What's your favourite main series Pokémon game?

What's your favourite generation overall?

  • 1 - [ Red, Blue, Yellow ]

    Votes: 18 6.6%
  • 2 - [ Gold, Silver, Crystal ]

    Votes: 53 19.3%
  • 3 - [ Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, Emerald ]

    Votes: 87 31.8%
  • 4 - [ Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver ]

    Votes: 74 27.0%
  • 5 - [ Black, White, Black 2, White 2 ]

    Votes: 42 15.3%

  • Total voters
    274
I'd have to go with Gen 4. Diamond really got me into some semblance of "competitive play," at least to the point where I was actually raising Pokemon to be decent in online stuff. I can definitely feel the nostalgia for the older games since I grew up on Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda, but the newer generations have some nice improvements as far as game mechanics go. Separating moves into physical or special individually instead of by type made a lot of sense.
 

Stone RG

Megas are broke
Black and White actually had a plot that didn't hurt your brain with its simplicity (Team Aqua and Magma are the dumbest villainous teams ever; if a five-year-old versed in Captain Planet can point out the flaws in your plan, your plan is stupid), and I like triples and rotations a lot.
I dont find Team Aqua or Magma's proposals to be that dumb, if you actually watch some pretty popular anime or manga, ull see that actually pokemon villains have actually some good fundamented reasons for their evilness, yet not developed enough. As for Aqua and Magma, i think they could have given them a better storyline and develop at least a little bit like they did with Cyrus, i hope they do that in the remakes tho.
 
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I dont find Team Aqua or Magma's proposals to be that dumb, if you actually watch some pretty popular anime or manga, ull see that actually pokemon villains have actually some good fundamented rrasons for their evilness, yet not developed enough. As for Aqua and Magma, i think they could have given them a better storyline and develop at least a little bit like they did with Cyrus, i hope they do that in the remakes tho.
It would've been hard to develop both of them like Galactic when there was both of them in the game. If it was just Magma or Aqua I believe there could've been more time to make them better.
 

ParryOtter

Banned deucer.
I love Gen 3; specifically Fire Red and Leaf Green. They're remakes of the old original games, so they have that classic charm, but they're much faster paced and more graphically impressive, and they're fully transferable (down the line), now even with Gen 6!
 
Gen III is definitely my favorite. I remember years ago when me and my brother would play ruby/sapphire all day long. My favorite was Ruby because that was the first of the Gen III games that I owned. If they made a remake I would totally buy it!
 

aVocado

@ Everstone
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Pokemon SS/HG is the definition of perfection. If I was asked which game I thought was the most perfect of all that I played, I'd answer with that.
 
I was 10 when Red & Blue released, so I was the perfect target age when Pokemon initially hit shelves in NA. I sunk several thousand hours into R/B/Y and then G/S. Never taking breaks between them. I eventually played Ruby for quite a while, until I just ran out of things to do and had nobody to play with/against.

But as for which game/generation I liked the most, Gold/Silver and there remakes win by a gigantic margin. To me, Pokemon is all about both battling and the Pokemon themselves. It's really neat to see how far the game mechanics and meta-game have progressed since I last played these on GBA, but the majority of new Pokemon have absolutely terrible designs (IMO). Lets throw out a tally of how many Pokemon I actually like from each generation.. I'd post an actual list, but the BB coding just isn't working on these forums right.

Gen1: 17
Gen2: 11
Gen3: 8
Gen4: 3
Gen5: 4

Now, this isn't just some huge nostalgia wall here, looking at the current 1-650'ish list, these are the designs I thought looked good. After Gen3, it honestly looks like they just ran out of ideas. There are a couple cool ones, but almost all of the new ones just look downright stupid to me.

S/G had two regions, the battle with Red at Mt. Silver, tons of stuff to do, and the majority of the awesome Pokemon that are known & loved. For half the game you got to go around knowing that you're the Johto Champion, which is pretty cool all by itself. By the time you beat Red in arguably the coolest battle outside of the Colosseum & Battle Tower arenas, you're an inter-region Champion.

Ruby/Sapphire were pretty good, but not as good as G/S. Not having multiple regions and access to all of the old Poke'mon without trading was a huge drag. It was unique enough in it's advancements over G/S/C to keep me entertained for quite a while though.

What eventually pushed me away was GameFreaks "two-game" release strategy, not having access to past regions & Pokemon from older games, dumb characters, easy gym leaders & trainer A.I., and not having an interesting storyline. I'm 100% fine with starting the journey with the intent on being the regional champion, but along the way make it interesting.

