I am now even more disgusted at this game. The Gym forcing you to show a Pokemon that has a type advantage? That feels like blatant hand-holding. While it's nice that Pikachu now gets Double Kick for a better way to counter Brock (much like the Nidos in Yellow), it's still lame because of the hand-holding.
And then there's that Trace guy... seriously Game Freak, another friendly rival, and this time replacing such an iconic character? Friendly rivals have been a thing ever since 3rd Gen and they don't seem to stop. My bet is GF saw Blue and Silver's antagonistic persona as a bad influence for kids and decided to dumb down the rivals from there on.
It also even seems like abilities got removed, a long staple of the series since 3rd Gen. That is even worse than GTS, Battle Spot and Wonder Trade removal. Wouldn't be surprised if I decide I'm done with the franchise when 7th Gen ends, especially because of GF becoming hungry for profit, and I massively hate companies that put profit before customers, much like other greedy companies I hate such as EA and Mattel.
8th Gen's game next year is really going to have to live up to massive expectations if it has any hope of saving the fandom now. On a better note, we did seem to get presumably names for the new protagonists, the male is named "Chase" and the female is named "Elaine".