YMMV / Pokémon Masters

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • By way of The Problem with Pen Island. The Pokémon Masters twitter celebrated the game's one-year anniversary with a major update, giving it the subtitle "EX" and promoting it with the Twitter hashtag #pokemonmastersex. Unfortunately, due to it being all lowercase letters, it can be misread as "Pokémon master sex" or blatantly: #PokemonMasterSex with the little Red emoji at the time still attached, breaking the floodgates to all sorts of innuendo on the tag. Since then, it's been quietly acknowledged as the "EX" hashtag is no longer used on the official accounts.
  • May's Easter seasonal outfit looks a lot like the outfits for the stereotypical bunny girl outfit.
  • The Rising New Year's Resolutions event has Wallace recalling that Sabrina gave him a premonition; that something "large, white, and long" would lead to his success. ^note It's later revealed that this was referring to Clair's Drampa helping Wallace and his Blacephalon clear the rain clouds.
  • Some of the characters' voicelines have moaning/groaning/whimpering audio that some have pointed out sound rather... suggestive. In a compilation for Volo's audio, these are followed by him crying out "Please have mercy!", which makes it even funnier.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: 5/5 sync grids were very controversial in the community when they were first announced back in October 2022. Many believed that this would result in many sync pairs to become unviable even at 3/5 (the previous limit to where a sync pair would need to be considered at their full potential) and forcing players to spend more and more candies. As it was later revealed via subsequent updates, 5/5 sync grids often had the opposite effect on older sync pairs, with their 5/5 grids making them viable, and they are now celebrated as an essential for older pairs to be rendered viable again. It helps that the few units that started off with a 5/5 grid have since been powercrept to the point where having a 5/5 grid on them isn't a huge issue.
• Arc Fatigue: Paulo’s supposed fall as a person and being influenced by villainous teams and factions in the name of getting stronger during the villain event’s “Paulo Interludes” has been met with this, with many people complaining about how long this supposed Face–Heel Turn is being dragged out and how annoying and unsympathetic it makes Paulo look as a result. Quite a few people have declared that if Pokémon Masters is going to make Paulo a villain, they should just get it over with already. It finally happened at the end of Team Plasma's Villain Arc when Paulo snaps after his Rockruff is seemingly killed by Kyurem and Paulo's negative emotions overwhelmed Lear's Hoopa causing it to go into its Unbound form and Paulo has become a full-on Knight Templar and has decided to become "the last evil" by getting rid of all of the other evil team leaders.
• Ass Pull: In the Team Plasma Villain Arc, Ghetsis attempts to fuse his Kyurem with N's captured Zekrom. It looks like the protagonists are unable to stop it from happening, until Hilbert reveals he has a Kyurem of his own that pushes aside Ghetsis's Kyurem and fuses with Zekrom to become Kyurem Black. Said Kyurem just came out of the blue with nothing that indicates its existence and with no backstory nor any hint that Hoopa had been involved. Moreover the fact that the only way for the fusion to happen is for Kyurem owner to have the DNA Splicers, something that Hilbert's never said to have, makes the reveal become even more contrived
• Awesome Music: The game soundtrack features an extensive amount of remixes of nearly every battle theme from every generation. However, each remix isn't your regular remix, as each sample goes out of its way to feature brand new scores that weren't in the original tracks while still somehow retaining the spirit of what the remix is remixing. One that deserves an absolute mention is the remix combining Lance, Steven and Cynthia's battle themes into one of the most astronomical pieces in the game.
• Bizarro Episode: The events featuring characters from the Pokémon anime. Neither the Team Rocket Trio nor Ash seem to get the chance to talk to anyone else other than the original characters debuting in Masters, perhaps to avoid confusing them with versions they never met before. It's even made more bizarre in the episodes focusing Ash:
  • Lear praises Ash by looks alone, despite the fact Lear either fights a sync pair or has done his research to deem them worthy of his attention to beat them. In fact, Lear was too gracious enough to invite Ash to his home, despite being a total stranger.
  • To show off that Ash is so dependable, he ends up being the problem solver to Tina's trust issues with her Flareon, directly causing Tina to become so unreliable without his help unlike how she was presented to be otherwise in her storyline with Paulo.
  • The "Blazing Battle with Ash" event has Ash solely fighting random Trainers to fight Scottie/Bettie for last. Notably, his foes are presented as brute forcers while he dishes out strategy after strategy to beat them all. Said foes don't even get to use sync moves while he uses Gigantamaxed Gengar, Mega Lucario, and Pikachu's Z-Move. The other main playable characters actually do get to watch Ash battle. However, not a single one of them even refers to him by name, and they all seem to be more interested on the Trainers he fights rather than him. Except Red, though he never talks to Ash unlike how they were shown fighting each other in the promotional trailers. Conveniently, all of the protagonists featured weren't adapted into the anime.
  • Paulo is entirely missing from any of the story events featuring the characters from the anime.
• Broken Base:
  • Variety Scouts. Either they're a way to give an underutilised character another alt with a powerful or fun gimmick, or they're a blatantly lazy repacking of assets to make the developers more money.
  • The game's Fourth Anniversary pairs were revealed to be Kanto Neo Champions, with the Neo Champions being Blue, Red and Leaf. This either is a fitting role as the three of them do indeed live up to what a Neo Champion was supposed to be ^note A Trainer who acts as an example of what everyone should measure up to , or it completely contradicts one of the core aspects of the Neo Champion role ^note The fact that the Neo Champion role was implied to apply only to trainers who are not already a champions, and some of the Kanto Neo Champions are already champions to begin with, being Red and Blue. The latter group also saw the choices as being the lazy and safe route and wished that more outlandish pairs would obtain the Neo Champion position of Kanto. In addition, the fourth anniversary pairs being forced to be Neo Champions was becoing controversial with the abundance of Neo Champion events over the past few years (there had already been two such events in the past month), and many fans despised the inclusion of yet another Red anniversary pair (this was the third Red pair had debuted around an anniversary).
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • In the early days of the game, Olivia & Lycanroc were considered one of the best, if not the best strike sync pair, making them common in co-op battles. Because co-op battles favor Lightning Bruisers, Lycanroc was often the go-to Pokémon thanks to its powerful Stone Edge attack combined with support skills that raise its own attack, critical hit rate, and accuracy and a passive skill that raises its speed every time it lands a critical hit.
  • Play a co-op battle for the Electric-type Training Event, and you're guaranteed to see at least one Hau on the field of play (probably two, or even three if you're using him yourself). You get him for free during the story mode, his support skills raise his attack, speed, and evasion, and his Discharge attack hits the entire opposing team for considerable damage. And since the entire AI team for that event is weak to Electric, a common sight is a team of three Haus all burning through their support skills as quickly as possible and then spamming Discharge until everything faints.
