If you’ve played any of the Pokémon games, you know the series is a heavily iterative one. Each new game makes some notable (or not so notable) strides over the last that build on, rather than overhaul, what came before. But each new game also finds ways of departing significantly from its predecessors, giving them all their own strengths and weaknesses. This is especially true of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, one of the most significant departures from the old formula that Game Freak has ever put out. With the series’ 30th anniversary coming up on Friday, February 27, let’s run down the best and worst parts of each Pokémon game, starting with the original Game Boy games.
This ranking was originally published in 2023 and updated to include Pokémon Legends: Z-A in 2025.