Pokémon Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow

As much as the genwunners might hate to hear it, the original Pokémon games are rough to go back to in light of over two decades of iteration. Pokémon Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow are the blueprint for one of the biggest multimedia franchises on the planet, and a lot of us have childhood memories that center around those Game Boy cartridges. But having replayed Yellow recently on my 3DS, it’s jarring when quality of life staples are missing (like a run button) and old annoyances like HMs are still so prevalent. It’s still refreshing to go back to basics: there are 800 fewer Pokémon, the competitive scene isn’t this lavish, meta-driven affair, and Team Rocket just wants to steal people’s Pokémon for profit instead of recreating an entire universe to their liking. It was a simpler time, but things have clearly improved from a game design standpoint since. We’ll always love you, Gen I, but there are better ways to experience you, and we’ll be ranking them higher on this list.