Title: Sacrifice and Subjugation
Author: MetalDargon
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Status: Work In Progress
Library Category: Other Fandoms - Misc - Games
Pairings: There is a little romance, but it's OC/OC
Summary: Not just anyone can be the Champion. But what determines whether or not someone has the potential? How does one truly prepare? In a world fraught with danger both near and far, a boy pursues the answers to those questions. But the Pokemon League is a brutal institution, pushing trainers to their mental and physical limits . Only the strongest succeed...

I've been following this story for years and I've always been surprised that this fic hasn't already been submitted, so I decided to finally take the time to do so. This is my favorite pokemon fanfic and easily one of the best ones in my opinion. The author took a long hiatus, and the story wasn't updated for 3 years, but an update dropped this month, so let's call it WIP, though I warn you that updates will probably not be regular (this could very well be the last update).

It is set in Kanto about 100 or so years after the events of Pokemon Red, but rarely references the events of the game and even then, only as history or lore. As such the places and pokemon are familiar, but the names and many of the organizations (beyond the gyms and Pokemon league) are all new. As a result, the worldbuilding is rich compared to most stories in the fandom.

It's been a while since I read all the Author's notes, but from what I remember, MetalDargon played the games up to Gen 3 and then took a break from Pokemon until they started writing this, so they aren't terribly familiar with the newest generations of pokemon, and focus primarily on Gen 1, 2, and 3. Also, since this is set in Kanto, most of the Pokemon are from Gen 1 and 2, since it makes sense regionally. Most of the other Pokemon are thought of as foreign and therefore unfamiliar.

What I really love about this story is the approach to training. Recently, I've been reading a ton of progression fantasy books, and this story fits so well into that category. While the MC is starting their journey (at 16 y/o I believe), most of the screen time is spent training as the MC meanders between gyms. He takes a very intentional and focused approach to training, and tries to improve different areas for each Pokemon. As the story matures, the type of training matures too and instead of just teaching moves, they focus on arena control, type domains, body control etc.. This really starts to shine later on once he starts training with a mentor.

There is also an element of human progression (I think you see where this might be going if you've read a lot of Pokemon FF), but it doesn't become a major factor until pretty late in the story. I won't comment on that more.

The characters are just excellent and at least the main characters seem to all have their own voice and motivations. It's really a breath of fresh air in the Pokemon fandom after having read about the same few characters repeatedly in fanfics.

The story is long, over 700k words, so you can imagine that the MC is pretty far along in his Pokemon journey by the 50th chapter. The pacing is really solid. Multiple years pass in those 50 chapters, so you really get to see the MC and his Pokemon evolve and grow up.

It has a pretty serious tone, and it does get pretty dark at times, but in a tasteful way I'd say.

My biggest complaints about the story are that it doesn't have much personality. This includes the writing style and the MC. The MC is pretty boring without any particularly interesting personality traits. They are very serious and entirely focused on training, which as you might imagine leads to them being very successful at that, but it misses the humor and antics typical of most Pokemon fanfiction. The side characters do have some personality, so that keeps things relatively interesting, but if you aren't into reading hundreds of thousands of words about training, progression, and battles, then this might not be for you. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of adventure, but the adventure is really just a means to an end to get stronger.

Solid 4.5/5 rounded up to 5/5 for me.

 

So, I love this story. I agree with the 4.5 raised up.

It has many things I enjoy about a pokemon story, the first of all is size. A fully grown charizard isn't fucking 5 foot 7 at the head. She or he is 14 or 15 feet tall. A garchomp isn't 6 foot 3. it is 14+ feet tall.

I won't claim it grimdark, but it is... realistic? There aren't pokemon stories out there that should have humans being attacked and living without immediate attention. I'd say it's between Game of Champions and The Sun Soul in the "big oof" factor.

Another thing I like is that the trade/stone evolutions are remarkably uncommon. For example, evolving a roselia into a roserade is known to require a shiny stone, but other than that, it's a secret passed on. Nidoking and Nidoqueen are remarkably rare. The evolution of kirlia to gallade was uncommon and unknown. A part of the lore was that the evolutionary catalyst for kadabra to alakazam was said to have been leaked. Haunter to gengar, for example, requires the haunter killing a human, apparently. In fact, a big part of the story so far is the evolution of seadra to kingdra. The most recent update after like 4 years is a part of that. It's completely different and alien to the pokemon who evolve with strength and age.

