With X&Y just off the horizon I think it's time to discuss what generations we think are the best.

For me it's gotta be Gen 4. While Red was my first, Platinum was the first one I got when it was new, and let me tell you, it blew me away. Roll on 2010 and the release of HeartGold and SoulSilver, still my favourite Pokemon games ever. The music, the expansiveness, the addictability!

But then came 2011, and the release of Black and White, the start of the 5th gen. While these games are good, they felt like a step backwards. All the intuitive touch control menus were gone and we regressed back to the GBA days, and some of the Pokemon designs were awful. Granted, Gen 4 wasn't perfect, but Gen 4's stinkers are nowhere near as bad as Gen 5's! However, I applaud the plot actually reflecting on the issues of Pokemon battling each other and it really makes you question who's actually the bad guy after all.

Fast forward to now and we have Black 2 and White 2. Now these games to me feel like nothing more than a stopgap, just something to tide us over until X&Y come out. THESE GAMES DO NOT NEED TO EXIST. They're not bad, it's just I feel as if they're there for the sake of being there.

Plus, Gen 5 in general was way overhyped. In a nutshell, Gen 5 failed to match up to Gen 4, even with all its improvements here in there. In trying to be more mature, I feel as if they lost sight of what made Pokemon such a well-loved series in the first place, although I can't truly say what that is.

I did not mean for this to turn into a Gen 5 rant, btw. Sorry, guys!

I suppose Generation I or II, mostly because those were the generations I grew up with and cared about. I dunno, around the time Sapphire, Ruby and Emeral came out, I just didn't care anymore. And the female trainer's sprite was not one that I particularly liked, in terms of appearance. Same with Crystal, HeartGold/SoulSilver.

Generation IV appearance of the darkhaired girl was great, I liked her outfit. I dunno why they made her wear a winter coat for Platinum, I rather liked her black vest thing. And the female trainer from White & Black is actually my favorite appearance. She wears pants and looks cool. Same with White & Black 2, although she looked cuter. Although what I've seen from X & Y's female trainer... what's with her hair?

The gameplay in the 'old' GBA versions, I liked that. With the DS functions, eh, it was so-so. Once they added in the feature that the Pokémon I encounter and catch are based on the specific time and day I'm playing, that got a bit too much for me. I am not that big of a Pokémon fan, nor was I ever, to be awake at 3 AM just to get this one Pokémon. The feature of being able to simlpy pick to Use The Last Item I Used Again was nice. I still wish there was an option to sort the stuff in my backpack. Plus, the Touch Screen options for battle... eh, it's not that great for me. And how come these trainers can't run to begin with, but need a certain type of shoework to do so?

Uh, too focused on appearances... anyhow, overall, I liked the first two Generations the most. I wouldn't say they're the best. They are, in terms of having a decent amount of Pokémon that you could keep your eye on. 250 Pokémon was still decent, but above that is really a bit too much. Plus, what will they do now? They have Gods, legendary Pokémon, human emotions, time and space, feelings...

C-A

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4th generation, to be honest I never thought the first generation was godly.

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Gen 5. By far. Black 2 and White 2 are the greatest Pokemon games ever.

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Putting HeartGold and SoulSilver behind, I feel Gen. 4 is the worst generation. Yeah, I'm against popular opinion here. I really feel many of the Pokemon designs are forgettable (save for Shinx, who I loved, and Bidoof, who I have so much hated passion for), aside from I think one of the routes and the Gym Leader and Champion battle themes, I didn't care much for the soundtrack. Also, the games move REALLY slow. Compare surfing from Gen. 3 to Gen. 4. It feels like such a chore to try to get anywhere. Also what feels like 2-3 minutes just to save your game. I also really hated Platinum with how it tried to turn an already silly story and tried to make it all serious and such. It really just made the plot to the whole games just seem ridiculous and it took itself way to seriously for me, especially considering the bad writing. This, I feel, was something that Gen. 5 GREATLY improved on.

I could probably rant some more about Gen. 4, but I'll let it slide. SoulSilver and HeartGold fixed some of the problems that D/P/Pt had, such as the long save times and surfing felt better on there, so I really do like those. I would say Gen. 3 would be the worst if it wasn't for the glaring problems that Gen. 4 suffers from. I'd also say Gen. 1 would be the worst if it wasn't for my biased nostalgia goggles.

