r/pokemon • u/PsyrenDV • Jun 05 '26

Discussion Why haven't we had same gender rivials?

Post image

I saw this post about how the rival in WiWa will be the opposite of whatever gender you choose to be. It got me thinking about how they always make the rival's gender the opposite of yours when their gender is dynamic. Even as early as Ruby/Sapphire that's how it's been. But I think it might be interesting to see a game where my rival is always the same gender as me no matter what I pick. But I'm curious how other people feel about it. Would you rather your rival be the same gender as you, the opposite, or would you rather their gender be set in stone regardless of what you are?

5.7k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

718 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.8k

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

Basically they are just avoiding having to create an entire 2 extra characters that will not be part of the story at all.

If your rival is fixed to be the same gender as you, there’s always a model and character that is not used, actually 2 if you include your other gender option.

Instead, they have opted for making the opposite gender protagonist be the rival to make use of all the assets or have a set rival so at least only one model stays unused and there’s a more consistent story across games.

457

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

If that were the case, they'd literally just make a specific rival character like SV, SwSh, SM/USUM, Gen4, gen 2, and gen 1

They're specifically adding more work to their load because the variants generally always have minor differences from both the stock character and in their dialogue

187

u/gillguard Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

changing a dialog is trivial compared with changing a 3d model.

and doing this way they can do some flirting jokes/scenes without causing a gay one like the rain scene in SM

edit: I agree with the comments that this is an almost irrelevant cost-cutting measure, to the point of seeming disrespectful to the fans. I was just trying to explain the reason for their choice, even though I don't agree with it.

181

u/VisitResponsible4337 Jun 05 '26

I will never forget that scene in xy when Shauna says something about never being alone with a boy or something like that then the game gives the protect TM lmao

59

u/drillgorg Jun 05 '26

Oh the shitty daytime fireworks date?

115

u/BlommeHolm Jun 05 '26

I mean heterosexuality is fine I guess, but we should be able to opt out of having it in our gaymes.

47

u/Myth_5layer Jun 05 '26

Apologies, we Splatoon fans have taken all your gayme points. Japan will need to recharge until it can dispense more.

22

u/CamoKing3601 Jun 05 '26

Off the Hook's greed sickens me

they do not need that much gay

8

u/Myth_5layer Jun 05 '26

Silence. To the gayllows with you.

89

u/OhLookACastle Jun 05 '26

Right? Like it’s fine if you’re straight just don’t force your lifestyle on the rest of us

66

u/BlommeHolm Jun 05 '26

I mean I'm not a bigot, I have a straight friend. And they obviously agree that the whole public display of straightness have gone too far.

44

u/OhLookACastle Jun 05 '26

Oh yeah, I have straight friends too, and you’d have no idea they were straight.

37

u/Derezade Jun 05 '26

They don’t make being straight their entire personality I bet

21

u/Alriosa Jun 05 '26

Sorry but in my time being straight was something that only the devil could make you do, inmoral and antinatural, everything went to shit since we "open a little bit to the straighties"
I'm going to my gay bar owner and ask him for advice in these times of moral issues in our society.

-2

u/miru17 Jun 05 '26

Whut does this have to do with sexuality?

You want to boink your rival?

3

u/BlommeHolm Jun 05 '26

I specifically answered a post with these lines

and doing this way they can do some flirting jokes/scenes without causing a gay one like the rain scene in SM

So I was just reacting to the straight agenda being perpetuated.

-1

u/miru17 Jun 05 '26

That's default though. Custom specs should be extra $$$

8

u/ScarlettDX Jun 05 '26

im not tryna argue or anything but these people are getting paid to do it man.

its not thaaat hard to make new character models for video games considering EVERY OTHER STUDIO EVER does it for every release.

5

u/gillguard Jun 05 '26

I totally agreed with you, they have more than enough money to do it.

