>>46199214Older gens were adding more content than they took away, then it plateaued, then we started losing stuff faster than it was added. We still had contests in gen 4, they even let you dress them up and direct them in little dance routines. HGSS gave us walking pokemon back and you could talk to them and see what they were thinking, plus there was the pokethlon. Wifi connectivity just became a thing in gen 4, it was clunky as shit but it was the first time we could play with anyone anywhere in the world, plus we had the underground to hang out in. Gen 5 ditched contests for musicals where you just dress your mons up and watch them do whatever, this was fixed in BW2 with pokestar studios. Pokemon no longer followed you but we got a couple new battle modes, we lost the battle frontier but mythicals still had side quests attached to them. Every gen is give and take, but don't pretend gen 4 didn't have more to do than we've had recently just because it's different stuff.
>>46199245megas, z-moves, giga/dynamax - it's all quick overpowerd stuff for the sake of adding new mechanics only to be abandoned moving forward. Totems were great, but having e4/champions with not only empty team slots but empty move slots is a joke. We're back to just battle tower clones instead of a variety of unique challenges, and entire formats have been removed from the games entirely with no substitutes.
Never said gen 6 didn't add a bunch, I said it's debatable where the trade-offs leave it. I love 6, we finally got character customization, roller skates are an objective improvement to running shoes, that's when we finally got the ability to pet and feed our pokemon, some good side quests and places to explore, the story wasn't totally on rails to the point of pulling you away from playing the game, and wifi connectivity was the best it's ever been. But it had it's major blows too like requiring a paid serivice to transfer, the broken exp system, and all the unfinished stuff.
