[20 / 5 / ?]
Okay, but to be totally serious for a moment, Gen 1 is the peak of the franchise.
>peak of cultural relevance, TV show is getting good ratings, movie smashes box office records, the games basically singlehandedly keep the very aged Game Boy architecture alive long enough for the Game Boy Advance to be ready for release. Pokemon was a full-blown phenomenon, the likes of which have rarely if ever seen in video game history. Pokemon in '99-'00 may be the biggest any video game-based franchise has ever been in history.
>the developers tried to put their best foot forward and had pound-for-pound the best PokeDex of any game in the franchise. There are obviously some meh ones and some uninspired evolutions, but overall the designs are simply classic and the popularity of many of them to this day is a testament to this great design
>IGN gave Yellow a 10/10. For the time RBY were just about the best RPGs on the entire Game Boy hardware and launched a media empire based solely on the strength of a video game. Imagine a video game doing the same now. It just doesn't happen.
>Kanto as a perfectly designed region allows for much more freedom in travel than in any other region, allowing you to battle Gyms out of order and explore at your own pace. Even Johto mostly just railroads you and it would only get worse. Route design in general was also at its peak
>anime was at its peak, not yet inundated with the need for massive amounts of filler to fill time between Gens. Orange Islands was filler, yes, but it featured an entirely new region with new challenges, and was actually meaningful unlike most filler as it involved Pokemon captures
>the anime was still using cel animation and generally looked fantastic, had some of the more daring and artistic moments in the entire anime, gave us iconic songs like Mezase Pokemon Master, Pokemon Theme, and Type: Wild, featured a more interesting protagonist than the version we currently have, and was overall the best it would ever be
>peak of cultural relevance, TV show is getting good ratings, movie smashes box office records, the games basically singlehandedly keep the very aged Game Boy architecture alive long enough for the Game Boy Advance to be ready for release. Pokemon was a full-blown phenomenon, the likes of which have rarely if ever seen in video game history. Pokemon in '99-'00 may be the biggest any video game-based franchise has ever been in history.
>the developers tried to put their best foot forward and had pound-for-pound the best PokeDex of any game in the franchise. There are obviously some meh ones and some uninspired evolutions, but overall the designs are simply classic and the popularity of many of them to this day is a testament to this great design
>IGN gave Yellow a 10/10. For the time RBY were just about the best RPGs on the entire Game Boy hardware and launched a media empire based solely on the strength of a video game. Imagine a video game doing the same now. It just doesn't happen.
>Kanto as a perfectly designed region allows for much more freedom in travel than in any other region, allowing you to battle Gyms out of order and explore at your own pace. Even Johto mostly just railroads you and it would only get worse. Route design in general was also at its peak
>anime was at its peak, not yet inundated with the need for massive amounts of filler to fill time between Gens. Orange Islands was filler, yes, but it featured an entirely new region with new challenges, and was actually meaningful unlike most filler as it involved Pokemon captures
>the anime was still using cel animation and generally looked fantastic, had some of the more daring and artistic moments in the entire anime, gave us iconic songs like Mezase Pokemon Master, Pokemon Theme, and Type: Wild, featured a more interesting protagonist than the version we currently have, and was overall the best it would ever be
