Blog:Blazikeye ranks the Pokémon games

As you guys know, I'm a fan of the Pokémon franchise, having played every game in the core series (except Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!), and basing two of my three usernames off of my favorite starter Pokémon. With my experience and knowledge about these games, I thought I'd share my thoughts on all the core series games to date and rank them from worst to best.

18: Sword and Shield
Considering that I'm the one who made the page about this game on this wiki, it should be no surprise that this one's ranked the at the bottom. This game was blatantly rushed and unpolished for the sake of having a Pokémon game in 2019 (and it doesn't help that Game Freak was developing another game at the same time). A short and uninteresting story, being pathetically easy, and the lack of so much content easily makes this the worst Pokémon game I've played yet. The DLC slightly improves some base game problems, but it is too overpriced to warrant a purchase at full price (just like the base game). It isn't truly horrendous however, as I still somewhat enjoyed the game, but all of its problems made it impossible for me to fully enjoy it.

I could go on and on about this game, but my page covers just about everything this game did right and wrong, so check that out if you haven't already.

17: Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
Just like LGPE, I don't want to spend $60 on this as that's asking for too much. Despite not playing these games, I'm still ranking them since they're almost no different than the originals anyways, meaning I've practically played them already. These remakes could rank around where the originals are, but the sheer effortlessness drags them down a ton, especially considering the effort put into the previous remakes. They're too "faithful" to the originals, and not in a good way thanks to nearly all of the content from Platinum not returning, and there not being enough new content to compensate for those losses unlike ORAS. Pretty much the only notable new feature here is the expansion of the underground, and even that doesn't offer much aside from catching Pokémon outside the regional dex. Outside of faster battles, most of the quality-of-life changes ever since Gen 4 are absent here (why in Arceus' name did they think bringing back one-use TMs was a good idea?) Probably the biggest problem here is how poorly the transition to 3D is handled (and yet, ORAS handled this perfectly). To be more specific, all of the coding and programming from the originals was simply copy-pasted to this game with no adjustments to work better with the 3D graphics, resulting in plenty of glitches and wonky controls. But hey, at least we got smol Cynthia out of this, which is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen in a Pokémon game.

16: Red, Blue, and Green
I know I kind of did these games dirty by ranking them so low despite being the start of the franchise. I don't consider these bad games by any means, it's just that nearly all of the future games managed to be improvements upon these games, which is always a good thing considering how many franchises fail to accomplish this for very long. The only three things that makes these games ranked so low is how poorly aged the often-wonky battle mechanics and ugly sprites have become, as well as the rampant bugs. I personally find These problems to be a necessary evil, as all of these problems got fixed quickly in future games (a trend that continued in future games as well). Though one aspect that aged very well is the non-linearity, something that is rarely ever seen in the newer games.

15: Yellow
Here we have the first enhanced version. This was released when the franchise was still having its foundation built and still trying many new things, and it shows here as there's not much different here compared to the original versions to warrant a buy if one already had the original versions. This game did introduce friendship, which became a staple feature in the series, the very popular following mechanic (though restricted to only Pikachu), made the Pokémon sprites actually good looking, and is one of the very few games where the player can obtain all three starters without trading. While the differences might be minimal, it's enough to rank this game higher that the originals.

14: Gold and Silver
It's probably going to surprise many that I've ranked the Gen 2 games so low despite being very popular and being considered big improvements to the Gen 1 games. I agree that these games are big improvements, having less bugs, having a soundtrack that improved upon an already great soundtrack, having a giant Pokédex that was the biggest in the series for about 12 years, and gave the battle system a major overhaul (introducing two new types, held items, splitting the special stat in to, etc.). Unfortunately, there's two fundamental problems present. Most of the fully evolved Gen 2 Pokémon are underpowered, failing to reach a base stat total of 450-470, resulting in most players being better off using Gen 1 Pokémon. The more powerful Gen 2 Pokémon end up underutilized and obscure, in fact I thought a bunch of Gen 2 Pokémon were from Gen 3 such as Skarmory and the Larvitar line. Even the Johto Gym Leaders use Kanto Pokémon as their strongest, except for Whitney and Pryce. Meanwhile, the level scaling is terrible in the mid-game and post-game. The mid-game allows the player to either challenge Chuck or Pryce after beating Morty, but the problem is that once the player's done with that area of Johto, the other area will be severely under leveled, making that second area a boring push-over to get through. Kanto is even worse, as the levels of most of the trainers are in the mid 30's (with the Kanto Gym Leaders being in the mid 40's) while the player's Pokémon will almost certainly be in the early to mid 50's. This again makes the game a boring push-over until the player reaches Blue and Red, both of whom put up a good fight.

This video provides much more insight to the two major problems of the Gen 2 games, so I'd advise checking it out if you want to know more.

13: Crystal
Just like Yellow, there isn't all that much different here to warrant a buy if one already had the originals. Despite that, the differences here are just enough to rank this game higher than the originals, as this is the first game to include a battle facility, a female player character, and animated sprites. The story sees a couple of improvements, now having a side plot involving finding Suicune (the mascot legendary), and the Dragon's Den now feels like it has a reason for existing.

12: X and Y
Because of the amount of praise and how much effort were put into the DS era games, these games had a lot of expectations to live up to. Being the first 3D games as well as having a lot to work with, did these games manage to live up to those expectations? Well, if you look at where this game is ranked, that answer is a "no". A lot of what made the Gen 4 and 5 games so great were missing here, like seasons, contests, difficulty modes, the list goes on and on. The story returned to its formulaic routes (and somehow managed to be miles more generic than most of the plots prior to Gen 5), the difficulty is severely lacking (especially since almost none of the trainers can Mega Evolve, giving player an unfair advantage), most of the characters (and even parts of the soundtrack) were forgettable, and the post-game went back to offering barely anything interesting. Of course this game is not without its improvements and other good qualities. The Kalos region is a large region that's enjoyable to explore, with about 450 regional Pokémon available (the largest of any regional Pokédex). These are the first games with character customization, the GTS was vastly improved, the Exp. Share's buff reduces grinding, and the Fairy type is introduced here. Overall, these games needed an enhanced version more than the previous games, but we unfortunately never got it.

11: Diamond and Pearl
I find it funny how the DS era, which is considered the best era in the Pokémon franchise, had such a rocky start. The battles here are painfully slow, with the worst part being this annoying half second delay to almost everything that happens during the battles. Surfing is also painfully slow, making the water routes a complete slog (though thankfully there's only four). The regional Pokédex is too small, containing only 151 Pokémon just like the Kanto games. This results in a bunch of the new Pokémon getting left out of the Pokédex, and certain types becoming severely underutilized (there's only 5 fire-type Pokémon in the entire Pokédex for example). The post-game is also somewhat lacking since the post-game area doesn't offer much aside from exploration and the Battle Tower. I know these issues hold the games back, but if it weren't for these problems, Game Freak wouldn't have learned from their mistakes, and the rest of the DS games would've suffered as a result (similarly to the Gen 1 games). These games walked so the other DS games could run and be the best of the series. Of course these problems weren't the only thing that paved the way for the best era, as these games improved the movepools of almost every Pokémon, attacks are now independently classified as physical or special instead of every move of that type being physical or special. The Sinnoh region is one of my favorite regions, with many areas to explore and plenty of things to do, and the Sinnoh Pokémon are up there with the Hoenn Pokémon as my favorite group of Pokémon introduced. The soundtrack is one of the best in the series, with most locations having a different sounding track depending on the time of day.

10: Ruby and Sapphire
One thing that immediately came to mind when I first played the Hoenn games was how independent they felt compared to the Gen 2 games. The new Pokémon were in the spotlight for almost the entire game, while a bunch of the underutilized past gen Pokémon had more time to shine here as well (which made me think that these Pokémon were from Gen 3 as mentioned above). None of the characters from past games return here either, which helps in giving that feeling of new. The Hoenn region is a much more interesting and memorable region compared to Kanto and Johto, and the region's Pokémon are one of my favorites (as mentioned above), with the starters being my favorite starter trio in the series. These games are also the first games to contain differences outside of exclusive Pokémon, as you battle against either Team Magma or Aqua depending on the version. Other quality of life changes includes the introduction of abilities (a staple in the series), secret bases, the PC storage getting an overhaul for easier navigation, berry mechanics getting vastly expanded, and a much faster battle system. Unfortunately, these games are held back by the overabundance of water routes, which quickly become boring to explore, and the trainers in these areas tend to be pathetically easy. The post-game is also pretty bare-boned compared to Crystal, as the only things that are offered are the Battle Tower and catching Rayquaza, with no second region or any new area for that matter to explore.

