I have a few unpopular opinions:
1. Sinnoh is overrated. Platinum was my first mainline pokemon game and I believe Platinum is a great, replayable game. However, I think the overworld design is overrated. The story encourages you to backtrack to certain areas, but traversing through some areas is a slog, HM usage is over the top IMO, and there's a lack of variety in some areas since it's either constant caves, marshes, rocky, and grassy areas.
That doesn't mean Sinnoh is poorly designed. Towns are very memorable (Hearthome City and Celestic Town to name a few) and Mt. Coronet was very interesting because it is a central area in which you can enter it from every angle, acts as a boundary between various different areas without being intrusive, and is ultimately a fantastic lead to the climax, but it just feels a bit bland and annoying to travel through for those reasons.
2. Silver is overrated. I recently played through Heartgold for the first time which is also my very first experience with Johto in general. Silver has a fantastic introduction by stealing one of the Professor's starter pokemon and valuing strength above all else. However, most of his development happens off-panel. We don't see how he mistreats his pokemon and we don't really understand when his shift in attitude changes towards his own ideology of valuing strength above all else and ignoring his own pokemon's feelings. We also don't really understand when he begins to respect the player. Good concept, just not executed very well.
3. Hugh is a great rival. I love how he battles the player, so he can test the player and push him towards beating Team Plasma rather than battling as some sort of competition and test of strength. He battles for strength so he can be strong enough to rescue his sister's pokemon rather than to become Champion. It was a new refreshing take on what a rival usually is and his angsty behavior is actually realistic such as his reaction to those who defected from Team Plasma. His acknowledgement towards the player and how he views him/her as "incredible" also felt the most genuine out of any rival I've witnessed though that could change once I beat Black 1.
4. People are blinded by nostalgia for Johto. For some reason, the egregiously limited pokemon distribution, limited movesets, limited Kanto pokemon, and over-emphasis on trade evolutions is completely ignored yet Black and White featuring 156 new pokemon that is spread organically throughout the entire region is disparaged. Movesets weren't limited at all and you're given plenty of solid pokemon with unique typing, movesets, and stat distributions that are viable for the average playthrough. You're given significantly more options than HG/SS gives you yet this flaw somehow ruins the entire experience of Black and White rather than HG/SS. I really enjoyed HG/SS, but it's really annoying that most of the pokemon I want to use is either found in Kanto or can't be obtained without trade. I have another 2DS and Platinum, but it's still really annoying having to set up another DS and trade just to evolve most of the pokemon in Johto. I've just reached Chargestone in Black and I can definitively say that the pokemon variety and distribution is astronomically better.
5. Unova isn't linear. Routes are more thoughtfully designed, way more open with plenty of areas to explore, much less intrusive usage of HMs that reward exploration, and more diversity than we've witnessed in a Pokemon game. It's more technologically advanced with battles taking place in areas you would not expect. For instance, we have a Desert Resort that is under construction with multiple trainers to battle, a sewer, and a route that is actually a small village that people live in just to name a few. Unova doesn't really feel linear at all and it has significantly more variety than any other region I've played thus far (excluding Kalos and Alola). Towns also are more expansive with more to do.
6. Black 2/ White 2 are flawless save for removing some TMs (Dark Pulse has forsaken me), introducing hidden abilities which are good in concept, but can be unobtainable later on (such as the removal of the Dream World), and not being able to battle the B/W protagonist in B2/W2.
7. Platinum was never that hard. Fighting types are absurdly good in this game, we have one of the best flying type pokemon i.e Staraptor that learns Close Combat, and an incredibly good pokemon distribution (save for fire types) that helps in dealing with trainers like Cynthia. You're not only given access to Chimchar, Starly, and Sphinx early on, but you can catch a Gible and teach it Earthquake before the 3rd gym. Save for a few battles, the game isn't that hard. Black and White 2 was much harder due to having a steeper level curve and Heartgold still remains to be the hardest Pokemon game for me thus far.
8. Pokemon hasn't lost creativity. I think a lot of the Pokemon designs are still really top-notch and I feel as though pokemon in general have more life and personality than ever before. The increase in competitive battling and the extra level sh*t you can do with many pokemon gives more pokemon a purpose and makes them significantly more memorable by default. Google "Trace Gardevoir" or "Moody Glalie" and you will see what I mean.
9. Fairy typing is badass, no one will change my mind.
10. Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee were lacking, but they were very enjoyable experiences which really captivated me to actually catch new pokemon more than I ever wanted to in any Pokemon game including Black 2/ White 2 which leads me to ...
11. Black 2 is the best Pokemon game I've ever played. (That might change once I dig deep into Heartgold's Kanto and postgame and play the Gen 6 and Gen 7 games).
