Some underrated features:
>Calling your mom in black2 white2.
Not everyone took advantage of this, but in b2w2 your mom was an adventurer just like you back in the day, so whenever you got to a new town you could call her and ahe would tell you cool trivia about the town. Just a nice world building mechanic that lets you actually enjoy having a mom while letting you learn more backstory.
>At least one grueling, long path
I remember that snow mountain climb in sinnoh really adding some hair to your chin. Not every route should be like this, but every game should have a route that really tests your endurance that isn't just the obvious victory road. A lot of future games kill this by setting out remote healers, a la B/W. Just let some secions be hard. The kids will be alright.
>plenty of off paths to explore
I think this is part of the secret to why gold/silver were so fun. Before the first gym alone you had three completely optional areas to explore. Three of the gyms you could easily do in any order you wanted. You could completely skip entire caves and routes if you wanted. It wasn't to the point were you were literally playing skyrim, but that really changed the at times way too linear structure of pokemon games.
