>>43932416I was going to suggest against easing your way into the older games, but that means you get to see the quality rise as you go. People are pretty lukewarm to the 3DS games onwards, and I more or less agree with the sentiment, although there are some I like.
Honestly, I think USUM and ORAS are decent to pretty good games, fuck the haters. You'd probably enjoy them, although you might end up liking Emerald more than ORAS. Most people tend to, hell I'm one of them. Some people like the original SM over USUM, but the only thing I believe those have over the expansions is the story; SM have some of the better stories and characters in the series, and USUM rearranges things too much to the point where it becomes pretty generic.
I'd suggest you play XY next since I feel it would be a disappointment coming from anything else. It's probably the worst in the series, but honestly, if you haven't played too many games or you're a casual fan they're still fairly fun on a first play through. I've just never been able to successfully finish it since it first released.
The games you'll probably get the most enjoyment out of are BW2, Platinum, and HGSS. They are the fan favorites for a reason, there's just so much to do in them, and Platinum/BW2 have some of the better designed singleplayer campaigns.