Story
Pokémon: A Hero Rises by pokemonlover1229

Date Reviewed
October 22, 2019

Story Status
Incomplete; 28 chapters long when reviewed, but there are currently 30 chapters now

Summary
Valerie Evers' journey begins much like any other trainer's. Valerie and her best friend Autumn Maddox leave their small home to explore Kalos. Both girls dream of becoming the next Kalos Champion. Along the way they make plenty of new friends and meet new pokemon, but things get complicated with they cross paths with a secret criminal organization known as Team Liberty. Valerie and Autumn will soon learn their journey has more in store for them than they could have ever imagined. Will the duo be able to conquer every challenge life throws at them and make it to the Kalos League? Will their friendship withstand their rivalry? Read to find out the answer to these questions and much more!

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🖤 SPOILER-FREE REVIEW 🖤

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PLOT

Just by reading its description, you know you're in for a good, old-fashioned Gym Badge Collecting (GBC) fic with PAHR. Luckily for PAHR, I love GBC fics and will happily take them a dime a dozen. Reading stories about hopeful Trainers setting out to take on the world and learning about their trials and tribulations along the way never gets old for me.

With that being said, PAHR follows the journey of Valerie Evers on her quest to become the Champion of the Kalos League. She leaves her small town with her best friend to do so, and they meet a wide cast of characters along their paths of greatness. It's a cookie-cutter plot that's going to make people who hate cookies stay far away, but I enjoy the simplicity of it all.

Something I don't enjoy, however, is the extremely slow pacing of the story. Without giving away too much, I'm 28 chapters deep into this fic already (and the chapters are really long; they're 4k–8k), but barely anything has really happened. Valerie has gotten only one Gym Badge by this point. One. One Gym Badge from nearly 30 chapters. And that evil team mentioned in the bio? They don't appear until the later 20s. Things are slow.

Characters do things, but they don't do much. What I mean by that is that these small battle tournaments and full-length Contests do nothing to progress the main plot of the story which is supposed to be Valerie Evers pursuing her dream of becoming the Champion of the Kalos League. There are so many chapters that feel like pure filler because of this.

Honestly, I feel like the story is paced this way because of how the story shifts from being about the struggles of a Trainer trying to pursue her dream to becoming about the struggles of a girl trying to find love. That whole GBC plot is put on hold as the question of which character will pair up with who takes center-stage. A love triangle's conflict is more important than the problems being raised by a villainous team trying to take over the world.

I wouldn't have a problem with this change of direction if PAHR wasn't called Pokémon: A Hero Rises and carried the description it currently does. From its current marketing, I expect a GBC fic, not a ship fic. If I were the author, I would change the title and description to reflect more of what PAHR's true focus is instead of giving readers misleading information about what to expect in the story. Because, really, PAHR is a romance fic, not an adventure one.

10 out of 25; below average

CHARACTERS

Personally, my favorite part of the whole writing process is creating characters. I absolutely love characters. Developing casts is something I do for a hobby just because I adore doing it so much.

Do you know who else loves characters? The author of PAHR. I haven't asked her, but I'm 100% certain she does just by reading this fanfiction. Why am I so sure of this? Well, it's because of how many characters there are in PAHR. The main cast of characters traveling together is nearly a dozen.

In my opinion, PAHR's greatest flaw is that there are way too many characters. Way too many. There are so many characters that I can't keep track of them. So many of the cast members have such similar names (Lara, Nala, Layla), occupations, and personalities that they all feel like one interchangeable person whose only difference is what Pokémon they have.

Don't add characters to your story who don't hold a significant purpose. It harms the fic more than it helps it because you're clogging readers' minds with information that could've been spared for more important details.

Another area of concern that I have to address is the protagonist herself, Valerie Evers. Valerie tiptoes on a very fine line of becoming a Mary-Sue. She needs to face real conflict which will cause her to actively struggle. Learning how to overcome tough obstacles and deal with unfavorable circumstances builds character. It shows that a character is human, it makes zir more likable.

I point this out because I feel like Valerie is lacking in personality and motivation in comparison to the other characters. For example, I think Autumn has more interesting conflicts. She's had to face difficulties with her partner Pokémon and has to fight feelings for someone she doesn't get to see often. I think PAHR was actually stronger towards the beginning when Val and Autumn had to face the reality of how tough it is being Trainers because they had to face real challenges.

