I think one of the big issues for Johto is it's front loaded. It takes seven Pokémon across three gym leaders to even get to a Johto mon, then you're guaranteed to get through four more Kanto before you even have a chance of hitting another Johto. It really wouldn't have been hard to replace Pidget with a Hoothoot and Metapod/Kakuna with Ledyba/Spinarak.
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What are some theories, assumptions, headcanons, or general opinions about the series you've changed your mind on over time?
- Thread starter QuentinQuonce
- Start date
I say exaggerated in the sense that compared to some later Gens, Johto was very much "Kanto 2: This Time It's Personal" in design, so this feels deliberate if a bit odd as a decision, compared to Kalos giving 2 Gym Leaders Kanto Aces despite its push (and Korrina's Lucario is more her signature mon than her Gym Team). Johto didn't feel like it was trying to sell me a new region totally original and separate from Kanto like Hoenn onward would, so reusing the Kanto roster doesn't feel like it goes against the immersion even for my more cynical older self.
I should stress I think the severity is exaggerated, moreso than the quantity as you illustrate here. It's similar to how in my Galar talk I took umbrage with things like Bea and Allister having Kanto Aces despite being the minority in their roster, because they're pushed heavily amongst the Leaders in a Region that aesthetically/in-universe has no particular link or reason to emphasize Kanto so much.
Regarding Lysandre, I don't think anyone expected he'd bring up a 3000 year old weapon out of nowhere that hardly anyone knew about, and the ones that did having no idea where it was or that it could still be activated in the first place. Lysandre was very lucky to have found AZ from where he was at, and lucky to have been the descendant of his brother, probably allowing such information to be passed down to him. In addition, Lysandre himself was not actively involved in the same shenanigans his grunts were in until the last second, when he announced his final plan, and nobody knew the origins of Team Flare until Lysandre admitted it, despite Lysandre obviously being shady. You know he's up to something but people would never magically put two on two together in a society irl. If we weren't the player character seeing the game from all angles, Lysandre would have been far less obvious. Honestly this man was far more strategic with his plan than the first four generations of villains, and this is how he made it to the point where he was able to charge the weapon almost entirely, until the legendary miraculously woke up, broke out, and showed him who's the real boss.I feel like, already this early into the rundown, this is an extremely reductive take. The whole point of virtually every Pokémon villain is that they’re not just doing things because “mwahaha I’m evil I guess.” Their respective motivations may at times be thinly sketched (because Pokémon tends to tell its stories on a more thematic level than a personal one), but they almost all have reasons for trying to change the world. Archie and Maxie are animated by their desire to make the environment more accommodating to either Pokémon or humans. Their goals are then turned up to the extreme so that the story can make a point about how a balance must be struck between humanity’s infrastructural needs and the stability of the natural ecosystem.
Archie and Maxie aren’t really meant to be deep, complex characters; they’re consciously designed to provide the story with a pair of reckless extremists whose tunnel vision actually does lead them to instigate the calamitous environmental difficulties that such one-sided viewpoints risk bringing about. This is a cautionary tale, and not one that particularly requires villains with a lot of nuance.
“I recognize the fact that Platinum added more depth to Cyrus, but I’m not going to give them credit for that because I can imagine an alternate reality in which Diamond & Pearl didn’t suck as much as they do” is certainly a take of sorts, but it’s not a very useful critique.
Ghetsis needs to be a malignant asshole in order for N’s story — that is, the character’s story who actually matters in BW — to work. Complaining about Ghetsis not having some “original” motivation is just overlooking everything they did to give N a unique antagonistic perspective.
