So why do people say that Pokemon games have no story or a bad story? I just played through most of Fire Red up until getting wiped by Sabrina. The story is very present, it's just mostly fed to your through out of the way NPC dialogue and things like the books at Pokemon Mansion on Cinnabar Island.

Honestly, while I was playing it, I thought it was almost FromSoft tier of environmental story telling. Not quite at that level of course, but still. There was a clear effort to define this world and the present state of it. When you finally pierce through to the other side of Kanto from Rock Tunnel, the whiplash in Kanto's state of affairs is palpable. I think GSC followed this up in a really nice way too.