Who really likes Pokemon?

[Razer]

Ok, anyone that knows me (or simply looks at my avatar) knows I like the Pokemon franchise. Thru it's GB/GBA/N64/GC/DS and card game iterations it continues to hold me captive, sometimes even beyond my own explanations (Pokemon Puzzle League). However, this is an honestly asked question so here goes...
Asking only the people who have played and completed any two (or more) of the Pokemon games or still play the card game (as it still bases itself on the property) : Is the franchise good, bad, or simply acceptable for you?

Obviously nothing is without flaws and fine tuning but I think Pokemon has addressed it's issues with each edition altho it still needs work. What I'm mostly targetting tho is it's need (and criticism) to become more challenging. I personally believe anyone that wants to can bulldoze their way through the game as they can with any game if they decide to exploit it thru unfair advantage (halfback swing passes in Madden, for example). To me tho, this is cheating. It's like grinding up to a level 50 character in order to beat the level 10 boss in an RPG. Of course if you have to cheat then you can't then say "the game is too easy". I know of ways to counteract this but that's a programmer's job and not the topic of this thread.
I also ran into three different people at my job that felt that the (card) game (and card games in general) were too complicated for them, something I have a hard time understanding.

Now I'm not just asking people who still play the games. In fact, I want to hear more from people who have decided to stop playing, for whatever reasons. But if you've just looked at the series and without playing decided that it's too childish or hard or whatever, then your opinion can't carry too much weight so I'd ask that you refrain from inputting here.
So, for those that have played thru and finished at least two of the Pokemon games on any platform, what do you think? Is it too easy? Too hard? Or just right (within reason)? Remember, we have already accepted that it's not perfect.

[ScrumYummy]

I have only ever owned/played Pokemon Red. It was fun, and cute, but I have never really felt compelled to own another Pokemon game since. I think part of it was getting into it in the early days, then getting burned out on it after it became so popular. And now that the popularity is at a more reasonable level, I feel like I could almost get back into it, but I'm very wary of the fact that it's a "kid's" market.

I used to play the card game too, back when it first came out, but then realised I was about five years older than the other kids at the tournaments and stopped playing

[FawkesFyre]

I have a fairly decent selection of pokemon games...all for gameboy though, which is partly why I stopped playing. Small screens bg me after a while.

Lets see, I have Gold, and Crystal (which wasn't so impressive), Puzzle Challenge, and Pinball.

Gold/Crystal: I just lost the time to pay and would get to a boss and get stuck on something stupid...not cool when a 7-yearold tells you how to beat the boss.

Puzzle: Was a tough one. I worked my ass off to win the whole challenge part to just get the "Game Over" as my reward.

Pinball: Just lacked variety

My overall gaming skills are just not that great. I do look for one of the main system games...I just haven't found any cheap enough..<$30.

I think its kind of a balance between easy and hard.

[Ming]

Tobs and I had Pokemon Red and Blue back in the day, and to be perfectly honest, I had a lot of fun playing through them. They weren't the most difficult games that I'd ever played, but they also offered a fairly decent challenge. We also had Pokemon Snap (for some reason) which I found strangely fun to play (again, for some reason unknown to me even now).

I also played the card game for a brief period of time. And while I didn't continue playing, I did think that it was a very well designed game. The reason I ultimately stopped playing was because I thought that it was just too easy, but that may be because I have have a lot of advanced and tournament level experience with Magic, and was used to its complexities. At the time the game was on fire, I was working on a toy store that was selling packs for exorbitant rates, and it kind of made me sick to sell countless packs to rich people who were giving these cards to their kids, who weren't actually doing anything with them, aside from showing them off to their friends. Like I said, it was a good game, and I really wish that more kids would have gotten into actually PLAYING it. But I digress...

Back when I was playing, I was really enjoying the game, like I said. I think one of the turn-offs that I had was the continual expansion of the game and the story. When I was playing, there were 150 Pokemon (well...151 if you counted Mew), and I liked it that way. I think, personally, that the overcomplicated the entire franchise. I mean, how many Pokemon are there now?

I think the other thing that pushed me away was the mass enfatuation by little kids. My belief is if you throw enough little kids at something that they think is "cool", that eventually they will destroy whatever that was. It's not their fault per se, but rather the fault of parents and ultimately corporations trying to milk something for all it's worth. But that's really just social and economic commentary on my part.

I don't think that I can adequately answer your question regarding difficulty because I don't think that I've honestly played enough of the franchise to answer adequately. But I hope that my personal opinion about the franchise can be of at least some value to you. To sum everything I said up: Pokemon is ok in my book. It's not for me personally, but I acknowledge that it is ultimately a good thing.

[kurjohoto the III]

Ummm the only one I really missed was the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald series . One day I'm going to pick up Emerald so I can complete it. I'm waiting with baited breath on the Wii version and Pearl/Diamond. So yeah love pokemon and need some more.lol.

[GAAZ]

I have a love hate relationship with the games.

I played the first round of them with the red cartridge and had fun...Until I realized that I couldn't collect all 150 Pokemon without getting 2 more friends.

This in and of itself wasn't all too bad until I found out the Japanese got a version that had Charmander, Bulbosaur, Squirtle, AND Evee fields so that with one cartridge you could collect all 150 Pokemon alone.

Also once I got a Dratini the game was over...Worked it up to Dragonite and nothing could stop me...Killed all the endgame trainers without switching Pokemon.

[BK]

I see the games as really well put together RPG's that can be fun/entertaining, I just don't own any of the systems anymore to continue playing through the series.

[Graillik Tur]

Just recently bought all the GBA games to play on my DS (set me back about $70) mostly because Dai and I had much fun with them back in the day. Also, with the new Pokemon Diamond/Pearl cross continent trading will be able along with VoIP and the ability to import old GBA pokemon to your new DS game. It will be...teh 5w33tn355.

[Nogrick]

My only complaint is that I can't dress my Cubone up in armor.

But really the games are pretty solid, not to hard, but not too easy at times. The one thing I hated was traversing though really long dungeons and no way to heal. (If you didn't know Mt. Moon or have a strat for instance. Took me forever to get through.)

[ScrumYummy]