/explanation would be, would be the best thing to fill the last spot.

How good the idea of pokemon returning would sound, bringing back Pokemon is every time a big risk for the actual cast to get overshadowed. And that pretty much happened in both Johto and Sinnoh. Too many Kanto pokemon took over the silver conference and Infernape overshadowed the rest of the DP team in the Paul battle with defeating 3 pokemon and Staraptor and Torterra losing without defeating one pokemon. Not only in the Paul battle, but the whole league overall. It would've been better if there were mixed teams for all the battles with the DP pokemon "starring" the battle and the last battle against Paul including all the DP mons like we've seen. THAT would be a good example of how to make it right.

one of the writing around Goodra has been what I'd considered good. All of the development was rushed and they spent far more time telling the audience that Goodra had gotten stronger than actually showing it through training. Goodra was a poorly written mess and full of wasted potential. Bringing it back just because Ash has an empty slot would still look like bad writing to me, at least at this point. I wouldn't be too surprised if they did bring it back because of Goodra being a relatively popular sixth generation Pokemon, but my opinions on Ash's XY team will fall even more if they do go that route. Goodra's whole storyline still bothers me, so bringing it back would be basically giving Ash back his overpowered Dragon on a silver plate would just make the problem worse for me.

Goodra is overrated as a mon. Him bringing back wouldn't overshadow the pokemon, since it's performance wasn't even better as let's say Greninja through the Kalos gym quest. Because it's a pseudo in the games doesn't automatically mean that it's the most powerful pokemon of the team. People tend to overhype it, because of it simply being a pseudo. The performance and the development is more important, but not the development of the character, but the actual development of the battles skills. And in that case, pretty much all pokemon except maybe Noibat did a beter performance as Goodra.
Goodra was presented to be the key pokemon through the span of 15 episodes, mostly because the most episodes in that span was Goodra focused (7 focus episodes, quite a few moments in the other episodes). For a pokemon for only 15 episodes on the team, 7 episodes is very much for a single pokemon. Goodra was presented to have a fear as the a character, and that fear was solved at the last two episodes. To defend Ash and the gang, the enviroment in episode 65 (because that also happened at the swamp) and the pokemon living at the swamp, he evolved into Goodra. I can't see the writing being both terrible or good. Was it terrible because how many levels it usually need to evolve? Happened also quite many times prior to that and levels are no indicator how early the pokemon evolve and how good the pokemon are. The anime is based on characters, not statistics and if the writer explain the situation well enough and flesh the character itself good enough out, then the pokemon can evolve/the character can move on.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Goodra coming back could be done easily by the "the swamp need another protector" thing. Like Squirtle simply returning and leaving his duty as a fire brigade pokemon. And there was a man in the swamplands if you don't remember the episodes. They need to explain that properly. Unlike Butterfree and Lapras, Goodra stay in the same exact spot where Ash left it -> swampland between Lumiose and Laverre. If Ash is going only with five pokemon into the league, then bringing Goodra back would be a better excuse than "hey we bring Gliscor back because he battled Paul. If the "we use the same pokemon like in our first battle thing was really the point of bringing Gliscor back, why they didn't let Paul use the same pokemon to support such a battle? Now what would be worse writing?
Ash participating with only 5 pokemon making the league more repetive and not having a chance of full 6vs6 battles, or Goodra coming back?

I remember that there was a main in the wetlands, but I thought that they already explained who he was. He was a caretaker for the wetlands. I don't know if that means caring for the Pokemon along with the area or just the area itself, but it didn't seem like he was left in charge of Goodra. Why would the swamp need another protector though? Goodra was happy to be back with its friends, even if it was sad to see Ash go. At least Squirtle saw Ash before the Johto League started and he was able to call the Nurse Joy to bring him back when they were in the Battle Frontier too. Goodra doesn't have an excuse like that to explain why it came back.

