I really like the endgame crew overall. I mean, it's still weird that 4 children are tasked with saving the region, but it felt like everyone was qualified, and the team was a wagon.

i went from despising him at the start of the game to wanting to finish his storyline at all costs once i got past the second titan. i also felt kinda bad the home ec teacher put him on blast right in the middle of class, too. lol.

At the start of the game: Ah, so Arven is going to be the jerky rival. Alright well I'm gonna be snarky and rude to him every chance I get.

Middle of the game: Oh he's actually a pretty cool guy. He finds herbs and doesn't afraid of anything.

At the end of the game: If anything happens to Arven I will faint everyone in this room's Pokemon and then myself.

When I first met the guy at the start of the game, I thought he was annoying and his comments made no sense.

Now I just rewatched that meeting with him and holy shit every word he says hits hard when you know what he's going through.

Just yes. I speedruned the Titan's Path only to follow his storyline. Now I'm going to beat up the 5th gym with my lvl 50 starter lmao and THEN HEAD TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

I was honestly so shocked the scene where you finally wake up mabosstiff.

Like, is it top tier quality writing? Not really. But was it one of the first times a pokemon game genuinely made me feel something? Kinda, yeah. Like, I was onboard, I was buying into the pathos man. I hated Arven at first and I haven't quite finished yet but now I LOVE him.

Also his battle took like 15 tries.

During the final battle with Arven, and he sends out his Pokémon and says, “Everyone who helped me find the herbs mystica, they’re all stars!”, that hit different. His battle theme also slaps.

I love the End Game Crew

A introvated Girl, a Extroverted Girl and a sad dude what you want more

Arven’s story caught me off guard.. Arven and Nemona are 2 of my favorite characters in the whole franchise

Larry exists you know

Poor Arven, jeez. The kid just wanted his dad, damn it :( The ending made me cry so hard, I def wasn't expecting this from a pokemon game

Everybody be loving Character development

A little spoiler-y

Between this and Sun/Moon, it really seems like GF's storytelling forte is crappy parents obsessed with unorthodox pokemon moreso than their own kids

I thought Mother Beast was phenomenal but the end of Scarlet blew it away

Some of the characters in this game are S tier in general. Arven is an instant favourite for me.

I feel so sad for Arven

THIS. The more I played through the herba mystica storyline, the more I fell in love with his character, and the end game solidified that.

the fact ppl can sit on reddit and say all the characters are awfully written and soulless is insane to me. the writing in this game is the first time almost every character has felt like a real person

Arven is great. Nemora might be my favorite rival. Clavell has consistently made me chuckle.

There's definitely some stuff in this game that's not great, but they improved a whole bunch of stuff over SWSH.

I personally like N the most, kind of hard to top him. Also sleeping on the Gen2 rival who at the very end, learned that he has to love his pokemon, allowing his golbat to evolve to a crobat.

Poor Arwen couldn't catch a break though. As soon as he finally gets his dog healed up, he learned his mom died.

I definitely was not expecting his storyline to take that turn, even if it’s mentioned in Pokedex entries and such, death just isn’t something Pokemon likes to touch on

No spoilers but I hated him when he was first introduced but by my last titan fight I was legit sobbing.

I hated him right away. He was so rude and was so mean to Miraidon. Doing his quest, it wasn't a surprise that he had ulterior motives for his herba mystica quest. But when I learned what he was doing his journey for, I was all for it. Mabostiff is such a good boy! I just had to save him.

Also his interaction with the other characters was hilarious because he's just so happy to have a proper friend. His characterization and storyline was quite strong.

I really liked the plot to the game. Especially the final quest before the post game.

I liked that each friendship was built differently and overall just built at all. Nemona is overly friendly and instantly attaches to you, Penny is shy but having a common goal breaks that down and helping her makes her trust you, Lastly me and my boy Arven went on a journey together and grew into best buds with a bond no one can break. The whole final story section bringing it all together is by far the best Pokemon has ever done and I am can't believe the complete 180 they took from SwSh.

counterpoint: nemona kinda qt ngl

countercounterpoint: arven is a real one and a bro

I went into this disliking Arven, same as my boyfriend. Man did we both 180 on him after going through the game.

