>>43792737Crystal was when the games truly lost their souls.
>RGStart of the series, obviously fine.
>BBorderline, but acceptable because Game Freak was always semi-competent at best so RG were full of flaws; furthermore, they used the JP Blue version as the basis for the international versions of Pokemon.
>YAlso borderline, but they didn't fix all the bugs from the first games and it wasn't a terrible idea to release a game that tied in with the wildly popular anime.
>GSFine, they were long-planned sequels that were also intended to finish off the series. They also did plenty of things substantially differently from the first generation.
>CrystalThe first of what would become a long fucking line of blatant cash grabs, Crystal never needed to exist. They made some minor cosmetic changes, added a furfag, and called it a brand new game... and we all ate that shit right up. In hindsight, the success of Crystal doomed us to nearly 20 years of increasingly mediocre games. Had Crystal been rejected for being literally the same thing as Gold and Silver but with some glitter thrown on, maybe the franchise would be in a better place today.
>>43792749Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.