What's the best Pokémon game?

[HarveyBirdman]

I flippantly mentioned Pokémon elsewhere on the Dex, and now I'm reminded that it exists. I haven't played since Crystal came out. I was a kid.

Are the games worth it?
Which game is best?
Any suggested mods for ROMs to make them better?

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I played the Emerald one on a GBA emuator and enjoyed it with the full intention of completing it but then I lost all my save states about 1/4 of the way in. I had never played that far into any other Pokemon game. That I wanted to finish it is my official endorsement of it.

 

[Urthor]

Pokemon Insurgence is one of the better RPGs I've played honest to god it's actually really well done and by far the best Pokemon game of any variety

The Romhacks are literally so much better than the base games it's not even funny. The base games don't have any difficulty settings, at all, it's actually a joke.

 

[deuxhero]

For ingame content? FireRed/LeafGreen, HeartGold/SoulSilver (though since you played the originals the need to play the remakes is greatly diminished), Emerald and Colosseum and XD are all worth a look. For improvement hacks there's plenty of full Pokedex (which tend to be interchangeable)/difficulty mods (which can vary wildly in quality). For original content romhacks that don't suck, I recommend Vega (early game and endgame are pretty poorly balanced in difficulty though, so Vega Minus might be worth a look but it nerfs a tough but largely fair mid-game too) Orange (for Crystal by piacarrot) and Gaia.

Black and White and their sequels are good, but not great. X/Y and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are OK, but underwhelming. Diamond and Pearl are easily the worst, with horrible world design (requires a ton of HMs to get anywhere, constant backtracking, and repetitive encounters) and poor battle design (low Pokemon availability, uninteresting bosses) on top of being horribly slow.

 

[Swigen]

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon! Everything else is kindergarten baby shit.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

For ingame content? FireRed/LeafGreen, HeartGold/SoulSilver (though since you played the originals the need to play the remakes is greatly diminished), Emerald and Colosseum and XD are all worth a look. For improvement hacks there's plenty of full Pokedex (which tend to be interchangeable)/difficulty mods (which can vary wildly in quality). For original content romhacks that don't suck, I recommend Vega (early game and endgame are pretty poorly balanced in difficulty though, so Vega Minus might be worth a look but it nerfs a tough but largely fair mid-game too) Orange (for Crystal by piacarrot) and Gaia.

Black and White and their sequels are good, but not great. X/Y and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are OK, but underwhelming. Diamond and Pearl are easily the worst, with horrible world design (requires a ton of HMs to get anywhere, constant backtracking, and repetitive encounters) and poor battle design (low Pokemon availability, uninteresting bosses) on top of being horribly slow.

I've heard that HG and SS are good remakes that adapt the Crystal storyline plus a few extra things, but do that gay shit where they limit the pokemon based on version. Oh well, that's why we have gameshark codes. Do they make any changes to combat AI? If not, do you have mod suggestions to make trainers not complete retards?
I just fired up a Crystal ROM, and I don't think it'd be possible for me to lose a match.

 

[deuxhero]

Not sure what you meant by limiting Pokemon based on the version unless you mean version exclusives. Crystal had them too, with the Mankey, Mareep, Ampharos, Girafarig, Remoraid lines not in Crystal and the original starters, gen 1 fossils, gen 1 legendaries not in any gen 2 title. and you needed Silver+Blue/Yellow or Gold+Red/Yellow to complete the Pokedex (and you'd need either Stadium, multiple playthroughs of the Gen 1 title or glitches to get the opposite fossil). If you do mean version exclusives, full Pokedex hacks are everywhere.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Thanks deuxhero

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Are Diamond Pearl, and Platinum that bad? On a real DS, I mean (I already know playing Pokemon anything on Desmume snorts a fat load of dick....) . Honestly, except for FireRed and LeafGreen, nothing out of Gen. III Pokemon intrigued or interested me in the least. Then Gen IV comes along and I'm like "Holy crap, 3D mainline Pokemon! Oh Gamefreak, it's just what I've always wanted....." . Now you people tell me IV is shit but V is okay. V seemed like the point where Pokemon irreversibly went flying off the tracks to me, based on all I've read about it alone (did you know they try to tell you what you can and can't name your own Pokemon? The nerve....) .

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Pokemon Quartz.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

I recommend Emerald (I haven't played the remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, they might be worth a go), and Heart Gold/Soul Silver. After those, Fire Red and Leaf Green. Gen IV (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum) had their faults but were still decent.

I haven't played gen 6 and 7...

... V seemed like the point where Pokemon irreversibly went flying off the tracks to me, based on all I've read about it alone...

I thought gen V was when Pokemon started going off the rails as well. My biggest pet hate are Megas. The move to 3D graphics doesn't do much for me either.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Platinum is my absolute favourite. Large variety of Mons, bosses often have counters for obvious weaknesses (like the electric gym leader having ice-type moves to fight your ground-types), Cynthia is one of the best battles in the franchise, Battle Frontier is tons of fun, and the physical/special split made more builds viable.

Fire Red/Leaf Green and Emerald are also really great. I was never too fond of the Johto games for some reason, neither the originals nor the remakes. Unova games are a step down from earlier games, featuring a lot of mons with poor visual design. I am presently going through Pokemon X, I like it fine so far. Most 3D models look surprisingly good.

