I don't care much for competitive myself, but I find this statement completely silly. How can something that you don't have engage in any way ruin a good game? If you were forced to engage in it (like in an online only game), sure, but you're not. You can just play with whatever pokemon you want and not care about natures, IVs and EVs.

And as people are allowed to play with their favorites, people are also allowed to choose to only use the strongest.


First off, my statement isn't silly. It's unhealthy because people gain a single-minded obsession with getting the absolute best Mon out there. And I've dealt with players like that. While I praise the PSS, it often got me involved in battles with such players during Gen 6. It frankly disgusted and frightened me at just how far people will go. And have you seen Showdown and just how salty people get on it? THAT'S what I'm getting at. The obsession levels is what's unhealthy. I may not dabble in it, but I've often gotten unwittingly dragged into situations where I've had to deal with such players. I don't mind competition, nor do I mind losing (and trust me, I've lost a lot), but when it gets to an extreme where, to a player, losing is like how Yugioh manga Kaiba saw it, especially if it was at the hands of those who just play casually, then it gets out of hand. I may not engage in it on my own accord, but I've seen and experienced just what extremes people will go. I've actually gotten threats from some players like that because I somehow beat their perfect Gale Wings Talonflame with a wild-caught, non-EV trained, neutral Nature Noivern. Don't tell me you haven't seen a full shiny (and most likely hacked) team on a wifi battle before? That's what's unhealthy about it.

And secondly, yeah, I know that. People can choose what they want, I understand that. But is it really that much fun to annihilate your opponent with only the absolute cream of the crop? Do we all want to become Paul from the anime that badly? Freedom to choose is fine and dandy, but it still feels like it's violating the friendship message the series has been showing since Gen 1. I get the franchise also has a "To be the best" motto, but it feels like people have taken that too seriously. Plus, again, it just makes everyone a copycat battler at best. I praise the battlers like Wolfe Glick who routinely break the mold and use Mons that don't fit that criteria of "strongest". He's used Mons like Kantonian Farfetch'd in official battles and still gotten good results. And don't forget about that Pachirisu in 2014. It seems that the "freedom to choose" definition in Pokemon nowadays means every "competitive player" has to have the same exact team and only cares about beating the ever-loving snot out of everyone. Gen 5 was particularly bad about it, one of the few complaints I had with the gen. Is that really what the games are all about now? If so, it disgusts me at just how the player base has "evolved" into such overly obsessive toxic environment.

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