Oh boy.
The game adaption of Advanced Generation was done so poorly, it's not even funny. :\ Skipping some of the game locations (even those that are IMPORTANT in the games, such as Okuribi Yama), I did NOT like. Though, it's funny that the Devon Corporation was left in the anime (due to the ANNOYING fact that Silph Co. was NEVER EVER referenced ONCE in the ENTIRE anime series. Hmm...another attempt to avoid Rocket Gang disbanding (which should've happened over two times, btw), writers?). Plus the BADLY adapted Battle Frontier facilties (I didn't mind that they put it in Kanto, since it had good potential to look back at the past episodes...WHICH IT ALMOST NEVER DID. The writers screwed with the Battle Frontiers' rules and made them seem like Gym Leaders, only more "powerful" than usual).
Oh yeah, Takeshi being in AG-Shinou is JUST MESSED UP. Don't pull the "he's the cook! He's supposed to be there!" crap on me. In the games, the player you're playing as travels solo. With NO personal chief. He/she's bound to starve. In my opinion, seeing the group starve to death and go through those kinds of hardships when traveling as a trainer would be pretty interesting to see (we get to see what the life of a trainer would be like...WITHOUT a personal chief 8D). With Takeshi, or any character that counteracts any -cons in the group, it makes the group seem very Mary-Gary sue-ish (I mean, they have a PERSONAL CHIEF).
But my biggest disappointment about the Pokemon anime is that it just doesn't even try to be a good adaption of the games anymore (that ended right after the first 80 episodes...granted, the Jouto portion of Pocket Monsters was close to the games somewhat, like the Red Gyarados arc with Rocket Gang, but Satoshi wasn't the one that was supposed to take part in any of them, nor the G/S/C portion of the anime for that matter - when you look at the games' storyline and the anime's storyline - you'd see that they are completely different only holding some similarities, which are only some side plots in the games. Only existing in the anime because of advertising purposes) or try to make a good story while advertising the games (Orange Islands wasn't adapted from the games, but it showed promise by going a path that's more original - like the Gym Badge quest being much more different from the regular and it had good potential for a good story). Seriously, how hard is it to make more story arcs, escaping the usual episode formula? As we've seen from the TV specials and movies, the writers ARE capable of making interesting plots. Also, comparing how many movies there are and how many episodes there are, I hardly think that making (at least) enough sideplots to avoid some horrible amount of fillers between Gym battles is too much to ask...AND it would give the writers a chance to, you know, actually think. But, the only thing that would counter that is if the writers would shaft an interesting plot (taken from the games, of course) for their f*cking advertising. Seriously, did you ever think the Kyogre/Groudon arc could've been MUCH better? Really, they had a chance to STRETCH OUT the saga (to cut down on the fillers, giving us something ENJOYABLE to watch and fill in some space at the same time) AND showcase Mikuri (really, couldn't they have advertised Emerald by JUST putting Adan as the Gym Leader of Rune City (and of course, explaining why Mikuri's no longer the Gym Leader of the town?)? I mean, at least put Mikuri in this arc to advertise both R/S and Emerald. Two in one, writers. Two in one. And on that note, if they were going to advertise their asses off for Emerald, why didn't they put Rayquaza into the arc to spice things up, with it going in to stop the clash between Kyogre and Groudon? It's friggin' ridiculous to shaft an important R/S/E game character (replacing him with an old R/B/G/Y character that SHOULD NOT BE THERE) and shaft a potentially good arc just to advertise Emerald when they're not going to advertise it ALL THE F*CKING WAY). Unfortunately, the arc fell victim to the same bad writing and game adaption the anime has always had.