Trainer Customization

[DoctorWhy]

The only problem with trench coats is very few people can actually pull them off in real life. At my college there's at least three dudes wearing matrix style leather trench coats but with the body of your average magic the gathering playing nerd.just looks silly lol~

Haha, nice. I'd love to see more clothing options in the customization, as well as hair, eyes, skin, etc. customization at the beginning.

Also, I've been told by a few people that I can pull off a long coat/trench coat

 

[Lufenium]

I actually kind of like that fake character art. I hope we get the character art soon, I've been wanting to see what the female player character is in detail. They didn't exactly give her a lot of focus in the trailer...all of what, 2/3 shots?

 

[Owain]

I want to have green hair.

''Screw the rules, I have green hair!''

Like your jacket becoming a trench coat or something.

The Doctor approves! ;D

Spoiler

So does Castiel.
I did not just squee, shut up...

 

[Youngsage3]

i'm not saying it WILL srew the game up, i'm saying it MIGHT screw up the game if done incorrectly. if you want to change your characters skin tone, fine. if you want your trainer to have different coloured hair, by all means, go right ahead. (i've personally been waiting for a trainer with blonde hair for forever.) i'm just saying, if they focus to much on customization, it'll be a little like Animal Crossing, and distract from the pokemon. Animal Crossing and pokemon are both great games, but in my opinion, they wouldn't work well together.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

@Youngsage3; Can't think of one game where character creation ruined the gameplay given how they are different sections of the team

 

[Youngsage3]

i dont believe i said ruined at any point. im saying that i dont want the sims or animal crossing or whatever. its called pokemon for a reason. all i want to do is make magical creatures fight each other for money. i dont want to play dress up.

 

[Owain]

i dont believe i said ruined at any point. im saying that i dont want the sims or animal crossing or whatever. its called pokemon for a reason. all i want to do is make magical creatures fight each other for money. i dont want to play dress up.

You don't need to if you don't want to. I'm pretty sure it'd be optional, so win-win.

 

[Miar]

Depends. Full (voiced) cutscenes are the reason you couldn't change names in FFIV DS, and why the Avatar in Fire Emblem Awakening was only shown from first-person in them.
(haven't finished either, so this may not be fully true)

If these games do that, there probably won't be any customization.

But if there are only silent scenes using in-game sprites and polygons, I'm all for it. (Personally, I'd trim his hair and switch out his sunglasses.)

 

[Garren]

I highly doubt Pokemon X/Y is going to be voiced, even more so considering it's getting a close-to-worldwide release.

Except for perhaps having to work in how the Mother looks to match your PC, which even then could be excused by having an absent father and claiming your character got their looks from him, I don't see how customized trainers would present any logical issue.

I still doubt we're getting fully customizable characters in terms of skin-tone and hair color, though. But I could see them including some alternate costumes to dress up your characters in, and utilizing DLC and Spotpass, they could probably throw in special outfits which belong to past PCs which, imo, would be pretty smooth.

 

[Fandango]

I don't want to see another Platinum, so I'm definitely hoping we'll be able to customize our characters to some degree.

 

[Akromatic]

i dont believe i said ruined at any point. im saying that i dont want the sims or animal crossing or whatever. its called pokemon for a reason. all i want to do is make magical creatures fight each other for money. i dont want to play dress up.

Then don`t. Just ignore it and don`t use it. And how does "Pokemon" relate to not changing appearances? And how does "Animal Crossing" mean it too?
You can't even change your clothes in Animal Crossing, you have a set avatar. In Sims you don't even have an avatar, you just screw with creations.
Shut up and get your facts straight. If you want to make a decent argument, get reliable sources first.

 

[Garren]

You can't even change your clothes in Animal Crossing, you have a set avatar

Animal Crossing does allow you to change your avatar...to a significant amount, in fact. This includes changing clothes, and even using pixels to draw your own designs and such.

Although I disagree with Youngsage3's notion that customization would ruin the game, with expanded WiFi capabilities we'll see, and possibly a Miiverse-like feature, I think allowing players to differentiate their trainers beyond simply using stock trainer sprites is more important than ever. And bar seeing the previous player characters have a set design so they can cameo later on (only applicable with Red, and now that we've got possibly 2 canon protagonists, it matters even less), the appearance of the player character has never mattered really, so there's no real reason against some form of customization.

 

[Dr. Buni]

I soooo want customizable characters. There is no reason for not introducing the feature now that they are using polygons instead of sprites.

 

[TerraTF]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

 

[Ruttager]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

Most characters in JRPGs also have an ounce of personality too, unlike every cheerful go-getter we get as a new player character in this series. Really, I can hardly contain my excitement wondering what kind of peppy, unthreatening pose the new avatars will be in and what kind of Poke balls they'll be holding in their respective pieces of artwork; think the boy'll have his hands on his hips with a regular Poke ball? Oh, or maybe he'll have his left arm thrust out holding an Ultra ball. Also, do you think he'll have a closed or open-mouth smile?

Seriously though, the kind of customization already available in the core mechanic of the game, i.e. deciding what creatures to catch and use on your team, is already unprecedented and is about to expand, this time onto a 3D plane, again. I'm as much for character customizationas the next guy, if only for the sake of self-expression, but it's probably good to keep things in perspective at this point. That said, I'm really hoping those sunglasses can be swapped out.

 

[TerraTF]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

Most characters in JRPGs also have an ounce of personality too, unlike every cheerful go-getter we get as a new player character in this series. Really, I can hardly contain my excitement wondering what kind of peppy, unthreatening pose the new avatars will be in and what kind of Poke balls they'll be holding in their respective pieces of artwork; think the boy'll have his hands on his hips with a regular Poke ball? Oh, or maybe he'll have his left arm thrust out holding an Ultra ball. Also, do you think he'll have a closed or open-mouth smile?

Seriously though, the kind of customization already available in the core mechanic of the game, i.e. deciding what creatures to catch and use on your team, is already unprecedented and is about to expand, this time onto a 3D plane, again. I'm as much for character customizationas the next guy, if only for the sake of self-expression, but it's probably good to keep things in perspective at this point. That said, I'm really hoping those sunglasses can be swapped out.

I'm just saying if Millions of people can play through every Zelda game without an ounce of customization, you can make it through another Pokemon game without. If you want customization so badly play the contests or musicals

 

[Dr. Buni]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

Yep and plenty of other JPRG suck. Pokémon isn't a standard RPG, it isn't heavily story driven (thanks god it isn't), the main characters don't talk (thanks god they don't) and the focus is mostly the gameplay (again, thanks god!). There is not a single reason for not introducing customization now. There was in the previous generations, though. Also, I think Nintendo wants to improve the multiplayer factor of the franchise and character customization is a must for that.

Zelda

Sure, but Zelda isn't even a RPG (besides Zelda II). Just saying.

 

[Ninja-Mage]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

Most characters in JRPGs also have an ounce of personality too, unlike every cheerful go-getter we get as a new player character in this series. Really, I can hardly contain my excitement wondering what kind of peppy, unthreatening pose the new avatars will be in and what kind of Poke balls they'll be holding in their respective pieces of artwork; think the boy'll have his hands on his hips with a regular Poke ball? Oh, or maybe he'll have his left arm thrust out holding an Ultra ball. Also, do you think he'll have a closed or open-mouth smile?

Seriously though, the kind of customization already available in the core mechanic of the game, i.e. deciding what creatures to catch and use on your team, is already unprecedented and is about to expand, this time onto a 3D plane, again. I'm as much for character customizationas the next guy, if only for the sake of self-expression, but it's probably good to keep things in perspective at this point. That said, I'm really hoping those sunglasses can be swapped out.

I'm just saying if Millions of people can play through every Zelda game without an ounce of customization, you can make it through another Pokemon game without. If you want customization so badly play the contests or musicals

The difference is Pokemon is meant to be played with friends and strangers all over. Zelda has always been a single player experience. Though it started more in the sense that you the player are suppose to pretend you're a hero, that's just not the case these days. Even my mom knows when you play Zelda you're playing Link's story.

