Personally I fond the 2d ones nicer, idk why bit pokemon look better in pixel art. That and modern pokemon has so many loading zones.
Tried to play sword abotehr day and damn so many loading zones,
That said I will admit things like signature moves look a lot better in 3d, its just loading times for crossing a bridge is uhhhhh
What I’m tryna say is I prefer the looks of pixel art Pokémon.
I prefer the sprites as well. The pixel art had so much character and were well done (except for the rotation and scaling in gen 5). The modern models feel honestly kind of flat and simplistic. Hell, despite these creatures being like animals, there are no effects for scales or fur on their body.
In an alternate universe where Game Freak put more resources into the Pokémon themselves, we would have models like in Pokken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kFHvcOkPb8