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I think XY are acceptable because they were the first 3D main games, so GF was still learning new stuff and had to do the models, customization, megas, Amie, PSS, etc., so comparing it to HGSS or BW / BW2 is unfair, being this the last and best of their generation.
SM, however, do feel rushed, as they had most things done (Pokemon models, mechanics, items) and they only had to do around 100 new models, customization is more like a recolor of everything, the islands feel really small, everything's just cutscnes, which make the game feel slow and short and don't let the story tell itself and, while they improved difficulty a bit from XY, it still feels empty with no trainer having over 4 Pokemon most of the time; also, the island challenge felt really simple, and only a few ones were fun to do.
Overall, SM had a lot of potential (specially with the whole UB stuff, the many islands possibilities, Aether Foundation, hell, even the Kanto cocksucking could have left some interesting things like Aether working on another Mewtwo, Alolan forms of other regions, more trainers in the battle tree, National Dex), but they finally fucked it up. Alola's only fun to explore (and only certain areas), but nothing else.
