Waning Interest

I only really heavily watched the Pokemon anime during the 1st and 2nd generations (and a bit of the 3rd generation) but I lost most of my interest in the anime side of Pokemon after that. (Occasionally I'll watch one of the newer episodes, but it's more out of curiosity than anything)

The card game was pretty much the same, it was about 2nd or 3rd generation when I lost interest in it. Although to be fair I was only ever really interested in the collection aspect of it. (although I didn't have anyone to actually play the game part of it with)

I've been very consistent with my interest in the main games though. I can't recall any particular period where my interest dipped.

YES, and for a couple reasons:
1: No battle frontier
2: **** difficulty
3: Just stupid stuff in past generations, like ash greninja.

Will I ever stop playing? Not a chance, although I feel l cannot enjoy the games as much.

Edit: Listen up GameFreak

nishthelegendarytrainer said:

I am into pokemons since i was 4. I only used to watch anime then. When i turned 7, i learnt about pokemon games. I played Crystal, my first pokemon game. Then, i played yellow, and then Red. After that, i played Sapphire and then, Emarald, and after that, Platinum, HeartGold, Black, Black 2, X, Omega Ruby... I really don't know what it is, but something has kept me bound with pokemons. I think i'll be watching the anime and playing these games even when i would be 100 years old!

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This person has been playing since 7, and has turned out well. You don't need to make ridiculous easy games for people to like them!

This person has been playing since 7, and has turned out well. You don't need to make ridiculous easy games for people to like them!

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But seemingly they can.

My interest in the newer main series games is definitely waning. X/Y and ORAS showed the incredibly easy, streamlined, and shallow direction that the series is taking. After ORAS decided to skimp on a real Battle Frontier in favor of a carbon-copy Battle Maison and nerf the difficulty of the gyms, I lost a lot of faith in the franchise as a whole, especially after the disastrous X and Y.
And now it looks like in Sun and Moon, one of the main new mechanics will be some sort of new evolution mechanism (which will inevitably be even more pointless and overblown than Mega Evolution)? Seriously? I feel like nowadays there's more emphasis on introducing new gimmicks than actually making a good game.

Look, Game Freak, I know you want to make games that will be popular among little kids and you think the best way of doing this is completely eliminating any trace of difficulty, but they aren't playing your games. Little kids nowadays are burying their faces in smartphones and Minecraft. Most Pokemon players nowadays are in their 20s.

I have always been a huge fan of pokemon. No doubt about that. I loved Hoenn.=, both games and anime. Honestly, I didn't know many people still played it around here until my Sophmore year of High School.

I started losing interest in pokemon during the Diamond and Pearl Saga. I loved the games. However, I never even bought Platinum. I sold all my pokemon games and what not. It was until HGSS when I started to regain interest. I learned that a TON of people in my Hight School still played the games, when even compared Poke Walkers. People played the games during school ect. I remember at lunch, there was a whole table of people with PokeWalkers.

When Black and White was announced, my love for pokemon shot through the roof like a rocket again. BW is what saved me from stopping to like pokemon. I loved the anime, even though I missed a lot of episodes because I didn't have a DVR and it came on early when I wasn't up yet. I loved all of the new pokemon in BW, I was so happy that it was all fresh, unlike a lot of people. I did lose slight interest during the end of BW, but then Kalos came.

Kalos was a massive new art style in both games and anime. The anime was just totally badassed and quickly became by far the best season ever of pokemon. XY Anime was the first pokemon anime where I couldn't wait for the new episodes and actually watched the sub versions for a while.

Every single episode was amazing in XY, there was a slow point between the 1st and 2nd gyms, but after that, it became amazing. XYZ Season is by far the best episodes I have ever seen in pokemon. I loved how they had two journeys going on at once with Alain and Ash and then bringing them together.

I really can't wait for Sun and Moon. Especially the anime if the writers stay the same.

I really don't know why I started to lose interest in Pokemon during the 4th generation. It might of been because the anime was coming on 10 times a week with new episodes and suddenly changed it. And it was by far the longest and lasted around 5 years in North America. Platinum was the first ever Pokemon game I passed on. I never bought it. The anime was full of crap fillers, especially between the 7th and 8th gyms. I did start watching it again during Sinnoh League Victores, but that was about it.

As for the TCG, I used to have a massive problem with buying cards everytime I went in a store that sold them. It could be Yugioh, Duel Masters, or Pokemon. But I have never really played. For a VERY LONG time I never even bought cards. Maybe here and there and through out BW I bought maybe 6 packs and a tin. But after that, I was finally able to break my Card Buying Habits. I just recently started buying Pokemon Cards again, mainly the 20th Ann, But I am buying things with Pins, which I really love. After this year though, I don't plan to buy many cards unless there is just a really nice set. I still want to get every 20th Ann Mythical Pokemon this year, Diancie Box, Ash Greninja Box, Pikachu Box, and maybe 1 other box when they come out. But I have made it where I only buy cards once a month, and that is when I buy the 20th Ann boxes, and I will spend up $50 a month on cards. But I try not to go over that.

youngster_joey said:

Look, Game Freak, I know you want to make games that will be popular among little kids and you think the best way of doing this is completely eliminating any trace of difficulty, but they aren't playing your games. Little kids nowadays are burying their faces in smartphones and Minecraft. Most Pokemon players nowadays are in their 20s.

