Pokemon is to this day still considered one of the best video game series out there so I'm not going to beat around the bush. Pokemon is an awful, awful game and isn't deserving of any acclaim. The games boil down to a day in and day out grind fest for whatever team you're making on your quest to "Catch Em All!" all while shit stomping any random encounter and forced battle that gets in your way. The only "real" challenge comes from gyms and The Elite Four while everything is just a place holder for those parts of the games causing them to zig-zag its difficulty curve with no real idea on what the Hell is going on. The grinding and battles with other trainers aren't even there to help you learn how to handle the mechanics for when you do reach those challenging parts of the games. With the constant grinding just to power level your Pokemon into demigods, there's no real thinking on strategy since your Pokemon are just so leveled that they can OHK anything that looks at them funny. Even the weakness circle takes a back seat if you spend enough time going back in forth in bushes and wreck enough Pleb level Pokemon. Even battles in the Gyms basically turn into "Use the same Pokemon that has an advantage over them or Power Grind to an easy victory." Not to mention half way through the course of going through Gyms they become easy as hell since you've made enough money off trainer battles that you can just buy enough items so your Pokemon can not lose in any situation. You can't trip over a pile of money without being given more money to buy things. Along with the fact that you can create your own team with the use of a PC, your Pokemon's weaknesses are invisible if you can hide it behind enough items used to ignore their weakness. It's just roid raging your already buffed as Hell monsters. The games just give you a complete advantage over everybody. With such boring, stagnant gameplay I can not recommend this series to anybody, and I am utterly shocked that people honestly play these games. Pokemon is a terrible series, and anyone who plays the games are supporting the death of Video gaming. Thank you, and good day.