No Character Customization in Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire?

Word on the street is that we won’t be able to customize our characters in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire like we could in Pokemon X/Y.  If this turns out to be a final decision, then it’s going to be a disappointment.

The biggest part of Pokemon is putting yourself in the virtual world where all kinds of creatures can be caught, trained, and battled. Inside a computer no bigger than my laptop, there’s world where over 500 pokemon of different shapes, weights, etc., live. It’s a magical place where your backpack is literally unfillable. It can even fight a full sized bike inside. 

Jokes aside, the whole point of an adventure RPG like the Pokemon series is that you can picture yourself being in this world – everything is your decision, the Pokemon are your property, and all the accomplishments are yours and yours alone. Nothing can top the experience of seeing a digital version of yourself being inducted into the Pokemon Hall of Fame and being declared Pokemon League Champion of the Kalos Region.

No Customization is a Step Backwards.

In older Pokemon games, all we were able to change about our characters were our names. Not a lot, right? We didn’t mind then, because that’s all we were accustomed to. But now things are very different. When Nintendo decided to take the Pokemon world into 3D, they also decided to expand how much we could customize our characters.  With newer titles like Pokemon X/Y, we could change our skin/hair/eye color, we could buy different clothes, accessories, and bags. Heck, we could even change hairstyles, as long as we had the money. With all these customizations available, our expectations for future games changed.  Now we EXPECT all these customization features. It’s as normal for us now as only picking our names was then. 

But in the two new games, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it looks like we’re not going to be able change any more than our names. That’s kind of like giving people scientific calculators to do a lot of complex math problems, then the next day those calculators are taken away, and you are forced to do what little work you can accomplish by hand.  Doesn’t make much sense right?

Wait! There’s Some Logic Here.

Even if I don’t agree with it, I understand why Nintendo made this move. They want to keep the feel of the old games intact, since these new games are remakes.  Nintendo wants you to feel like you are playing the old-school games, which had a unique-looking hero who couldn’t be customized.

Also, this is the only Pokemon game where the main character actually has a father.  The dad’s name is Norman. He’s a white male and the character’s mother is a white female, so they wouldn’t be able to have a child with dark skin. Maybe Nintendo just didn’t want to leave room for less-than-appropriate questions about the main character’s biological parents: 

“Honey, why does Billy look like Professor Oak?”

See what I mean? That can get complicated really fast. Hopefully this decision is not final, as this could be a small blemish on an otherwise perfect-sounding game.