This should be a fun discussion. I came up with it as I reflected on what my favorite game is. I’m torn between the DS Pokémon tiles (i.e. the games which I poured hundreds of hours into as a child) and Pokémon LGPE— a game which features IMO the best visuals, capture mechanics, and combat in the entire series.

What about you? And to spice up the responses: You cannot answer with the same game as the person above you.

Gonna make this easy for the person below me: Pokémon X/Y.

The franchise's first foray into 3D was also the one they put the most effort in. They made over 700 Pokémon models just for this one little 3DS games, along with all their animations and redone cries, even adding special cry variations and animations for the Pokémon-Amie minigame (not the best thing ever made, but a rare attempt to actually have a connection with your Pokémon outside of just battling). Now we live in an age where Game Freak tells us how impossible it would be to have every Pokémon in the HD games, despite them reusing the same models and animations that were made for X/Y twelve years ago.

X/Y also had the best soundtrack hands down. All the battle themes are iconic, and some of the other music stands out a lot too like most of the route themes, the Pokémon League theme, and the end credits. The story has its critics and understandably so, but beneath its cringy exterior I think there's something really genuine in it, and as Masuda's last game as director, I really feel like there was some heart put into it.

Lastly Kalos was just the nicest-looking region and had the best roster of Pokémon. It was a small roster yeah, but it gave me many of my favorites like Greninja, Gogoat, Pangoro, Aegislash, and a lot of other cool ones.

It's difficult for me.
On one hand, I have very fond memories of many of the older Pokemon games, but on the other hand, when I replay these older Pokemon games nowadays, they never seem to be able to retain my attention, and I end up quitting mid story. The min/maxing is also a bit jank too, as these old Pokemon games lack some quality of life features.

I haven't played anything more modern than Sun and Moon, and I quit playing Sun/Moon because it was too different from what I was used to.

The one i always id as my favorites are Gold/Silver cause its probably the entries that left the bigger impression on me, even more so than Red/Blue, but a case can be made for X/Y cause thats the gen ive played the most and its not even close, for many of the reasons Zuzek brings up that I guess theres no point in repeating, but also because its the most PVP oriented ive ever played, this franchise benefits immensely when they make it friendly for players who enjoy competitive play and back then we had free online (godly Nds/3ds times).

The criticism it gets about bland story/characters means nothing to me, cause you can literally say that for every entry and itd be true every time. 

If I can't say Gold and Silver it's Ruby and Sapphire, that's about as good anyways and woefully underrated so I'm fine with that. Might not have 2 regions but a huge QoL upgrade, excellent music and the last generation where great mon designs where the norm rather than the exception.

Pokémon Crystal, easily, the remakes are awesome but nothing will be what gen 2 was back then, and Crystal was the best version.

OG Red on Game Boy.