How many Pokemon do I have to catch again?

Anybody who has played a video game for more than five minutes knows what their favourite series of games are. It can be the Zelda series, Pokemon, Halo, but it dosent matter. It's like having a favourite band- some of the games (think of them as albums) are usually  different and better than others, and there's bound to be people out there that disagree, but there's something about it that makes you love it, no matter what. But there's one question that lingers in my mind- when is it time for a series to come to a close- for them to stop making the games?

Take Pokemon for example- the games started out simple with Red and Blue, with 151 Pokemon to catch, a basic story line and concept, but it was still highly enjoyable and played by millions. Then the second generation of games came along- Gold and Silver. These improves on the original, adding new Pokemon and features that really shaped the series.

Then came Ruby and Sapphire, of the third generation. Even though it improved on Gold and Silver on some aspects, it was a bit of a let down, and the Pokemon added to it were mostly forgettable. The forth generation, Diamond and Pearl, weren't much better, even with the added online and bigger world map. It still seemed to be lacking something... Or seemed to have too much. And with the upcoming Pokemon Black and White, who knows what they'll do to "improve the formula" this time? (especially since the new Pokemon that have been revealed look pretty shit.)

Some series, like the Mario and Zelda series, are still fresh with ideas that keep it ongoing and keep fans coming in. Although they both have some bad games in the series (See: Mario Is Missing! and the short-lived Zelda CDi games, both spawning classic Internet memes), the brilliant games that have been developed more than make up for such mistakes. 

But sometimes, developers need to realize that there's a point where they may need to stop on a series. Like I said about Pokemon, GameFreak will need to do something seriously awesome to make the next Generation special and prove to us they're not just churning out games for the money. Original ideas are really the way to go, and being able to take a classic series and be able to make nearly every game as good as the last is something that keeps a series alive, not just rebooting an old formula and adding to it, hoping that people won't notice the difference.

Well, I'm off to bed, since I don't have much more time to finish this. I'll add more on this tomorrow, I promise. 

Until then.

Tilly