best spinoffs: pmd: explorers of sky and pokemon stadium 2 and pokemon colosseum
okay so, i think most people would agree that PMD: EoS is a damn good Mystery Dungeon game. there's not much that can be said about it that most people don't really already know. it has the typical PMD tear-eyed story formula, it has shaymin (well that's a win for me, at least), spinda's cafe is pretty cool, it has a wide selection of pokemon to pick and form an exploration team out of, things like that. i think EoS genuinely has a lot of personality and added in just the right touches where it matters.
while there are some... concerns that i have about the game (namely the IQ system, and traveling a dungeon seems awfully slow by today's standards, if PMD: DX is anything to go by), i think it can largely be considered a pretty damn good game back in its day.
pokemon stadium 2 is one i think a lot of people overlook, probably because of the age of the game more than anything else. pokemon stadium 2 was fun for me not even just because of the battles and the crazy rental pokemon movesets, but because of the minigames. minigames was what made stadium 2 shine the most for me. the chansey egg catching, the mr mime reflecting, a bunch of hitmontop trying to knock each other out of the ring through spinning... i really have fond memories of participating in a lot of the minigames and it's a shame that this isn't explored often enough in pokemon gaming.
pokemon colosseum is a classic for me. end of. some people would call it edgy, in which case... i get that's fair given the vibe the protagonist of the game gives off, but it offers a lot more than that. it exposed me a lot to double battles and double battle strategies which was nice. i think the concept of shadow pokemon is cool, even if it can be a pain in the ass to purify them sometimes. the best part of the game, imo, is mt. battle, where you can "upload" a copy of your team from r/s/e (and i think fr/lg?) and basically battle all the way to the 100th trainer. lost count of how much fun i had with this.
best main series game: emerald/platinum
they both had battle frontier. idc if i get grief from the people who are tired of hearing about battle frontier stuff. battling is a lot of why i play pokemon and i enjoy doing it, and battle frontier allows battling in a more unique and creative way. i understand it might not be everyone's tea, but it created one of the best memories in gen 3 and gen 4 for me. the pokemon in both gens are also cool. also shaymin was introduced in gen 4, so there's that.
