I'm a long-time fan and I must say that it is very disappointing. At the start I was hoping for at least something different, but so far it has been the same old story straight from the beginning. The main problem, I think, is that Ash is still the focus of the story, and he hasn't developed as a character one bit since it first started airing in 1997.

What's happened so far(episode 5)
Ash loses a battle against a main/supporting character
He captures a normal/flying type
He loses to the first gym leader that he battles against
He bemoans his lack of power
Someone comes along with some way of increasing the power of Ash's pokemon
He beats the gym leader that he couldn't previously

The order in which this happens varies somewhat from series to series, but the only region that this hasn't happened in is Johto, where a battle that Ash was losing was interrupted by Team Rocket(vs Clair in Fangs for Nothin') (show less)