Feeling sad about Pokémon games (and thoughts on Legends: Z-A)

I’ve played Pokémon for as long as I’ve been playing video games. When I first got a GameBoy Advance I played Emerald and LeafGreen. I played a copy of Yellow I borrowed from a friend in primary school. I played Crystal on an emulator on my cellphone in middle school (and refused to evolve Cyndaquil because it was so cute). I played every single mainline Pokémon game since and always had fun. I played a lot of the spin-offs (Mystery Dungeon and Ranger) and always had fun (alright I didn’t play Gates to Infinity, and while Super Mystery Dungeon was alright it didn’t manage to live up to what Mystery Dungeon used to be on the DS). I had a phase where I wanted to own every Pokémon game from the GBA onwards and even imported the Japanese soundtracks after finding out they were not that expensive and readily available. So I own all editions of every mainline game from Ruby & Sapphire until Sun & Moon, full in box, and the physical soundtrack. I had fun playing through Shield – and while it…