If a future Pokemon game releases and lets you go to all six regions and have access to just about every one of the 650'ish Pokemon, I'd go buy a 3DS XL right now.
 
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SJCrew

Believer, going on a journey...
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
It figures that the games leading the poll would be my two absolute least favorites.

Gamefreak has strange ideas on how to follow up on successful formulae. Gen 2 was basically everything you wanted in a sequel, while Gen 3 was more of a fresh start with too little of interest to be called a proper adventure. Gen 4 did well by Gen 3, being just as much of a slow, lumbering, and sadly unmemorable adventure with few new Pokemon to care for.

Then Black and White comes out of nowhere and just kind of bitchslaps the both of them, heeding for once things important in RPGs such as 'characterization' and 'storytelling'. From the most memorable gym leaders to date, each with their own established career, to the most ruthless villain in Pokemon, almost all of its faces make an impression. This is my second favorite adventure overall.

This leaves RBY as the odd man out, neither supreme nor abysmal, with Blue being my very first Pokemon game. Looking back on it, my one main criticism is that the adventure is too short! The only thing you get to do after the Elite Four is visit Cerulean Cave to capture Mewtwo. There aren't any new Pokemon there, just oddly overleveled ones that you're better off not catching. Every time I revisit this game, I find myself disappointed with how quickly it's all over.
 
Red and blue just give me that feeling. It sounds corny but I guess it brings me back to my childhood or whatever. Nothing is ever gonna replicate that. But I still know they were pretty bad games from a technical standpoint. Damn zubats.
 
I started with G/S very good games for an early and rookie player in the franchise, one thing I really love is that you can go to Kanto and fight all the past gyms, it was a very good detail, also are the unique games (with the remakes of course) where you can get 16 badges. But yeah...after played them for a while and compare to other games, they lack of some kind of difficult and were pretty easy, with the exception of some trainers and leaders of course,but the nostalgia of the old days when you was so innocent to think that a flamethrower Typhlosion kills everything.. I think they gave a lot of fun.
 
I would have previously had to say HeartGold but honestly as I am playing through X I am loving it more and more every minute. Its just beautiful!
 
Though I possess a soft side for Pokemon Red for starting me on the journey, I just have to give my vote to Pokemon Ruby because that game re-introduced me to the wonderful world of Pokemon :).
 
I like GSC for a variety of reasons. One thing that I vastly prefer from that gen is the sprites. After Gen II, Gamefreak decided to make a lot of the spirtes all 'cutsey' and usually about a third of their original size with vastly different proportions (Ampharos is a good example). Granted there were some laughable sprites in GSC too (Hi Articuno), but overall I just find GSC's sprites to be more artful looking, despite the lower resolution. GSC's plot is also fairly well done compared to say, the brain-dead retards you fought in RSE and DPP. I find that the mark of a good villain is that you feel that they're, y'know, a threat. I liked that vibe you get when the Rockets take over Silph Co. and the Radio Tower, when they occupy the entire town and you really feel their presence until they're defeated. The level curve was kind of... not thought out that well, but its neat that they made a good attempt at a bonus boss, albeit one with fairly inoptimal move sets.

Also, I'll confess that one of the reasons I like to play RBY and GSC is because you can duplicate TMs. Quite honestly, I can't stand how there are so many Pokemon in the early games who are basically offenseless unless they can get a really elusive TM like Sludge Bomb or Earthquake that half the Pokemon in the game all desperately want as well just to be usable. Gen V really did us a favor by making TMs infinite.
 
Pokemon Blue. Can't beat that flying Kangaskan glitch lol

But my current favorite is leaning towards Pokemon X for the fact that they made EV training sooo much easier :')
 
For me it's a tie between HG/SS and BW/BW2.

HG/SS because of the epic music remixes (I remember going to my first wild pokemon battle in HG and literally moaning in delight at the music) and YOUR POKEMON FOLLOW YOU AROUND. Like for reals. I had my core team of Seviper/Floatzel/Latias in HG and they were my bestest pals.

BW/BW2 because of its epic story, graphics, and a very nice region. That, and it's the first generation I actually bothered to correctly breed/EV train my mons because of how easier it was than in previous gens. Music was great too; the E4 music is one I have on my MP3 that I'd listen on repeat for hours and never get bored.