As for the best Gen, to me, it's really close between Gen. 2 and Gen. 5, but I think the latter beats the former just slightly. Pretty much all the problems I had with Gen. 4 vanished with Gen. 5. First and foremost, the writing is SO much better and the game plays so much smoother, it's not slow. Yeah, there's a lot of stupid Pokemon designs, Gen. 4 had them too, and honestly I feel Gen. 3 has the best designs, but Gen. 5 does so much more and gets pretty much everything right that I really don't care.

So yeah, I'm sorry, but Cyrus is just a terrible, terrible villain. It's just way too generic and you can argue that's what you can expect in a Pokemon game, but it's when the game tries to write itself in a way to where it's trying to present something epic and it just crashes and burns and revolves itself around such a flat character that I just can't take the argument that "Pokemon always uses generic villains" as a valid argument. Even that whole thing with Giratina was just stupid. N, and practically all of Team Plasma was just done so much better, it can't be argued. The plot was just great and kept me interested the whole time. As for B2/W2, yeah, the story started off very slow with nothing really going on, but once the plot finally picked up, it was something quite enjoyable. Not quite up to B/W, but much better than anything the series dished out in prior generations.



So yeah in short, Gen.5 for me. Gen.2 is close behind purely for nostalgic reasons.

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Can somebody explain to me why they suddenly seemed to put these giant stories into Pokémon games? Wasn't the entire point of Gen 1 - Gen 3, I think, to just collect as many Pokémon as you could and become the Champion by winning the league? Why did we suddenly get these stories with the environment completely out of whack or something about the universe and... creation.... power of Pokémon.... I dunno, I just read some stuff about B&W while playing B&W2 and I just wondered why they put it in. It's... pointless.

C-A

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B2/W2 honestly has no story. xP

For me, this is my order of games: B2W2 > E > HG/SS >>> B/W > R/S > FR/LG > D/P > C > G/S > R/B.

Gen 4 is pretty awful. It's really slow, terrible rival, and kinda made me not really want to play Pokemon for a bit. HG/SS was the one bright spot of that gen for me.

Gen 3 is really good though for me. (Yes, I like the trumpets. Sue me.) Emerald's Battle Frontier is great, I loved Pokemon Colosseum/XD, so it hits that nice spot for me.

Gen 2 and 1 are low down because objectively, they aren't as good as Gens 3-5... And I'm not blinded by any nostalgia for those games.

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Generation 1.

Although, I kind of have little respect for Generation 4. (Played Platinum version, and poured almost near 900 hours on that!!)

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Gen 2... It had two regions to explore! 8D

My favorite pokemon games are HG/SS


Also took the liberty of adding a poll to the thread.

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Yup yup yup Gen II is my favorite. The starters were just the best out of all the rest, and I adored my Cyndiquil that evolved in Typhlosion.
If I had to rank, I'd say:

Gen 2>3>1>everything else. I poured a lot of hours into Diamond/Pearl and Black/White, but I just don't remember any of it. I also didn't really care the starters in Gens 4 and 5. Might X/Y, who knows.

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lololol, so much genwunning.

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My favorite generation is always the newest one. That option is nonexistent.

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Honestly, I think Generation III was my favorite, though Generation IV is a close second. III introduced the idea of a criminal organization that posed a legitimate threat to the world and came dangerously close to pulling it off (Team Rocket was fun, but let's face it: occupying an office building doesn't exactly scream "world domination"). I also liked the idea of the teams and their goals differing depending on the version. Double battles were also a very nice addition. Then there was the Battle Frontier from the Emerald version. Oh, and I prefer Generation III's Pokémon contests over later generations' contests by far.

In my opinion, IV tried, but ultimately failed to expand on the things that made Generation III so great. Its saving grace came in the form of the new rules relating to Physical and Special attacks. Also, while it didn't manage to out-Generation III Generation III, its inclusion of the things that made it so much fun still gave it a special place in my heart.

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I have to say Gen III. Not due to anything like 'oh this pokemon is from this' or something like that.
Pokemon Emerald was the first Pokemon game I've ever played, so it holds a sentimental value and nostalgia when I talk about it. It's the first game where I actually played the game ((and not cheated)). So that's my reason, my opinion, and ect ect..

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In terms of the Poll, I picked Gen I.
Not because of any nostalgic value, that it's the first Pokémon game I played or anything like that. Simply for the fact that it had a decent amount of Pokémon that could easily be grabbed, without resulting in almost a year of trying to get at least half of the Pokédex filled. 155 Pokémon was decent.

