I think I started bowing out of watching him around the Tiger Handheld games episode. That was the last one I felt was truly good. Geez, been almost 8 years now. I’ve checked back in sporadically but with very few exceptions (Earthbound) he’s been on a steady decline
I still found myself rewatching several episodes from 2014, he was still alright then.
2015 episodes were decent, though not as strong as 2014.
2016 was a very good year for AVGN, having celebrated 10 years of the show being on YouTube (save for the Sega Activator episode)
2017 was where I think the show started to fall off, with him doing to show monthly instead to taking breaks between episodes, but I still think was the last season that was at least above average.
2018... I just don't find rewatchable, other than Earthbound and CD32.
2019 had more rewatchable episodes than the previous year, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that someone else was writing the scripts for some of these episodes.
2020 only has episodes that are somewhat rewatchable, but not in large quantities; it had become clear than Screenwave had been behind many of these newer episodes.
2021, so far in my opinion, is only slightly better than the previous year (by virtue of having episodes that are at the very most inoffensive)... but I have to admit I think James just only barely cares about the show now. He can still put out good episodes of the show (going back to Darkman and 3DO
carmaggedon 64 is still not that bad), but between the excess amounts of skits in these videos and how dry the jokes are, it all but shows he's beyond burnt out from doing AVGN.
I think the reason 2021 hasn't been all that great, and what could explain the rushed quality of some of the episodes this year, is that the 200th episode is coming soon, and that he's just throwing whatever episodes he can to get to that number. Hopefully then, he'll either partially retire the show so he can work on other projects, or at least put it on hiatus so he can accomplish the same goal.