What's Your Favorite Pokemon Generation?

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Pokemon Sword and Shield is here, and it's igniting an old debate on the USgamer team: What's the best Pokemon generation? Sure, everyone loves the original 151, but there's plenty to love about Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and the rest of the regions.

We asked the USG team what their favorite Pokemon generation is, which you can find below. If you haven't already, check out our Pokemon Sword and Shield review, as well as our helpful guides. Alright, here's the team's favorite Pokemon generations.

Kat Bailey, Editor-in-Chief

My favorite Pokemon generation is mostly tied up in the memories I have around that specific era. I was probably most active in the battling community during the Ruby/Sapphire period, but my personal favorite metagame was in the Diamond/Pearl era, and my favorite team was in Black and White. It's close, but I think I have to go with Black/White, which was fast-paced, diverse, and had some really excellent Pokemon. It helps that I caught probably my favorite Pokemon ever in Gen 5—a shiny Haxorus with excellent IVs that I wound up christening "Precious."

Pokemon was never quite the same for me after Gen 5, as Fairy types robbed Haxorus of its raw power, and Mega Evolutions started to dominate the overall metagame. I also got older and busier, which meant less time raising pretend monsters. In that respect, my heyday as a Pokemon Master is long past, but I can at least look back on my time in Orre and smile.

Eric Van Allen, News Editor

I was absolutely obsessed when Pokemon when I was much younger, but I fell off hard on the Game Boy Advance generation and never caught back up. Regardless, both the first and second generation of Pokemon hold a special place in my heart, but monster-wise, I'm still a sucker for the original generation.

I know the first 150 get a lot more love than some of the maligned gens, but some of those designs are just that iconic. Most of the team I ran in Gold/Silver was still first gen: Pigeot, Arcanine, Lapras, Jolteon, Snorlax. I love how silly the designs are, like Voltorb, Digglet, and Exeggutor. Designs have become a little too monster-y for me, though I'm enjoying some of Sword and Shield's new Pokemon. But aside from my wonderful Houndoom and the new Eevee-lutions, it's Gen One all day for me.

Mathew Olson, Reporter

I want to preface this by saying I know my answer is sort of a cop out. If we're talking about the generation I poured the most time into, it was probably Gen 2. That's when I got a Game Boy and really fell head over heels for Pokemon. Then, even though I played through Ruby and Fire Red, I never really got too excited for either of them.

Gen 4, however, sucked me right back in—and it did so at a time when I had a critical mass of friends who were also into Pokemon. So, although a lot of the finer points of Gen 4 are lost to me (I know I had Pearl, and I know I love Turtwig with all my heart), Gen Four is my favorite. Do I think those games hold a candle to Gen 2 in terms of design? No, but they came out when I did most of my bonding over the act of playing Pokemon. I'll always look back most fondly on Gen 4 for that reason alone.

So let's hear it! What's your favorite Pokemon generation? Discuss in the comments!