We've both heard enough speeches about higher causes by now. History will decide who's right. End of story.

>>186850
On that note, the best rival is just "you."

Ok, yes, he only showed up as a midboss but it speaks to how well the enemy archetype resonates with players when done well enough.

>>186853

I feel like this needs an addendum.

The best rival isn't just "you" but rather is someone who has a similar set of skills and abilities comparable to yours. They should be a character where you can look at them and say "Yes! I can imagine myself playing as this character".

Vergil from Devil May Cry isn't Dante. But he still plays in a fashion similar to Dante and few if any other bosses in that game can hold that claim. When you fight Vegil it's sort of like an actual fighting game clash and he rarely has moves that would make him difficult if not impossible to actually play as.

This makes both him, Jetstream Sam and (to a bit of a similar extent but not really) Prince Vorkken a lot more interesting a rival than say Jeanne from Bayonetta who really IS just a clone of your main character as she might as well be fighting her shadow-self at this point.

A great rival I feel is a bit more complicated than "me but evil". They should be more like "Me, but if I had gone down a RADICALLY different path and become something different as a result".

>>186854
>"Me, but if I had gone down a RADICALLY different path and become something different as a result".

Or in Gogandantess' mold "Someone RADICALLY different who has gone down a similar path but is still different as a result.

>>186854
>Jeanne from Bayonetta who really IS just a clone of your main character as she might as well be fighting her shadow-self at this point.

Also just as an aside on Bayonetta, Platinum totally agrees, that's why 2's rival will be a Lumen sage, similar powers but the opposite end of the spectrum and different weapon set.

Jeanne wasn't really a rival, though. Yeah, in the game she plays that part, but conceptually she is Bayo's BFF and makes sense for them to be pretty similar since they both come from the same closed order, had a similar upbringing, and the same training and fighting styles. She is the Luigi to Bayo's Mario, not the Vergil to a Dante.

I wish somebody at Nintendo recalled that Wario was supposed to be Marios arch-rival.

I like Wario's solo games, but it kinda sucks that he has been more or less expunged out of the Mario franchise.

>>186867

I'd argue that the fact Kamiya played a ball-grabbing game with that and had Jeanne's true nature come outta nowhere through a REALLY contrived circumstance didn't help much.

>>186872
Really, that was just Super Mario Land 2 and some of the sports titles. He's never been a huge antagonist in the games proper (actually, SML2 is the only 'mainline' Mario game where he's antagonistic at all.)

>>186876
And I'd argue back that

A) in the very first encounter you have with Jeanne, she is helpíng Bayonetta

B) Bayo is fascinated by Jeanne, and does recognize her without a hint of hostility

C) The choreography shows that both characters think and fight pretty similar

D) Later, it's clear she does not like her orders to antagonize Bayo

Not really an asspull. Yes, she plays the part of an antogonist, but is not played as a polar opposite.

>>186878

>A) in the very first encounter you have with Jeanne, she is helpíng Bayonetta

They were fighting Angels. Would you really blame ANYONE for assuming they were working together in that one instance like how Dante and Vergil fought Arkham?

>B) Bayo is fascinated by Jeanne, and does recognize her without a hint of hostility

Considering she hardly recognizes ANYTHING without a hint of Hostility...

Also at no point does Bayo say anything to Luka like "That's Jeanne. I think I remember her but she seems different..." or utter a simple phrase like "You've changed" or ANYTHING. Their fighty, battle each other and try to murder one another is played completely straight and without any hint that this is an abnormal way for either of these two characters to behave.

>C) The choreography shows that both characters think and fight pretty similar

Which indicates they were allies HOW?

>D) Later, it's clear she does not like her orders to antagonize Bayo

When? She's just heard talking to some anonymous figure we assume is Father Balder but if she's brainwashed like the game implies then why the hell isn't she some kind of mindless doll and why does she still have memories of Bayonetta? It's not even a Cap/Bucky thing! It's literally just vaugely implied magic mind control that made her hate Bayo for some reason.

Also why the hell did your first encounter with her go to a flashback where you fight Jeanne? Why did the two fight? Why did Jeanne challenge Bayo at all? Hell I'll even buy that their relationship just IS some kinda fucked up BFF's who fight each other on occasion and come from a similar background, but you HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME KAMIYA.

YOU HAVE TO GIVE US A BETTER IDEA THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH JEANNE BEFORE WE CAN ACCEPT THAT TWIST AT THE END. The only reason I can see it being like this is the meta game reason that he wanted us to THINK it was like Dante/Vergil but then do something completely different and troll us. Which works as maybe a sight gag or a one-off line but an ENTIRE FREAKING CHARACTER ARC? In your major release!? What the hell were you thinking!? There's a time to be funny and self-referential and now's not it!

>>186879

Lemme put it like this here. When you go back and play DMC3 and you realize that Arkham and Jester are the same person your first instinct might be to think "BULLSHIT" but then you watch the cutscenes closely and Oh wait. Both him and Jester can teleport. And stand on vertical surfaces/upside down. Also every time Arkham leaves somewhere Jester appears. Holy shit this actually makes perfect sense when you go back and pay attention.

