4th Gen Was gen 4 the beginning of Pokemon for anyone else?

So I'm not sure if it's okay to post this here, but I have been reminiscing about my childhood lately and the first thing that came to mind were the generation 4 Pokemon games. Pokemon diamond was the first game I ever played. From the time I saw that first commercial on tv one afternoon while watching cartoons I knew I had to have them. I love everything from the spritework, to the music, to the E4. I know this generation gets a lot of hate (although I heard in Japan this is one of the most appreciated generations) but imo gen 4 was the golden era of Pokemon. It was the birth of online battles and brought us the physical special split. Anyway I just needed to get that off my chest because I've just been wanting to share my appreciation for my fav Pokemon generation!

I started playing with gen 4, and my first game was Pok?mon Diamond, too. Then, I played Pok?mon HeartGold, then Pok?mon Pearl, Then Platinium. The fourth generation is unforgettable, it gave birth to 2 trainers: both you and me :)
Without generation 4, who know, I may not be here talking to you on Pok?Community..

Pok?mon Diamond was my first game and it reminisces me about my very first Pok?mon: Turtwig. :')
While it's true that I've never finished it because little me didn't like getting stuck in games, I'll surely grab it again to settle this.

Gen 4 was the first game I played when I got my Nintendo. It was awesome. The graphics, the sprites, the legendaries, the gyms, everything was perfect. It is also said on BULBAPEDIA that Gen 4 was the first gen created by Arceus.

I didn't get a DS till Gen IV was out, but I actually started with the Gen II remakes. They were good, but I liked Pearl better then Platinum the best. While not being my favorite Gen, Gen IV is in my top 3.

While I started with Sapphire version, DPPT and Gen 4 as a whole was when I really started getting social with Pokemon. Before then, the only person I played Pokemon with was my older brother and one friend. Gen 4 started, and a lot of my friends started playing at that time too, so I finally got to actually play Pokemon with other people, so Gen 4 holds a special place in my heart.

Pearl was my first game, put around 800 hours into it. Still have my starter: a now 10 year old empoleon.

Platinum was my first pkmn game, so pretty much! :)

I started with the original generation of Pok?mon myself, but I consider the 4th Gen to be my "second beginning," because it was when I finally started taking competitive breeding, training, and battling seriously.

Yeah, the first Pokemon game I got was Platinum in 2008 I think it was? I loved it so much, and I remember getting the crap scared out of me when Giratina jumped out at the screen. The distortion world totally BLEW my mind away too. Loved every second of it.
I played a few other Pokemon games before I got Platinum, but they weren't mine. Platinum was where my OWN adventure started.

Same story. My favorite Gen and first Pokémon game. Pokémon Platinum. I haven't completed it yet though.

Okay, I think I'm an odd case here. I started Pokemon sometime between the end of Gen II and the start of Gen III. I think it was a couple years before Ruby and Sapphire were released. My cousin gave me a disc with a ton of emulators and ROMs, and it included all of the main series Pokemon games at the time. So, I played those first, starting with Red and going on to Crystal. I wasn't very good at those games nor did I take completing them too seriously, so I don't think I ever actually beat them, but man did I love those games. But then things took a turn for the worst. I was obsessed. Totally and completely obsessed in the worst possible way. This, combined with the fact that my parents had by that point begun hearing rumours about how Pokemon was of the devil, caused my parents to decide that it would be best to cut my ties with the Pokemon series. They didn't take it too seriously, I still managed to sneak in a few episodes of the anime occasionally and I was allowed to play the ROMs I had whenever I was at my grandma's house, but my intake was severely limited, so I basically missed the entirety of Gen III. Eventually though, my obsession waned to the point where they decided it would be fine for me to get me another Pokemon game. Thus came in Gen IV and Pokemon Diamond. It was like a new beginning for me. My first real Pokemon game. Sure, I had played Red, Yellow, and Crystal before, but I never actually beat those, and this was the first REAL game I owned. So, while technically I had played the previous generations, I consider Gen IV to be my first real experience with Pokemon.

