i was part of a chat about which gen 6 pokemon games are the worst the other day, and it got me to thinking: which of the mainline pokemon series is my favorite? and, also, what is everyone else's favorite?

so i've been playing like four of them at a time, and right now i think pokemon firered/leafgreen is a front runner. its just a really solid remake that folds in the gen 3 stuff really nicely, and keeps the good structure of the first game. plus, it's still really nice to look at for a GBA title. black/white, emerald, platinum, and heartgold/soulsilver are all pretty great though, and i'm like halfway through sun and really enjoying that one.

i'm absolutely sure this discussion has happened on minus world before but i also don't care. post those favorites

pokemon white is my favorite. pokemon (soul)silver is the runner up, either version.

i don't feel like any of the other entries (that aren't the opposite pairing) have game freak trying nearly as hard as in those two titles. i have fun with every mainline pokemon game dont get me wrong, but a lot of them feel like gf was going through the motions. i do REALLY like the encounter changes they made for sword/shield and that alone improved those games immensely and made them a lot of fun but a lot of aspects of those games felt very rushed and lazy nonetheless. at least pokemon designs and whatnot keep on being fairly strong despite what genwunners say

but yeah white is just this whole fresh experience that still feels like a pokemon adventure, every pokemon is new but still feels familiar since there are a lot of deliberate throwbacks. there's a story that isn't too involved but is still nice and puts twists onto the usual formula, with the gyms and e4 especially not being almost entirely disconnected from the story like the other games. there were a lot of good mechanics changes made and you can make a solid ingame team moreso than in most titles a lot easier, but the difficulty is still generally there.

gen 2 holds a special place in my heart, they really went all out on what they included and any music track will hit me insanely hard. mon designs aren't all the best but the ones that are good are REALLY good. feraligatr is almost as much my bro as blaziken is. almost. lugia rules. TWO FUCKING REGIONS. i dont care that one of them is compressed, back in the day especially that was mindblowing and then they never did it again outside of the remakes. talk about disappointing. the one big issue is the level curve blows a fat turd and learnsets even in the gen 4 version are not so hot but i can forgive that. why the hell did it take till gen 5 to set all that shit straight anyways. speaking of more props to gen 5's quality for moveset fixing.

black 2 is definitely the best game in the series, in that they fully understood why people like JRPGs in general and pokémon in particular, and just filled the game with awesome fun things
but my favorite is ultra sun. i love stupid shit like wacky super moves and DBZ transformations and going to another dimension to fight a super hell beast god. i also really liked the redesigned maps and the poké rides even if they were controversial. it was the first pogeyman game in a long time where i was excited to backtrack to open up new shit

silver was the last one i enjoyed

This post was last modified: Aug 4, 2021 at 11:02 AM by n̷̨̘͖͗̊͜ò̴̟̜̲̲̞͈͚̖̲̽̈́́͐͛́̏̋̈́̑͐̈́.

Pokemon Platinum is my personal favorite. I'm not really a pokemon guy to be honest. I've always enjoyed it, watched the show as a kid, watched my friends play the games but for some reason Pokemon Diamond/Pearl really fucking captivated me. Going around and catching different pkmn at different times of the day, the battles were fun, I actually somewhat gave a fuck about the designs and Gardenia was my first pkmn waifu. Then, Platinum came along and really improved everything by making the game overall faster, adding the ability to rematch Gym Leaders, adding the Disortion World[ even though you can only go there once wtf gamefreak], improving dawn's stupid fucking outfit, adding more post game content.....dude..it was so good...I didn't even mind getting my shit rocked by Cynthia...it was so much fun. Hands down best music in the series as well down fucking @ me bros.


I see a lot of Gen V love in here as well. Those are probably my 2nd favorite though at that time I was busy as fuck with school/life so I never completed either game from that Gen unfortunately. I think the amount of time I spent jerking off to professor Juniper would add up to a single playthrough of both games anyway so i'm good. never playing pokemon again since i'm 40 years old. just gonna fap to the milfs.

thanks!!