I would also say that Ghetsis provides a necessary corollary to the story’s broad insistence on the idea that opposing viewpoints can’t necessarily be categorized as “right” or “wrong,” because sometimes there just are flat-out terrible people who want to hurt and exploit others. N receives sympathy from the other characters who validate his convinction in his beliefs because even though he was manipulated, he still had genuine ideals and concerns about the welfare of Pokémon (enough to win over one of the Legendary dragons, even), but if, hypothetically, N had that same convinction in the belief that he should be the supreme god-king of Unova and should rule with an iron fist, would that still be a viewpoint that is deserving of the same validation? Of course not.
Ghetsis represents and begets everything wrong with Team Plasma’s approach. Team Plasma’s message, its ostensible leader, and many of its followers may were genuinely well-meaning. But as an organization, they still kidnapped peoples’ Pokémon, forever severing countless genuinely meaningful bonds and partnerships without any concern or consent from the parties involved. That’s the part of Team Plasma’s actions that are not justifiable, and the story needs it to spring forth from an objectively unjustifiable character. Otherwise you’d end up with a story that sort of endorses the act of kidnapping peoples’ loved ones based on your own uninformed presumptions.
This is ultimately dramatized to some degree, though. Sycamore openly regrets that he let such obvious warning signs slip just because Lysandre was his friend and colleague.
Besides that, I think one look at the real world that we live in can provide pretty sufficient evidence that there are in fact tons of people who will ignore or overlook not just warning signs, but blatantly evil acts happening in real time, whether they be on the part of high-profile individuals, organizations, corporations, or governments, as long as that entity presents an appealing image or message.
To most of the Kalos region, Lysandre is an accomplished, stylish, charismatic inventor-celebrity. “Sure, maybe he says something a little eugenics-y on his Chatter account every now and again, but the guy’s a genius, y’know? I mean, coming from a guy like that, maybe he actually has kind of a point? Anyway, didn’t you see the new Holo-Caster unveiling he hosted last Tuesday? I can’t wait to buy it!”
I swear, so many techbros would rally around Lysandre like bees around a beehive.
The main games have been using the “Team ____” format since the beginning. The fact that they eventually chose the word “skull” — a common symbol of delinquency or just general counterculture-ism — after a different game in the franchise also happened to chose that word in a different context is hardly a sign of creative theft.
Wouldn’t TPC own the rights to all Pokémon Mystery Dungeon stuff anyway? Does PSMD have to give credit to the anime for their use of the idea of Mega-Evolved Pokémon going berserk? This is just a bizarrely petty accusation.
Red herrings and twists are like, fundamental tools in the writing toolbox and are used in countless examples of highly-regarded and culturally significant media. Literally wtf
And again this is just a very strange criticism. Pokémon finally tries to experiment with its well-worn formula, but now the issue is that the developers didn’t use 100% original, innovative, cutting-edge writing techniques. The issue if that Pokémon isn’t postmodernist enough? Eh?
Pokémon: *introduces a bevy of new ideas*
Fans: “man, they’re really running out of ideas”
Tale as old as time.
Also both Sycamore and the main Kalos rival address that Lysandre did have a point in his explanation, being that the world was full of people fighting for limited resources and stealing from one another, and a solution would be to get rid of many people in order for resources to be sustainable enough for everyone to have, without the need to steal or fight amongst each other over. He tried to outdo Zygarde. However, Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde decide for themselves if the world is sustainable enough. No human in Pokémon is outdoing them. Lysandre's solution was also far too harsh and unreasonable to resort to when there could be many alternatives to work around, like building new technology to expand resources, trying to interact with their gods to help them, or just letting mother nature take its course if it does really get too far to be sustainable.
Tl;dr Even if it was clear that Lysandre was shady, it was not clear how exactly he planned to act or when, or even how much he was a part of Team Flare.
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That, I can understand — I think, looking at the post of yours that I initially responded to, I was assuming that your reasoning for the issue being exaggerated was separate from your point about the intrinsic Johto-Kanto relations, since you mentioned the point about exaggeration in a parenthetical.
