>>46170630Most of the games are aimed at children's audience who probably don't care about having social interactions with the NPCs of the game, but beyond just that most of the characters are underage and in their pre-teen years so I imagine writing that would be strange or difficult. Persona works well with its Confidant System because the game is built so heavily around it that its basically unavoidable. You have to socialize and do side stuff to better develop the games mechanics and features otherwise you start to suffer. Pokemon's not really about doing a bunch of side stuff to progress with the main stuff, its just go to point A, B, C, D, E, and F to beat Gym Challenge get badge maybe get stopped along the way by an antagonist and beat them up so you can go back to the whole gym challenge deal.
I do think you could pull something like this off in a Pokemon fan game that's not aimed at children and has actual tangible benefits for this. Here's something I wrote up a while back as an example that *might* work:
Take this all with a grain of salt as I don't make games: A romance or simply companion system with unique cutscenes and side quests, alongside some benefit to boosting friendships, capture rates with the type that the individual's ace is, and probably shiny chances with some pokemon. I might even do something like when all the side quests are completed you get some unique pokemon with its hidden ability and maybe a unique move example:
>Relationship with Aroma Lady/Man: Easier chance to capture Grass-type pokemon, side quests award you in berries or flowers as held items, completion rewards you with a unique Bellossom (or something similar) that is of a different type (Grass/Fairy or Grass/Ground) and has a unique ability to go alongside it.>It also has some "Lovers Ribbon" on it to signify its importance to both parties.>Optional: You can give your romantic partner a pokemon as a trade and it will grow and be on their team for the rest of the game. 
