Quote Originally Posted by Roto13 View Post
I think the problem here is you expect Pokemon to be like Final Fantasy when that's not what it is. Pokemon is designed with competition in mind. It's almost like a fighting game that way. New games are added basically to expand the number of moves and monsters available. That's why they all interact like each other. If they made any radical changes to Tekken, you can be sure it would piss off Tekken tournament players. I do agree with you about the rain thing, though. That's stupid. I turn off battle animations when I'm in a rainy place.

As for the story, I'm going to say the same thing I say whenever anyone complains about the story in any other game. If you want a story, go read a book. Complaining about the story in a video game is like complaining about the story in Monopoly.
The thing is I don't expect it to be like Final Fantasy. If a game has any kind of pretenses at a story, they can not repeat the same damn thing almost verbatim three times over. Mix it up a little.

Pokemon has this bizarre dichotomy, it's "for kids" and yet it has EV training, complex breeding systems, and all kinds of other things that are clearly designed for an older audience. So obviously there is some effort to target a wider range of people.

And the multiplayer thing is a bit weak of a defense. A lot of people who would or do want to play Pokemon don't have access to/don't care about multiplayer. The game is centrally based off a basic interaction with others in the need to find others who have the game as well and trade for the pokemon you want. Of course, I've been saying for years that pokemon should be an MMORPG where a) the inane "storyline" is gone, b) the huge world aspect that's always been an aspect of the anime is brought to the foreground and c) it's not a remake of the same game with minimal graphical improvement and a few extra gimmicks.

And as far as the Spin-Off games, I tend to find them uninteresting. The major aspect of the games, i.e. the ability to assemble a team of trained pokemon, to breed, and to collect is the aspect I find most appealing about it. The problem is they can't give you that without just rehashing the game again and again and again. I played R/B/Y, I don't need to play it three more times. At least G/S had the decency to let you go back to the original setting, which I thought was awesome and cannot believe they haven't done since.