>>49813305I didn't get the feeling of going through America on a journey at all during it, just the impression of a bunch of really bland cities. Sinnoh unironically felt more like an American roadtrip than Unova for me and the other mechanics in the region helped give the feeling too. But that's not the real issue
I could go on and on what I don't like about Gen 5 but frankly I think the region itself is just boring, and I think it's because they were starting to run dry on ideas to expand the actual gameplay.
In addition to this, every gen from 1-4 innovated massively when it came to battles/stats/moves, I can't think of anything that gen 5 did besides cram more Pokémon on the field at once and just adding to what other gens already did (hidden abilities, weather spam, etc).
2 added more types to curb the strength of the powerful types from gen 1/holdable items
3 added abilities/weather that add more depth to the battle and give certain Pokémon interesting niches
4 added physical/special spilt and massive quality of life improvements like power items and fucking global trade
But after this they stop innovating to any large degree when it comes to mechanics in any reasonable fashion, all they do is either remove stuff or make tiny additions to what is already there, or when they do it's something not really needed like fairy type/megas when all they had to do was reexamine Dragon type or buff other weaker types/Pokémon. I think gen 5 is the clear beginning of when Pokémon shifted to focusing on the mediocre story and adding one off gimmicks rather than giving the experience of a journey and trying to keep the gameplay fresh but still keeping a certain balance. The lack of any real new features displays to me that the franchise as a whole was running out of steam and they were trying to disguise it with the subpar story and reshuffling of characters/progression in the anime.
