Widdershins

We don't need a thousand plus pokemon running around. I don't see how it impacts the game any. I'd only play to see the new pokemon anyway. New content is new content. Part of the reason I quit Warcraft was that even with new content it was still the same old "kill stuff, get new stuff, keep repeating and wasting your time." Long as I got new places to go & see and new ways to interact with things, then I'm good.

 I fail to see how the beastiary, the endless list of pokemon has anything to do with the content of the game. It ain't gonna hurt me none if I never got to see a Scrafty. I could DO without Oranguru... and it was there, so I gave it a shot.

 Sigh... as much as it wounds me to say this... The Pokemon has nothing to do with Pokemon. Much like how they eventually ditched the "Gotta Catch 'em All!" motto. To use as an example and answer @Altastrofae's first question at the same time...

 If they had taken out the Wiki Berry, or indeed, berries as a part of the game as a whole. I wouldn't have given it a second thought. The fact they put it in, MISLABELED it with the wrong flavor, gave me a function to USE it as that flavor and I had to actually learn from my own experience the lie they programmed in... THAT'S a middle finger to the fandom! Restricting or limiting what you can do isn't so bad... there's plenty of half-done, cheap games out there on mobile phones (...huh, they did say that Pokemon was competing with mobile gaming now... and they've come out with payable expansions, huh.) or "Free to Play" games that hinge upon suckering out your cash for stuff you don't actually need... its in turning out bad what they do get to.

 I won't lie. It sure don't seem like their aim is right. I've heard tell that Game Freak, the original designers of the franchise are slowly going bankrupt and are soon to get replaced with a younger developer. I'd rather stick with the game series that's still giving me the World I've come to love... as opposed to, say, Warcraft, that keeps reinventing itself edgier to what it thinks its audience wants, thereby forcing people to accept what they shovel out.

I'm here for a story. I'm there to play with what tools they do give me. Pokemon makes me happy. Long as they keep that happy tone, they'll keep me!

...Unless, say, they did GO and make a game where they only gave you an extremely limited way of interacting and a poor excuse of a world that was just set up to collect what was essentially the same button mashing interface, but I'm sure Pokemon Masters what they aim for! *grinding teeth*

Widdershins, that was the most sensible thing I've ever heard you say, and I 100% agree

But honestly I couldn't care less if how a berry is supposed to taste is inconsistent. Maybe Galarian Wiki Berries taste different? That's an actual real world phenomenon, fruits tasting different depending on where they grow. In fact, it's with other foods too. There's a small island off the coast of Greece that has 100% organic honey with some of the healthiest, indigenous  flowers, and it's basically a completely unique taste for honey. Even the composition looks amazing, andI almost want to go there just to try it. You can't get it anywhere else because they don't want to make it into a corporate thing. They think it would ruin the sanctity of it (sorry about that honey rant)

But it's just the Pokémon they decided to remove

My boy Dragonite, ma dude! I just wanted my bouncy little  Pseudolegendary, but no~ it makes me a little upset 

@Altastrofae Except its not! It's still a Dry flavor in the game! The game just SAYS its sour instead when its not!!

 This is wrecking my OCD here. Lol.