  • Pryce is everywhere in Ice-type Training Event co-op battles for similar reasons to Hau above: he's a story mode freebie, has support skills to buff his own stats, a strong Herd-Hitting Attack (Icy Wind), and the entire enemy team is weak to his type.
  • Team Rainbow Rocket Giovanni & Mewtwo are commonplace for many players. A sync pair obtained from the Legendary Adventures, Mewtwo surpasses many other free sync pairs in terms of stats and its moves are incredibly powerful. One could see Giovanni being used often in co-op multiplayer battles, especially ones where the opponent is weak to Psychic type.
  • For a while since the game's release, Rosa & Serperior were often considered the best of the free sync pairs, thanks to being a free 5-star (and one that you receive very early in the game), impressive bulk, and very useful support skills for the early days of the game. They even became one of the first sync pairs eligible for EX status. Unsurprisingly, it showed up often in both single player and co-op play.
  • Sygna Suit Red & Charizard became a fan favorite for pretty much every kind of battle right off, due to a downright broken ability set. He and his Charizard possess a 3-bar team-hitting Heat Wave and a 4-bar single-target Blast Burn, both of which do a ton of damage and can inflict Burn, and Charizard has the speed to spam it reliably, even before you factor in Red's "My Destiny!" Trainer move that increases Charizard's Special Attack and Speed by three stages. If his attack set wasn't enough, his passives are even MORE insane, with skills that can either recover one bar of the Move Gauge or lower the sync move countdown by one with any successful attack, and most importantly, the Piercing Gaze skill that makes Charizard's attacks ALWAYS HIT. Oh, and Charizard can Mega Evolve to push his offense even higher (and gain a powerful Flare Blitz attack in the bargain, giving him a physical attack option for Pokémon with high Special Defense). Simply put, Red & Charizard were the most powerful offensive sync pairs in the game when they were released, and it's not uncommon to see three Reds at the start of any co-op battle. And then he got EX, letting his sync move hit every Pokémon on the field. And none of this is even touching on his sync grid...
  • With the introduction of her sync grid, Skyla & Swanna have easily become the most popular support pair to use. In addition to being a sync pair that is obtained from the story for free, with her Trainer move "Take Flight!" she can maximize the entire team's speed and defense as well as having MP Refresh on her Potions allow her to continuously heal the entire team. With impressive bulk and abilities, its no wonder she's relied on often. Likely as a result of her usefulness, the September 2020 6☆EX poll results revealed that out of the eligible sync pairs to receive a 6☆EX upgrade, Skyla was the most voted sync pair by far, receiving 25.03% of all votes.
  • Sygna Suit Leaf & Venusaur became commonplace online simply due to their sheer utility. They have the not one, but two healing skills, while also being pretty bulky themselves, allowing them to keep allies healthy for a long, long time. Their Razor Leaf move hits everyone on the battlefield, which, considering that their attacks inflict toxic poison and lower defenses, leave all the flunkies wide open for everyone to whale on.
  • Finally, to round out the Pallet Town trio, Sygna Suit Blue and Blastoise mark themselves as one of the best tanking/support units in the game. Blastoise's stat spread had a heavy focus on bulk, and Blue's skillset effectively gives him the ability to potentially raise EVERY single stat to max on his own with the right setup. Even then he was considered underwhelming compared to Sygna Suit Red and Leaf... So DeNA added more grid abilities that can recover the team's HP both when Blastoise uses an attack AND when it gets attacked itself, making Blue and his team incredibly difficult to bring down.
  • In terms of Lucky Skills, two stand out from the rest: Critical Strike 2 and Vigilance. A unit with Critical Strike 2 increases the strength of its critical hits (which, as in the mainline games, ignore the opponents' defensive buffs) allowing it to consistently hit hard if its critical hit rate is raised by 3 stages. Vigilance prevents a unit from receiving critical hits (similarly to the Shell Armor ability in the main games) which greatly improves the survivability of support units.
  • Expect practically every Trainer in harder co-op battles to use Sygna Suit Serena & Zygarde or Sygna Suit Ethan & Lugia. Both have powerful area-of-effect attacks and as Master Fair sync pairs, they have passive skills that provide additional buffs to grant their teammates even more firepower and survivability.
  • Sygna Suit Red (Thunderbolt) & Pikachu has become this in spades, to the point where people use him as their off-type sync pair of choice should they lack a third sync pair on their team to fight the enemy in co-op. This is because Red has a multitude of crazy buffs, from a Max Move that paralyses the enemy, a crazy strong Trainer move, and a Buddy Move that does massive damage to all opponents and can be used over and over with the only drawback being that it can only be used when Electric Terrain is active. But even that isn't a problem for Red, as with the correct upgrades he can set up Electric Terrain via his Max Move, and even without it Red can still set up Electric Terrain manually.
  • Ash & Pikachu has become a common sight, as not only does he have a very strong base attack and note one, but two strong Trainer moves, he also has B Thunderbolt—quite possibly one of the strongest moves in the game, period. B Thunderbolt is essentially a one-time use attack that does more damage the more sections from the move gauge that it uses. The result was a move that even offtype can one-shot most opponents.
  • While it technically isn't mandatory, many Battle Rally players will opt for the rather expensive Apple Cup at the final stage. It is worth noting that although the final stage is a stage derived from Ultimate Battles, the Apple Cup makes them essentially a free win, so perhaps this is a bit justified.^explanationThe Apple Cup does the following: Raises the Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, and Sp. Def of all sync pairs by 500%. The first time the user enters each battle, reduces the user’s sync move countdown by three. Lowers the total number of moves the user needs to use before they can unleash a sync move by the number of allied sync pairs participating in battle. Restore one MP for all the moves of sync pairs that use a move successfully. Reduces damage by 50% when the user is hit by an attack. The move gauge charges very quickly. Lowers the Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def, Speed, accuracy, and evasiveness of all opposing sync pairs by six stat ranks. Raises the user's Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def, Speed, accuracy, and evasiveness by six stat ranks the first time the user enters each battle. When an allied sync pair uses a move successfully, reduces the sync move countdown by one. Applies the Supereffective ↑ Next effect to sync pairs that use a move successfully. Only the first time the user enters each battle, they are affected by the following: Enduring
• Difficulty Spike: The main story mode is this. Early chapters give the players a good challenge to breeze through, but Chapter 5 onwards steep up the difficulty, and it gets harsher during Pokémon Masters League story arcs.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: This game's battle system is generally considered a step down from the main series games, with the occasional Scrappy Mechanic systems laying here and there, but fans love the funny dialogue and all the new characterization for old characters.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The game's "punk girl" character became an instant hit among fans after her reveal, likely owing to her Creepy Cute design.
• Fan Nickname: Several fan terms have been produced to talk about various features or characters in the game using shorthand:
  • Rosa in her Holiday 2019 attire has the nickname "Rosanta", due to her Santa Claus-esque costume.
