I played this game side by side with my best friend, who had already played it and was adamant on me experiencing it too. I had the most wonderful few hours immersing myself in this beautifully crafted world and its gentle yet impactful storytelling. The music and art direction is truly fantastic, and the game handles its delicate, somewhat nebulous narrative with grace and respect, leaving me thinking even after the credits rolled. This is a game that anyone with an open mind should experience.

Galar! The most controversial region in the Pokemon series- and a game I love.
I always play through the first game of the last gen right before a new generation, and I was so happy to revisit these games. My first playthrough was pretty unique, being right after my longest ever shiny hunt, and getting to play through with two shinies! In honor of them, I played through with Acacia my shiny Scorbunny (I’m curious if anyone picks up on the name reference!). I definitely think Sword and Shield are better games to play through slowly, spending lots of time in the wild area between gyms. Still, I think this game is a way more solid experience than a lot of people are willing to admit, and absolutely the end of an era.
The only truly puzzling thing about this game is the story. Having very little involvement at all until moments before the Champion battle is certainly unique.. and I can’t help but think it’s an extreme response to the criticism of Sun and Moon. The climax, especially the “final boss fight” is a lot of fun, but feels a little hollow since it truly comes out of nowhere. The game makes up for this by having really memorable and lovable characters, which makes me happy!
Visually, I do really love the direction of this game. No, it’s not The Last Of Us 2. But the color palette is really nice and the important locations are really grand, and I’m a huge fan of art director James Turner’s work in general!
Very good Pokédex too! Besides the starters, which are my least favorite bunch of the series, I really love the new Pokemon designs, Lots of fun typings and cool inspirations. Dynamax is also really fun to play with and makes battles feel so cinematic! Even if the game is a bit easy, I think overall it’s really nice.

The original Sun and Moon is the single most important gaming experience I have ever had in my life. Those games are so dear to me, especially the story and characters. This is why my first time playing through Ultra Sun left a sour taste in my mouth. There’s no denying that the Ultra games are, gameplay wise, a step up for the Alola region, and I’ve been shiny hunting and exploring in its postgame for years.
Playing through Ultra Moon was a complicated mix of reliving my love for the Alola region, and being even more baffled at the decisions this game makes to differ itself from its predecessor.
USUM mostly follows the same beats as the game before it, until it begins replacing key details, becoming clear after the first visit to the Aether Foundation. I don’t know if the same team that wrote the original game’s story were involved in this project, but the rewriting of details ended up being the difference between a very good, satisfying story to play through and one that feels fractured, and makes little sense. Hau got a wonderful refresh to his character arc, but seemingly at the expense of Lusamine, Lillie, and others whose stories were either changed to become unrecognizable or cut short.
The gameplay of USUM is a joy. Totem Pokemon are such a refreshing take on boss fights for this series, and can be fairly difficult! The level curve is well done, the wild encounters are diverse, and the routes are interesting. My amazing team made this fun game even more enjoyable to play through! Revisiting Alola was such a lovely time, and I’m so glad I made the time for it.

Kalos! Every time I play through these games I love them even more. Gen 6 is a controversial point in the series for the Pokemon community, and as I move towards reviewing the modern generations, my logs will get less and less objective and more personal. I just hope to share my enthusiasm about this series in a thoughtful way!
Kalos as a region is so beautiful and well designed. It is easily my favorite. Where Kalos tragically falls short is in its story and characters. I love the ideas and concepts laid out here, but the execution is imperfect at best. The lore of Kalos is so interesting and well thought out- and if we ever get a Legends Floette about the king, the war, and the original ultimate weapon, I think it could be the best story Pokemon has ever told.
X and Y has the best pre-national Pokédex of any game. The variety is so wonderful. I only play with pokemon introduced in the respective region, and I still had so many fantastic choices. The lineup of mons introduced in Gen 6 might be the best ever, and combined with the great early game encounters, just blows Unova and its sad dex out of the water.
The art style and direction of this game is my absolute favorite. There’s something so charming about these detailed cities and beautiful landscapes made to look like little dioramas. The color choices and particular aesthetics they went for feels so unique for this series, and so fitting of the France-inspired setting.
Though the game is known for being easy, I appreciated the EXP share keeping my team evenly leveled and enjoyed the more casual stroll through a Pokemon region. Though I would love a hard mode option for X and Y, there are many ways to organically create that through pokemon choices and restrictions. My carefully crafted team with beneficial natures and across the board type coverage did their job well.

Gen 5 was my most anticipated generation going into my Pokemon marathon. I have a lot of thoughts! But ultimately, a lot of respect and love for this game. Somehow, all of my closest Pokemon-adjacent friends throughout the years have had Black and White as their absolute favorite in the series. I heard a lot about it, and had very high expectations. I don’t think they fell short, but I do wish this game came to me at a better time.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of this project I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted going through the story. This wasn’t a problem for the previous games; but Black and White really wants to immerse you in its story, my favorite virtue in a game. But because of my mission and the fact I had the story spoiled for me long before going in I didn’t get that sense of wonder as strongly as I wished. When the game started to pick up at Dragonspiral Tower, that’s when I really fell in love. I always talk about how exciting it is when Pokemon leans into its JRPG roots; the last fourth of the game is amazing. It becomes a very well written story by the end, something easily worth sacrificing the standard Elite Four experience for.
As far as art direction goes, it’s very hit or miss. The cities look amazing, and the bridges!! The character sprites are adorable. But I definitely do not like how the battles look. The moving sprites would be okay without the shifting camera, but there is just a lot of visual noise. I enjoy the static sprites much more.
My original plan was to play White 2 immediately after this game, but I realized I want to come back to Unova when I can really take my time. I’m so excited to play through this region again one day!

