it's pokemon. there wont be much of anything that's new. new main characters, new pokemon, new adventure, same structure. that. is. pokemon. pokemon was developed for children. and yes, many people grew up with pokemon and yearn for a more adult pokemon, they got that in black in white 1/2, where there were more adult concepts of thinking, more theory, asking you 'why' about pokemon more than saying 'just because'. but pokemon probably wont change. why should it? it's dynamics work, maybe not perfectly, but they work, they have for.. what is it, 15 years now? god i feel old saying that.. >.< with pokemon, you have to look at the small things to appreciate their type of change.. like.. wow, they finally came out with a game for the 3ds.. that is amazing. or that there are new pokemon to study. ^^; pokemon is simplistic, it's not gonna get much better than that. sorta teaches to enjoy and appreciate the simple parts of life and subtle changes.

You make some pretty good points, and through the Generations they've made some pretty nice improvements (I feel that Diamond & Pearl were easily the best, with the most useful gadgets and an incredible boost to how the menus and such worked).

That said, we are still playing the same basic game. You start as a brand new trainer, you pick your first Pokemon, go get gym badges and deal with whatever bad-guy group has cropped up. The basic gameplay hasn't really been touched, with the exception of fight types.

This is why I feel Game Freak is stagnant. Pokemon Colosseum followed a lot of these same ideas...turn-based battles, fighting the evil company/team/whatever...but it played with the formula in fun and interesting ways.

To start, you have not one, but two starter Pokemon. Both of which were Pokemon types that have not been seen or used as starters before or after (Dark and Psychic). The game also drops the 1-on-1 fighting type in favor of a 2-on-2 type, which alters the way you approach any fight. Plus, the game drops the idea that you need to collect badges, as Gyms become more of a side challenge to complete, rather than being the majority of the storyline(and there's only a few gyms to start with).

Plus, the way you acquire more Pokemon was changed drastically, where you had to be lucky and find Pokemon that were 'Shadow' Pokemon, and steal them away from the evil trainers to help purify and heal them. Only by doing this could you unlock their moves, and start teaching them new ones.

I'm not saying that Colosseum was the best entry in the series, but it was a unique approach to the gameplay style they have for Pokemon. Black & White introduced 3-on-3 and those 'trio' battles where you have to swap in and out between 3 Pokemon, but they felt more like a novelty due to them only cropping up maybe 3 or 4 times in the entire story. Why weren't those a larger part of the overall game?

Kind of see what I'm getting at? They could stay true to their formula but introduce new mechanics or styles into the game, and it would help it feel really fresh.

well, D/P's advances were purely technical. there wasn't really any advance in how the story was written or anything that makes the game of any quality. i don't feel that 'gadgets and goodies' make up a game or make it better. and the game play doesn't really need to be touched on. that's why they made the other spinoff games, like stadium, colosseum, snap, mystery dungeon, ranger, ect. to fill those niches that pokemon and a mainline story doesn't. the mainline story shouldn't have to conform all of those types of games into one game, it would be terrible.
they probably are stagnant at this point, almost every single game company is at this point. but it's seriously a hard business line to walk. pokemon was created for 10-13 year olds.. or younger. that's their target market. that's where they make the big bucks. but at the same time people are crying about pokemon not getting any better. well.. a 12 year old isn't going to care if the game gets better, they just want some pokimans. it's the older people... 23-27 year olds plus that have more refined gaming pallets, they're the ones that want the beefed up pokemon games. but, that is just not pokemon's target market on the average. that puts gamefreak in a tough spot. cater to the older gamers and go completely over the heads of children and lose that target market. or continue with what their doing and get a bunch of fanboys pissed off.
i'm not supporting them, or whatever. i do so long for a really grown up, fun, lengthy, or any other type of awesome game quality type pokemon. reality: it ain't gonna happen. so i'll just sit contentedly for now, being a pokemon collector, collect up my games and other things i enjoy about it, but i just don't put too much stock into it. and when a new game comes out i don't really roll my eyes and get upset. it's just like smiling and shaking your head at a special child really. as if they don't know any better. (oh bless their little pea-pickin' hearts) ^^
every generation they add new mechanics. new tools, characters, their dynamic, the maps, new poke-watch-whatever machines, new ways of caring for your pokemon or adventuring, they do add things. though, i'm afraid that if people continue to ask for more, pokemon is going to turn into an even bigger sparkle-dog than it is already. i learned this while making characters.. you cant just keep adding things. at some point you have to start taking things away if you're going to add more or it's just going to become a big vat of ew.

Out of curiousity, what do you feel would be some new mechanics/styles to intregrate into the core gameplay of Pokemon (for instance, the upcoming X & Y games) to enhance it and/or keep it fresh? I've tried thinking about it myself...but all I could think of is things like putting in more 2 vs 2 and/or 3 vs 3 battles with trainers to balance out the 1 vs 1 battles (in the main game itself, not just the multiplayer features) and introducing one or two or three types of pokemon (Light? Sound/Ether? Time?). ;^^

They ran out of the colors, now comes the letters!