Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green

Best: The simplicity

When you’ve been to Paldea and dealt with the Terastal phenomenon or done Pokémon kaiju battles, there’s something refreshing about going back to basics. The first-gen Pokémon games are a tight, focused experience that you can only get when you’re first figuring things out. With only 151 Pokémon, an evil team that’s just a gang of unambiguous criminals, and a primary Legendary in Mewtwo that feels smaller in scope than the gods future games would unveil, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green are some of the most accessible and straightforward games in a series that’s become more complex with each successive game.

Worst: The quality-of-life features

Going back to basics means also going back to a time when Pokémon hadn’t yet added many of the quality-of-life changes that have made catchin’ em all less of a tedious hassle. There’s no run button, there’s so many HMs that eat up space on your team’s moveset, the psychic and dragon type lacks abundant weaknesses, and the stat division between physical and special wasn’t as clear as it is now. The simplicity is part of the charm this many years removed, but without that iteration, it’s hard to go back to the original games if you don’t have your rose-colored glasses on.