I'll do my favourites for each region (except Kanto, Hoenn, and Alola, since I haven't played games set in those two regions before)
Johto: The town that has those sports-themed Pokemon tournaments. These were fun to compete it and something that I think should be bought back in later games.
Sinnoh: Hearthrome City. Lots of areas to explore here, with some good battles surrounding the city.
Unova: Nimbassa City. Lots of going on in this city centre. Plenty of places to visit.
Lumiose City: It's got a great soundtrack and huge city centre to explore. It can be fun to roller-skate around in the game. Didn't realise how well the soundtrack fitted this city until a second playthrough of the Kalos games.
Galar: Wyndom. It's a huge city to explore eith some great scenary and a very impressive finalee stadium for the champion battle to take place in.
You guys wouldn't mind if I hop on the "favorite place in each region" bandwagon, would you? No? Excellent. In older posts I've touched on some of them already, but hopefully this will be more of a concrete list. I'm also going to be adding certain spin-off regions, so if anyone has any questions about those, feel free to send them my way. Okay, let's do this. This is going to be a
really long one.
Kanto: I can't quite wrap my head around why, but there's something about Cerulean City that I find extremely nostalgic for some reason. I like how the local cave has different layouts in every game it's in, and this tends to be around the point of Kanto's early-game that I enjoyed the most. The Johto-based games add some extra story bits here and there, including the famous Rocket Grunt on the Nugget Bridge and that part where you interrupt Misty on a date. I like to tell myself that this ship with an unnamed NPC remains canon.
Johto: Picking a spot from my favorite main series region would be hard if Route 47 didn't exist in the remakes. Ecruteak/Cianwood City was already relaxing enough with that song, but for a route that exists solely to be a path to the new Safari Zone
(and a place for the most inappropriate Double Battle joke in the series), the developers (pun intended) put their freaking hearts and souls into this route with my pick for the best route theme in Pokémon history and tons of cool little spots to explore amongst the cliff-based scenery.
Hoenn: This pick might actually come as a bit of a surprise to some of you, but I'm actually going to select the Sky area from ORAS for this one. It took me much longer to notice the connection than I'd like to admit, but at the end of the day, soaring with Lati Twins will likely be the closest any of the main series games gets to re-creating any part of
the spin-off game I consider amongst my own. Quick honorable mention real quick to Hoenn's iteration of Victory Road, making this one of only two dual nominations in the entire list.
Orre (GameCube saga): Give me Phenac City, straight out of the Pokémon Colloseum opening sequence for one reason alone. You can get the Johto Eeveelutions and a Level 30 Shadow Johto starter straight out of the gate. With Espeon and Feraligatr both being among my top favorites in the series... how could I pass that up? Seriously, how?
The Sevii Islands: This is the first of four different sub-areas of a region that I'll be counting as its own location. None of the spots here are particularly stand-out favorites for me, but one spot in particular that I only just recently learned about makes me chuckle every time I think about it. There's a hidden tall grass area in Three Isle Port where the only wild Pokémon that can spawn there is Dunsparce. Even if you're in the majority that dislikes the little guy (I'm not), you've got to admit that an area having only it is pretty hilarious.
Fiore (Ranger): The Jungle Relic is a boss rush area done right, something we don't see too often in any Pokémon game. This volcanic area is where the game's difficulty really starts to spike upwards, while having very important story relevance unlike something such as an Elite Four run in main series games. The whole mission almost has this "Ocarina of Time" vibe to it. Unfortunately, this analogy won't make sense to you unless you've placed at least one of those two games. Or both.
Sinnoh: I'm just going to say it... Sinnoh's not one of my favorite regions in any particular aspect, from gameplay to characters and most things in between. I feel like I'd enjoy it more if Hoenn didn't do a lot of what Sinnoh did first. At least when Johto did this with Kanto it made sense because it was a sequel. With this logic, my favorite area in Sinnoh would likely be any of the more unique ones. I'm not counting the Underground as legal for this list, but either way, my selection here would go to Route 209 for that incredible song, rivaled only by Johto's Route 47 for me. The Smash Bros. Brawl remix is somehow even better, and I highly recommend it.
The Battle Zone: Located northeast of mainland Sinnoh, my favorite spot in this area would probably be the Resort Area. Choosing any of the routes there for that absolute vibe of a song is really tempting, but the famous Magikarp pond will never get old. That, and you can pretty much live in your own villa with NPCs visiting the player for a change. I wish people would want to socialize that much in real life.
