Best Generation of Pokémon

I'm not talking about the features, plots, characters, games, or anything of that sort here. I'm referring to the Pokémon in specific; not just a select few either, but they as a whole in their respective generation. To put it in simple terms, which "Generation of Pokémon" had the best designs?

All biased thoughts aside, and nostalgia glasses put away, Generation III had the best designed Pokémon in my opinion. When it came to the first generation, they played it safe. The Pokémon designs were simple, cute, and a good start for the franchise, but they weren't something to go "wow" over after awhile. Generation two (second to Generation three), had the next set of best designed Pokémon. They still had that simple factor from the first generation, but they put more originality to the Pokémon.

With Hoenn, the designers took more of a jump in their designs. Being both original, going outside the safe zone, and still keeping some simplicity, the designs went pretty far and wide. To me, the best out of all generations so far, give or take a few.

Haha so you are saying from there it just went downhill then XD

I really think the first generation is the best because without it, there would be no other generations. This safe zone you're talking about is odd because it can be thought of as relative. When there were no pokemon to begin with there was no such thing as a safe zone. The first gen blazed the trail ^^. I can remember 90% of the names of the first gen, with the others it is more like 30-40%.

Also I am doing the 151 pokemon drawing challenge so I may be a bit biased, I am sorry XD

Edit: and it's also my personal opinion, I'm not saying yours is wrong :D! Diversity of ideas is a good thing! Woo!

After the third generation, Sinnoh didn't do a bad job with their designs. I just find Hoenn's Pokémon to be more memorable if I had to compare. Generation V is still taking some getting used to though. To me, they put in too much humanoid-like Pokémon and that kind of ruined it. Plus, they based some of the new Pokémon off of the first generation, which didn't make it so "original" or creative when you think about it.

When I say the First Generation was safe in their Pokémon's designs, I mean it didn't stray far from what they were basing it off of [give or take a few]. So, it was a simple start to the franchise, as I said in my first post. That said, it was what it was, a start; not a bad one.

Tied between Hoenn, Sinnoh and Isshu, but voted for Isshu. Isshu had very well-designed Pokemon (Daikenki, Doryuzu, Sazandora, Shandera and Ulgamoth in particular). Sinnoh had some well-designed Pokemon as well (Gallade, Lucario, Empoleon, Porygon-Z).

where's the button for all of them.

I'm going to have to say Johto is the best in my opinion, with Kanto a close second. It's not because I was a pokemon fan from the very start, or because I'm biased... I just think that simplicity is beauty - and if I wanted a bunch of weird looking humanoid or mecha creatures that I could not make sense of, I would probably have been a YuGiOh fan. I like the animal designs - Pokemon are pet like creatures that are raised along humans. They live naturally in the wild. While Kanto was practically all animal designs, Johto took the concept of the animal designs and added some uniqueness to them... without making them look like a cluster of "wtf". For example.. Pidgey was just a common bird design... okay, that can get boring, I agree. But I adored Skarmory - it still looked like a bird, just with some slight modifications to fit it's type, without getting too messy. After Johto, each generation seems to get worse to me, on that concept. I didn't mind Hoenn that much, and liked many of the designs actually... but after that I was just wondering if they were running out of good ideas.

I like Johto best. The original Gold and Silver games are probably my all-time favorite handheld games, and Gold was really the first game that ever got me into gaming.
I'm not entirely sure why I love it, but it's just the most enjoyable pokemon game for me.

In my opinion, after Hoenn, Pokemon went downhill. I am not a big fan of the fancy 3D graphics in D/P or HG/SS, but the plot subject is basically the same. Game Freak took out the bad graphics and bad story lines that I loved as a kid and replaced them with really good graphics and a not much better storyline. The Sinnoh Pokemon took it a little far.... But once again it's only an opinion.

When it comes to designs, I find Hoenn's Pokemon to be the best. The Pokemon in Isshu don't really appeal to me, only a few of them seem to have original designs.

For me it has to be a mix of Hoenn and Isshu.

Hoenn was a region that i didn't care about at first. But then one day i decided to sit down and play trough Emerald. During that time i found plenty of pokemons that i liked. Such as Hariyama, which is my Favorite Fighting type. I also really liked Manectric, Sceptile, Metagross and Gardevoir.

As for Isshu, i can agree that some of the designs are ''out there'' but that's probably why i like them. I think that the region gives a nice mix of simple and more ''complex'' designs. Some of my favorites for that region are Kirikizan, Daikenki, Jalorda, Rankurusu, Erufuun etc. It also has my favorite starters of any generation design-wise.

Torn between gen 1 + 2. "/ I loved those games. Gens 3 + 4 had some pretty memorable Pokémon designs (though not always for the best reasons imo.)

I just shattered my nostalgia glasses and yet I still think the first generation has the best Pokemon design wise. :( I know the most common argument against the first generation is the simplicity of the designs, but that's what I embrace most. In life I enjoy everything around me to be as simple as possible, too much going on is annoying and/or distracting to me. Therefore the simple and in some cases almost life like look of the first generation Pokemon (example Pidgey) are very appealing in my eyes.

Yet even with that said I still love the third generation's Pokemon too. Although they aren't as simple as the first generation Pokemon I still find them simple enough for my liking. The only generation that I've ever disliked more Pokemon then I liked was the IV generation. It was too over the top for me and at times looked a little sloppy or even stupid. In my opinion the V generation shows that they have learned from their IV generation mistakes and incorporated some first, second, and third generation Pokemon looks into the new ones.