Probopass battles Pikachu by using its 3 nose arms to pressure Pikachu while trying to flatten it with a Ground Pound. It really gives a new perspective on how a Pokemon widely seen as a boring Stone Wall can battle.
Regigigas bursting out of the temple and swatting Probopass away before unleashing a powerful force wave.
Pikachu cleverly blocking Volcarona's Heat Wave with a tile before OHKO'ing it with a Volt Tackle.
The way Pikachu valiantly fights off the Noivern at Terminus Cave attacking it and Red really shows how far its come from scuffling with a Caterpie. The moment where it muscles through Noivern's Boomburst and finishes it off with a Thunderbolt really sells it. All that happens while Red and Pikachu are riding a wagon in Temple of Doom style.
Perfect Zygarde rising majestically out of Terminus Cave.
The Chase
The interrogation of the Team Rocket grunt. Quite small, but establishes the Darker and Edgier departure from the adventures of Ash and co. The grunt refuses to cooperate, so the detective arrogantly tries to convince him about the truth.
The whole SWAT team raid sequence at the Viridian City Gym: Looker giving orders to a group of highly prepared men. Arcanine is able blast a Flamethrower so strong that it reduces a wall to slag. Magnimite being able to short circuit the gym lock. Not bad for a ball with magnets for hands. And of course, there is Machamp punching walls.
Giovanni giving Looker and his SWAT team the slip and proudly declaring that Team Rocket is down but far from out.
The Challenger
The introduction of the Elite 4 really builds a great sense of intimidation, as the room they gather at and they way they're all standing around makes them feel more akin to a group of super villains.
The way Agatha sends out her Gengar. She certainly couldn't just toss a Pokeball and have it burst out; that would be far too boring. Instead, she opens a Pokeball on her walking stick, which suddenly starts seeping out a sleek black shadow. The shadow slithers onto the ground and forms the shape of Gengar's silhouette, with its eyes and mouth glowing an ominousred, before it solidifies and takes on its true appearance. Not only awesome for Agatha and Gengar, but awesome for the production team for the amazing artistic creativity.
The Lake of Rage
Lance and his Dragonite were basically unstoppable forces of nature the entire special.
After defeating Petrel, Lance and Dragonite free the captive Electrode that had been used as power sources for Team Rocket's scheme. Before making their exit, the Electrode proceed to take sweet revenge upon the hapless Team Rocket Executive with a group Thunderbolt.
The Legacy
It's pretty cool to finally see Silver animated beyond a quick cameo.
Ho-Oh descending from the sky in a beautiful stream of light, and reviving the three unnamed Pokémon is an absolute sight to behold.
The Vision
Brendan enters Team Magma HQ with a bang, Sceptile's Leaf Blade cutting through a steel door like butter and exploding it, and Sceptile knocking out a Golbat in one second note Sceptile taking down a Golbat is even better when you consider the fact that Golbat has a dual type-advantage against it (Flying and Poison are both strong against Grass). Sceptile took it down in midair. and blowing a Magma Grunt away. With a pile-driver Leaf Storm straight from Pokkén Tournament. Later on, as they're proceeding through the base, Sceptile also takes down a Mightyena with a single Leaf Blade.
Primal Groudon establishes just how much of a threat it can be to the world. Seconds after its awakening (in a volcano no less) it fires a giant laser that straight-up obliterates most of the Hoenn region, turning the sky orange from fire and smoke. To reiterate: it just vaporized an entire archipelago with a single attack, and that one attack alreadly made it look like it was trying to start an apocalypse!
Most fans saw Groudon's endless drought (induced by a mini-sun over Sootopolis) as far scarier than Kyogre's Great Flood-level rains. Here, it's clear that the rains themselves are the last thing to worry about.
The Scoop
The battle between Mega Rayquaza and Deoxys. Especially the climax.
When Rayquaza decides to use a Hyper Beam to end the fight right there, Deoxys uses it's psychic abilities to create a clump of asteroids which blocks the attack.
Deoxys makes full use of all 4 of its forms, even transforming in between attacks.
Both are launching Psycho Boosts and Hyper Beams like its nothing. Note that those are already extremely powerful attacks, and these two can spam them constantly.
Deoxys takes a Hyper Beam that blows off the right side of its body. It simply looks at it and instantly regenerates it.
