That thread about designs took me back. Posts saying "new pokemon are too detailed and look like digimon and not real pokemon." It's like I'm back in 2010. Nostalgia.
Didn't read that thread, but I kinda get it. I mean, I'm lowkey genwunner, in the sense that it's always gonna be my favorite generation of Pokémon, in terms of the creatures themselves (I think my favorite generation overal is IV) but I also love the new Pokémon.
It does take me a while to get used to them, and yes, Gen V was especially harder than even Gen VI or VII.
It's true, there isn't just one way to design Pokémon, and they can't all look the same, but it's also not that crazy to expect the following generations to follow the patterns, to put it some way, that the first generation defined, because, well, it's what started it all. First 151 Pokémon are what defined what a Pokémon should look like, so anything that came after it that looked different than that, it's gonna be looked as some kind of foreign creature that doesn't belong to the franchise.
I remember thinking Kyogre and Groudon looked like Digimon, and now we have things like Zygarde Complete, or Buzzwole or Hoopa, Necrozma's forms, and just make Groudon and Kyogre look very simple in comparison.
But I repeat, I always end up getting used to the new Pokémon, and I think it's mostly because the Ken Sugimori artwork makes them look like they all belong to the same franchise. But now that there's other artists doing the official artwork too, even though they emulate Ken's style, they're starting to make Pokémon look different.
But anyways, I think it's not ok to criticize new Pokémon, they obviously will keep introducing new designs every generation, and that's fine, but also find ridiculous people that come after Muk, Electrode, Magnemite, Rattata, like, c'mon.
But the "don't look like Pokémon" I think it all comes down to the types of eyes they use for newer Pokémon. We've all heard the story that because of the Game Boy's capabilities they had to put very simple eyes to Gen I's Pokés, and very similar all of them, but that's not an obstacle anymore with newer consoles, thus the variety of designs we get nowadays. There was even a 9gag post or I don't know from where, that showed newer Pokémon with Gen I style of eyes, and they really looked more "Pokémon-ish".