IIRC, all of the Kalos Gym Leaders have Gen 6 Pokémon as their aces, assuming we’re defining “aces” as “the Pokémon they typically send out last.” That would be Vivillon, Tyrantrum, Hawlucha, Gogoat, Heliolisk, Sylveon, Meowstic, and Avalugg, no?
Just for fun, I thought it could be neat to look at this for Black 2 & White 2’s Gym Leaders, since it’s the only other game that functions as a dedicated sequel installment.
Cheren - 5, 5
Roxie - 1, 5
Burgh - 5, 5, 5
Elesa - 5, 2, 5
Clay - 5, 1, 5
Skyla - 2, 5, 5
Drayden - 3, 5, 5
Marlon - 5, 2, 5
My main takeaway from this is that Johto still could have worked out decently if all eight Gym Leaders had at least one Kanto and one Johto Pokemon, since two regions is much less to work with than five (albeit not all 600+ Pokémon would be available, but still). In the meantime, here are my justifications for some of them:
Pidgey/Pidgeotto: Forms a nice parallel to the last Gym Leader’s ace back in Kanto being a Pidgeot
Metapod & Kakuna: Possibly a reference to Bugsy’s interest in studying bug Pokémon, more specifically these two being a reference to their evolution habits
Scyther: Evolves into a Johto Pokémon anyways
Clefairy: Has a Johto pre-evolution in Cleffa (Edit: And even then, just look at the gym's layout)
Morty’s Ghosts: Misdreavus was, from what I know, a version exclusive originally and also very obscure to begin with (Update: apparently it wasn't version exclusive until later, thanks Scorpio for the clarification)
Jasmine’s Steels: Scizor is already taken by Bugsy, Forretress could work, but Skarmory is not only a version exclusive too but is found very, very far away (Magnemites could have evolved though)
Pryce’s team: Jynx doesn’t fit this dude at all, even if Smoochum is a Johto Mon, Sneasel isn’t available yet, all of Dewgong, Cloyster, and Lapras are Kanto Pokémon, and the only option left is a freaking Kanto legendary
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Minor nitpick, but Misdreavus wasn’t version-exclusive until LeafGreen.
New headcanon: even if people in Kalos were suspicious of Lysandre, they ignored those suspicions because he was a royal family descendent and/or a celebrity.
something something social commentary
No wonder people thought Leon was going to be a villain before the release of SwSh.
Swordward and Shielbert fans stand up.
I never expected the whole fan pandering discussion to continue for so long. Makes me feel bad for making the thread derail so hard. Though at the same time, I guess it wasn't all bad since this seems to have been a good opportunity for many people to voice their opinions on the subject.
I have nothing more to say about that though. Instead, I have come up with some more things I have changed my mind about over time. Here's to hoping that none of this will start another mega-discussion.
First of all, some things about starters. When I played Pokémon as a kid, my mindset for picking a starter was "the Water starter is objectively the best in every possible way and I will always pick it on my first playthrough". Because of that, my first starters for Gen 1-3 were Squirtle, Totodile and Mudkip. But during Gen 4-5, I changed my approach. After learning about Pokémon on a competitive level at the end of Gen 3, it ended up affecting my in-game playthroughs and how I picked my starter. Instead of going with the Water-starter, I went with the starter which was (or would be) the best from a competitive standpoint. Thus, I picked Chimchar in Gen 4 and Snivy in Gen 5. Yes, I know that Serperior was probably never the best starter for competitive in Gen 5, but I think it would have been if it had ever been released with Contrary. Fortunately, it later got released with Contrary in Gen 6.
In Gen 6, my method for picking a starter changed once again. With an international release, I had no way to know how good the starters would be in competitive before I started playing. Instead, I went with the fully evolved starter whose design I liked the best. The fully evolved Gen 6 starters weren't revealed before the release of X/Y, but they were leaked a few days before the release. I thought all of them looked really weird, but I thought Greninja looked the coolest and I liked Frogadier the best from the second-stages, so I picked Froakie. For Gen 7, the fully evolved Gen 7 starters were officially revealed before the games were released. I thought they were all great, but I liked Primarina the very best since Fairy is my favorite type. Thus, I went with Popplio.
