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Which Gen do you think was the absol-lute best?

Gen V, hands down. It really shook up the formula and went right at the very core of the franchise. The characters were well designed, the story was beyond expectations, the villains were both realistic AND threatening, the big bad was insanely, almost refreshingly evil, the evolution and development of each character was extremely well done, the region was pretty much right at home with me (I live in NY, though I now reside upstate), and it introduced several new Pokemon that I really came to like. Even the Mons I was so-so to at first (like Unfezant) I've warmed up to more, and it really gave the region a lot of life. Not to mention it made TMs unlimited use, limited the need of HMs so they're not in-your-face like in Sinnoh, had great, almost catchy music, and to top it off, seasons was a beautiful, if very underused, mechanic that I wish had stuck around. I know I'm bias to it, but Gen V completely won me over and allowed me to see just what Pokemon can do when it pushes its boundaries, both in story and in hardware. I can't praise Gen V enough, as it really did an outstanding job and totally blew me away.
 
I actually don't like any gen in its entirety, but I'd have to say Gen 5 because it was the gen I started out with. Not to mention that it felt fresh and put a new spin on the series, along with THE MOST AWESOME ENDING EVER (BW1). I still remember how I felt the very first time I reached the Elite Four. I was jumping off the sofa with excitement! And then N's castle popped up and I was literally going crazy. Hahaha... good old 2011. It still feels like yesterday.

I have a soft spot for Emerald (just Hoenn in general) and HeartGold, though the other games in their generations weren't enough to bump them to the top for me. The limited dex in Gen 3 particularly annoys me, while the slow speed of Gen 4 games means I find them irritating to play.
 
Gens 3 and 4.

My first Pokemon game that I've owned (not played, that was Silver verison) was Ruby, so that held a lot of memories for me. I got Sapphire not too long after and played the heck out of that, too. Idk, there's something about Hoenn that will always have a place in my heart. Not to mention during the time of Gen 3, Pokemon Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness were a thing, so I had a ton of fun with those!

As for Gen 4... I don't really even know where to start. Platinum is amazing, HGSS were both great, and not to mention Pokemon Battle Revolution was a thing back then that I could transfer my Gen 4 'mons to. For me, there was like... hardly any downsides at all. The Underground was great, I just wish you could connect to a friend online and hunt for items with them instead of it being restricted to local only. The Pokemon selection for Gen 4 is amazing (I mean, my favourite Pokemon came from Gen 4), and overall it holds a lot of meaning to me.

I think those will pretty much permanently hold the top two spot. Anything after that is pretty much up for grabs and is usually constantly changing depending on the game that I'm playing. Third favourite is Gen 7 for now, but that can very well easily change once I experience Galar.
 
Gen 5 and Gen 7 (USUM one) are a tie for me.

Gen 5 brought in interesting characters and challenges for you to deal with, plus, the addition of B2W2 as sequels brought in the immersion and the logical conclusion of entire story. And B2W2 has the best post-game stuff you can do, even if you have a 3DS. (Pokémon Bank anyone?)

For Gen 7, sure, the regular SM was a good game but I felt it like a rushed product and some characters were, although Interesting, still far from intended personalities. USUM did great job In rewriting character personalities and stories to balance between each other, and gives harder challenges and more post-game stuff. Even more, among post-game stuff, you can make photos by visiting a location or two. I personally think USUM is a complete version because of that.
 
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For me my all time favorite generations are Gen 2 and 4. The Johto region is just fun to explore and I love ideas like to explore through Kanto again, Facing Red, etc.It's so much fun to play and one of the gens I come back to revisit.

Gen 4 is my favorite as well because I love the 3D overworld, I love the online battles and trading, I love the darker tone of the story, Wild double battles, and more.

I love all the gens from the Pokemon games but these 2 are my overall favourite
 
If I can include remakes, then that throws Gens 1-2 out the window since the remakes are directly superior to the originals.

That being said, Gen IV is my absolute favorite. Although I started with Ruby so I'm biased towards Hoenn and consider it my home in the Pokemon world, Sinnoh had by far the best region design in the franchise. I loved how vast Mt. Coronet was, I loved the climax of Platinum, the PokeDex in Platinum fixed many problems and was perfect imo, and HGSS were one of my favorite games ever as well, as someone who started with Ruby, I didn't get to play GSC to the fullest so HGSS was my first true Johto experience and man did I have a blast with those games.

That being said, Gens III and VI are both close seconds to me, mainly because of Hoenn, on one hand, I loved the online connectivity and modern battling of ORAS, but Emerald absolute hands-down has the best post-game maybe after HGSS, and while HGSS has a second region AND a Battle Frontier, the SinJoh iteration of the Battle Frontier kinda sucked compared to Hoenn's Frontier. I long for a day that the Hoenn Frontier can be in a game again although I know that it will probably never happen again. I think I lean towards Gen VI over Gen III by just a hair, I absolutely loved XY's art-style and culture, Lumiose City was so frustratingly complicated to navigate at times but living in a big city, that's exactly how I feel sometimes. Lumiose City didn't feel like a linear grid, something a lot of Pokemon games suffer from is feeling to "griddy" or "linear" and XY really destroys that mindset with Lumiose City being sort of the central hub during your entire journey.

NOTE: Gen VI would hands down be my favorite if we got a Z Version in 2015 or 2016 instead of SM in 2016, I feel like Kalos had more potential to unlock than what we got in XY, I mean we got Complete Zygarde shoe-horned into a region it doesn't even belong to, somebody explain that to me from a lore standpoint. If we had a Z, it would've been the complete version of XY and would've increased the quality of Gen VI by a ton. Make no mistake about it, Gen VI was two decisions away from being the best generation in franchise history: the Emerald Battle Frontier being in ORAS, and releasing a Z version after ORAS.
 
4th gen definitely. All of the games were high quality experiences that had a good wealth and variety of content and didn't really have a lot of crippling flaws that hindered the experience (the lack of variety in DP's regional dex being the only major issue I'd say, and that was rectified in Platinum). Most of the other generations don't even come close.
 
Gen 2 because it included Johto while making Kanto important too. It also had some of my favourite Pokemon like Scizor, Ampharos, Lugia and Entei.
 
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