Still, I do enjoy the characters presented in PAHR. The cast has good chemistry that makes reading their interactions entertaining. I won't mention who I do and don't ship because this is supposed to be a spoiler-free review, but I love how easy it is to get invested in the relationships. It's fun cheering alongside other readers over who you hope will end up with who.

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#TeamMalerie

12 out of 25; below average

GRAMMAR/WRITING STYLE

Let's kick things off by talking about something that every author dreads: typos. PAHR has lots of them, and I know a few tools that can help combat them. Try running chapters through Grammarly, Microsoft Word, or Google Docs to catch little errors like that.

Another common problem that PAHR runs into is the misuse of commas. This video can help with that!

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

I have another video that helps with dialogue formatting because PAHR's dialogue needs a lot of reworking to be grammatically correct.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

These are minor nitpicks, but please fix the story so that Pokémon/Poké Balls/etc. have accents the 'e.' You can copy and paste them from Google if you're unsure how to access them on your current keyboard. Another small problem is concerning how words are emphasized. You should italicize stressed words like this, don't bold them like this.

There are some strange inconsistencies with how characters are presented in the narration. For example, don't switch between calling a parent 'Mom' only to call her 'Elora' just a paragraph later to cut down on redundancy. Another confusing one is Nalani because Valerie goes back and forth calling her by her full name and then 'Nala.'

There are several unnecessary time-skips used throughout the story. Time-skips placed during a chapter should be used to signal the beginning of a new scene, but PAHR sometimes uses them to cheat explaining how characters moved from one point to the other in what seems like lazy writing.

Then there are the descriptions.

When I think of PAHR, I think of one specific thing that makes it stand out to me amongst all the other Pokémon fanfictions here on the site: its character descriptions. In every chapter, readers are given multiple paragraph-long descriptions of what the characters look like from their hairstyling to their clothes to the sizes of their breasts. That last part shouldn't be a thing, really. Describing the boob sizes of every female character is weird.

I'm 100% certain the author includes these walls of text because she loves describing appearances (let's be honest here, who doesn't?), but it does go overboard. Character descriptions should be purposeful; they should be used to reveal information to help develop the characters introduced.

Speaking of walls of text, this nitpick isn't exclusive to only character descriptions. Whenever the author chooses to explain something, readers are given absolutely massive paragraphs of exposition ranging anywhere from 6–12 sentences long. These need to be broken into multiple, smaller paragraphs so they're easier on the eyes. While long paragraphs are okay on other story-posting websites like FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own, this style is frowned upon on Wattpad since a good majority of its members are mobile users.

[Chapter 1]

All the writing needs is some polishing up, honestly. The content itself is easy to read and follow. Something I adore about the narration is that it feels fresh and jubilant like this story was written for the purpose of everyone involved having a good time. I feel like this part doesn't make sense to people who haven't read PAHR, but those who have read it know what type of charisma I'm talking about.

15 out of 25; above average

ENJOYABILITY

Okay, I love reading PAHR. I've loved reading this story ever since its first draft when it was published back in 2016-2017 underneath the story's old title. You can call me an OG fan if you'd like, but the point is that I've adored this fic since ever. PAHR exudes this unique, light-hearted charm full of cheer and happiness that just draws me in like a moth to a flame. PAHR is the cute and fun GBC fanfic I've always wanted to read but haven't gotten the chance until now.

Anyone who knows me knows that I adore slice of life-style media. I am an absolute sucker for fluffy content because it's chicken noodle soup for my soul. Genuinely happy stories are a rare treat to find here on Wattpad when everyone wants to create deep and dark content focused on defeating evil in violent bloodbaths to save the world. While those fics are good on their own, they make me miss bright stories who just want to have fun. PAHR satiates that need of mine perfectly.

25 out of 25; perfect

TOTAL SCORE
62 out of 100

AVERAGE

Final Notes

All in all, PAHR is the best story to pick up if you're looking for a romance-filled GBC fic. It's feel-good and peppy and chock-full of positive vibes. All it needs to do to bring itself from average to above average is to manage its cast better, fix the grammar and formatting errors, and rebrand itself as the love story GBC fic its readers know and admire.

If you have any more questions for me about your review, pokemonlover1229, feel free to message me.

Happy writing!