^ this is such a huge point which I truly want to acknowledge. I felt the same exact way in playing a run through of Heartgold, to where I still havent finished it since the whole nature thing really kind of had me bummed out in my play through. Sure i dont need to do that to get through while playing alone, but i felt it kind of did something to drop the value of it to me personally which is not to say its not a good game but just not really hitting my love for it.
That being said, I never played Emerald as OP mentioned as I am not a fan of gen 3 in the least (ill be wrong on this, jsut my opinion) but i love seeing others love for the games they truly adore the most. With that all said, my favorite will always be Crystal
Gen 1 - Where it all started. I can still go back and play these games and have fun with them. Outstanding Pokemon designs, great team-building opportunities and everything still feels fresh today.
Gen 2 - The only complaint I have here (and I have mentioned this before) is the HORRENDOUS team-building opportunities. There are some new Pokemon (Houndour, Murkow, Larvitar, Misdreavus, etc.) that you can’t even get until you get to Kanto, which made absolutely zero sense. You couldn’t get elemental stones until you got to Kanto either. But the vibrant colors, tremendous music and great new Pokemon (Gen 2 Pokemon are so underrated) made G/S/C surefire classics.
Gen 3 - A decent amount of people don’t like R/S/E, but that could very well be because of the fact that the games were released when a lot of us just didn’t care about Pokemon anymore. But make no mistake: these games were great.
Gen 5 - I absolutely loved how the game featured EXCLUSIVELY new Pokemon. You had to build a team of Pokemon you had never seen before, which was awesome. So many great designs, too.
Gen 7 - I had a great time playing Sun and Moon right off the bat. Yes, there were a bit too many cutscenes that carried on a bit too long and the new Pokemon were relatively unimpressive, but I had fun with these games. Also, Lusamine was a GREAT villain. I genuinely despised her and wanted to stomp her whenever I battled her. That’s how you know the villain is good.
Gen 8 - Sword and Shield took a lot of flak from the get-go, much of which I thought was unnecessary and just people taking part in groupthink without even realizing it. The lack of a national dex didn’t bother me because I like using new Pokemon anyway. Yeah, Dynamaxing was pretty cheesy (in my opinion), and the games weren’t fantastic, but there were SO many Pokemon to choose from, and the Wild Area made grinding so much less painful. Some positive steps were taken here regardless of what people believe.
Gen 6 - I can describe X and Y in one word: meh.
Gen 4 - I know all of this is subjective, but I cannot for the life of me understand how so many people consider Gen 4 one of the best gens. The gameplay was so painfully slow to the point where I would take long hiatuses between actually playing Pearl because it was so brutal (generally I finish games within a couple of weeks). Not only that, but many of the “new Pokemon” were just additions on to evolutionary lines that already existed. The fact that many of them (Rhyperior, Dusknoir, etc.) just felt unnecessary only made that worse. Plus, I felt like I was encountering mainly Gen 1 Pokemon for most of the playthrough. I don’t want to keep running into Geodudes, Machops and Ponytas in Gen 4. Oh, and one more thing: the Great Marsh was an AWFUL play on the Safari Zone. I hate everything about Gen 4. By FAR my least favorite.
As much as I’m not a fan of the story or all of the new Pokémon, Gen 4 holds a special place for me in that it was the first time you can battle anyone in the world in your home. First time learning about EVs and really battling on a competitive level were some of the best experiences I’ve had with Pokémon.
It all starts from the box art because Rayquaza is one of my top favorite Pokemon and Emerald is just the perfect gen 3 game. Gen 3 overall is my favorite and overall the GBA Pokemon game style is my favorite. I also have nostalgia for the game as it was the first Pokemon game I completed on an actual console instead of an emulator. Emerald will always hold a special place in my heart. Overall the GBA Pokemon games are great imo and I love to go back to them from time to time.
The Gen 2 games were the best. I suppose I will say crystal since it’s gives the most to do, but I can replay those over and over. Notice how no one has said anything about the games after gen 4 for the most part. Such a drop in quality of play in my opinion.
Plus the fact that the stats mechanically changed after gen 2 means those games will always be unique and fresh to play compared to the new ones.
The moment after beating the elite four in gold and silver and realising your only half way through the game and the second half is red and blue but in the future Was probably the best moment in gaming in my life. Absolutely blew me away. Gold and silver will always be dear to me.
My favorite Pokemon game generation is 3. I owned Ruby before emerald came out. I played the absolute shit out of that game, and caught a lot of rare Pokemon too. I love the sprites from gen 3 games. Clean, and colorful, yet has the original sprite based graphics. I’m not a huge fan of the newer style games like Sun and Moon. I think it’s cool, and I’ve played them a little, but I always prefer the sprite games.
I played the all the games except the newest ones and my favorite without a doubt is Red/Blue version. Something about being 7 years old and discovering glitches in the game to make your pokemon lv 100 and getting mew was awesome to me. Now the best games from an unbiased stand point would be heartgold and soulsilver. The pokewalker was a genius gimmick, The celebi and spiky ear Pichu events, having any pokemon follow you with updated graphics was great to see, and two regions in 1 game is always nice.
Emerald holds a special place in my heart because it introduced many new Pokémon and tossed in a few old Pokémon along your journey. The safari zone is to this day the best safari zone in my opinion. (Maybe because I love johto) also the battle frontier was perfectly put together in this game and doesn’t feel like extra postgame content but rather an extension to the campaign. I think this comes from the battle frontier being featured for an entire season of the anime so the frontier brains are memorable.
I am pretty sure you can tell form my name which gen i like the best.
if it was a choice of one game overall it would be Crystal for me.
I had a bootleg version of gold as a kid and i could not trade or battle friends with the link cable. So as soon crystal came out i jumped on the opportunity.
the best thing about this game was seeing the Pokemon in colour for the 1st time, the fact you get to go to Kanto and get another set of badges! with leveled up gym leaders and then getting to fight Red at the end!!!
why wasnt this a recurring theme in the other games? i remember playing ruby and sapphire and feeling so let down that you couldn’t go to previous gen islands! How epic would it of been to fight Gold.
I know it’s a popular opinion but I would say Gen 2 was the peak of the Pokemon video games.
It was just the right balance of the Pokemon experience still being novel and full of imagination but with critical improvements compared to the Gen 1 games.
I have fond memories of every generation but the games I go back to the most are Black & White 2. I love Gen 5 Pokemon and I remember being super impressed when that game came out. The sprites were finally animated (kinda) which was exciting. I think a big part of the fun was that I went into it fairly unspoiled, and I managed to experience most of the new Pokemon for the first time in-game.
The best part is the music fucking rips in that game. If you aren’t aware:
I loved Emerald as a kid, especially abusing the clone glitch so all my friends and I could share our strongest and rarest Pokemon. EX Emerald is also a very underrated TCG set since it “dOeSn’T hAvE gOlD sTaRs”
My favourite gen was 2 and the remakes. They still felt like RPGs, meanwhile gen 3 on the design distinctly changed. A lot of people like the changes, they’re not inherently bad, just not what I prefer.
Though Emerald having the first battle frontier was really special to me. I got so many hours out of it, but I wasn’t a fan of the base game.