For Gen 8-9, the fully evolved starters were not officially revealed beforehand, and I did not want to see how they looked from pre-release leaks... so I had to change my approach again. I simply went with the one I liked the best from the first stages. Which were Scorbunny and Sprigatito. And I'm glad I picked them because Cinderace and Meowscarada are awesome!
My favorite starters from each generation has also changed over the years... but only for Gen 1-2. For Gen 3-9, my favorite starters has always been the same since the start.
For Gen 1, the Squirtle line was my absolute favorite when I was a kid, it was the reason I picked Blue over Red (or Yellow). Then during the FR/LG days, my favorite was actually Charizard for a short while. I think it was because I picked it in LeafGreen, used it on my team, and I actually had a pretty good experience with it. Soon afterwards, my favorite became Venusaur because it was the best in the competitive scene in Gen 3 (at least back then), and it has stayed my favorite since then. But recently, I think I have started to like Blastoise more. Maybe my favorite will change once again, going back to how it originally was.
For Gen 2, I liked the Totodile line the best when I was a kid, but as time passed, I started to like the Cyndaquil line better. Don't remember exactly how or why it happened. I guess I just thought Typhlosion was cooler than Feraligatr.
Another thing I have changed my opinion about is my favorite and least favorite games and generations. Prior to Gen 5, the most recent generation was always my favorite, and the most recent games were my favorites, while the second most recent generation was my second favorite. But that's no longer the case. As it is now, Gen 5 has been my favorite ever since I first played B/W back in 2011, and Gen 6 has been my second favorite since I first played X/Y in 2013. Not sure about my third favorite though. As said in earlier post, it used to be Gen 7 until just recently, but I like Gen 8 and 9 a lot too, so these three are sort of tied at third place right now.
My least favorite generation/games have also changed, but in a different way. When I got back into Pokémon in 2011 thanks to B/W, I was feeling pretty sour towards Johto after having a bad experience with HG/SS. Since many other fans were praising the Johto games while being critical towards B/W, I became even more negative towards the Johto games. However, my anger was mostly aimed towards G/S/C rather than HG/SS. Gen 2 was my least favorite for a while, but after a while, things changed. Back then, there were also a lot of former Pokémon fans (Gen 1 purists) on the internet, who praised Gen 1 and hated all the other generations, notably Gen 5. As I loved Gen 5, this did of course make me angry, and I chose to put my anger towards Gen 1, making it my new least favorite for a while.
Then I started thinking for real. If we ignored the obnoxious fans and ignorant former fans, which were the games I personally had the least fun playing? The answer could be found in Gen 4, in the form of HG/SS. For a while, I was considering them as my least favorites, without actually realizing they were my least favorites. I think what finally nailed it for me was a post by another user on another Pokémon forum (probably Bulbagarden, don't remember exactly). Said user also had HG/SS as their least favorites. HG/SS have been my least favorites ever since then, and I doubt that will ever change unless there should somehow appear a future Pokémon game which is even worse (and that I actually play). I'd say my overall least favorite generation nowadays is Gen 2, but that's because of HG/SS rather than G/S/C.
I have nothing more to say about that though. Instead, I have come up with some more things I have changed my mind about over time. Here's to hoping that none of this will start another mega-discussion.
First of all, some things about starters. When I played Pokémon as a kid, my mindset for picking a starter was "the Water starter is objectively the best in every possible way and I will always pick it on my first playthrough". Because of that, my first starters for Gen 1-3 were Squirtle, Totodile and Mudkip. But during Gen 4-5, I changed my approach. After learning about Pokémon on a competitive level at the end of Gen 3, it ended up affecting my in-game playthroughs and how I picked my starter. Instead of going with the Water-starter, I went with the starter which was (or would be) the best from a competitive standpoint. Thus, I picked Chimchar in Gen 4 and Snivy in Gen 5. Yes, I know that Serperior was probably never the best starter for competitive in Gen 5, but I think it would have been if it had ever been released with Contrary. Fortunately, it later got released with Contrary in Gen 6.
