I say this as a newbie game developer designing my own monster collecting fantasy rpg, how are we liking the current concept for the player character in modern pokemon games?

I am aware that many people prefer the idea of a customizable to protagonist to feel immersed and to really connect with the games that we play. Whether that be something as specific as skin tones, features, hair styles, or even something as basic as gender expression. For a lot of fans, especially coming out of Pride month they can say these games gave them their first taste of exploring other identities. A person getting to try exploring as a more masculine or feminine player character especially with all the newer features in Gens 6-8 with clothes and hair styles being far more customizable (and I suppose gen 9 despite the major setback in customizability). And even in some side games, Pokemon Ranger, Conquest, Pokken, GO, and Masters provided at the very least some customization options while primarily sticking to the simple male/masc and female/femme split.

Now, on the otherside we have legendary characters who have a lot of love despite having one basic set appearance. The most famous being Red of course. Any time Red reappears in canon or semi-canon material the community goes nuts. This all started when he first appeared as our final challenge atop Mt. Silver and the fame rose ever since. I know the era was entirely different than it was back then but I could imagine we would experience way less hype now seeing our player character from Sword and Shield challenging our player character from Scarlet and Violet, especially since they may look near identical too each other unless the character was reset to like the base model when your first load the game, in reality there is probably never be another “Mt. Silver Red” moment in Pokemon history. Especially since GSC were planned to be the final games. Is it that we’re in such a different era than early pkmn that those former moments are fueled mostly by the nostalgia and limitations of the franchise compared to what we have now?

Would love to know more about your personal opinions in the comments or your personal experiences of relief getting to customize yourself for the first time in the games! Or any game really

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