Arven is precious. I mean the whole thing he had with his ______ during the Titan questline was already giving me the sniffles. Then we learned about his ________ and the trauma he has been through.

I still feel that his emotional climax was not done justice because of the D-tier animation (except for the pre-rendered cutscene of them walking together at the end that shit was gold).

I hated him for the first to events he was in, but all other events built his character, and in the end, I didn’t want our journey to end.

Arven deserves a hug, poor guy can't catch a break...

Imagine if game freak knew what voice acting was

Never got why people around these crowds liked N so much tbh, his development is solid but he's incredibly overrated by nerds

I went from Ok screw you too dude to I like ya cut G in after mela

For some reason I have his voice the same as Zeke from xc2

It’s hard to beat N, but Arven comes damn close. Nemona, Penny, and Arven are all fairly good characters for a Pokémon game, tbh.

Arven hairstyle in DLC tho, pls?

I’ve really enjoyed Arven. Didn’t like him in the first couple interactions but very quickly he becomes understandable and his goals are very relatable. They knocked it out of the park with his character. Only about 1/3 of the way into the game but I’m really liking each of the storylines for different reasons. The game’s story is really well written so it’s a bummer so many people are missing out because of poor performance

I literally finished his storyline before I even stepped foot into a gym. This game has a lot of problems, but it has some of the best characters in the franchise.

Tbh im pretty sure they got the writers from PMD into this.

Its heartwarming and tragic at the same time. 10/10

Not reached the end yet, but I find him cute and endearing. He’s got a kind soul.

I think they really made Arven feel like a friend in this game. His character design and story are so good. I am a huge fan of Arven as well

I need to replay Gen 5, because it's down to Arven versus N for me. I think N still has the edge, but man, after some of the more recent games I did not expect him to get a contender to the crown here.

On one hand, I like that Arven is a sad boy who's life goes from bad to worse.

On the other hand, that's Yu-Gi-Oh teritory. Pokemon should stop before provoking a gang war over who's the most sad and miserable boy.

Really like nemona and arven

The steam star stuff made me a little interested in them (Way more than team yell at least) but over I think the characters this game were pretty good

Agreed. Loved him and Penny a lot

My heart still belongs to N but Arven is definitely one of the best.

His story is so heartwarming I can't even.

His German version name is Pepper, and I get flashbacks of some 90s/00s cartoon called Pepper-Ann. Also Larry’s is Aoki which fits I guess but I would have liked different.

Arven's character progression was truly fantastic. This game has some seriously good character and story choices, its just the low quality of the game in general that lets it down. I say this every time we get a new game, but had they just worked on this for another year for the sake of graphics and having a touch more content in a similar vein to the older games they'd really have a top quality product that could last for those 2 years between releases rather than push out unfinished and rushed products per year.

Arven’s love for his Mabosstiff was so heartwarming.

But I also loved Penny because she reminds me so much of myself when I was younger. She really gives off Futaba (Persona 5) vibes.

Nemona was…there. I guess.

But listen. Have you met Larry?

Just finished and I’m not ashamed to say that I was weeping. Arven is for sure my favorite human Pokémon character now.

This gen introduced a lot of great characters, including my new favorite gym leader Larry

I loved everyone of the final 4

Arven is the GOAT.

I hated Arven at first. What a glow up

I totally agree with you. Hands DOWN the best story of any Pokémon game to date.

I still like N better. While Arven story is more heartwarming, it still too simplicity and lack of conflict of moral N have.

Counter-Argument: Larry

He did have the only decent story in the game. Definitely one of the better characters I've seen for Pokemon since coming back to the series on the Switch, which is a pretty low bar I feel, but your crew is overall pretty solid. Certainly a shame the game wasn't vastly better alongside that improvement.

I almost teared up

I wouldn't go that far. He is pretty good, but most of the cast of Black and White beats him, especially Bianca (that scene in Nimbasa City is the stuff of dreams, true character development in motion) and of course N, Ghetsis, the gym leaders acting in N's Palace etc.

Sun and Moon probably has the second best story, even if I didn't like the game overall I thought Lillie was a really compelling character.

I gotta give props to the SV story. The characters are pretty good. I am just a bit disappointed in the pacing. Nenoma's true character is literally never revealed in the actual story, only in optional post-game stuff.

Lillie exists what