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General Character Discussion Thread

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misunderstoodhero

Well-Known Member
Honestly, they do that well enough as it is in some cases. I loved how you just moved on in the story if you were defeated at certain points - my first time through I remember losing to Sina, Hau (on Ula'ula), and Lusamine (at the Aether Paradise) and instead of blacking out to challenge them again you just kept going in the story. It makes the loss sink in a little more, provides a little frustration with the fact that you can't try again.

I wouldn't mind if Gladion had been so overpowered when you first meet him that you lose no matter what - he seemed to have the right kind of character and personality to pull that off nicely.

Honestly, this is what I was expecting to happen before the game's came out.
I really got the vibes from Gladion that he'd be an unbeatable boss the first time round, with maybe one or two Pokemon that are tough but beatable, then a much higher level Type:Null sweeping our teams to establish Null & Gladion as a serious threat.
 

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
Gosh, I just have to state how I really dislike that the games sort of force our character into a stated, specific age. The story would still flow just fine if we could assume they were a little older, and it would be a little easier to relate to the characters - especially the protagonist that we customize and build ostensibly as a projection of ourselves.

Maybe at 20 I'm just getting old and grumpy.
 
Honestly, they do that well enough as it is in some cases. I loved how you just moved on in the story if you were defeated at certain points - my first time through I remember losing to Sina, Hau (on Ula'ula), and Lusamine (at the Aether Paradise) and instead of blacking out to challenge them again you just kept going in the story. It makes the loss sink in a little more, provides a little frustration with the fact that you can't try again.

I wouldn't mind if Gladion had been so overpowered when you first meet him that you lose no matter what - he seemed to have the right kind of character and personality to pull that off nicely.

I remember something like this happening at one point in HGSS, where I lost to Eusine and instead of re-challenging him he just walked off. This time around, however, the only time I got anything like that was when I took too many turns against UB01 and it fled. I remember battling it and battling it with a team not made to defeat it and I finally got a good hit when it fled and I was like "welp... ok then." It is a really cool thing though, and I'm glad they programmed it into the games.

I don't think Gladion should've been undefeatable, mainly because if you think about him, he's just a struggling trainer trying to make a life on the road, so I don't think he'd be too strong, just pretty strong (he put two years of playtime into his game, try to beat that).
 

gliscor&yanmega

Well-Known Member
Gosh, I just have to state how I really dislike that the games sort of force our character into a stated, specific age. The story would still flow just fine if we could assume they were a little older, and it would be a little easier to relate to the characters - especially the protagonist that we customize and build ostensibly as a projection of ourselves.

Maybe at 20 I'm just getting old and grumpy.
It's meant to be a coming of age story so it works best using a young age. They probably rather connect it more to the kids instead of the adults.

Maybe one day they'll change that(Since it's been the case every gen), they would need to improve on customization though for more people to feel as connected as possible.
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
It's meant to be a coming of age story so it works best using a young age. They probably rather connect it more to the kids instead of the adults.

Maybe one day they'll change that(Since it's been the case every gen), they would need to improve on customization though for more people to feel as connected as possible.
XY actually was better in that specific regard as the player characters could easily pass for mid-teens.

It would be cool though if they could give you a selection of character ages to choose from (like kid, teenager, adult), and have the story change slightly depending on said choice (i.e. if you choose adult you could have other characters talk about how its unusual you waited so long to start a career as a pokemon trainer).
 
XY actually was better in that specific regard as the player characters could easily pass for mid-teens.

It would be cool though if they could give you a selection of character ages to choose from (like kid, teenager, adult), and have the story change slightly depending on said choice (i.e. if you choose adult you could have other characters talk about how its unusual you waited so long to start a career as a pokemon trainer).

That is actually an amazing idea! I can imagine a naive adult NPC who'll say something about the player getting more moody in their teenage years depending on your age, like:
Kid: "Oh, so you haven't become a teenager yet? I wouldn't look forward to becoming one. When I was a teenager all I had was mood swings."
Teen: "Oh, so you're a teenager? Are you sure you haven't gone through any mood swings yet? <yes> They're pretty terrible, aren't they? <no> Well, aren't you a lucky one!"
Adult: "So you've just become an adult, huh? I bet you must feel relieved to be away with all those mood swings!"
 

Rachael

Active Member
I was thinking the same thing! I'm 30 and am already feeling that "too old for Pokemon" rub. I mean, you don't suddenly stop wanting to do amazing things when you hit a certain age.
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
Gosh, I just have to state how I really dislike that the games sort of force our character into a stated, specific age. The story would still flow just fine if we could assume they were a little older, and it would be a little easier to relate to the characters - especially the protagonist that we customize and build ostensibly as a projection of ourselves.

