>>44797499The exact point the series became a formula with little deviation.
RBY was a unique experience, GSC built upon it like any good sequel should. Then RSE dialed things back to closer to RBY levels and made it "the standard" so there wouldn't be expectations to improve on each games framework anymore.
This leads to a lot of things like the natdex being bloated up with regional shitmon (prior to gen 3 every addition was meant to fill out the ecosystem and the world of Pokemon but gen 3 and beyond often replace previously existing Pokemon's distribution or mechanical niches with alternates instead of varying everything up, this bloat has led them to make smaller dexes since gen 6 and start pushing alternative forms to stop the growth of the pokedex), every plot being about kids saving the world from pseudo gods, throwing out features from previous games as a series standard, and the need to always have something new and flashy to sell the games with (which eventually led to the mega/zmoves/gigantimax hell of today), designs were moved to simple shapes and bright colors over rougher, realistic bodies and watercolors for mass production, it's a marked nosedive in quality (headed by Masuda, unsurprisingly) and Emerald and the DS games (headed by other people, unsurprisingly) did everything they could to course correct the series but Masuda's growing influence and him lucking out on setting so many unshaken series standards with Gen 3.
tl;dr gens didn't exist until gen 3 and the concept of a Pokemon Generation is literally just a scam to make you complicit and accepting of the series lack of growth
