>>47966206You're not wrong. The symptoms were there, but as far as concrete policy changes go Gen 6 wasn't bad at all in terms of Kanto pandering since we had just gotten a pallette cleanser with Gen 5.
It was refreshing to get an entirely new set of Pokemon, but it was also refreshing to get more of the old ones in BW2 and XY because of that. If Gen 7 were an extension of what Gen 6 went for by giving the player Johto starters, making them have to water a Sudowoodo, or giving two megas to Typhlosion and Suicune, no one would bat an eye at the Genwun references in XY because none of them explicitly mention Kanto like the way Gens 7/8 did and just as much attention was given to Gen 5 in XY not just in the story but in Kalos's overall worldbuilding.
It's just a shame that Gen 6 games felt so underdeveloped and barren in general. It almost feels like they realized going for the bare minimum each time was a strain on resources after that which is why they constantly seem to be trying to do less and cover it up with half-assed gimmicks like Alola's not!gyms and Z-Moves or Dynamax. My point is more or less that Gen 6 in particular seems to be hated for all the wrong reasons; i'm not even trying to defend how painfully abysmal it was, it's just frustrating to see people dismiss it as a whole when it did many things so right but those things weren't enough to save them as a game just like the crumbs of QOL in Gen 7/8 don't save those games when they're so fundamentally removed from the series' core principles.
