>>39865858This.
Gen 1/2: The pokemania era. Games weren't great looking back, but were revolutionary at the time and kickstarted the whole thing. You could tell they were made with soul and purpose behind them, guiding by a very autistic man on a mission. Gen 1 was Tajiri's baby, and Gen 2 improved on it. Both gens were made with the idea that they would be the last ones ever so they better put as much as they can into them.
Gen 3/4/5: The Golden Age of Pokemon. Technology caught up to their ideas, and now they had a lot more budget and experience/time to work on the games. There was still probably a feeling early on that pokemon won't last forever so they had to still put effort in and try to make the games great to keep it fresh so people would continue playing. They constantly tried to expand their horizons each game, and make the next ones in the series even better. Even though the series peaked with Platinum/HGSS I still include Black/White here as it still seemed like they were at least trying.
Gen 6/7: The beginning of the end. This is when they realized pokemon would last forever and people would play no matter what they put out. Lots of cut features, games released every year, lazy programming, games somehow becomes even easier and more handholdy. Seems like gamefreak is just going through the motions to get the games out as quickly as possible, and whatever new ideas they do come up with just seem like gimmicks. Even playing the game is starting to feel that way, like you're just being herded from plot point A to B to C waiting to get the whole thing over with.
LGPE: This game marks the end of pokemon. Now they're not even trying to be subtle about it. Games are now made with 0 effort because they know they can slap the name "Pokemon" on it and millions of people will buy it. They literally don't even care anymore. All the people who cared probably left a long time ago, or were fired.
