Gotta agree with Saelune by and large. I'm not quite so hardlined on my views, but... A lot of it is overdesigned trash these days. Too many humanoids, and with the reduced numbers of pokemon being released each generation, too great a portion seem focused on all these 'industrial' designs. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I also don't really mind symbolic pokemon - like Magnemite, who was a pokemon symbolic of the magnetic force, and had some magnets on it, but it wasn't literally just a floating U shaped magnet - but I dislike when that's all a pokemon is - like the gear pokemon in Black/White; it was just boring. Something symbolic of mechanical technology, sure. But just floating gears? Make a steel type pokemon that has gears at its arm joints, and we're good. Just fucking gears though? There's over designed, and then there's under designed.
Back in Red/Blue, and Gold/Silver, and Ruby/Sapphire, and even Diamond/Pearl a lot of the time, they tried to make the world... Believable I guess. It had some sort of internal logic. Most pokemon were animal creatures. There were, at times, related to other things as well, but usually they were animals. The non-animals were relatively rare, special cases, meant to highlight something significant to do with humanity in the industrial era; pollution [Koffing, Grimer], or our harnessing of electricity [Voltorb {Who also doubled as a reference to pokeballs and that technology that changed the Pokemon world}, Magnemite]. Humanoids were also rarer, and engaged in humanoid activities, meant to be symbolic of older undertakings of humanity and our traditional past [Martial arts, psychic practices, indentured working like Mr Mime]. They were a minority among the Pokemon as a whole, however.
These days? Most new pokemon they've tried to unveil haven't really been symbolic, they've literally just been the thing; like the aforementioned gear pokemon being gears, Klefki literally just being a key chain, Trubbish literally just being a pile of rubbish [I liked the spider design though. Needs some work still, but it has potential]. I don't think we've had a non humanoid fire starter Pokemon since Gold, which is honestly disappointing, and even creatures not related to humanoid activities are becoming humanoid; see these plant pokemon with legs and that these days. This is coupled with reduced numbers of new pokemon starting with Black and White to my memory, which resulted in a larger portion of new pokemon being this once rarer, symbolic designs...
I can't really imagine the pokemon world anymore. It just seems nonsense and chaotic. Once upon a time, grimer would have been found around industrial locations, as a result of evolution in that industrial climate. Cool. Now, we can find icecream cones in a cave far away from all civilization. Not so cool. Gear pokemon and Trubbish and the likes aren't found near industrial sites where gears are used and such, they're found randomly in some cave somewhere, or out on an generic travel path. The world felt like it had consistency in the earlier games, now it doesn't so much. Black and White were, IMO, the worst for this [They failed in world design in general for me], but since then X and Y didn't greatly improve on the trend. Its become less and less about exploration and getting immersed in the world like the early gens were, and more about completing a checklist, following a marker, and more linear [Which is funny, seeing as its always been a completely linear zone progression in pokemon; but the areas within each zone were less linear, and a number of zones would have side areas for you to explore that you didn't have to, like the Power Plant in Red/Blue].
And on that note, can we please talk about this whole damned 'Mythical' pokemon craze? Legendaries used to mean something. If it was a one off pokemon, it was special to that region, had some mythology around it from that region, and was a part of the world there. They were few and far between, and generally had unique powers outside of just being a cool looking Pokemon - I.E: Celebi, a pokemon that is almost literally the spirit of forests, and has the ability to travel in time to maintain those forests. Compare to Gen IV Shaymin; Essentially a normal pokemon, with a far weaker version of Celebi's purification and forest spreading abilities, but that is mythical because... They needed more mythical pokemon? Compare to Volcanion, which... Doesn't even really seem to have a story behind it, its just a cool pokemon.
If they had taken even half the mythical pokemon they're throwing around ATM, all the not really symbolic ones, and added them as normal pokemon in a game, exclusive to that region, that'd be great. We'd have a greater variety of pokemon, and often mythical pokemon are some of the most normal looking of the damned lot [Excluding idiotic ones like Hoopa]. I get you want event exclusive pokemon, but the number of them is becoming greater each generation, while the number of non event pokemon becomes smaller. That needs to reverse. There used to be one per region. As of Gen 3, it was 2. As of Gen 4, 4. Make one special mythical per region, two if you really need to, and make more designs like them normal pokemon. If a pokemon is mythical, it needs some justification for being mythical - not just a cool story behind it, but something it is symbolic of. Of course, this becomes harder with the explosion of Legendary pokemon too [4 in Gen I, 5 in Gen II, 8 in Gen III, 9 in IV and V, and back to 3 in VI as they seem to have realised they're being excessive.]
Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire honestly feel a bit... let downy with the legendaries and mythicals, as there's so damned many of them, and it isn't really cool exploration and a unique location that lets you find each. The main legendaries for the region? Sure. But they've tried to shove every legendary from every region in [Almost], and its just a bunch of islands with unlock criteria, rather than some secret but cool story location. It feels more like ticking off a checklist. And this is without the constant mythical pokemon giveaways that have me asking why half these pokemon weren't just normal pokemon in the regions that really needed more. Over 6, coming on 7, generations, there are a total of 38 Legendary, and 16 mythical. That's 54 of the legendaryish type, in 6 generations [I'm not counting the 3 presently announced for Gen VII yet as they're not out, and we don't know all the pokemon in Gen VII to know if this is all there are]. The ratio of Legendaries to generation started off at 5. As of Gen 3, on average, it was 7. Now its 9. Couple that with generally dropping numbers of Pokemon released each gen [Exception for Gen V, surpassing even the original in number of new pokemon, despite not pulling off the world side of things needed to make it work], and the ratio of legendaries to normal pokemon is 6.98% of the entire pokedex [Includes mythicals], while in Gen I it was 3.31%.
Pokemon is less these days about creating the experience that got me, and many others, hooked as kids; a world with lots of secrets to explore, and cool animals in the wild in places that made sense. Now its focusing on being a collectathon, and throwing new gimmicks in to see what sticks. Its all about achieving, not exploring, and that's made it uninteresting.
I'm getting hopeful for Gen VII though. Maybe they've gone back to their old world design principals, and they seem to be at least trying to have more normalish pokemon by bringing them back from Gen I. Some of the new designs I'm not a fan off, and dear god does grimer and muk look stupid [Don't do rainbow technicolour look. Please. I don't mind the colour change, but that just looks like I'm back in the 70s, and unless the terrain we catch them in is going to be similarly multicoloured {I doubt it, it'd look horrible}, its really just not going to look right]. I also found the Rattata and Raticate to look almost comical with their Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain moustaches. All I ask is that they get the world right though. No more focus on gimmicks. If there's a new design feature, what does it do mechanically better than doing it without that feature? Additionally, more maze like exploration areas. I don't care if they're not on the main path, in fact I'd prefer it if they weren't, and were hidden away somewhere you had to find [Exists in an area across water in an early zone, before you have surf, for instance]. Just make them large, and maze like, with small rewards on all the wrong ends, moderate rewards [Rare candies] on some, and something worth finding at the end [Legendary Pokemon, Mega Stone - that sort of thing, make it not a checklist, or cinematic, to find these things, but an exploration hunt]. I doubt it'll happen, but I can hope.