the lack of endgame content has been a problem for a while for pokemon game, it was only the battle tower at the end in most games. i did like the ultra moon of the various legendaries which can ben shiny you cant get easily in previous consoles.

Temtem. Like I'm not trying to be a troll, but Tem has so much more going on in its world.

I think most would consider PMD Explorers of Sky to have the the best story overall.

For mainline, Platinum is the way to go. Team galactic has a strong presence and compelling motivation, beyond: we want money/power. I love how you can physically see the evidence of their evil effecting the world - in a couple instances. I also like it's balancing: it will pressure you without being to much of a grind(big improvement over Diamond/Pearl); and it doesn't really hold your hand at all, once you reach Eterna City.

Lot's of interesting side areas as well, and I like the lore surrounding the god pokemon.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, for the most part, I've mostly enjoyed games released in the third generation and didn't touch anything past the seventh. The increasing amount of handholding turned me off and degrading mega evolutions from the once advertised evolution of the gameplay formular to a mere gimmick broke the last straw.

That being said: The Gamecube games hands down. The intro cutscene to Colosseum has more story than some generations did in their entirety and instead of you just stumbling into the plot you are actually an integral part of it. As an added bonus, both games feature final bosses that actually fight back. I think Colosseum is the only Pokemon game I ever struggled in.

Of course, taking everything Pokemon into account, Mystery Dungeon is the only true answer, but I wanted to go with an traditional RPG first.

If you insist on mainline games, you're probably right about the fifth generation. These games have everything you would need, but the execution itself is fumbled - and it has to be, since they questioned their own franchise at its core. Logically speaking, N is right and everyone else is wrong.

There are some interesting things in other generations, but it usually feels tacked on and isn't actually relevant for 95% of the game. Like, the sixth generation had some nice ideas - but they are mostly implied or retold, without you having any urgency in the matter. Once again why I chose the GC games, two of the few games with you being part of the plot. In the early mainline games, you mostly happen to be there when story happens, in the later games, you sometimes only get told that story happens somewhere.

Sw/Sh were a real low point. They boiled the story down to "Let the adults handle it" and left you just running between gyms the entire game.

It's honestly been too long since I've played the older games to judge their writing... but I did play Scarlet recently, and have to give props to Arven's storyline. It is a shame the game is at Resident Evil 6 levels of unfocused, and brain-dead levels of easy.

Probably a Mystery Dungeon game. I'd go with Gen 5, having not played it on ages, for a mainline game.

Scarlet/Violet was surprisingly decent, at least in the end-game.

Grain of salt, as i havent played the mystery dungeon games or Colosseum, but Platinum had a great amount of story, and a decent amount of post-game content that wasn't just min-maxing to win.

Everything post-B2/W2 is just too hand-holdy to me.

Don't knock the Ranger games either, they were fun adventures.

X/Y. Fucking fight me.