>>44958369This. For all intents and purposes, it was a step down from BW2.. But less of a step down than to SM from ORAS, somehow.
The PSS made the game feel like a real MMO. Super Training made EVs mainstream and actually not cryptic like past or even some current games, breeding and IVs were made not bullshit, and the road to Pokemon Bank made seeing old Pokemon in the game all the more interesting (It was also the single best method to mass transfer collections).
The story was meh but what really made it was the worldbuilding and exploration surrounding everything. It really seemed like they were going for something bigger than just a game for the first time and that made it all the more disappointing when SM recounted "it all comes together" without any of it doing so.
It seems they'll be infamous for their reputation they got during the ORAS era where it was common to dunk on them even though every game since has been a step down. They're a sad victim of how GameFreak will get something so massively right, flub some things like difficulty or postgame, and then scrap the whole thing next gen just to make the same mistakes or worse with other things done slightly better.