Best Kanto Game?

[Leaf_Ranger]

LG of course. They're my second favorite Pkmn game. The add of Sevii was great, the sprite were beatifuls and the only thing missing back then was dy/night cycle and Pkmn following you. The screenshots shown were entering certain areas were a nice touch and I remember collecting screenshots of the game before launch and keep looking at them, waiting for the release! I also love the inclusion of Leaf, which design wise I see as one of the best female protagonists, the VS Seeker and the Fame Checker.

Edit: LG was also the change to start Kanto with a Venusaur themed game instead of Blastoise and Blue. I love its intro.

 

[Puddle]

My favourite is actually Let's Go by a long stretch. Kanto feels so much more vibrant and lively in its latest iteration, and you no longer have to grind to take on the Elite Four, something which used to discourage me from finishing LeafGreen. The graphics and gameplay are very polished, surpassing Sword and Shield in certain respects.

Don't get me wrong, the Sevii Islands are great, but in spite of their absence I still find Let's Go to be the more enjoyable game.

LG of course. They're my second favorite Pkmn game. The add of Sevii was great, the sprite were beatifuls and the only thing missing back then was dy/night cycle and Pkmn following you. The screenshots shown were entering certain areas were a nice touch and I remember collecting screenshots of the game before launch and keep looking at them, waiting for the release! I also love the inclusion of Leaf, which design wise I see as one of the best female protagonists, the VS Seeker and the Fame Checker.

Edit: LG was also the change to start Kanto with a Venusaur themed game instead of Blastoise and Blue. I love its intro.

I thought LG was short for Let's Go for a second haha

 

[WyndonCalling]

FR/LG. Gen 1 really is so mechanically nonsensical that it's not particularly interesting or novel to play as a retro tourist (even Gen 2 feels far, far closer to being a 'real' game) and LGPE was just a colourful, toothless distraction for me.

FR/LG is probably very close to being the 'default' franchise game for me - forgive the strange analogy, but it's like the first bipedal ape with enough features to be classified as a human. The sprites are great renditions of the stock poses, the tunes are wonderfully tweaked versions of the retro bleeps, the overworld colour palette is very middle-of-the-road compared to some of the deeper hues of RSE, the mechanics are mostly there and the movepools are just deep enough to avoid the Gen 1 and 2 hamstring-ing of certain species... it's all baseline, but it's a very well-constructed baseline.

I truly do believe that the Gen 1 designs are the best in the series for delivering a roster of faintly-threatening, naturalistic species - lots of fangs, natural symmetry, and relatively little of that 'all Pokémon must look as though they could one day be your friend' philosophy that has declawed later instalments. They're all quite well distributed too, with enough of a smattering of common species in several routes to make the world feel cohesive (some of the routes lose steam towards the end, but I'd rather have repeats than lines exclusive to Victory Road).

 

[Insanish Danish]

FRLG for sure. It was really fun and nostalgic playing through Kanto with updated graphics and music and I absolutely love the Sevii Islands too. LeafGreen was also the first game I played after getting back into Pokemon when I was a teenager so it's a great source of nostalgia for me for that reason, too. But I also love the other Kanto games - RBY are classics and I still enjoy them despite being kind of a broken mess, and even though I wouldn't consider LGPE to be among my favorite Pokemon games I still had a blast playing them regardless.

 

[Sheep]

frlg were some of the best Pokémon games ever! ;_; I was absolutely addicted to replaying - the VS Seeker was awesome and made training super fun/easy, the Sevii Islands were great additions, the music, everything tbh... I miss when they were new sometimes. probably one of the best games to replay from the series. the others are great too, but frlg has a charm that no other Kanto game can replicate to me.

 

[Esserise]

There's a lot of praise for the Sevii Islands. But what is it about them that's so good? I replayed FRLG two years ago and was kinda let down by how much duller they were than I remembered them being. Is it just that they provide something a little more unfamiliar to distract from the rest of the game being set in the same old Kanto we've been through twice before?

 

[Lanstar]

Of the Kanto-centric games, FR/LG would be my pick, but none of those games actually speak to me that well. The best rendition of Kanto, on the other hand, has to be in HG/SS.

What made that rendition the best was both the graphics and the way it was used as postgame content. Battling the gym leaders and finding them again for rematches was quite fun, as well as how they rerendered many of the areas. Seafoam Islands, Viridian Forest, and Cerulean Cave in that game were just so fun to go through. And the way the region contrasted with Johto really added to the nostalgic feel.

I truly dream that they made a Kanto game with the postgame and regional scale of B/W2, even if they went back to pixel sprites... Of course, that shall forever be a dream, considering the franchise right now.

 

[RK9]

FRLG by a long shot. RBY kinda 'suffer' from being the first ever games and Let's Go is... Let's Go.