9: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
The only remakes so far that fail to outshine one of their original games, as I find these games to be better than Ruby and Sapphire, but not as good as Emerald. Of course that doesn't mean that it's entirely outclassed by Emerald, as these games have a few things going for them that manage to beat Emerald in those aspects. The DexNav is a pretty fun feature, the Delta Episode has a pretty interesting story, there's a lot of legendary Pokémon to catch, the water routes are not as tedious to transverse, and the expansion of the mirage areas encourages players to play the games daily and explore the area that appears for that day. However, the games are significantly easier than the originals (especially Emerald), many difficult areas have been dumbed down and are now a pushover to get though, the problem with Mega Evolution remains here, and you get one of the Eon duo mid-game (with their respective mega stone to make matters easier). The post-game content from Emerald is missing here, most notably the Battle Frontier, making the post-game here kind of lacking aside from the Delta Episode. While these games are remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, they are not remakes of Emerald as well (unlike HeartGold and SoulSilver, which also remade Crystal), which ultimately causes these remakes to suffer as a result.

8: FireRed and LeafGreen
Here we have the first remakes. Both of the main problems present in Gen 1 (being the wonky battle system and bugs) are obviously not here, which is definitely a plus. That, combined with Gen 3's fast battle system and visual improvements compared to Ruby and Sapphire make these games the definitive Kanto games. The Sevii Islands are introduced here, which contains a good amount of post-game content alongside being the first games to have actual rematches with the Elite Four and Champion. There isn't that much else to say about these games (especially in the bad quality department), as a lot of things I can mention will also apply to the Gen 1 games.

7: Sun and Moon
This is how you make a 20-year anniversary; make a great game instead of just a simple video or something similar to celebrate. I know a lot of people trash and hate on these games for its linearity and overuse of cutscenes, which makes it slow paced. While I agree with this problem, as it diminishes the replay value, I think calling these games one of the worst in the franchise because of that is too harsh, especially since many of the problems in X and Y have been addressed here. The good storytelling and lore that were in the Gen 5 games returns here, which is further assisted with the lack of an established Pokémon League, making for a less formulaic plot as a result. Speaking of the lack of a Pokémon League, the Island challenges are tough thanks to the Totem Pokémon which are fought at the end of them, which compliments the fact that this is overall one of the tougher Pokémon games. The Alola region is up there with Sinnoh and Unova as one of my favorite regions, and that's mainly because of how much it emphasizes its theme compared to previous regions. The soundtrack, characters, Pokémon, and areas utilize the tropical theme well. The Alolan Pokémon is one of the better groups of Pokémon introduced, further helped by the concept of regional variants. I'd also like to point out that Decidueye is my favorite grass starter if it isn't obvious enough, which is always a plus in the new Pokémon aspect. There's plenty of more aspects that has it going for these games, like the Z-Moves (which are more balanced compared to Mega Evolutions), HMs getting removed, or Team Skull being a bunch of hilarious idiots instead of being the usual villainous team that is taken seriously.

6: Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
Now these enhanced versions are an odd case, and I'm not saying that because there's two enhanced versions instead of just one this time. I'm saying that because these enhanced versions have an aspect that is worse than the originals, and that is the story. A bunch of moments in Sun and Moon are kind of ruined here, such as the ride to Akala Island and the part at Exeggutor Island, although the climactic battle with Necrozma is far more epic than the climactic battle with Lusamine (even if it's less interesting lore-wise). The constant cutscenes and overall slow pace are just as bad as they were in the originals. Despite that, these games rank above the original thanks to gameplay improvements, as these games might just be the most difficult in the series, and there's much more Pokémon available. The post-game has been expanded considerably, Episode RR is more enjoyable than the Ultra Beast hunt (although the lore here is less interesting than the UB hunt), and players are able to catch just about every legendary Pokémon up to this point in these games. I've seen a lot of people say that these games were completely unnecessary and have no reason to exist, but I think they deserve to exist as sequels instead of enhanced versions. Sun and Moon were good enough by themselves, and its story was good enough to warrant a potential sequel, but that's something we'll never see unfortunately.

