All the early 3D Pokémon games (the entire stadium series, Pokémon XD, XD Gale of Darkness, etc. As well as all of generation V were complete and utter garbage, because I kind feel like the world really wasn’t ready for 3D Pokémon just yet. Nintendo has a long and storied history of using technology before it has developed to the point of being worth a damn (looking at you, virtual boy) but I think generations VI and VIII were both spectacular. Wasn’t really a fan of S&M mostly because they were intentionally making a “vacation” generation based on Hawai’i that was supposed to be different from the rest thematically. Even professor oak was there, but this time with a tan and leis around his neck, plus obligatory old guy on vacation floral button-down. That said, the game mechanics of Gen VII were spot-on and I had a blast playing smogon in the S&M era. Sword and Shield fell prey to the Christmas rush a little but were amazing, especially after the DLC was a thing. More than anything else, I love how they’ve expanded on the one thing that the early Pokémon games desperately lacked, a real feeling of connection between a trainer and their Pokémon. When you interact with your Pokémon in the newer games, you really stop viewing Pokémon as being slaves or tools and start seeing them for what they really are: a consenting party in a martial art built for team play. Mystery Dungeon helped expand on the idea of Pokémon being sentient, feeling creatures, in some ways more prone to violence and competition than humans, and in some ways less so. I used to be really into Poképorn and ironically it was being able to sit in a room with braixen and actually interact with her that mostly broke me of that habit, because I saw that she was better as a friend than as a hooker.