2nd Gen Ethan or Kris?

In Pokémon Crystal, for the first time ever, we were permitted to choose from either boy or girl when kicking off our adventure. Boy character is commonly known by either Gold or Ethan, and for girl, she is referred to as Kris (Lyra in HeartGold and SoulSilver, if I'm not mistaken).

Anyhow, for those of us who had been following Pokémon video game series from get-go, what was our initial reaction when we were introduced to this feature--did we like, or dislike? Which person did we wind up choosing, and what did we name them? If this selection weren't available in Crystal (or any other future game), how would we feel?

I personally liked it. Playing Gold and Silver, Ethan just didnt call out to me as his sprite closely resembled Red from RBY. The only subtle difference was that the hat was backwards. Kris on the other hand appeared more defined. And she was blue instead of red. I liked that detail.


I think if they didnt implement it, it wouldve not stand out as much and made me care less about pokemon

I loved the fact that we could finally be a girl, despite Kris's general looks being a bit odd. It added to the charm of pokemon being your own customized adventure, rather than to just kick an adventure off with a half prenamed male protagonist like in any little platform or fighting game. If we could still only play as male... I seriously think lot of people would have complained to GameFreak. But maybe we also would have seen less cuddlycute pokemon and the whole franchise would have been less accessible for (and accepted among) girls. Which would have been a real pity.

I believe the same thing. There might have been less cute pokemon. But I also believe the stories and even how we see pokemon would be different or remain the same since Gen 1. Although Gen 1 had its fair share of cute pokemon.

Shiny_Unown said:

I believe the same thing. There might have been less cute pokemon. But I also believe the stories and even how we see pokemon would be different or remain the same since Gen 1. Although Gen 1 had its fair share of cute pokemon.

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Though, I know a lot of guys who love cute pokémon too! But maybe that's also got to do with the wide acceptance and broadness of the pokémon fanbase these days. Girls, boys, kids and grown ups... Anything is okay and we all have our favorites.

Certainly wouldn't have been quite the same if the protagonist remained male 8)

Gotta hand it to Kris here. Ethan is pretty cool, but he kinda looks like a watered down Red in my opinion. However, I love Kris' design, and I wish she was the female player character in HG/SS instead of Lyra.

I preffered Ethan, but if Kris was on HG/SS it probably would be her because Ethan's remake looks dreadful (but Lyra is worse)

Of coarse i personally didnt use it although it was a very well made sprite for the time i kinda wish she was in the HGSS remakes to see what they changed. It was nice to see that gamefreak was opening up to females and noticing that they should have been implemented before.

I'll always vote for Ethan, just not the remake. He looks way better in the original, like a much better version of Red.

I just thought it was the neatest thing ever and so of course I chose her and named her one of the defaults.

Well I liked it cause in gold and silver the game starts after choosing name only and no gender choice which was a surprise for me when I played first time but the feature was introduced in remakes of heart gold and soul silver which was a nice things to see.

As long as we're talking about the originals, it's Gold, *not* "Ethan." Sorry, but seeing the original Gen 2 male PC being called "Ethan" just rankles me. That was never a preset name for him before Gen 4, nor did any of the adaptations call him that. You might as well be calling Red "Ash."

Anyways... I definitely have to go with Kris. Not just because I'm female, but because she simply had a more unique design. Gold looked too much like a mashup of Red and Tracey from the anime, and he felt very generic, in general.

Kris, on the other hand, had those wild blue pigtails and no silly baseball cap ruining her look. She looked like she could've been a Rival or Gym Leader just as much as a Player Character, which I liked a lot. Too bad they didn't bring her back in HGSS (one of the few marks against those games).

I just went with Kris because of uniqueness. While playing as Gold, I thought I was playing as Red which sucked.

I'm also one of those who would say "thank you very much for Kris". As a girl I finally wouldn't feel strange giving the male protagonist my name (which of course is female). When they released the first girl ever to a Pokemon game it finally felt as if it really is ME inside of that world.
Other than that I just love Kris' design alot. Usually I hate the color blue alot so naturally I would like Ethan better than her but her color is not a blue but rather a CRYSTAL blue which I happen to like alot.

So YAY for Kris! <3

Ethan, because he looked very manly on G/S/C (though he looked awful on the remakes)

I played as Ethan because I'm a guy, but I much prefer Kris' attitude and appearance.

Much prefer Kris over Ethan, was kinda disappointed to see her not return to HGSS though.

Hoenn said:

Much prefer Kris over Ethan, was kinda disappointed to see her not return to HGSS though.

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This.

It was something I could appreciate Crystal for, it gave us a cool new female character that would proceed to give us more in the later games.

As a girl I was so happy that I could finally play as a girl. Not only that but Kris was really unique when we look at all the girl protags from start to present. She was the only one with blue hair, why have we not had cool colored hair since then!? Biggest let down was Kris not returning for HG/SS. I play as Ethan often in those games because I find Lyra's design intolerable.

I personally like Kris, but I play as Gold because, well, I'm a boy. I have a friend who prefers to play as female characters, but, unlike him, I prefer to play as my own gender. However, I do have Minecraft skins of both Gold and Kris.