dss_live
Water and Fairy-type master
It's not a big reach and this is why: Pokemon GO is the single most profitable piece of software in the history of Pokemon, more so than most of the mainline games combined. And it did not have 90% of Pokemon, and still doesn't have breeding, abilities, egg moves, etc. It did not even have battling or trading for years!. And it still was the most successful "game" of all time.
Then we have Let's Go, which was heavily inspired by GO and had watered down mechanics and still made just as much as mainline games, and even more than Gen 5. It lacked abilities because of Reasons! Gen 1 didn't have abilities, so let's be consistent! Except OR/AS remade Gen 3, and still had physical/special move splits, and other Gen 4-5 mechanics, because they were supposed to be standards of the franchise moving forward.
Also, you dismiss Let's Go as a spinoff that holds no influence over the mainline games, and yet many fans and even Game Freak themselves insisted that Let's Go was more of a proper title than a side spinoff.
Let's Go could have let you transfer other Pokemon, but it was a conscious decision not to. And now, Sword and Shield is making the same walk-back. And Sword/Shield was promised to be the hardcore-appeasing game.
Yes, Go was widely popular and inspired let's go, which sold really well. But where are the signs that SwSh is a watered down, dumbed down game? Let's be realistic here, when you start up pokemon shield/sword, it will play the same way any mainline game plays for most people (usually transferring pokemon isn't available early). None of the way the game plays has shown any signs of being effected by Let's Go. It's only when you would normally start to transfer , that you hit a wall, as that's not fully possible anymore. But still, that alone does not show an influence from Go and Let's Go. If more information comes out and it does show those signs , you could have a point. But so far, gameplay remains largely unchanged (or improved even) from the mainline games. That is why it's a reach to me.
And i dont "dismiss" thm as spin offs, that is exactly what they are. Very succesfull spin offs, but still what it is. And it's popularity wasn't because of it limited pokemon, it was because it's casual playstyle and nostalgia.
The decision making process behind the two was very different tho. Pokemon Let's go was a modern take on the old yellow game, they purposefully kept it to the original pokemon to hit that nostalgia string for old fans who came back due to pokemon go. The reason behind whats happening in SwSh, regarldess of whether you find it an adequate reasoning or not, that plays no part, is completely different. It wasn't made because of pokemon let's go.
I'll happily eat my words if there comes some actual prove that the game took influence from Go/ Let's go and got made much much more casual. But till then, i think it's very much a reach.