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Has anyone else also grown bored of the Pokemon games?

I think that is inevitable some boredom when accompanying anything for 20 years. :cautious:

I usually get bored with Pokémon, but not for long.

About the 6° generation, X/Y was a delightful surprise. The graphics were neat and the gameplay was very pleasant. I don't know, I don't feel that X / Y is really great or special, even so i thoroughly enjoyed the journey (Maybe because I liked the carton too?). Only the post game is really poor, almost nonexistent.

On the other hand, I was very excited for the RSE remake, especially because they were part of my childhood and were the games that I played the most. However, and perhaps for that very reason, the remake looked a little lackluster. Yet, the post-games reductions are blatent grievance for real fans.

Gen 7 was very mix for me, i really apreciated some changes. However i don' like alola region as a whole. The maps look a bit small, exploration is quite poor either. For the worst, they nerfed Gengar. :annoyedVoltorb:

Anyway, when i get tired of pokemon, i just look for another form of entertainment. And, fortunately for me, they abound.
 
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Interesting how SM is hated because of the trials. Personally I thought the trials were very hard but maybe that is because I intentionally used certain Pokémon.

I have never lost in a Pokémon game since Whitney in gen 2 and Pokémon Stadium but I actually lost some of the trials in SM. Am I the only one who had an experience like this?

What would the people who thought the trials were too easy want instead? I can't imagine that they had much trouble with the earlier games either if they thought the trials were too easy.

The Exp. Share makes the game very easy though. Unless you come up with your own challenges like Nuzlocke etc. The good thing with having so many Pokémon to choose from is that you can adjust the difficulty of the game by handpicking your team to match the strength of the in-game opponent. Like not evolving your Pokémon or intentionally picking a bad match-up.

For this reason I don't mind spoilers when there is a new game so I can begin preparing ahead of time. For example when I read spoilers of how Lurantis was hard for some people I made sure I only had bad match-ups for the fight lol.
 
Well, there are several rom-hacks that make the game's learning curve steeper. Some are even challenging. I find much more interesting to play them than handicap yourself with Nuzlocke challenges or intentionally bad match-ups.

If you’re willing to give them a shot, I would recommend Pokémon Blaze Black 2.
 
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I have to admit that I've felt the same. I'm a fan since 1999, I was 3 years old. I was a french canadian kid, playing an english version of pokemon yellow. I didn't understand a thing at the time but I was still liking it cause I imagine myself as ash with the pikachu. The game was fun, and for a kid who never played anything else, it was the best thing in the world. I've played that game until 2004 where my mother finally bought me firered. From fire red to heartgold, I was an hardcore fan. Playing every game with more than 250 hours on each, playing every single spin-off. It was a joy. Then I grow up. For like a year, I didn't do anything pokemon related. I wasn't playing or watching the anime. I start playing other games and my interest for pokemon almost died completly at this moment. Then, I saw an add of the newest game that was already out for a while, it was black and white . So I bought white. I it kills it for me. It wasn't pokemon, I remember at that time I've hated every single one of the new design asking if it wasn't a mistake, if it wasn't a digimon game and if I've made a mistake in the store. It took me months to finish the game. I hated the fact that it was impossible for me to play with the pokemon I was fan of previously. Then, BW2 was announce with a marvelous animated trailer. So I bought them, and it was a good decision. I finally fell the emotion I felt when I was younger. Than game was amazing, with a lot of content, the movie thing for me was so cool, I made so many movies in that game. I was back in the franchise and my interest for spin-off was back too, I was still buying spin-off like in the good old days. Then X and Y came and I was shocked. Shocked by he fact that it was a dream comme true. A pokemon game in 3d, like my favorite game when I was kid, pokemon stadium. The model for the pokemon where even more beautiful than the ones in stadium. So I bought the games day one. For the first time in a long time, I had more than 200h on a pokemon game. It felt new but with some nostalgy in it. The game kinda reminds me of kanto, the feeling of that. I was in love with the music, and the real world inspiration of france was really cool. So I was definitly back in the franchise. Than, sun and moon came out. God I hate those game. Even more than black and white at the time. I've hated black and white at the time cause having no pokemon I previously knew with a lot of weird design was hard to handle. But now I really like a lot of the 5th gen mon. For sun and moon, it's not just the monster tant are for the most part ugly and weird, it's the game. I can live with the fact that they wanted to change things and get rid of the badge, it was a good idea, but it was so poorly done. The story was really annoying and the cutscene too. I hate all the character in that game. Ultra beast was the worst and ugliest thing I've ever seen. Then came SM2. I was jsut and insult, the exact same boring game but with a bit more after the league. I've never finish rainbow rocket story and i'll never will. So, like before, I was moving out from the franchise, still, I was playing previous games and having so much fun with those. I was also listening the anime that kinda keep me in the franchise for SWSH. When Let's go pikachu was release, I bought it first day. I was so happy to play the game I payed so much when I was kid. The game was fun, simple, and it was kinda beautiful. However, gamefreak being gamefreak, the game was lacking in content. It was the gym, the league, mewtwo and it's over. They could have put the kanto region to the next level and they didn't . The go catching mechanic was fun at first, but really became frustrating the more you play. Than they announce Sword and Shield, the first trailer was beautiful, the starter too, so I've decided to give that game a try. The graphic was okay, not stunning but okay, the new roster of pokemon was really interesting and the fact that they game new regional evolution to certain pokemon was really a game seller for me. I like the fact that they come back to basics with gym battle but put it to an epic level with how it was like a national sport. The problem is, the story was not really interesting, same for the characters. It felt like sun and moon when I play, boring and long. So I grew tired fast. I beat the league, train my team a bit, do some online battle and never play again after, at least until the dlc came out. Again I was bored, I had more fun travelling on the island and collecting diglett than doing the main mission. So I'm wondering, is it me growing tired of the games, or are the game less fun than before. When I go back to game from gen 1 to 6, I have so much fun, I play them over and over, I even play a lot of fangame. So what is the problem now?
 