Blue was my first game but I don't think I truly appreciated and understood Pokémon until I played Diamond & Pearl. That's one of the many reasons why I hold DPPT as my all-time favourites in the franchise, they mean a lot to me and I have many fond memories sinking hours into them growing up.

I started with Red, so quite a few years before gen 4, but I've always felt like gen 4 was under appreciated. While it's not my favorite gen, it's definitely up there, and my Diamond had one of my highest hour counts (I think somewhere in the 450-500 hour range; I've never maxed out the time).

I first got into breeding a little bit in gen II, and I learned about EV training in gen III, but I became a much heavier breeder in gen IV. All those hours biking up and down, watching the step counter (a feature I really miss)...I also got pretty into RNG breeding for shinies (though I never was able to figure out the timing for manipulating IVs via RNG), and I bred my first shiny, a Squirtle with a terrible nature, just over 10 years ago (I think it was 10 years ago yesterday).

I realized from a survey I filled out the other day that the plot and locations didn't stick with me as well in gen IV as in the earlier generations (some of the city names are a struggle), and I think I owe it another play through sometime soon. Still, the generation was memorable for me for the revolutionary changes it introduced, namely online trading and the physical/special split. I recall the latter being pretty controversial at the time, but in the end, I guess most people ended up being happy with it, and for most Pokemon, it broadened their movesets (except for everyone's ruined, now-physical Sceptiles). The former changed Pokemon from an increasingly isolated pastime for me (I didn't have many friends who still played) to something social, and it made for an interesting summer for me shortly after it came out (summer of 2007). Although I was away for some of the summer, I recall spending the time I was back trying to grab shinies in GTS giveaways on the NSider forums (no friend codes technically allowed, though of course there were ways around that), and I remember setting up a breeding shop and arranging deals for shinies and events.

I'm curious, for those of you who started with gen IV, if you've gone back and played any of gen I-III, what do they seem like to you? Do they seem clunky? Isolated without the online elements (even though online has been shut down for a while now for gens IV and V)? Having only watched the series evolve over time, I'm curious as to what previous entries seem like to someone who started partway along.

I started with Diamond. My cousin was playing it in his DS, and I got curious and got a DS to play too.
My first run was awful. I named my Turtwig IVQKFLO (not kidding) and ditched it after the first gym for a Bidoof. I ended up beating the Elite Four with a Lv 100 Bibarel and a Lv 70 Toxicroak (I ended up stuck for days in some areas fighting wild Pokémon and trying to figure out what to do next).
My next playthroughs went much better, and eventually I got many other Pokémon games. Pokémon is now one of my favorite videogame series, but Sinnoh will always have a special place in my heart. Most of my favorite Pokémon are from there, actually.
As for the post above mine, I managed to get a physical copy of FireRed, and I have to say that it feels quite strange due to a variety of reasons, such as all moves of a specific type being physical or special.

I've been with Pokemon since generation I, but I can without a doubt say that the generation VI games were some of my favorite. I loved everything about the Sinnoh region, I loved the plot, I loved training, the online battles. There were so many new things that were introduced in generation VI that made it something spectacular. I loved the new evolutions of old Pokemon as well, not to mention how excited I was for the return of Johto in HGSS.

At the end of the day, I don't have anything bad to say about generation VI. It was the most exhilarating to play through and it is the generation where I had one of my favorite teams. I only remember half of the team, which was my starter Infernape, a Gallade from Japan, and a Lucario from a friend who was literally a Lucario farm.

No, my first generation of playing the games was 3rd Gen. However, the Sinnoh games were always the games I was never able to finish, mainly due to how long and boring they were.

I've been playing since the first gen and started with Red. Gen 4 is actually the only gen I haven't played as I was the only one in my group of friends that didn't have a DS. I didn't get a DS until Black and White and then 3DS when X&Y came out.