So you would miss the fact that your pokemon has a gender, certain ones only evolve under very specific conditions (day/night, happiness), and all pokemon have a special ability that affects combat in one way or another? You would have to be pretty oblivious for a lot of them. Especially the breeding ones as you get eggs through the storyline to hatch, and then they tell you about pokemon breeding.

You could miss half of those, and the other half don't really matter.

I did not say that the game never changed. The changes, however, when you stack them all up, don't come anywhere near to approaching the level they should considering the series is 4 (five, if you count Fire Red, Leaf Green) generations deep.

You're approaching this 'debate' as if I'm oblivious to many of these changes and/or am disregarding them. Trust me, nobody is more aware of the minor changes in Pokemon than me. I could spit the EV values of most given Pokemon at you, I've constructed elaborate, polygenerational breeding schema just for minor move benefits, have probably just as deep an understanding of all the games underlying mechanics (and how they've changed) as any given programmer at Game Freak

My point is not that the games are now bad, or that they do not change. It is that they change to slightly, with slight tweaks that largely affect the competitive metagame and often superfluous additions new pokemon taking center stage instead of FUNDAMENTAL game evolutions or changes.

A lot of other significant franchises (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy every time) have gone through significant redesigns, much to the benefit of their critical reception and continued relevance. Pokeman can, and should, at least attempt to do this.

^^Some pokemon are always one gender or another, and some are also gender neutral (asexual stuff like magnemites and most legendary pokemon).

 You want to see the line that made me decide to reply to this? Its really funny in light of the latest developments. "They still hadn't changed it." This one kind of cemented the deal though: "I'm still playing the same game I played 10 years ago, with a bunch of minor bells and whistles and cosmetic varnish."

You have said repeatedly the game never changed and that is flat out wrong. Many significant changes have taken place. I really don't know how you could miss half of those I listed. These are facts that essentially get shoved down your throat by reading the text of the game. The special effects range from nothign at all to absolutely amazing as well. I would call having a pokemon immune to the long term effects of poison huge for when I have to go through bug catching forest. A lot has stayed the same, and you can rant all you want about it. But don;t come in and try to claim there have been no major changes to the game when clearly there have been.

Outside of breeding (which is optional), gender plays very little role in the game. Evolutionary conditions are just added to synchronize with other little new features, and really don't mean much to a casual playthrough. Abilities are significant but only have a major impact in a competitive environment where everything needs to be fine-tuned. Breeding is a nice new feature, but it is also too long and tedious to consider a strong single player feature.

The main problem is that all these changes are more and more geared towards enhancing the multiplayer experience, so that the single player game seems less focused on actually making a memorable single player experience. Even in this thread you can see that most of the praise comes from competitive players, and most of the complaints are about the single player experience. I don't think I need to tell you which group is the minority of the userbase.

All I'm saying is that if Nintendo wants to follow through with its market strategies, they should not let Pokemon move away from the bulk of the fanbase as it is doing now. I appreciate what they've done with the multiplayer, but I'm very sick of how the single player turned into a supplementary process geared too much towards adding complexity to competitive gameplay.

Diamond/Pearl was a good game but it's the first time that when I finished a pokemon game where I didn't wanted to play it again right after I beat it. I've only finished Diamond/pearl once and tried to play it again but lost interest half way and haven't touched it since. I played all the other pokemon games to death and finished them many times starting over. Ruby/Sapphire is my favorite fallowed by Red/Blue.

The biggest gripe I had with this game was the slow battle system, plus alot of the new pokemon were kinda lame compare to the older ones. This game also had the weakest set of starter pokemon IMO.

@Xeta, thank god you're here to voice thoughts I'm too lazy to articulate

@Gnizmo, here's a semantic lesson, for free: posting opinions is not a 'rant'. I will say it one more time: all of the MAJOR changes affect the multiplayer metagame, which does not matter to me anywhere close to the single player. I do not hate pokemon, I do not think it has not changed. It has not changed enough, and I am growing apathetic with it. It's along the lines with losing the passion in a marriage for me, as Pokemon has been the biggest timewaster in my life for over a decade.

Listening to you try to defend Pokemon from my 'rants' is pretty infuriating, as I guarantee you I have vastly more experience and knowledge of the series than you do.

@Goonydude, Oh man, that's exactly what I did. Beat Pearl once, couldn't work up the interest to do all the extras. Restarted it a while later, played it passionately halfway through, and then lost interest again.

 The breeding would be more to do with baby pokemon which can only be obtained through breeding. It is optional, but hard to miss. They always give you an egg, and the daycare people are quick to explain all the minor details that might get someone interested.

 That aside I can sum up my thoughts by saying I didn't miss your first post. I just can't disagree with it. I am not saying they could't change more, or that the single player is new and different everytime. I don't say these things because they would be wrong. I am disagreeing with the assertion that the game never changes. That is also wrong. The changes maybe focused on one segment of the player base, but they are still there.

 Unlikely but hey this is the internet where we can make whatever outrageous claims we like right? I am not defending Pokemon from your rant. I am pointing out where you are wrong. You claimed the game never changed, and that is clearly not the case. I really have to doubt how comptetive you ever were if you don't see how huge the battle mechanic changes were for Diamond and Pearl. It completely changes the meta-game.

No, see, I DO see how vastly it changes the meta-game. I just don't care. It does not make the game more enjoyable for me, unless I want to retreat to the sad days of my childhood where I spend hundreds of hours grinding, all to win an imaginary pissing contest vicariously enacted with a few goofily designed faux-animal avatars.

NONE of the changes you keep throwing at my alleged "the series has never changed statement" have radically changed the game. My "I'm still playing the same game I was ten years ago but with new cosmetic bells and whistles" or whatever, however you may have misread it, does not implicitly or explicitly state that I think the series has not changed. It implies that all of the changes were not enough to noticeably shift the core gameplay experience. Which, to be honest, is true. So I can hatch baby pokemon. Okay? Who cares? They're uninteresting and stupid.

Maybe I was unclear. Maybe you're dense. But, one last time, I'll sum up all my previously longwinded opinions in one, simple line:

None of the changes to Pokemon over the years have done enough to the core formula to create a truly novel experience--or, in fact, even slightly novel. It's the same skeleton with different bodies and new clothes, plus a lot more flashy accesories.