I'm not a mindless consoomer like everyone else who replied, so I understand it, OP.
It's like falling out of love with someone. Here's Pokemon, something that we've been with from the very beginning, for me the beginning of the franchise was when I was young enough that I can hardly even fathom a world without it. And it wasn't just a video game, it was an obsession, for years and years. Anything branded, anything released, anything remotely related to Pokemon was something we would eat up and ask for seconds of.
So instead of it just being easy to walk away from the series as it gets worse every year, we find ourselves stuck.
>>58607106 is correct in that Pokemon is not just a game, so engage in another part of it if you want. But that's also why it's hard to escape it, by design. If you're truly obsessed with Pokemon you've spent thousands of hours playing the games, watching the anime, reading the manga and novelizations and wiki articles and walkthroughs, collecting cards and figures and clothes; it might even be hard to find an aspect of your life that *isn't* touched by Pokemon in some way. It feels like more than dropping something you dislike, it feels like your entire life up until now wasn't built on much of anything at all, doesn't it?For me, I refuse to play the slop from Game Freak any longer. I haven't bought a game since the dexcut and I never plan to again. But I still engage with the setting and creatures I love because I want to remember. I still buy and collect cards, I still play casually, I still watch the old Ashnime every now and then, I still enjoy buying tie-ins and I'd even play spinoffs if we were allowed to have them. If I had a Switch 2 I'd buy the new farm game.
So it is kind of depressing, watching yourself grow apart from something that's inseparable from so many happy memories. But you have to learn to say "no more", and it doesn't have to be a total divorce. Play other video games, and enjoy Pokemon in another way.
