SamEboi
2012
2001
2020
1995
absolute classic that any jrpg fan should play. My only real gripe with this one is the endgame. The game's plot has so much forward momentum that kept me super invested, but when the game splits off into a bunch of separate side quests towards the end it kinda lost me. The side quests arent bad by any means, some are kinda annoying, but they're mostly decent. But ultimately they just kinda killed my momentum with the game, and I lost a lot of my motivation to play that I had throughout the rest of its playtime. Dont let that be a deterrent though, the other 95% of this game is stellar and everyone should play it.
2017
beat this doing a randomizer soul link so take this with a massive grain of salt. It's a big step up from the original but fails to address a lot of things that made the original so frustrating. The level curve is still awful, team rocket plot is still garbage, and johto still just feels like an incomplete region. The overall improvement in polish alone makes this fun enough, but gen 2 is still probably the weakest gen imo.