Maybe at 20 I'm just getting old and grumpy.

Personally, I don't understand the need to play as someone older. I'm 20 as well, and have never felt the need myself. I definitely like the idea of having a defined protagonist better than an ambiguous one, and if Sun and Moon proved anything, it's that a protagonist should at least have a defined age to be better worked into the story, being a coming of age tale and all. I fully admit that I am an adult playing a children's game, and am completely comfortable with that, so I have no expectation of the games to cater to me in such ways.
 

Ophie

Salingerian Phony
Gosh, I just have to state how I really dislike that the games sort of force our character into a stated, specific age. The story would still flow just fine if we could assume they were a little older, and it would be a little easier to relate to the characters - especially the protagonist that we customize and build ostensibly as a projection of ourselves.

Maybe at 20 I'm just getting old and grumpy.

An age slider never really existed for the Pokémon games, and I never really minded. I've never designed the player characters as projections of myself besides the Pokémon I use and the strategies I make though, kind of like how I don't have a Mii for myself.

Another thing is that this is not normal for Japanese games, particularly RPGs. Western games often have detailed character customization, but it's sacrificed for a narrative that cannot account for how the player character looks, whereas Japanese games more often have specific, predefined player characters, which is used so they don't have to write around the character. Pokémon is odd in this way in that it has blank slate player characters.

Personally, while I was a bit bugged that there was no customization whatsoever for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, ultimately I didn't mind much. The idea was that I was playing as someone specific. I don't feel any need to have my player characters reflect my true age or anything, and I don't think that's really all that common. After all, Mario games are played by people of every age, not just middle-aged men.
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
Personally, while I was a bit bugged that there was no customization whatsoever for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, ultimately I didn't mind much. The idea was that I was playing as someone specific. I don't feel any need to have my player characters reflect my true age or anything, and I don't think that's really all that common. After all, Mario games are played by people of every age, not just middle-aged men.

I almost used the exact same Mario example. That's exactly how I feel about this issue too. I probably care even less, because I don't even use customization when it is available. My character in Y and Moon is just the default trainer used for advertising purposes, not one with a different skin tone or hair, and absolutely no changes made to the clothes. Had Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire had customization, my character would have looked exactly the same as he does now.
 

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
An age slider never really existed for the Pokémon games, and I never really minded. I've never designed the player characters as projections of myself besides the Pokémon I use and the strategies I make though, kind of like how I don't have a Mii for myself.

Another thing is that this is not normal for Japanese games, particularly RPGs. Western games often have detailed character customization, but it's sacrificed for a narrative that cannot account for how the player character looks, whereas Japanese games more often have specific, predefined player characters, which is used so they don't have to write around the character. Pokémon is odd in this way in that it has blank slate player characters.

Personally, while I was a bit bugged that there was no customization whatsoever for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, ultimately I didn't mind much. The idea was that I was playing as someone specific. I don't feel any need to have my player characters reflect my true age or anything, and I don't think that's really all that common. After all, Mario games are played by people of every age, not just middle-aged men.

The problem is that changing whether the character is static fundamentally changes how players project onto an RPG character. When you introduce two predefined and unchanging options, like Brendan and May, then the story can be tailored to those characters and people are generally satisfied - I have no complaints about age at all when playing any of the first five generations or ORAS. It's when you decide that a character can be completely customized that the lack of certain features becomes more apparent and more of a problem.

Granted, I know that they can only do so much in the time they're given and want to utilize that time as efficiently as possible, and I know that since their core demographic is later childhood to younger teens the age makes sense. I also understand that to some extent the culture of Japanese gaming might impact the way they operate. I just think that in the future it might be nice to introduce age into customization for non-remake entries in the series.
 
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Akashin

Well-Known Member
The real problem with trying to accommodate variable age would be that, unless it were restricted to still being within the teen years, the idea of the game being about a new trainer going on a new adventure just wouldn't work. The premise works when you're a kid, and it didn't feel like a problem when you were a teen in Gen V and Gen VI, but a forty year old man setting out from his mom's house on his first adventure doesn't work quite as neatly.

Now granted, that could be fixed just by stepping away from that premise. But while it worked well enough for Colosseum, I can't see them ever doing that with the main series.
 

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
The real problem with trying to accommodate variable age would be that, unless it were restricted to still being within the teen years, the idea of the game being about a new trainer going on a new adventure just wouldn't work. The premise works when you're a kid, and it didn't feel like a problem when you were a teen in Gen V and Gen VI, but a forty year old man setting out from his mom's house on his first adventure doesn't work quite as neatly.