  • The very high-synergy trio of Sygna Suit Red, Sygna Suit Blue and Sygna Suit Leaf are often called the "Kantrio".
  • N in his Anniversary 2021 attire is sometimes called "Niversary".
  • Sygna Suit Lusamine is sometimes called "LuSSamine" or "Lusamommy", the second one due to her looking even more maternal in her gown and her curves being more emphasized in it.
  • May in her Anniversary 2022 attire has the nickname "AnniMay" (which resembles the word "anime" — which she was a major character in for the Pokémon series).
  • Some sync pairs are nicknamed based on the combination of the Trainer and their partner Pokémon's names. For example, "Redlax" for Red & Snorlax and "Zerena" for Syna Suit Serena & Zygarde.
  • After the release of the story interlude where Paulo seemed to consider whether Team Rocket might be a good fit for him to get stronger, some fans took to calling him "Villain-kun" and "Grunt-kun".
  • Accidental leaks from DeNA are usually attributed to a hypothetical employee of theirs fans call "intern-kun" — which comes from a joke that the leak was likely the work of an intern that other doesn't respect the company's rules or who is just grossly incompetent at their job.
  • Gloria(Alt 2.) is often referred to as "Glora" after a typo in her Poké Pair Scout banner.
• Game-Breaker: Shares a page with the other Pokémon games.
• Genius Bonus: All of the Anniversary units each feature a red lily in their outfit. A red lily in the language of flowers means "passion", which is what the name "Pasio" is derived from.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • One small but noticeable part of the Masters EX fandom with this trope is in regards to the monthly datamines that effectively give a preview to what comes the next month. Datamines are generally disliked by Japanese players of the game, as they widely believe that datamines spoil the fun of guessing what comes every month, with many Japanese players outright blocking renowned dataminer's social media accounts. In much of the rest of the world, however, datamines are a huge and borderline renowned event, out of both suspense that often builds up for an entire month between datamines, and also out of pragmatism as the datamine gives details on the banners and gem counts coming so people know what to save for.
  • Battle Rally is incredibly divisive and overall disliked by Japanese and Chinese players, as many players in the East overall are turned away by the more complicated mechanics of Battle Rally and the inability of simply sitting back with the game's most overpowered pairs and winning for free gems. In the West however, Battle Rally is incredibly popular and often stated to be the best mode the game has released in years, with players praising the game forcing players to switch out different teams and increasing the variety in battles.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One of Emmet’s random conversations has him mention how much he looks up to Ingo, and how they make a good team. That in itself is sweet. However, come Legends Arceus, Ingo is revealed to have fallen through a time rift to Hisui, without his brother and with almost no memories.
  • The introduction of "Renegade Sygna Suit" Cynthia has her aligned with Giratina, making it look like an Evil Costume Switch, but she's still as benevolent as ever. Legends Arceus features Volo; Cynthia's possible ancestor who is actually the Big Bad of the game's events, having aligned with Giratina and undergoes an Evil Costume Switch himself, although with a bright Arceus theme. Both even have a remix of Cynthia's encounter theme.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Ho Yay: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• I Knew It!:
  • The idea of Kris' eventual Sygna Suit being paired with Suicune was widely speculated before her reveal in the Johto Villain Arc.
  • Many people speculated that Jirachi would come to the game in July 2023, due to the previous month ending with a Hoenn Villain Arc rerun and Jirachi being the last Hoenn legendary/mythical to appear in the game. Sure enough, Jirachi was confirmed to release in July 2023.
  • As was expected, many people called it that Paulo's Rockruff would be revealed to be alive after Ghetsis's Kyurem attacked it. Just as many people expected (and for a very long time) it would evolve during the VA Finale into a Dusk Forme Lycanroc, seeing as how Kukui has the normal forme and Olivia has the Midnight forme.
  • Due to November being the month with Eevee Day, a holiday to celebrate Eevee and the Eeveelutions, along with the introduction of Generation IX characters with Nemona in August 2023, many expected that Penny would make her debut that month with a Sylveon as her partner, since it is her ace when you fight her at the end of the Starfall Street storyline. Sure enough, she was officially released into the game, with a Sylveon partner.
  • Because of her punk rock aesthetic and her Poison-Type specialization, many people expected Roxie to get an alt with a Toxtricity before the reveal of her Sygna Suit with a Toxtricity in November 2023.
  • Since 2024 was the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar, and the game had previously ran an event that referenced the current Chinese calendar year (a Scorbunny themed event in 2023, the Year of the Hare, which ran around the time of the new year), more than a few people anticipated at least one Dragon-Type pair to be introduced for New Year's 2024.
  • While Wally wasn't an expected pick for Trainer Lodge, the few people who expected a Lodge Wally correctly guessed he would be paired with a Delcatty, since it was the only Pokémon in Wally's final team that was considered weaker and also was the only other Pokémon that had yet to be assigned to another pair in some form.
  • It seemed to be almost universally guessed that Rika would receive a Clodsire as her partner, which was confirmed with her release in late April 2024.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The biggest appeal of this game is teaming up with your favorite human characters from the Pokémon games for 3-on-3 Pokémon battles. Even the previously blank-slate protagonists get this, since they're given personalities of their own (save for Red).
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • 5-star sync pairs obtained from the PML story arc (Rosa and Serperior, Acerola and Palossand, Cheren and Stoutland, and Calem and Meowstic) get hit with this, due to there being no dedicated ways of raising their move level ^note barring either a type of event that hasn't happened in years, or via a free pair obtainable every Pokémon Day, of which only happens once a month and gives the buff to a random pair selected for the month, albiet only once.. The only other option is to use move candies, which are always better saved for powerful sync pairs obtained from the gacha in order to save on gems, which are best used for obtaining different gacha sync pairs instead of multiple copies of the same sync pair just to raise their move level. Cheren and Stoutland are hit the hardest with this, as the other 3 still see some niche use for free-to-play strategies, even when only at move level 1, while Cheren and Stoutland's viability barely gets improved even after receiving their sync grid expansion in November 2022.
  • Strike sync pairs that were released with Mega Evolutions, especially if their strongest moves or passive skills are locked behind it. This is due to two reasons: the base power of their sync moves are made weaker than the other sync pairs to seemingly balance their stat increase after Mega Evolving, and the time used for syncing are better given for other pairs such as EX support pairs (to further boost the entire team's damage output) or pairs with stronger sync move damage. In fast-paced game modes such as the Champion Stadium Master Mode, these sync pairs tend to be too slow to deal enough reliable damage before the opponent wipes out the whole team with their own sync moves.
  • Some of the Gacha sync pairs unfortunately haven't or couldn't be saved by EX upgrades or even expanded grids:
    • Grimsley & Liepard were created with a very specific niche in mind—Dark weak enemies who frequently use buffs. While there are some encounters that this falls under, most notably Cresselia from the Legendary Arena, they're rare and Liepard's base stats are too low for it to do much else. Even when their grid received an expansion, it was generally considered underwhelming and not enough to render him worth using over other sync pairs.
