7. Pokemon Diamond - Coming back all these years later has really taken off those rose tinted glasses I've had for older Pokemon titles. I've just played a lot more JRPG's since I was a kid, so I kinda have a better understanding of just how basic Pokemon is and can see it's inability to evolve and learn from the larger gaming landscape a lot more clearly.
Pokemon Diamond isn't a bad game. It's just perfectly mediocre. Pokemon was never known for having a great story or deep characters, but Sapphire / Ruby did take a step in the right direction by introducing an enemy faction that had real goals and reasoning behind said goals. Were they kind of stupid? Sure. Flooding the planet because people disrespect the oceans and harm water Pokemon is directly disrespecting the land and harming all the Pokemon who live on the land (and vice-versa). But there was a kernel of thought put into the story. Diamond goes right back to "we are evil because we want to control the world". Team Plasma's reasoning is barely explained beyond Ghetsis wanting to recreate the world so he can rule it. It's just team rocket with a coat of paint. The game also does nothing to make the characters you meet standout or memorable. Every gym leader will give you a few lines when you challenge them and a few lines when you beat them but that's about it. I couldn't even tell you the names of 5 characters in an RPG I put 30 hours into. And the characters I could name, I couldn't tell you anything about them.
As for the game itself it played it really, really safe compared to previous games. Gen II and Gen III both overhauled the battle system in big ways. Gen IV doesn't change much at all, feeling largely the same as Pokemon Emerald in terms of gameplay. It could be said that Gen IV was the first Pokemon game to be complacent in the way that modern fans have been complaining about.
Overall it just didn't do enough to really stand out compared to its predecessors. I'd give it a strong 5 - light 6 at best.
Gen 4 got me back into Pokemon after nearly a decade of ignoring it. With that said, it's a sad state of affairs when you can safely say you've played pretty much every other Pokemon game once you've played one of them. There is a bit of diminishing returns too when you get into many of the newer generations, which typically include worse new Pokemon and even more simplistic/easy gameplay. Sadly, each new Pokemon gen seems to sell better than the last, meaning Gamefreak has zero incentive to deviate from their tried and true formula. This has pretty much resulted in me being a fan up to Gen 3, with a few games after that I selectively enjoy. Other than that, I don't actually care that much for the franchise these days.
To be fair, I think Gen V is the best Gen by far. They actually tried a lot of new things (It's the first Gen since the first to use an entirely new pokedex so every Pokemon you meet it a new one you have never seen before, new battle types, seasons), I think it put the most effort into making Pokemon look as good as it could for its time (some of the best 2D sprite work of all time imo, and finally animated them) and some much needed QOL finally got implemented (no more single use TMs). And to top it all off, there is an actual story. You actually learn about who N is, what his goals are and his personality. You talk with him multiple times throughout the game. Is it the best story? No, outside of the plot with N it is still super sparce. But they did actually try to tie a larger narrative into the journey like in Gen III, and they did a better job of it in Gen V imo.
I think Gen VII is also when they started to feel more like RPGs, and you actually talk with characters outside of the context of battling. Lillie is a complete character (and one of my favorite in Pokemon tbh) and some of my favorite "gym leaders" (not really gym leaders in that gen but they have the same role) come from that game such as Hala and Acerola. Why? Because they are real characters who take part in the story outside of just being someone you have to defeat. You actually get to know them a bit outside of battle.
TBH at this point I've just come to realize how rosy I was looking back at Gen IV, because before my replay it was an easy 7/10, maybe 8/10. But after this replay, after playing many of the classic JRPGs that would have came before it, I realize just how little impact it had on not only the genre but even within Pokemon. It didn't do anything interesting for the series. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the other gens as I get to them cause I really do love Gen V especially. It's been in my "top 25 games of all time" list for a while now lol But tbh I haven't played it since high school, and I may also be looking back with rosy glasses at it too.
Right now 4 generations into my Pokemon playthrough my rankings are:
1. Gold/Silver (8/10)
2. Blue/Red (7/10)
3. Sapphire / Ruby (6/10 for Saphire, 7/10 for Ruby it's strange to have separate scores I know but there is a reason behind it)
4. Diamond / Pearl (5/10)
My favorite gen is still Gen 1. I beat Gold version for the first time ever (I came close when it first came out in 2000, but never beat it back then) last year and was surprised that I didn't like it more. After all, it's essentially everything from gen 1 cranked up several notches, plus having the entire Kanto region to replay once you're done. It was then that I realized that 90% of Pokemon's appeal to me rests in my nostalgic associations with the series. With that said, I played the remakes of Gen 3 back when they first came out and loved them and I actually liked gen 6. However, Gen 7 was when I just couldn't get into it anymore, and that was confirmed when I tired Sword when that came out and dropped it a few hours in.
It's funny you mention Gen 5, because I REALLY want to try that game out. I actually bought Black version the day it came out, started playing it, but never finished. My then girlfriend, now wife, did however beat it and it's one of her favorite Pokemon games. I've been meaning to pick it back up and actually beat it for the reasons you mentioned, but just haven't got around to it. I actually maintain a backlog planning list on another site (Backloggd if you're curious) and it's on my plan to play list for next year. I'm really hoping I'm able to get more into it this time around.
