>>34922238There's no singular point. Every generation past Gen 1 has drifted away from the things that makes Pokémon good. Not every game past Gen 1 is bad obviously, there are some games I like more than Gen 1 even, but we've gradually lost sight of the true essence of Pokémon, exploration and discovery, in favor of the games being driven by narrative and epic plots about evil villains who are going to use the new Legendary to take over/destroy the world.
Gen 6 is where I personally noticed "man, what happened? Everything is shit now." but replaying earlier games after recognizing this made me realize the seeds have been sown as early as Gold and Silver, at the point where you're torn away from your natural progression to go to the radio tower and stop Team Rocket, rather than stopping Team Rocket being fully "right place at the right time" like in Gen 1. I don't think this really harms the game at all, I like the radio tower section even, but it's just the first step. Gen 3 has the villainous team and box Legendary fully intertwined and introduces stakes of regional catastrophe, Gen 4 ups it to universal destruction and has a lot more interruptions by your rival, friend, etc., and Gen 5 has almost as many cutscenes as Gen 6, it's just a bit less noticeable because the game as a whole isn't as shit.