>>34844790It was a time when GameFreak still had to prove themselves as good devs. Being the generation that was the jump to the GBA, they had a ton of experimentation and refinements to try for the series. Given that they also had Ruby and Sapphire to work off of, they knew what would have made the games even better. They also had FireRed and LeafGreen as earlier entries to see what they did right. This pretty much all conglomerated into Emerald. There was much to do, and while some of it was locked away, like the eReader house and events, they still released one of the most substantial post-games to this day.
In the current age, GameFreak knows that they don't need to keep on pushing forward as much. They have an almost universal appeal to their target audience, the people that are super serious about the games can play online competitions, and casuals can just beat the game. Also because of this and the hardware, GameFreak can now deliver a polished experience, which they have deemed that the story is the best way to do so.
While I do like the direction of VGC, I do miss the days of Stadium-like challenges more than anything else. I think that Emerald or maybe HG/SS were the peaks of the series, after all is said and done in those games. It feels roughly the same, going through each Pokemon game and beating it, truth be told. But it's all about where you end up, and for me, the Battle Tree/Maison/Subway never cut it for me after doing essentially the same thing every year prior with the towers.
