Coelacanth

As a kid I thought they were parasitic worms eating my eyeballs from the inside.

Unrelated to the meme itself but I fucking hate the term "neurospicy". It reeks of TikTokers trying to posit themselves as "quirky" in their bio and has the same problematic downplaying of actual issues that "it's not a disability, it's a superpower" does.

Got it on sale semi-recently but haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Glad to hear you're enjoying it, I've only heard good things.

I wish I cared more about Necromancy as a concept because the game sounds great, it's just never been something I've gravitated towards. Also there is something off with the color palate for me, too many bright colors.

Don't mind me if I do wishlist that, that looks interesting actually.

I'm excited to finally get to Infinite, I own it but my backlog priority keeps getting reshuffled. I'll get to it this year (I think).

It's always fun to switch it up, I like going for less obvious picks. Especially ones you can pick up early and build a narrative with. I tend to be sentimental like that, it's fun to build little stories for yourself. I guess I watched too much of the Pokémon anime as a kid.

Uhm I'm pretty sure you can fish up a Chinchou from New Bark Town as soon as you get the Good Rod. If you're talking about Electabuzz or Raichu the Odd Egg you get from the daycare man can hatch into any of the baby Pokémon so you could get an Elekid or Pichu. Sadly we non-Japanese plebs only get a 14% chance of it being shiny instead of the Japanese 50%, so I don't tend to reset for a shiny.

Elemental stone access is one of the many reasons Crystal is placed a notch above GS in my ranking!

Lanturn is cool, good typing and can learn water HMs. Move Tutor exists in Crystal and Lanturn learns both Thunderbolt and Ice Beam from it. Can of course teach it Thunder if doing Rain Dance. Never a blockbuster Pokémon but does what you want.

I like Lanturn, but I've also used Electabuzz and Jolteon. Raichu is an option and of course early Raiku. Also used non-STAB electric coverage, in fact back in the day I used Gengar, but these days I don't have anyone to trade with.

What makes Ampharos so mandatory? I used it on my first Gold run back in the day but haven't since I think. Crystal has a bunch of minor improvements that really add up, I think. Enhanced areas, sprites, addition of the move tutor, battle tower, earlier elemental stones, some Pokémon have new moves, overall more catchable Pokémon... It just is the definitive Gen 2 game. I like the story changes as well, bigger emphasis on Suicune and also female protagonist is cool.

I haven't played all of them either, and I have played even less of them than you have. I really fell out of love with the series for a while and there are many entries that I started and never finished, latest SM. I never played B2W2 either but its interesting you put it above BW. Maybe I should get on that some day.

Your ranking looks good to me I think from the entries I've played, except objectively I think I'd have to rank RBY lower. I love it due to nostalgia but I'm not sure it holds up. Probably would put BW above XY. Would honestly be tempted to rank Crystal separately and put it above GS.

I'm hesitant because I've heard it's extremely difficult.