I really wish they did some alterations to the battles... like people said, it's excessively basic, it lacks some flavor. I guess it can't be changed withou making people angry, but it'd be nice to have at least a spinoff series with different and dynamic combat mechanics.
compared to gen two.
and then I never played gen four because I never had a DS for a very long time. I own at least one of the gen fours now, but I have no interest in playing pokemon without a friend. mainly, I did want to max out my pokedex in soul silver but, that won't ever happen.
gen three improved smaller but important things. like understanding stats to better max out your pokemon, and greatly improved graphics, but they removed a lot of features like day and night, having more than one area to explore. why the gameplay was noticably improved, it felt like half a game
gen 2 was the best. it had a ton of quality of life improvements over gen one, actually creative pokemon looks, twice the area to explore, and tons of features like day and night and the radio. better organization, etc.
Gen One was fine. Yes, you were still bound by some fairly basic principles in how the story was progressed and accessing certain areas was designed around said progress to limit players until later on but it was MOSTLY a hands-off approach.
I have no motivation to become invested in side characters which do not know how to shut up for more than two minutes at a time without spouting some random nonsense that just disturbs the flow of my immersion.
They can no longer do worldbuilding correctly anymore and it shows.
The story isn't really the main draw of the games anymore since multiplayer is so easy to jump into now, gen5 onwards introduced new means of EV training for that specific reason.
Sure, it's easy; at its core it is still meant for kids. But there have always been lategame options to make it entertaining + multiplayer. If that doesn't cut it...
You can try Pokémon Insurgence. It's an unofficial fan game, free to download, with a darker story (people die) and a lot harder.
Objection! Hau was the one time that a rival was weak to us, and he's the rival that couldn't bloody rival properly. Hopefully "Hop" (what a dumb name...) and any other rivals we have will actually be proper rivals this time around.
I always power level my one team to the point that outside the elite 4 which i only got to in 1 or 2 games, I was one shotting everything due to level and type difference.
it's also a game I can't get into anymore because of how boring and basic the combat is. it's less engaging than classic FF.
Most of the people complaining about it getting easier are people complaining about quality of life changes. The base game is, and always was, easy. And it's very easy to only make it easier for yourself, by, say, catching everything, grinding for levels. You can also NOT, if you prefer challenge.
@Austin Werling while the games have become more complicated they have managed to also become a lot easier at the same time because the complicated parts are mostly behind the scenes or things you don't tend to think about.
