I came back to Pokemon when X/Y released after not playing since Gold.

Once it had its claws in again after beating X/Y i went back and picked up Black/White and I kicked my arse in comparison.

Even a mode where AI actively take steps to get the upper hand in type effectiveness would make a big difference. The amount of times they actually have pokemon that counter yours and they use "tackle" instead of the super effective etc is just dumb.

I think it all really comes down to just a lack of effort from the developers.

I mean with Sw&Sh there is plenty of visual signs of lack of effort, from bugs to poor graphics, animations, pop in, lazy techniques like the screen just cutting to black instead of showing an animation, poor frame rate, a computer mouse appearing on screen during cutscenes and just overall low quality across the board, so it really isn't crazy at all to think this applies to back end stuff as well, like coding good AI opponents. They probably just can't be asked to take the time to make the AI intelligent enough to pose a challenge.

So either Gamefreak greatly increase their staff to produce an actually quality Pokemon game for once, or give the game to new developers, and I bet all these issues (And boy is there A LOT of them) will finally go away.

I remember they did something similar in Crystal. You were able to travel to from Johto to Kanto at the end of the game. If I'm remembering correctly you could even battle the gym leaders from Kanto. I remember I decided to leave all but my starter and start just like Ash would do whenever he left to a new region.

xae
yeah, but it wasn't post game. it was just the one pokemon game where they gave 2 whole leagues for the main game