I go back and I play Bayonetta and I never get that with Jeanne. At no point do I look at her interaction and think "oh ok so this is a symptom of her brainwashsing!" she acts almost the same in the past as she does when you meet her in the future. The only difference SEEMS to be her allegiance and there are numerous reasons one could assume for her to betray her order. Hell it's pretty much implied that they treat her like shit. It's also not hard to assume that Jeanne and Cereza were friends but had a falling out IIRC one line of dialogue correctly. The only thing Bayo does is keep showing you misleading images and then suddenly changes it around to go "NO SEE JEANNE STABBED HER TO GET THE EYE OF THE WORLD AND THEN THEY IMMEDIATELY TEAMED UP AND FOUGHT TOGETHER AS ALLIES".

I guess asspull is wrong. It's more like it's being deceitful and missing the point of a good mystery. That you're suppose to be able to go back and see how things connect from prior information. Without that ONE cutscene and one bit of dialogue in there then Jeanne suddenly deciding to help Bayonetta would make no sense.

FUCK yes!

Henry: We Are Finally Cowboys

>>186879
> Also why the hell did your first encounter with her go to a flashback where you fight Jeanne? Why did the two fight? Why did Jeanne challenge Bayo at all?

IIRC, Jeanne and Bayo fought for the privilege of being the protector of the Left Eye, which is the most treasured blahblahblah. The game sorta implies that the elder Umbra witch is Jeanne's mom, so that would add an extra layer of SERIOUS BUSSINESS to the fight.

>>186854
See I had this huge twice as long post about that but then I went "nah," putting 'you' in quotes should suggest an antagonist that is similar to but distinct from the player character. Not sure why I didn't just say the previous sentence either oh well.

To bring up another facet of a good rival, I'd say there has to be an element of catharsis to the conflict they bring, even if you just want to punch their face in. For example, every rival after this guy doesn't exhibit that same personal one-up-manship that I expect a lot of people to relate to, especially gamers.

>>186885
YES, OH MY GOD YES THE OTHER RIVALS ARE SO COMPARATIVELY FLAT

>>186885
Silver's pretty aggressive.

>>186894
Very early on that's true, but they focused a lot on trying to develop him which... came too early.

>>186885

The thing about current Pokemon games is that they try to paint rivals less as antagonists and more as potential allies who just so happen to have conflicting starters as you.

The only really aggressively bad people in Pokemon belong to a team.

With this said you know what I wanna see for a pokemon rival, even though I know fully well that this would be a NIGHTMARE to code?

A pokemon rival who doesn't just pick the opposing starter to yours but who winds up with a team that's diametrically designed to oppose yours. If the game notes "Oh! You're leveling up this water pokemon a lot" it'll give your rival a super-strong grass type. If it notes you have a super strong normal type it gives the rival a super-strong ghost type that neither one can touch.

Just make a rival that strategises against you.

>>186900
Not just a nightmare to code, every rival so far has had a team that in some way reflected themselves. Blue loses his Raticate in Vermilion, Silver's Golbat becomes Crobat, N's is always local species he didn't have to catch and store. You could have half the team dynamic and half set I suppose, but GF really likes Pokemon teams that fit their trainer in some way.

>>186900
>>186901
There's more to it than typing, the new fairy type is immune to dragon but the latter is generally strong enough to take them out with coverage moves.

Weirdly enough, the various postgame Battle ____ seem to have exactly the right team to take down yours right when you think you're up for a long run. While they certainly tilt the RNG in their favor, the AI teams themselves are apparently chosen from a fairly robust pool of competition-level pokes.

I guess they'd have to have the same database for the rival and/or make their pokes scale to yours.

>>186916
>While they certainly tilt the RNG in their favor

No evidence of this has been found in previous generations. What people describe as RNG hax is merely iterative probability. When you have a 3% chance of failure (that's three instant kills hitting in a row), performing enough trials (battles) will make it increasingly likely that the "impossible" (it isn't impossible, the probability is just low) is going to happen _at least once_. If you lose after 200 battles to a "bullshit" crit or quick claw activation or whatever, keep in mind that there were 199 battles where it _didn't_ happen.

>>186923
Sooo does it happen this gen? I gave up after flinch hax that starts happening past 10 battles until I complete my own hax team. I"ve also missed 95% accurate moves three times in a row several times now but only at the battle maison.

Of course, in any game with notable RNG mishaps, I tend to have worse luck than everyone else.

So, I guess this is now a Pokemon general.

>>186927
Heh, sorry, I got carried away.

I can't really think of more (good) rivals from games I've played personally, they're more like one-off bosses that just happen to mirror the player character in various aspects, like Dark Link.

I've thought about this a while, I don't think David is the rival, I think the case could be made for Mondo as David's rival.

I doubt many did play with the first Army of Two, but I always thought thig guy was a worthy, hilarious rival for the main characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tki5y2Llyp8

GARGANT, Samanosuke's rival through Onimusha 1 and 3 and the secret boss of 4 is radical.