d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

Pokémon Forever: The Return of Team Flare by Darker_X [Unavailable]

Pokémon Forever: The Return of Team Flare is a Pokémon Fanfiction about a group of friends who begin their Pokémon journey in the Kalos region just as villainous Team Flare is gearing up to strike again. Having claimed the legendary of great destructive power Yveltal, the group seeks Xerneas to fulfill their ultimate goal. Alice, George, Kevin, and their new friend Stella get caught up in the center of it all, along with a cast of characters that expands with each new chapter.

After the prologue, the book starts out slowly, with each of the three friends (Alice, Kevin, and George) receiving a starter Pokémon from Professor Sycamore. Alice sets herself up as the resident battler almost immediately, while the other two express interests of their own: becoming a Pokémon breeder and a Pokémon professor. That was one aspect of the book that I found refreshing, and I wish it had been played up even more. There were some great scenes that showcased George's attempts to get a start on Pokémon breeding, but I feel like they were forgotten as the book went on, and Kevin's dream to become a Pokémon professor didn't seem to get much attention at all but would have been really interesting.

One thing that I enjoyed about this book was apparent as soon as Alice's first battle in chapter two: the battle scenes are all handled very nicely. They are neither too slow nor too fast, they have plenty of creative attacks and techniques, and, most of all, I felt that they showed that particular quality that I associate with watching the anime as a kid. It took me back while also being fresh and creative, and I really enjoyed that. There wasn't a single battle scene in the entire book that I didn't like, and I often looked forward to them.

This navigates right in to the biggest thing that I noticed about this book, which is that it actually seems like two very different books. The first half of it centers around Alice and friends as they go on little adventures and gradually increase their skills, with a few appearances by villains that don't seem overwhelmingly threatening. It reminded me very much of the anime, in more than just the battle scenes. And then, right around Chapter 18, everything completely flips on its head. Suddenly the stakes are huge, the dangers are real, events can be so violent as to tend towards the gruesome, and the point of view jumps between an ever-increasing cast of characters with Alice and friends almost in the background.

On one hand, I appreciated in the increase in excitement that this change brought, but, on the other, I found that it made the story increasingly confusing. I had a very difficult time keeping characters straight. I wondered whether at least some of them were characters that I was "supposed" to be more familiar with, perhaps from a game I haven't played or from more recent episodes of the anime, which I haven't watched. I'm sure that would have helped, but, even so, some characters that confused me were the ones who were pretty clearly made up and only present for a short scene or two.

To be fair, though, a lot of the confusion was not centered around the characters themselves but rather on the huge series of plot twists and new mysteries half revealed or not fully explained. Some element of mystery is good for building suspense, but, when it is built up too far, readers will tend to forget earlier mysteries while still having the nagging feeling that there's something unresolved. It becomes difficult to keep track of and somewhat frustrating. In many cases, I think there were mystery elements that could have been explained with no loss to plot or suspense.

Too me, this seems like a case in which everything made perfect sense to the writer because it was all mapped out in his head. I'm sure it seems to him as though everything has a good balance. It's just that this sort of thing is almost impossible for a writer to judge without an outside perspective. It's one of the things I've struggled with myself and is one of the main reasons that I always have at least one person read and critique any piece of writing that I'm serious about before I form the final draft.

There was quite a lot of action and excitement in the second half, though, and, clearly, a very complex plotline was devised. It may have been incredibly fascinating to me if I hadn't been confused by elements of it. And, even though I would prefer that the book flow more evenly from beginning to middle to end, I also enjoyed some aspects of the beginning. It definitely made me whip out my Pokémon X game on more than one occasion just because reading the author's descriptions of the Kalos region made me want to play!

One last thing I didn't care for was the romance aspect, particularly the main one. To me, it seemed as though it existed simply so that the book would have romance in it, not because the author was really feeling it. Romance isn't a strong suit for every writer, and, in my opinion, it's just as good if not sometimes better to have a book without romance in it. Since this was a minor subplot to begin with, I think the author should have no shame in removing it if he chooses to do so.

Grammar and other technical aspects were not perfect, but I don't think the parts that stuck out to me in this respect were due to either typos or carelessness. To me, it came across like the language of a non-native speaker whose English is nearly perfect but still contains a few little quirks. For example, I noticed repeated use of the word "glew" instead of "glowed". English can be so pesky in terms of irregular verb constructions, can't it? Why should the past tense of "grow" be "grew" and the past tense of "glow" NOT be "glew"? I honestly don't know; we have a pretty ridiculous language. In any case, though, I'm sure those are things that could be fixed if someone else served as a light editor.

All in all, I think that the awesome overall vision for this book was unfortunately a bit clouded in the execution. I would really enjoy seeing this book reworked, particularly since I think the author improved from beginning to end and could almost certainly write everything even better now. If the two halves could somehow be merged, with each half taking on the best qualities of the other, we would really have something.

** Published in July 2015 **