Ah.....another intersting episode.....

Grotle activating whatever that was, was awesome!

Too bad he lost........

ach! they translated Pokemon Ondo! and not very well.........................it wasnt even remotely like it

*was waiting for someone to respond*

yeah

but you know whats funny?/

monferno and grotle powered up and yet it wasnt their abilities........I mean whats the point ofhaving them if they arent going to use them? although monferno could be an exception

(although monferno used blaze before)

c'mon piplup activate torrent for once

Good episode today, the first part is missing a few battle scenes (like how Dawn and Brock were knocked out) but the ending made up for it! Didn't hear anything about the Generation IV Battle Frontier besides Palmer being a Frontier Brain, maybe after the Sinnoh League Ash and co. will hear more about? Anyway all my other thoughts are below in a rather short review... if you coudl call my reviews short:

Skipping To The End Battle...:
* Getting to the Twinleaf Festival everyone welcomes back Palmer who announces his visit and throws out his Dragonite to pose with it.
* Barry, how exactly was Brock suppose to know who Palmer was? It wasn't like Johanna or anyone else mentioned him coming.
* Hearing Palmer being the best of Twinleaf Town for some reason got Ash's attention and Ash challenges Palmer to a battle... but then Dawn pushes Ash away to challenge Palmer for some odd reason.
* Barry then reveals Palmer is the final challenger of the Twinleaf Festival's Battle Challenge and is also the Frontier Brain of the Battle Tower, a.k.a. the Tower Tycoon.
* Ash, don't get too excited about challenging Palmer. If you were to take a lesson from the Generation III Battle Frontier, it should be that the Battle Tower is one of the toughest.
* We get a quick scene of Ash, Dawn, and Brock all saying they are competing tomorrow in the Battle Challenge... and Croagunk watching a female Croagunk on TV, lol!
* That's interesting Johanna is wearing the same Coordinator performance dress she "wore" during Mismagius's dream illusen in DP043 "Malice in Wonderland" minus the crown. And there are her flying cat Pokemon again...
* *sigh* Palmer is missing, why do I have a feeling he's probably on the other side of the festival rushing to the Battle Challenge... well I got half of that right, but he's actually enjoying Octillery Snacks so we can get our quick glimpse of Team Rocket.
* Palmer, just because you're late doesn't mean you have to giveaway the Octillery Snacks you bought. In addition Ash and co. (+ Barry) are following behind you anyway. Also why were they looking for Palmer if Johanna was going to use the loudspeakers?
* The battle begins and from what we saw Ash, Dawn, and Brock had a bit of an easy time with Pikachu, Piplup, and Sudowoodo going up against Pokemon that are weak against... huh? Ash and Barry? No explanation how Brock and Dawn lost?
* And even that ended with a few battle scenes with Ash winning. Lol at Dawn ripping off Barry's "Somebody is going to get fined", but I still feel kind of bothered they skipped over all of Ash's, Barry's, Dawn's, and Brock's battles.
* Barry, you can't really fine Ash as technically your father gave him those Octillery Snacks your eating so... yay.

... Which Is Just As Long:
* Palmer is going to use Rhyperior (oh come on Ash, you saw bigger Pokemon then that) and Ash comes to the conclusion that Palmer would focus on fixing Rhyperior's weakness so Ash chooses... Grotle, because the weakness Ash is talking about is speed instead of type.
* Dawn, does it really mater if it's Grotle or Buizel? Both are types that do quadruple damage to Rhyperior. But after an Energy Ball it barely did any damage due to Solid Rock... even though Solid Rock would have just made Grass-type moves do 2.66x damage to it...
* Palmer fixes Rhyperior's slow speed by using Rock Polish and now it traps Grotle in a Sandstorm and hits it with a Rock Wrecker which even resisted should have done a lot of damage.
* Um, Johanna, when did Palmer tell Rhyperior to do another Sandstorm? Anyway Grotle begins healing with Synthesis and also Rhyperior looks winded (not used to moving so fast?), though as Barry said the Sandstorm should have Synthesis only heal 1/4 of max HP.
* Grotle batters the Sandstorm away with Razor Leaf but now Rhyperior has a Metal Horn coming Grotle's way, but Ash has Grotle start up an Energy Ball but they collide before Grotle could fire it... and Grotle eats the Energy Ball.
* Hmm, that's an interesting effect, from eating the Energy Ball Grtole's entire back is giving off green energy. Apparently Grotle is said to have powered-up and from seeing it Dawn is thinking of doing something similar in her next Contest it seems.
* Now Grotle's two back bushes have the same animation effect as Energy Ball does as Rhyperior uses Rock Wrecker and Grotle uses Rock Climb. Rock Climb turns the entire battle field into a mountain as Grotle dodges Rock Wrecker and hits with Rock Climb.
* As Grotle keeps on pushing Rhyperior further across the mountain, Rhyperior uses its tail to anchor and Palmer has it do a Rock Wrecker right on top of Grotle, destroying the mountain and knocking Grotle out.
* With that Ash loses against Palmer but does get a nice trophy for winning the Twinleaf Festivla Battle Challenge... WAIT A SECOND! Wasn't this a full battle? I remember one of the rules being that switch outs were allowed! So was this a battle until one Pokemon is K.O. thing?
* After hearing about how Barry's father and Dawn's mother respect their Pokemon and that's why they are strong, Ash wonder what makes Paul Pokemon strong. Ash, Paul does respect his Pokemon, that's the reason why Paul has them battle and train so hard.
* But now with this out of the way, Palmer tells Ash that the next (and last gym) he should get to is the Sunyshore Gym so that Ash can give a "shock" to Volkner... a hint Volkner is acting just as depressed there as he was in the games?
* Thankfully we're spared from not hearing much of Barry's singing and after a quick seen of Team Rocket being paid enough money they could "buy a rocket" ( ) we cut to Ash and co. heading off... with Barry too?... no, Barry is just taunting them saying he'll get to Sunyshore first and runs off. *sigh*

the review felt short.......