What Do You Think About Lgpe?

It's better than people give it credit for, for it's time it was a very fun, charming, and good-looking Pokemon experience. Graphically it looks better than any other main series game on the Switch, SV's graphical issues are well-documented at this point and it's sad to see that the most modern-looking main series game is from 4 years ago and the 4 games to come out since all look bad when compared to LGPE side-by-side.

LGPE had massive potential to be a good game and be true to the Kanto experience without cutting content. I THINK the reason why they cut held items and abilities as well as all non-Kanto Pokemon besides the Meltan line was to try to make it feel like Gen 1 especially since Pokemon GO initially launched with only Gen 1 Pokemon. I also think the reason they added in Mega Evolution was because this was still a continuation of Gen 7 which had kept Megas up to this point, the first game to remove Megas was SwSh only because those games were introducing a replacement mechanic in Dynamax. I'm fine with them adding Megas and even keeping a restricted Dex, however, I would've opened up the Dex to include all evolutionary relatives of Gen 1 Pokemon, so Pokemon like Pichu, Kingdra, Magmortar, Sylveon, and so on. I'd also keep the Alolan forms to keep the Alola/Kanto tie-in lore. I would however keep held items and Abilities in, and I'd heavily modify the candy system so that instead of just being able to candy your Pokemon to max stats, the candies would just be a direct replacement for EV vitamins and feathers, you'd still only be able to max out at 252 for a stat and 508 overall, it's just that you'd do this in a process of feeding candies instead of earning them in battle or gaining EVs with items. I think this would be a more than fair compromise to have this game act as a cross-between of GO and the main series, and still keep the familiarity of candies and the fundamental concept of "more candy = stronger" without diverting from the established formula of stats in the main series.

Oh, and I'd make the GO catching optional, something like what Legends: Arceus did, where you can just chuck Pokeballs and catch that way, but you can also enter the battle screen and catch from within there as well. I personally liked the GO catching but I can understand that it's not for everyone, they could've added a quick little tutorial to be like "hey you can catch just like in GO or you can catch in the classic main series style".

Keep the Master Trainers, but make them all Level 100, keep Red/Green/Blue as the final bosses and Mina as a repeatable battle. This last bit is a controversial take, but I don't think VGC should've ever stopped moving from version to version, so all these changes I'd hypothetically make to LGPE would've made the games more appropriate for VGC, a little throwback season of just Gen 1 and relative Pokemon would've been kinda refreshing to see I think, especially since VGC wasn't around back in the Gen 1 days.

You do all of the above and LGPE would be a 10/10 game, it's still a pretty solid casual experience for when you just wanna be laid back and play a Kanto game. I do not necessarily consider any of the other Kanto games to be superior to LGPE, only because of how good the presentation is in LGPE, and being able to ride with certain Pokemon and actually have realistic proportions, something other games can't seem to really nail down, is super nice to see.