The Sinnoh games are held in high regard in the Pokemon community, but especially Platinum. I went on a journey to discover why that is. I never had an interest in Sinnoh or its Pokemon before this, but I walked away from this four month period with a lot of respect for Sinnoh. This isn’t the space to cover two of the three games that I spent my time with last October-February, Brilliant Diamond and Legends Arceus, but I am able to talk a bit about Platinum.
Platinum is a fantastic game, just as Emerald is. I have trouble deciding which is better between the two, but I think this one just slightly wins. While I don’t think it quite lived up to its praise, I’m not sure any game could. It is undoubtedly one of Pokemon’s best experiences. The soundtrack is stunning, the Pokédex has grown on me so much, the region of Sinnoh is, while a bit uniform, a joy to travel through. The story is a huge step up from previous games, which is an extremely important turning point for this franchise.
As for the gameplay itself, I thought it was great until the very end. My biggest issue with Pokémon games tends to be the level jump before the Elite Four, and this game may be the worst of all in my experience. I can’t strike this against the game itself since it’s an ongoing problem with the series, but it definitely killed the mood in the late game.
I want to give an extra shoutout to this game’s spritework; I think it’s the series’ peak in terms of pixel art and is lovely all the way through. Combined with the music, it gives Sinnoh a very clear identity and feeling. Playing this on the DS Lite is absolutely the way to go, and I’m very glad I did.

Pokemon ORAS are difficult games for me to review. On one hand, Alpha Sapphire was my first ever introduction to this series, and Hoenn will forever have a special place in my heart. But on the other hand, I played Pokémon Emerald a few years ago, and it opened my eyes. And so I’ll say it with my chest; I believe ORAS are the weakest games that the series has to offer.
Hoenn is a fantastically designed region with an equally amazing Pokédex. It beautifully balances the line between function and fluff, and delivers a full journey with the best pacing a region has ever had. Pokemon Emerald is a game that achieves everything it sets out to do. And I think, somehow, on my revisit to these games, the remakes just couldn’t live up to that. It’s not because of the Battle Frontier or the EXP share or any of the things that people like to collectively point fingers at; it just feels like the spirit isn’t there. The music is fantastic, and seeing the region in 3D is so charming. The story additions and redesigned characters are welcome changes, the 6th gen QOL makes the game so much more accessible. But that sweeping feeling of Hoenn that came through so strongly in the GBA era, is absent. I don’t have anything objectively that can support my thoughts. In fact, this game isn’t bad at all. It is perfectly average. That is the root of my commentary for this game. It turned an outstanding game into a modern, yet average one. That isn’t a bad thing. But I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing throughout my Hoenn journey.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this game. At the start, I absolutely loved it. But the further I got into it, the more it started to feel like it lacked substance. The fact I was not playing on the original platform and rather the virtual console really made the gameplay issues stand out, and the experience didn’t feel like a novelty in the way that Blue did. The level curve is completely out of whack here. Post game or not, having the elite four begin at level 40 will cause issues, and the strange level jump around the Olivine gym made for strange pacing; once I had gotten to the Rocket sections, the game felt very routine. It wasn’t bad, but much of it felt like a chore. Levels aside, the whole game is great. I really liked the design and aesthetic of Johto itself, it’s Kanto but better in every way. The music is great, of course. The Pokémon designs are really amazing and interesting this gen. I want to take time to mention the sprites , which are some of my favorites in the entire franchise. The art direction in Gen 2 is very concise, and I love it. There are lots of great things to say about this game. I think a lot of my issues with Crystal would be fixed by either treating the post game as a part of the main experience, or playing through the Gen 4 remakes. I will definitely try Soul Silver and finish the rest of what Crystal has to offer, but judging the game by its main campaign, I would place it right above Blue. Personally, it falls a little short of Gen 1 for me as I didn’t have as much fun with my play through, but ranking it objectively as possible it is definitely much better than the original Red and Blue.

I liked Pokemon Blue a lot. As a proof of concept for a legendary franchise, this is fantastic, honestly. The game is very easy. Only the last three battles gave me trouble, and that was only due to the absurd level curve. I usually like easier games, as long as they have something else to keep me playing, but since this game really only has one core, fleshed out thing (the battle system), when that thing stumbles it’s very noticeable; which it does quite often (gen one misses, anybody?). When outside of battle, this game can be really tedious; playing on (close to) original hardware did a lot of heavy lifting to make this experience charming, but I would not have enjoyed this as much if I was playing on a 3DS, for example. The particular flavor of 90’s JRPGs is very present here, in both good and bad. While a lot of core RPG mechanics are what makes this game work, it’s just as much held back by them. We will watch the series loosen these shackles generation by generation.