Now granted, that could be fixed just by stepping away from that premise. But while it worked well enough for Colosseum, I can't see them ever doing that with the main series.

I mean, they could pretty easily just set up different starting scenarios for different age ranges. Quite a lot of games do that. The problem with that really is the scenario you described being an essential hallmark of the Pokémon franchise (young person, sets out on a journey, coming of age, all that sort of thing), so I'm unsure about changing that, which I agree would restrict age to at least a younger range rather than being totally open.
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
Personally while I still think being able to choose from a few ages would be nice, I'd be perfectly satisfied if the only thing they end up changing in the future regarding player characters is allowing the player character to be as expressive as the characters around them. It just really tore me out of the story repeatedly when my character did not react in any way to things while everyone else did, especially when in a very few select scenes they showed the player character could change their expression.
 
I just prefer when your exact age is left at least a bit more ambiguous. I could be wrong, but it felt like Sun & Moon had more characters explicitly stating that you (and Hau) are precisely 11 years old than any previous main series games outright declared your age during gameplay.

It didn't ruin my experience by any means, but I'd rather they leave it at something like "Trainers must be at least 10/11 to participate in the Pokémon League/Island Challenge." Granted, I feel this way about the human characters in general, not just the protagonist (like Cyrus being 27...)
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
I just prefer when your exact age is left at least a bit more ambiguous. I could be wrong, but it felt like Sun & Moon had more characters explicitly stating that you (and Hau) are precisely 11 years old than any previous main series games outright declared your age during gameplay.

It didn't ruin my experience by any means, but I'd rather they leave it at something like "Trainers must be at least 10/11 to participate in the Pokémon League/Island Challenge." Granted, I feel this way about the human characters in general, not just the protagonist (like Cyrus being 27...)

I do believe that Sun and Moon is the first time age has been explicitly stated in-game, but to be fair, these stories only ever really work when the main character is younger than 16.
 
I do believe that Sun and Moon is the first time age has been explicitly stated in-game, but to be fair, these stories only ever really work when the main character is younger than 16.
I think you could make a case for at least slightly older (especially when people typically don't leave home until 17-18 at the earliest in the real world...and it's never too late to go on a life-changing adventure...but I realize that making too many real-world comparisons just opens a whole can of worms.) I guess that's a part of why I prefer some ambiguity in the first place, though: you don't have to worry about A not making sense at B age as much when the age is never stated in the first place.

I get that game characters don't have to (and often don't) reflect the people playing them, but leaving enough ambiguity for a range of options (instead of exactly 11, end of story) at least makes that more of a possibility. I don't think associating characters with one very specific age necessarily enhances their story at all.

Again, it certainly didn't stop me from enjoying Sun, but I do prefer the vagueness on the subject that previous Pokémon games offered (within the games themselves - the anime, manga, etc. are a different story.)
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
Is it ever stated though that our player character is actually 11? We know Hau started the island challenge as soon as he could after turning 11, he says as much, but otherwise I only recall it being said that our player character is at least 11 as that is the youngest age you can start an island challenge at. Ergo our character could be a bit older.
 
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Is it ever stated though that our player character is actually 11? We know Hau started the island challenge as soon as he could after turning 11, he says as much, but otherwise I only recall it being said that our player character is at least 11 as that is the youngest age you can start an island challenge at. Ergo our character could be a bit older.
Just going off memory, I thought that Wicke stated it during your first Aether Paradise visit, but after finding that scene in a playthrough on YouTube, she actually says:

"(Player)? You and Hau are both trial-goers, aren't you? Are you hoping to become champions? I suppose...you must be around 11, then?" To which you can respond with either "Yeah, I am" or "How'd you know?"

So you're totally right! The "around" does still leave at least a little wiggle room. I thought the 11 number came up at least once more in relation to the player specifically, but I can't recall exactly when (if at all.)
 

Ophie

Salingerian Phony
I mean, they could pretty easily just set up different starting scenarios for different age ranges. Quite a lot of games do that. The problem with that really is the scenario you described being an essential hallmark of the Pokémon franchise (young person, sets out on a journey, coming of age, all that sort of thing), so I'm unsure about changing that, which I agree would restrict age to at least a younger range rather than being totally open.

It's not that easy. Even if it's just three possibilities as mentioned earlier (kid, teenager, and adult), that's still three different paths for the player character to encounter and thus three times the work. Even if it's just different dialogue and the story goes on as normal, there is so much dialogue in a Pokémon game (and it's been this way from the start, for that matter), it'll be a nightmare to write all of this dialogue and check it with the other dialogue for consistency and accuracy.
 
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