>>40418182Having good designs is clearly a part of its popularity, even if you feel current designs are lacking. Obviously it's subjective, but at the same time given that the vast majority of its profits come from merchandise, which stems directly from people liking the designs of pokemon enough to want to buy physical things with them on it, it'd be silly to say that's not a selling factor.
>bloated rosterYou word this as if it's not actually a good thing. In a game where a large part of the entertainment comes from finding, collecting, and trading things, it helps a lot to have a lot of things to find, collect, and trade. It also brings a ton of variety to the aspect of team-building as well.
>designed for casualsWhy do you say this, but then say that it doesn't have "straightforward gameplay that isn't bloated with bullshit"? Unless you're referring to the "good" part when you laugh at it, which is subjective. But I feel that there's nothing inherently wrong with the game having fairly simple mechanics if it makes up for that with a large roster allowing for a variety of strategies, which goes in hand with multiplayer features to make for a pretty decent gameplay experience that earns its popularity to a degree.
All of this being said, yeah, the games do have pretty weak aspects. Especially after the start of gen 6. I would genuinely love to see a good alternative to Pokemon that isn't total shit.
