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The climax events/going through long caves/victory road run is obviously sped up in the game, but in-universe those events would most likely take at least days to accomplish. Except for storming the plasma castle or Silph. Co, which is much more awesome if thought about as being done in just one day.
The Eterna Forest in Platinum and pretty much every other buddy sequence in the game would take at least a whole day each, enough in-universe for the trainer and the buddy to actually get to know each other. I like to think Cheryl and Lucas/Dawn took one or two days to get ouf of the forest, while rescuing Mira from that cave took a whole day and they only got out at night. At the same time, storming Stark Mountain with Buck only saw them getting out by the morning of the next day, as did the Marley sequence through the fog.
Going through the victory road would be a week(s)-long quest in and on itself. I think people often sleep in there and there is some sort of safety measure to make sure a wild pokemon won't come fuck you over in your sleep.
Also, Barry is the true prodigy in the D/P/Pt games. Why? Because he got to be one of the strongest damn trainers in the land....Without a pokedex. He bolted before Prof. Rowan could give him one.
