I’d probably go Black or White. It has the nice pixel art which you can explain gets more 3D later on. You meet Team Plasma early on, the first gym will always put you at a disadvantage so there’s a challenge, I like most of the mons (not huge on the starters), and there’s a sequel awaiting after you finish.
Gen 1 or 2 are a bit dated (1 especially has several imbalances, like psychic as a type is way too strong). Gen 6 is too easy and Gen 7 has too many cutscenes early on that you don’t really get to feel like you’re playing.
If you do preferably want the original 150 I’d go for Fire Red/Leaf Green. Addresses the imbalances from the OG games as BK said, looks and sounds better and has more ‘post game’ content than the originals.
Follow up question, does story matter in these games or is all about the Heat of battle? From what i have to pick from so far, what’s the most engaging for you all. I do love pixel art and the original 150, and if it’s for switch it would be a massive plus.
Thanks for the recommendations guys, i’m gonna view a few youtube vids on all of them.
Brock actually commits Sepuku after Jesse and James from Team Rocket force a stolen Charizard to set fire to the orphanage he came from in the second game, the spin-off series Detective Pikachu is all about finding the now rogue Charizard burning kids to a crisp!
Ekans and Koffing are some of my top favorite pokemon. Not going to lie I got big into the TCG again and even though it is super unbalance I really want get some of Arbok and Weezing cards to make a deck around them.
I don’t want to make your decision harder, but I will forever stand by the fact that HeartGold/SoulSilver is peak Pokemon, and it has never been, or ever will be, better than that.
Start with Fire Red or Leaf Green. Those are the Kanto games and then you can jump to Heart Gold or Soul Silver if you liked it, and see where the story went (Gold and Silver are kinda/sorta sequels to Red/Blue/Green). Basically my suggestion is to play them in “region order” so start with Kanto, then Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola, and Galar.
As someone who played a bit of TCG but buys a ton of the cards for collection purposes, I’m pretty sure the only decks that see play are like predominantly energy and trainer cards built around like 5-6 specific mons which kinda sucks, why I stopped playing the TCG pretty much
Yeah the TCG is really unbalance, since it is pushed so heavily towards GX.ex. tag or whatever big HP basic pokemon. It would be help if they where limited but or something but yeah I have only seen a few that are like really good ones outside of the big basic ones.
Damn lol, Sad asks for a game to give him a quintessential taste of Pokémon and we all throw out entirely different suggestions, culminating in just “Play them in region order” LOL
Ok I’ll break down my thoughts, let others chime in, and give you final say.
If you want the original 151 pokemon and want a game that introduces the series basic mechanics and lore in an easy to understand way (they don’t really change a lot from gen to gen) and has all the anime characters you liked: get Fire Red or Leaf Green
If you care about the story and aren’t particularly attached to the original Gen 1 pokemon: Try Black or White
I’m honestly highly leaning towards Fire Red or Leaf Green to recommend to you. You’ll need either an emulator or something that can play GBA games though.
I’m sticking with FR/LG, but the SoulSilver/HeartGold recommendation might not be a bad choice.
I only played the original Gold but I’m positive you could get the vast majority of the original 151 with the additional new 'mon on top. It can also be emulated pretty well.