What keeps you coming back to Pokemon? I loved the first two generations like everyone else, but after that things became very stale. I liked the Gen I and II remakes but the rest of Gen III and IV were just unappealing. 151 Pokemon to catch was cool back in the day, an extra hundred was a nice addition. To get all 251 was a daunting task, but very possible (well you may need to use a glitch for Mew and a cheat device for Celebi if you weren't lucky enough to get them at events). Now however there are so many Pokemon that it's basically meaningless.

Gamefreak has tried to make the formula of the games less stale by making story more important, but I find that the story is just painful to suffer through in Pokemon.

I tried Pokemon White a couple months ago since I've heard endless praise for it. I actually liked it quite a bit, It cut some of the fat out, HM slaves were no longer necessary for main areas of the game (except for the Dream Yard), N wasn't as terrible a villain as all the rest, the ending was actually unexpected (ending area, I mean), and having all old Pokemon inaccessible until after the end of the game was actually pretty cool, it made feel like I did when I first played Pokemon Red

I digress. This series seems terribly stale to me. What keeps you coming back? Why are you looking forward to X and Y?