I fought with myself over if this or SoulSilver was my favorite Pokemon game, but I think I gotta hand it to this one. Pokemon White was controversial when it came out but would rise up as the underdog years later when people came to discuss their favorite Pokemon games.

The Pokemon and region itself felt distinctly different at first, which seemed to throw a lot of people off, but are now more easy to appreciate for how it sticks out from the rest of the series. The fact that you could only catch Pokemon new to gen 5 until you beat the main story was also a design decision that helped some of the Pokemon grow on people who would be more hesitant to use new Pokemon. Chandelure, Serperior, Sigilyph, and Scolipede are some of my favorite Pokemon ever because of my first playthrough.

I also really like what they did with the gym leaders and characters in this region. Gym leaders actually did stuff outside of their gyms and felt like they were real people as a result instead of just a person who lives in a gym for the rest of their life. Your rivals and N were also very intriguing characters that developed throughout the game.

This game truly is the antithesis of what this franchise has become these days. Gamefreak truly strived for quality and replayable content here and it really shows.