>>41703998I think there needs to be a little more than just a Silver clone. imo, the best rival to ever come out of the franchise is actually Paul from the anime. While he seems like a Silver clone at first, he has a lot of aspects that make him better. The most interesting of those aspects is that, while Silver eventually sees the importance of friendship with Pokemon, Paul really doesn't. He already treats the Pokemon he does keep rather well (with the exception of Chimchar) and seems to view his Pokemon more as business partners rather than tools. Paul and Ash end the Sinnoh league respecting each other's training philosophy even if they still don't agree with it. I think that is much more interesting than another basic "learning the power of friendship," rival especially when there isn't much new they could do with that concept that wasn't already used with Silver
