>>54821485I guess people disregard talking about how it was as just nostalgia, and the experience is different now so anyone going back to give a fresh opinion is missing some context.
DP were the first games I bought at launch, prior to that I either got games as gifts or saved up for them, I was usually months to years late to the party as a result. By gen3 all my irl friends outgrew pokemon games, only person I had to play with was my sister, but thanks to wifi I was able to play with forum friends. Friend codes were a bitch and more time was spent coordinating schedules than actually playing. GTS worked great if you offered. Slow engine didn't matter vs backlit screens, no more battery fuss, and a new adventure after a long wait.
For me pokemon is about collecting, exploring/immersion, and lore/world-building. Pal park was what sold me the game after learning that despite moving my original collection to crystal it was 100% doomed to rot and putting in the work to get a 386 living dex in sapphire - it was fun but not something I wanted to repeat. After the regis I figured there'd be lots to discover in a game on better hardware with more features - and there was: arceus's plates with their inscriptions, rotom's mansion, spiritomb (number of visits was excessive though), the lake trio and the region's history, stumbling upon giratina, and once hackers/dns servers made it accessible the mythical events were really cool. There were returning features that made the world feel more real too - day/night, contests so pokemon aren't used EXCLUSIVELY for battles, secret bases so I had my own place to live, and growing berries.
Story-wise I remember being shocked that team Galactic actually blew up the lake and it showed all the magikarp flopping around in pain/dying, but otherwise didn't think much on it. I was there to see what story they wanted to tell and meet the characters that filled the world, not judge its literary merits. Barry was always annoying as fuck.
