>>53874597>>designs have gone downhill since the first genI'm not a genwunner so I disagree, sorry. If anything the newer designs are so incredibly far removed that you can barely consider it a linear drop in quality.
>>all of them have tried and failed to copy the aesthetic and feeling of the first genPokemon is so far removed from what it was back then that it'd far more accurate to say that it barely even tries to copy how it was in the past.
>>gameplay that tries and fails to be different by slapping new gimmicks onThe gimmicks are there to spice up the already solid basis (whether they're well executed or not is a different story). When a gimmick goes as far as to fundamentally change the way the battle system works then I'll entertain this point.
>>ultimately a game series that only works within the context of itself and is judged by those meritsYes, and? I've played plenty of games, I'm well aware of the faults this series has in regards to it's contemporaries. It becomes glaringly obvious to see that GF has never been THAT good at making games (or at least RPGs) on a fundamental level when you so much as dip your pinky toe into the greater pool of the genre. That doesn't change the fact that among the stuff Pokemon does well it does incredibly well within it's own niche-one that's hard to replicate without coming off as trying way too hard, which a good chunk of indie monster catchers do.
Hell, one of my favorite things about Yo-Kai Watch and one of the main reasons I hold it in high regards (especially 3, as I'll repeat) is that it managed to foster a competitive scene that was actually fairly in-depth, functional, and most of all REASONABLY BALANCED within a battle system that is about as far removed from Pokemon as you could get, which not even Digimon can manage.
