Top 50 Pokemon Games Of All Time

3 – Pokemon Black & White (Nintendo DS)

Introducing more new Pokemon than even the original games, Pokemon Black and White appropriately meshed well-known Pokemon with new ones as you traveled across the gorgeous Unova region. These titles spiced up competitive play with Rotation Battles and Triple Battles, and added a seasonal cycle that made revisiting old areas into exciting adventures. Musicals and the Battle Subway added variation to training your friendly mons, and Black City/White Forest and the Dream World incentivized online connectivity and meeting up with friends. It was an imperfect system given the limits of the DS, but would lay the foundation for the sleek online features of X&Y.

The storyline, too, is to be praised. Antagonist N, a mysterious green-haired youth with a complex backstory questions the ethics of making Pokemon fight one another for their trainers, forcing the player to engage with him both in Pokemon battles and moral ones. The story was strong enough it was able to continue its questions into the sequels, Black and White 2. It was a delightfully self-aware storyline that carried the player through to a thrilling climax, then wrapped up the action smoothly in post-game content. Altogether, Black & White can be considered the pinnacle of 2D Pokemon, and appropriate heralds of the truly transformative Gen 6.

Next: #2 - Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire