| Hiku said: I would't say they're far from being similar. It's because of the story being so simplified on top of having the same formula. It makes a lot of elements feel interchangable, and also rather forgettable. And that's the main problem here. |
Nope. Nope. Nope.
First, a game doesn't need to contextualize every little extra that you do. You plant berries because you need berries. One of ORAS's flaws was that it went back and needlessly tried to contextualize why the player would want to participate in Pokemon Contests with a new, frankly annoying, character and a side story. You play side contents because they're fun. If you don't like them, you just ignore them. There doesn't need to be a plot reason for doing that kind of stuff, because you run into the issue of disagreeing with the reason the game tells you for doing it, making the experience worse.
With the evil teams, you're isolating a small commonality between some of the teams and using it as proof that they are all shallow plot threads. The teams are far more complex as an antagonist that just the moment when they sometimes "take over" something. When they do it, it's for different reasons, doing different things, with different expected results. You're completely ignoring the context of each situation as if they aren't relevant.
In HGSS, a headless Team Rocket gains control of the most vastly reaching form of media in two regions in the feeble attempt to regain a sense of solid leadership. Team Rocket, as an organization, developed in the two years since the Kanto incident as a team which was clearly less organized filled with members who where at a loss of their sense of place. Instead of being run by one figure, they were lead by four admins, each with vastly different personalities and assumedly different leadership philosophies, all with one thing in common; the certainty that they needed Giovanni back. All their prior stunts where them trying to get his attention. They wanted to let him know that Team Rocket was still a force that was disruptive. They were publicity stunts to get the attention of their leader. Everything they did in that game as a team naturally lead up to taking control of the radio tower. It made sense that they would want to broadcast their message across the two regions where he's most likely be. Not the message that they wanted to get Giovanni back. That was already clear. The message that, even without a solid leader, Team Rocket was still powerful enough to take control of an entire city, just like two years ago. And they wanted to let the world know.
And that comes from what used to be, by far, the weakest plot in any Pokemon. That's just one facet of it. Didn't mention at all the rival and his relationship with Team Rocket's ex-leader, Giovanni and how that developes his character. Didn't mention all the world building behind the traditional region of Johto and how it clashes culturally with the modern region of Kanto. Didn't mention the story of Ho-oh, Lugia, the Kimono Girls, and the legendary beasts (they're cats, but w/e). Didn't mention the mini-plot between the player and Clair, and her obvious inferiority complex with her cousin, the Champoin Lance. And more.
Just because you didn't remember them doesn't mean they aren't worth remembering. Again, not Shakespeare, but not nearly as shallow or one dimentional as you're making them out to be. There's far more to be uncovered in the other games, other than XY, which I've already mentioned is far and away the weakest stories of any Pokemon games. Platinum and Black/White have the strongest with Pt being more subtle and BW being most obvious about it, and the only way to miss them is literally by not paying attention. Emerald comes after those, and it goes along with Platinum as leaving the depth of it's plot behind the scenes.
The anime isn't a good comparison at all. The Pokemon games focus more on plot, while the anime focuses more on characters. No one is arguing that the anime doesn't have better characters (even though in some cases, it straight up doesn't. Barry, Cheren, Bianca, Cynthia, N, Alder, Looker, Saturn, Cyrus, etc are all better in the games), but it definitely doesn't have a better story that ties those together.
Yes, a lot of those characters are from BW, but I still think Platinum has a better story. Barry, Cynthia, Cyrus, Saturn, Looker, Charon, are all good characters from those games. But Platinum is more special because of how seamlessly its plot and worldbuilding work together and how deep the latter is. And how important Cynthia is to that worldbuilding. And how important that world building is, not only to that game, but to every Pokemon before it and since. Pokemon Platinum's world building is the Greek mythology of the Pokemon world, and it is, no exadutation, just as interesting.
Pokemon builds its world a lot like Earthbound does. By interacting with everyone. Talk to NPCs and click on items. If you're just b-lining through the games with your mind turned off, you're missing out on so much. And I know you are, because Cynthia is one of my favorite characters too, and most of what you learn about her is from other people.
