I always considered it a kindergarten RPG. I had already played the Lunar games and up to Final Fantasy IX by the time I touched Pokemon, so it seemed like a step back.
I didn't want to play it myself; my cousin had a Gameboy with the games, and he wasn't very good. He'd keep badgering me with "I'm stuck here; help me"....before I knew it, the little punk had conned me into pretty much playing through the whole game for him.
I did enjoy exporting "his" Pokemon into Arena for N64, though. It got to a point where we only played Red, Blue, and Yellow to cultivate warriors for the Arena.