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That is totally false. There are still a ton of kids that are interested in Pokemon. Everytime I go into a store, I see kids younger than 12 talking or looking at pokemon stuff. And I have no problem with how easy the games have become.

Not to mention the children of the people who have watched pokemon since the 90s are also getting into pokemon. Kids are still playing the games, your accusation is completely false. Not to mention I have seen almost every single piece of pokemon gear sell out at all stores I have went to. I am usually lucky to get anything. And I know that everyone I know, doesn't buy the merchandise like cards and stuff. So kids are buying it.

3rd gen was the first time I felt disappointed with the Pokemon designs but I found the region to be really vast and interesting to explore. It was the first game to introduce a plot where the world was at stake too which felt exciting at the time. It's been done to death in each gen since though. It wasn't until Diamond and Pearl that I lost interest in going through the same old formula that the games keep recycling. 5th caught me by surprise because gamefeak actually attempted to tell a decent story to distract from the same old journey that you go through but the Pokemon designs were letting me down again. 6th gen got me hyped but that was almost exclusively because of the drastic overhaul in graphics we were treated to. All 6th gen games have disappointed in terms of story and post-game content if you ask me so if Sun & Moon follow that trend I could see myself becoming jaded with the series again. Can't wait till they release G/S/C on the virtual console since those were the best Pokemon games by far.

I'll probably always buy at least one game per gen though as I can't see myself ever falling out of the series completely. And you can be damn sure I'll pickup any new mystery dungeon games that come out as I enjoy those more than most main series games.

If we're talking about the anime I kind of tapped out during the Hoenn season and picked it back up in Diamond and Pearl because of Paul. Dropped it again by the time Ash got to Unova and I only periodically keep tabs on the anime at this point.

I am actually losing interest in the series right now. I still like it a lot, but that is only because it's pretty much the only video game franchise I truly like as of now. I started losing interest in like, late last year or so. I'm not sure, maybe because I find it to be a bit repetitive, or maybe because lately I've been a bit too busy to enjoy it, but I'm starting to lose interest.

Once my exams are over, i plan on trying to see if I could get back into the series again, and of course, the upcomming generation would be a big factor if I were to continue on. If it is decent, I will stay. If it isn't, I will give up and get into another series. I still like it, just not as much as I used to.

It's off and on for me. I was really into it 10 or so years ago, and I have this site and all the friends I made on it to thank for that, in part. I've been going pretty ham at it for the past couple months now ever since I started playing Y though. I feel like the new graphics and mechanics are exactly what I used to wish they were, "back in the day". I hope I'll continue playing, but I have been known to lose interest entirely and sell my DS and games. Of course only to realize months later that I'm still totally in love with Pokemon and need it in my life. Like I said it's an on-again-off-again type deal.

There have been a few points where I thought I was finally "growing out" of Pokemon, so to speak. Once was during the Johto run of the anime, which I lost interest in and I didn't play the games much past playing Crystal for a couple of weeks. At that time I was gaining interest in Yugioh and DBZ and what not. Though, when Hoenn's anime and games released I was pulled back in, almost to a bigger extent than I was before.

I stayed into it all the way through into Sinnoh. I even stayed up, installed KeyholeTV, and barely slept the night that the Diamond and Pearl anime premiered in Japan. I wanted to watch it while it was airing there. Though, that series did end up losing my attention, and Platinum was the only game that I fully enjoyed.

Thought maybe I was losing interest again, and I did for a time, buuuut then Black and White were amazing, and the start of that anime was interesting enough. Then the anime started going downhill, and I hadn't played the games in a while. I didn't give much attention to Sinnoh, past loving Black and White's story, but I have only played it one time.

Once again, interest in X and Y came around, and who didn't love the shiny graphics for that game? I am also enjoying the anime just as much as I enjoyed Kanto and Hoenn. Which I honestly never expected to happen again. Ever. At all. I thought maybe Hoenn was my last really big dive into the anime side of the fandom, even if I played the games.

Long story (post) short, I've gotten to the point where I will always be loyal to Pokemon, and I think I'll always check out it's new games and generations. There are points where I lose interest in some cases, but if anything, XY&Z kinda proved to me that even if I think I'm out of the game, there might always be that gen that will pull me back into it.

For me, losing interest in Pokémon is like comitting the worst sin. I also love DBZ, but ya know, Pokémon is a part of my life. Gen 1 and 2 were great. Gen 3? I actually loved it. I can replay and replay Emarald forever. Even gen 4 was so cool. The Distortion world.. Well, I don't remember seeing something like that ever before. You could actually 'climb down' a waterfall without its hm. That was soo exciting! And when N's castle appeared from under the ground, my reaction.. well, its undescribable. And B2W2 were equally great. Man, I would never forget the number of ultra balls I had to use while catching Heatran. Gah! I finally had to resort to the Master Ball. Then came Pokémon Y and X(because I played Y before X). The dark legendary bird was so strong and the blue deer-like fairy, that was super-beautiful. Same with Omega Ruby. Primal Groudon was so much different than the one we had in RSE. I'm not a huge fan of mystery dungeons, but I just love ROM hacks. Just thinking about Pokémon brings back wonderful memories..

My Pokémon interest is more or less exclusively the games now. I haven't watched the anime since Gen 3, and I still have my TCG collection, but they're just in a folder and I occasionally get it out and look through them for a nostalgia kick. I still love the games, though, although in recent months I've got bored with ORAS and gone back to XY and gen 4. But Sun and Moon have whetted my appetite again and I've already pre-ordered both.