I’ve never seen anyone comment on this, but despite the decline in overall design quality, the overall “personality” for newer pokemon has been increasing. When I mean personality, I mean the lore and general disposition of the pokemon. For example, most gen 2 mons either look carefree or serious. Gen 8 has been the second gen in a row where the starters clearly express certain personality traits, like incineroar being boastful, intellion being smug, etc. Even random mons that would otherwise look normal without expressions are suddenly appealing with small personality traits added, such as barraskewda, perrserker, etc
Thoughts?