Gen 6 The good, the bad, the ugly: Gen VI

Exceptionally good: DA MEGAS WOOOO
Bad: Some Pokémon (Pumpkaboo? Really?)
Special: 3D BOIS

 

Good: The Fletchling line <3
Bad: The lack of dog Pokémon added
Ugly: Lysandre and Team Flare

 

The good: the region (I actually like Kalos from a design standpoint)
The bad: Battle Maison
The ugly: the friends... especially Shanna. I don't throw this word around, but some of the scenes with her make me cringe with disgust. At least game!Serena is more palatable than anime!Serena...

 

Good:
Mega Evolution. 'Nuff said. I was a little iffy about the concept at first, but it proved itself to be an awesome idea.
The background and lore in this game was incredibly interesting. The Kalos region felt like it had a rich history even though there was a limited amount of information we were given about its past. The backstory of AZ and the ultimate weapon was pretty dang sick, and the entire region overall had this ancient feel to it, as if there was so much more waiting to be discovered.

Bad:
Way too many rivals. I suppose I wouldn't mind so much if they were given proper characterisation and screentime, but they're not. And the fact that all four of them are miles behind you makes the rivalry feel weak. I would have preferred it if some of them were ahead of you in different areas, that would have made the relationship between you and them way more interesting.
The EXP share was completely game-breaking. So much so that by the time I was at the Elite Four, my team was able to completely one-shot all of their Pokémon. I can't give this too much flak though, as it's completely optional.

Ugly:
I have mixed feelings about Team Flare. Their motivations are really interesting and could have made them great antagonists, but their needlessly goofy grunts, their ridiculous uniforms and their largely forgettable admins/scientists didn't do them any favours.

 

The good: As Mandriel stated, Mega Evolutions were a really great and rather game changing addition to the Pokémon world. It gave a lot of Pokémon much needed attention, and actually made most of them viable in both the competitive scene and in game. Kalos as a region was very aesthetically pleasing, and Gen VI also introduced my new favorite type- fairy. And with the new 3D models, I felt even closer to my Pokémon.

The bad: Honestly... Gen VI had a lot of bad things. I found having four rivals at a time completely unnecessary. Tierno and Trevor barely felt like characters as they did walking tropes, and the only rival I had somewhat of a connection with was Shauna, and that was because she was the most organic out of all of them. She wasn't trying to be strong or beat the Elite Four or anything- she was just traveling the world and having fun with her friends. Serena/Calem were about as plain as cardboard, nothing about them excited me like with Barry or motivated me to become stronger like with Cheren or Blue. It was the same thing every time, and it just became boring.

Almost all the gym leaders were forgettable as they rarely posed a threat. It was basically, "hey! let's battle!" and that was it. They were all bland and very uninteresting. Gen VI barely had any of its own original Pokémon and everything was just riddled with Kanto for whatever reason. It didn't feel like it's own region, but more like a European version of Kanto. That part of Kalos was disappointing. Finally, Team Flare was severely underwhelming. It was the same thing the entire time, and although I can understand their obsession with 'fashion' as Lysandre wanted beauty, I just cringed every time I encountered them. None of them were threatening enough for them to feel like an actual villain team- they were inconveniences at most.

The ugly: Lumiose City. As a city itself, it's very beautiful. But the awful camera angles made it impossible to know where you were, coupled with the fact everyone you passed by would take up half the screen with their useless text boxes. Very annoying to navigate through.

 

The good:
Mainly the good was to do with the Mega Evolution and it gave you some Pokémon flashbacks from the previous generations. You received your starter and worked with them up to Lumiose City. Then you receive a Kanto Starter. That Kanto Starter gives you Mega Evolution. But the story also was really nice. Because you got to watch Lysandre realize what he did was wrong and Professor Sycamore was quite the character. He really made the player feel important to everything and actually congratulated him. I have never seen other professors do that so it was nice to see.
The bad:
Rivals. Way too many of them. I loved having Calem/Serena(I go as a boy sometimes under the name Christopher). They were your rivals. You had that Gary Oak feel. A weak version but you saw it. Tierno and Trevor were more your faithful cheer me up companions that you ran into at certain intervals. So I didn't exactly find them rivals since you could easily counter them. Shauna I couldn't even call a rival. I called her a "roadblock" if you will. She was the character you could find a counter too from moment 1. You pick the Pokémon first and she picks the one that's weak to you. SO you already have an advantage over her. Now as for Team Flare, they confused me. I mean I'm a Water user in Kalos, but as much as they were sometimes no issue, they also were confusing. Lysandre who at the time you didn't know was their leader, was concerned about beauty. But he also was destroying natural beauty by concocting the scheme that he had to revive the Legendary Pokémon. Then there was the fact that Team Flare was more concerned about their outfit. With the exception of your 4 female scientists that stuck out. They were concerned with pleasing Lysandre. Still weren't a threat.

