>>35865502Shauna was okay, Trevor was mildly interesting for 2 seconds, since rivals lately never seemed to care about the pokedex, but it becomes clear really quickly that he's bad at it in order to make kids feel smart when they beat him on his dex checks. Tierno has one personality trait and is a complete waste of time outside of it.
The correct solution would have been for Gamefreak to merge the characters in order to create a group of 3 friends rather than 5, including you and your rival. Take Shauna as is, then add in Tierno's gimmick of liking dance moves on top of that. Now you have a single character with some actual personality to them.
Then, on top of that, fuse Trevor with the main rival. Have them be the smart one of the group to make up for how they seem to get so depressed about losing battles all the time. They could make it actually a challenge to beat them whenever they insist on comparing pokedex entries. Make it so that when the player loses, the rival will point out some side cave or area they should check for rare pokemon.
Granted, this basically means you just have Cheren and Bianca again, but honestly why mess with something that works? Having one stern rival and one friendlier one is a good dynamic that lets Gamefreak have their bits of handholding while also having a character who can be more serious.
I'm glad they dialed it back at least a little for Sun and Moon, though they can still do so much better with adding depth.
