YMMV / Pokémon Unbound

• Annoying Video Game Helper: God help you if you're in a Double Battle where you team up with an ally, particularly Jax, because on Expert and Insane, you are always going to be at a detriment. Jax leads with a Staraptor, whose Intimidate is normally a great ability in Double Battles to weaken the opponent's physical attackers for free. The problem is, on those higher difficulties, the opponent is always going to have a Pokemon that gets powered up by Intimidate (with abilities like Defiant or Competitive). Good going Jax, you gave the foe a free power boost instead. Marlon isn't great with this either, because you team up with him against Vega, who leads with a Defiant Bisharp equipped with Adrenaline Orb, meaning it gets +2 Atk and +1 Spd just for free thanks to Marlon's Krookodile.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Prior to the 2.1 update, Jax was considered to be this, even on the Insane Difficulty. Compared to the Elite 4 Members that came before him, Jax had no special gimmick to his fight, aside from some extra EVs. As of the latest version, his team on Insane has become far more challenging, using Pokemon with 252 EVs in all stats, and more powerful team members.
• Awesome Music: This game has a few composers working on the soundtrack, and they all deliver fine pieces that sound reminiscent of actual tracks from the main series, capturing the style and feel of said tracks incredibly well. Each town's track has both a day time and a night time version.
  • Battle! Marlon is a remix of the Shadow battle theme and the Rival's battle theme, as he is the Rival's father, a menacing, hectic track that just tells you that this guy means business. Parts of the track even sound like the battle against Marlon is a sort of desperate struggle, whether it's on your end to defeat him, or on his end, as his main goal is actually to do whatever it takes to revive his dead son.
  • Seaport City is a great, high energy track for a bustling port town, evoking the same feeling as Slateport City from Hoenn and then some. This track, like many tracks in the game, also incorporate the Borrius Leitmotif, and was even designed with that leitmotif in mind. The night version takes a more jazzy, swanky approach, and this track was so well liked that they even made a proper version of the track with proper instruments and all.
  • This game's take on the Pokémon League theme is a glorious, intense track that also incorporates the Borrius Leitmotif. It invokes the feeling of it being the final stop on your journey and that it's about to come to an end, urging you to keep going despite the powerful final opponents that await you.
  • The Frontier Brain theme is an excellent remix of the Frontier Brain boss track from the main series, a high energy track that suits some of the game's toughest bosses. It also has a nice, subtle touch of the Pokémon World Tournament final battle theme from Black 2 and White 2.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Most people prefer to go with Gible as their choice of starter due to Larvitar's and Beldum's respective high number of weaknesses and poor offensive ability until evolution. Along with having one of its types' STAB, Ground, being supereffective against Ace's choice in Larvitar.
  • Partially averted with Beldum, at least on Insane Difficulty: The Metagrossite is NOT found in the Shadow's base on that difficulty, instead being replaced with a Focus Sash. The Player actually doesn't receive it until MUCH later - from the rival Ace, at Crystal Peak. This was due to the belief that Mega Metagross was the clearly superior Mega Evolved starter competitively, as well as the fact it could be obtained the earliest, due to the Level Cap arrangement and its earlier evolution.
  • Excadrill is a common pick for teams, as it's available pretty early, synergizes well with players who choose Larvitar ^note Excadrill gets Sand Rush, which doubles its Spd during a sandstorm, and Tyranitar has Sand Stream, which sets up said sandstorm; for this reason, it also synergizes well with players who choose Gible, as Mega Garchomp has Sand Force, although you would have to set up sandstorm manually, and is just a generally strong Pokémon with great Atk, good enough Spd (even without the Sand Rush boost), and a good typing. Its Steel type helps against the stretch of the game where you fight plenty of trainers who use Fairy types, and Excadrill also gets a STAB Earthquake, and there are several Dual Boss fights where you team up with an ally who will likely carry a Pokémon that can dodge said Earthquake (like Jax's Staraptor or Ace's Toucannon), letting you spam it fairly freely.
