>>32726711I know exactly what you mean, as I made the same exact statement yesterday about raising monsters, seeing new places and conquering towns. The only difference was, I added the story and characters as things I've come to enjoy.
It gives me a shared experience, a shared adventure, which is more fun than a solo experience to me. If I'm forced to watch a story and I'm giving the choice between seeing a quiet character alone do shit, or have others accompany him, I would choose the latter. If you don't want a story altogether in Pokemon, then that's a different problem. To me, adding a story doesn't take away from those RPG elements. All of that is still here, but with more.
I don't understand the statement that the story always revolves around you. That hasn't happened since Gen 2, where the Evil Teams started getting goals, and those goals got the focus. In RSE, there's nothing on you. You're just fighting the evil team. There's no other role you have. You're doing that in SM as well. Only there's someone even more important this time, someone not evil.
Personally, I liked the SM protagonists the most, simply because of their role. The role was much more interesting than any before to me, as you're not just fighting the evil team, but also inspiring and giving hope to someone to stand up for themselves, at the same time, you're playing a big role in establishing a Pokemon League, helping out Interpol and building up nice relationships with every character you meet, especially Gladion and Hau. That gave the protagonists more personality for me, even without dialogue. And I liked that, more than anything before.
I normally get attached to the Pokemon I use, unless they're really disappointing and just borderline unusable. That remained the same, but this time, I got attached even Pokemon that weren't mine, like Nebby and Null. That was a really nice feeling.
SM was just more suited for my needs. Hopefully, you'll get something you enjoy next time.
