The contrarians who post images of older gens and compare it to other games on the system to say that Pokémon never get looked overlook something crucial. Game Freak used to never try and play catchup graphically. They used simple tilesets because it allowed for easy modularity and had enough vibrancy to still pop. Go back and play the Gen II or IV games right now, they still look visually appealing. But in the past few years Game Freak have clearly been at least attempting to half-arse the technical power of console games, and failing miserably. Assets are clearly underbaked realistic terrain, washed out colours, a phong shading to make models look less 'flat', no outlines, etcetera. Game Freak would be better served attempting to mimic Sugimori's early 00s artstyle. Assets wouldn't have to be detailed, it'd use a lot less processing power, but it would still be visually appealing.