Friendly Reminder: You can unironically stop playing Pokemon after it leaves the GameBoy platforms. Gen I - Gen III is peak childhood gameplay, from character/pokemon design, to lore, to gameplay, the GameBoy games are far superior to anything on Nintendo DS and especially the Switch. Even just look at the optional side games, which were better than Gens IV - Gen IX
>Pokemon Ranger
>Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
>Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2
>Pokemon Colosseum/XD
>Pokemon Snap
>Hey You, Pikachu
I can give a pass to late millennials/early zoomers that enjoyed Gen IV because HGSS were kino, but DPPt were 7/10 at best. I played Gen V which was a 5/10, didn’t play again until Gen 8, which was a 4/10, and then finally gave them one last chance with the new ones (Scarlet/Violet) and they were SO BAD that they retroactively made me dislike Pokemon a bit. The game was genuinely laggy and buggy, my character fell through the map, Pokemon wouldn’t fight if I stood even directly on top of them as if they didn’t exist, and good god the character design is UGLY. There’s only been like 3-5 good ‘Mons per Gen since Gen V
>tl;dr: Gen I was buggy but unfiltered and unabridged SOVL, Gens II and III perfected the craft, Gen IV is playable but the start of the end, Gens V+ require genuine brain damage to enjoy.