Does anyone else also feel the same way? Cause it feels like I'm the only one in this.

Honestly, I feel the exact same way as you do. To be quite honest, it's uncanny how much your opinion and current dissatisfaction with pokemon mirrors my own. I liked XY but was dissatisfied with the lack of content, didn't care for ORAS and was pretty angry at the fact that there was no Z version. Kalos had so much potential but never reached it.

I hated Sun/Moon with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I hated USUM because I thought third versions were a thing of the past since there wasn't one in Gen 6. But I was wrong. I hated that there was even a Let's go, a game that (for me) shouldn't even exist.
Seriously, I even abandoned Pokemon as a whole during the years of 2016-2019. Well, Gen 7 at least because I went back and replayed Yellow, Gold, Crystal (the VC releases), Platinum, White, White 2, Black 2... but I wasn't interested in the newer releases.

I didn't even know that there was going to be a Gen 8 on the Switch until I saw the Dexit storm in Youtube. I didn't even plan to get back to Pokemon but I did and I can't say I'm super happy about SwSh or the direction the franchise is going but well, here I am. Play SwSh is something I can do mindlessly to relax so I try to focus on the positive aspects and try to ignore the negatives. But it's getting harder everytime. At least I'll always have older games, spin offs etc.

I just wish they'd do more for their older fans. I'm not saying to not pander to the younger generation, but Pokemon has been around for years, and I don't think it'd be terribly wrong for them to do something for the people that have been with them from the beginning.
They do things for the older fans, just not the things we want, but the things they (Ishihara or Masuda or whoever makes the big decisions) think we want. That's why there's so much Kanto pandering. That's why they force Gen 1 starters into every game, why they give regional variants to Kanto pokemon only, why they give gigantamax and megas and everything else to Gen 1 pokémon, why they remake Kanto games for the umpteenth time, etc etc.
 
They do things for the older fans, just not the things we want, but the things they (Ishihara or Masuda or whoever makes the big decisions) think we want. That's why there's so much Kanto pandering. That's why they force Gen 1 starters into every game, why they give regional variants to Kanto pokemon only, why they give gigantamax and megas and everything else to Gen 1 pokémon, why they remake Kanto games for the umpteenth time, etc etc.

Forgive my lack of knowledge on this, but what have they done for the older fans? I just can't think of anything they've done, but perhaps that's just because they haven't done the things I want to see. I'm guessing one of the things is the Kanto pandering though, which don't get me wrong, I liked Kanto. I still do, but I also find joy in the other regions as well. With all the Kanto pandering they've done, it's become overdone and less appealing to me now. There's still Pokemon and things I like about it, but it's overdone and I wish they'd give that same love they give to Kanto to the other regions.

