>>37005821This so much. Of course, BW1 look like masterpieces now compared to everything that came after them, and I don't think that they're bad games by any means, but it's the point in the series where I felt like something was starting to change, like they were making the games too streamlined and removing the necessity for the players to think for themselves, in favor of telling shitty anime stories that take themselves way too seriously, and bending over backwards at every opportunity to make the player feel soooo much more special and talented and epic than everyone else around them. From BW1 on (maybe with the exception of BW2), all these things just got more and more extreme, to the point where the games just use endless cutscenes to railroad you in a specific direction every 5 minutes, and 10 year old kids are literally having legendary Pokemon forced into their possession and traveling into alternate universes to save all of existence.
I have little faith in gen 8 right now, but there are a couple of things keeping me hopeful for it. Namely, LPGE distinctly existing as the casual bait, meaning that gen 8 MIGHT be getting made with that in mind and can have a reason to distinguish itself as more of an experience for the "core audience". I think I might pass on it at launch if the inevitable pre-release datamine doesn't blow my socks off, but if it really does just continue the trend of modern Pokemon games, I'm probably just gonna get off this wild ride and content myself with replaying gens 1-5 + ROM hacks ad nauseum.
At any rate, my favorite thing about the Pokemon series more than anything else is the designs of the Pokemon themselves, so I can still view them and draw fanart and such without having to spend a single cent. So there's always that, even if gen 8 is the absolute worst case scenario.