Pokemon is different, from its first game release multiplayer was a major part of the game. Since then its only evolved, now we can play against and trade with players half a world away. On top of multiplayer, customization as well has been a critical part of the game. The ability to customize a party of six from 680+ critters, customize their moves, their stats, even their breed. Pokemon has been hinting at trainer custimization since the moment you could change your characters name(granted this is true of almost all jrpgs but just go with me for a moment). And it's been begging for it since diamond and pearl when we could battle online with anyone. Pokemon has always been your story, its a very personal story. There's a reason why the cartridges only have one save file. It's yours. So why not allow players to make their avatar more personal as well?

 

[TerraTF]

Yep and plenty of other JPRG suck. Pokémon isn't a standard RPG, it isn't heavily story driven (thanks god it isn't), the main characters don't talk (thanks god they don't) and the focus is mostly the gameplay (again, thanks god!). There is not a single reason for not introducing customization now. There was in the previous generations, though. Also, I think Nintendo wants to improve the multiplayer factor of the franchise and character customization is a must for that.

Pokemon has become very story oriented recently. Pokemon is also not meant to focus on the character, but on the Pokemon. The true PC of Pokemon is the Pokemon. There have been numerous ways to customize Pokemon over the years

Sure, but Zelda isn't even a RPG (besides Zelda II). Just saying.

That's like saying a bagel isn't bread

 

[VeggiePopper]

What is so special about customizing characters anyway. Plenty of other JRPGs don't let the PC be customized. Just seems like a pointless side quest to be added

Most characters in JRPGs also have an ounce of personality too, unlike every cheerful go-getter we get as a new player character in this series. Really, I can hardly contain my excitement wondering what kind of peppy, unthreatening pose the new avatars will be in and what kind of Poke balls they'll be holding in their respective pieces of artwork; think the boy'll have his hands on his hips with a regular Poke ball? Oh, or maybe he'll have his left arm thrust out holding an Ultra ball. Also, do you think he'll have a closed or open-mouth smile?

Seriously though, the kind of customization already available in the core mechanic of the game, i.e. deciding what creatures to catch and use on your team, is already unprecedented and is about to expand, this time onto a 3D plane, again. I'm as much for character customizationas the next guy, if only for the sake of self-expression, but it's probably good to keep things in perspective at this point. That said, I'm really hoping those sunglasses can be swapped out.

I'm just saying if Millions of people can play through every Zelda game without an ounce of customization, you can make it through another Pokemon game without. If you want customization so badly play the contests or musicals

The difference is Pokemon is meant to be played with friends and strangers all over. Zelda has always been a single player experience. Though it started more in the sense that you the player are suppose to pretend you're a hero, that's just not the case these days. Even my mom knows when you play Zelda you're playing Link's story.

Pokemon is different, from its first game release multiplayer was a major part of the game. Since then its only evolved, now we can play against and trade with players half a world away. On top of multiplayer, customization as well has been a critical part of the game. The ability to customize a party of six from 680+ critters, customize their moves, their stats, even their breed. Pokemon has been hinting at trainer custimization since the moment you could change your characters name(granted this is true of almost all jrpgs but just go with me for a moment). And it's been begging for it since diamond and pearl when we could battle online with anyone. Pokemon has always been your story, its a very personal story. There's a reason why the cartridges only have one save file. It's yours. So why not allow players to make their avatar more personal as well?

This.

Also, the Zelda Universe has a stablished and deep continuity, and Link's appearance is most of the time relevant to the story (it is the tunic wore by the race he was raised in, it is given to him as a sign of his destiny, etc.), that's why you can't customize Link- because he is Link, a set character whose actions influence not only the particular game you're playing, but also the games that follow, whereas in Pokémon, not only the protagonists aren't ever mentioned in further games, we actually don't know who the canon protagonist is, so in terms of series' overall continuity, it doesn't matter what the hero looks like.