>>58700654I agree to some extent, but I think you take it too far. A game is more than just a challenge to overcome. And I know this is true, because there's a reason you're playing Pokemon and not just balancing spreadsheets, solving math equations, or doing any number of other things that challenge your brain more than Pokemon ever could. It's because there's something else that drew you to Pokemon - something in the world, the characters, and the presentation. Challenge is important too, don't get me wrong, but those other things are what made people fall in love with the franchise, and what continues to inspire people to seek out and to create romhacks. It's that immersion into the game on a level beyond it just being a brain exercise, that is achieved by having the player engage in systems that aren't always built around pure efficiency, but exist just to give the game character. When you strip away too much of that for the sake of optimization and efficiency, you lose a lot of that magic that elevates the game beyond just being numbers on a screen. Loading screens are one thing, I don't think anybody likes staring at those for ages. Grinding is a grey area imo, I think too much of it is a drag but minimal amounts are acceptable. But when you're using "QoL" to skip dialogue, travel, animations, and so on, then you've lost the plot imo, and the optimization mindset is a slippery slope that often leads to justifying these things. At that point, just go do algebra if you only want to stretch your brain. But that's not why we're here, and that's not why such a robust and passionate community has been built around this.
