I know that for some people, it was Sword/Shield that "ruined" Pokemon for them. I too am also displeased with Sw/Sh. But for me personally, I feel like that decline really started years ago with the 3DS period or maybe even earlier than that. When I was younger and more impressionable, I eagerly welcomed each new installment of Pokemon we were given purely because it was Pokemon. I wasn't very critical of media then, and since I couldn't really afford very many games at the time, Pokemon was always a reliably fun and quality game with lots of hours to play. But as I got older and began more closely observing the evolution of the Pokemon games -- or rather lack thereof -- I began to grow a bit more critical and concerned about their direction. Now I still enjoyed Pokemon then and had fun playing them, but there were things I felt disappointed with.

I think for me that change really started with the 3DS period. I actually did happen to like X/Y and Gen 6 even though they seem contested within the fandom. The Megas were a great addition that really helped shake up the series and breathe into life into it and the competitive scene in a way that the older games hadn't. And as a 3D generation it was a whole new frontier for the main series games. But that didn't mean the 3DS period was perfect and it became a lot more apparent with the next few entries. Gen 6 had a lot of loose ends and untapped potential. XY's post-end game was woefully abysmal compared to what we got in DPP and BW/2. And while ORAS fared a little bit better with the Delta Episode, it was still largely disappointing with the complete lack of the Battle Frontier. I found Masuda's comment that the Battle Frontier "wouldn't have been appreciated" to be a terrible excuse not to have included some substantial battle facility. I don't see how it would've been less appreciated than a blatant rehash of the Battle Maison.

I had hoped then that maybe these let-downs would be addressed in a "Pokemon Z" or even an X/Y 2 as direct sequels. And with the anime series featuring Zygarde, I honestly thought that was going to be the case. Maybe at one point it was on the table. But as the 20th anniversary came around, TPCi and Game Freak instead chose to rush out the 7th generation with Sun/Moon. And in doing so completely abandon Gen 6 and all of its loose ends and wasted potential.

Sun/Moon were the games that broke me. At first I was cautiously excited for them, because while I wasn't super fond of the abandoning of Gen 6 nor the Trials or Z-Moves, I was still willing to give them a try and bought Sun at launch. I had almost no fun playing Sun whatsoever. I have written literal essays on how much of a disappointment Sun/Moon was to me. But it really boiled down to the tedious tutorials, the forced railroading of the game's progression, and the sheer linearity brought by the constant slew of unskippable cutscenes that exist only to tell you what to do and where to go exasperated by the small islands. I felt like such a child playing Sun when I have played these games for well over 20 years now. I know that I, as a 27 year old, am not the target demographic for these games and that Sun/Moon were clearly developed for children new to the games. But never before had the Pokemon games been this insistent about guiding you literally every step of the way. And it were these forced elements that impeded my enjoyment of Sun and what made me hate playing it.

It was after Sun that I really started to become more critical of the games' quality and consciously realize the gradual dip in previous games. I personally think that the games no longer take risks anymore and stay relatively the same as "safe" sales. And that whatever new feature introduced is there only to "Wow" potential buyers, especially kids, and not really innovate the actual gameplay. Because when a feature is introduced only to be later dropped by the next generation or even game, then that's not innovation at all. Before Gen 6 I saw people who really wanted BW/2's seasons to come back and thought they would be here to stay. But they, along with a handful of other popular features, were either dropped or diminished. Most people assumed that the Megas would be a permanent fixture to the series because A) they were Pokemon, and B) they had been such a major addition to the games' meta. I actually thought differently and knew deep-down, based on how Game Freak handled previous features, that they would not be around forever. And that was what happened beginning with Sun/Moon where the Megas were essentially replaced by the Z-Moves and regulated to the post-end game. And then in Sw/Sh they were dropped completely along with Z-Moves. Know this: Dynamax and Gigantamax won't be here to stay either.

So when Sw/Sh were announced, I was hesitant. Sun/Moon had really burned me in such a way that I didn't really feel excited about the reveal of Sw/Sh. I didn't closely follow them aside from what was posted on Nintendo news sites. I was still willing to give them a chance though. But unlike every other previous game where I had dove into them head first, I would be evaluating Sw/Sh and read player reviews to determine if they'd be something I'd actually enjoy. Then when they announced that many Pokemon would be cut and how poorly the PR for that was handled, I decided then that I would be skipping these.

The loss of the National Dex isn't something that bothers me too much. And if I'm to be honest, I kind of predicted something like this would eventually happen. It was either that or they stop introducing new Pokemon altogether, because at some point you really gotta ask: how much is too much? But what DOES bother me is that these games haven't given much to make up for this loss. The series have frankly gotten stagnant the past 20+ years with nothing new substantial added than a handful of beloved features that were always guaranteed to get cut anyway. At $80 dollars Canadian for the exact same experience with less, I'm not buying. I already have enough Pokemon games with more to satisfy me.

It's not just the main series games either. I don't even feel interested let alone excited in the spin-off games. My friends were all excited about New Pokemon Snap but my reaction to it was just a "Oh okay, that's cool." The game that interested me most was Mystery Dungeon DX, and even then it's a remake of a game I already have. And the anime and numerous manga I'm not interested in anymore either.

Now to be blunt there's also the fandom and how, frankly, toxic it has gotten toward the companies involved and even fans. Yes I do not like Sw/Sh and I hated Sun/Moon, and I would ideally like TPCi and Game Freak to make internal changes, but I don't hate them for the games nor would I belittle fans who did enjoy them. I can be reasonably critical of the games and companies without resorting to pettiness. But some of the sheer venom I've seen being spat, although from a vocal minority, had also added a lot to my burnout with this series. I'm happy that people are only now just becoming critical of the quality that TPCi has given us for years now, but I wish it hadn't degraded to such ugliness.

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