The ugly:
As others have said Lumiose City is ugly. I mean all the camera variations are changing your perception and can get you very easily confused. I speak from experience. I wandered Lumiose City for an hour because I kept mixing things up by talking to people and forgetting which way I had come from. Another thing I didn't like was Parfum Palace. Not for the angles but for that character set. The owner charging you a fee?! Come on. You're a rich snob who steals. I'm sure you have money coming out your wazoo. You don't need more. Even the butler confessed that there's a good chance the money won't go to restoration.

 

Good: Mega evolutions and Pokémon designs
Bad: Four rivals and a very lackluster story to go with the games
Ugly: Team Flare, seriously?

 

Good: ...I liked a lot of kalos to be honest. Too many for me to be bothered to list.

Bad: Tierno and Trevor. Obvious reasons are obvious.

Ugly: As many others have said, the hecking Lumiose City camera angles. Ridiculous.

 

The Good: New mechanics! I really like the Fairy Type and Mega Evolution was a blast. The 3D, although outdated at this time, was a big step forward for the series and the chibi aesthetic was kinda cute. An unlike a previous comment, the Battle Maison was solid to me. It was a way, although dumbed down from Emerald and Platinum, to rebattle Gym Leaders and the Champion, and under some circumstances you can battle Diantha with a level eighty team. Wow! Also the French culture was a nice touch. Dressing up your character was a perk, allowing you to be you instead of a Dawn or Brendan.

The Bad: There were so many rivals that didn't even pose a threat. Halfway through the game, it then becomes Calem/Serena calling you and requesting a battle that's not really a battle. From a writer's standpoint, the rivals were quite one-sided, only having one thing that made them "good enough" to Game Freak (Trevor only likes the Pokédex, Tierno only likes dancing, rival only likes battles, ect). There was an excess of Kanto, but not as much as S/M.

The Ugly: Gonna repeat a few comments, but the goddamn camera in Lumiose City. Why. Why. WHY?! The layout of the damn city is god-impossible to navigate in the first place, but even harder with that camera!

 

The Good:

Four things in particular come to mind that Game Freak has done really well:

Super Training is the first thing that comes to mind; although admittedly it's easier EV Training using Sweet Scent, Super Training is basically the lazy person's way of EV Training and tbh, there's nothing wrong with that! It is rather time consuming however EV Training a Pokémon completely from scratch with ST, but it is what it is. The mini-games are fun to do and it's cute seeing your Pokémon beat up a punching bag.

Trainer customization finally makes an appearance in these games! I remember this being on the wishlist of many a Pokémon fan ever since what... Pokémon Battle Revolution or something? And there are so many options to choose from! If there's one thing that Gen VI did better than Gen VII in, it's the customization options.

The introduction of the PSS this generation is something that I think a lot of people took for granted once Gen VII came out with Festival Plaza, and it's not difficult to see why. PSS is an intuitive, user-friendly, easy to use online communication system that's not difficult to learn the ropes of at all. There isn't any sort of grudgingly frustrating tutorial or anything like that as far as I know because it's mostly self-explanatory.

The introduction of Mega Evolution is super cool!! Really loved the concept of this and I hope we'll see more megas in the future because I think this was axed way too early at the start of Gen VII.

The Bad:

Few things:

First and foremost, it's extremely easy to get uninterested into the plot. Mass Genocide is a rather dark story element for a Pokémon game, but the execution can be worked on quite a bit. For such a serious subject, you'd expect the villainous team to actually be a bit more menacing and not your typical goofy/dumb grunt archetype. It makes it difficult to take the situation that much seriously, at the very least.

ORAS was a fair disappointment on the post-game end. To put it simply, ORAS to me was kind of like going up really high on a rollercoaster, diving back down and then that immediately would be the end of the ride. There's no excitement after the climax of the story because the post-game is empty except for a copypasta of XY's Battle Maison, which was a huge slap to the face to those who were expecting Battle Frontier simply because it existed in the old Gen III games.

XY's friend/rival group are the least interesting rivals ever created. I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of the whole somewhat forced main protagonist x Shauna implied shipping at some point in the story. Felt weird to me.