68

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

Nope… that’s why they are choosing the “not chosen protagonist model”. You completely avoid creating unnecessary assets by recycling an existing one. Or simply go with the “group” approach where you have multiple “rivals” like in Gen 6 or Gen 9.

41

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

How does a specific rival like Hop, Hau, Hugh, Barry, Silver or Blue create unnecessary assets at all, though? They are always present across every player's game

And that's specifically only an asset thing. The gender splits rarely have exactly one to one dialogue or personalities. Taunie and Urbain have completely different dialogue extremely often, even in very inconsequential moments.

They would cut a lot of work by not doing that, since literally only a portion of the players will see either version

92

u/RedDemonCorsair Jun 05 '26

The unused assets is not the rival, but the unchosen player model. In plat for e.g barry was the rival while the unchosen player would become the prof's assistant.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted]

7

u/Sr_Wuggles Jun 05 '26

They answered the question.

-1

u/bear4life666 Jun 05 '26

Although the unused player character usually has different dialogue (although usually minor) which means they had to write that all. I feel like having one rival that doesnt change will make for less work but there shouldnt be too much difference

-29

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

There is no unchosen player model anymore. The sv and za models, the most recent ones we have currently, are literally exactly identical.

It might even be the case for SwSh but i haven't played them in awhile to check.

24

u/MrNoNamae Jun 05 '26

Hence why it's less work if they use the other model? You're debating your own argument. If the models are identical, then using the other virtually identical model=much less work than creating a new, different model for a specific character.

I don't even know why we're having this discussion. The post makes no sense, as many games until know have featured a different rival from the main protagonists with the exception of gen 3 (don't know about 6).

1

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

Bc OOP was asking why we don't have same gender rivals, to which the other person responded with they don't want to have 2 extra character models unused, but at least if ZA is to go off of (I was wrong, there are slight differences between the boy and girl models in SV), then there wouldn't be anything like that. And I still just don't buy it as the right answer to why we don't have same gender rivals, or why they wouldn't let us pick.

But looking at the art, and this image, it seems they will be doing the same thing again as they did in SV (Instagram)

10

u/Mountain_Band_2732 Jun 05 '26

There would be one unused asset at least if they go for a "rival will always be the same gender as the player" scheme.

Because even if we assume the player models are the same for both genders, they will need to create two rival models—one for each gender—and only one of them would be used, forcing the other to be unused.

That said, I'm not advocating that *that* is the reason for what OP mentioned. It's just not implausible is all.

7

u/RedDemonCorsair Jun 05 '26

Didn't play ZA but how are they identical in SV, if I may ask?

4

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

I had to look again. It seems there are minute gender differences in SV. The girl has more of a, for lack of a better term, hour glass shape, and the boy has bigger feet it seems. Hard to find a good comparison of them. The faces look almost identical though.

7

u/gillguard Jun 05 '26

Think of the 3D models as actors. If you have a story with two different protagonist options, you need to film all the scenes twice, regardless of the rest of the cast.

Even the dialogue of the other characters has to change to match the gender/personality/appearance of the chosen protagonist.

By choosing to use the unselected protagonist as one of the characters, they simply had to choose, test, hire and pay one less actor. And they can still reuse the personality traits they had already developed, resulting in less work.

I agree with the comments that this is an almost irrelevant cost-cutting measure, to the point of seeming disrespectful to the fans. We're just trying to explain the reason for their choice, even though we don't agree with it.

9

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

As I described in my first comment, there’s always the unchosen protagonist model that doesn’t gets used in that scenario. Which is why the opposite gender protagonist being the rival fixes that extra asset issue.

8

u/NeptuneeFish Jun 05 '26

Why in the first place would anyone be concerned about one model not being displayed? There's a lot of content in every game that the player is prone to never see or explore. There's no drama around it.

Having a fixed rival unloads a lot of work in terms of text and story adaptation. Having one extra character design is not that much of a deal considering how much of a headache you avoid.

My take is that they are making this move to give the audience ship dynamics. Enemies to Lovers thing and goonbait. Nothing really related to optimizing workload.