As for the regional variants, Gigantamax, and Megas, I wouldn't say they only give it to gen 1 Pokemon. When the regional variants were first introduced in gen 7, yes, I'll give that to you that only Kanto Pokemon got it, which I wasn't a huge fan of, but I think they took a step in the right direction by varying up the regions for which Pokemon got regional variants in Galar. There's still Kanto Pokemon that got them, but there were also Pokemon from Johto, Hoenn, and Unova that got them too. The initial batch of Megas introduced in X/Y had Pokemon from every region but Unova (and Kalos), and the batch introduced in ORAS included Unova and Kalos into that pool as well. Gigantamax has a lot of Kanto Pokemon that get it though, I'll give you that; other than the Galarian Pokemon, only one non-Kanto Pokemon got Gigantamax and that's Garbodor; everything else is Kanto or Galar. There is probably a majority of Kanto Pokemon that have variants in each of the categories, but that's a numbers game I don't feel like getting into at 2am.

Overall though, it feels like the Kanto pandering is just overdone at this point. It's too much, and it feels like it's the only thing they're doing to keep older players roped into the games and the series as a whole. And perhaps it is the only thing they're doing, but they honestly probably need to be doing more. Don't get me wrong, I've liked some of the things they've done, and I applaud them for trying to switch it up to make it appealing for both old and new players alike, but it seems like every time they take a step in the right direction, they take three steps back and it's just not working out for them.

I have to admit that I've felt the same. I'm a fan since 1999, I was 3 years old. I was a french canadian kid, playing an english version of pokemon yellow. I didn't understand a thing at the time but I was still liking it cause I imagine myself as ash with the pikachu. The game was fun, and for a kid who never played anything else, it was the best thing in the world. I've played that game until 2004 where my mother finally bought me firered. From fire red to heartgold, I was an hardcore fan. Playing every game with more than 250 hours on each, playing every single spin-off. It was a joy. Then I grow up. For like a year, I didn't do anything pokemon related. I wasn't playing or watching the anime. I start playing other games and my interest for pokemon almost died completly at this moment. Then, I saw an add of the newest game that was already out for a while, it was black and white . So I bought white. I it kills it for me. It wasn't pokemon, I remember at that time I've hated every single one of the new design asking if it wasn't a mistake, if it wasn't a digimon game and if I've made a mistake in the store. It took me months to finish the game. I hated the fact that it was impossible for me to play with the pokemon I was fan of previously. Then, BW2 was announce with a marvelous animated trailer. So I bought them, and it was a good decision. I finally fell the emotion I felt when I was younger. Than game was amazing, with a lot of content, the movie thing for me was so cool, I made so many movies in that game. I was back in the franchise and my interest for spin-off was back too, I was still buying spin-off like in the good old days. Then X and Y came and I was shocked. Shocked by he fact that it was a dream comme true. A pokemon game in 3d, like my favorite game when I was kid, pokemon stadium. The model for the pokemon where even more beautiful than the ones in stadium. So I bought the games day one. For the first time in a long time, I had more than 200h on a pokemon game. It felt new but with some nostalgy in it. The game kinda reminds me of kanto, the feeling of that. I was in love with the music, and the real world inspiration of france was really cool. So I was definitly back in the franchise. Than, sun and moon came out. God I hate those game. Even more than black and white at the time. I've hated black and white at the time cause having no pokemon I previously knew with a lot of weird design was hard to handle. But now I really like a lot of the 5th gen mon. For sun and moon, it's not just the monster tant are for the most part ugly and weird, it's the game. I can live with the fact that they wanted to change things and get rid of the badge, it was a good idea, but it was so poorly done. The story was really annoying and the cutscene too. I hate all the character in that game. Ultra beast was the worst and ugliest thing I've ever seen. Then came SM2. I was jsut and insult, the exact same boring game but with a bit more after the league. I've never finish rainbow rocket story and i'll never will. So, like before, I was moving out from the franchise, still, I was playing previous games and having so much fun with those. I was also listening the anime that kinda keep me in the franchise for SWSH. When Let's go pikachu was release, I bought it first day. I was so happy to play the game I payed so much when I was kid. The game was fun, simple, and it was kinda beautiful. However, gamefreak being gamefreak, the game was lacking in content. It was the gym, the league, mewtwo and it's over. They could have put the kanto region to the next level and they didn't . The go catching mechanic was fun at first, but really became frustrating the more you play. Than they announce Sword and Shield, the first trailer was beautiful, the starter too, so I've decided to give that game a try. The graphic was okay, not stunning but okay, the new roster of pokemon was really interesting and the fact that they game new regional evolution to certain pokemon was really a game seller for me. I like the fact that they come back to basics with gym battle but put it to an epic level with how it was like a national sport. The problem is, the story was not really interesting, same for the characters. It felt like sun and moon when I play, boring and long. So I grew tired fast. I beat the league, train my team a bit, do some online battle and never play again after, at least until the dlc came out. Again I was bored, I had more fun travelling on the island and collecting diglett than doing the main mission. So I'm wondering, is it me growing tired of the games, or are the game less fun than before. When I go back to game from gen 1 to 6, I have so much fun, I play them over and over, I even play a lot of fangame. So what is the problem now?

