Either Gold/Silver or LeafGreen/FireRed improved on nearly everything that Red/Blue/Yellow had. Everything that came after is garbage dump to milk the franchise.
For the sake of at least giving it a try, I recently bought Pokemon Black, and between the groan-worthy translations (I HOPE it's the translations, and that someone wasn't actually paid to write this stuff...) the fifth group of people using the identical ape trio of Panpour/Pansear/Pansage, and some just plain stupid gameplay decisions, I kind of want to die.
The franchise has become so overly-nurturing to its kiddie base that it's just sucked a lot of the appeal out of it for me. For example, in the first gym, the theme is actually to pit you against one of three gym leaders which is decided based on the starter you chose at the beginning. You know what? Not bad. I can roll with it. That actually sounds interesting.
But then before you can fight him, you're told to go to a side-area first for some arbitrary reason. Whatever, can't be that bad, right?
And then- I seriously wish I was kidding- He GIVES you a level 10 Pokemon which cinches beyond any shadow of a doubt that you'll win the first time you fight your gym leader if you use it.
What.
Look, I get it, Nintendo, you want to keep things accessible to kids and Pokemon was never intended for an adult audience anyway, but taking the difficulty out of Pokemon does NOT increase its appeal to anyone. We didn't spent hours leveling up Pokemon to take on the Elite Four when we were twelve because it was easy, we did it because we LIKED THE CHALLENGE.
I'm not even complaining about the Pokemon designs anymore, because stupid as they've become they could eventually be forgiven, but when a game becomes boring, it's not worth playing.
For the sake of at least giving it a try, I recently bought Pokemon Black, and between the groan-worthy translations (I HOPE it's the translations, and that someone wasn't actually paid to write this stuff...) the fifth group of people using the identical ape trio of Panpour/Pansear/Pansage, and some just plain stupid gameplay decisions, I kind of want to die.
The franchise has become so overly-nurturing to its kiddie base that it's just sucked a lot of the appeal out of it for me. For example, in the first gym, the theme is actually to pit you against one of three gym leaders which is decided based on the starter you chose at the beginning. You know what? Not bad. I can roll with it. That actually sounds interesting.
But then before you can fight him, you're told to go to a side-area first for some arbitrary reason. Whatever, can't be that bad, right?
And then- I seriously wish I was kidding- He GIVES you a level 10 Pokemon which cinches beyond any shadow of a doubt that you'll win the first time you fight your gym leader if you use it.
What.
Look, I get it, Nintendo, you want to keep things accessible to kids and Pokemon was never intended for an adult audience anyway, but taking the difficulty out of Pokemon does NOT increase its appeal to anyone. We didn't spent hours leveling up Pokemon to take on the Elite Four when we were twelve because it was easy, we did it because we LIKED THE CHALLENGE.
I'm not even complaining about the Pokemon designs anymore, because stupid as they've become they could eventually be forgiven, but when a game becomes boring, it's not worth playing.
