>>42976244it was a 3D game playing by 2D rules (and so are all subsequent games)
game freak created a shit ton of incredibly high quality assets and then proceeded to do nothing more than use them as drop-in replacements for sprites and tilesets, the move to 3D raised the bar and expectations significantly while the core mechanics and gameplay stayed unchanged and as stale and formulaic as ever
this was game freak's chance to truly bring pokemon to life and instead they gave us yet another graphical update of RBY with some more shallowly implemented gimmicks tacked on as an afterthought, which fucking sucks because Kalos had a lot going for it as a comfy region.
it should have been a complete overhaul just like SS should have been, instead it was just more of the same, but the flaws in the formula are even more apparent because they can't hide behind shitty nostalgia trip sprite graphics anymore.
