>>48038985I had the opposite experience.
I'm a Sinnoh zoomer, I'll admit it. First game was Diamond. Played Pokemon alongside many other DS games. I liked Pokemon's gameplay most. I played Digimon World Dawn, wasn't half bad and I loved grinding new evolutions but the encounter rate was awful and exploring places wasn't very fun. Played Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, I liked the exploration and battle system but Fusing monsters isn't as nice as Pokemon's system of progression with Evolution, and a lot of the monsters were just recolors.
Fast forward years later and I got more into emulation and hacked my PS Vita and 3DS. I played Cyber Sleuth and I liked it for the reasons I liked Dawn, however a lot of the story and dialogue would just drone on and on and there was no good exploration at all. I played SMT and the monsters are just tools you're expected to throw away, I must say I do love the Devil Survivors a lot.
So after playing all these RPGs and more, I'm being quite serious when I say Pokemon is my favorite monster catcher. The world is a lot like our own and nice to progress through, the designs are memorable, training pokemon is satisfying, there's comp and battle facilities for those who want more, and playing them is just a good time in general. I always came back for more Pokemon. The competition just doesn't scratch the same itch. My taste in games have grown but I think I'll always be interested in Pokemon. Gamefreak would have to screw up really, really badly to turn me off from a Pokemon game forever.