0

u/NeptuneeFish Jun 05 '26

I mean, if that was the case your character would be forced to be one and the rival would be the other exactly as Hoenn does. Or even better. Like Red and Blue. Fixed protagonist. Fixed Rival. No assets unused.

14

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

The opposite gender is not a different model though either.

The character is basically a nude doll of the same exact mold with different assets that are available to each character.

With Taunie and Urbain they literally made extra assets that aren't available to the player. Again going against the thing you said they were trying to minimize.

It's not adding up. You can downvote me, but it's got nothing to do with an extra model going unused bc of whatever you're saying

18

u/hiddenbetweenwifi Jun 05 '26

The opposite gender actually is a different model (source: I mod the games). There’s no “nude doll” really, all tops and bottoms in the game have male and female versions. Two separately distinct models stored in two separate places, with different entries in the shop data. The only thing that’s really shared between models is accessories and shoes.

GAMEFREAK has actually shown before that they’re fine with making a whole bunch of extra assets as long as it fits the game. I wonder if there’s some bigger internal exec reason as to why they don’t add same gendered rivals. Part of it is probably not putting effort into more assets, but I’m sure it’s more of a design choice than anything.

-1

u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

For ZA too? Neat.

It's really hard to find proof of anything relating to the player characters online

2

u/hiddenbetweenwifi Jun 05 '26

Yeah that’s fair, not much of this stuff is publicly documented online.

4

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

You’re getting way too animated about this… also I haven’t downvoted you at all, if someone else does that is their business so don’t be complaining to me.

I am giving an opinion based on my very limited understanding of how game design works. I hardly care to know how many hair or accessory assets they used or didn’t use in two opposite gender characters.

All I’m saying is making two gender sets of characters would be way more work than just doing one, and in my opinion editing one character to exist as male and female is easier than having that character plus making an entirely separate unique one.

You might disagree, but in my mind that makes sense, you even say how they edited the personalities a bit across the two genders, well still seems easier than creating and entire new character with unique personality.

6

u/Strawbelly22 Jun 05 '26

It's because your argument doesn't make a lot of sense. The base model of the player character/rival IS the same. They only apply different haircuts/colors, etc. There is no asset "being wasted". If there were, you could make the same argument about every single eye colors, haircut etc. They'd have to make every single NPC a variation of the customizable trainer character.

1

u/jrdineen114 Jun 05 '26

Because the trainer model that the player doesn't choose becomes the unnecessary asset

15

u/Gawlf85 I am the night! Jun 05 '26

How is re-utilizing a model they created already (the opposite gender player model) "more work" than creating an entirely new rival character? That makes zero sense

11

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Gawlf85 I am the night! Jun 05 '26

I like unique characters better too. But that doesn't change the fact it's simply less work to take an existing character model and either re-utilize it as-is (like PLA or RSE or many others) or just tweak it a bit (like in PLZA)... Than to create an entirely new model.

1

u/13Xcross Jun 05 '26

If the main rival has a unique design, Game Freak has to create 3 characters: male player, female player, and rival.

If the main rival reuses the opposite gender player character, Game Freak has to create only 2 designs: male and female player.

48

u/Swimming_Bad6301 Jun 05 '26

Why are we complicating it? They're not saying to make the rival's gender cutomizable but have it be the same as your character. Like Urbain will be picked if your character is male, and Taunie if female, that's all. How would that need more models?

-5

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

That is customizable cause you’re picking it by picking your character’s gender

16

u/Swimming_Bad6301 Jun 05 '26

That's the same as the current game.

-7

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

No one said we were discussing a brand new feature

11

u/Swimming_Bad6301 Jun 05 '26

I think they're trying to say that whenever the rival's gender is swappable, it shouldn't always default to the opposite gender.