5: Emerald
Now this is when enhanced versions started to feel like an actual improvement over the original games. The graphical improvements from FireRed and LeafGreen are present here, and the animated Pokémon sprites make their return here (for good that is). The difficulty has gotten a much-needed increase, with there not only being more trainers to fight, but they also put up a much better fight, especially the Gym Leaders. The plot stands out since the players are fighting against both Team Aqua and Magma in this game, making this the only game until the Alola game where the player battles against more than one antagonistic faction. The main highlight of this game, however, is its post-game. The Battle Frontier makes its debut here, which contains a whopping seven battle facilities to complete, as well as a bunch of other areas of interest. That's not all for the post-game though, as there's a bunch of new areas scattered throughout Hoenn for the player to explore, as well as multiple rematches against Wally, the Gym Leaders, and a tough final battle with Steven. While the water routes are still boring to get though, this game improved upon so many things that I believe it is worth getting even if someone already had Ruby or Sapphire.

4: HeartGold and SoulSilver
With how successful FireRed and LeafGreen were, more remakes were pretty much a no-brainer. These games proved that decision to be a good one, because these games improved upon their originals more so than FireRed and LeafGreen did. These games have far more personality and charm than the originals, such as the Team Rocket Executives being more distinguishable or the Kimono Girls playing a much larger role, even the Guide Gent in Cherrygrove has more personality despite his small role. What contributes best to the charm is the fact that the following Pokémon mechanic returns and isn't limited to just Pikachu this time. The visuals are the best among the DS games, with many areas having their own distinct appearance in addition to having plenty of detail. The audio also has this amount of detail, with there being a lot of background noises compared to other Pokémon games such as hearing water flowing or footsteps. The Pokéathlon is a pretty fun area with a good number of challenging mini-games, and Platinum's Battle Frontier returns here in case anyone missed out on said game. Kanto is a lot more fleshed out here, with most areas missing in the originals returning (such as Cerulean Cave), and the trainers and Gym Leaders have much higher leveled Pokémon. While the two major problems from the originals return here, they are toned down a bit with the 7th Gym and the Kanto trainers being higher-leveled, and some of the underpowered Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon receiving evolutions introduced in this generation. I hated to rank this game fourth considering how the top 4 are all almost equally matched in terms of quality, but one of them has got to take one for the team.

3: Black and White
There's a reason why so much people say Gen 5 hits different. These games are the first to take place in a region based on a location outside of Japan, with Unova being based on the state of New York. Seasons are introduced, which causes the visuals and tracks to change depending on the season. There's also more version exclusive content outside of what Pokémon are obtainable, such as certain areas looking completely different in the other version. The story and characters are focused on much more in these games, which leads to these being the first games to have a truly great story, as well as having one of, if not the best cast of characters in the series. 156 new Pokémon are introduced here, and the main story only utilizes the new Pokémon to give the feeling that this is a new era for the franchise (the previous Gen Pokémon are obtainable post-game). The soundtrack is one of the best in the series, with there even being unique tracks whenever your Pokémon is low on health or when a Gym Leader is on their last Pokémon. Battles are fast once again (like in Gen 3) and are made much livelier with fully animated Pokémon sprites and more complex move animations. Hidden abilities are also introduced here to shake up battles a little bit. TMs and HMs are more convenient, with TMs now being reusable, and HMs not being nearly as prevalent as in the Gen 3 and 4 games (in fact, you only need to use one HM to progress through the story). There're only two complaints I have for these games, though they're not that major. When you introduce that much Pokémon, there's bound to be a bunch of fairly lazy looking ones or ones that are too similar to past Gen Pokémon, such as the Trubbish line being based on trash (yes, really) or the Pidove line being too similar to the Pidgey and Starly lines. The Unova region is also fairly small, with it not being until Black 2 and White 2 where it became one of the best regions. Aside from those problems, these games are incredible, and brought so much new ideas to the table.

