Apart from gen V, which main series game had the best storyline?

[Soki]

I do have to agree that Lusamine's reasons and actions made 0 sense and she wasn't a really well written character imo. Just like the story better because it was more personal and the other characters make up for what a mess Lusamine is.

And would've indeed probably liked BW's story better if it wasn't for Ghetsis' real plan, though it's quite clear from the start with the Plasma grunts kicking that Munna that they were pretty much lying about their 'we want what is best for Pokémon' deal. If they had kept that more of a secret throughout the game, I would've liked it better. Same with SM though, I was pretty bummed that the Aether Foundation is clear to be up to no good right in the very first cutscene :/

 

[Esserise]

The Pokémon standard for villains is so routinely low that I have a hard time complaining about Lusamine. I mean, yes, she still has flaws even within the existing structure - yes, she's portrayed as more unhinged than is proportionate*, and it'd work a lot better if we'd had more of an idea of the kind of person she was before it all went wrong for her. But the latter part of that has always been something they've struggled with. Recently, however, they've been honing a(n adequate, though not perfect,) workaround - that is, they've been surrounding the central villains with characters who can feel betrayed or hurt by their actions. Lysandre had Sycamore, although admittedly, that's this only in a largely conceptual stage. Maxie and Archie had their right-hands, Tabitha and Shelly who learn about the dangers of their plan at the Weather Institute and then try to reason with the Leaders at the cavern, and then extend them forgiveness after the Cave of Origin.

And then Lusamine had her kids. Lillie and Gladion are meant to materialize the consequences of Lusamine's personality shift so that we can have some way of connecting with it. It is at least easier to appreciate the tragic element of her villainy when you have characters who have suffered and lost something because of it. Compare this to, say, Cyrus, who we just don't have any way of leveling with whatsoever. Sure, you have his grandfather in the post-game (though that amounts to an unnamed NPC with about eight lines of dialogue), but by then it's a moot point. Cyrus spent the storyline as a raving lunatic unto himself; a black hole with no accretion disk. And Lusamine would have been one too, were it not for Lillie (and Gladion) illustrating that her turn toward villainy had effects on characters that we actually can care about. I'm willing to give them credit for that.

* Returning to this asterisk, I must confess that for all the text I've spilt in explaining why the idea that Lusamine was brainwashed by Nihilego prior to the story (and that her actions are therefore a result of its drug-like effects) doesn't work out based on what we're told and shown, it probably would have been a savvier choice with respect to how crazy she's portrayed as being. As it stands, while I can appreciate that she's supposed to have gradually devolved into obsession on her own human terms, Pokémon just isn't good at that sort of story. It's not an optimum vehicle for human drama. So unless they were willing to double-down and really grapple with Lusamine's downward spiral, I think they'd have been wiser to just chalk it up to Nihilego's influence - to say she was a loving person before, and then contact with Nihilego made her an obsessive person. It'd be a convenient shortcut to what would be more-or-less the same point.

On the subject of Team Plasma: Ghetsis is essentially the same kind of shortcut as Nihilego, except they actually use it. Pokémon was so obviously never going to declare that Pokémon battling actually is a fundamentally abusive practice. The series has firmly and unwaveringly been of the opinion that Pokémon battling deepens bonds. Any argument it raised against itself in that regard was always going to collapse into a talking point, because at the end of the day, the series really does believe that it's only an abusive practice when you're an abusive asshole like Ghetsis who enjoys making other people miserable.

 

[henrymidfields]

I would go for XY. With Team Flare, I find them easy to relate with European far-right politics. Their talk about wiping out the "ugly" Kalos and making a "beautiful" region is similar to the Lebensraum theory of Nazi, and their retorics strikes me as a set of grandiose right-wing rhetorics not unlike how Hitler romanticised the Germanic, or how Mussolini romanticised the Romans/Italians. Or even Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, or closer to home, Shinzo Abe's "Towards a beautiful country". In this aspect, I'm glad that GF not only actually made the Pokeverse version of France, but went even as far as to reference an aspect of European politics.

 

[dragon_nataku]

The Pokémon standard for villains is so routinely low that I have a hard time complaining about Lusamine. I mean, yes, she still has flaws even within the existing structure - yes, she's portrayed as more unhinged than is proportionate*, and it'd work a lot better if we'd had more of an idea of the kind of person she was before it all went wrong for her.

