The best part of the game was never the Pokémon themselves, but the schoolyard lies about the game that you & your friends would tell each other at recess. For example:
“Dude. If you manage to walk on every space in the game just once without repeating a step, you get deoxys at level 100 instantly.“
”you can get a shiny starter if you release your actual starter into the wild & complete battle frontier with completely involved Pokémon“
and then theyd show you their gamesharked cheat code pokemon & youd believe them & let your blaziken go.
I think my favorite is rayquaza. i Just remember thinking he was sick as hell.