Gliscor coming back for the battle against Paul is a way better in-universe reason than what Goodra has at the moment. Ash wanted to help get that exact team strong enough to beat Paul, instead of getting different Pokemon to defeat Paul. That's why people didn't want to see Gible being used in the battle, or at least I remember that concern popping up before the battle started. And Paul didn't use the same Pokemon because that wouldn't fit his style. Ash sticking with the Pokemon he used against Paul before fits with his belief about Pokemon and training in general. Paul wouldn't have such a notion like that because he is much more willing to use different Pokemon when he's in a tight spot or when something isn't working out for him.

As for your question, it doesn't make sense because there's no way Ash is going to participate with only five Pokemon in the League. They are going to give him at least one full battle in the League. Even the Unova League kind of did that, despite his opponent being too stupid to understand what a full battle meant, so we're going to get that. Whether or not Goodra comes back, Ash will have a full battle, so the question and the wording doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[quote"NinjutsuSen"]The thing is that Torterra IS a ground type. That doesn't change the fact that more than the half of his team is weak to Ice moves and the most of them drastically. Goodra coming back would also cover the pokemon that is the typical tankier pokemon like Snorlax and is immune to electric type moves, that are the problem of the XY team. Gligar's evolution was similiar to Noibat. First doing nothing for 20 episodes, then showing some moves, a battle afterwards and then the evolution episode.[/quote]

I didn't say Torterra wasn't a Ground type or that it did change that half of his team was weak to Ice type moves. I was explaining that repeating types isn't a problem exclusive to XY and why it bothered me more with XY than it did with his other teams. I also understand that Gligar's evolution happened after it didn't do anything for long stretches of time, which is another reason why I would have liked Gible to appear sooner.

Gible wasn't complained, because it was the first Dragon type Ash ever had (and we know how overrated they are). Even before Goodra came, the overall opinion of Gible was a split. The fact is, that Gible had absolute no important battle until the league and only learned Draco Meteor. Snorunt at least had a gym and many league battles as Glalie and that in about the same amount of episodes as Gible. And that could happen now if Ash is suddenly catching a new pokemon and since they are only a little more than 30 episodes left minus 6-9 episodes of the league. And since we haven't even heared about a new pokemon for Ash's team and the movie pretty much confirming no pokemon until July, I don't even think the writer, as unpredictibal as they are, are seriously thinking to give him a new poke a few episodes before the league. Now the league with only 5 pokemon? Pretty horrific like I mentioned before. Bringing Goodra back, how bad or good the writing/explanation would be, would be the best thing to fill the last spot.

Snorunt had a Gym battle, but I don't know if that really matters when it lost. It did have more battles as Glalie, but I think Ash only using his Hoenn Pokemon gave it an edge there compared to Gible. I liked Gible more than Snorunt. I thought it had more presence, wasn't nearly as annoying as Snorunt and even though it was used in one important battle, it was still a good match. I'd still be happy with something more along the lines of Gible for Ash's XY team. I'd take it over Goodra returning in a heartbeat. Goodra coming back would not be the best thing to fill the last spot. That would be the worst thing. Why bother getting rid of Goodra if they were just going to bring it back? I have not heard a good explanation for that yet. And needing to fill the last spot is far from a good reason. That is a weak and lazy reason in my opinion.

How good the idea of pokemon returning would sound, bringing back Pokemon is every time a big risk for the actual cast to get overshadowed. And that pretty much happened in both Johto and Sinnoh. Too many Kanto pokemon took over the silver conference and Infernape overshadowed the rest of the DP team in the Paul battle with defeating 3 pokemon and Staraptor and Torterra losing without defeating one pokemon. Not only in the Paul battle, but the whole league overall. It would've been better if there were mixed teams for all the battles with the DP pokemon "starring" the battle and the last battle against Paul including all the DP mons like we've seen. THAT would be a good example of how to make it right.

