I'm not arguing that XD and Colosseum weren't great, because they were. Loved them as a kid. However, they aren't mainline games either.

Yes, for their time, they looked fantastic. No mainline pokemon game has looked as great as it possibly could. Game Freak is known for that. Iirc, GF didn't make colo and XD.

I'll give you the framerate issues. They're not nearly as bad as everyone says in my experience (I've beaten violet), but still an inconvenience.

They did change the gameplay loop in SV, though. The whole gyms thing is a stepping stone across the main story. Having more major objectives than the standard 8 gym quest was a bit refreshing to me, and way less grindy. Difficulty was in a good spot for casual play too. Considering how fans were foaming at the mouth over other games (sun and moon), I can't blame them for returning to the tried and true formula and expanding rather than scrapping.

Fucking designs though. I know GF has been out of ideas since gen 1, but this is the first mainline game where I hated all of the starters. Their base forms were cute and all, but the evolved forms were painful to look at (despite some neat signature moves).

Same. I've beaten violet and it isn't remotely as bad as reddit led me to believe.

Yeah framerate issues. Minor inconvenience. And some absolutely awful designs for new mons, but it's still a step up from gen 1's "thing and three thing".

As a pokeveteran, I took on a monotype (ghost) run for my first playthrough. Story was more interesting and the formula was changed without being an insane shift out of left field, and the variation in how and where pokemon spawned was a great upgrade from arceus.

This is, however, the first game in the series where I hated all of the starters.

And today is the first time I've ever been jealous of a rascal scooter. Thank you for this unique experience.