    • Nate & Braviary are a strike sync pair that struggles to deal damage. Braviary's stats are all unusually low, with an attack stat that barely gets past 300 when fully upgraded, where most Strikers have their relevant attacking stat in the upper 300s at worst, and many easily reach 400 or higher. Their sync grid is unremarkable, and doesn't do nearly enough to compensate for Braviary's low stats. Their main attacking move is Fly, which due to being a two-turn move means it takes longer for his team to charge up their sync move. With this being Nate's only sync pair for a long time until he received his Neo Champion alternate outfit and sync pair in November 2023, it stands out all the more when compared to the multiple sync pairs all the other Unova protagonists have received.
  • Of the many combinations of EX Roles possible, none are despised as giving Support Pairs the Tech EX Role. The EX role merely boosts the damage of the support sync, which is often considered useless as many Support pairs do very little damage to their opponents with or without the boost, and the primary purpose of the boost is via benefiting from the 2x sync buff the role gives. As a result, many would often use their Tech EX Cakes on units that have them... which is not helped by the sheer number of units that are given the Tech EX Role that are also supports (of the 16 pairs that have the Tech EX Role as of February 2024, ten of them are supports, which also makes them the most numerous Role/EX Role combination in the game)
• Memetic Loser:
  • Fans have started making memes about DeNA's tendency to sideline male protagonists of the mainline games in favor of the female, both in general and in a few specific cases. A number of these (especially in the case of Victor) have since become Discredited Memes after the characters in question received more and more alts.
    • For context, as of the game's third anniversary in September 2022, every released female protagonist has received at least one alternate outfit except for Selene—among the boys, only Red, Ethan, Brendan, and Hilbert have any, with Red being the only boy with more than one alternate outfit. At the start of 2022, only one female protagonist, Elaine, had not been released, but three boys (Lucas, Chase, and Victor) were still waiting.
    • For almost three years Lucas was all but forgotten—and that was insult enough even before noting his co-protagonist Dawn debuted within the game's first year and their rival Barry at launch. His longstanding absence began to demand attention when Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl came and went without Masters giving even a nod to Lucas. To DeNA's credit, he debuted at last in January 2022, with the legendary Dialga as his parner Pokémon and a big role in the Sinnoh chapter of the Villain Arc, but not before the fans noticed.
    • Next to Barry's Piplup and Dawn's Turtwig, Chimchar would be the expected starter for Lucas—but it was already assigned to Flint. This left Lucas with no obvious partner and led to some speculation and memes that DeNA would add salt to wound by assigning him a Bidoof.^note The wild Pokémon that appeared during the assistant's capture tutorial
    • Of the final four protagonists not yet released at the time Lucas was, he was the only one from before the seventh generation. Indeed, DeNA released both sixth generation protagonists and all four fifth generation protagonists before bothering with the fourth generation Lucas.
    • Over time, players have found Brendan stuck in May's shadow. Despite being playable since launch, Brendan received no alternate outfit until he got his Sygna Suit in the Hoenn chapter of the Villain Arc in late July 2022. In contrast, since May's debut in January 2021, she's gained three more sync pairs with alternate outfits, including a Sygna Suit for the Hoenn Villain Arc at the same time as Sygna Suit Brendan—which, incidentally, left May tied with Lillie for the most alternate outfits of any playable character. It doesn't help that May owns two of the three Hoenn starters and that all of her partner Pokémon—Swampert, Lopunny, Latias, and Blaziken—can Mega Evolve, while Brendan's Sceptile couldn't until June 2023, nearly four years after his release.
    • Like Lucas, Victor of Pokémon Sword and Shield has also been getting a reputation for being neglected by DeNA. As of July 2022, his female counterpart Gloria has three playable sync pairs, each with a different outfit, while Victor hasn't gotten so much as a mention. However, things are starting to look better for Victor as he'll finally appear in October 2022. But like Lucas, this happened after fans started to notice his long standing absence.
    • Nate. Not only are he and Braviary considered a mediocre strike sync pair by players, for a long time he was the only Unovan protagonist who did not get any alternate outfit, compared to Rosa who has a Holiday seasonal and a Special Costume with Delibird and Shaymin, Hilbert who has a Fall seasonal outfit and a Sygna Suit with Mightyena and Genesect, and Hilda who has a multitude of alternate outfits including a Special Costume, a Summer seasonal and a Sygna Suit. Not helping this perception was a scene in the Unova Villain Arc where the protagonists arrive to rescue N, where he addresses them as "Hilbert! Hilda! Rosa! And even Nate!" So when Nate got the coveted Neo Champion alternate costume announced in November 2023, you can bet there was much rejoicing.
  • Basically any character from Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! receives this label since Let's Go was the mainline game whose characters took the longest time to debut. ^note If you don't count the Team Rocket trio and instead list them as being anime characters, snce that's where they're originally from before they were placed in Let's Go. Even characters from Scarlet and Violet debuted first before any Let's Go characters debuted beforehand, which was seen especially memetically for Elaine (since she is a female protagonist, which DeNA is more likely to debut compared to male characters). It took until November 2023 for Elaine to make her debut in Masters and until Febuary 2024 for Chase to make his debut, which caused the community to meme that DeNA was not interested in them, and even extended the meme into joking that they were not placed into the game because of concerns that they wouldn't sell well due to the divisive nature of the Let's Go games.
  • Ash received this label over time due to measures DeNA had been taking that appeared to erase Ash off the face of the game. Not only has he never rerun since his sole appearance, but his battle theme was removed from the game, and the medals from his event no longer show up in the medal list if you did not obtain them. It is worth noting however, that there is a very real rationale for DeNA to do so.^note Pokémon as a whole is appearing to retire previous mechanics related to Ash, such as the retconning and removal of Ash-Greninja in Gen IX, likely since he is not the face of the anime anymore. That aside, Ash's status was already dubious, as the desire to use him was likely limited by copyright issues in relations to the Pokémon anime as Jessie, James and Meowth haven't gotten any spotlight events ever since Blasting Off Again!.
  • Latios from the Legendary Arena has become one, because not only is Latios regarded as the easiest Legendary Arena boss, but also there is a sheer number of sync pairs (broken and not broken) that are able to solo the Latios stage (as of September 2023, there are over 200 sync pairs that can do so).
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Similarly to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the game's inclusion of many, many important characters from throughout the Pokémon franchise's history has led to a number of "EVERYONE IS HERE!" jokes popping up. Likewise, the game is also the subject of quite a few "most ambitious crossover in history" jokes.
