This comment was posted at Thread: Favourite Pokemon Generation.
Hm. I'm going to try to look at this in terms of what changed between generations, because I initially have no idea (though Gen III gets a nudge due to nostalgia).
From Gen I to Gen II, there was a major balance fix and the game expanded significantly. Story was nothing special, but it's basically good to note that essentially everything good about Gen I was also in Gen II. It was also the last generation where you could catch all existing Pokemon.
From Gen II to Gen III, there was a significant graphics jump. The game got distilled back to its essence a bit, with the newly limited Pokedex, and while it's difficult to take Team Aqua seriously, there are some good characters, good new Pokemon, and good new ideas (Double Battles!) in general.
From Gen III to Gen IV, they finally decided they could tinker with some fundamental things, so the Physical/Special distinction got sorted out in a way that made sense (if this had happened in Gen III, there would be no contest). Beyond that, though, there's really nothing remarkable about Gen IV.
From Gen IV to Gen V, it seems fair to say that everything was improved a notch. The story, in particular, probably has the most depth of any story so far (though VI gives it a run for its money).
From Gen V to Gen VI, the graphics have another massive jump (battles look so much nicer), and everything else seems to have been refined. The minimal inclusion of new Pokemon allows for a variety unlike any previous game (the National Pokedex has 200 more Pokemon than in any previous generation, which is basically amazing), the story is reasonably good (Lysandre is one of the better villain characters in the franchise), and the addition of the Fairy type, while a bit random, does help with balance. Mega Evolution also acts as a largely acceptable solution to the power creep that crept up over the past few generations.
From this, I think it's fair to say that III, V, and VI are the top three. V I haven't actually played much, so I figure I can't justifiably vote for that. And while III gets nostalgia points, it really didn't fix the problems of II and cut down significantly on the size of the game. So I guess VI actually wins. Perhaps you should be paying more attention, Sav. :D
From Gen I to Gen II, there was a major balance fix and the game expanded significantly. Story was nothing special, but it's basically good to note that essentially everything good about Gen I was also in Gen II. It was also the last generation where you could catch all existing Pokemon.
From Gen II to Gen III, there was a significant graphics jump. The game got distilled back to its essence a bit, with the newly limited Pokedex, and while it's difficult to take Team Aqua seriously, there are some good characters, good new Pokemon, and good new ideas (Double Battles!) in general.
From Gen III to Gen IV, they finally decided they could tinker with some fundamental things, so the Physical/Special distinction got sorted out in a way that made sense (if this had happened in Gen III, there would be no contest). Beyond that, though, there's really nothing remarkable about Gen IV.
From Gen IV to Gen V, it seems fair to say that everything was improved a notch. The story, in particular, probably has the most depth of any story so far (though VI gives it a run for its money).
From Gen V to Gen VI, the graphics have another massive jump (battles look so much nicer), and everything else seems to have been refined. The minimal inclusion of new Pokemon allows for a variety unlike any previous game (the National Pokedex has 200 more Pokemon than in any previous generation, which is basically amazing), the story is reasonably good (Lysandre is one of the better villain characters in the franchise), and the addition of the Fairy type, while a bit random, does help with balance. Mega Evolution also acts as a largely acceptable solution to the power creep that crept up over the past few generations.
From this, I think it's fair to say that III, V, and VI are the top three. V I haven't actually played much, so I figure I can't justifiably vote for that. And while III gets nostalgia points, it really didn't fix the problems of II and cut down significantly on the size of the game. So I guess VI actually wins. Perhaps you should be paying more attention, Sav. :D
I'm assuming VI is X and Y? To be honest, I don't really like them much, and haven't finished them. A big part of this could just be my current mental state or "growing out of it", though. I think some of the changes they made made it annoyingly "casual" and stuff... Though I've not looked into the mechanics, but the friendship thing or whatever it was just... Annoyed me.
I do like the fact that they didn't add many new Pokemon though, I REALLY like that. And the battles are really pretty and the animations are nice and stuff! But that leads me into another problem... It's just so SLOW. If I remember rightly, it took quite a while to load up battles. And the animations (which I want to watch because they are very nice) just take ages to complete. Because of that I just put the game down and decided it isn't worth wasting time with... Sigh.
I should pick the game back up, and give it another go. Or make my own mon game or something.
I do like the fact that they didn't add many new Pokemon though, I REALLY like that. And the battles are really pretty and the animations are nice and stuff! But that leads me into another problem... It's just so SLOW. If I remember rightly, it took quite a while to load up battles. And the animations (which I want to watch because they are very nice) just take ages to complete. Because of that I just put the game down and decided it isn't worth wasting time with... Sigh.
I should pick the game back up, and give it another go. Or make my own mon game or something.
Yeah, it is definitely true that they added some pointless things. But that's true of practically every generation. The nice thing is you can basically choose to either ignore the potentially-helpful-but-'casual' things for challenge or nostalgia or whatever reason or use them as you see fit. It allows for more variability in how you want to play the game, which I like. One nice thing about Pokemon games in general, really, is that you can always tweak the difficulty to whatever you want by adding restrictions (Nuzlocke, etc.). The animation time is perhaps a problem, but I haven't had any issues with lag or loading times except for Horde Battles (though that might be partly because I'm not using the 3D).
Regardless, you should make your own mon game since Miasmon (or Beast Signer or whatever variation thereof) doesn't appear to be coming out any time soon. I would play it.
Regardless, you should make your own mon game since Miasmon (or Beast Signer or whatever variation thereof) doesn't appear to be coming out any time soon. I would play it.