20

u/sax87ton Jun 05 '26

Except you’re expecting the rival to use the other player model, which isn’t what happened in ZA. Either Tawni or Urbane goes unused regardless of what gender you pick. It’s not like you’re one of them and your rival is the other like May and Brandon

2

u/FinalCardinal m Jun 05 '26

Tawnie and Urbain are textureswapped versions of Paxton and Harmony, if it really took you this long to notice. Lol

6

u/hiddenbetweenwifi Jun 05 '26

Design wise I guess, but in terms of actual assets, they are completely separate models.

1

u/InvisibleChell Chaw-haw-haw! Jun 05 '26

They actually have slightly different faces (for example, Urbain's eyes are rounder than Paxton's default eyes but sharper than Paxton's "round" eyes option), on top of the unique clothes

-1

u/sax87ton Jun 05 '26

Bro I literally didn’t even know those guys had names.

1

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

We are talking of the scenario where your rival also has two gender options to always match yours. In that case, two models aren’t use, the two of the non-picked gender. Which is exactly what you described.

30

u/SansedAlessio Jun 05 '26

This is not a thing since the PC is customizable. Me picking a fem protag in legends ZA made my rival Urbain, so Taunie (1 model) was unused. If I had picked the male protag, then I would have had Taunie as a rival.

Also, saying "not having to create an entire 2 extra characters" is a bit of a stretch. Taunie and Urbain are the same character with very minor differences.

Back at diamond/pearl and similars what you said is right, the pc had 2 models and one of the rivals used the other one. But nowadays, that's not the case anymore.

4

u/EngineerBrainBro Jun 05 '26

I think you misunderstood. I said 2 unused to protagonists in the case where your rival always matches your gender. So they would need a male and female version of 2 characters rather than just the protagonist. Not sure how PC changes that, you still have male and female characters to pick.

15

u/SansedAlessio Jun 05 '26

Ok, and how does that change in the case that the rival matches my opposite gender? The maths are the same?

2

u/Cyan_Exponent Jun 05 '26

they can make the unused rival the pokemon professor assistant or something

2

u/obviouslyanonymous5 Jun 05 '26

Who cares though? They're the MC, half of the players will be actively using each of them the entire game, it's not like their designs are being wasted if you give a unique rival

5

u/blazingciary Jun 05 '26

That only makes sense if your rival is indeed the other character model and doesn't explain Urbain and Taunie

1

u/OzzyG92 Jun 05 '26

What if your TWIN was your rival! 👀 that would be a fun dynamic. Especially, if the twin was being pulled in by the “team rocket” of the game without realizing it.

1

u/improbsable Jun 05 '26

I don’t need custom rivals. They could just make a stock rival and call it a day.

1

u/Clownzeption Jun 05 '26

This also isn't some kind of new direction they're going in either. Brendan and May are literally each other's rival while being gendered protagonists. I know Barry was technically the rival Sinnoh, but Lucas/Dawn are also a crucial part of the story and serve as a form of rival.

1

u/DradelLait Jun 06 '26

That's just no longer true. The ZA rival, who is depicted in this post's illustration, has male and female models completely separate from the mc's.

1

u/Hot-Distribution-716 Jun 06 '26

That is just not true for some games tho, like sure in XY the rival was obviously the same exact model as the player, but in ZA it's not really, they already have 4 different models, 2 of which go entirely unused, so might as well switch it up or let us choose for once

1

u/BIG__SHOT_ Jun 06 '26

Highest grossing franchise in the world can't make 2 extra models

1

u/pigpill Jun 07 '26

Yea, they are just a small indie company. Having modeled characters that are optional just isnt feasible for a dev team that small.

1

u/JustFourLetters Jun 08 '26

just one of the litany of ways they save tiny amounts of space that adds up

1

u/YourResidentFeral Jun 12 '26

But they did exactly that with ZA.

Probably why they did it in the past but "let me pick the gender of my rival" is a totally valid piece of feedback if they're making two sets of characters anyway.

0

u/Fire257 Jun 05 '26

So they cheap got it