Pokemon Emerald. It really feels like it unifies the Magma/Aqua storylines in a clean and good way (shoutouts to the only valid Magma base ever), the Battle Frontier might be bullshit but it's fun gimmicky bullshit that made each facility feel unique, I liked seeing how they got Johto pokemon back in due to my Gen 2 mon bias. Also it has my favorite legendary trio and I love their fucking bullshit puzzle.

I've also got a lot of nostalgic attachment to Crystal, but I wouldn't place it on Emerald's level. FireRed/LeafGreen are up there, playing Touhoumon hacks really helped me appreciate them again and the Sevii Islands are a cool and fun area that I'm really mad never returned ever. Moltres finally had a real dungeon!

Also Y has a special place for me as the time I finally actually went all out and did the whole National Dex for the first and only time.

This post was last modified: Aug 4, 2021 at 2:41 PM by Draku.

adding the Disortion World[ even though you can only go there once wtf gamefreak]

one of the best pokemon music tracks ever made

Sapphire is the one I have the most nostalgia for, but if I had to choose just one I'd honestly go with Sun/Moon. It was the first Pokemon game in a while that felt like a fresh experience that I genuinely enjoyed playing, rather than finishing it out of some perceived obligation to the franchise and wanting to be "in the know" because my friends were playing. Gens 4 and 5 were alright, definitely not as mediocre as 6, but all three of them kind of blend together in my memory I guess. Sun/Moon had a distinct and colorful setting, a quality batch of new Pokemon, fun and memorable villains, and an ambitious variation of the gym/league formula. Just good stuff all around.

FR/LG is def one of the best Pokémon games, undisputed fact. I enjoy it more than almost any other, but the game that I have played thru the most, start to finish, would be Diamond and Pearl, and for good reason. The Pokédex is full of really strong designs, the progression allows for handsome party members all thru the journey, its got great music, and none of the side stuff is too overly complicated, like the contests. The underground bases was really good too, if a bit unfortunate to have come out on DS which no one can connect with each other without close proximity.

I don't mind the other games, but gen 2 and 3 were pretty basic, and 6 onwards has some problems. idk what all those problems are, I usually have fun with them. I guess there's a lot of balancing issues. Mega evolution, z moves, super-sizing, those seem to be easy to rely on to make most of your progression, but then you lean so heavily on 1 Pokémon, usually your starter, and then the rest of your party is weak. As a general rule with Pokémon games, it seems that the better designs, and especially the cuter ones, are usually poor battlers. The game just handicaps good designs in favor of the larger, angry-looking ones that cute ones can sometimes evolve into, and that's probably one of my biggest gripes with the games.

5 was pretty good. I'm pretty sure the exp rate was the best in that one. Hilda is my fave protag design, so that's a plus, but the Pokédex is very hit and miss for me. We got a lot of really good designs like Hydreigon, Cofagrigus, and Scolipede, but then you got some pretty questionable designs like Gurdurr, Sawk/Throh, and Garbodor. Yeah, that's right, I don't even think Vanillite is one of the worse designs. Still its got great music, and the story was pretty good from what I remember.

I haven't played anything since gen4 and I have 0 interest. I figured I might check out gen4 remakes if they announced them but well

This post was last modified: Aug 5, 2021 at 6:18 AM by Fun With Despair.

It's down to Platinum and Emerald, with the two in stiff competition for different reasons. Honorable mention to every Gen 2 game, as well as Black and White for introducing my favorite pokemon.

Emerald for me I think was the perfect Pokemon game (keyword being was, we'll get to that), and without question the one I put the most hours into even without online. As a kid I almost maxed out the clock on this fucking game, and that wasn't even time entirely spent grinding out something or another or hatching eggs.

This game really felt like an adventure in a real place with how the region was laid out (people complain about the trumpets, but they helped with this feel for me tbh), and while the game was mostly linear, there were tons of optional areas, secrets, puzzles, and "sidequests" for a player to come across such as Pokemon Contests, the Regi sidequest, even small stuff like the shoal cave, sunken ship, and collecting ash in the field. Not to even mention the insane postgame that was the battle frontier.

Unlike the first two games, this was the first time the series really felt like a proper RPG to me, and that was also in part due to this game being the first instance of the box legend being plot relevant as well rather than an optional encounter. While it feels shoehorned at times in newer games, in this game and gen 4, it was pretty cool at times.

