RT if you want to play a Pokemon game with:

-A more mature story
-Side quests
-A complicated evil team (aka not “taking over the world”)
-Characters with morally grey pasts
-Darker lore
-Gyms that can be beaten out of order
-A jerk rival
-Actual mysteries that aren’t spelled out

Cool, sounds to me like ya’ll really want to play Pokemon Red, Blue, & Yellow for the original Game Boy because it has ALL of that

PLUS most of these points are carried through Gen 2 (it’s a sequel) + some are expanded on in Gen 3

If you liked this, try/revisit Gen 1

If it’s not obvious, most who liked/RTd this clearly think a pokemon game like this didn’t exist (look at the replies lol), which means y’all didn’t know/forgot gen 1 already had all of these!

My point is, go play them, and if you have, there are some cool things you missed!

Guys, you all agreed you liked mysteries and story that wasn’t spelled out.

If you’re now saying Gen 1 had no story after finding out what this thread was really about, I think you’re missing a lot of the stuff that wasn’t spelled out.

It’s genuinely some of the best parts.

If you dont think pokemon trafficking, killing pokemon, genetic experimentation, using a gym as a front, & organically weaving in/out of the story while also introducing a B plot with morally gray characters isnt more complicated than shooting a big laser idk what to tell you lol

Pokemon switched to more fantasy violence in later gens, which is because the games became more kid friendly (this doesn’t mean it’s bad lol).

Team Rocket is just more grounded in reality, and therefore makes what they do, like canonically traffick pokemon, grosser and slimeier.

feeling bad for all of y’all who don’t play games that are “old” and not “modern”

pokemon or not, you’re really the only ones taking the L in that scenario lol