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I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean stripping actual mechanical features (like those to do with battle, or pokemon stat mechanics) and instead means simplifying/refining the in-game experience and the new pokemon designs as well.
one of the things i like most about generation 1 games is that they don't distract you with fancy in-game features that really do nothing. there wasn't much memory they could work with so what you were invested in was the experience of beating the 8 gyms/elite 4, catching pokemon, and finding secrets. progressing the story. i remember being so invested in the story as a kid. when i first played it, i had genuine emotional responses when the rival showed up and fought me. and when events happened in game, they were important.
do you even bat an eye when you take a bullet train in the new pokemon? or a boat? you do these things once, and then you just end up flying around all the time. and you only use towns for their core features. move relearner, name rater. move tutors. a guy that will tell you some specific information about your pokemon. all those types of characters are fine and even necessary, but there is no sense of adventure in the new games because the nature of the games actually INTENDS the player to use aspects of the game like digital tools and not like something real that the player is experiencing. granted, black/white were close to getting back to the core of pokemon's in-game experience by having a rival that really felt like a character (N).
every pokemon game has felt progressively less like an adventure, and more like a thing that you need to get through so you can have a cool team, with gen 6 the least adventure-like. of course, i like the new games; i think they are good. however, they are not ingenious like the first game. the in-game adventures are nearly forgettable. if he means take things to their roots, i hope it means delivering a pokemon game that, when beaten, feels like i really BEAT it.
