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I always thought how the most impressive thing about Pokémon was the continued support for all Pokémon since gen 3.
The idea of the games is to have adventures and bond with Pokémon.
Even GameFreak understands that much, which is why they added features like following Pokémon, happiness and friendship mechanics,
and amie, and even went as far as to say they hope Pokémon will be passed down to descendants as family heirlooms in real life when Pokémon Bank was coming out.
There is an Iwata Asks interview where Iwata suggests cutting the less popular Pokémon to Masuds to which he replies they could never do that.
The Pokémon make the franchise what it is, and they are the reason why people play the games and engage with other related media.
When you take the Pokémon away you are left with a pretty run off the mill low budget jrpg with shallow and tried stories and character types.
