False.

If a 5 year old game, on a previous generation platform has better visuals, then objectively it doesn't look fine, it objectively doesn't hold up.

It could be worse though; they do still show consistent improvement from one entry to the next, at least.

Nah, they don't.

Says who?

In the last 10 years each Pokemon game I play is worse than the one released before. Arceus might be the only exception, but I don't know because I got tired of giving them chances and just skipped it 

Anyway they hit the rock bottom with Sword and Shield, an AAA with so much money invested can't be any worse than that 

False.

That is your subjective determination of "fine", not some universal objective standard of eye opinions, as is your evaluation of what looks "better".

Why are you trying to die on the hill of "My opinion is objective fact"? That's a bad hill. Stop it. Come down from there before you hurt yourself. 

A game can look good and be completely outdated on the technical front. The first Kingdom Hearts on PS2 is completely obsolete on a technical level. And yet, it still manages to be visually pleasing nowadays. Wind Waker is nothing compared to BotW on the tech front, but WW still looks good today. This happens even with more realistic looking games: Resident Evil 4 poligons, textures and shadows are a joke compared to the more modern Village, but that doesn't mean RE 4 looks bad. It looks dated, but not bad. There's a difference.

Scarlett and Purple definetly look dated, or at the very least, a few steps under what other games accomplished on the same system (Monster Hunter Stories 2, Dragon Quest XI S, Xenoblade Chronicles...). They suffer from a somewhat low resolution (720p maybe?) and no AA, some textures are not very detailed and draw distance doesn't seem specially great. But the game is colorful, the art style is very coherent and while dated, the overall look of the game is very nice (albeit not stellar).

Nah, they don't.

Objectively it doesn't look fine.
Comparatively with other products on the market... It also doesn't look fine.
Even when comparing games on Nintendo's previous console (WiiU) it also doesn't look fine.

Irrelevant.
That is apologist rhetoric.

I agree gameplay is absolutely the numero, number 1 factor.

However... Consider how many 10's of millions of copies a Pokemon game typically sells during it's lifetime, they can afford competent visuals.

No one plays a NES game and thinks "Amazing visuals". Not today anyway, in the 80's they did.
They do play them for the nostalgia and the art.

That doesn't mean the games are bad or unplayable, far from it, in-fact they often have a sought-after retro charm to them due to the pixel-art work... Because that is the key thing here. Shit hardware meant a bigger focus on art... But Pokemon has neither Art or Graphical Fidelity to hide it's flaws.

You are pushing your own standard of graphic on everyone here, it still looks fine to most of us despite what you claimed.

No. I am really not.

We measure a games graphical makeup by what else is on the market... And if we do the "nice" thing and discount the PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X... Heck even the Xbox One and Playstation 4... We are left with the Switch.

But even when comparing the game with Switch launch titles, it looks dated.

Those are the facts.
These are not my standards. These are just blatant facts.

Now if we perform analysis on what techniques Pokemon is employing in it's game engine to build the visuals, we can see where things fall short, where shortcuts have been taken and where the quality is just... Missing.

Take a game like Breath of the Wild... And we can start to break down the engines graphical effects and features like Radiosity (Form of Global Illumination), Fresnel coeff reflections, physically based rendering, screen space ambient occlusion, bokeh depth of field, Rayleigh Scattering/Mie Scattering and various volumetrics.

This is on top of physics, chemistry, audio scapes and more.

And no wonder Pokemon starts to look unimpressive and flat by comparison... Because it does. It just doesn't employ cutting edge technology... Let alone technology in use from 5 years ago.

This is not a slight on Pokemon itself, the franchise is great from what I have experienced. But the visuals in the games always turns me away, that is constructive criticism... And a small one if the games are genuinely enjoyable.

No. I am really not.

We measure a games graphical makeup by what else is on the market... And if we do the "nice" thing and discount the PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X... Heck even the Xbox One and Playstation 4... We are left with the Switch.

But even when comparing the game with Switch launch titles, it looks dated.

Those are the facts.
These are not my standards. These are just blatant facts.

Now if we perform analysis on what techniques Pokemon is employing in it's game engine to build the visuals, we can see where things fall short, where shortcuts have been taken and where the quality is just... Missing.

Take a game like Breath of the Wild... And we can start to break down the engines graphical effects and features like Radiosity (Form of Global Illumination), Fresnel coeff reflections, physically based rendering, screen space ambient occlusion, bokeh depth of field, Rayleigh Scattering/Mie Scattering and various volumetrics.

This is on top of physics, chemistry, audio scapes and more.

And no wonder Pokemon starts to look unimpressive and flat by comparison... Because it does. It just doesn't employ cutting edge technology... Let alone technology in use from 5 years ago.

This is not a slight on Pokemon itself, the franchise is great from what I have experienced. But the visuals in the games always turns me away, that is constructive criticism... And a small one if the games are genuinely enjoyable.

And from there we make a subjective determination: Does this look "fine" or does this look "not fine"?

No matter how many facts and/or opinions you state, the word "fine" will never be objective.