Worst Rival

[Team Gaara]

For me, it's a really close tie between Hugh and Bianca. In fact, Hugh barely beats her. But since he isn't on the list, I'll go for Bianca. Both are annoying, pretty bad trainers, and too much friendliness and not enough battles. I honestly have a hard time understanding how these two can even be called rivals.

Best to worst: Blue/Barry > Silver > Wally > Brendan > Cheren > May > Bianca/Hugh

 

[KarlG]

Brendan and May, hands down. Goodness.

 

[Supreme Leader Palpitoad]

Bianca. She was never a challenge to beat.

 

[PiPie314]

Wally. I didn't even know he was considered a rival until I read this thread. You never battle him, and he can't even catch a Pokemon by himself . Barry comes in as a close second. Hes fines you for everything, but yet will never beat me and get my money! Muwhahaha!

 

[magikarp ftw]

Favourite: Sliver don't really know why it just is

3rd Barry, Meh didn't really like the way did things ( clumsy )

2nd Wally, not really enough battles

1st Bianca, didn't really like the pokemon she used, a very bossy dad, cries over loose her pokemon, and wasn't really demanded to be the best.

 

[zakisrage]

Why does Bianca have so many votes? Shes one of my favorites. Barry is the worst, he was so annoying and had no character it seemed.

I think the votes for Bianca are due to either misogyny or Silver fangirls.

 

[Sakuraa]

Bianca. I barley even think of her as a rival. She's more like a weak friend who challenges you to battles occasionally. Then she gives up even being a trainer. Just terrible.

 

[Almonds]

Wally. I didn't even know he was considered a rival until I read this thread. You never battle him, and he can't even catch a Pokemon by himself . Barry comes in as a close second. Hes fines you for everything, but yet will never beat me and get my money! Muwhahaha!

You DO battle Wally during the game. Once in Mauville and the rest in Victory Road.

I'm still going to say Brendan/May because they trolled me by not evolving their starter to the final-stage and quitting all of a sudden. Personality-wise, I like them, but many of their actions could always be replaced with Wally to some extent.

 

[SquishyFace]

Am I the only one around here who loves Bianca?

And even though Blue is classic, he's still a total Asshat/dickface/scumbag.

 

[Palamon]

Brendan.

He doesn't even evolve his starter twice--I mean what does that tell you? That makes him a bad rival in my book.

 

[Mermaid]

I don't really understand why N isn't considered a rival. He was much more a rival, and one that you could take seriously, than either Cheren or Bianca. I know that he's affiliated with Plasma but we know that he wasn't the true leader. In fact it was pretty obvious from the very beginning that he was not the leader.

In terms of battles I only felt N was notable. I do commend Barry for having a decent team and reaching a very high level of Pokes.

In terms of character development/journey, N, Brendan, Wally, and Bianca are leagues above everyone else. N, to me, took the better aspects of Blue and Silver. He had the sad family backstory like Silver and beat the Pokemon League before you like Blue. On top of that he canonically used a legendary pokemon.

What makes him better than either is that he had an interesting motivation, as well as the fact that he saw your character as an equal. Blue's motivation seems entirely bent on beating you for no particular reason. Even in the original handbook, he was once your friend and one day simply decided to bully and humiliate you.

The original Silver was similar to Blue. No legitimate reason for why he does what he does until HGSS.

Someone already mentioned Brendan, but he and Wally were the first to have a character journey/ development. I liked that he was kinda sexist and eventually turned around and saw you as a friend. Wally was somewhat of a disciple to you and decided that he wanted to become stronger to defeat you. I thought it was a unique relationship between him and the player. What ruined these two was a lack of proper battles to make the experience better.

Bianca also had good development. I thought it was funny even though Bianca was suppose to be the weakest of the 3 friends, she had a better team than Cheren.

 

[GrimsJ.Shadows]

For me it has to be Bianca. I always felt guilty when I would beat her because most of the time she was sort of weak and clueless

 

[Muur]

Brenden/May (you should really have included them as the same option) because they stop being your rival, don't even evolve their starters to their finals forms and you can't battle them after the story.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Blue was an arrogant brat with zero character development through two generations. That would make he the worst rival ever, but sadly there were two rivals that managed to be even worse than him: Brendan, a boring slightly sexist rival with zero personality and Wally, the rival that barely appeared in the Hoenn games. So, even if Blue was an overall lame character, he at least acted as rival, unlike these two.

 

[Almonds]

@Mermaid; N is technically the King of Team Plasma, even though he's not the true leader story-wise. He's officially labeled the boss.

I'd still say Brendan/May for giving up half-way

 

[Drakon]

Blue in first place with Bianca in second and Brendan/May in third

Blue - bland and flat character. And the "Smell ya later!" catchphrase, it's funny the first few times but it gets old real fast. Not to mention, he's an ass. Granted, so is Silver but at least he develops over the course of the game.

Brendan and May - Utterly forgettable.

Bianca - yeah, her ditziness got annoying really fast.

 

[Swadloon]

All the "rivals" from Ruby/Sapphire (Wally/Brendan/May). I don't even consider them as rivals. They are extremely useless. They began the terrible idea of making friendly rivals. You don't even get stimulated to compete against rivals like that. The lack of agressiveness of the rivals since them makes me really miss Silver.

 

[Wellspring Station]

Hmm... Actually, there wasn't a particular rival I didn't like. I enjoyed everyone here and I liked the range of personalities they had from rude (Blue) to funny and ditzy (Bianca) to friendly and helpful (Brendan) to serious and smart but kind (Cheren). I also really like Wally from RSE because he seemed like a weak and quiet person but ended up being really hard to get past at the end of Victory Road. I can't say anything about Silver since I never played that generation.

 

[colours]

I...honestly found Cheren and Bianca kinda silly, but I feel like one of the very few that do. And I guess Barry to some extent? I'm not a huge fan of the childhood rival theme, so I suppose that's why. I'm more of a fan of rivals such as Blue. Wally was....okay I guess, not too bad, not excellent either, I suppose. Best rivals for me would be the rival from HG/SS and Blue imo.