Also, I think that was the only game, even the FireRed/LeafGreen version, where we didn't get a Togepi? Maybe that was also in Gen II games, but once Togepi appeared in the TV Show, it seemed like every game gave us the damn thing. I never saw much use in it, mostly because it took too long to hatch in some games or it never paid off as a decent Pokémon in battle for me.

C-A

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Togepi can become one of the best paraflinchers, but that has more value in person-to-person battling than in the actual game.

Gen 1 - Eh, a decent start, I put a lot of time in my Blue. Kind of stupid how you could get a Kadabra and pretty much curbstomp through the rest of the game since Psychics didn't have any real weaknesses back then.

Gen 2 - Pretty much skipped this one, at the time it felt like there was too much new stuff added at once.

Gen 3 - Only played this one recently and quit halfway through. Hey, let's make nearly every Pokémon not learn any elemental attacks until almost Level 20, Tackle and Scratch battles sound fun.

Gen 4 - Tried Diamond (PENGUIN!!) and gave up on it. Got Platinum hoping it'd be better, got slightly farther and gave up on it. HG and SS were excellent, though, they made me realize everything I didn't know I missed about Gen 2.

Gen 5 - TMs with infinite uses automatically makes this the best generation, but battles were faster, breeding got streamlined, the world was actually somewhat interesting (too bad there was only one huge city), BW2 added the movies (a minigame I actually WANTED to play), and so on. Starters were ultimately disappointing, but hey, nothing's perfect.


So overall it's 5 > HGSS > 1 > 4 > 2 > 3

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Torchic learns Ember at like level 8. Double Kick at around level 15. How the hell are you playing Gen 3?

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10 and 16, if you let it evolve, in which case it doesn't learn any other Fire moves without a TM or tutor.

Treecko gets Absorb at 6, Pursuit at 16, and Mega Drain at 26 with basically nothing in between.

Mudkip gets Water Gun at 10, Mud Shot at 16 if you evolve, then is SOL until at least 37.

And those are the GOOD examples. Electrike, pretty much the only feasible Electric type in RSE, doesn't even learn a single Electric attack until 20, and don't get me started on crap like Surskit and Aron (A Rock type that never learns any rock-type moves? Sounds good ).

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Voltorb? Geodude? Magnemite? Plusle? Minun? Nosepass?

Please, the flaws in Gen 3 are miniscule compared to Gen 2 and Gen 1... Which you for some reason seem to put in high regard.

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Because what I want when playing a new Pokémon generation is to use the same Pokémon I used in the previous two generations alongside weak Pikachu clones.

And I rated the games according to how much fun I had with them. Obviously each successive set of games are going to have more gameplay improvements, but just because Gen 3 might technically have "better" games than Gens 1 and 2 did doesn't mean I enjoyed them.

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Gen 1 is mine, only because I think it has the best designed pokemon.

DPP bored me. Really. But HeartGold was my favorite game ever on the series, even if it has some flaws compared to the first Gold version.
Nevertheless, my favorite gen is the third, because in this one there are :
-A remake of RBY
-The Emerald version
-And two 3D games absolutely amazing.

BW and BW2 were fine, but HGSS is still better for me.
Heck, in BW/BW2, you can't even use the stylus as well as in HGSS. It's sad, really.

XY don't catch my interest, but I might play it and find them interesting, I don't know.

As for the Pokémon themselves, the creatures of gen 1 and 2 really are the best of all. Gen 3 is correct, I absolutely hate the 4th Gen (Except of more or less 20 Pokémon I find all the rest ugly, sorry to say this). As for the 5th gen, it's 50/50. An half is cool, an half is not.

Gen 3 would have to be my favorite, closely followed by Gen 1.

Gen 3 is my favorite because they had the remakes for RBY as well as the updated Hoenn storyline in Pokemon: Emerald. I kind of enjoyed Gen 2 as well, but it really didn't capture my attention as much other than the fact that my favorite Pokemon was first introduced there. I admit that after Gen 3, I kind of drifted away from Pokemon until Black and White came out and I was "guilted" into playing White.

Black and White had a really good storyline to say the least and it was the only game after Gen 3 that I actually finished.

Gen 1 is my second favorite because those were the first Pokemon games that I have ever played in my life.

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