Kris is my #1, always and forever.
First female protagonist, and she has an awesome design, to boot. Always loved her dark blue hair and spiky pigtails, and her outfit's sleek and sporty, yet still comfortable and practical. This is a girl who's ready to go out on an adventure, kick Team Rocket's ass, catch Suicune, and become Champion, just as it should be.
I will
never forgive HGSS for discarding her in favor of an underage pinup Mario wannabe. Talk about a slap in the face to the games' first female protagonist (and all of the female fans for whom she was
very important). It's a giant black stain on what are otherwise solid remakes.
These two aren't far behind. Gen 3 did a great job of continuing the theme of strong, confident female protagonists started by Kris. May was another sporty girl who looks ready for an adventure, while Green (many call her "Leaf," but I prefer her having a color name like Red/Blue) was an excellent example of a girl who was unquestionably feminine, yet still looked strong and battle-ready.
Sadly, remakes weren't kind to these two, either. HGSS effectively retconned Green out of existence by making Red the only possible opponent on Mt. Silver, while ORAS gave May an overly cutesy, fanservicey makeover that was clearly inspired by her ditzy, annoying anime counterpart.
After a strong start in Gens 2 and 3, female protagonist designs largely went downhill after that. As soon as the anime decided to ditch Misty and exploit May as a piece of fresh meat for boys to drool at, GF quickly picked up on it and started to increasingly design female protagonists to be "eye candy" rather than girls ready for an adventure.
Dawn ran around the cold, mountainous Sinnoh region in nothing but a tiny pink miniskirt, while Lyra was wearing a literal
fetish Mario costume. Then, there was Rosa and her tiny yellow ruffle skort, while Serena had the "sexy schoolgirl" look with her short skirt and thigh-highs.
Hilda, however, was a brief respite from this regrettable trend. While her outfit was still a tad skimpy (although she's meant to be a teenager instead of a preteen, so it's not as problematic), she was still otherwise practically dressed and looked like a girl ready to kick some ass, just like Kris, May, and Green before her.
It's frustrating that she doesn't have an animated counterpart anywhere and has mostly been forgotten, although at least I didn't have to see the anime turn her into a ditzy coordinator/performer like it did May and Kris/Marina. Hopefully, if BW are ever remade, GF doesn't crap on Hilda the same way it did Kris, Green, and May in HGSS and ORAS.
Unless it's RBY/GS, I never play as the boy (although if it's HGSS, I'll definitely hunt down a "play as Kris" fan patch first). The biggest reason is because I'm a woman (duh), but another reason is that the male protagonists are usually just too bland and generic.
It's painfully obvious that Red is intended to be an "Average EveryDude," right down to the very basic baseball cap/t-shirt/jeans/sneakers attire. There's nothing really offensive about his design, or anything, but he does come off as very generic and more like a default avatar than a unique character in his own right.
Male protagonists got even blander beginning in Gen 4 when GF started designing them to be cheap knockoffs of Red with Ash's color scheme (all so Ashy-Boy could have a new outfit every gen). Look past the beret/scarf, and DP Lucas was literally just a palette swap of FRLG Red, while Hilbert was nothing more than a teenage version of FRLG Red. Put Hilbert in a visor and shorts, and you had Nate, while Calem was yet
another teenage version of FRLG Red. Yawn.
However, inbetween Gens 1 and 4, we did get a couple of boys who had more interesting designs and weren't bland Red knockoffs -- Gold and Brendan.
Gold (I refuse to call him "Ethan" ) was definitely inspired by Red and shared many features with him (black hair, baseball cap, black t-shirt, red jacket, grey backpack), but he still looked like a distinct character with his own style. He had a different color scheme, he wore his hat backwards, and he wore a hoodie/shorts instead of a light jacket/jeans. Gold's style takes pretty strong influence from late 90s skater fashion, which was no doubt meant to go with the
skateboard that was originally planned for GS.
As for Brendan, his
original design was
very awkward, and I can see why so many people disliked him when RS first came out. He looked like he had white hair, he was wearing a bulky, ugly tracksuit (in a
tropical region, nonetheless), and his official art made him look a little insane.
In retrospect, I appreciate RS Brendan far more now simply because he at least had his own look and wasn't a bland Red knockoff like all the guys that followed him, but the poor kid badly needed a nicer outfit, which Emerald definitely delivered. He was wearing clothing that was lighter, sleeker, and sportier (despite the shorts-over-pants look), and even his hat was made more obvious. In general, Emerald Brendan looked more mature and confident, and even if I'll never actually play as him, I still like his look a lot.
Of course, since Brendan is a player character I like, that means he got ruined in a remake, just like my favorite girls. GF clearly got caught halfway between keeping Brendan and replacing him, so they just threw his clothes on this tall spray-tanned kid (who seems to have abs that a prepubescent body shouldn't have) and told us he was supposed to be the same character. Uh, sure. >_>
