Pokemon Day Is Here!

Here’s something short and sweetly contentious for all the Pokemon diehards out there.

Best Gen: One.

Best Version: LeafGreen, followed by Blue.

Best Starter: Bulbasaur for creativity of design, followed by Charmander for the increase to early game difficulty and potential as a competitive sweeper in PvP. Squirtle comes third for being the coolest Surf user (sorry, Lapras and Starmie).

Best Pokemon: Sandshrew, based purely on his awesomeness in the first anime season. 99 Wins! You can keep your Gengars and Alakazams – I’ll take my shiny ‘Shrew any day.

Phone photography doesn’t do a green Sandshrew justice.

Best Gym Leader & Gym: Koga and his not-so-invisible walls.

Things that Sun/Moon or future remakes should include:

1. Choice of starter from any basic, non-legendary Pokemon with a two or three stage evolution tree. Could be rated for difficulty level based on the sequence of gyms.
2. A difficulty option that would scale the opposing Pokemon’s level, EV allocations and even their trainer’s AI skill right from the start of the story mode. Noob, Professor and Champion levels, anyone? On Champion you have to start with a Magicarp of course…
3. A 3D world with the option of first or third person perspectives. Basically Skyrim with Pokemon. That I would pay big money for.

Disagree or have something to add? Let’s hear it!

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For more Pokemon reminiscence and thoughts on why the franchise as a whole is unbeatable check this out!

For a look at how some of the more recent developments in Pokemon’s core gameplay have improved our lives, scroll to the Omega Ruby section of this article.

And if you’re into building novelty teams for battling, check out this post on my Legendary Fire Team.