The truth is Hoenn was always hated by the general fans due to being the blacksheep. It didn't pander as hard to Kanto as Johto, Sinnoh, Kalos, Alola or Galar have and was the first major dexcut of the series. The reason we even have regional Pokedexes is due to cold feet of cutting every mon from Gens I+II midway through development and not going through with a new Pokedex like BW did. The less said about the entire endgame being a boring slog that grinds the game to a halt the better, Johto is a slow burn but it never becomes unbearably unfun like Hoenn is
You want proof the moment Masuda left Game Freak Hoenn no longer got ANY attention outside of the usual attentionwhore Pokemon that people actually like. You look at PokeMas and the Hoenn characters barely get any love or fanfare. Their Neo Champion reveal trailer was 40 seconds and is going to get overshadowed later in March by Arc Suit N. The only dimes Hoenn draws are the manipulated babies who played it back in 2002 and the only minority smaller than them are BW's sales because those games were the fourth major release on the exact same hardware that was immediately phased out by the 3DS the following year
And on top of that, the game was going to have even worse Pokemon
