Its interesting that elementary kids have this kind of evergreen introduction to Pokemon. There is always a new set of games coming out, cards to buy, toys, anime. So kids see older kids with it, they want to get it, then they get introduced. So this "fad" has gone on for 30 years.

However, even as someone who plays JRPGs. I can't for the life of me understand how adults are playing the games. The pokemon games are painful games to play, full of grinding, massive amounts of rng and just boring turn based combat (compared to other rpgs that exist). Why as an adult you would play Pokemon over SMT is something I can't get. Every time Ive tried ive bounced off newer games hard.

> Why as an adult you would play Pokemon

Oh, I don't want to play Pokémon games, but every few hours, I am given the controller and told to beat the boss with a team composed of 6 low-level Pikachus and zero healing items.

Newer Pokémon games have way more quality-of-life such as EXP share and way faster animations so it's not a slog anymore. Recently finished Scarlet and enjoyed it very much. Currently replaying SoulSilver and I couldn't play it without cheats that make the game a bit faster (cutting repetitive animations, making the game run at 60 FPS, etc.) since everything is so slow.

I'm nearing 30 and have played a lot of JRPGs in my life.

i play both! there is a sort of comfort in pokemon, like watching your favorite movie or eating junkfood, but i also love me a gourmet meal too. room for both! who doesnt wanna play a game with their favorite little doods, getting see what others can become favorites and then ya know everyone else playing so its a fun community thing. i also do love the grinding especially in the older games, and the RNG is fun to me. love when that 1% encounter rate hits after 30 mins of searching.

The grinding is less of an issue than being too easy. You can play through a number of the games with just your starter pokemon, playing with close to no strategy at all.

People add artificial difficulty through extra rules, which seems like a strange thing to have to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuzlocke

"You're playing it wrong" - Pokemon can be played with a min/max grinding attitude, or it can be played as digital cockfights that you futz around with from time to time.

Some people really like relatively "mindless" entertainment that they can do while doing other things. Hell, that describes the vast majority of mobile games.

> Why as an adult you would play Pokemon over SMT is something I can't get.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Players have come up with a variety of self-imposed challenge modes to make the game more dynamic, Nuzlocke being most famous: https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nuzlocke_Challenge

As far as I can tell, my kids and their friends never actually play the game either, they just collect the cards. I don't think they even know the rules.

SMT is your example here for the anti-grind, anti-boring-tbc?

I guess SMT2 was bizarrely anti-grind in a sense, but I dropped it when it turned out that leveling up made me weaker.

> Why as an adult you would play Pokemon over SMT is something I can't get

bro are you serious? smt is the definition of painful in terms of time sunk and the newer pokemon games have so many guard rails; i can mindlessly blast through the whole story and craft a quick crew to beat down my wife and friends and just be done ;p

now granted, would I rather play (and 100 percent complete) any SMT game? yes. how do adults do it? i watched my friend who's an RN on hospital hours + has three kids blast through cyberpunk and the answer is pretty simple: sleep is for the weak.