>>51016513>Leon vs Alain 6/10 - Actually liked the pacing, reminded me of some AG battles and it decently showcased the character's personalities both explicitly and implicitly with their battling styles>Diantha vs Lance 6.5/10 - Kinda same in regards to personality, loved how Diantha used the screens to make an aurora for the audience, plus the great strategy of course>Iris vs Cynthia 5/10 - Just mediocre all around, the OHKO, while fine in execution, was underwhelming and Dragonite jobbing for the who knows what time really contradicts the theme of pokemon being stronger by working together with their trainers, the history between the two and final battle saves it from being completely bad>Ash vs Steven 6.5/10 - My favorite of the bunch, both Ash and Steven showed good strategy and the way Z-move was executed really worked for me, the way even if it can be redirected it only partially hit, meaning it potentially could be fully dodged by someone that knows it can be redirected, but of course, I will be immediately more invested in the main character's battlesAll in all, the battles were fine, just a lot of little details that prevent them from being truly remarkable, that and I would have preferred the match-ups to be slightly different seeing as I still don't see why Ash had to battle Steven aside from the whole 3, 2, 1 thing when any other character would have made for a better narrative choice. So as far as the battles go, their good, but as far as the endgame tournament with all the champions plus Alain to determine the strongest goes, it dropped the ball a little.
