>First game in the series to not have every Pokémon species and move that exist programmed in.
>Pokémon designs that made the worst Gen 5 Pokémon look good in comparison.
>Worse than nonexistent story. Still no way to fast-forward or skip cutscenes outside of a laughable and barely functional option toggle.
>Characters and basic story beats are Sun and Moon 2.0.
>Mega Evolution and Z-Moves replaced by a gimmick that combines them.
>Many features people wanted to see return thanks to better hardware (first main series game on a home console) did not.
>Bad graphics, worse than typical for Pokémon. Textures are N64/GameCube quality, UI is ugly with bland minimalism, not all menu sprites were updated to the new resolution and they all have baked in compression, Pokémon models not accurately scaled to the battle scene in the game where the gimmick is scaled up Pokémon models.
>"High quality animations."
>Very overpriced. (Gens 6 & 7: $40 game, free online, no DLC, less content than the DS games, but still substantial enough to be acceptable. SWSH: $60 game, $20/yearly online, $30 DLC, amount of content is on par or less than the 3DS games even with DLC.)
>Even the DLC has split versions, so if you bought Shield's DLC if you only own Sword, you just wasted money.
>DLC only adds content and doesn't fix any problems with the base game.
>Gen 1 pandering hit oversaturation point.
>151 curry recipes.
>Bad soundtrack. I know this one is subjective, but it's still worth pointing out when talking about a series that was known for good OSTs.
>Limited time cosmetics. Mythicals were bad enough, but at least you can trade those.
>Raid Battles. Just Raid Battles. Thanks Pokémon GO.
>TMs downgraded to push Raid Battles and encourage mobile game levels of grinding.
>Poké Ride replaced by smartphone-powered clown bike.