  • A teaser shot of Rosa and Hilda standing side-by-side blew up online due to Hilda appearing to be significantly shorter. Much of these jokes revolve around Hilda being The Napoleon, especially around Rosa. Sometimes, these jokes are depicted as an extension of the long-running joke about Hilda having A-Cup Angst when with the much-bustier Rosa. Their actual appearance together in-game however depicts them at around the same height, and Hilda is the bustier one between the two - the opposite of their relationship in the main series so far, where Rosa has notably bigger boobs than Hilda and Hilda has a notably bigger butt than Rosa.
  • Rosa's "thinking" pose became a popular subject of fanart online, with varying interpretations depicting her as confused, insightful, or mimicking the "Hit or Miss" TikTok meme.
  • In the Chinese community, Whitney has been the subject of a few, but the most notable is that her question about if the player is concerned with her Miltank can be misunderstood as her asking if they're concerned about her boobs to anyone who doesn't know what a Miltank is.^note Miltank's Chinese name is literally "Big Milk Tank"; "Big Milk" however, is the slang term for "boobs".
  • The first battle where Rosa, Cynthia, Brock, and Misty say to some antagonistic Trainers that you can't force other Trainers to fight if they don't want to has hilariously stirred up some bitter fans for the apparent Gameplay and Story Segregation that has caused them to whiteout whenever they were forced into a battle while low on health.
  • When Pokémon Masters EX was announced, it began trending on Twitter. Unfortunately, the trend was listed without spaces or capitalization, making it look like #pokemonmastersex. It didn't take long for people to notice The Problem with Masters EX. This received a slight resurgence during the third anniversary following the introduction of the Trainers Lodge which also allows you to have a day with certain Trainers, which fans have noted is a G-rated Dating Sim.
  • Hilbert's Mightyena themed Halloween costume became a bit of a meme among the fandom, with some fans calling it "Furbert" and joking that he's a furry now.
  • Bidoof. As the game went well over two years with no sign of Lucas, there was rampant speculation on what his partner would be when he finally showed up—as it wasn't likely to be a starter^note Piplup, Infernape, and Turtwig were already playable, there was debate over whether it would be a new Gen IV evolution or even a legendary like Dialga or Giratina. Many, however, were hoping for this quintessential Com Mon as a Lethal Joke Character. However, when Lucas was finally confirmed, his partner was revealed to be Dialga.
  • After Victor was added, fans jokingly began shipping him and Serena. The entire reason they began doing this is because Victor is voiced by Zenitsu and Serena voiced by Nezuko from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. There's even fan art of it.
  • Aaron and Vespiquen in the Champion Stadium were originally not that memed as their stage was notoriously difficult. The rerun in November 2022 would have been a means to panic... if the game hadn't already released not one, but two broken Electric-type sync pairs in the past two months—Sygna Suit Red (Thunderbolt) & Pikachu and Ash & Pikachu—that can take advantage of Vespiquen's Electric-type weakness at its fullest. Memes about destroying Aaron with the two Pikachu sync pairs began to pop up fast.
  • The datamine, a monthly occurance where information for what events and new pairs will come the next month is datamined from new updates, is heavily treated with a memetic fervor by much of the community. It actually reached the point where if you were to search up "datamine" on Discord's GIF search and even on Google, GIFs created by members of the Masters EX community are almost certain to appear in the top few results.
  • Due to her EX outfit having the same colors as a Sylveon, a deluge of fans have been joking that Penny being trans (a popular headcanon about the character) is canon now, since Sylveon's color scheme coincidentally lines up with that of the trans flag.
  • A picture of Giovanni was found in one of the datamines, which showed Giovanni snapping his index finger and thumb together. This was quickly edited to instead have Giovanni raise a... certain other finger. The Twitter post with Giovanni's lodge announcement was quickly flooded by the image in question.
  • (Tell him about social media.)^note One of the dialogue options that pops up in Volo’s first friendship story. Considering social media’s infamous reputation and the character in question already having several screws loose, fans took the comedic potential and ran with it.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • During the "Three Trainers, Three Minds" story event, Red uses some very Tough Love on his novice team by constantly defeating them himself with his Articuno while they can only cry in agony in every bout they have. Though this harsh training was meant to condition them to not worry too much about defeat, players ended up thinking Red's a vicious psychopath who shouldn't be a teacher. To be fair, Professor Oak does call out Red for this at the end of the event, who can only sheepishly smile.
  • Because of Ball Guy's actions (battling various trainers suddenly, along with using Voltorb and Electrode in the process, which are infamous for exploding) there are a number of people who joke that Ball Guy is a terrorist.
• Moral Event Horizon: Team Break go from petty nuisances to crossing the line when they launch an all out attack on the PML in the third round simply to further their thefts. If they didn’t cross it then, they cross it during the April Fools Day event where they take over the Pokémon Center, although it's played for laughs and it's indicated that they're actually all afraid of the three sisters running the place and just give up by the next day.
  • Paulo fully cements his Face–Heel Turn when he sides with Team Break and gives them Legendaries to use against the other villains.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The three repeating tones that mean you’re either getting a new sync pair or you’ve found a 5-star sync pair. Either way, you’re going to get something good out of it!
  • The "Free Move" sound in battle, as you can use a powerful 3- or 4-bar move or utility without costing any move gauge.
  • One of Gardenia's voice clips is her happily singing, "La la la la la!" in a particularly adorable way.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In the event Midnight Spookfest/Midnight Battle Ball, the player, Hilbert, Caitlin and Morty follow a Pumpkaboo, which lures them into a cave. Morty then comments that Pumpkaboo are known to lead wandering spirits to the afterlife so they can move on, and he wonders if this cave is a bridge to the afterlife. Had the group walked to the end of the cave, this could have meant that they died.
  • Paulo's Rockruff seemingly dying against Kyurem causing Paulo to snap, overwhelm Lear's Hoopa with his negative emotions, changing it into its Unbound form and become loyal to him and not Lear and then Paulo becoming a full Knight Templar, seeking to get rid of all of the other evil team leaders by becoming the "new evil".
  • Near the end of Akari and Rei's introduction arc, Rei, Cynthia and Giratina start researching some ruins together, when suddenly both Rei and Giratina take notice of something strange. Rei dismisses it offhand whilst quietly wondering if his suspicions are true… and then, as they leave, we see a Togepi scurrying past. It seems that a certain someone is about to make his move…
  • Volo's Leitmotif, "A Friendly Merchant", frames him as anything but that, being a sinister, violin+accordion remix of Cynthia's battle theme. A few fans have likened it to the theme of a horror movie villain.
  • When Volo and Rei score a victory together after teaming up, both of them sound noticeably on edge.
    Volo: (with a hint of anger in his voice) Satisfied?
    Rei: (clearly terrified but trying to sound happy) Yes! Nice job!
  • April Fools Days usually go for more humorous event ideas. April Fools Day 2024 however chooses a far darker idea for the April Fools Day event.
    • The Pokémon Center's theme has been changed to the Lavender Town theme.
    • Ghosts are now everywhere, including many of the more morbid ones such as Chandelure, Dusknoir, and Runerigus.
