Well, before '01, Zilla Jr. was good as it got; making Zilla Godzilla's proto-mum (a necessary evil in movie-making back then was incrementally introducing a franchise in bite-sized easily defeated chunks).
-To its credit, it [i]did[/i] manage to hit the right notes where and when it had to. And as a series, expectations weren't "blow me away or this is trash", it actually performed slightly better than expected. [u]Just not good enought to defeat Ash's ridiculously OP Pikachu[/u].

Although [i]I don't think we'll see a nimble ninja-godzilla again anytime soon.[/i] The '98 movie showed [i]what could've been[/i], while simultaniously poisoning the well with nerfed abilities and an anticlimatic death-confirmation.

Although, even the original Godzilla got killed in his first movie too. In that direct comparison, the '98 version did better in terms of presentation [i]up to a very specific point in the film[/i].