>>43954610>arguably the weakest in the seriesThat's such a dumb thing to say. Having cross-gen evolutions and babies isn't a bad thing. I loved seeing new spins on old Pokémon. I knew someone who hated them and when Mega Evolution was introduced, he despised that too.
I understand that there's an argument to be made about being over reliant on the past, but Gen IV's new forms were split pretty well between different Gens instead of focusing heavily on the lowest common denominator of brand recognition. I didn't hear people claiming Pokémon was dead when they saw the cut evolutions and babies from the Spaceworld demo, and it wasn't just because they didn't make the cut. It was fascinating to see stuff like a baby Meowth or evolutions to Ditto and Pinsir.
But my point isn't that cross-gen evolutions are inherently good either. They're there or they aren't, and it doesn't mean a game is better or worse for including them.
And every single Gen has a different design philosophy too. Maybe we're too far removed at this point, but Gen III used to be seen as this huge style change to Gen I and II. People used to associate Gen I and II together, and Gen III and IV together. But now we're at the point where Gen III looks closer to Gen II than it does Gen VII. But to a more discerning eye, you can see distinct design philosophies with each Gen. I has a whole mish-mash of exotic things with a bunch of kaiju, II feels like cryptids and UMAs, III has more roles and concepts with obscure animals, IV goes for more of a "superlative" feeling, etc.
