When judging the new games I think people are overlooking one key aspect. It is definitely very unpolished with clear flaws, but first versions of a generation almost always are. Red and blue obviously had tons of problems. Diamond and Pearl were a mess. Black and white was terrible, the leap from black and white to black and white 2 was so enormous it was almost like a whole new game. Sun and Moon as well was greatly improved by USUM. The only games that came out great before a remake/sequel were GS and Ruby/Saphire.

What I mean to say is that Pokemon has usually had the unfortunate fact of the first versions of a gen being really wonky, and then fixing them in a revision. Perhaps Sword and Shield 2 will fix many of the problems people are currently complaining about, like the ugly textures in the wild or lack of side content/post game. Maybe we are being too quick to write this gen off. I mean when people talk about how much they love gen 5 no one is talking about BW, they all mean BW2.