In Gen 6, my method for picking a starter changed once again. With an international release, I had no way to know how good the starters would be in competitive before I started playing. Instead, I went with the fully evolved starter whose design I liked the best. The fully evolved Gen 6 starters weren't revealed before the release of X/Y, but they were leaked a few days before the release. I thought all of them looked really weird, but I thought Greninja looked the coolest and I liked Frogadier the best from the second-stages, so I picked Froakie. For Gen 7, the fully evolved Gen 7 starters were officially revealed before the games were released. I thought they were all great, but I liked Primarina the very best since Fairy is my favorite type. Thus, I went with Popplio.
For Gen 8-9, the fully evolved starters were not officially revealed beforehand, and I did not want to see how they looked from pre-release leaks... so I had to change my approach again. I simply went with the one I liked the best from the first stages. Which were Scorbunny and Sprigatito. And I'm glad I picked them because Cinderace and Meowscarada are awesome!
My favorite starters from each generation has also changed over the years... but only for Gen 1-2. For Gen 3-9, my favorite starters has always been the same since the start.
For Gen 1, the Squirtle line was my absolute favorite when I was a kid, it was the reason I picked Blue over Red (or Yellow). Then during the FR/LG days, my favorite was actually Charizard for a short while. I think it was because I picked it in LeafGreen, used it on my team, and I actually had a pretty good experience with it. Soon afterwards, my favorite became Venusaur because it was the best in the competitive scene in Gen 3 (at least back then), and it has stayed my favorite since then. But recently, I think I have started to like Blastoise more. Maybe my favorite will change once again, going back to how it originally was.
For Gen 2, I liked the Totodile line the best when I was a kid, but as time passed, I started to like the Cyndaquil line better. Don't remember exactly how or why it happened. I guess I just thought Typhlosion was cooler than Feraligatr.
Another thing I have changed my opinion about is my favorite and least favorite games and generations. Prior to Gen 5, the most recent generation was always my favorite, and the most recent games were my favorites, while the second most recent generation was my second favorite. But that's no longer the case. As it is now, Gen 5 has been my favorite ever since I first played B/W back in 2011, and Gen 6 has been my second favorite since I first played X/Y in 2013. Not sure about my third favorite though. As said in earlier post, it used to be Gen 7 until just recently, but I like Gen 8 and 9 a lot too, so these three are sort of tied at third place right now.
My least favorite generation/games have also changed, but in a different way. When I got back into Pokémon in 2011 thanks to B/W, I was feeling pretty sour towards Johto after having a bad experience with HG/SS. Since many other fans were praising the Johto games while being critical towards B/W, I became even more negative towards the Johto games. However, my anger was mostly aimed towards G/S/C rather than HG/SS. Gen 2 was my least favorite for a while, but after a while, things changed. Back then, there were also a lot of former Pokémon fans (Gen 1 purists) on the internet, who praised Gen 1 and hated all the other generations, notably Gen 5. As I loved Gen 5, this did of course make me angry, and I chose to put my anger towards Gen 1, making it my new least favorite for a while.
Then I started thinking for real. If we ignored the obnoxious fans and ignorant former fans, which were the games I personally had the least fun playing? The answer could be found in Gen 4, in the form of HG/SS. For a while, I was considering them as my least favorites, without actually realizing they were my least favorites. I think what finally nailed it for me was a post by another user on another Pokémon forum (probably Bulbagarden, don't remember exactly). Said user also had HG/SS as their least favorites. HG/SS have been my least favorites ever since then, and I doubt that will ever change unless there should somehow appear a future Pokémon game which is even worse (and that I actually play). I'd say my overall least favorite generation nowadays is Gen 2, but that's because of HG/SS rather than G/S/C.
