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You'll also notice a trend in the games of following certain spiritual and story plotlines as pseudo sequels, even if the games aren't direct ones. The schizophrenic dual timeline theory with megas in one and dynamax in the other feels less crazy after a back to back comparison, and as usual, with gamefreak being rushed and out of touch, I think this made more sense to them than to the public at large.
Gen I - Gen III - Gen VI all feel like one large storyline following a very particular ark, which is why Lily returning to Kanto to look for help for her mother is all the more poignant. It's a shame what Ultra Sun/Moon did to Gen VI's story, but it would be hard to say that it's not a direct upgrade in every other way.
In the same way, Gen II and IV feel like direction continuations of the lore and philosophy behind religion and primitive man, along with peoples place in the world along side pokemon.
Gen IV Doesn't feel like the same step up that three was, which I believe overall is unfair due to the fact that this was the first pseudo transition into 3D. It's not a matter of how well they did, as much as how well they did with the tools they were given. The world is imperfect, and so are the development pipelines. The music, aesthetic, story, and pokemon are a huge step up from III, but as a result, the game doesn't do a great job of pushing things forward. On top of that, so much here had to be devoted to online functionality, as well as mystery gift, which to this day is almost unchanged, that the improvements here are mostly under the hood, rather than in your face, like contests, double battles, and things like weather and crops.
