Good for nintendo (Score 2, Interesting)

I always liked the parts of the series I did play (Red, blue, yellow, silver and gold). It not only let me wax halycon about my old days of 8-bit bitmap dungeon crawls (a la Dragon Warrior). It provided a unique battle system, additional non-main story arc content, and a lot of replayability (as you spent a good time trying to catch all the pokemon available in your version). They also made an amazing marketing and PR move by releasing separate versions (red and blue, gold and silver, [some two based on gems], diamond and pearl), with different pokemon available on each one. Now, while some people just bought both and traded with themselves to catch them all (and some folks cheated via game genie or other such), some folks specifically bought different versions and used the game link cables to trade pokemon. Being able to do things with friends like that was really what made the pokemon games fun. It changed it from being just about what you could do alone, to being a social thing. I don't know about later games, but Red and Blue had balance problems (Psychic pokemon were way too powerful), but those problems were corrected by the time Gold and Silver came out. I think the series has really progressed and done a good job of adding new content, and keeping type balance.