I've never been much of a Pokémon player. In fact, the first game I ever played was Pokémon Moon in late 2016 and I basically only did that because a girl I was into at the time was a huge Pokémon nerd.

But I've been quietly observing the trajectory of this game from the outside, and I can't help but feel bad for the fans.

Pokémon games have the potential to be so much more than the reskinned garbage they've been putting out for the last X years.

Why can't they try to innovate a little? Or I guess I should say: why can't they try at all?

The graphics are shit, the animations are shit, the gameplay is shit, and they're coming up with asinine restrictions like excluding half the National Pokédex from a main title. Why?

Why can't they make an open world BotW-style Pokémon game? Is this franchise really nothing but a cashcow that they're milking until the end of time?