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u/Auspicious_BayRum Feb 24 '26
Unrelated, but I wish the protagonists weren’t kids, or we had the option to play as an adult. I like adult humor, but it feels weird in the Pokémon franchise
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u/Girlfartsarehot Feb 24 '26
See that would be one of the breaks from the formula I would really appreciate. Of course we’ll never have an adult themed Pokemon game, but at the very least a regular E-rated mainline Pokemon game where you play as an adult would be really nice and a fresh change of tone for the series where no protagonist has been older than 14 (to my knowledge).
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u/Auspicious_BayRum Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
Especially since a huge portion of the franchise is grown now. I was ~10 when I first played Black and White, now I’m 22
Hell, the original pokemon games came out before I was born, and I was just a baby during Gen 3. X&Y was the first launch I actually remember having knowledge of, and not just being gifted the game (2013)
It doesn’t feel nostalgic to play a game where I am stuck as a kid, it feels like the franchise doesn’t see or acknowledge me
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u/Ashen_Rook Feb 24 '26
They literally did this. Wes was 17 in Colosseum to keep up with the age of people who were kids when Pokemon first came out. Colosseum also had an edgier story with a reformed villain MC. Sadly, it was a "spin-off made by an outside studio", so people often hand wave it, even though Genius Sonority was literally formed specifically to make console Pokemon games...
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u/Digit00l Feb 25 '26
The Kalos protagonists are also 17
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u/Ashen_Rook Feb 25 '26
Citation? Far as I'm aware, we don't have any hard number there, and the generally accepted age, while not much less, is 16.
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u/F4ST_M4ST3R Feb 26 '26
It’s not explicitly stated, but Looker mentions that we’re a little older than Emma, who is confirmed to be 16 during XY
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u/Boris-_-Badenov Feb 25 '26
mainline
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u/Ashen_Rook Feb 25 '26
It's barely more of a spin-off than the Legends games are, which is impressive for like... The first console Pokemon game that wasn't a photography game, battle sim, or glorified PC box.
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u/SkipperOO7 Feb 24 '26
XY protagonists were ≥16 since they were stated to be a bit older than Emma, probably the same goes for ZA and maybe BW2. But yeah, adult protagonists would be a welcome and interesting change, even Sonic has been doing that for a while now.
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u/More_Yellow_3701 Feb 25 '26
To be fair, Sonic character ages have just been non-canonized. It's not that they aren't young or older than before, it's just ambiguous.
They do seem a bit older but it's not like it's ever been directly addressed. Sonic could be roughly 18-ish or over 20, nothing in the game goes against either direction.
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u/hphantom06 Feb 25 '26
Sonic is 12. Had been since the genesis days. You get older and pretend he ages with you, but he will always be 12. Like how mickey mouse never ages. He's just old enough to have jobs of various descriptions, but he is also young enough to have never had a first kiss (no matter how many times we see it on screen). The glory of these series is that they will always be young enough to relate to you, but also old enough to do the same. People who want adult pokemon trainers see it as a numbers thing, but realistically, pokemon is always going to be about kids. Being a dedicated trainer is something that young people can do, since they have no other job, but even the adult trainers always have other jobs, something no one in the real world wants to deal with. Think about how even the champion has to be involved in some industry, whether that is law enforcement, mining, fashion, etc.
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u/Zero-Infinity Feb 25 '26
Sonic is 15. He was actually listed as 16 in the early days (in Sonic Jam's character profile at the very least, I believe), but he's been consistently 15 since atleast SA1 until they (stupidly imo) removed canon ages a couple of years ago. He is and always has been a teen.
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u/featherw0lf Feb 25 '26
We had a chance in SV where the school had students of all ages, but I suppose being an adult would make hanging out with the conpanion characters weird because they're kids and all.
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u/PS3LOVE Feb 27 '26
Hell doesn’t even have to be adult themed, I think a rated T would shake things up a bit.
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u/Lyceus_ Feb 24 '26
I think there should be two modes: kid and adult.
Kid is the normal mode.
Adult is a more challenging difficulty and changes some dialogue. Additional tasks are welcome.
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u/Aj2W0rK Feb 25 '26
Nintendo would die before releasing a Pokemon game with a literal adult mode
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u/Silverfire12 Feb 28 '26
PLZA comes close. The female protagonist has pretty defined breasts and no parent so to speak of so I always saw the PLZA players as adults.
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u/STARDREAMDESTINY Feb 26 '26
B2W2 did have a 'challenge' mode, but the way you accessed it was convoluted and messy. You had to beat the game on one of the versions (I think it was Black 2, or was it White 2?) and you'd unlock challenge mode for that save file, but if you reset hoping to play in challenge mode, remember, it was tied to the SAVE FILE, and resetting your save also removes challenge mode. What you had to do was unlock challenge mode and transfer the challenge mode key to another copy of the game that at least had a save file.
