>wild area and raids add a fuck ton of replay value and during the story it adds more exploration than pretty much every game after GSC
>making competitively viable pokemon is actually easy as fuck for the first time in the series because of nature changing/egg move passing/exp candies/vitamin spamming, and the rewards/rank up system give motivation to actually play online
>extremely smart QoL updates like making moves relearnable at any pokemon center without meaningless luvdisc grind, being able to nickname traded pokemon, and accessing the PC anywhere except for gyms
>gyms are actually integral to the story with a proper tournament instead of just being background noise
>y-comm is effectively as good as the pss
>dynamax is the by far the best new button press mechanic in the series, actually adding far more depth and strategy to battles because of the fact that it isn't tied to held items and is usable on any pokemon
>best graphics in the series
>various other QoL additions
Etc. The added features that the franchise has needed for years easily justify the price of admission and really no one with a functioning brain cares about random shitmons that were cut.