As for difficulty (which is lacking no matter the game), there is a shitton of “hardcore” mods of dubious quality, and the only one I can kinda endorse is Crystal Kaizo (with late game bosses going over level 100, so you can’t overlevel them. However, I would rather advice some voluntary rule changes and self imposed challenges:
-Go to options and change the battle style to ‘set’. This removes the “Enemy is about to send out Zubat. Do you want to change pokemon?” message, and you have to waste a turn if you want to switch instead.
-Do a Nuzlocke challenge. If you are unfamiliar with it, there are two basic rules: you can only catch the first pokemon you encounter in any area, and any pokemon that faints in battle is considered dead and must be released or boxed permanently. There are a lot of optional rules, so check it out. Personaly, I force myself to use Pokemon in order I capture them, and I am allowed to cheat by catching a temporary HM slave if noone in my party can learn the required move.

 

[Puukko]

I played USUM last year, having skipped gen 6 and had a good time with it. They've streamlined some of the archaic stuff that probably no one likes, such as not having HM moves but instead dedicated mon that are readily available with one button to get through parts that required strength, etc. Content wise there's quite a lot of end game stuff as well as throwbacks to older games, such as fighting all previous team leaders in a row. All around a pleasant experience, though again, only the optional stuff can be considered challenging, at least based on what I remember. The alien mon designs were pretty damn baller, much better than megas.

I mean, check out this motherfucker:

I recently considered replaying modded HGSS but got carried away by SMT which scratches the same itch.

 

[Twizman]

If you enjoy rebalancing mods or hardtypes that don't alter too much of the original game, I strongly recommend Pokemon Pyrite. It is a romhack of Crystal. Some modifications I appreciated: unable to use healing items during battle, gym badges lock Pokemon at a certain experience level so you can't overlevel by grinding, trainer ai is improved (HarveyBirdman ), and 'set' battle style is locked. While far more difficult than the original, it's nowhere near the brutal kaizo games.

This is the best Pokemon game I've played :D
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=350926

 

[deuxhero]

Are Diamond Pearl, and Platinum that bad? On a real DS, I mean (I already know playing Pokemon anything on Desmume snorts a fat load of dick....) .

Yes. They're slow and the game is designed to slow you down even further with backtracking, forced encounters, repeating Mt. Coronet dozens of times and more shit like that. Gen V has no serious issues beyond linearity (which began to be an issue in gen 3) and it's gen 6 that introduced Megas.

 

[Norfleet]

The edition that has people running around like loons in the middle of the street until they get flattened.

 

[lightbane]

Watch out with fanmade games. They're more often than not grimderp shit, with painfully obvious modder issues and EDGE!!! permeating everything (Pokemon Reborn being one literally bloated with that and too much content and a long development time nearly equal to Dworf Fortress). Some are allegedly good, such as one whose name escapes me that had you use Pokés as a party, has custom forms of known Pokemon and even C&C. IT starts in a new region and Hoohoo is featured in the "cover".

All around a pleasant experience, though again, only the optional stuff can be considered challenging, at least based on what I remember

Sun&Moon are quite good, Mega-forms are not available until post-game, even random trainers have access to super moves and you can (and will) be trashed if you don't have a competent team by the Elite Four. The plot is shit and tries too many things at once though.

Supposedly Ultra-moon/sun improves the gameplay, makes it even more challenging and has a less inane plot.

 

[The Decline]

 

[Puukko]

Completely forgot about Conquest, as I imagine did most people. A very interesting spinoff, though I don't remember it being very long.

Watch out with fanmade games. They're more often than not grimderp shit, with painfully obvious modder issues and EDGE!!! permeating everything (Pokemon Reborn being one literally bloated with that and too much content and a long development time nearly equal to Dworf Fortress). Some are allegedly good, such as one whose name escapes me that had you use Pokés as a party, has custom forms of known Pokemon and even C&C. IT starts in a new region and Hoohoo is featured in the "cover".

All around a pleasant experience, though again, only the optional stuff can be considered challenging, at least based on what I remember

Sun&Moon are quite good, Mega-forms are not available until post-game, even random trainers have access to super moves and you can (and will) be trashed if you don't have a competent team by the Elite Four. The plot is shit and tries too many things at once though.

Supposedly Ultra-moon/sun improves the gameplay, makes it even more challenging and has a less inane plot.

The plot was... there, though I gotta say they did make perhaps the most sympathetic villain to date with Guzma. I don't remember any of the kahunas being very tough though, whereas each previous mainline game has had 1-2 that can really give you trouble if unprepared.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Gen V has no serious issues beyond linearity (which began to be an issue in gen 3) and it's gen 6 that introduced Megas.

You mean besides the fact I can't christen my Weezing "FAGBALLZ" without the game turning into an over-priced scolding nanny and telling me to pick another name, for the sake of the children?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Couldn't you made a poll about it?
Anyway the answer for that would be Soul Silver/Heart Gold. It had both the best content and mechanics. New ones quality is being bonged down because of an over abundance and flooding of new shit (that for the most part aren't really well designed).

 

[cosmicray]

Never played the series. There's some kind of remake for the Switch - Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. Is it an alright game to start?

 

[Sranchammer]

 

[The Decline]

Never played the series. There's some kind of remake for the Switch - Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. Is it an alright game to start?

It's a dumbed down version of Pokemon. So no.

 

[deuxhero]

Yeah, Let's Go to the Pools is shit. Grindy and dumbed down. Nothing in it feels like it has effort. Even the sugimori art looks off.