>>33797944Having replayed the games I can no longer understand why Silver is rated so highly as a rival character.
He is a literally who, just some random guy who pops up every now and then to get his ass beat and whinge about it. He never achieves anything and is never involved in anything important.
I feel like for Silver to be a great rival they really needed to focus on retrieving his stolen Pokemon. It should have been more explicit that one of the goals of your quest is to recover Elm's lost Pokemon. In the final story battle with Silver at Victory Road, he finally relents and offers to return the stolen Pokemon to you, however the stolen Pokemon doesn't want to go back because it actually likes Silver. This causes the realisation in him that his attitude towards Pokemon has been all wrong and they are in fact friends, not weapons. Henceforth he treats his Pokemon like partners and becomes a more formidable force in his post-game battles.
Something like that would have just given him so much more characterisation and purpose, rather than just some idiot who never wins anything.
