A lot of kids I know like Pokemon, in a nostalgic sort of way. I doubt they still play it, but I do remember my class once singing the Pokemon theme song in 20-part harmony. Of course, they're probably in the minority compared with the rest of the school.
And I do have a small group of friends that still play Pokemon. In fact, one of my friends actually convinced me to come back to Pokemon after I had given it up during the R/S days.
However, I have to say that I can´t stand what they are doing with pokémon, stupid anime, rushed and stupid last-generation-like games, they´re killing the franchise.
Nowadays I prefer to play digimon or any other monster-like rpg game, they´re getting better with every generation, while pokémon is getting worse with each generation...
At last for me diversity worked fine.
I don´t think the graphic update was a mistake, but if they had to update it why not change the graphics to full 3D instead?yeah i agree, the franchise is being brutally stabbed to death >:o diamond sucks IMO, compared to the other games. I think GSC was the best, it had twice the game. RSE was cool too, but damn. i hate the whole graphic update in DP
I don´t think the graphic update was a mistake, but if they had to update it why not change the graphics to full 3D instead?
The DS is actually more powerfull than a Nintendo 64, and the DS cartridges can hold more data too, so they could have made a 3D RPG with stadium 2 battle graphics AND full 3D enviroment without difficulty.
But most of us got used to the cartoonish style of the past games, so I think there is no problem in it being cartoonish, but they could have used more sprites for the pokemon battlers so it would still be 2D but with much better animations. Imagine your favorite pokemon changing to a fighting position before attacking, or changing to pain looking position when it is hit or when it´s poisoned?