Pokémon Games I played/will play Ranked on when I first played them growing up (Tiers Sorted by Least Enjoyed Playing to Most Enjoyed Playing)

[LPBvgc]

 

[Basedwell]

I got into Pokemon in adulthood (end of 2022) so I can’t make my own tierlist, although a timeline would be interesting. Instead, here’s one on my most recent criminal offense when I played each game for the first time.

 

[LPBvgc]

Update: So it seems that Z-A will release in October...

 

[bdt2002]

Here’s my list of roughly when I played each of these games for the first time. My memory gets worse of what I played when the further back I try and go, to the point where I genuinely can’t remember if Pearl or SoulSilver was my first core series game. I do know those were collectively my first two and followed a year later by Black & White 1. I also happen to know that Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs my beloved came out where I live in North America right around the same time I started the franchise entirely, and that it was my first Pokémon game outright. Incidentally, I first played Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia after Guardian Signs during the 2010-2013 “era” and finished off my backwards introduction to the trilogy with the original game early into the 2013-2016 era.

I chose these specific time periods to match up as closely as I reasonably could with each generation of the franchise itself. Some of them might not line up exactly- Black & White 2 came out just late enough to where I tend to place it just before X & Y on most of my lists I make- but as you can see, depending on if or when I decide to get a Switch 2 (I refuse to play Legends ZA on the old Switch), I’m officially running out of new core series Pokémon games I haven’t played yet. Excluding games that haven’t been announced or released at the time of writing this post, XD: Gale of Darkness is the last one and it and Colloseum will be on the GameCube NSO catalog, presumably either later this year or in 2026 as a part of the inevitable 30th Anniversary celebrations.

As for which games I waited the shortest and longest for: Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Violet are the only games I bought on launch day to date, and the longest I’ve waited or had to have waited to play any of these games after their initial release would be either of the GameCube games clocking in at over 15 years a piece, though a handful of other spin-off games such as both Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team (the originals) and Mystery Dungeon: Explorers (Darkness and Sky specifically) were after quite some time also at between five to ten years, maybe longer for Rescue Team on Wii U Virtual Console.

I may decide to make an enjoyment tier list later this evening. My lunch break is wrapping up at work as I’m finishing typing this and I need to get back to it.

P.S.: Just in case anyone says anything, out of the three versions of Gen 4 Sinnoh, Pearl was the only one that was ever actually in stock at our local game stores, and I do mean stores plural. Platinum being popular makes sense, but for whatever reason retail copies of Pearl in our area outnumbered those of Diamond almost entirely for whatever reason. It wasn’t even that people weren’t picking Pearl over Diamond either, they just straight up only sold Pearl for some reason!