In my opinion, Pokemon peaked in gen 2. Why? Because every game after added new gimmicks that distract from the core gameplay instead of adding to it. What is the core gameplay? As the motto goes "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Gen 1 had 150 monsters for the player to find and catch. Gen 2 added time of day specific spawn rates and Pokemon that you could only get by breeding. And that is it. None of the further games made the monster collection any more interesting until Legends Arceus, a spinoff title. The future games added fashion shows and secret tunnels (at least, I don't think so. I have not played all of them).

Pokemon Home is, obviously, a game changer, but it is something outside the game and too little, too late for someone like me who fell off the franchise.

I am ashamed to say that Pokopia (on my sibling's Switch 2) is pretty great. It's a sublime, cozy exploration game, basically absent of battling so far.

They made it into in A button simulator lol.

I only ever played DPP and BW/2 a long time ago, but I then happend to jump to SwSh when it came out and it literally became a live joke between my sibling watching me play to see how far we could go through the battles by only mashing the A button.

I think we made it to like between the 7th and 8th gym before I had to actually change my attack/pokemon using the c-stick.

Pokemon lost its way once they got rid of the shithead rival character. The "rivals" they have now are too plucky and lacking in antagonistic traits. I don't even think they choose a type-advantage starter anymore.

Pokémon here, too. I used to be more attentive to the franchise as a fanwork creative, but the franchise went into decline starting with G6 (X and Y) in my opinion. It got so bad to the point that I basically left the games back in Gen 7 (Sun and Moon) and go by mostly by the side games and fanwork by this point. For my contemporary work I mostly ignore everything from the games that is not the Pokémon themselves, and for when that's not enough I create my own Pokémon and also am working on adapting a few concepts from Palworld (Palworld will always be a nice, stingy reminder of what Pokémon can get back to).

Speaking of sidegames, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games are real gems that Nintendon't seem to remember anymore past getting us a "Kanto remake" of, and Pokken is a fun fighting game but rather restricted in roster and sad in retrospective in a "look at what we could have had if the franchise spun more in this direction" moment. Today Pokémon Close Combat exists which is a decent fangame in more or less the same direction.