YMMV / Pokémon Reborn

• Alternative Character Interpretation
  • Amaria in particular gets hit hard with this, especially when she tries to kill you in the Reshiram route. She's seen as either a Broken Bird or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
  • Heather is either a stubborn tsundere type character trying to recover from the death of her father and being literally shocked into a catatonic state or a Spoiled Brat who had a hand in driving her father to suicide.
  • Charlotte is either a Broken Bird trying to deal with a dark past or a pragmatic Jerkass.
  • Radomus is either an eccentric man with a love of chess or The Chessmaster who brainwashes people who try to go against him.
  • Saphira is either seen as a very loyal surrogate mother to her sisters or a brutal executioner who tends to take focus from the player character.
  • Titania can either be a cool Deadpan Snarker who doesn't mind taking action or a Sociopathic Hero who acts no differently than the antagonists at times.
  • Julia is either a fun comic relief character who tries to boost everyone's morale, or an unhinged sociopath who makes light of terrorist attacks and makes them all about her by saying only she's allowed to blow stuff up.
• Anticlimax Boss: Invoked with the second battle against Solaris. Not only is Villain Forgot to Level Grind in full effect, but he's fought in a double battle with a Mook who's much weaker than him; however, Amethyst said that this was intentional, as the point of the battle was to show how far you've come since the first battle atop Pyrous Mountain and that the next battle against him will be much, much harder. Averted in Pokémon Reborn Hardcore, in which Solaris is significantly stronger, and he (as well as the Mook, interestingly enough) can utilize Mega Evolution. Also averted in your third battle against him, where he's swapped out his Mandibuzz for a Staraptor, is packing a Mega Garchomp, and has trained his team into the high 80s to low 90s.
  • Amaria's team used to be completely walled by Shedinja (not counting Perish Song from her ace but at that point it's over), even though she's one of the last Gym Leaders. This got fixed, but she still has very few answers.
• Arc Fatigue: Victory Road goes on for quite a while and is filled to the brim with tough puzzles and a number of tough boss battles. For most of it there isn't much plot progression, with puzzle after puzzle being thrown at you.
• Awesome Art: Several of the Field Effect background are utterly breathtaking for something created in pixel art, and some of the backgrounds (such as the effects made for Amaria's gym, or the New World) are amazing.
• Awesome Bosses: The Elite Four battles have been generally very well-received. Characters you've come to know throughout the course of the game, plus an amazing original theme made by Glitchxcity herself, and you have a good recipe already. Combine this with amazing artwork by the development team, some very powerful fields, and teams that are challenging due to how well they work with the fields, and having two types instead of just one, but (usually) not at the level of That One Boss? The dev team gave this their all.
• Awesome Music: A large part of the soundtrack has been created by Glitchxcity from Youtube, and it is amazing to hear it featured. However, even the tracks that weren't created by Glitchxcity are still breathtaking to listen to, such as the remixes for the Reborn City Wards after the restoration takes place.
• Base-Breaking Character: Saphira and Titania. Some parts of the fandom like Saphira for her fierce loyalty to her family, Titania for her Deadpan Snarker personality, and both for being a No-Nonsense Nemesis for Team Meteor. However, other parts of the fandom find their tendency to play What Measure Is a Mook? dead-straight disturbing, especially since you have to wade through the aftermath and can talk to some of the Mooks who survived.
  • Terra (specifically, how she talks) is either hilarious or annoying.
  • Amaria has become this after the Reshiram route, with people seeing her as either the victim of her lifelong depression, or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is the source of Titania's many issues due to Amaria using her as a Living Emotional Crutch after she tries to kill you.
• Broken Base: The plot, depending on where you ask. Some groups applaud the game for taking more risks with the story than the main series and welcome the much darker tone. Others think the plot tries so hard to be dark it comes out laughable and really edgy instead. There's little middle ground.
• Complete Monster: Sirius, real name Paul Clark, is a high ranking admin of Team Meteor and is among the worst they have to offer. Sirius murdered Elena Molinar and burned the Belrose Home to the ground, killing Laura, Charlotte, and Saphira's parents. Manipulating Sigmund Connal into allying with him, they kidnap children that had escaped from their mistreatment in the latter's Orphanage of Fear, and takes Anna hostage when the player confronts him. Sirius later tries to murder the player in Tanzan Mountain when Lin arrives by telling her of their meddling. Sirius murders Eclipse with his Chandelure for daring to talk about leaving Team Meteor, and takes Aya hostage and tries to bargain her life for the Ruby Ring. In Agate City, depending on the route, Sirius openly turns against one of his superiors, Solaris, or just shows mild disdain. Either way, he rips out either Taka's or Solaris's eye offscreen, and they turn up later with said eye missing. Confronted for the final time in Victory Road where he horribly mistreats Aya, Sirius has Blake and Fern try to kill the player. Gloating about causing the death of Charlotte's parents to her face, Saphira furiously plunges him into the lava, killing him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Taka is very popular for being a casual, friendly admin who regularly helps you and is Team Meteor's Token Good Teammate.
