Seriously, the fan favorite picks whether its HG/SS, BW2 or Crystal still aren't even close to the arguable high points from other franchises.
Each Pokemon game is held back by glarring flaws, this can go from non-existant difficulty to lacking post game, shitty balance or how each game insists on having the player plow through underlevelled organization grunts to kill the pacing. Often its all of the above at once, not to mention how it ALWAYS needs an enhanced version a year later for the full price to get shit done right and even then there's still the shitty story and forced evil teams.
HG/SS was the closest Pokemon has ever gotten to genuinely geat game but they insisted on also remaking the horrible Rocket plot, the level curve and the teams for several important trainers.

Yes, gen 6 and onwards is far worse than Pokemon had prevoiusly been but stop pretending there ever was a mainline Pokemon game that is an actual masterpiece.
Pokemon is the definition of a franchise that's carried by nostalgia and other emotions.