>>11930890 (OP)
I'll give it a try.
The series peaked with gsc because tajiri was more interested in capturing a feeling than just capturing monsters. For those of you who are autistic and can't understand it, the feeling is this: You're a kid and summer vacation has just started and everyone from your school is out running around, hanging out, making friends, catching bugs, and having adventures.
Now obviously they were held back by the hardware but here's an example of what I mean.
In gsc sometimes after you battle a trainer you can get their phone number so you can call them on your pokegear. Sometimes they even call you and tell you about a sick ass ratata they battled, and sometimes they call you for a rematch. There's not a lot of dialogue since they were pretty limited with cartridge sizes but whats there is pretty nice and it gives the npc's you mean on your journey a bit more personality.
Conversely in frlg this entire experience is boiled down to you standing in a route, hitting a button to make the vs finder beep and then you battle the people had ! above their heads.
Masuda did not understand what made the previous gen so good and why it's still so fondly remembered despite its drawbacks(baby pokemon mostly). And honestly, how could he? He clearly didn't grow up the same way tajiri did and so how could he possibly have the same vision for the series? Clearly tajiri didn't tell anyone or felt that he accomplished what he had set out to do.
Anyway that's just one example. A few more would be: actual proper day and night cycle, weekly schedule, radio music and djs, etc. All of these contribute to a game that feels more alive that it really is because of the hardware limitations.
