>>57803666Gen 8 designs are objectively superior than Gen 9 is not even a debate.
Besides, Gen 8 got lots of attention due dexit + covid making everyone play that game, I saw people who haven't touched Pokemon since Gen 6 picking up Sword ALSO because was the first mainline on the Switch (LGPE is remake)
It's even reflected in Gen 9 sales. ScaVio astroturfed on the wave Gen 8 started, but it got (rightfully) clowned even harder for being a complete dogshit gen.
You still got people making drawings for Nessa, Klara, Sonia, but nobody remembers the name of any Gen 9 character except the Goku rival.
