>>51875180If we're talking about a generation as a collective then I think Gen 3 wins out. Ruby/Sapphire are maybe the weakest games in that generation but this is the same generation that gives us FRLG, Emerald and the 2 Gamecube games.
The debate on whether or not they're mainline games will always be there, but the fact it has the core battle mechanics, a world you can freely explore, capture mechanics and can interact with RSE/FRLG through both trading and battling makes me class them as mainline.
Gen 4 iwould be the second collectively best generation. It's just that DP holds the generation back but HGSS and Platinum are ridiculously good games.
