I owned Pokemon Blue and absolutely loved it back in the day on the OG Gameboy in 1996. (And upgraded to the Gameboy Pocket that same year, much better display.)
....And then I never touched a Pokemon game until Pokemon Sword/Shield on the Switch.
And the TLDR is... I felt like I was just playing a rehash of the original Pokemon Blue game from several decades prior.
The tropes, the mechanics and so on hadn't really progressed... Sure it looked prettier, but look beneath the surface? Same game.
Originally I thought it might have just been Sword and Shield playing homage to the original titles... I could even guess how the story would unfold before it happened, almost like I wrote it.
So I started hunting down other games like Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon on 3DS and Pokemon Black/White on DS...
And the result? They are Pokemon games. If you played one, you have essentially played them all... If you are expecting a massively complex, invigorating story with unique characters that have personality between the different releases... Then you might be disappointed.
That doesn't make them bad by any means, it clearly appeals to some, but it does mean that there really isn't any reason to play more than a couple of games in the franchise unless collecting Pokemon (which is playing on peoples addiction) and transferring them around is your thing. - It's just not mine.
For phone emulation I would probably jump into one of the GBA games like Emerald, it's light, easy, has visually aged well and Emerald was probably the definitive GBA release.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
