What I really hate, however, is not letting dead characters lie. Yes, the Sinnoh and Unova fanboy is here to diss Looker and Colress (who is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE NPC). Honestly, Looker just feels a bit forced. While the Emma plotline was cool and fun, it was entirely unnecessary to add Looker into it. The ORAS inclusion was just stupid. As for BW1, I haven't played those yet so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And as for Colress, I mean, put something more than a cameo in SM if you're gonna use him, and if not, why bother? In addition, I think Samson Oak was very unneeded and was there just to appeal to genwunners.
Looker's cameo in BW isn't anything special. He first appears in your house post game at first disguised as your mother, tells you he's hunting the Plasma Sages, gives you the Super Rod for no reason (something the game even points out), and as you find each Sage he appears to arrest them and thank you. That's it. It's really nothing compared to his XY and SM role, honestly that could have been any member of the international police and nothing would have changed.
That said I liked it was Looker in XY and SM. While in BW his role was just a generic officer arresting the Sages, XY actually gave him character development. His cameo in ORAS was unneeded and felt both pandering and unsatisfying. Looker washes ashore with amnesia which sounds like it'll lead into a side plot but it goes no where and I don't think it has been connected to anything like his role in the International Police or the tragic Ultra Beast case mentioned in SM.
I like his appearance in SM, but that's also partly because he was also with other International Police agents. Had it been Looker alone, I would feel they're starting to pander (which they are to an extent). However with them introducing more International Police agents I'm hoping they can create a group of characters so they can cycle through them instead of keep using Looker. Like for Gen VIII I wouldn't mind if it was Anabel doing a solo mission or having another International Police agent.
I still think both Colress and Grimsley were suppose to have a bigger story role but they decided to ditch that plan to focus on the newer characters. To sum up my theory:
Colress was going to be one of the top Aether Foundation scientists. His new outfit matches theirs, he's found near an Aether Foundation facility, plus he would have been the blue/cyan to Lusamine's yellow/Faba's green/Wicke's magenta. Also it felt odd during the Aether Foundation raid that Guzma was the last battle before Lusamine. Faba kept going on how he was "Aether Foundation's last defense" yet that wasn't true, it was Guzma. Also we had fought Guzma not so long ago in Po Town, we're fighting him again so soon? What I think the original plan might have been was having Colress be the one you fought to get access to the elevator than Faba would be the one you battled in front of the Aether House. It would also explain why in the cutscene where Lusamine initiates her plan they had Guzma running in as if it was suppose to be a surprise he's there even though we just fought him outside (why wouldn't he had gone inside with us if he was going to do so seconds later after us?).
I think Grimsley was originally going to be Ula'ula's Kahuna. So it just so happened Grimsley and Nanu both are Dark-type experts, are foreigners, and have a darker perspective on life and events going on? Also Grimsley looks like he's more on a retirement than on vacation with the robe he's wearing, having white splotches of hair, and his eyes looked tired. It looks like he moved to Alola rather then just visiting (note we never are told why he's in Alola, he's just there). In addition notice how all the other Poke Rides were given to you by either a Kahuna, Captain, or someone related to a Kahuna. Grimsley is the only Poke Ride giver who's not part of the Island Challenge, which makes you wonder why does he have the authority to give you the Poke Ride than.
Samson Oak was pretty pointless. He's honestly just their to be a joke about being the Alolan form of Professor Oak.
What's really becoming a problem, however, is the cutscenes. My god SO WHAT IF I CARE IF LILLIE HAS MEMORIES OF HER MOTHER? STOP F---ING REMINDING ME EVERY 5 SECONDS AND LET ME PLAY THE GAME! I don't want a new cut scene for every new area I enter and for every last thing that I do. If I wanted that I'd play an RPG with a real story like Final Fantasy. I think people are unfairly directing their rage to tutorials when they aren't the main problem, though they are a problem indeed. I think it's time we focused on cutscenes because while it's common to hate the cutscenes, GF doesn't seem to care and they aren't stopping.
I don't think its a bad idea to include a more developed story in my main Pokemon games. That said, they do need to work on cutscenes occurrence and breaks. Well, actually, I think BW did cutscenes well enough. They were decently placed far apart from one another, each one felt it moved the story along, and most importantly before the Legendary and final battles it let you SAVE. SM had a problem of the cutscenes happening often, sometimes mere minutes apart, and the cutscenes really didn't have that much to them or not any more had they combined a batch together. Also XY, ORAS, and SM got into the bad habit of putting long cutscenes before AND after choosing your Starter and the Legendary battle. Um, no, if this was any RPG that wouldn't be an issue but it is in Pokemon where a Pokemon can be good or bad depending on some random variables (IVs, Natures, sometimes even Abilities) you don't know until you check the Pokemon. If you didn't get a good Pokemon, most would like to reset (especially if its a Legendary) for a better one. The long cutscenes with no small breaks between to check & save feels like you're punishing the player for just wanting a good Pokemon. Now GF, if you really want to gun for that theatrical experience, maybe you should set the IVs, Natures, and Ability of the Starter/Legendary so that it would be exactly what we'd want so there's no need for us to restart. That or at least have a way for us to change a Pokemon's Nature, bad IVs and Ability is no longer a problem thanks to Hyper Training & Ability Capsule so it's just Nature that's the last major issue when it comes to catching Legendaries.