But it is with great regret that I must inform you that Emerald doesn't really hold up without romhacks. The lack of a physical/special split, a day/night cycle, as well as several missing QoL changes make this game pretty rough to play now. Which is where Pokemon Platinum comes in for, a game that pretty much just felt like Emerald 2. Being the next generation, it was set in a different region with another hundred-something new pokemon, and it also had all the improvements that still make it very playable to this day, while lacking many of the series changes since that I dislike.

I hiked like 40 mins through knee deep snow to buy Platinum on launch day, and it was worth it. Distortion World is the coolest thing in the entire series, and the game does an insane amount of stuff right. There's multiple ways to traverse the region, most pokemon are available to catch, and it brought back the battle frontier from Emerald (with somewhat worse challenges though) and stapled it onto an already extensive postgame from Diamond and Pearl.

I like Emerald's region more though still, so it holds a special place in my heart over Platinum. Platinum's region is honestly probably better but it lacks a lot of the small soulful things like the sidequests, the trick house, etc. Lots of secrets, but not a lot of substance beyond just exploration.

hgss felt like the last titles where they put in effort so probably that one. i've still to try bw(2) but everything after just looks so phoned-in

i also loved emerald as a kid, hoenn is a great region that really captured my imagination

hgss felt like the last titles where they put in effort so probably that one. i've still to try bw(2) but everything after just looks so phoned-in

i also loved emerald as a kid, hoenn is a great region that really captured my imagination

black and white are fucking amazing games. the sequels are done by a b-team and fall back into all the usual traps but damn are b/w1 good. give 'em a shot

This post was last modified: Aug 5, 2021 at 12:08 PM by sealelement.

hgss felt like the last titles where they put in effort so probably that one. i've still to try bw(2) but everything after just looks so phoned-in

i also loved emerald as a kid, hoenn is a great region that really captured my imagination

please try black & white, those games are FANTASTIC. x&y is where they really started phoning things in, at least IMO, but black and white are SO GOOD (and black and white 2 are pretty okay tbh, even if they're not as good)

honestly, White didn't click with me for some reason. i dunno if it's because i chose to play it when i was first falling out of Pokemon or just a personal lack of meshing, but White was a game i fell off halfway through

then I went back and at least finished the main game for gen 6 natdex purposes, so that was neat

This post was last modified: Aug 5, 2021 at 4:12 PM by Vertette.

Alright I guess I gotta try BW now.

I fell out of Pokémon with DPP. I loved Yellow, Crystal and Emerald, but I remember trying out Diamond and thinking "man this intro is so fucking slow and boring and I don't like these designs" and I just dropped it there. From what I heard it doesn't get much better afterwards.

black and white 2 are pretty okay tbh, even if they're not as good)

y

Alright I guess I gotta try BW now.

I fell out of Pokémon with DPP. I loved Yellow, Crystal and Emerald, but I remember trying out Diamond and thinking "man this intro is so fucking slow and boring and I don't like these designs" and I just dropped it there. From what I heard it doesn't get much better afterwards.

Diamond and Pearl are incredibly slow games down to the engine level, Platinum fixes SO much with them that it isn't funny.

black and white 2 are pretty okay tbh, even if they're not as good)

y

It's more of that they had to follow such a strong act. I do like how they integrate most of the outside-of-Unova dex and they have a lot more effort put in than most third versions, but after B/W1 made such a genuine effort to mix things up and feel fresh it felt like another generic entry that had similar "going through the checkmark list of motions" issues that later pokemon games tend to have.

The postgame content, memory link (or w/e its called) story content, and stuff like join avenue is fucking bae though. I'm almost definitely hard on it entirely because it didn't blow me away like B/W1. I should play it again or something

Blue baby!

This post was last modified: Oct 19, 2021 at 3:14 PM by Spritanium.

These days I only find myself interested in Gen 1-3. I have a soft spot for some of the designs from 4/5 but after that I just stopped caring. I was a huge fan of the small village vibe combined with futuristic technology, and nowadays it feels like the whole world is based on futuristic technology. I guess that's an attempt to show the passage of time in-universe but it just doesn't appeal to me. If they did an open-world RPG with ~100 of the most popular creatures, each with unique overworld behavior, that would probably capture my interest