FR/LG was my first game in the series, and everyone here seems to think it's the best one to start with, so I'd go with that.

X and Y, for really new beginners, if you dont mind the other graphics from older games then platinum

ORAS is a good starting point for Pokemon. Just stay away from 1st gen and you'll be fine though.

It honestly really doesn't matter. Since you're a beginner, I would recommend XY because it's definitely the easiest and does a lot of hand holding throughout the game, but at the same time, I don't want the worst pokemon game to leave a bad taste in your mouth so you don't want to try the rest. If you want easy go for XY. If you want to enjoy it, go for almost any other one. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are the best pokemon games ever made, so that's another really good place to start.  Or, else you could just start from the beginning, and play RBY or FR/LG.  It really doesn't matter.  Just chose what looks funnest to you.

Edit:  Another thing is that in FireRed/LeafGreen, if you click L or R, there's a menu basically giving you any tutorial information you need and you can click it any time you need to.  It shows which types are strong against other and other information like that, so it would be really helpful for a beginner like you.

I'd start with Platinum. It's the oldest Pokemon game that still retains the most unchanged battle system. It's also the best. Great, epic story. Good world building. Good Pokemon. Fun and interesting characters. A ton of content throughout the region both during and post game. Most interesting region geographically by far, second only to HGSS Johto.

Platinum will make you fall in love with Pokemon. No better place to start.

I would advise against XY though. It lacks all the charm of the older games and the story is terrible and the characters are terrible. I feels like you're playing an episode of Barney, which is not the impression anyone playing Pokemon for the first time should get about the entire series.

But that's not true at all. That's extremely reductionist. Pokemon plots follow a loose formula, but they are far from being the same, or even being similar. There are Pokemon games with simple plots, more complex plots, good plots, and bad ones. And there definitely are fleshed out characters in Pokemon with arcs and developement. Barry was fleshed out. Cyrus was fleshed out. N was fleshed out. Bianca was fleshed out. Cheren was definitely fleshed out.

Pokemon may not be Shakespeare, but it's definitely not what you describe either.

If you really want to get a solid, extensive experience, start with Platinum. Follow it up with Heart Gold or Soul Silver, then Black or White, then Black 2 or White 2, and then X or Y, and Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire. Between these, you'll get to experience all of the regions (although you won't get to experience Kanto in its original storyline - I suspect a chance to do so will occur soon enough, anyway).

Why? Because this sequence lets you experience all of the regions, and builds up in terms of complexity without any major gameplay changes that could easily throw you (Gen III, with Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen was before the big physical/special split, and a number of other features that significantly change the gameplay weren't yet present either). Anybody who has played Gen V will feel odd playing Gen IV because of what changed between them, and same for Gen VI and Gen V. Once you've played X/Y/OR/AS, specifically, playing B/W/B2/W2 will feel really odd, because the shift from sprites to 3D models has a huge impact on the feel of the game... but progressing forwards through them won't feel odd because each generation improves on the previous ones in terms of graphics.

If you just want to experience modern Pokemon, and are happy to build forwards only, with the one-to-two year gap between games, then I'd suggest starting with X or Y. Everything before that is redundant if you're not concerned about experiencing the various regions, etc. Follow it up with ORAS.

There's no real reason to choose any other path than one of the two I've established above. You could, for instance, go all the way back to the start, with Red/Blue... but while they were amazing games for the time, they're just not up to scratch nowadays (primarily due to issues that the first two generations had, that were fixed in the move to Gen III), and even if you want to experience Kanto "properly", you're better off going with Fire Red or Leaf Green... and as I said, it'll get another remake soon enough.

If you really do want to experience Kanto properly, and want to start with Gen III... then I'd suggest skipping Ruby/Sapphire and going to Emerald... and also playing Colosseum and XD, as they're certainly unique experiences relative to the other games, and if you're going to insist on experiencing it all, you might as well include them, too. But I'd say starting at Platinum or X/Y is best.

Pokemon Ash Gray.

