>>33538115I'm not saying it was, but that's definitely the start of an avalanche that caused Game Freak to fuck their own shit up royally.
Im completely fine with the idea of "every pokemon is a counterpart of gen 1" to appeal to genwunners. Sigilyph, Garbodor, Volcarona, and Crustle are easily some of my favorites, but you can't tell me with a straight face they're not re-imaginations of Jinx, Muk, and Parasect.
The problem is that it started to focus more and more on storytelling, and battles being a hallway of afterthought to the next cutscene. N and that schtick, it never got old or in the way, and you had reason to go places, though the linearity was starting to come together. Most places in B/W only opened up at endgame or even after you BEAT the area. Now take a look at X and Y. You're practically forced into a hallway of unavoidable trainer battles, with little to no exploration. There may be a side area with an item, but that's it.
Nobody forces you to go into the Unown Ruins or Safari Zones (disregard Gen1's Surf, you know you went back to find rare Pokemon afterward, or even during, it was pretty big). In X and Y, and DEFINITELY more recently, S/M, there are no side-streets that lead to cool things or semi-out of the ordinary Pokemon. No Digglets Cave if you want a change of pace in Pokemon typing to counter the gym leader, everything is on the one path you take.
If we're going gameplay-wise, HG/SS Battle Frontier, B/W No Battle Frontier. B/W more QoL buffs to battles, like training and EV's, HG/SS more primitive with non-technical QoL changes like an automatic run button.
I can continue if you really need me to.
