>>42405543By that logic every game up to gen 6 had soul. Masuda made the same kind of blog entries he did for gen 4 for gen 6, explaining how passionate he worked on those games, how happy they made him and how he couldn't wait for everyone to try them. Even appeared all giddy in promotional videos, going as fast as speaking a really broken French in them. If you also take into account the fact that they made a 3D model for every Pokemon then yeah, that's effort as well.
Every gen from 1 to 6 had genuine love and effort put into them regardless of the outcome, so don't pretend that the one you grew up with is somehow the only which applies, because that's being disingenuous.
It's okay if it's your favorite, if it's the one you feel nostalgic for, if for you, subjectively, is the best, but "soul" in this context is quite literally a buzzword that you're accommodating to your needs when it applies to 1-6.