    • A number of the events involve the music suddenly stopping.
    • Helena returns as an unlabeled Hex Maniac. Except that she's floating. When you speak to her, she says an... awfully familar yet chilling line of dialogue before floating away off-screen.
    Hex Maniac: ...
    Hex Maniac: No, you're not the one...
    • Eve is seen eagerly running to a Small Size Pumpkaboo. She runs to the hidden Pumpkaboo and is never seen again. Now, what was that about Small Size Pumpkaboo prefering to taking the spirits of children to the afterlife?
    • There's a Lass that will scream for the player "to be cursed with her" while she's holding her head.
    • Acerola shows up in front of one of the side doors. She's facing with her back to the player. Her dialogue will seem very disturbingly familiar to anyone who's played Sun and Moon.
    Acerola: This place is dangerous. You should get out... right now.
    Acerola: ... ... ...
    Acerola?: I told you to get out.
    Acerola?: ... ... ...
    Acerola?: Get out.
    ???: Get out. Get out! Get OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!!!
• Nintendo Hard: Getting all the badges in the game requires beating all Legendary Arena opponents on Level 2 using 5 or less teams and Level 3 using 4 or less, as well as beating most of the Battle Villa with no deaths and all of it with no recoveries. These feats are all but impossible without the best luck in the omniverse helping you out (or with an onslaught of completely fair and balanced master fairs)
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Giving expanded sync grids and EX upgrades to earlier-debuting sync pairs, as it gives them potential to catch up to newer units released with expanded grids, EX and more passive skills. Hilbert & Samurott benefited the most from this, as they went from "a worthless pitybreaker" to "a top tier Support for physical attackers". Many pairs that were formerly considered bad by the community such as Glacia and Glalie, Lance and Dragonite, and Caitlin and Reuniclus have also benefited from them.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • For a long time, some sync pairs with unevolved Pokémon didn't have the option of evolving their Pokémon at all, in contrast to main-series games. Due to how the unfair system works, they can come off as Scrappy Weapons to many. This has been almost completely rectified with the update on February 24, 2020, in which the Evolution Stories for every sync pair with a generic sync move, with the exception of the Player and Torchic, were released.
  • The opponents' sync moves can be considered That One Attack as well. If they start theirs before you can perform yours, then your entire team of three Pokémon get attacked at once while your sync moves do only certain damage to one single Pokémon, unless you sync with a strike sync pair with EX upgrade to deal damage to all opponents. And if you're underleveled, there is a huge chance you get a Total Party Kill immediately.
  • The Sync Pair Scout in general, especially as you gradually unlock everyone and maximize their sync move level. Normally, the gacha gives out a 3-star pair 73% of the time. Combine this with the huge majority of post-launch units being 5-star and the lack of a rarity demotion system, you'll have more than enough 3-star Power Ups to boost everyone and render them common trash.
  • The Scout Points system to draw a featured sync pair is very expensive, requiring 400 Scout Points, or 36,400 gems, to be previously used to get one guaranteed pick. To make matters worse, the Scout Points only count for the banner you draw from, so you cannot hoard points over time or use the Scout Points on a different banner, and you don't get enough free gems to hit the Scout Point threshold for every banner. You'll have to hoard gems for a few months or spend lots of money if you're aiming for a particular sync pair.
  • The Prestige system used in the sole Prestige event that has been run (in late 2020). It was a psuedo-Player-versus-Player system where to gain, points, one would have to complete battles using stamina, which would be displayed on a global leaderboard. Those with the highest score would receive massive rewards such as power-up items, gems, and even the elusive 5* general candy, which at the time was an extremely rare and excliusive item. The fatal problem was the massive buffs using Gloria & Zacian, the newly-released featured Poké Fair sync pair for the event, at higher levels gave, compared to other Steel-type sync pairs released before them, which meant that free-to-play players had no chance of scoring high in the event, and caused the event to be seen as a massive pay-to-win endeavor. Backlash from the community was so intense that this system was never used again.
  • The weather mechanics in this game have been watered down in two aspects compared to the mainline and Mystery Dungeon games. Fire-type and Water-type attacks are not weakened in Rain or Sunny weather and this is not mentioned anywhere in the game. ^note It is mentioned in Bulbapedia, but searching for it is cumbersome; See here and here Anyone who attempts to nerf the opponent's Fire-/Water-type attacks and sync moves in particular in a similar attempt to the mainline games will be let down by this. Ice-type Pokémon are not immune to damage from hail unless they have a passive skill to make them immune to hail damage; similarly, Rock-, Steel- and Ground-type Pokémon are not immune to damage from sandstorm, also not explained in the game, unless they have a passive skill to make them immune to sandstorm damage.
  • The interaction mechanic from the Trainer Lodge is panned for its random, RNG-based system by which when interactions with a Trainer end, as interactions can end extremely early, with no regard for percentage of the Trainer's interest — there are reports of player's interactions ending at 95% interest.
• Self-Fanservice: Like many popular games, Pokémon is a magnet for this, and the preponderance of Palette Swaps has just given artists more to draw.
  • Rosa being a free five-star sync pair, as well as her "thinking" pose becoming a Memetic Mutation, became the number one target for Rule 34 artists once more after her debut in her home game. Once again, her curves are greatly exaggerated.
  • Hilda also gets this too, helped by being the female protagonist in Black and White.
• Sidetracked By The Golden Saucer: The Photo Mode update immediately became this to players wanting to fully mess around with characters doing unthinkable stuff.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • Lusamine's presentation alongside her children, both in the animated trailer and in the preview for the "Family Ties" Story Event, made people strongly concerned that the game would disregard Lusamine's actions as an antagonist, particularly her abusive ones. Once the aforementioned Story Event came out, though, Lusamine's past is not only fully acknowledged, but, while repentant, she still struggles with some of her worst tendencies and is called out when she exhibits them, which made the event much better received.
  • Similar to "Family Ties", the lead-up to the "Father or Foe" Legendary Event saw many fearing that Ghetsis would be redeemed despite the character's portrayal as a remorseless monster in every incarnation. To the fandom's relief, the Event not only maintained Ghetsis as such, but also doubled down on his worst traits, ultimately making it one of the most well received Story Events to come out.
• Tear Jerker: Paulo's slow downfall throughout the Villain arc culminating in him snapping after Rockruff is seemingly killed and taking control of Hoopa Unbound and Team Break. To make matters worse, the whole powerlessness thing is something he's been obsessed with his entire life.
• That One Boss:
  • For the PML Arc of the main story, before the default level cap for everyone was raised to 100, Skyla in Chapter 5 could be a hair-puller. Her Swanna's sync move can possibly One-Hit Kill your Pokémon, and may also result in a Total Party Kill if you're unlucky. The side Trainers are even worse because they can respawn once, making the battle more annoying.
