>>53453345I don't even like Sinnoh, but Platinum is the most necessary since it's the only half-decent experience of Sinnoh. DP Sinnoh is just Kalos but less fun and with less Pokemon variety, BDSP were a trainwreck, and Hisui isn't really Sinnoh. HGSS are great but GSC is also fun and honestly way more nostalgic for me. BW1 is worse than BW2 in terms of gameplay, but it feels more like a fresh experience and has a better story. Emerald is great since it adds a postgame to RS, which basically only had Sky Pillar and the Battle Tower for postgame (Regis technically can be caught before the Elite Four, so it doesn't count). It's nice that you can catch Ditto in Emerald because they added the Underground Pass (you literally can't breed Beldum in RS, lol), you can get both fossils by adding the Mirage Tower, and you could reset your EVs by EV-reset berries (something which is not possible in any other Gen 3 game), but the core gameplay is essentially the same as RS. Unlike Platinum which changed the Sinnoh dex by adding 60 Pokemon, sped up the surfing speed, added the Distortion World, did an overhaul of the overworld, etc.
