Every Pokemon game has that one city that is in the center of nearly everything happening in the region. Take a Saffron City, Lumiose City, etc. for example. The Hoenn region is no exception to this. Right in the middle of the map, connecting all corners of Hoenn, is the city of Mauville. You start South, and eventually reach it. Afterwards, you explore to the North, until eventually heading East. Mauville is like that hub you keep coming back to.

In the Hoenn remakes this is made very apparent, but in the generation 3 games Mauville City is actually rather tame. In fact, the previously seen Slateport City is much larger in those games.

Unlike Slateport, however, Mauville City has a gym. And that brings us to Wattson, the Electric expert and Mauville City Gym Leader. He is the third gym leader you come across on your journey through the Hoenn Region.

Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire

Like the previous two gym leaders, Wattson actually plays a minimal role in the main story. He is another gym leader just standing on their mat until you arrive. Unlike say, a Brawly, Wattson does have a good amount of backstory, which I'll get into later.

In his gym, you have to stand on some tiles on the floor that will lock or unlock certain electrical fences. Eventually, you make your way to Wattson. He is an older man with a belly and a good sense of humor.

Wattson uses 3 Pokemon in battle, only adding a fourth in Emerald. Like all the previous gym leaders, he starts off with a Kanto Pokemon. Magnemite is first up, and is very simple to take down. Next is a Voltorb, which can choose to randomly use Selfdestruct, near guaranteeing a KO on one of your Pokemon. His signature Pokemon is Magneton. It can deal a ton of damage with powerful Shock Waves. Quite disappointing to give Wattson a whole team of Kanto Pokemon. What's the point of being the Hoenn Electric Gym Leader then?

Luckily Emerald at least fixes some of it. The puny Magnemite gets the boot, and is replaced by Electrike, a new electric Pokemon found in Hoenn! They could have stopped there if they wanted to, but they decided to make Wattson a real challenge. Not only does he have Electrike, he is given a new signature Pokemon in Manectric, Electrike's evolution. This is a really powerful Pokemon for this point in the game. Players who chose Mudkip will have an easy time with their Marshtomp, but others will struggle.

After defeating Wattson in battle, he hands you the Dynamo Badge. In Emerald, Wattson hands you his number and will be available for rematches at several points in the game, gradually becoming stronger each time. He keeps Voltorb (later Electrode), Magneton, and Manectric. To fill out his roster, he adds a Raichu, Electabuzz, and Ampharos to his team.

Wattson actually shows up outside his gym once the player is able to use the HM for Surf. He gives you a side quest: the generator in New Mauville, a Power Plant located nearby, is running on overdrive and needs to be turned off. It's highly recommended to complete this quest, as the reward is the coveted TM for Thunderbolt.

Pokemon Black 2, White 2

Wattson returns alongside his fellow Hoenn gym leaders for the Pokemon World Tournament. He can be fought in the Hoenn Leaders and Type Experts challenges. He uses a lot of the same Pokemon he did in his Emerald rematches, but evolves Magneton into the new and powerful Magnezone, as well as adding Plusle and Minun to his team. They are the 'Pikachu-clones' of the Hoenn region, so it's nice that they finally get a chance to be used by an important trainer.

--

Originally I was of the opinion that Wattson was a boring gym leader like Brawly was, due to his minimal story involvement. Thankfully they didn't completely abandon his character, as he has quite an extensive background. They even hint at this with the seemingly random side quest he gives the player. Talking with NPCs and reading books, pages, etc. in the game reveals to you that Wattson was actually one of the founders of Mauville City. This surprised me, as I had always kind of thought that the towns and cities in most regions were fairly old.

Wattson actually used to be a project leader for a company that aimed to find powerful and renewable sources of energy to advance urban (re)development. In the generation 3 games they tried to make this happen by building New Mauville, a powerful underground Power Plant near the city. Once they were able to generate energy from it, it was going to get transformed in a whole underground city. Due to the influx of wild Pokemon, the project was ultimately canceled before a city could be built, and the company went bankrupt. Wattson still dreams of redeveloping Mauville City into a more modern city with the newest technology.

In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, we see one of the first big examples of a difference in the 'Pokemon multiverse' universes. The company, now given the name Greater Mauville Holdings, still tried and failed to convert New Mauville into an underground city. In the remakes, they had another research center, this time at sea. Where the abandoned ship SS Cactus used to be in generation 3, Sea Mauville now takes its place. It's a run down and abandoned research center where Wattson's company used to collect and research data and energy. So far it sounds like they still achieved the same results, right? Well they clearly must have had some breakthrough doing all that research, as Mauville City itself is now a gigantic technologically advanced hub. The city has countless stores, buildings, and is even three floors tall. It seems like in this universe, Wattson's dream of redeveloping Mauville City came to fruition.

I find it really fun that they chose to go this route for Wattson and his backstory/ambitions. It's subtle things like this that make the Pokemon Multiverse so interesting. His character remains largely the same between the original games and the remakes, but seeing his dreams fulfilled in a different timeline is nice.

I like that Wattson is so intricately merged with the very concept of Mauville City. I wonder if he really built the City from the ground up, or if he took over an old town and made it his own project to turn it into something big and modern. I wish they had incorporated this more into the actual story, perhaps adding some type of story content to New Mauville/Sea Mauville.