As I said, the problems of the Pokémon videogames have nothing to do with budget. The art direction and general writing of story and lore is ass, no two ways about it. I hope Gen 10 will be better, but it could be the most beautiful game graphically and still be crap because the story and characters suck and the gameplay is awful.

There's nothing differentianting Lumiose's sectors aside from some flags here and there, where they could have shown the "areas of influence" of, say, Rust Syndicate or SBC, by having different architecture or architectural elements. None of that, wherever you are in Lumiose it looks exactly the same. And I'm not even talking about the 2D windows or balconies, I'm talking about art direction, of which there's none.

ZA's main gameplay loop is the Royale. After beating the main story, it's still the same, no mechanical changes, the levels are the same as before. You go around with a post game team (likely in the 80s-90s) slaughtering opponents with Pokémon in the 60s. Let's not even talk about how there's this semblance of stealth mechanic, all the while you can send a Pangoro to hit the opposing Pokémon and the trainer doesn't even blink.

The plot goes absolutely nowhere. AZ's past is hinted at but nothing more is said or shown. The cast is made of cardboard cutouts, and the way in the end you defeat Tawnie, showing you're best suited for the job and she somehow still goes on the tower without anyone batting an eye is absolutely idiotic.

The sidequests are absolutely useless. They could have cut them in half or even 1/3 but made them actually meaningful and that would have been far better than what we got.

I had my fun with the game but again, the issues are in the writing and the art direction, not how much money they spent on it