I am starting to like X/Y though. Story is weak, but graphics and new mons are great. And POKEMON AMIE. Oh god. I literally have to check myself because I get too absorbed in petting my mons. SO. CUTE. I remember seeing a Zigzagoon attack, and its animation literally had me d'awwing for a long time.
 
G/S/C were without a doubt my favorite. The sheer amount of content was overwhelming, Lance's and Red's battle music was the coolest thing ever, shiny Gyarados was beyond fantastic at the time (I was pretty young then), and actually catching the legendaries that generation was something to brag about. Fighting Red was also possibly the greatest moment in Pokemon history. Of course the remakes were better. They had more content, better graphics, etc., but 2nd gen was way better for it's time than the remakes were, plus the remakes felt extremely easy.

After 2nd gen is a tie between 1st and 5th gen. 1st gen was, well... 1st gen. It started it all, and the foundation it established has withstood the test of time incredibly. I also loved the glitches to hell and back. So much extra content was available through abusing those and trying to figure things out. Plus, for the only time in the series, your Rival is the champion. How's that for a climactic final battle?
On the other hand, 5th gen actually had a very nice storyline for a Pokemon game. I liked the new Pokemon, loved the possibility of new abilities, but hated the online metagame. Weather was really repetitive. All the same, it was fantastic.

I like 6th gen a lot, but the game itself is so short. Not to mention online feels kind of limited until the Pokemon Bank opens, since so many Pokemon are unavailable. Still, the graphics, Mega Evolutions, balance changes, plot, and other small details are all spectacular. I was pretty mad about how easy it was, though. I don't really play Pokemon for the challenge, but this was absurdly easy. When Z comes out, it will probably have a lot more content, and I will probably try to Nuzlocke it.

3rd gen was actually my least favorite for the sole reason that it was always raining and it made me feel sad.
 
For me it's between Red/Blue and Gold/Silver. I got Red version the year it came out and a gameboy pocket to go with it. I had watched the anime for a few weeks but had no idea there was a video game until a kid in my science class told me about it. I got Gold for Christmas and was much more impressed with it than Red. The new features really made the game come alive for me and my friend and I had a race to see who could beat it first. The biggest thing Red has over Gold is its soundtrack, in my opinion; I love the music box feel to the melodies. But I guess I have to vote Gold just because it really expanded on the original and made me a long time fan.
 
I love all the gens, so its kinda hard to decide really which one is my favorite when it comes to them.
I picked second, because it was what got me into Pokemon,(with the anime, didn't get first game until Platinum),and my favorite Pokemon are in 2nd, like Typhlosion, Ampharos, etc. Considering my favorite Dragon type is actually in gen 1. Also, gen 2 had some good characters in it game-wise , and the ability to travel to two regions was really good imo, because then you didn't have to go straight to catching legendaries, you could relive your kanto adventure in a new time, which took two years after the first one.

Now, I don't get the hype of 3rd generation. I love 3rd generation, but I do agree that it is a bit overrated, and almost everyone says its their favorite gen, which honestly doesn't surprise me, but nonetheless, it's not a bad gen ,it's actually pretty good. Now for the idea of a 3ds remake, I'd love that, because every remake so far has seemed to be better than original.

I loved 6th gen too, and I'd say its probably shaping up to be an amazing gen. I've had the game since the 11th at midnight, so I've been pretty addicted to it . I also own Y, which I fire monotyped, and I beat it so easily, so I will probably nuzlocke that. Also, you never had to grind once in the game, just leave the EXP share on.
 
I'm a Gen I fanatic, always have been, always will be. Gen II was great, III was alright, I never played IV as the downward trend had put me off, and I distinctly remember considering getting back into the series with Gen V, seeing a icecream mon and just going "nope".

Thankfully, Gen VI has proven to be awesome, and will probably end up taking number 2 spot in my list (seriously, nothing is going to dethrone RBY for me).
 