  • Shelly is easily one of the fan-favorite Gym Leaders, being a Shrinking Violet who has Reborn partly as a Coming of Age Story.
  • Cain is easily the most popular of the three rivals, in comparison to the debate on Victoria and how people Love to Hate Fern.
• Game-Breaker: A few, surprisingly or unsurprisingly.
  • Blaziken. Given a turn to use Swords Dance or a Life Orb, it can potentially OHKO anything not weak to Flare Blitz and High Jump Kick, and its one flaw in a subpar 80 base Speed is completely denied by its hidden ability, Speed Boost. Which it can have from the moment you pick Torchic up. The battles it doesn't completely trivialize can be counted in one hand, and of those, only gym 8 can't be cheesed with an unrelated strategy.
  • The prize for catching all 731 Pokémon available in the main game is another gen 7 Ubers beast with a notoriously powerful ability: Poipole. On top of its evolution being a special Glass Cannon with good coverage against most of the late game, it also gains Beast Boost, which raises its highest stat when defeating something, meaning it gets a KO, its Special Attack is raised, it defeats something else in one hit, and only keeps snowballing from there.
  • Most of the possible Pokémon obtainable from the Jasper mystery egg are good (Sneasel, Gastly, and Starly are fast sweepers, both Vulpix are weather setters with movesets that allow them to abuse said weather, and so on), but two take the cake: Larvesta, which evolves into a special sweeper with Quiver Dance and Fiery Dance, and Shroomish, which gains the combination of Technician-boosted STAB Mach Punch and Bullet Seed, and even learns Spore if you know to avoid evolving it until after badge 5. Even ignoring how good Bug, Fire and Fighting coverage is, their sheer power keeps them consistently useful across the entire game.
  • Obtainable only after badge 17 and locked behind a LOT of department store stickers for a Metal Coat and Link Stone, Scizor has Technician-boosted STAB Bullet Punch. It also gets Swords Dance. As with Blaziken, anything that doesn't resist Steel is as good as weak to it in Scizor's eyes.
  • Most of the postgame takes place in the New World field, which lowers the speed of grounded Pokémon and boosts Dark moves, and moves such as Earth Power and Draco Meteor. Hydreigon isn't grounded, gets moves like Dark Pulse, Earth Power, and Draco Meteor, and hits like a truck. Honchkrow also gets some mileage there, with its Dark/Flying typing and the combination of Sucker Punch and Moxie.
  • On a lesser scale, Pokémon in the Undiscovered egg group, as they get 3 guaranteed perfect IV's. Early examples include Type: Null obtainable after badge 8 and Corey's Nidorina obtainable after badge 3. This alone already makes them Disk One Nuke material, and Nidoqueen's presence as an early game special tank and Silvally's boosted Multi-Attack are mostly the cherries on top.
• Love to Hate: Fern is generally seen as this. A common opinion on the forums is that he's such a shameless, unapologetic jerk that he Crosses the Line Twice and it becomes fun to hate him.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Fern mocking Corey's Suicide. Alternately, leaving you to die in the Nuzleaf cage should you refuse to beg before him.
  • Solaris has several candidates: A Subverted Just Between You and Me in order to distract you from his Garchomp killing you and actually succeeding in killing Kiki via Garchomp when she was deathly ill and her Medicham had just been thrown in the lava.
  • Then there is Sirius' ruthless killing and destruction of the soul of one half of the Quirky Miniboss Squad Eclipse because she dared talk about leaving team meteor because she was attempting to save her father, who lived in the town Team Meteor was attacking.
  • When Cal has his Magmortar throw Medicham in lava as part of a deal with Solaris it is considered this In-Universe. It may or may not have been to the player since he revealed he sabotaged the Pulse because he liked the academy and orders his Magmortar to destroy it when Solaris kills Kiki.
    • Subverted later on when it's revealed that he actually recalled Medicham when nobody was looking, and that Medicham survived.
  • Blake trying to kill his brother Cal by pushing him off a cliff and acting completely nonchalant about it. Cal survived, but not for lack of trying on Blake's part.
  • Lin spends her whole onscreen time in Episode 16 crossing it. She forces you to fight your friends, making the loser go through Cold-Blooded Torture, and then has her Hydreigon murder Ame in cold blood, all the while keeping that air of amused superiority at your futile efforts to oppose her. Then, in Episode 17, in the story branch where you didn't fight Taka at the Water Treatment Center, Lin goes even further - she sets the poor guy up and tricks Titania into murdering him.
