Why even play pokemon games? The campign is too easy by design. The characters are all shallow by design. Competitive is too grindy and unforgiving by design.

As a kid I enjoyed the games and found them challenging. I enjoyed catching pokemon because I felt like that pokemon was actually mine. As an adult I realize the campign is like playing with a shape sorter for 40+ hours. There's no point in catching pokemon because unless I grind, they're gonna be wrong IV/EV, nature, ability, no egg move SHITMONs that are useless outside of a brainless campign story. All the npcs/anime characters were all liars telling you to bond and care about the pokemon you caught.

There are so many other games with better campigns, characters, stories, graphics, and design. There's better games that let you build competitive skill right off the bat without a 40+ hour walking simulator tutorial.

Pokemon is terrible. Nothing about pokemon is good except it's concept. It's not even meant to be a video game, it's not meant to be a story, it's not even meant to be an anime. It's just a franchise to bait people into consumerism. It's the greatest example of "slop" media to ever exist.