The Kanto Pokemon definitely took too much screentime in Johto, but I don't think they did that in Sinnoh. I don't remember that being a huge problem with the Sinnoh League by comparison at least. Even with Infernape overshadowing the other DP Pokemon, I didn't have much of a problem with that since Infernape was important for the last battle with Paul. Although, Torterra definitely should have gotten a victory. It never got a chance to shine after evolving unfortunately.

Goodra is overrated as a mon. Him bringing back wouldn't overshadow the pokemon, since it's performance wasn't even better as let's say Greninja through the Kalos gym quest. Because it's a pseudo in the games doesn't automatically mean that it's the most powerful pokemon of the team. People tend to overhype it, because of it simply being a pseudo. The performance and the development is more important, but not the development of the character, but the actual development of the battles skills. And in that case, pretty much all pokemon except maybe Noibat did a beter performance as Goodra.
Goodra was presented to be the key pokemon through the span of 15 episodes, mostly because the most episodes in that span was Goodra focused (7 focus episodes, quite a few moments in the other episodes). For a pokemon for only 15 episodes on the team, 7 episodes is very much for a single pokemon. Goodra was presented to have a fear as the a character, and that fear was solved at the last two episodes. To defend Ash and the gang, the enviroment in episode 65 (because that also happened at the swamp) and the pokemon living at the swamp, he evolved into Goodra. I can't see the writing being both terrible or good. Was it terrible because how many levels it usually need to evolve? Happened also quite many times prior to that and levels are no indicator how early the pokemon evolve and how good the pokemon are. The anime is based on characters, not statistics and if the writer explain the situation well enough and flesh the character itself good enough out, then the pokemon can evolve/the character can move on.

I think that you're assuming far too much about my problems with Goodra. I don't think it's overpowered because it's a pseudo in the games. I think it's overpowered because of how its moves like Bide or Dragon Pulse are ridiculously strong. This was especially apparent in the battle against Clemont. That isn't a specific problem to just Goodra, but rushing through its evolutions doesn't really help matters, especially when I don't think the evolutions were really justified.

I'm also fully aware that the anime isn't focused on the statistics of the games when it comes to evolutions. Again, you're assuming way too much and that does genuinely bother me. It wasn't terrible because of how many levels it takes to evolve a Goomy into a Goodra. If that was the reason, then I should be upset that moves like Cut and Steel Wing are available without using TMs or HMs in the show, which I'm not. It was terrible because they rushed through the evolutions. They kept saying that Goodra had become so much stronger, but it rarely, if ever, battled before evolving. It wasn't a natural progression for Goomy's character arc. They wanted to give Ash a Goodra for his Gym battle with Clemont and then let it save the wetlands before releasing it there. If they had been able to stretch it out over a much longer period of time, give both Goomy and Sliggo more battles well before their evolutions and basically not break the show don't tell rule as often as they did, then I probably would have been fine with Goodra. Goodra had a good introduction, good setup and honestly the conclusion was rather fitting all things considered, but the writing behind it was just all around bad right when it evolved into Sliggo. Even though evolutions to save others is certainly nothing new, I don't think that works enough as a justification for why they evolved Goodra as ridiculously fast as it did.

I think that Goodra was handled poorly overall, I don't want to have it appear in the anime and I don't want to spend hours on this argument, so let's just agree to disagree and end it here. I would rather not get stuck in another circular debate with someone again.

 

[Almonds]

I think Ash's current team is fine, although a bit unbalanced. With the exception of Goodra (in case it comes back), all of his pokemon are speedsters, which Ash works best with. I do think he may be able to get a late capture just before the 8th gym, but are there any viable Kalos-mon options? Because I really don't see them bringing back any old pokemon for nostalgia's sake, even if I'd like them to. For one thing, Alain was already given the highly popular and nostalgic Charizard, and there's really no reason to bring back Ash's Charizard because that would be over-Zard-ing the show. Any possible Mega Evolving pokemon are out since Ash has AshGreninja.