  • Ribombee and Gengar are very common on final teams, due to both having early availability and high Speed and Special Attack stats. When version 2.0 rolled around, these two (along with the starters, Excadrill, and others) were banned from the official Discord server's Hall of Fame submissions for being too good, and only teams that weren't using them were allowed.
    • Ribombee has great matchups against several of the Gyms, and learns some great moves like Sticky Web for speed control, and the powerful Quiver Dance for boosting up its Sp Atk, Sp Def, and Spd all at once.
    • Gengar has a wide movepool, regains the Levitate ability that it lost in Gen VII, is a powerful Poison type which helps against many of the Fairy types you'll fight later in the game, and has a phenomenal Mega Evolution, which, while not available until Victory Road, performs excellently against the Elite Four.
  • Quagsire of all Pokémon is quite common on Insane runs, despite its low stats. This is due to a combination of early availability, a phenomenal Water/Ground typing, and getting the amazing Unaware as a hidden ability, letting it shut down the totem boosts and set-up sweepers that plague Insane. Helps that it wasn't banned from the Discord server's Insane Hall of Fame submissions.
  • Murkrow (yes, Honchkrow's unevolved form) often gets used on the Insane difficulty for its ability to use Haze, which resets any stat buffs on the field, and it always gets to go first due to Prankster. Like with Quagsire, it's mainly fielded to put an emergency stop to the many Legendary Pokémon in the game that all come with these Totem stat buffs.
• Complete Monster: Aklove is the egotistical "master" of Hoopa, whom he is very abusive towards, as well as the leader of the Light of Ruin, and a descendent of AZ, the King of Kalos. Throughout the game, Aklove has been slowly manipulating everything to eventually unlock Hoopa's true power to reawaken The Ultimate Weapon and finish the war his ancestor started by completely destroying the Borrius region and everyone inside. Aklove sacrifices most of the Shadow Warriors to power up The Ultimate Weapon. During this, Aklove banishes the heroes to various places, intending for them all to die or be trapped forever. When Aklove's plan fails, he reveals to Ivory that he never planned on reviving her son and was instead going to use her as The Scapegoat. In the post-game, Aklove kidnaps the player's mother, Jax's grandpa, and Zeph's son, and intends to continue his plan to destroy the region, even if he has to do it on his own.
• Fan Nickname: Prior to the 2.0 update, the KBT Expressway was often called the "CBT^note cock-and-ball torture Expressway" due to the extreme tediousness of the post-game "Major Miner" mission, which was notorious for being incredibly luck-based due to requiring sparkles to show up in specific caved-in spots. This is no longer the case, since 2.0 added the ability to spend 3 Light Clays in order to mine out caved-in entrances.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • None of the starters are in the Borrius regional Dex. Seems strange, until you remember that they were all caged up to begin with at the start, likely having come from other regions, so none of them would be found in the wild here. Additionally, the Shadows and the Light of Ruin use types that are advantageous against them. The Shadows usually use Ghost and Dark types, which beat Metagross, while the Light of Ruin use Fairy types, which beat Tyranitar and Garchomp. In other words, in the event that they have to go up against these Pokémon, like say, they go rogue, or you and Ace conveniently happen upon them to help you break out, the villains just so happen to be equipped for the job.
  • The fully-evolved starters in this game are Tyranitar, Garchomp, and Metagross, but they don't exactly follow the traditional type effectiveness triangle. If anything, Garchomp has an advantage over both with its Ground type, while Tyranitar and Metagross both have an advantage on each other. Your rival just takes another one of the starters and there doesn't seem to be much of a rhyme or reason. What he does raise however, is a Mamoswine, which happens to have an advantage against all three starter choices, as its Ground type beats Tyranitar and Metagross, while its Ice type beats Garchomp. Even if the starters themselves don't quite form a triangle, your rival will will always have a Pokémon that will have the upper hand against your starter.
