I’m wondering what, in your opinion, is the best Pokémon game. Specifically not your favourite, but the one you would show to a complete newcomer to show what the mainline series is at its best.
My personal thought would be either Emerald or HG/SS, but I admittedly haven’t kept up with the series so much after Black and White 1, which I disliked the designs for and found too slow and hand-holdy.
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I’m going to check back on this post in a couple of days, see what the consensus seems to be, and play that game through.
Little background: I’ve never liked Pokémon. No idea why. I generally enjoy JRPG’s. I tried one of the first Gameboy games when it came out. And I had some friends that liked it so general sentiment around me was positive. I’ve also tried one on the Gameboy Advance games (don’t recall which) and Pokémon Go when that first came out. Neither hooked me. But it’s been years since I gave it a chance.
Same exact story for me. I have all the gb advance games though, for that day when I want to play the series. This post is great to narrow down which one to try out.
FRLG because it introduces Pokémon the way it was meant to be introduced, with Pallet Town and Team Rocket, which are cultural references people will hear elsewhere, without being as completely outdated and awkward as gen 1.
Gen 3 is definitely my pick, doesn’t really matter which one. Haven’t played them, but I assume the remakes would be contenders as well.
HG/SS for an RPG introduction. No crazy generation mechanics like dynamax, mega, or terrastilize that you need to learn. Yes full support for doubles and singles. G/S has a well designed difficulty curve with lots of extra content HG and SS expand on it.
Champions if you just care about the competitive battles and not the RPG elements. Straight to the point PvP only, no breeding and farming required. Format based (they call them Regulations) so there’s a limited selection of pokemon+items in the game with an evolving and changing banlist.
Second for HG/SS. It had everything G/S had, which was solid to begin with, and added elements up through 4th gen I think. You get two regions, a huge pokedex, weather and day/night cycles, phoning the gym leaders for rematches, classic graphics before the 3ds. It has a all the classic Pokemon elements without all the clutter and limits of the new games.
My favorite is Emerald. But I also really enjoyed Sword and Shield, as well as Violet (i have not played Scarlet).
Pokémon Gold/Silver for sure. The QoL updates over Gen1 (RB) and 1.5 (Y) are just enough, although RBY was actually challenging at times GSC reduced the difficulty a tad. But the map is better, bunch of side quest options that aren’t too grindey, good callback to Kanto. I haven’t played the remakes but I’m sure they would be just as great.
I played the Brilliant Diamond one after not having played Pokémon for quite a while, played the gen3 ones on emulator a bit (Emerald in this case, quit when the difficulty was way too low until you got to the League, suddenly you actually had to work for it). Played Shield as well but didn’t even really feel like a Pokémon game to me.
So yeah I’m a typical genwunner but I prefer the second gen games. Crystal was neat but I don’t prefer it over Silver/Gold.