But we do have lines from Lillie about how her mother was before this. Lillie says her mother has always made her wear what Lusamine wanted to wear, which is fine when you're, like, three years old, but Lillie's a teen or pre-teen, yeah? Proper child development means allowing your pre-teen/teen to explore their identity, who they are as a person, and explore new things, including choosing their own clothing. Not allowing your child to do this is a mark of an abusive parent. Not only that but dialogue near the end of the game (I think it's Lusamine herself who says it) shows that Lusamine started hating her kids when they started having their own opinions, i.e., opinions that were not in line with her own opinions. She even says something like "you were adorable only when you did everything I said. Then you started doing whatever you wanted and you became ugly to me." Pretty sure Lusamine has always been an abusive, controlling parent, way before making friends with extradimensional jellyfish.

 

[Spectre Of The Departed]

That title is making a lot of assumptions. Personally, I find the storyline in gen V to be rather overrated and that S/M did a better job at being a plot driven game.

As for the storylines, I rank them in the following order.

1. Sun and Moon (personal impact is the main reason why they rank as high as they do)
2. Platinum (I appreciated the focus on mythology present in these games)
3. GSC/HGSS (while simplistic in nature, I do think they did a good job on expanding what was presented in the Kanto games)
4. B2W2 (I feel the sequels handled better the concept Black and White was aiming for, especially with the branching of Team Plasma)
5. XY (while most of the characters were forgettable, the political/idealistic undertones surrounding Lysandre were an interesting touch though)
6. ORAS/Emerald (Emerald handled the main story better as the presence of both teams made it feel more 'dynamic' at lack of a better word)
7. BW (dragged on far longer than it should... by the time Ghetsis revealed his plan I had already lost my interest
8. RBY (minimalistic story, imo the main purpose of these games was to set the groundwork for the series)

 

[Esserise]

But we do have lines from Lillie about how her mother was before this. Lillie says her mother has always made her wear what Lusamine wanted to wear, which is fine when you're, like, three years old, but Lillie's a teen or pre-teen, yeah? Proper child development means allowing your pre-teen/teen to explore their identity, who they are as a person, and explore new things, including choosing their own clothing. Not allowing your child to do this is a mark of an abusive parent. Not only that but dialogue near the end of the game (I think it's Lusamine herself who says it) shows that Lusamine started hating her kids when they started having their own opinions, i.e., opinions that were not in line with her own opinions. She even says something like "you were adorable only when you did everything I said. Then you started doing whatever you wanted and you became ugly to me." Pretty sure Lusamine has always been an abusive, controlling parent, way before making friends with extradimensional jellyfish.

Not always. Lillie also tells us at Exeggutor Island about a time when Lusamine was genuinely caring (though that doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility of her being a bit controlling even then, but it probably wouldn't have been near the level to which she was later in life). She only became twisted after Mohn's disappearance - that's when the grief took hold, and then her desire to find him eventually mutated into an obsession with Ultra Space. That's why Lillie's clothes are modeled after Nihilego. I'd imagine it was the constant failure to find Mohn that broke Lusamine over time. Gladion and Lillie's subsequent departures drove her to a point where she clung to the Beasts as the only thing she really had left to care about.

 

[Zweilous]

BW/2>SM>=ORAS

ORAS and SM are close to each other, but I think what puts the latter above the former for me is that while it has elements that are much more underwritten/underdeveloped (ex. Lusamine), I enjoyed the personal drama of those games and I did like the focus it gave Lillie. ORAS was the more cohesive plot of the two, but the lack of that personal level does put it just below SM.

As for the rest, the Gen 2 games had a simple plot, but I did like how they utilized their legendaries here as TR's goals are separate from them and their stories evolve through the protagonist searching for them. I also have to in retrospect give the games credit for Silver, who actually does show a surpring amount of growth for the time he was in and it was decently well handled, so even though it's an older game that didn't have the focus on its story like BW, ORAS, or SM, it still had elements of interest that make it worthwhile. RSE was bad, I love Emerald, but its story is a flaw I'll gladly concede. Platinum does lack the intriguing themes of some of the games around it and I honestly didn't care for the large scale that the legendaries brought to the story compared to their successors (which are more subdued), but I do like that it did try to add depth to the elements of its story. It didn't feel like it lacked focus, it knew the story it wanted to tell and it made sure to tell it in the way that it wanted to. So while the subject matter isn't as interesting, at least it tries to make it interesting, so I will give it a good amount of credit for that. XY is the opposite as it has much more interesting themes and ideas, but the story it tries to tell lacks so much depth and focus that it comes off as a mess. I couldn't get into characters like Lysandre as much as I wanted to because the game doesn't give me the time to really get attached to him nor give him the depth needed for his goals and motivations to work. So despite its potential, it ends up falling flat compared to most other stories in the series.

 

[Lufenium]

I voted for Sun & Moon, their character arcs were great imo.