Golden memories spread rubies around our fifth and fourth entries.
#5 - Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal
System: Game Boy Color
Release Date: October 14, 2000 (Gold/Silver), July 29, 2001 (Crystal)
Pokémon Gold and Silver. These games embody hype for me. After having played Red and Blue for years, the lead up to Gold/Silver was exciting. As info started to trickle down to me, I just got more excited about them. Colour graphics, new land, the return of the old land, the cool Poké-Gear allowing you to do things like ring people up. These games were more than I could have hoped for. The intro to the game was also really impressive, and I used to love watching it. Another favourite feature was being able to decorate your room with toys etc, a feature that I missed when it was not included in the remakes on the Nintendo DS. - Nicholas Bray
#4 - Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
System: Game Boy Advance
Release Date: March 19, 2003 (Ruby/Sapphire), May 1, 2005 (Emerald)
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald was one of my favorites because it was the first Pokémon game to bring story into the mix. It felt like a total revamp, for the better, of the classic formula used in the previous generations. It also had colorful, more vibrant art, a lot of bonus material like Pokémon contests and secret bases, and some pretty darn adorable Pokémon designs. - Becky Hollada
I love Pokémon Ruby because it's so weird, so different, and so great. The art design, music, and design is extremely different from previous games in the series despite still being very much a Tajiri work. The music has new twists with the new hardware like horn sounds (Maxie's theme is my favorite Pokémon song of the last decade), the art is unusually bright in a way that hasn't been seen in the new games, the world is filled with tons of secrets and things to explore (like discovering Rayquaza and the Regi trio), the story started to become an actual story, and despite controversy, I love the Pokémon designs of that gen. Slaking is probably my favorite Pokémon ever alongside Umbreon. This is also where abilities were introduced and stats started to become as standardized and complicated as we know them now, but I consider that secondary to how good it feels to play this game. - Alex Culafi