2: Platinum
The fact that this game is ranked second goes to show how much Diamond and Pearl's problems held it back from their true potential. What you'll immediately notice is how much faster battles and surfing are, especially since the half second delay in battles is gone. The regional Pokédex is increased by about 40% (from 151 to 210 Pokémon), which allows all of the non-legendary Gen 4 Pokémon to be included in the Pokédex. Not only that, but certain types that were pretty rare in Diamond and Pearl, such as fire, ice, or electric, are made a bit more common here thanks to the expanded Pokédex. Many of the locations are redesigned and have more detail, making them much better and memorable looking. Some examples of these redesigns include the Oreburgh Mine looking like an actual mine, the Team Galactic Eterna Building not being a generic office building anymore, the Elite Four rooms being decorated, or the Battle Zone having a tropical look to it. Speaking of the Battle Zone, there's far more things to do there now. The Survival Area now allows the player to rematch the Gym leaders, the Stat Trainers, and Barry. The Resort Area has a villa, where players can unlock and purchase furniture to decorate the place. The Fight Area sees the return of the Battle Frontier, which has three new battle facilities (the Battle Arcade, Castle, and Hall), and two returning facilities (the Battle Tower and Factory). These changes and additions are what makes the Sinnoh region one of my favorite regions in the series. The story is improved upon here, as it introduces Looker and Cheren, and features the Distortion World, which is one of the most memorable moments in the franchise. The already great soundtrack is further improved upon with the addition of great tracks like Giratina's battle theme, making this game's soundtrack tied with Black 2 and White 2's soundtrack as my favorite in the franchise.

1: Black 2 and White 2
Game Freak made sure to end their best era on the highest note possible. Everything that made Black and White great returns here, with much more content and some quality-of-life improvements. All of the new locations here is what makes Unova my favorite region in the series. Four new highlights of the region include Pokéstar Studios, Black Tower/White Treehollow, Pokémon World Tournament, and Join Avenue. The Pokémon World Tournament deserves a special mention due to the fact that you can battle against all of the Gym Leaders and Champions from past regions. These places, along with how many legendary Pokémon there are to catch along with how many areas there are to explore make this game's post-game the best in the series. The regional Pokédex is twice as big as Black and White's, making for a total of 300 regional Pokémon. Although the story is slightly weaker than the previous game, it's still one of the best stories in the series and is fairly longer as well. Hugh and Colress are both pretty well-written characters, with the former being my favorite rival in the series. Just like Platinum, the soundtrack is further expanded with many more great tracks, such as the Gyms now having their own themes as well as the Gym Leader and Champion battle themes of past games returning here thanks to the PWT. These are the first (and only) games to include difficulty settings, although they are only unlocked after beating the main storyline. An achievement system is introduced here (and would later appear in the Gen 6 games), with a whopping total of 255 different Medals to obtain. Lastly, one of the biggest quality-of-life additions is introduced here with the game asking players if they want to use another repel after the current one wears off. It's quite a shame that we have yet to see this amount of effort from Game freak again thanks to backlash from toxic idiotic "fans". None of the games afterwards have managed to outdo the DS games (except for Diamond and Pearl), and with how Sword and Shield turned out, this possibility seems far less likely. Despite that, at least Game Freak put all of their effort into this game before deciding to play it too safe with their future titles, and made what is my, along with many others, favorite game in the franchise. And if it's not this game that's someone's favorite, then it is almost certainly one of the other three in this top 4, because that's just how fantastic these four games managed to be.

Unranked
These are the few core series Pokémon games I haven't played; I'm not ranking them until I do play them.

Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!
I'm currently waiting until I can find them at a low price since I don't think they're worth 50-60 dollars. From what I can tell, they would most likely rank as high as 13th place, or as low as 17th place. That projected low ranking is mainly because of how much content is missing in order to make the games feel like the Gen 1 games, something of which not even the Gen 3 remakes did. There are a few interesting things going for it though, such as the revamped catching system, co-op (despite being implemented poorly), or the following Pokémon mechanic returning once more.

Legends: Arceus
I haven't bought this game yet, but I will eventually whenever that will be. The gameplay here is drastically different from previous games and takes on an open-world approach. Because of that, having a projected ranking feels pointless as I have no idea what the experience of this game is truly like yet.

What are your thoughts on these games? And how would you rank them? And for those who are new to the franchise and are wanting to try out these games, hopefully my rankings will prove useful.