Which region is the best in terms of Pokémon designs?

[Phosphene]

There's been plenty of discussion on which region is the best, so I'm curious to see how they stack up in terms of their native Pokémon. Here's links to images with all, or almost all, of the native Pokémon from that region. Alolan forms are here and Galarian forms are here.

Kanto
Johto
Hoenn
Sinnoh
Unova
Kalos
Alola
Galar

 

[Aulos]

That's a tough one! A lot of my favorites are from Gen V/Unova, but there are also some rather bad ones there, too. Gen II/Johto comes to mind as being a generation that didn't have many bad Pokemon, and has some of my favorites. I think it's a very solid choice, perhaps the most solid choice.

Looking at Gen VI/Kalos, I feel like it's actually more solid than I remember it being, too. But I think I'll give this one to Gen II in the end. I don't know.

 

[Tood]

I think my favorites are pretty spread out across all of the regions, so I can't say much based on just that. But out of all the regions, Kalos is the only one where there are no Pokemon I outright dislike at all, so I'll give it to them. Kalos has quite a lot of my favorites too: Barbaracle, Gourgeist, Florges, Clawitzer, Dragalgae, Aegislash, Klefki...

 

[noworry]

i think all regions have good and bad designs, but johto is the only region without pokémon i straight up dislike because of design. most of my faves are johto too, so there’s that.

 

[toastghost]

i think alola is pretty solid in terms of pokemon designs, and it has my favorites such as minior, bewear, mimikyu, salandit, and mareanie, but it also has crabominable and buzzwole. i think kalos is great since it has pokemon such as goodra, gourgeist and pancham, so i think that one is the best.

 

[KaylaBaraonda]

I think Gen V is the best designed, but just because it's the most "mature".

People say each gen has a different style and design quirks, but most of the variation just resembles whatever it's based on. Though the general design style, like proportions, have changed through the year to fit console limitations. In fact most Nintendo designs depend on console limitations. Like Super Mario, he's a character drawn on design limitations, without any story to it, in fact originally in japanese version of donkey kong he does'nt even have a name but is just "jumpman", even before that he was suppose to be "video man" and "middle aged man". It was Nintendo of America that turned him into an Italian Plumber, since then Nintendo has tried to put a bit more story and lore in the characters, like Zelda and Metroid. In fact I've seen a comic showing that japanese kids still think Mario's job is jump man.

In fact a great majority of Pokémon design would also fit as Super Mario enemies, and viceversa. The only difference is that Pokémon has more in-game lore. Also, in Super Mario it seems like that Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, and Pauline are pretty much the only humans\anime people, while Pokémon has a lot of towns full of them. But this is propably just that Super Mario is a platformer and Pokémon a RPG.

Here's my interpretation of Pokémon design by gen:

 

[Myth]

Johto definitely pleases me the most. Something about the designs looks natural and interesting at the same time.

The design philosophy used pleases me, I think. This is subjective, of course. But even though I find the path they are following now to be the most successful (making the monsters more cartoonish) I don't like that direction very much. Taking the starters as an example, I think in Johto they were cartoonish enough. Besides being less cartoonish, the designs were also mostly cleaner than those designed until the sixth generation (when they seem to have come back with "cleaner designs", but following the "each time even more cartoonish"-trend).

A lot of my favorites are from Johto, my favorite starter trio is the Johto's trio, and even speaking of legendaries, I think Johto's are some of the best designs in the entire franchise to date. It looks like they were very inspired when doing Johto, to me. But again, it must have more to do with the design philosophy used in the generation, which really pleases me a lot.