People love to rate gens as a whole, but what about the early game? It’s what draws you in, and convinces you that the rest of the game is worth playing. For our purposes today, let’s call “early game” up to badge 2 for Gens 1-6 and Island 1 for Gen 7.

My thoughts, in order from top to bottom:
>Gen 6. The amount of pokemon variety is pretty insane, and even though your friends are kind of annoying, I really like the personalization that comes with having them call you a nickname. Though the whole game does quite carry on like this, I also really like how there’s a huge gap between gyms 1 and 2. One of the themes of Kalos is beauty, and you realpy see it here. I know people get annoyed with Lumiose, but it was a pretty neat idea at least, and I kind of prefer it to be walled off at first just to keep from getting overwhelmed.
>Gen 7. Again, crazy pokemon variety on that first island. Not only that, but it has plenty of little nooks and crannies that make it really fun to explore. Catching all the pokemon that are available just right there almost makes for a game in and of itself.
>Gen 4. Really nice aesthetics and a decent variety of interesting pokemon. Jubilife is a lot of fun to explore, and the dungeons in the early part of Gen 4 are pretty unique as well.
>Gen 2. I’m biased on this one, but the early game of Gen 2 has an unbeatable aesthetic. I also really like the kinds of pokemon available early on in this game, even if there aren’t a ton of them.

Bad ones ITT