Unpopular opinions, huh? Well, here goes.
Adding 150-odd pokemon in Gen5 was the biggest mistake GameFreak has ever made. Quantity does NOT equal quality, and thank the Maker (Arceus?) they realized it in Gen6. Too many similar Pokemon, with no real distinguishing marks between them (Swellow's... faster than Fearow? Garbador... is like Muk but designed creatively?) has always been a problem as the generations march on, and the upper limit on how many Pokemon could possibly exist in a greater metagame (say, 1,000) is being approached too quickly. It doesn't matter that I like many of the Gen5 pokes more than their Gen1 equivalent, the design trend of adding more new Pokemon each generation (peaking Gen5) put the game's future at risk.
Gen6 hit the perfect balance, with enough new Pokemon to excite people that actually had relevance by the endgame, adding Fairy to older Pokemon to make them more relevant (though IMHO they missed a bet not adding Fairy to Vanillish line), and realizing they didn't HAVE to keep to 'design traditions' like legendary trios or Fire/Fighting starter or Normal/Flying pokemon. (Seriously, I like Emboar, but there's no reason I can see for adding another Fire/Fighting starter other than "we did it the last two generations...")
You don't NEED a ton of new Pokemon to provide variety in gameplay; simply varying the Pokemon available early on works pretty damned well. B2/W2 proved that amply by having different Pokemon available in the beginning areas. It's the only game where I've used a Riolu AS a Riolu, or Growlithe AS a Growlithe, trying to balance my need for a powerful Arcanine versus expanding Hawtdawg's movepool before evolution.
I like Mega evolutions (I was sold the moment I realized the jpn version of Gardevoir's Megastone is "sirnitenite," hehe) but they're already overexending them somewhat. How many new Mega-evolutions can we realistically be expected to use?
Adding 150-odd pokemon in Gen5 was the biggest mistake GameFreak has ever made. Quantity does NOT equal quality, and thank the Maker (Arceus?) they realized it in Gen6. Too many similar Pokemon, with no real distinguishing marks between them (Swellow's... faster than Fearow? Garbador... is like Muk but designed creatively?) has always been a problem as the generations march on, and the upper limit on how many Pokemon could possibly exist in a greater metagame (say, 1,000) is being approached too quickly. It doesn't matter that I like many of the Gen5 pokes more than their Gen1 equivalent, the design trend of adding more new Pokemon each generation (peaking Gen5) put the game's future at risk.
Gen6 hit the perfect balance, with enough new Pokemon to excite people that actually had relevance by the endgame, adding Fairy to older Pokemon to make them more relevant (though IMHO they missed a bet not adding Fairy to Vanillish line), and realizing they didn't HAVE to keep to 'design traditions' like legendary trios or Fire/Fighting starter or Normal/Flying pokemon. (Seriously, I like Emboar, but there's no reason I can see for adding another Fire/Fighting starter other than "we did it the last two generations...")
You don't NEED a ton of new Pokemon to provide variety in gameplay; simply varying the Pokemon available early on works pretty damned well. B2/W2 proved that amply by having different Pokemon available in the beginning areas. It's the only game where I've used a Riolu AS a Riolu, or Growlithe AS a Growlithe, trying to balance my need for a powerful Arcanine versus expanding Hawtdawg's movepool before evolution.
I like Mega evolutions (I was sold the moment I realized the jpn version of Gardevoir's Megastone is "sirnitenite," hehe) but they're already overexending them somewhat. How many new Mega-evolutions can we realistically be expected to use?