#the layout is also a favorite of mine from other places ive lived so i think i'll even enjoy cleaning..

[kethabali]

yall.. ive been gathering up energy since the semester ended and i finally cleaned out my fridge today.. there was over 20 dishes to wash and a 30 gallon trash bag filled completely i also broomed and mopped my room and the kitchen and wiped down the counters

[zorualesbian]

i've been wanting to play the pokemon games but there are so many and i don't know where to start. do i have to start from the first ones? if not, then where should i start/what order should i play them in?

you don’t have to start with the first games. each game is its own self-contained story set in the same universe, so you dont need the context of the previous games and the tutorials in the beginning always go by the assumption you’ve never played a pokemon game before. there are typically some references to previous games made by nameless npcs, but it’s never anything major and if you really wanted to understand them i think it would just take a quick google search to get the full context, you wouldn’t have to go back and play an entire game or anything.

there’s not really a suggested order to play them in, but i definitely don’t mind making recommendations. ive played through all these games several times, and with the exception of firered/leafgreen, diamond/pearl/platinum, and heartgold/soulsilver i’ve played through them within the past 2 years. so my memory is relatively fresh.

first of all, i’m not going to recommend you anything that’s had a remake. i love the classic games and i feel like they were a wonderful starting point for a fantastic series, but theyre not a great starting point. i play them for the nostalgia because i grew up playing pokemon since the first generation, my wife didn’t really play pokemon until the fourth generation and only enjoys the classic games because she already loves pokemon. compared to newer games, theyre just not that fun if you don’t already have a lot of nostalgia/love of pokemon in general. 

also a quick note about which versions you should pick--it honestly doesn’t matter. they’re the same game, but there’s a small handful of pokemon that’ll appear in one version and not the other. sometimes i choose by which pokemon on the box art i like best and sometimes i choose by going to serebii and looking at the version exclusives list. its really up to you and your preferences, and it doesn’t matter that much either way

Sun and Moon/Ultra Sun and Ultra Moonthese are definitely the ones i’d suggest starting with, they’re the most beginner-friendly by far. there’s a new feature that tells you if your opponent is weak or resistant to your moves if it’s a pokemon you’ve fought before, which is great because now you don’t have to mentally keep track of the type matchup chart and the individual types of 800+ pokemon! your pokedex also shows you if a pokemon is part of a pair or has evolutions, so you won’t make mistakes i made when i was a kid where i assumed some of my pokemon didn’t have evolutions and didn’t train them and missed out on some cool pokemon as a result. story-wise, they’re my favorite so far and have done the best job of fleshing out and developing their characters.

as for whether you should play sun/moon or ultra sun/ultra moon, i’m not sure. the ultra versions have a few new pokemon, new areas, new moves, and an “enhanced” story, which is basically the same as the old story but deeper this time (and while i haven’t finished it, i’m enjoying it a lot). but the “new” things aren’t that many and i think whats giving me so much appreciation of the ultra story is the fact that ive already played through sun/moon, but that might just be me. it’s probably better to go with the ultra version because it has much more content for about the same price, but original sun/moon are still good choices if you have your heart set on those.

Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphiretheyre remakes of the third generation games ruby/sapphire and imo they lived up to the hype. ruby/sapphire were fan favorites and so are or/as. they aren’t really difficult because the games that came out right before this introduced an item that lets your entire party gain exp from a battle even if they didn’t participate, and while or/as are more balanced for this item than the game that introduced it, they still arent quite all the way there. personally i don’t mind it, i think these games are enjoyable regardless of if they’re challenging or not, but you’re free to turn the item on/off as you want to make it as easy or as difficult as you want.

X/Yhoo boy. i actually don’t like x/y. they had bad pacing, the story barely held itself together, and this is the game where the exp share was introduced and if you never turn it off, your pokemon get way overlevel and you can effortlessly breeze through the game. but they’re pretty, and i think the fact that theyre ridiculously easy might make them more enjoyable for new players because it’s the perfect chance to just build a team of pokemon you like instead of worrying about strength or team composition. plus, this is the first game to have character customization and you get enough money through the course of the game that buying all the clothes is easy.

Black/White and Black 2/White 2black and white are by far my favorite pokemon games, and black 2 and white 2 are the only direct sequels to a previous game so you should probably wait until after playing b/w to worry about b2/w2. i really enjoyed the story and this was the first time i actually got heavily invested in the characters because until this point, most characters in pokemon games felt pretty flat and one-dimensional. the one complaint i have is how exp scales based on your level. the concept itself is fine, but it feels like the scaling is extreme and there’s a lot of exp you start to lose just by going up a single level, which makes grinding a massive pain. but grinding isnt really required, so it’s nothing to worry about unless you’re determined to be overlevel.

HeartGold/SoulSilverremakes of the second generation games gold/silver and another huge favorite of mine, but arguably also a direct sequel to red/blue. they don’t lean heavily on red/blue but when they were initially designed they were called pokemon 2 and were intended to be the last games, so unlike other games it begins with the assumption you’ve already played the previous game. but the tutorials are still available and neither gold/silver nor red/blue are very story-heavy in the first place, because this is when the series was still finding its footing. i think theyre perfectly fine to play through with no context, but i can understand if you’d prefer to skip them for now. i very much enjoyed having my pokemon walk around with me all the time, the environments are beautiful, and hg/ss has the most useful use of the DS’s bottom screen.

Diamond/Pearl/Platinumok i know i listed diamond/pearl but that’s just because they deserve a mention. platinum is the enhanced version, and unless you see a pokemon thats exclusive to diamond/pearl and you REALLY want it, you should play platinum. that being said, i don’t actually like these games that much. they made improvements to the gameplay that have stayed through the current generations and provided deep lore about the pokemon universe and had a killer ost and a fun underground mining mini game, but outside of those the game always felt really lackluster to me and even as a kid i had a hard time getting invested in it. i think it was level design and difficulty curve that put me off so much but since i havent played them in so long i can’t say that for sure. overall, i’d say they’re worth playing at least for the lore because it’s very good and very important, but probably only if you already like pokemon. theyre not great first games.

FireRed/LeafGreeni’m only listing these because they’re currently the most updated way to play the first generation (red/blue) but they’re older than anything else on this list. stat calculations are different. movesets are different. and both of those are a bad different, not good or even neutral. they did a good job of providing extra tutorials, but overall theyre just completely outdated and suffering from red/blue’s bad layout and level design. i’m hoping these are the next games we get remakes of (remake of a remake sounds ridiculous, but these games are seriously getting close to 15 years old) but until then i’d really only suggest playing them if you already love pokemon and just want to see older games in the series.