>>50171189Ever see or hear of the phrase "now that the dust has settled"? You know, that phrase that people like to use on 4chan for things that are still relevant? Well, outside of 4chan, people actually use the term correctly, and these games are certainly old enough and definitely stand for a different era in the series.
In retrospect, probably up until or through (through if I am being generous) gen 6, I think the argument could be made that the average player would be using HGSS as a standard for what the series can and should do, but given how gens 6+ has so much QoL, considerations for multiplayer, post launch support, more catchable Pokemon (don't quote me on this one), defunct or harder to use services and additions, people at the very least are able to look back in a more objective manner to see what the games do well and what the games do not do well. After replaying HGSS in 2020, my opinions of it changed as much as playing XY did when I played in 2019.
It is exceptionally harder to experience everything that HGSS has to offer when the PokeWalker (which is really only useful to get three rare candies a day) isn't even obtainable for most people that are getting the games now, the online is dead and even joining specific communities for it doesn't help that much. They're good games but much of what they offer isn't unique (Battle Frontier) or quite simply completely dead. I think I would much rather play Gen 3's Frontier if I cared about it at all, or a later game if I wanted to battle other people.