You know, when I read the topic, I expected posts like "I thought Grass was weak to Psychic" or " I believed Rotom was a Legendary Pokémon".
Case in point, for more than a few days, I thought X and Y had an official Chinese translation.
Case in point, for more than a few days, I thought X and Y had an official Chinese translation.
I tought pumpkaboo line was gen7 till i see the anime
All routes in these type of Pokemon discussions tend to lead to similar places, it seems
I also thought that, and then keep thinking it, and then have to remind myself wait no, that was one of SM's big things
Wait what? XY don't have chinese version?
I like to think of a lot of Pokémon games in the same way that I like to think of the stock market- weird comparison, I know, but I enjoy looking at these games individually and seeing how their appeal can increase or decrease over time. For as long as I can remember, HeartGold & SoulSilver were my favorite games in the series and best standard that newer Pokémon games should have strived for. Nowadays, though… I’m honestly not too sure. In an era dominated by continuously added complexity within all aspects of the game, ranging from the characters to the Pokémon themselves and everything in between, there’s still some comfort to be found in the fact that I was lucky enough to be able to grow up with those games.
The problem comes from me being able to analyze a lot of these older Pokémon games across multiple generations on a more analytical level. The quality of life differences are night and day, and as much as I don’t enjoy newer concepts that feel too similar to existing concepts (as evident by how controversial my takes on the antagonists were lol), I also can’t go on record and act like older games didn’t have some of these issues too. Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 immediately come to mind as fan favorite installments that I feel rely too much on the first games, as well as deproving the experience in more subtle ways that make me like the games less than I used to. Contrast this with an installment like, say, 2016’s iteration of Sun & Moon, which managed to feel like one of the most unique Pokémon games ever despite its obvious Gen 1 pandering. While Sun & Moon and a few other newer games certainly have their issues, something about these games also just feels so much more dynamic than the games I grew up with, only really being held back by my lack of an immediate want to replay games I’ve already completed.
The problem comes from me being able to analyze a lot of these older Pokémon games across multiple generations on a more analytical level. The quality of life differences are night and day, and as much as I don’t enjoy newer concepts that feel too similar to existing concepts (as evident by how controversial my takes on the antagonists were lol), I also can’t go on record and act like older games didn’t have some of these issues too. Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 immediately come to mind as fan favorite installments that I feel rely too much on the first games, as well as deproving the experience in more subtle ways that make me like the games less than I used to. Contrast this with an installment like, say, 2016’s iteration of Sun & Moon, which managed to feel like one of the most unique Pokémon games ever despite its obvious Gen 1 pandering. While Sun & Moon and a few other newer games certainly have their issues, something about these games also just feels so much more dynamic than the games I grew up with, only really being held back by my lack of an immediate want to replay games I’ve already completed.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Genuine question: in what way? I mean obviously they're sequels, duh, but outside of Memory Link (which isn't required) I can't think of many ways they're dependent on the originals.
I used to believe and enjoy these old "Ash Bad, Red Good" memes. You know these ones, way before Ash won a Pokémon League.
I Still Never understood Why and how did pikachu won against flare blits charizard. But, aye, pikachu took down every onix in the anime With thunderbolt, so...
Using Johto as an example again, I feel like even if the Pokémon themselves are being reused a lot in comparison to the underutilized Johto representation, at least the path through the game is unique. The beginning and end of B2W2 feel distinct enough, but there’s a solid chunk of gameplay in the middle that feels like you’re just playing the first games again, roughly from Gym #3 up to Gym #6. Furthermore, you have things like Hugh’s team feeling extremely similar to Cheren’s team from the first games, and a lack of actual new places to explore in the postgame that weren’t already in the first games’ main story. Emphasis on places- I’m not counting specific facilities like the PWT and the Black Tower/White Treehollow in that designation.
