Gonna give this a bump and leave this here with the recent discussion of Colress potentially being in S/M.
So with that in mind, any thoughts on this?
Alright I'm here I'm ready.
First thing I want to point out is his quotation, "It's so frustrating! If only we could talk to Pokémon in order to bring out their power! But there's no way a person like that could ever exist!" is meant to be dramatic irony--the
player knows very well a person like that exists, but Colress doesn't (a nearby NPC even makes mention of this). It doesn't reference the RotomDex or any other technology that allows Pokémon to communicate with people. Rather, it references N.
The idea that he later went to work on a device to allow people and Pokémon to communicate together, though, could be stretched to apply to the RotomDex. But if he works in the Aether Corp. too and was behind the creation of the RotomDex, that would warrant him being more than just a simple cameo, no?
All his talk about bringing out the true potential in Pokémon
could apply to Z-Moves (we still don't know if they're going to make them out to be something that "requires a strong bond" or not) but it really sounds a lot more connected to Mega Evolution (the hiker reference in XY points to this, too). When Colress challenges you to rematches in the post-game of B2W2 he even says "The invisible force that exists between you and your Pokémon... This time I will determine what it is!" It's way easier to imagine that "invisible force" as being the concept of "strong bonds" which we already know is used in the lore of Mega Evolution. Sure Z-Moves could make use of it too but then--I dunno, maybe it would feel a bit too repetitive? It's just an attack, after all. And wouldn't it make more sense for Prof. Kukui, the professor who studies
Pokémon attacks, to be more involved in that area of study?
In summary, I can totally imagine Colress playing some part in the creation of the technology used in Alola. And he's one of my most favorite series characters so I would totally love to see it happen. But if that does end up happening--I feel he would be just important enough to have an "upgrade" to his team, and the most appropriate would honestly be "Mega Klinklang." But in regards to that happening, well, we'll have to see... As a big fan of his character, it would be disappointing to see him in the games but still not have achieved the power he's been researching so thoroughly (think: all the fans who got excited by seeing the new ORAS NPC with Flygon as his ace only to be heartbroken by it still not having a Mega).