The very best. XD

Nope. Nope. Nope.

First, a game doesn't need to contextualize every little extra that you do. You plant berries because you need berries. One of ORAS's flaws was that it went back and needlessly tried to contextualize why the player would want to participate in Pokemon Contests with a new, frankly annoying, character and a side story. You play side contents because they're fun. If you don't like them, you just ignore them. There doesn't need to be a plot reason for doing that kind of stuff, because you run into the issue of disagreeing with the reason the game tells you for doing it, making the experience worse.

With the evil teams, you're isolating a small commonality between some of the teams and using it as proof that they are all shallow plot threads. The teams are far more complex as an antagonist that just the moment when they sometimes "take over" something. When they do it, it's for different reasons, doing different things, with different expected results. You're completely ignoring the context of each situation as if they aren't relevant.

In HGSS, a headless Team Rocket gains control of the most vastly reaching form of media in two regions in the feeble attempt to regain a sense of solid leadership. Team Rocket, as an organization, developed in the two years since the Kanto incident as a team which was clearly less organized filled with members who where at a loss of their sense of place. Instead of being run by one figure, they were lead by four admins, each with vastly different personalities and assumedly different leadership philosophies, all with one thing in common; the certainty that they needed Giovanni back. All their prior stunts where them trying to get his attention. They wanted to let him know that Team Rocket was still a force that was disruptive. They were publicity stunts to get the attention of their leader. Everything they did in that game as a team naturally lead up to taking control of the radio tower. It made sense that they would want to broadcast their message across the two regions where he's most likely be. Not the message that they wanted to get Giovanni back. That was already clear. The message that, even without a solid leader, Team Rocket was still powerful enough to take control of an entire city, just like two years ago. And they wanted to let the world know.

And that comes from what used to be, by far, the weakest plot in any Pokemon. That's just one facet of it. Didn't mention at all the rival and his relationship with Team Rocket's ex-leader, Giovanni and how that developes his character. Didn't mention all the world building behind the traditional region of Johto and how it clashes culturally with the modern region of Kanto. Didn't mention the story of Ho-oh, Lugia, the Kimono Girls, and the legendary beasts (they're cats, but w/e). Didn't mention the mini-plot between the player and Clair, and her obvious inferiority complex with her cousin, the Champoin Lance. And more.

Just because you didn't remember them doesn't mean they aren't worth remembering. Again, not Shakespeare, but not nearly as shallow or one dimentional as you're making them out to be. There's far more to be uncovered in the other games, other than XY, which I've already mentioned is far and away the weakest stories of any Pokemon games. Platinum and Black/White have the strongest with Pt being more subtle and BW being most obvious about it, and the only way to miss them is literally by not paying attention. Emerald comes after those, and it goes along with Platinum as leaving the depth of it's plot behind the scenes.

The anime isn't a good comparison at all. The Pokemon games focus more on plot, while the anime focuses more on characters. No one is arguing that the anime doesn't have better characters (even though in some cases, it straight up doesn't. Barry, Cheren, Bianca, Cynthia, N, Alder, Looker, Saturn, Cyrus, etc are all better in the games), but it definitely doesn't have a better story that ties those together.

Yes, a lot of those characters are from BW, but I still think Platinum has a better story. Barry, Cynthia, Cyrus, Saturn, Looker, Charon, are all good characters from those games. But Platinum is more special because of how seamlessly its plot and worldbuilding work together and how deep the latter is. And how important Cynthia is to that worldbuilding. And how important that world building is, not only to that game, but to every Pokemon before it and since. Pokemon Platinum's world building is the Greek mythology of the Pokemon world, and it is, no exadutation, just as interesting.

Pokemon builds its world a lot like Earthbound does. By interacting with everyone. Talk to NPCs and click on items. If you're just b-lining through the games with your mind turned off, you're missing out on so much. And I know you are, because Cynthia is one of my favorite characters too, and most of what you learn about her is from other people.

Dang it. I think everyone posting their opinions forgot only yours matter.