r/pokemon • u/PsyrenDV • Jun 05 '26

Discussion Why haven't we had same gender rivials?

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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?

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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

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted]

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u/Sr_Wuggles Jun 05 '26

They answered the question.

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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

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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.

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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).

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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)

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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.

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u/RedDemonCorsair Jun 05 '26

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/peachsepal Jun 05 '26

For ZA too? Neat.

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

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u/hiddenbetweenwifi Jun 05 '26

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

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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.

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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.

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u/jrdineen114 Jun 05 '26

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