Pokemon was dragged into 3D way too fucking hard, it's a series that can only work on 2D and when you are a kid.
The 2D sprites and visuals are easier to abstract and let your imagination fill in the gaps, the 3D animations and models just look ugly and incomplete. Both are not how Pokemon would actually battle if we compare the game's battles to stuff like the anime or stadium/colosseum but we can easily realise that when it's just 2D sprites, the 3D models seem lazy and unfullfilling. Pokemon is a series that can only work if you do A LOT of mental filling between what's supposed to be happening on screen and what the screen is actually showing, it's no difderent than playing with toy cars. No wonder older pokemon players tend to see their mons more as stat numbers, IVs and so on because in truth that's all they really are to someone without a youthful gaze. The only way 3D can work is if they completely abandon the original gameplay structure that was designed for the Game Boy. A game designed with the limitations of the Game Boy in mind doesn't work when in 3D. What worked in 2D looks creepy and robotic when you do it in 3D.