XY is by far the worst game in the entire series (at least Gen IV, such as D/P suffered from gameplay issues that were fixed in Pt). The story is utter shit considering they were trying to put a lot of emphasis like they did in BW, B2W2, only to fall flat on their face. Team Flare is a huge disappointment from what we had in Gen V with Team Plasma (not to mention, GF was so lazy that they rehashed the conclusion where the player is supposed to learn that all opinions matter and that you can't just force your ideas on people. Does that sound familiar? That's the exact same message that Gen V was focused on). Gameplay is braindead and they neutered any semblance of challenge when they maxed Gym Leaders pokemon to 3. Plotlines are ultimately wasted (such as AZ being given the spotlight but doing nothing of significance), and the entire journey feels like a colossal waste of time with how handholdy Kalos exploration is (you'd have to be worse than braindead to be stuck at a particular point as they made it easier than Unova, which is saying a LOT). The uninteresting story only compounds how terrible the journey is.
ORAS was an improvement, but it was still held back in some ways. Rather than use it to celebrate all that was in Gen III (like HGSS was to Gen II), they focused solely on RS, leading to weird design choices that we already saw pre-Emerald. For instance, the game wants you to see both Aqua and Magma's perspective but because of game exclusives, we only really see the relevant side's POV, and the opposite side is relegated to a dialogue dump. Emerald had the right idea, and I have no idea why they stuck to their content exclusive shenanigans instead of trying to tell a better and larger narrative that we saw in Emerald. Not to mention, having BOTH Aqua and Magma as well as the legendaries they're after leading to a climactic battle works a lot better from a story perspective than just simply having one legendary throw the weather out of balance. Gameplay is slightly more challenging, but again, they cut off at RS instead of adding in Emerald improvements such as PokeNav rematches actually changing after 4 times (and with this, I'm specifically talking about gym leaders). No Battle Frontier hurts quite a bit considering that I've already played the Maison...and that their reasoning for cutting it is insanely stupid.
I think Gen VI can be summed up as this: GameFreak not realizing that they have a lot of people interested in their products who aren't kids (especially those who grew up from Gen I, which makes pandering all the more weird when they can't even offer better gameplay elements such as difficulty selection). Pokemon Go also shows this with their user base. That being said, there are ways to appease both sides without having to neuter your demographics. Quite a shame considering just how well-crafted Gen V were.