I think this post really hits the nail on the head. For me, I stopped playing after gen 4; I felt like I'd grown out of the series, and my mom felt the same way too, so I gave it up and moved onto other games and other activities. I still somewhat liked the franchise, but I wasn't as into it as I was when I was younger; I still participated in online communities related to Pokemon, but I mainly focused on other aspects, like writing and art. I skipped gen 5 completely, and I didn't play those games until right before XY launched. I used to love playing the games (gens 1-4), then stopped (gen 5), then picked it back up again for gen 6. I put in so much time into my copy of Y, and I loved it. Gen 7 and 8 haven't had that same passion for me.

I think for me, it was losing that spark of enjoying the series for so long, then getting it back by reconnecting with old friends and finding that hype again of playing a game with friends again, riding the hype train together. I remember in the time before XY launched, I would talk about the game with friends, and even after it dropped, it was almost as if we were playing it together. I still had that with gens 7 and 8, but looking back, it didn't feel like they had that same spark. I played gen 8 and was relatively excited for it, but I played for a little bit and ended up putting it down for a while in favor of Animal Crossing, and I picked it back up recently; I've since put it back down because I completed the game and it felt like all that was left was to complete the dex. I'm sure there's some post-main story content I still need to do, but I just didn't feel interested in doing it. I decided to just work on my dex instead. I think it's more so me getting tired of the games in addition to them being less fun than they were before. As I've said, I still enjoy the franchise; I love exploring the series and the characters that have been introduced to us, but the games have just felt so lackluster lately and it's not as exciting as it used to be.
 
i'm probably in the super minority that thinks the way that i do. in short: while i firmly believe that there are some things about the pokemon games that can be improved upon, i don't bother thinking about them much unless they actively hinder my experience.

i've loved pokemon since the beginning. i grew up with spinoffs, so Pokemon Stadium 2 i think was my first foray into the franchise. it was exciting! it was amazing seeing pokemon on my actual tv screen, with all of these interesting animations for their movesets and all. from the beginning, i was into it for the adventure and for the cute creatures themselves, and that has still held true to this day. i've loved Pokemon Stadium's mini-games, i loved the excitement of playing through RSE for the first time, and then Pokemon Colosseum, and then Pokemon XD. i also got into Pokemon Mystery Dungeon too a bit in-between those times. if you were to say that the spinoffs are largely the reason why my interest in the franchise is still alive, well, i'd be hard-pressed to disagree with you. i do believe that the spinoffs have a level of care put into them that isn't present in the main series games.

gen 5, funnily enough, is actually where i've started getting bored of pokemon games for the first time. i'll get to the point: yes, i'm a huge battle frontier person. but as someone who sank so much time into Emerald's battle frontier as well as HGSS', i was hoping for a similar experience with BW. unfortunately, BW really punched me in the gut with Battle Subway. as soon as i finished the game, i just... turned it off and never really picked it back up, again. yes, there may be some new exploration and new areas that might've been open for me, but i care about battling. i shiny hunt, and i do post-game battle facility stuff so that was what was fun for me. buuuut, enough about that.

i suppose my bigger point is, while i recognize the flaws in pokemon games, i play because i want to have fun. i play because they're an escape from the real world to me. don't get me wrong, here: i play other games. mainly other jrpgs, action-esque style games. so i don't only play pokemon. but pokemon will always have a place where i keep coming back to play more and more of it. maybe it's the creatures themselves and less so the actual gameplay. i realise that pokemon isn't that much of a deep game, and i think that's what i like about it the most. so i don't really get tired of it because it's cute and endearing and very easy-going.

maybe i'm just the type of person that thinks more optimistically than not about most pokemon games. if something doesn't appeal to me, i'll skip it (i did so with LGPE, after all). but otherwise, i play for the fun without thinking too hard about the development of it. but to sink my head in the pokemon world and go on an adventure with the creatures that i love since the beginning has always been the motivating factor for me since the beginning and always will be, one way or the other.
 