I have too much nostalgia for gen I to be fair handed, so I'll just say it's very memorable and leave it at that. Nostalgia/10

Gen II is alright, day and night cycles and shinies were pretty cool. More importantly though, it brought held items and two new types. But it also brought worthless gimmicks like Unown and some of the most bland environments in the franchise in my opinion. This is the most overrated of the bunch. It relies on nostalgia from the first game too much rather than its own merits. When you ask most people why they like it so much you'll likely hear something like "because you can fight red" or "because it had Kanto in it" 6/10

Gen III was a total rebirth, and for the better. It was the singular largest improvement the series has gotten. Natures, abilities, weather conditions, double battles, and a complete overhaul of the EV and IV system are all things that define the Pokemon metagame as we know it today. The sense of adventure in the Hoenn region was fantastic, the cutscene in Emerald with Groudon and Kyogre face to face in the sea as lightning clashes in the background and Rayquazza descends from the sky was... incredible for the time and I would argue is still the best scene in all of the Pokemon games. Oh, and on a technical level, gen 3 is still the only generation to run at a constant 60fps. 9/10

Gen IV I would say had the most interesting lore behind its legendaries. Some of the things you learn about Pokemon like Darkrai, Giratina, and Arceus are infinitely more interesting than anything before or since. The distortion world in platinum was unique and frankly awesome. Personally it is my one favorite area in a Pokemon game. All the other areas of the game have a good amount of variety. It doesn't quite reach the sense of adventure gen III gave off, but it was much better than II's dullness. Now for the most important thing IV brought: The physical/special split, hallelujah. 8/10

Gen V ...eh my problem with this gen is that they put so much focus on the story and pushing you through it that you lose almost all of the great sense of exploration and adventure Pokemon is all about in the first place. Yeah, the story is "better" than the basically nonexistant stories of past Pokemon games, but as a story on its own, it's still garbage. The thing is, I would rather have a barebones story that doesn't get in the way often than a juvenile attempt at a serious story that is constantly shoved in your face. Mechanics wise it didn't do anything quite as big as gen 3 or 4 did before it. It brought us triple battles and rotation battles, things I never bother with myself, but it's cool that it exists. One positive thing I will say is that B/W2 have by FAR the best gym designs of all of the games. 5/10
 
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Difficult, but for me it'd go:

5) R/B/Y
Hate me all you want but I was born in 95 so I didn't play these much. I as mainly playing when I was cool and clever enough to use a Game Boy. I played these, but not much so honestly I don't have many experiences with them. That said, I can EASILY remember some of the EPIC times in these games. Easily some of the best and most memorable music I've ever heard.

4) D/P/P/Hg/Ss
Hurts me to put HGSS with these since I found it completely different than the D/P/Pt trio but w/e. I got Pearl, Plat and HG on release and played 'em a shit ton but looking back they feel just... bland. Well HG wasn't as bad. I loved how refreshing it was to be in a revamped Johto region with some really nice remixes (Kanto Wild and Gym are amazing). They were good and fun but nothin' special compared to the others. Some tunes from Pearl/Plat are a little nostalgic to be honest.

3) G/S/C
Like I said, these games were where I truly started Pokémon, albeit I was very VERY young. I played this game for so long and enjoyed every moment of it as a kid. I even remember a time from years ago where I didn't know what 'RELEASE' meant/did so I tried it on Togepi. Needless to say I was confused at what happened xD

2) R/S/E/Fr/Lg
While I started playing Pokémon in 2nd gen, this was where I really started bashing it. I think it's the Gen that has most playtime of all titles combined. I have some great memories of just fighting these 2 karate people in FR/LG level ling up my Legendary birds for an upcoming battle with my friend. I can hear the battle music in my head right now ^.^ Some very very nostalgic music from these two, especially Emerald. My god I loved 3rd gen.

1) B/W/B2/W2
Fuck the haters, 5th Gen was amazing. The music, especially B2/W2 was just sick and unlike many of the other titles, VERY memorable. The animations of Pokémon really brought the series to life. The battles really felt alive. Awesome effects on the attacks and my favourite storyline of the entire series. I was surprisingly very interested with the story while playing through these games, something which I have never done before and has never done again yet (X&Y possibly the shittest, boring and most predictable plot ever, idk maybe a tie with some other game). These games brought SO many new features that the other games are just crying. So much to do in these games. SO much. I fuckin' love 5th Gen (I'll admit some designs weren't the greatest but SERPERIOR) and of all the games here (exlucluding X&Y) they are, in my opinion, the most polished, fun, replayable and best looking game of the lot. Every other game has little to no points over 5th Gen. Story? No. Features/included stuff? Nope. General quality (battles, overworld)? lol. Of course these games aren't 100% PERFECT WOW STEP ASIDE OCARINA and like I said a few seconds ago, some Gens do trump this one in certain aspects (maybe music or Pokémon designs) but in general, the whole package that comes with these games is better than that offered in the other games.
 
