Does Nintendo get too extremely judged for sticking to a formula with their franchises?

[pokoko]

Soleron said:

Changing the core gameplay = bad. Basic battle mechanics, catching, trainers/wild pokemon, towns/routes.

Changing the content of the game = good. "You start in a house with your mom and then a professor makes you choose a fire water grass starter and then your rival picks the other one then you walk to eight gyms while fighting an evil Team and meeting rival, then the final battle with Team involves a legendary they've captured/harnessed, after which you face the Elite Four and go into the Hall of Fame". - every pokemon game, getting very tired now.

Can people distingush one from the other? I want the content to surprise/excite me, but I still want it to be the same game I enjoyed playing last time.

So I want Pokemon to still be Pokemon (and not, say, Colosseum or Mystery Dungeon) but I want to not know what the story/structure of the game is before picking it up, and I want to explore new and exciting places than just flat route -> flat cave. Huge snowy mountains/volcanoes/deserts you can get lost in would be awesome.

I agree.  Changing gameplay and changing content are two different things but people often lump them together when they refer to "formula".  Fallout NV is literally Fallout 3 in terms of mechanics; the content, however, makes it a completely different game and awesome in its own right.  If it had the same setting, characters, and story as Fallout 3, then it would have been guilty of offering nothing new at full cost.

I think that's part of what bothers people, when they're having to pay full price for something that clearly took little effort to produce.  It feels like you're being ripped off and used.  This, in my opinion, is the perfect use of DLC, to let people extend play-time in the original game with new content.  New games should offer new content.

Nintendo, I think, realizes that many die-hard Nintendo fans will give them a free pass on pretty much anything, though.