>>57703111The difference is that gen 1 was made by a borderline indie studio that taught itself half its skills from reverse engineering games, was trying not to lose faith from Nintendo asking them to finish the fucking game already, was losing employees, was trying to do some new things, etc. This is a far cry from it being the biggest fucking franchise on Earth and yet still behaving like they're a smol indie studio and always being falling behind other long running franchises that are half as profitable.
I was in this position years ago, gen 1 was already pretty lackluster compared to other successful RPG's on the market, older gamers didn't get it. This is the same time where you got stuff like FF7 in Japan and Fallout 1 in the US, both huge and impressive games for the era and lot of baby's first RPG's as much as Pokemon was. Even against other games on the aging Gameboy, you had RPG's with better graphics and actual stories, action RPG's even, some first person dungeon crawler too.
But that said, Pokemon did deserve its success. The monsters were appealing, despite not being being the first mon game, they were an even bigger focus than anything before and not just a means to an end. The collection aspect and being able to trade and battle others was innovative.
So I'm in the opposite position now. Gen 1 is the only one you can really excuse, gen 2 a close second