I know that many people don't like the quote/unquote evolution of humans. But I do like the Shift here. Trainers that spend a lot of time with pokemon of a certain type tend to grow as they do. One of the characters that will presumably become a main character going forward was one of a cripple who was struck by lightning and survived and gained an affinity to electric types.

I love this story. I've reread it a lot, and the update from a few days ago really tickled my pickle.

 

Believe this belongs in the other fandom review board, but I'll share my thoughts anyway.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling mildly cucked by the Game of Champions (the only pokemon fic I've ever really enjoyed), so I was hoping something might come along and fill that void.

This ain't it.

For one, the writing is pretty much entirely telling. It reads like a dry narration of events with little emotional connection.

The author does a decent job of making the characters feel like individuals with separate lives and personalities, but the dialogue is incredibly stilted and awkward, especially anything involving the protagonist's parents. It's like they went down a checklist for how to have and resolve an argument, making sure to hit each bullet point while ensuring that it remains PG-13 and easily resolvable.

Despite their differences, no one ever has a real disagreement with real consequences. Even the times where things end roughly (Chris, arguably Keith, dude's own parents), all the characters are sure to remind each other that everything is fine and dandy before they walk off into the sunset.

I appreciate that they made an attempt to make the protagonist a bit of an edgy, judgmental dick, but it never actually seems to get him in trouble. (Even Alex, who was a gross and frankly flanderized character, ended up getting screwed over by random chance more than any result of his own actions.)

The protagonist uses a gym battle to advertise a sale and gets called out for it, though it's not entirely clear how. The stated reason was that he didn't use the pokemon again despite it being a type advantage, but that makes little sense because the protagonist often plows through shit with his super cool dragon instead of worrying about silly things like strategy. It's not even out of character. Gym leaders can just sense these things, I guess? Anyway, it culminates in less than a slap on the wrist; he's rewarded for it. At no point did I ever get the feeling things wouldn't just work out for him through no fault of his own.

Which pretty much all leads into my biggest perceived flaw with the story: the lack of tension. Up until the point I stopped to write this review (my app says 37% done), the story can easily be summarized as, protagonist trains super duper hard and never loses unless it's inconsequential.

He trains, he wins. He trains, he wins. He trains, he wins. Repeat ad nauseum. I'm certain the author will throw some curveballs eventually, but I'm several hundred thousand words in and the formula has yet to stray.

Well, aside from the extremely predictable death of that one frail pokemon that was pretty much introduced for the sole purpose of dying and teaching the protagonist a lesson. I mean seriously, just look at the rest of his lineup and tell me that thing wasn't doomed. It wasn't cool enough to survive from the start.

There are also some minor character deaths, but they're all nameless mooks.

The only real antagonist, the Meteors, were introduced and subsequently killed off before they ever mattered. Again, the author probably has plans to revive them somehow, but the lack of narrative tension makes me not care at all. Nothing about them has been explored or explained.

Overall, I can appreciate the attempt to pay attention to detail with some things, but most of it is simply repetitive, boring, and misplaced. Times where there should be attention to detail, the story flounders. There was a whole-ass court trial thrown in there at one point that read like a third-grader's rendition of the justice system. Everything was opinionated and biased, with character and eyewitnesses getting put on the stand to spout righteous drama from their soapboxes. The lawyers and judge just let it happen.

The training and battles the author spends most of his words on are overly simplistic, even when described at considerable length.

There's no mention of the science behind the protagonist's decisions. He doesn't research diet or effective training methods for his various pokemon.

He simply assumes they can all survive eating sheep and bird meat forever, with no thought given to actual nutrition. He assumes that training each of his pokemon like naruto characters (hit them a lot, make them run and dodge a lot, etc.) will develop them into well-rounded fighters. His entire philosophy seems to revolve around making uneducated assumptions.

There's almost zero thought given to strategy beyond the totally obvious (dig to avoid attacks! Use sandstorms to obscure vision!)

