I'm mildly bewildered by the fact everyone is losing their shit over the new Pokemon games for 3DS. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge anyone their excitement and I'm sure they're very good, I just feel like I've never really "got" Pokemon.

This is strange, really, because the Pokemon games are effectively JRPGs which, as longtime readers will know, is my favourite genre of gaming. And yet despite a brief dalliance with Red back in the Game Boy Color days, I've felt absolutely no inclination whatsoever to return to the series. I'm sure it's changed a lot since Red — at least I hope so — but honestly, my fairly underwhelmed experience with the original installment in the series was enough to discourage me from checking it out again in the future.

My main reason for disliking Red back when I tried it was that it felt like a "JRPG for kids". This isn't necessarily in and of itself a bad thing, and it's probably actually a fairly accurate description what with the warning on the box informing players that "basic reading ability is required to enjoy this game". However, what this translated to for me was something that played like a JRPG, but which didn't really include many of the things about that genre of gaming that I liked.

Pokemon Red came out in the UK in 1999. I'd discovered JRPGs with Final Fantasy VII back in 1997, and it felt like a big step backwards. Obviously I'm aware that this isn't a particularly fair comparison, what with FFVII being on a CD-ROM based 32-bit machine and Red being on a cartridge-based 8-bit handheld. But even so, limited technical capabilities doesn't prevent you from doing good things with writing and characterisation, and Red just didn't offer that to me. I didn't care about what was happening in the world, I couldn't put myself in the shoes of the mute, personality-free protagonist and there were very few relatable characters scattered around the world. It felt like a game about the grind, and about collecting endless reams of things that you'd never use, rather than the kind of JRPG that I definitely do like: games where there's a cool story to follow and, oh, by the way, here's a bajillion other things to do in this world with these characters you like.

I don't know if the Pokemon series has changed since then, because I've never felt inclined to try another one after that. As I say above, I'd hope it has — surely the long-running anime has shown that people are hungry for some actual characters and story in among the monster-training gameplay — but I remain unconvinced at present. I am almost — almost — curious enough to pick up a copy for myself and see why everyone seems so excited about this latest version, but not enough to spend £35 on a new copy. After growing tired of Animal Crossing a lot more quickly than some other people I know, I'm hesitant to jump aboard another Nintendo hype train.

If, on the other hand, someone wanted to send me a copy so I could educate myself, I would certainly do my best to try and understand the new games' appeal. (Worth a try.)