Almia (Ranger 2): Boyleland gives me such hard New Super Mario Bros. DS vibes that I actually got its song and World 3's theme from that game mixed up for the longest time, despite this being the volcano-side town as opposed a beachy area. This town gets the jump over other places in Almia thanks to its replayability due to the player coming here twice, each time for a different mission. In the off chance your all-time favorite Pokémon in the series is Mime Jr., this is also where you get it as one of only four guaranteed Partner Pokémon options outside of side quests.
Oblivia (Ranger 3): Does nominating the entire region count as cheating? I feel like this is cheating. If I do have to go with just one area, I'd probably go with the Aqua Resort- a peaceful town with older people who are fun to talk to and just seems like the kind of place that was made for me to enjoy. The main way to get here in the game is by flying, too- shoutouts to ORAS's reference from the Hoenn nomination.
Unova (BW): From a gameplay perspective, there's unfortunately not too much reason to play the first games when the second games have all of the Pokémon and most of the returning content. Out of the areas exclusive to the originals, Route 10 and Victory Road were probably the ones I enjoy the most. The question is, do I pick Route 10 for the music or Victory Road for those really fun cliff slopes? I'll let you decide.
Unova (B2W2): Have you noticed a pattern with my previous nominations? For whatever reason, I'm obsessed with water-themed areas, and the Marine Tube is no different. It's the newest of Unova's five "bridge" locations, and thanks to the Abyssal Ruins's mechanics, was the first real dose of "unrestricted underwater exploration" I was able to enjoy prior to Hoenn's 3DS release.
Kalos: I really, really enjoyed the Frost Cavern in Kalos for one very simple reason. FINALLY, after all these years, we can slide diagonally on ice tiles. I still remember discovering the ability to do this by accident back in 2013, and I was just... completely shocked. Fun fact- This area was originally going to have a static encounter with a free Abomasnow, too. Unfortunately, this never made it into the final game and the one that lives in the cave just kind of... sits there for the rest of eternity.
Alola: Remember when I said ORAS would be the only main series game that reminded me of Guardian Signs? Yeah, well... I lied. Between the riding Pokémon aspect, the multiple islands format (Yes, I know Alola's based on Hawaii), and the fact that Iki Town is literally just Cocona Village 2.0... you will never be able to convince me that some of this was done on purpose.
Galar: I don't dislike Sword and Shield nearly as much as I used to, although it's still my least favorite area on this list overall. One place I have to respect, though, is the Glimwood Tangle. We all remember, the famous 24-hour livestream, but even outside of that, this feels like the one place in mainland Galar that wouldn't give my autistic OCD brain a sensory overload in real life, and that's pretty huge. Who needs loud cities and Pokémon Gyms with Dynamaxing when you can go to a relaxing, colorful ambient forest and just chill there instead?
The Isle of Armor: I can't say that I've ever fully invested myself in this area... or any places in Galar for that matter, but the Towers of Mastery seems like such a unique spin on the uninspired idea of a standard Battle Tower. What really sells this place as a favorite for me is the implementation of Urshifu, a Pokémon that I haven't used in-game (because that requires me to play Sword and Shield), but I would absolutely
kill for to see in other games like Pokkén or Smash Bros.. If this were to ever happen, either of the towers or maybe the Dojo itself could all suffice as viable stage options.
The Crown Tundra: I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't at least partially enjoy the Dynamax raid dens. Given my tendency to not enjoy generational battle gimmicks, I was surprised that something as unique as the Shiny mechanics could change my opinions on the Max Lair so easily. If the Tundra's whole spiel is about collecting Legendary Pokémon, it can be nice to take a break from the main content of this half of the DLC while still having fun.
Hisui: Out of the five main zones seen in Legends: Arceus, the Cobalt Coastlands were predominantly my favorite by a wide margin. Legends came out at a weird time for me as both a Pokémon fan and a young adult, and one of the things that convinced me to even give the game a shot was that a good friend of mine said that the Coastlands (and parts of the Highlands) would likely be my favorite part of the story. Unsure of what they meant by this, I went in wondering what to expect, only to be met with not only the more tropical kind of climate I've grown to love, but an incredible flute performance from Irida followed by a deep dive into some of the characters of the Pearl Clan. Feel free to tease me about this, but those flute performances in tandem with Irida's general character development touched me so much that I was genuinely reminded of when we were all younger and would ship ourselves with fictional game characters. (Don't lie, you know you did it.) All that because of a trip to the beach. I guess my friend got the last laugh after all.
