Unpopular opinion: All main series games are good in their own way. While I agree that the more recent games are pretty linear and are easier, we all seem to forget that there's hundreds of thousands of people who's first games are one of the more recent ones everyone loves to shit on. I'm willing to bet if these games weren't as easy, they might not have attracted as many people and of the people they do attract, a smaller portion would actually fall in love with the franchise.

Also, let's stop pretending like we know what's best for the franchise. Sword and Shield were criticized for lack of a National Dex, yet they've outsold every other 3D game. Game Freak will always tend to the more casual players because they make up the vast majority of the sales, and the casual player won't care about Dexit. We seem to have lost the idea that these games are supposed to be fun for everyone.

Finally, let's stop creating artificial divides in our community over what games are best. Everyone's going to have a different opinion, and we should learn to respect that. At the end of the day, we're all talking about video games here.