  • Cheren's Stoutland in Chapter 18 of the PML Arc is even worse. Anyone trying to attack him will discover that even using Korrina's Lucario will never drain his HP down substantially, despite his weakness to Fighting-type moves. The side Pokémon, Hilda's Emboar and Hilbert's Samurott, are also bulky and only make things worse.
  • All the Evolution story missions can qualify as That One Sidequest bosses. Aside the fact they require Evolution Shards and Stones^note Before the Evolution Material Drills became available, they could only be bought with Coins, which requires loads and loads of grinding due to both training and story missions reward you with low amount of Coins, and each purchase increases the prices of Evolution Shards and Stones for next purchases until the time counter resets, even if you sell Pearls for Coins., your Pokémon is pitted against an evolved Pokémon (mostly fully-evolved) which are stronger, and can possibly cause battles to be Unintentionally Unwinnable even if you overlevel your sync pair. Even though these missions are a Training from Hell method of Pokémon evolution, it is still tedious to do it.
  • One of the hardest battles in the Battle Villa is against Kris and her Feraligatr, which requires a Fire/Rock/Water combination, but her allies have Pokémon that can counter anything thrown at her. It was then surpassed by Sawyer and his Bewear, which can oneshot your units with its powerful Giga Impact.
  • Cresselia from the Legendary Arena is notorious for having multiple gimmicks, and the sync pairs and team building required to counter her gimmicks being more constrained compared to other Legendary Arena bosses. The first phase of the battle has Cresselia raise her special attack, special defense and evasion, meaning you want sync pairs that debuff her stats. Cresselia also inflicts paralysis and bad poison with Thunder Wave and Toxic respectively, so ideally you want sync pairs that counter status conditions. In addition, Cresselia possesses multiple damaging moves, including the hard-hitting Hyper Beam and the area-of-effect Swift and Icy Wind, so ideally you want sync pairs that are bulky enough to survive her hits. On top of that, Cresselia drastically reduces either physical or special damage taken, depending on the phase, so you want to build a team that includes both physical and special damage dealers. It speaks of Cresselia's notoriety that since the introduction of Legendary Gauntlet in January 2022, Cresselia is the only Legendary Arena boss that had yet to be encountered in the Legendary Gauntlet events as of November 2022.
  • Aaron and his Vespiquen from the Sinnoh Champion Stadium have gained the reputation of being one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult boss in the Champion Stadium. His Vespiquen has massive health and a move that restores 50% of its maximum health before using its sync move. As a result, even if you use Electric-type sync pairs to attempt to exploit Vespiquen's weakness to Electric type, it may take a while before Vespiquen goes down, provided your team did not get wiped out by Aaron and his teammates first. On top of that, Aaron's Vespiquen has a passive skill that massively increases its physical defense, meaning some of the most popular Electric-type sync pairs, such as N & Zekrom and Elesa & Zebstrika, have a hard time dealing damage to it because they deal physical damage.
  • Looker from the "Looker's Tenacity" Extreme Battle Event released in August 2022 is a prime example. Firstly, mechanics make sure that only Sync Pairs from the Hoenn region could be viably used, making much of the game's roster out of the question for battling. Secondly, Looker's team will apply massive numbers of debuffs to your Pokémon (most notably accuracy) that made battling them a nightmare if the RNG was not in your favour. The battle essentially forced players to use Sygna Suit Steven & Deoxys in order to beat the round (as they have a passive skill that counters stat drops, and as a Psychic-type sync pair, they are able to take advantage of Looker's team's weakness to Psychic type) and even then, there are players who still struggled to beat the event.
  • Ultimate Battle: Anabel's Flickering Flames. Where do we even begin?
    • First of all, if you thought the 100,000 or so HP of maximum HP Champion Stadium opponents wasn't tough enough, Anabel's Entei has a whopping 924,000 HP! And her side partners have nearly two hundred thousand HP as well. And it also is immune to any excess damage if it is initially knocked below 60% HP.
    • Next, Entei has twenty passives, including a series of passives that will give it resistance and even immunity from damage. Other passives include making all moves never miss, slowly buffing up its allies so its damage nullification passive can come into effect, heavily buffing its team in sun, casting a long-lasting shield against status conditions... the list goes on.
    • Entei and its teammates will spam multiple-target moves to no end. They also have boosted critical-hit rates, so your sync pairs will be toppling down real fast.
    • All these combine to create possibly, the single hardest challenge the game has ever seen so far. Every single clear has been done with two or more of the game's Master Fair pairs (some of the absolutely strongest pairs in the game), with some use of Champion Blue, Champion Serena, and SS Kris being essential to complete the challenge.^note Champion Blue has great team healing and utility to take on the enemy's spread moves, Champion Serena lowers the enemy team's stats so their immunity passive can never come into effect, and SS Kris is a powerful defensive and healing support who removes the enemy team's sun so they cannot benefit from it.
  • The Full-Powered Hau Extreme Battle Event can only be described in three words: Pain and Suffering. Imagine the "Looker's Tenacity" event, but it is on a roster that has even fewer powerful pairs than Hoenn (Alola), an enemy team that not only applies debuffs of all kinds, but also inflicts confusion AND paralysis, every turn! Many players reported having trouble clearing it even with various overpowered sync pairs with even the signature overpwoered combination of Sygna Suit Red (Thunderbolt), Ash and Blue (Champion) unable to lcear it without some tweaking. The only way to truly make the battle easier was to pull for Sygna Suit Gladion (who has a passive that makes him immune to status and reflects stat drops).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Before the game had even officially been released, fans of Gardenia were in complaint that her design was altered to cover more of her midriff. Whether this was intentional censoring or not is unclear.
  • The changes in battle mechanics, like every Pokémon only having one weakness, the inability to learn any new moves besides the four assigned to each sync pair, and the different evolution system which requires farming specific materials, have completely turned off some fans of the main series games.
  • As of July 2020 a massive update brought about a number of changes, the most egregious being the implementation of a new Stamina system, which hinders players from being able to play missions as often as they would like ... unless they spend gems to replenish it. Most players call the new feature out as a blatant cash grab, especially since the game only now included stamina, an entire year after its release.
  • Every Villain Event featured a Twitter rally to go alongside it, which included various goodies like candy coins, 5-star tickets, and most importantly, gems. The importance of the gems was such that when the Galar Villain Arc rally occured, the community was outraged and boycotted the rally, as the rally did not feature gems and mostly featured items considered useless by many players, veteran and new alike. The boycot actually reached to point where despite the other rallies being finished within one or two days, the Galar VA rally notably remains the first and only of the rallies to outright fail to reach its final target, with only around 19,000 retweets compared to the 20,000 required.
