>>43745755I'm 24, and many of the people I know are the that sort of target range for starting in the transitional period of the graphics, either Gen III or IV for them. But I'm a bit of an outlier in that I had an older sibling and strong reading skills very early in life, so I started with Yellow in early 2000 after my sister was done playing it, and quickly moved along the generations from there as my autism intensified.
So for me, I hate the 3D games and feel like the series has gone to total shit, but I know a lot of people, even those who started with Crystal at an age where they barely remember it don't care as much. I think for the people that were adolescents during Gen IV and can cite it as the games where they really fell in love with Pokemon and began appreciating the deeper aspects of the games, that "3D objects and 2D sprites in isometric" blend of graphics primed them for 3D at a time when even most Nintendo games on DS were in 3D, and so they were happy to leave the less clean graphics behind.
All this to say, I don't think most kids could or would want to go back further than DP unless they had a real interest in retro games, the way that many people who began in Gen III or IV wouldn't have played I or II until the remakes. The pseudo 3D of late gens holds up in a time when sprite games are all but forgotten while the flat looks of the others are rooted in the past.