None of the actual mechanics are explained in-depth or seem to have any foundation beyond rule of cool. How are small pokemon strong enough to punch out Onixes? They trained really hard, of course. 99% of battles are won by whoever drops the bigger nuke (spoiler, it's the guy with the twenty foot tall dragon.)

Even after being told to learn to communicate with his pokemon via other methods, the protagonist is still shouting (advertising) all of his moves by the seventh(?) gym, never once giving a thought to subterfuge. Or hell, the idea that his pokemon probably have better instincts and ability to react to changing situations than him.

Why do they need constant micromanaging? Do they really need to be told over and over again to use their strongest attack repeatedly? They're depicted as being sapient, intelligent creatures. They understand language and can form fully complex, translatable thoughts.

Yet the protagonist micro-manages them like they can't figure out water is wet without him. Worst of all, he's not even good at it. His strategy always comes down to bringing the bigger gun (spoiler, it's the twenty foot tall dragon.)

In his first tournament, he even admits he's just too lazy and apathetic to research his opponents or even watch their fights, condescendingly referring to people in his own league and age group as kids.

He still wins. Why? He should've been stomped into the ground for his hubris a thousand times by now.
His opponents are all simply too lazy and stupid to offer a real challenge. They lack the drive the protagonist has, his sole redeeming quality that earns him every victory.

There simply aren't any other teenagers out there willing to work hard to win. Certainly none who study their opponents, maximize type advantages, or abuse the fact that pokemon don't seem limited to four moves in this world.

Go to any game or card game tournament in the world with that mindset and watch how fast you get fucking annihilated by meta-gaming eleven year olds. I remember the first Yugioh tournament I went to decades ago. I didn't know a thing about the meta, walked in feeling like I was hot shit with my sweet, sixty-plus card vampire lord deck, only to get yata locked by some little shit who was probably still in diapers. Hubris, meet reality.

One of the crutches the protagonist starts relying on is Protect. The champion gives him the Protect TM saying, I shit you not, "this is super powerful but nobody uses it for some reason." Next thing you know, all the protagonist's pokemon are blocking hyperbeams and shit, no problem.

A week to a month of training to use an ability that can fully block one of the strongest attacks in the pokemon universe. Teachable to everyone. Doesn't take a slot because slots don't exist.

Why does no one use it but the literal champion of the league? He's the man to emulate, probably the most watched trainer alive. Even assuming people are too stupid for that or that the champion hasn't used it publicly, why does no one copy the protagonist after seeing how effective it is? It's stated repeatedly that he has fans watching at home. Hundreds of thousands of people are physically present for his gym matches. So why?

Well, you see...for some reason.

It's lazy writing, plain and simple. Alex, his first 'rival', is the perfect example. Stupid character with stupid motivations behaves stupidly. He's frothing at the mouth stupid. Repeatedly makes an ass of himself, derided by everyone he meets, incapable of learning a lesson or even basic conversation. Even after he goes through some tragic ordeal, his behavior is exactly the same. It's just retroactively justified despite the fact that he was pulling the same shit long before tragedy struck. The only time he acts remotely human is moments before he's written out of the story. The whole world is like this, dumbed down for the sole purpose of making the protagonist shine in comparison.

By the fifth gym, I was skimming every fight. They're bland and predictable. (Water pokemon, use hydro pump! Use hydro pump! Use hydro pump again!) Even moments that are supposed to be clever just aren't. The drama is non-existent, and on the rare occasion it's even attempted, completely predictable. I'm ninety-percent certain I know which pokemon will die next just going by the sliding scale of coolness and how often the author mentions their place in it.

Technically, the writing got better over time. Less typos, more polish. Still. Guy goes place. Guy does thing. Guy gets thing. Guy likes thing. Guy trains. Guy works hard. Guy wins battle. Guy enjoys winning battle. Etc.

Telling, telling, telling. It's fine for an amateur fic, but it's in dire need of an editing pass or ten.

2/5.

Also, side tangent: What was up with waiting so long to reveal the protagonist's name? Am I missing some reference or was it really just as odd and anticlimactic as it seemed?

 

Absolutely love a good hate review. The quote is why I struggle with most Pokemon fics. Maybe the new game will spur a new trend in writing out battles.