Then again, Johto’s postgame as a sequel literally is just “worse Kanto” (GSC doesn’t even give you the legendary birds or Mewtwo) so there’s only so much credibility that argument has. Sequels are just hard to make work in a series like Pokémon, and I think that’s why they’ve barely ever tried to flesh things out with them. I mean, just look at what happened to Kalos’s seque- oh wait.
TLDR; Johto is the better sequel, but B2W2 is a better overall individual game. I think that’s where I’m at now instead of when I was younger when I thought HGSS was the best at both roles.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Yeah, fair point. I do wish B2W2 had altered the gym order a bit more than it did; looking at the updated Unova map pre-release, I remember wondering if the intended route would be Virbank>Driftveil, so Clay would be gym #3. Even if that wasn't the route they could have taken the opportunity to upend Unova's famous linearity; have us travel back and forth a bit more. They did make things a little fresh with updated gym layouts but you're right that the middle of B2W2 sags slightly; it perks up significantly once you get to Lentimas Town though.
Pokemon distribution is an interesting comparison point to Johto though, because B2W2 handles a lot of the Unova Pokemon quite badly - there's a bunch that get shoved right to the very back of the game (Golurk, Sawk, Throh, Bouffalant, Deino), and a large amount inexplicably confined to the postgame (Tympole, Stunfisk, Heatmor, Durant, Munna, Cryogonal, Tirtouga, Archen). No one ever talks about that but it's worthy of a deep dive sometime.
I think the problem with this is that they'd have made RBY largely obsolete if they had. My first game was Crystal and I specifically bought Pokemon Red because I wanted to get some of the older Pokemon I couldn't get. So Game Freak, probably quite sensibly from a sales perspective, didn't want to shoot themselves in the foot there.
And that's been a pretty consistent design rule tbf. Games that are within the same generation, or on the same hardware, tend not to "overlap" meaningfully when it comes to special Pokemon, except when it comes to select exceptions like event content. So FRLG include basically everything not in RS, but stop short of giving you Hoenn Pokemon so that you still need to buy RS if you want to fully complete the Pokedex; Emerald plugs a few gaps (it has pretty much all the Colosseum Pokemon FRLG were missing, and is the first game in Gen III to make Mew available) but doesn't have Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, Suicune, Entei, or Raikou available because that'd be treading on FRLG's toes too much. Similarly Gen 5 didn't make a lot of the previous gen's special Pokemon available because Gen 4 was still "current" at that point - sure a lot of them were available at one point or another, but many of those were via spin-offs or events or the Dream World.
Whereas new generations are free to go all out because the objective is to get you to abandon the old stuff and buy what's new. HGSS made a concerted attempt to remove reliance on the GBA games - they basically included every Pokemon not obtainable in DPP. ORAS gives you all the legendaries save the ones XY made available (Mewtwo, the legendary birds, and the Kalos trio) and gives you all the starter Pokemon not in XY.
Idk, I'd say XD largely succeeds as a sequel*. I know that one wasn't made by Game Freak, but it shows that sequels aren't something that can't ever work with Pokemon. There's a reason GSC and B2W2 are some of the most highly-regarded games in the series, after all, and it's not just that they're good in their own right.
*in gameplay terms and content additions, at least
Idc what Ash did before they killed him off, I (and many others) would die on this hill with a meme in hand and a smile on our faces.
I don't really watch the anime because anime was created by Hitler and the devil but from what I have seen, Ash doesn't even seem like a particularly egregious character to me, at least any more than any of the other characters from the shows. That said, I can understand how it annoys people that he was solely given the limelight for 20 years straight. I don't think having the same main character for that long is a particularly good idea.
Very much depends on if you mean Pokemon shows or Anime in general.
I haven't watched many other animes to compare it to, so I mean the Pokemon shows specifically.