Mega Rayquaza uses Dragon Ascent to plow through Defense Form Deoxys' Psycho Boost and even Protect, which is supposed to be unbreakable to anything barring Z-Moves (and even then blunting the attack's full effect).
Not only did the protagonist capture Deoxys, they actually got into a space suit and flew on Rayquaza to catch it.
Gabby and Ty giving the security the slip after they are discovered at the space center.
The New World
Giratina effortlessly ending Cyrus' plan to remake the world and dragging him into the Distortion World. Part of Giratina's interference includes freeing Dialga and Palkia. It does so by accurately blasting away the red chains without causing further harm to the two.
Kudos to Cyrus who not only doesn't flinch when Giratina swallows him up but then proceeds to talk down to it.
Doubling as a funny moment, but Cynthia's reaction when Giratina is about to lunge at Cyrus is to put up her dukes. Somehow feels in-character for Cynthia to plan on fist-fighting the god of antimatter. Bonus points in that Garchomp also puts its fins up in a similar fashion.
The Magma Stone
Looker and his Croagunk prove themselves to be really badass. His Croagunk manages to hold Heatran at bay and quickly knock out two Galactic Grunts, while Looker himself knocks out Charon with a chop to the neck. And all the while Looker never once loses his calm.
When it becomes apparent that the only way to stop Heatran is to put the Magma Stone back in its place, Buck decides to do it himself. Problem is, Heatran is blocking the only path to it. So what does Buck do? He has his Claydol levitate rocks, then jump on them to get to the Magma Stone. Even more impressive considering those rocks were over a pit of lava. That takes serious guts.
The Uprising
The Unova Gym Leaders confronting Team Plasma was already awesome in the games, and here we get to see some of their battles. The swelling music in the background only adds to the epic scale of it all. Highlights include:
Clay's Excadrill saving Iris from being attacked by some Liepard.
Lenora's Herdier taking out a Krokorok without so much as taking damage.
Elesa riding on her Zebstrika while it electrocutes some Pokemon and members of Team Plasma.
Brycen gets into a fistfight with several Team Plasma Grunts and completely wipes the floor with them (as evidenced by the numerous knocked-out Plasma Grunts behind him on the stairs), while his Beartic grabs a Gigalith (who weighs more than 570 pounds) by the head with one arm, and throws it with enough force to create an explosion of debris.
Burgh's Leavanny elegantly slicing through 4 pokémon with Leaf Blade, one of which has x4 resist against the move.
Skyla's Swanna stunning several Pokémon and Team Plasma Grunts by carpet-bombing Air Slash, with some Pokemon even having a weakness to said move.
Drayden confidently stands there with his arms crossed as two Whirlipede come rolling at him, after which his Haxorus appears and simply swats them both away with Dragon Tail.
Drayden's words, too: "I can certainly empathize with some of what you say. But I cannot ever forgive the way you reject everything else!"
The Frozen World
The fact that Colress' weapon is capable of freezing an entire freaking city in a single shot. Also goes to show how incredibly powerful Kyurem really is.
Though it doesn't accomplish anything in the end, Drayden's Haxorus is undeniably badass. Even being outnumbered by Team Plasma's Pokémon (some of them Ice-types) barely fazes it.
The King Returns
Hilbert finally appears in animation, riding in on Zekrom as a Big Damn Hero to boot!
The Beauty Eternal
Lysandre's stage debut of the Holocaster. It's little wonder it sells like hotcakes afterwards.
Context? Everyone's hyped as hell to see what he's about to announce. Suddenly, his iconic Pyroar runs onstage and creates a small wall of fire. The man himself suddenly appears behind it and demolishes it with his bare hands. The crowd goes wild. His next action? Do a Badass Fingersnap and suddenly, Pyroar turns on his master and unleashes a wave of fire at him, seemingly destroying him. The real Lysandre walks onstage and reveals that he duped everyone in the audience with a hologram from his company's newest creation: The Holocaster. Later, the product becomes so popular that he has to increase production rates just to meet the demand for it.
The Investigation
Mimi frees Emma from the suit's control by breaking her helmet with a headbutt.
The Redemption
A minor case compared to Hilbert, but AZ finally appears in animation after not appearing in the main anime.