  • Normally when you ride your motorbike, you get off it when you enter a building, since generally trying to ride a vehicle indoors usually won't go well and you'd likely be told to get off. There's one exception however: entering any building in Antisis City. There are no such laws in a city run by criminals after all, and you even see some of the gang members biking around inside anyway.
  • Shadow Admins Ivory and Marlon have Alakazam and Krookodile as their respective Signature Mon. Pretty strong, formidable Pokémon, but their types are pretty interesting given some thought. Ivory's Alakazam is a Psychic type, which is advantageous against Poison types. Said Poison types are a threat to Fairy types, the primary type used by Aklove and the Light of Ruin, which could signal her eventual betrayal of the Shadows to the Light of Ruin. Meanwhile, Krookodile is part Dark type, which is disadvantageous against Fairy types, showing Marlon's defiance against Aklove to the very end. Additionally, both types just so happen to be the same type as Hoopa-Unbound, the Pokémon that both the Shadows and the Light of Ruin are after.
  • Why does Hoopa summon a Mega Rayquaza to fight alongside it? Not only is Aklove bringing out the big guns by having it team up with one of the strongest Pokémon ever created (as Mega Rayquaza's Base Stat Total and capabilities are up there as some of the best), both Hoopa-Unbound and Mega Rayquaza were introduced in the same games: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Not only that, but all of the Legendary encounters in those games are implied to be Hoopa's doing, as you encounter them through a ringed portal, but it's never outright stated or shown in those games. Here however, it's on full display.
  • The Legendaries you encounter and fight as part of the story match the generation order that they were released in. You fight Marlon's Zapdos, representing Gen I, then the Legendary Beasts and Tower Duo at the Ruins of Void, representing Gen II. After, you fight Primal Groudon, representing Gen III (although its Primal version did not exist until Gen VI), then Giratina, representing Gen IV. Reshiram and Zekrom impede your path at Crystal Peak, both representing Gen V, and it culminates in fighting Hoopa and Mega Rayquaza, both hailing from Gen VI.
• Fridge Horror: When Aklove demands Hoopa bring it a Zapdos, it first warps along a Cosmog hiding inside a bag via its Portals. Is it actually Nebby, and if so, what will become of the events back in Alola?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This game's Elite Four consists of a Ground-type user, a little girl, an overworked businessman, and a Dragon-type user. Are we talking about Borrius's Elite Four, or Paldea's?
    • Arabella, like Poppy, is also a little girl who somehow managed to be an Elite Four member fighting alongside a few adults. Both even have opposite type specialties too, with Arabella having Fairy and Poppy having Steel, and both even have a Steel/Fairy type in Mega Mawile and Tinkaton respectively.
    • Elias, similar to Larry, is also sharply dressed, and has an incredibly dour, snarky attitude. One of Larry's type specialties is also the complete opposite of Elias's, being Normal ^note though only for his Gym Battle, as he uses Flying types for his Elite Four match, and given that he's a salaryman stereotype, he probably feels like a zombie the same way Elias literally is one.
  • This game also has a Penny, and is in some ways, a huge nerd just like the one in Paldea. That game's Penny even gives you the TM for Draco Meteor despite not being a Dragon-type expert, and ironically has the Fairy-type Sylveon as her ace.
• Memetic Mutation: Aklove's glow-up in the 2.0 update, which made him into a Bishounen, has resulted in oodles of jokes about simping and/or thirsting for him.
• Narm: The final battle theme is an excellent track that rivals Cynthia's theme from Sinnoh, perfectly fitting the high stakes of the Final Boss fight. Said final boss is Jax, who gives it his all and uses his strongest Pokémon against you, and the theme encapsulates the feeling that your journey is at an end. However, it also plays during the Title Defense matches against Pokémon Trainers Solenk and Milo, who are a Youngster and Poké Kid respectively. It's a bit hard to take those challengers seriously when such an intense track plays as a little kid dressed as a Pikachu fades onto the screen.
