>>54513912Gens 1 and 2 stand apart as their own creations.
Gen 1 is a traditional JRPG with big dungeons at every turn, puzzles, and the gimmick being monster collecting and party optimization through trading and teaching those monsters moves.
Its a really well designed and fun game.
Gen 2 is a bit different of an RPG in that it values daily events and using the clock more. It is more polished, but they both have insanely good game design.
Gen 3 was the first big step away from this game design. They purposefully made the region more linear, but they still gave plenty of opportunity for exploration and rewarded it. There are less cryptic puzzles. I'm not gonna act like any puzzle in gens 1 and 2 were actually that hard to solve, but they're almost gone in gen 3.
Moving forward from there, it goes significantly downhill in terms of region design and game design. Gen 4's a mess. Gen 5 I don't remember so I can't comment, Gen 6 is missed potential except ORAS is pretty good because its just an improvement over RS pretty much 100%. Gen 7 I didn't even finish - yawn, gen 8 didn't play, gen 9 didn't play.
