1. Your Rival – Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow
That music. That godforsaken music!
Everyone who has ever played one of the original Pokémon games knows exactly what I’m talking about.
While your rival in later Pokémon games was decidedly less of a full-on dick, the original rival was the real deal.
This guy spent the entire game belittling you. And not in the “awesome comic-book villain monologue” kind of way but in the “I’m going to stick your head in the toilet and take your lunch money” kind of way.
While hurling juvenile insults at you the entire game, you have to battle your rival periodically as the story progresses. These battles are almost never on your terms and they always seem to take place right after you’ve battled like 800,000 trainers and have two Pokémon with half HP left on your team and no healing items or Pokémon Centers in sight.
After enduring this obnoxious blowhard the entire game, you make it to the Elite 4, beat them against all odds…and then have to fight your rival one more time, who has already defeated them and become Champion.
The satisfaction I felt, taking the Pokémon League Championship away from my rival after being ambushed by him over and over again, is a feeling I still remember and savor to this day.