The Ugly:

Nothing comes to mind that was so terrible and off-putting that it was disrupt the player experience, which is a good thing! XY and ORAS are both fairly enjoyable games in their own right that miss the target in quite a few areas but still being rather solid games. However, I wouldn't blame people if they've gotten bored with either one or both easier than they feel they should have because more really could've been done with them.

 

The Good: The user customisation, and design and feel of the Kalos region. I'm so glad they finally decided to make your player character customisable, and although I thought it was missing things, it was still a very welcome feature.
I thought the Kalos region had a really nice feel to it, and I loved exploring it. I wish we could have seen more of it though
The Bad: The Pokémon (design-wise). Gen 6, in my opinion, introduced the worst batch of Pokémon designs. Sure there were some I absolutely adore (Spritzee line, Chesnaught, Pyroar, Meowstic, Dragalge, ext), but for the most part they were very meh. Goodra, Aegislash, Diggersby, and Delphox stand out to me as some of the worst designs.
The Ugly: Team Flare. By far the worst evil team to date. Post-game was pretty disappointing as well.

 

The good: A very nice transition to the 3DS I must admit. The graphics were beautiful for a first time. ^^ Also, Goomy and Mega Evolution. Also also, TRAINER CUSTOMIZATION.

The bad: ... We had rivals? I thought they were meat shields.

The ugly: A complete and utter lack of postgame material.

 

Good: The PSS was a phenomenal way to connect with players no matter where you were in the game, and I was quite annoyed when they replaced it with the Festival Plaza in Gen 7. The graphics were amazing with few to no lag issues. Trainer customization added a really nice touch.

Bad: THE EXP SHARE. The changes to it felt annoyingly cheap, and there was a point in XY where you basically needed to use it or else spend hours grinding to deal with the level spike. Most of the gym leaders were forgettable and had little to do with the story. The rivals were annoying and underwhelming. Zygarde was just an extra random legendary that was never fleshed out until Gen 7. I hated the lack of postgame in XY once the Looker quests were finished.

Ugly: Team Flare, Lumiose camera angles, Route 13, Delphox

 

The good: for the first time ever, the Pokémon were fully 3d, each had it's open model and attack animations. They also updated the cries of Pokémon from the 8-bit era games. I was skeptical of mega evolution at first, but it turned out to be a really fun and game changing mechanic. And, finally, we have customizable trainers! We, the players, are now officially the protagonists!

The bad: so you wanna soft reset for a shiny starter? Well good luck because there's a massive cutscene right before you get it. I've heard that sun/moon actually has a longer one, but it's still pretty bad. The dex is pretty small compared to the other regions. It really makes it hard to get into when the options for 6th Gen Pokémon are so limited. Aside from that, I don't really remember a lot of the characters. Maybe it's partially because it's been so long since I've played it, but they seem pretty forgettable.

The ugly: Chespin is my favorite starter, but I'm kind of iffy on the color palette of it's final evolution. It's shiny form looks more like how it should look, but again longest cutscene makes hunting for it especially hard. You could always breed for it, but it won't be your starter.

 

The good: character customization

the bad: all those cutscenes

the ugly: Hawlucha, my least favorite Pokémon, and a terrible design

 

While I can do a super in-depth review of the game. Here's a basically quick review

The Good: The creators attempted to add in a more important focused story, with a focus on characters and story. The series also focused on recreating the natural beauty of France in their games. They also tried to add a genuine post-game story (with the looker missions in X & Y and the Delta Episode in ORAS.)

The Bad: The ease of access, you can tell they were more focused on showing off their 3D graphics and awesome images then creating interesting locations and characters. Kalos' Gym Leaders and Elite Four just felt super underwhelming as a result, and ORAS was no doubt 10x easier than its original counterpart (even without abusing Exp. Share and the HAND GIVEN MEGA EVOLUTION LEGENDARIES.) I just had no sense of challenge, and it felt like there was no sense of progress.

The Special: The Pokémon, there was no Pokémon that I didn't like from Gen 6 (they all seem like a parody of the 'Ihategen5' comments. I love it so much, and its why Klefki is one of my favorite Pokémon ever.

 

Good:The Starter Design Weren't So Bad,also the Mega Evolution
Bad:too....many....rivals
Ugly:Same As the People Above,Team Flare

 

The Good: A well-working 3D environment.
The Bad: FAIRY TYPES ARE OP. Seriously. I would know - a friend of mine used a Sylveon and a Xerneas to wreck the entire Elite Four (minus Wikstrom, but he's Wikstrom.)
The Ugly: Shauna, Tierno and Trevor. They can all go burn in hell. Don't really like Calem's design, either. It just looked too... generic.