I feel like Legends Arceus is the easy choice. It did some cool and fun stuff with the Pokemon formula and I generally had a pleasant time with it. Sword and Shield was a big letdown. I could see a lot of potential in it but the story and gameplay drops off hard half way through in a way that left me frustrated. Like I could SEE the potential. It was right there and they ran out of time or something I guess and just shipped what they had. Scarlet and Violet kinda went to the other extreme. It was like they wanted to avoid the story complaints so that’s where they put their focus. All their focus. Quality control? What’s that? Even now their online events are having to be run multiple times to make up for them being broken. And then still being broken the second time too. Legends Arceus is far from perfect, but they were able to strike an enjoyable balance. It has it’s quirks, but nothing egregious.
Oh, forgot the Let’s GO games in my other comment. They are the same game, just your starter is either Pikachu or Eevee depending on what version you get. They are a sort of retelling of Red/Blue/Yellow. I had fun with it, but it is pretty much just Pokemon Yellow HD.