I'll throw in my two cents on this I liked we'll loved every game In the series my favorite is gsc hg ss
Because they added so many things not mention lots of my favorite pokemon and type the dark type. Next is probably the original BW mainly because of N this mofo was genius and caused so emotions (especially if your doing a nuzlocke) and honestly made me think about the way I treated my pokemon. The last one I will rate is RBY which is third because of the memorable plot twists pokemon it was the start and the mofoing dad story that was cubone
 
I'm 22 now so RBY was my childhood. Obviously I have huge nostalgia for the games and it is difficult for me to give a fair opinion but I can also appreciate that they are technically poor, even for the era they came from. The battle mechanics were unbalanced and often bugged, the AI was bad to the extent that you could breeze through the elite four while underlevelled by ten to fifteen levels and without using items, and of course, the glitches (in fact I reckon Missingno probably contributed heavily to these games' legendary status). But it is pleasingly non-linear in a way that the newer games can't really match - this meant you could be really over- or underlevelled because you did stuff in the wrong order, but it massively enhance the replayability. I guess it's sort of unique in video game history in that it was sort of this surprise monster hit, and hence probably not as much care and effort was put into it because the makers didn't expect it to be as popular as it was.

GSC cleaned up their act quite a bit. There was actually a story of sorts, more than in RBY at least where stuff just happened, but it got the balance of story versus freedom right for me. The battle mechanics had been made deeper and the AI bosses better, you could still do most of it in your sleep but it was an improvement. But they actually put a lot of effort into fixing the flaws the first game had. The postgame was extensive - in fact, it was almost another game, which you could do in pretty much any order you wanted. And everyone remembers Whitney's Miltank, which shows that even though they did a better job than the first generation GameFreak still hadn't quite mastered the art of giving the games a good progression of difficulty.

I never had a GBA so I haven't played RSE much but these seem pretty divisive games. On the one hand it improved so much from the previous game: battle mechanics, graphics, bad guys who actually had a motivation rather than being token bad guys (granted their motivation was stupid, but at least it was there). A lot of people don't like the designs, but honestly, Hoenn was a tropical region, and in the real world a lot of tropical animals look batshit crazy, so I think they are justified. However, for me the game imposes linearity (like that bunch of Wailmers that are randomly blocking your path with no explanation) and then tries to create an illusion of freedom by making the routes so huge (especially the water routes that go on forever) that you just get lost. RSE had a lot of good things to it but for me was less than the sum of its parts.

Again, in DPP battle mechanics were sharpened. Can't remember too much because I haven't played it in forever. It had cool stuff like the distortion world, but also annoying stuff like the foggy areas that wanted to make you rip your hair out. Team Galactic were more credible antagonists than anything that had come before, and they had some pretty kickass music too. I felt the sense of exploration had been toned down in this one though - it is pretty linear.

BW is another generation for which I have mixed feelings. Unlike RSE and DPP there weren't really any groundbreaking new battle mechanics. Stuff like reusable TMs and the modified experience formula were nice though. In fact, this new formula puts a cap on how underlevelled you can become because you will level faster if you are underlevelled, and level slower if you are overlevelled. This means we can let the game be a little more open-ended, right? If only. The linearity of this game is thrust in you face - that one bit where there are people who are "dancing for no reason, one day we'll stop dancing for no reason" maddens me. They are trying to turn the crappiness of their game into a joke (I think), but all it does is focus the attention on how poorly Unova is designed. True, they are trying to tell a story, and you can't easily tell a story out of order, but the story isn't really good enough to justify in my eyes, and I found myself scrolling through the text in the cutscenes without reading it. The decision to use only new Pokemon sounded cool, until you realised how many were pretty much copies of previous-generation Pokemon in both design and battle properties. That said, when it got it right, it got it right. The postgame is actually interesting with some neat sidequests. The overworld music is the best in the series, in that it actually matches the atmosphere of the area, rather than being generic music as in previous games. The victory road gate, with the music that builds one instrument at a time, is so awesome that it almost makes up for the rest of the game's flaws single-handedly. The other thing that was great about this game compared to previous generations is that the ordinary trainers are more challenging, whereas in previous games only the bosses would ever even make you think, which makes the games feel less grindy.

Not played XY yet, that pleasure still awaits me.

Overall, it's really tough. I think I'd give it to gen II, which seems to deliver the most consistently across all aspects.
 
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