  • Amazingly, Amaria, of all people, crosses this in Episode 17 depending on your story choices. If you go down the path in which you don't help cover Taka's apathy towards Team Meteor, which results in Lin setting him up to be killed, then Amaria, who falsely believes that you're responsible for Titania leaving her, tricks you into following her underwater, locks you in an underwater room, and leaves you to drown. Thankfully, Titania pulls a Big Damn Heroes and rescues you, but the fallout of Amaria's actions results in Titania breaking up with her. The aftermath isn't pretty.
• Narm: Most of the narrative violence in the game can be kind of silly given the Game Boy Advance-style sprites only able to emote just a tiny bit, but the cake is taken by Shade's gym; where the main character is shown several images of people dying in gruesome ways on screens. Scary in theory, but in practice, they almost come across as hilarious. Some of them don't even have blood splatters, giving the impression that they're falling apart like LEGO pieces.
  • Some of Lin's lines in her evil monologues can come off as this, such as this declaration in the main game's climax: "Here, in this sacred womb, I will be the abortion". Her child self lampshades how contradictory, nonsensical, and excessively edgy some of her monologues are.
• Player Punch: In Episode 17, if you didn't fight Taka in the Water Treatment Plant, then Taka follows you into the desert in an attempt to escape from Team Meteor. It seems to work for a little bit, with him discovering a settlement in the desert where he can lie low... only for Lin to suddenly kidnap him and trick Titania into killing him. Even worse, you actually get to spend most of the Episode with him until this happens, and he gets tons of Character Development that wouldn't have happened otherwise. And the consequences of are that leads to Amaria trying to kill you and later herself (though likely not since her badge hasn't been invalidated as Corey's and Kiki's were) after hitting the Despair Event Horizon just makes it even worse.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The soft level cap. While initially a way to keep down pointless grinding to overlevel a team, the decision to have the level cap go up by 5 nearly every Gym leader from level 20 onwards becomes an obnoxious juggling act that the creators admitted was just too much of a hassle to keep after a point, and will be replaced in episode 19 with a hard cap.
• That One Boss: Now has its own page!
• That One Level: Victory Road goes on for a long time and is stuffed with puzzles, some of which can be quite tough and expansive on their own. There are a LOT of minecart track puzzles, a recurring puzzle involving figuring out the qualities of gemstones based on clues that gets more complex every time, a chase sequence, ice puzzles and more. To top it all off you are being actively attacked by one of the villains' Pokémon in the overworld during some of these puzzle sequences (getting hit shaves off some HP of your party Pokémon). If you thought the challenge of Reborn was all about the battles, Victory Road definitively throws that notion out of the window.
• That One Puzzle:
  • The Magic Square Puzzle in fake Devon Corp. It's a 6x3 magic square that wouldn't be too terribly bad on its own, but due to the way it's programmed, making any move is tedious. You do get Thunderbolt, Gardevoirite and Darkinium-Z for solving it at the very least (as well as Manectrite and Department Store Sticket if you tell the Agate City woman password that you got from this puzzle, though since there's only two options, you can just Sequence Break and tell her the password - you still have to solve the puzzle itself for the other prizes, though.)
  • The logic puzzles in Victory Road. They all involve the same concept: You're given a set of clues, and you have to use them to figure out the qualities of a series of four gems like their size, hardness, purity and foliation. With each iteration you encounter, more characteristics are added to the mix, making it much more complicated to figure out each time, and while the first few are not too hard to figure out, the fourth one is so difficult and complex that the game even gives you an option to just let Radomus solve the puzzle for you. Oh, and as an added bonus: later on this puzzle comes back again as part of the Victini quest.
• That One Sidequest:
  • The Spoink Ball quest. It requires a lengthy Fetch Quest that even starting is unclear, and there's never a indication on where to go next.
  • The Application sidequest. It requires talking to members of whatever gang you joined, and giving them applications for places to now work. Problem is is that there are a lot of Applications, far more than there are gang members, and between the sheer amount combined with the extremely vague descriptions provided by the applicants, you have no means of knowing if you even have the correct Application or are missing one. For added fun, one of the nessecery applications for Aqua Gang is only available after beating Adrienn.
  • The sidequest that grants you the Z-Mega Ring for Z-Powers and Mega Evolution. Details on how exactly to fullfil it are right here. What's more, if you lose any of the required for ANY reason, or you haven't played straight from the beginning, you're locked out of this for good, thankfully there is a Password in Episode 19 that spawns a Z-Mega Ring in the Grand Hall which allows you to skip this quest entirely.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Happens a lot in Reborn thanks to the idiosyncracies of it's storytelling.
  • Fern. Fern is pretty obviously supposed to be a Gary Oak stand-in but with a much more realistic Inferiority Superiority Complex; the problem is that his dialog is structured more like a traditional recurring Pokemon NPC, letting wins against him slide off of him instead of...say...getting more and more frustrated and obsessed with beating the player over the course of their encounters, becoming increasingly desperate to retain/regain his status as "top dog". Thankfully, the events of Episode 19 fix this.

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