>>31092348VI is uglier and has far less likable characters and personality/tone. The overworld is uglier and washed out. The mechanic it brought changed the game far more drastically than that of SM, and by essentially requiring the use of certain Pokemon as a result, this is arguably for the worse. XY was a lot less smart than SM with its "genwun pandering," such as copying Gen I's legends for the postgame, Viridian Forest, and making the first encounter Pidgey no matter what. With Alolan forms and Red and Blue, VII's "pandering" was more comparable to V's, which is pandering done right. Gen VII had a much more varied soundtrack than XY's, which was almost entirely synthy electropop and whimsical, refined classical-sounding furniture music (which was mostly forgettable). There was far less postgame than SM, with no new area to explore beyond a tiny room in Terminus Cave and the miniscule Kiloude City. The battle facility was less inspired than that of any other game.
And that's without mentioning VII's good features, such as mixing up the game's formula, adding in a bunch of fun and interesting gimmickmons, Ultra Beasts and a fun story (don't get me started on XY's plot), and Poke Pelago.
They're both fine games, and you can feel free to have your opinions on each, but it shouldn't be so difficult to see why people like SM over XY. It's not all black and white.
because we all know those are the best 
