That bold part is interesting. In what way? This gen is a massive homage to the first generation above all else, something that several leakers have commented on. Lots of stuff there meant to tickle nostalgia.
I'm okay with the small number of new pokemon since a slew of my favorites are present in-game for me to enjoy.
XI has been a huge mish-mash as far as things are concerned, but every gen has some thematic similarities with the mainline release two generations prior to it. For the original four generations, the even and odd games actually ran in concurrent times to one another. Roughly speaking, the mainline game timeline is:
Original "Discontinued" Timeline:
RBY > Three Years > GSC
Current Timeline:
FRLG / RSE > Three Years > HGSS / DPPt > Several Years > BW > Two Years > BW2
RSE had a ton of shout-outs to the original games, such as reverting to a red / blue legendary color scheme, a completely new region, etc. Gen III also contained the RBY remakes.
DPPt likewise was influenced heavily by GSC, with some sparse references throughout - ultimately culminating in the remakes, HGSS.
BW (Gen V) had a ton of shout-outs to RSE (Gen III) and by extension Gen I. Some examples include as the return of Dive, an incredibly high new Pokemon count that mostly consists of original species, and Volbeat / Illumise and Huntail / Gorebyss are version exclusives.
XY's exact timeline is unknown, but it seems likely that it'll run concurrent with BW to start a new "distant future" generational couple. Regardless, some of XY's similarities to DPPt (Gen IV) include the French-looking outfits of the protagonists (more evident in Platinum) and by extension the climate, DPPt's battle music sounding particularly French in instrumentation, Fantina getting a spiritual successor in the form of this new Psychic Elite Four girl, etc.
XY also complicates things even further because of how high the generation count is getting: while BW serves as a shout-out to RSE and is similar to RBY in form and function, XY is likewise a shout-out to DPPt and similar to GSC; while year, BW2 existed, they served as more of a personal story for the region or an epilogue of sorts for Black and White. XY looks to be a more formal "sequel" to BW due to the more minute Pokemon count, adding a variety of new tricks for old pokes, and so on.
EDIT: unrelated, but at the disappoint around Sylveon being a one-off: I think the point they're trying to make here is that Fairy isn't designed as a supplementary type the way Dark and Steel originally started out - it's fully forced itself into the metagame, and the boatload of new Fairy-types and its impressive relations to other types show. It's meant to complete the trinity of Jolteon / Flareon / Vaporeon and turn it into a full-fledged, even number.
