I gave it a chance in 2012 and once I got to Castelia City and realised it was just a glorified third version I dropped Pokémon completely until coming back to it in 2014-15. I was only 9 when it came out so I wasn't influenced by other people's opinions either.
I gave it another chance a couple years ago and after forcing my way through the slog that is the main story I learned I didn't really miss out. Gen 5 just feels like a tutorial all the way up to the Champion. There's too many arbitrary road blocks and tutorials and handholding for me to enjoy it. Where other games feel like they "let you go" after a couple hours in, I never got that feeling with the Gen 5 games.
And I'm not saying that just to shit on Gen 5 specifically. That is more or less my problem with all Pokémon games after HGSS. People always say that the gameplay and freedom taking a backseat for the story was worth it, but it really wasn't. No Pokémon game has a good story, let alone writing. The main appeal of the early Pokémon games was that you could build a team of a huge selection of cool monsters, customise them with TMs and nicknames, and go out and explore the world on your own, curb stomping NPCs in your path with your favourite monsters. Gen 5+ is the complete opposite of that. Nowadays it's about building a team of whatever arbitrary selection of Pokémon GF chooses to include in the game (Oh, sorry, your favourite Pokémon's dex slot was taken by Charizard and Gengar. Maybe next time! *laughs*), and make your way through a series of linear, handheld maps while taking on objectives in the order they come in, all while having to spam A through endless dialogue and tutorials.
I guess SV is more of what I'm looking for in Pokémon, but the ugly graphics, tranny character designs, glitches and bugs, lack of optimization, and refusal to move past, or even just improve the same old stale formula we've been getting for over 25 years just isn't enough for me.
