After an ill-fated attempt to get this answer in other threads, I decided to try a more direct approach.
I'm looking for the mainline Pokemon game (meaning no Snap, or other fun stuff) that will keep an average person entertained for the longest amount of time.
Assume no Pokemon games have been played before (meaning even really old content is considered fresh content) and that there are no system limitations.
Things to consider:
>amount of Pokemon that can be captured
>duration and quality of mainline story (subjective shitposting welcome)
>quantity of post-E4 content
The only limitation is that the game must be played alone, without trading or online battling or anything like that.
Oh an another thing to put under considerations:
>region quantity/quality
>>26892521
most likely B2/W2
>>26892554
Why? Based on the few, mostly shitposting-filled answers I've gotten so far ORAS has the most sheer amount of Pokemon worth capturing, only rivaled by XY.
>>26892521
Either Platinum or the original BW. I don't know why people praise BW2 like it is god's gift to humanity. People say that having a huge variety of Pokemon instantly makes it the best game, but XY had a good variety as well and they always get shit on. Besides, how many of you actually play through the game more than once and use different teams? I'm pretty sure most of the people on /vp/ end up using almost the same teams every time they play.
>>26892521
Average? None of them, it's impossible.
>>26892604
How is it impossible? OP clearly gave factors to take into account, and average amount of hours spent on main quest, pluss average amount of time spent on post game, multiplied by (amount of capturable pokemon / 100) = his result. Sure it's difficult to get said result but not impossible.
That equation might put a little too much value on amount of pokemon though.
BW2 if you want more side quests, side attractions, and daily material, which is by far the best in those departments and has a huge Pokemon roster that doesn't feel too big and impact the experience of the region negayively
HGSS for sheer mapsize
ORAS and XY have the biggest wild Pokemon rosters but when people want post-game that's not what they factor in, and XY's roster actually serves to hold the game back as no Pokemon appears more than once which makes the region feel even less cohese than it already does
>>26892619
Because for the average person, you're lucky to get them to play one level of Candy Crush before they go back to making senseless twitters, and that is being extremely generous.
>>26892631
Okay, you got me there. But replace "the average person" with "the average pokemon fan" then.
>>26892639
On the off chance you can even make anyone under 10 actually touch a 3DS, it doesn't really matter which one of the 6th gen you choose, they'll love it. I'll only slightly favor OR/AS since it has the more up to date content.
>>26892580
BW2 is far better than BW1 for far more reasons than just the wild Pokemon roster
But that's not hard considering BW1 are the worst games in the series
>>26892521
I think HGSS does.
>Amount of pokemon that can be captured
Aside from legendaries, HGSS (pokewalker included) has access to the most percentage of pokemon than any other paired games, with only a few Sinnoh mons unavailable. With things like headbutting trees and the Hoenn/Sinnoh sounds of the radio, you can find a lot of foreign pokemon hidden all around Johto and Kanto.
>Duration and quality of mainline story
This is pretty mediocre, but when you consider it's pokemon then it's not that bad. It even somewhat lingers in post game and through the Celebi event.
>Quantity of post-E4 content
It has Kanto, the Battle Frontier, the weird Safari Zone features, and Mt. Silver. Does the Pokeathlon count in this? I'd mention shiny leaves but I don't think it's significant enough.
Not OP, but I see a lot of you recommending BW2. For someone who long since broke his old DS and is only able to play 3DS games, what Pokemon should I play? I have an itch for one of these types of games.
>>26892734
Mod your 3DS up to arm9l and install yourself a prepatched Rutile Ruby/Star Sapphire .cia file. Generally harder w/ decent postgame and every Pokemon.
>>26892734
I'm starting to grow distaste for the usual 6 mons on every leader stuff since it feels a bit too much like a boss rush than a game. If you want something vanilla just go Platinum, since it's the answer to OP's question anyway.
>>26892565
amount of pokemon does not exactly equal more content.
>>26892669
I think you meant Diamond and Pearl.
Why does no one seem to like XY? I thought they were pretty good.
>>26892803
No, even DP is better than BW1. As is RGB, despite all their glitches and outdated mechanics.
BW2 have the most. Then HGSS and Platinum are tied.
>>26892828
I'm not sure about everyone else, but for me it was that the story was pretty bad, especially after following BW/B2W2. Plus there is close to no post game content at all.
>>26892828
They were okay overall, I liked some aspects, but I really don't like the layout of Kalos and there's very little side content as the start of a generation compared to DP or BW1. I don't really care about the ease of battles in mainline, so that common complaint doesn't bother me.
I really appreciate the changes to breeding and guaranteed IV's on certain wild encounters to make Breeding actually fun.
