I was huge Pokemon fan when it first came out, even before. I wrote a paper in 7th grade about how big it was in Japan and the potential for it doing the same here. I was the first kid at my school to buy it, played it every day at lunch for what must have been months with my friends, but every sequel has been less and less interesting to me. Color and more pokemon was a good step for a sequel, but the increasingly complex and difficult-to-impossible-without-a-strategy-guide ways of getting the pokemon has gotten ridiculous and the gameplay is still essentially spamming the same couple buttons, switching pokemon (especially when leveling up craptastic pokemon) a lot depending on what enemy comes up and doing a lot of running around to different locations.
It is time for Pokemon to stop making these tiny generational evolutions and actually think about rebuilding from scratch with an eye towards giving us a story worth following, some characters worth remembering and gameplay worth picking up the next one for. How about an 'active-time' battle system? How about moving beyond two sprites that wiggle at each other? How about full 3d graphics on one of their home consoles (and not just an arena-style half-game)? How about a more dynamic world where there is a better reason for you not to be able to get around freely than your lack of a badge?
The premise is so rich and the potential so vast that it is a damn shame they keep pumping out these half-assed remakes and sequels that may as well be the same old game with a few sprite changes and a minigame here or there.
Bah, HUMBUG, I say.