  • Players were not pleased when the January 2024 rerun of the "Gather Up! Dream Duo!" event removed most of the gems from the mission rewards, giving 5-Star Scout Tickets in their place, as the latter can only be used for a chance at units in the general pool and don't help at all with getting any of the limited units.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Early chapters in the game’s story mode set up a mystery of Team Break’s masks having the ability to mind control their hosts leading to the question as to who’s making them and for what purpose. After Lear is introduced however, this plot thread is dropped with the mind control aspect of Team Break being quietly ignored by the rest of the story. All subsequent appearances of Team Break depict them as nothing more than a leaderless group of thugs who cause mischief just because, much to the disappointment of fans.
  • The events featuring the anime characters have them solely interact with the original characters, instead of interacting with the established cast. Imagine what it would have been like if the Team Rocket Trio encountered the other villains, or Ash spoke with the game universe's version of his companions from the show, or just straight up interacting with Trainer Red himself given that it's possible to have both of them appear on-screen at once, contradicting the idea that Ash can't exist where Red does and vice versa. Should Ash appear on the same screen in the lobby as Blue, Red and Leaf, none of them will comment on it or make attempts to converse. Granted, Red is grown up and does manage to look more than Ash's other older brother, but Blue almost entirely still resembles Gary. Even during the "Blazing Battle with Ash" event in September 2022, where there are other main playable characters, including Red, to watch Ash battle, none of them talk to Ash directly.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The Bingo Cards, which provide several useful resources for every square and bingo line filled as well as a big prize for filling the entire one. After completing all three basic ones, the function can go unused for months on end, only having new cards for very special events such as the anniversaries.
• Unexpected Character:
  • While everyone was expecting Giovanni to appear in Masters, very few expected his Team Rainbow Rocket counterpart to show up as a sync pair. Considering the universe-hopping activities of Team Rainbow Rocket, this might not be out of question.
  • Unlike other Legendary events, Solgaleo is introduced alone as a wild Pokémon encounter instead. Then the player befriends it and forms a new sync pair with it.
  • In the Version 1.11 update, we finally had another Frontier Brain joining in the game, specifically, Pike Queen Lucy, an obscure fan favorite who hasn't made any appearances since her debut in Emerald. But surprisingly, it had been confirmed that this update also brings in none other than Jessie, the very same one from the Team Rocket trio prominent in the anime. James was also confirmed and added, too, not to mention Meowth’s surprise cameo in the Serena update.
  • Leon coming to the game ended up being leaked and was to be expected given how he's Galar's ex-Champion. Safe to say, nobody expected his reveal video to also show that, on the same day as him, Marnie is also arriving to Pasio! Additionally, not many were expecting Leon to still have his Charizard, since, with the exception of the protagonist via the eggs, no two Trainers have form sync pairs with the same Pokémon before.
  • Safe to say, absolutely nobody ever expected them to seriously have Ash Ketchum appear in this game since he's from the anime, whereas Jessie and James had precedent from being in Yellow and Let's Go!. Then, to promote the anime, Ash shows up in July 2022 and becomes a playable sync pair in September 2022!
  • During the game's third anniversary, a lot of new sync pairs are added, including well-known Trainers... but one stood out in the form of an NPC from Pokémon Sun & Moon in the Sightseer. Even more unexpected is the fact that she's named as well (Naomi) and comes with Kantonian Sandslash, making her the first generic NPC from the mainline games to be playable.
  • The equally well known and beloved Kalos Hex Maniac would receive similar treatment during Halloween of 2022.
  • Then, in New Year's 2023, a Furisode Girl named Kali was revealed.
  • The update for March 2023 adds Ball Guy, a minor character in Sword/Shield who never battles the player and canonically is not shown to own any Pokémon.
  • Given the previously slow pace by which characters from newer Pokémon games were added to the game (it took over a year for the first Galarian characters to be added to the game, and around fifteen months for Legends Arceus characters to make their debut), quite the number of people were shocked to see Nemona debut so quickly in August 2023, seven months after the release of Scarlet and Violet, and also at such an odd timing as well.^elaborationNemona was not released at the usual timing, which is at 6am UTC, but seven hours later, in order to coincide with a Pokémon Presents that was scheduled for the same time.
  • While a number of people were expecting the Eevee-loving Penny to make her debut in November 2023 for Eevee Day, fewer people expected Elaine from Let's Go! to appear given the game's complete lack of Let's Go! characters even after years of the game's release.^elaborationThere was Jessie and James, but those two are more renowned for their appearances in the anime. Almost no one however, thought another free NPC Trainer in the form of the Poké Kid, Eve, would be added.
  • While Nate getting an alt was a popular prediction for the game, many people brushed it off as another meme prediction given DeNA seemed to pour more attention onto other Unovan characters like Hilda and N. So when his Neo Champion alt was announced, everyone was shocked, more so when their partner was revealed to be a Shiny Haxorus!
  • Few expected for a second Furisode Girl named Katherine who was revealed for New Year's 2024.
  • Febuary 2024 was is this trope in spades, as almost no pairs that were introduced were seriously anticipated by the community.
    • Chase's introduction into the game was a bit surprising, since the only previous indication to his potential appearance (Elaine being introduced the previous November) was assumed to be a one-off thing to celebrate Eevee Day. However, once again, the community was surprised to receive another free pair in the form of the Pikachu themed Poké Kid Petey.
    • The idea of a Palentines alt given to a male character was seen as implausible, as every prior Palentines event introduced alts for only female characters, which logically fit with how Valentine's Day in Japan is celebrated by women giving gifts to men. So it was a huge shock when for Palentines 2024, a male alt was introduced, and it was also an alt for Victor of all characters!
    • Considering how previous year's Palentines events played out without a free pair in sight, fans were surprised to see the main character of all characters get an alt which was also free, with an Alcremie.
    • With Gladion in the shadow of the rest of his family (with Lusamine getting a devastating master fair pair and Lillie getting alt after alt), people began to make memetic choices for a Sygna Suit Gladion which they expected would never happen. Come Febuary 2024, a Sygna Suit Gladion comes out, and with an unexpected choice of Magearna. In addition, to the shock of everyone, yet another free pair would debut with SS Gladion. And this time, instead of being a originally nameless NPC character being Promoted to Playable, it would instead be a named character in the form of Riley!
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Paulo's decision to use the power of Hoopa to "eliminate all evil" is meant to be seen as Paulo falling victim to He Who Fights Monster and becoming Drunk on the Dark Side. However, given most of the villains in the series have no remorse for their actions and have evaded any punishment no matter the police's efforts, many argue Paulo's desire to enact vigilante justice is both understandable and rather responsible. The latter point is bolstered by Lear and everybody else seemingly content to allow the villains to roam Pasio freely and continue their plans to their heart's content.
• Win Back the Crowd: The game's trailers were met with praise from fans who felt disillusioned with the direction of Pokémon since the shift to 3D, with many praising the game's Continuity Cavalcade nature and more stylized visual direction.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Summer Lyra's outfit is for the most part adorable. However, the ruffled socks with ribbons tying them make them resemble trash bags or candy wrappers.

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