>>158880141. I disagree, but that's just because I personally feel that music from the original GameBoy has not aged well at all. It doesn't help that most remixes from those games have been pretty clusterfuck and overdone, including the remixes found in subsequent Pokemon games.
2. Team Aqua and Magma actually did something that affected the game world and made people lose their shit. Cyrus was only one fortunately timed Giratina away from legitimately re-writing reality. Team Rocket was a typical mafia that was fine for gen 1, but has been overshadowed by subsequent teams.
3. I agree with this. I can't think of a single rival since Silver that's acted like an actual rival. Maybe Barry and Calem/Serena, but even those have mostly been competitive friends instead of rivals.
4. Disagree, I plowed through all the Gen 1 gyms even as a stupid kid. It was the elite 4 that gave me trouble initially, and I plowed through those once I learned to build a proper team (aside from Lance, he was the only one that remained a challenge). Then again, I honestly can't think of a gen where the gyms actually were a challenge.
5. Nah, Lance was actually harder in Gen 1. In Gen 2 you learned with Clair that Ice > Dragon, and a single water-type with an ice move swept his team. The Elite Four themselves were nothing to write home about, but my points in 4 apply here too.
6. Kanto was horribly mangled in Gen 2 due to cart space issues, and it wasn't until HGSS (Gen 4) that it was done well. Battle Tower has been done since, hunting for legendaries has been done since, and every gen since then has included what gen 2 had and added more. B2W2 is probably the best postgame right now.
I say this as someone who started on Crystal and consider HGSS my favorites, but I'm not going to pretend that it's the absolute best at everything.
