Well yeah, people today with basic programming skills can rebuild the original games better than ever. There's plenty of Rom hacks that prove this. Technology is wonderful and makes a mockery of the original games.
But that's like saying the Wright Brothers aircraft is shit. I mean yeah, by today's standards it is. But that isn't really fair. I could go to Walmart / Cabellas and buy the cheapest gun they sell and immediately become the deadliest warrior on the planet in the year 1400. But that says nothing about my skills or abilities, just that technology makes things outdated.
SwSh were, almost objectively speaking, the worst Pokemon games of all time accounting for technology. They have fewer Pokemon than games released a DECADE ago, no real story mode outside of "fight gym, walk 10 minutes, tap A as characters talk, repeat until game ends", cut moves / Pokemon that is unprecedented in the series, Online play that makes Starcraft 1998 look more advanced, countless terrible unpopular gameplay decisions like mandatory battle time, mandatory XP share, and dexit, paid DLC that takes 30 minutes to beat, cut Megas, and arguably the worst gimmick ever Dynamax. The only good thing I can say about them is they're graphically better than any game before them but given the hardware difference it would be hard not to. It's an insult to the fans that this is the crap the world's most profitable franchise gives us.
The games were clearly rushed and trash. Yeah by 20 YEAR technology standards they're better than the original games but that's a really low bar to clear.
I agree with a lot of this, but I notably disagree with quite a few things. The SWSH DLC isn't that short, and Crown Tundra is pretty meaty, with an entire multiplayer Roguelike mode which is super fun.
Controversially, I like Dynamax. I've always seen it as not "worse" than usual Pokemon, but just *different*. It shifts the game in a way that is fun in certain formats, especially Doubles. I know some Doubles players always tell me "nah dmax ruined vgc!!!" but the fact is, many top players in VGC have talked about how Dmax shifted the meta in a good way. It basically countered a lot of measures that made VGC more annoying, particularly weakening Fake Out. I'd argue that VGC was very fun before the DLC.
I also don't take issue with cut Pokemon or moves as long as it's done smartly. This is controversial, but yes, I'm down with even competitively relevant moves being removed as long as it's bad for the meta. In my opinion, Pursuit is not good for competitive Pokemon, and I'm glad it's gone from the game.
Another thing, I think SWSH displays an issue Smogon has in how we operate. No matter what the games do, they cannot really change how a Pokemon plays without effecting others.
I think Clefable is a perfect example. It doesn't make sense that a Gen 3 event move is the only way to have a competitive Clefable in-game, and it's part of what makes Clefable pretty insane unless you have specific counters. It's a good thing that... Clefable didn't get it until Home, while still having healing. Unfortunately, due to how Smogon operates, as long as we have transferring and moves not being removed, Game Freak cannot nerf individual Pokemon by removing specific moves from their movepool.
Clefable with Soft-boiled is banned in official ranked formats, clearly they don't balance around now 20 year old event moves, but it remains a core thing to Clefable's play in Smogon, to the point where it's really frustrating. Especially in the casual official formats where it, and Minimize, are allowed.
I also have never agreed that Dex Cuts are a bad idea for competitive. Again, just needs to be responsible. Gliscor would arguably make current meta very toxic for instance (Lando-T but with recovery, no meaningful status and basically the same utility), or Greninja, etc.
Issue is that the DLC brought back like all of the legends.
this was ranty, I know, A