I still play the Pokémon games. My favorites are Gen 2 and 3. (1 is just too glitchy) I've been playing the games for over 20 years like the OP. I do keep busy with all the things I do in these games, replaying them for move tutor moves (Gen 3) and such. I like collecting Pokémon with rare moves (especially Mimic) and it keeps me quite busy. I still to this day love playing Gen 2-5. I like collecting ribbons as well. I play Gen 6-8 but honestly, those gens bore me after a while. I just don't like how training Pokémon and such seems effortless. (Especially in Gen 8!) It takes literally like 2 minutes to get a Pokémon to level 100 in Gen 8. And the only other thing to do is play online...and with how many people so rudly disconnect and hack I just don't really care about playing online anymore. It just makes it not fun. So what do I do in these newer gens? Well nothing really, I mainly focus on playing older games and transfer them to Gen 6+ when I can and get the Ribbons or w/e I'm doing in them. But idk what it is but Gen 6+ can get really boring sometimes..but I still love playing the older Gens.
 
So what do I do in these newer gens? Well nothing really, I mainly focus on playing older games and transfer them to Gen 6+ when I can and get the Ribbons or w/e I'm doing in them.

If you like hunting for hard to find things Sword and Shield very quietly added marks:


Don’t know if there’s much interest in hunting for Pokémon with marks yet, but the IoA gives you a Mark Charm that might boost some interest in hunting them.
 
Yeah marks are cool, I haven't tried hunting any Pokémon with them though. Been working on getting ribbons and stuff in previous games.
 
At this point, I can safely say that I have grown bored of the games. I used to play constantly during the first 5 Generations. Of course, as time went on, I started playing the games less and less. While I did enjoy the gen six games, I didn't play it as many times as I did past games.

Then gen seven comes along and I only played Sun and Ultra Sun once each. The constant cutscenes are what killed the fun for me. I did not enjoy having a cutscene like every 5 minutes. I did enjoy Sword and Shield though.

I am a player who plays for the story, so I don't particularly care for post game and side-quest content. I mean, if it interests me enough, I will check it it out and do it.
 
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To me, every main series game from gen. 5 onwards seemed worse than the previous generation. I still very much enjoyed Black/White and X/Y (and especially the Hoenn remakes, despite the pain I felt from the omission of the Battle Frontier and Game Freak/Masusa's trolling on this matter), but they all felt less exciting and content-packed than their predecessors. Then, gen. 7 almost felt like a chore to finish, and I refused to even buy Sword or Shield and support Game Freak after the negative reviews from fans and finding out just how lacklustre the games are in terms of content. Right now, I can say that I only really care about Pokémon Mystery Dungeon; unlike the more recent main series entries, I still genuinely enjoy those games.

And still, having grown up with Pokémon, I'm simply not ready to leave this series behind – at least not yet. Right now, I'm hoping that after the rather negative reception that Sword and Shield received from the fandom (and considering that they already have a close to perfect foundation in Pokémon Platinum that they can build upon), at least the upcoming Sinnoh remakes might be worth it again. Aside from that, I'm looking forward to more Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, ideally both new entries and a remake of Explorers. We'll see.
 
Late Gen VII and Gen VIII's prerelease really burnt me out tbh. While I still like the older generations, my interest dropped like a rock and at this point I'm more into the franchise's world/lore than the games, anime, etc. I'll still interact with the community and check out any news or new Pokemon, but that's about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I will say, the main reason--and this could apply to others as well--that Pokemon has gotten boring over time (at least the main games), is because it's the same story over and over: New trainer gets a starter. He/She sets out to collect Badges, battling the Rival(s) and the evil team as they go. Then they take on the Elite 4 and become the champion.
Sure Gen 7 changed things up, but it's a similar story.
 
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