On that other save file on your other copy of the game, you'd have the newly unlocked challenge mode near the start of the game, but here's the kicker, challenge mode made the game EASIER! Yes, other trainers Pokemon had higher levels, but the stats were the same as normal mode, so they were almost the same difficulty as their normal mode counter parts, the only differences being that your Pokemon got more EXP, which meant that you would quickly outlevel your opponents.
If you wanted a challenge, either unlock EASY mode (lower levels but less EXP for your own Pokemon during trainer fights) or stay on normal mode.
Luckily romhacks like BlazeBlack/VoltWhite 2 (original/redux) actually fixed challenge mode, but that's a romhack, and if you wanted a challenge on vanilla versions of the game, you're out of luck.
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u/StealthyRobot Feb 25 '26
For years people have always been like, why is saving the world a child's responsibility? The. Sword and shield came out and all the adults were actually handled shit while telling the protagonist to not worry about it, and it was super boring lol.
Actually playing as an adult would be fantastic
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u/Ksteekwall21 Feb 26 '26
Sword and shield also went about that the wrong way. The adults handled it, but you didn’t actually see them handle it. I think it would have been cool to see Leon beat those randomly Dynamaxing pokemon. It would have put actual weight behind him being the “unbeaten champion”.
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u/Ashen_Rook Feb 24 '26
I do kinda wish we'd get more edgy pokemon games with older protags. Bring Back games like Colloseum where the MC is adult or adult-adjacent. I appreciated the "Villain to vigilante" pipeline story of Colloseum...
To digress for a moment, I also question if the people who wanted to make Wes the villain of Gale of Darkness (Because yeah, that was a thing they discussed) were even familiar with the character at all...
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u/Koreaia Feb 27 '26
The BW/BW2 protagonists are definitely older than the norm, but I would also appreciate the characters being older, like in ZA, or Mystery Dungeon (Explorers)
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u/TeamRocketLeader Feb 27 '26
According to Toshinobu Matsumiya, Hilda & Hilbert (B/W protags) were designed to be 16, but went with the age of 14 for the base games, and then 16 in BW2 since that's set 2 years in the future. I agree, I wish they would just let us have older protags.
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u/Excellent-Can-7524 Feb 24 '26
Bro is in the Epstein files
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u/Fabulous-Present-497 Feb 24 '26
Nah, not rich and powerful enough
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u/-catskill- Feb 24 '26
I read his entire dialogue in a Hank Hill voice because of the "Boy ah teyu hwat"
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u/TinyRascalSaurus Feb 24 '26
Some employee was extra unhinged for this bit lol. I love this game, but in the USA it has an E rating and this ain't E.
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u/BhasitL Feb 24 '26
Where is that in the game?
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u/Excellent-Can-7524 Feb 24 '26
Nimbasa city on the right side of the city
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Feb 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheFakeJoel732 Feb 25 '26
I dont know if im completely pulling this out of my ass or if I heard this somewhere years ago and a fraction of the memory just resurfaced because of this comment, but I think depending on if you are playing black or white then it's in a different location?
I may be retarded.
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u/sleepersh4rk Feb 24 '26
Nimbasa city ferris wheel. Depending on the season, someone will be standing in front of the entrance and will start a pokemon battle before they ride it with the PC
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u/BhasitL Feb 24 '26
Oh. I have never entered the Ferris wheel. Didn't even know it was a thing! Thanks!
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u/Key_Ranger Feb 24 '26
I think girls also get an older woman saying similar things to them. Hurray for equality?
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u/Takkoy Feb 24 '26
People wrote this dialogue.
Actual employees were paid to write this dialogue.
Think about that.
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u/Proper_Response4259 Feb 24 '26
Obsin(My Pokemon Black version OC) after getting off the ferris wheel: “Let’s never speak again. I may lack the reputation for it, being dark(Fire/Dark, technically) type and all, but I’m an honest guy and honestly I gotta say that was the most uncomfortable experience I’ve ever had. I understand you see me as special, but I hope you understand I don’t see you the same way you see me. Goodbye and see you never.” Obsin runs off
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u/GoldenLugia16 Feb 25 '26
The scariest part is this isnt edited.
I felt very uncomfortable, mind you I was 11 when I played this for the first time
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u/MegaPigeot Feb 26 '26
This event is referred as "Nastumi shock" in Japan. They think the dialogue is pretty unhinged over there too.
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u/starshotsophia Feb 25 '26
I mean... when I was in high school there were 15 to 16 year olds who had full grown beards?
For my own ease of mind, I'll just assume that this is a teenager who is just really bad at flirting
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u/FatMat89 Feb 25 '26
I’m playing Black 2 for the first time and I recently got here and am like wtf?
“My clothes are sticking to me”
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u/Whole_Accountant7063 Feb 27 '26
"¡Aléjate anciano! ¡Tengo un Dragón Legendario en mi poder y no tengo miedo de usarlo en tu contra!"
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u/ThePotatoFromIrak Feb 24 '26
Release the Ghetsis files