>>25014477Yes, those are good examples too. I simply used Rocket because it's a stark contrast to Flare. Rocket had no motivation other than simple greed and they still seemed like more villainous characters than Team Flare.
Galactic was a pretty damn dark plot, and Ghetsis was great. I think Gen 5 hit the sweet spot, and I don't care what anyone thinks of that opinion. It still could have gone a teensy bit more mature, but it wasn't bad by any means. It played more like an older kids shounen anime than the rest of the games in terms of plot and characters, and I was okay with that. Gen 6 just played like a sunday morning PBS program for toddlers in terms of story and characters.
Point being, the majority of Pokemon is very fluffy and overly emphasizes the kid-friendly stuff, while the best games we've had of the series are the ones that featured villains with darker motivations (Simple greed, ascension to godhood, etc) than stupid shit (Dress nice and get money! Hurr durr let's make a bigger ocean!) and when people who aren't skilled at story telling try to replicate this, you end up with a game that features Demon-Type pokemon, and murdered parents and all kinds of ridiculous shit because they don't understand the power of subtlety and moderation.
Gen 5 worked really well because it had dark themes that were touched on but not overly elaborated. We knew that Alder's Volcarona died, but we didn't have to suffer through a scene of him screaming in agony and holding it's bloody corpse. Ghetsis threatens to kill you, but does so in an indirect way then never gets to follow through. The heavier stuff is there but is taken in stride instead of going "HEY! LOOK AT THIS TERRIBLE THING AND CRY AND BE SHOCKED AT THE BLOOD! OMG!"
If someone with a grasp of story-telling did a darker pokemon game, I'd bet it could be awesome, but as is, nobody has managed it yet.