• Nightmare Fuel: Perhaps quite fittingly, catching Darkrai shows you a terrifying sequence of events. You have to get the Lunar Wing to help a kid in Tarmigan Town wake up from a nightmare that Darkrai has placed him under, and using it puts you in some sort of dark void nightmare realm. After running around for a bit, you see visions of your mother, Professor Log, Jax, your rival, the kid, and the kid's dad. Most of the dialogue are just quotes you've heard those characters say before, but your mother repeats her lines several times, while the kid, whose sprite is rapidly thrashing about, just plainly tells you that "You... you're doomed." Afterwards, Darkrai shows up for a Dynamax battle. The battle background is also pitch black, and normally when you encounter a Pokémon, it just says "[Pokémon] appeared!". Here, it says "It's your worst nightmare!"
• Older Than They Think: Benjamin's ruleset, called the Benjamin Butterfree metagame, where Pokémon devolve after being defeated, was not created for this game. It actually dates back to 2017 as an alternate metagame from Smogon, same with the Camomons ruleset.
• Squick: An NPC on the SS Marine that can waste your time goes on about their hemorrhoids for too long. In another instance, meet with Penny at Magnolia Cafe and you can inspect (but not actually see, for obvious reasons) a video that she obtained which features a Goomy, apparently in an uncomfortable position with someone. Despite being a Heroic Mime, even the player character is a bit vocally disturbed by these.
• That One Boss:
  • Mel comes packing the downright nasty combination of Inverse Battles and specializing in Normal types, which means their weakness to Fighting is gone and they hit Ghost types with STAB for super effective damage. He takes full advantage of the inverted type chart with his now impossible to resist STAB Facades and Body Slams, which are also now super effective against two of the starters. While the inverted type chart means that Ghost moves also hit his team for super effective damage, the fact that most Ghost types are pretty squishy and the fact that Normal-types hit Ghost-types super effectively in the same way Gen 1 Poison and Bug relationship did under Inverse Battle rules means that's a high-risk strategy at best.
  • Big Mo. Similarly to Sabrina and Koga in the Hardcore difficulty of Radical Red, Big Mo uses Mighty Glacier type Pokémon that get to move first thanks to his special rule (in which weight determines your Speed), turning them into Lightning Bruiser type Pokémon. He also happens to use some of the heaviest Pokémon in the game like Mudsdale and Snorlax, so you're at the mercy of his incredibly strong Pokémon.
  • Moleman. On higher Difficulties, his Damage Over Time via the vicious Sandstorm (that cannot be overwritten except by Desolate Land, Primordial Sea or Delta Stream) will keep chipping away at your team, and in terms of his own team, he carries very bulky, hard-hitting Pokémon (a majority of which use Protect to stall even further), that take a lot of punishment thanks to the vicious Sandstorm granting them a Sp Def boost, giving plenty of time to let the sandstorm do its work. Those that aren't so bulky are fiendishly fast due to Sand Rush or just naturally having a high Base Speed. You have to deal with powerful, fast, tanky Pokémon, and it is a Double Battle, so you have to deal with multiple Pokémon at once, and the vicious Sandstorm damage adds up very quickly. A dishonourable mention goes to his Gliscor prior to version 2.1, who used evasion strategies with Sand Veil, Double Team, and Bright Powder, so you will struggle to hit it, and even if you do, it's quite bulky so it can take a bit of punishment before going down. It was so bad that from version 2.1 onward, at least on Expert, its Double Team and Bright Powder were removed, since having extra bulk and some extra evasion from Sand Veil already was already enough of a pain to deal with. If you're doing the Heroes of the Hall mission, which requires you to beat the Elite Four using Pokémon only of a certain type, then good luck, because the Ground type is super-effective against several types.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some detractors find that the story is too close to that of Pokémon Insurgence, specifically regarding the relationship between Hoopa and the Player Character's being too similar to Insurgence's relationship between Mew and their PC.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: A lot of people though Aklove was Gender Flipped in the 2.0 update, due to his new design making him look quite feminine. It did not help that in the intro cinematic, Aros says that he doesn't want a "her" to utilize Hoopa's power, though he was referring to Fey instead of Aklove.

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