 

[Puddle]

There's a lot of praise for the Sevii Islands. But what is it about them that's so good? I replayed FRLG two years ago and was kinda let down by how much duller they were than I remembered them being. Is it just that they provide something a little more unfamiliar to distract from the rest of the game being set in the same old Kanto we've been through twice before?

I think the best thing about the Sevii Islands is the exploration factor they add to the game. Mainland Kanto has an urban feel to it because most of the routes connecting the cities are very short, but the Sevii Islands have the feel of a windswept wilderness that you can lose yourself in. The addition of wild Johto Pokemon also makes for a fresh and exciting postgame experience, especially as many of those Pokemon had been previously unavailable on the Game Boy Advance.

Of the Kanto-centric games, FR/LG would be my pick, but none of those games actually speak to me that well. The best rendition of Kanto, on the other hand, has to be in HG/SS.

What made that rendition the best was both the graphics and the way it was used as postgame content. Battling the gym leaders and finding them again for rematches was quite fun, as well as how they rerendered many of the areas. Seafoam Islands, Viridian Forest, and Cerulean Cave in that game were just so fun to go through. And the way the region contrasted with Johto really added to the nostalgic feel.

I truly dream that they made a Kanto game with the postgame and regional scale of B/W2, even if they went back to pixel sprites... Of course, that shall forever be a dream, considering the franchise right now.

I've always enjoyed Kanto more in Johto's postgame than in the Kanto games themselves. The way that the two regions are closely connected makes Kanto a lot more interesting to me, and the ability to battle the Gym Leaders in any order is very freeing. I had a blast exploring Kanto in Silver, because that was my first game and I'd actually never seen Kanto in a game before - it felt like uncovering a lost treasure. But they made it even better in HGSS by bringing back some of the dungeons and pieces of music that were absent from GSC due to hardware limitations.

Kanto just feels so much more complete when combined with Johto. The two regions compliment each other perfectly.

 

[Bolt Strike]

There's a lot of praise for the Sevii Islands. But what is it about them that's so good? I replayed FRLG two years ago and was kinda let down by how much duller they were than I remembered them being. Is it just that they provide something a little more unfamiliar to distract from the rest of the game being set in the same old Kanto we've been through twice before?

Pretty much. The Sevii Islands seem to just be a way for them to add in extra improvements from 2nd and 3rd gen while keeping the main game intact. Even when I first played FRLG I thought "I'd like to see some of this stuff in the main game, not just shoved into the post game". I'm not surprised to hear that they're not as good as you remembered, I'd probably think the same if I replayed FRLG as well. I'll say it again, no game has really done Kanto completely right. FRLG just did them the least wrong.

 

[Leaf_Ranger]

I think the best thing about the Sevii Islands is the exploration factor they add to the game. Mainland Kanto has an urban feel to it because most of the routes connecting the cities are very short, but the Sevii Islands have the feel of a windswept wilderness that you can lose yourself in. The addition of wild Johto Pokemon also makes for a fresh and exciting postgame experience, especially as many of those Pokemon had been previously unavailable on the Game Boy Advance.
(...)

This!
I love One Island because of the southern beach were itens wash ashore and can come back to it, I like Celio and the stones' quest, the new sauna and the new Moltres location. Two Island is nice due to the small market and cape. Three Island is just charming and I like the Berry Forest, Four Island finally gave us a place to see Lapras in Kanto (not in the Safari zoo) and backstory on the E4, I love the Rocket warehouse in Five Island and the Onix memorial. In SIx Island I remeber drawing Pattern Bush's grass pattern in order to try to solve the mystery and was amazed at the Dotted Hole. In Seven, I loved the Sevault Canyon and the Tanoby Ruins which were an expansion (albeit minor) to the Unown.
The Sevii are a wilder Kanto presented in island travels way better than what Alola presented years later. I don't think it'd hold up to a game that had Kanto, Sevii and Johto unless more development was added to it (interesting story or plot and characters) but in LGFR it's the perfect post-game content and a touch of nostalgia to Johto. Last but not least, I enjoyed the Orange lslands arc in the anime so this was to me like a small nod to it and I also had fond memories of the first movie and the islands's culture, so Sevii felt natural and fun to play/explore.
As for the Pkmn in it, I played Gold in a pirate version so my experience wasn't that great and I loved to see the Johto Pkmn in a new light (until HG came) and the opportunity to be a Kanto trainer going to a Johto-like area instead of beimg a Johto trainer going to Kanto.

 

[fluffy-wooloo]

LGFR. There was a lot more to explore in those games and all 386 Pokemon that were out at the time could be obtained not just the original 151 and some variant formes. I also liked the Sevii Island story.