There's no reason to not get SoulSilver or HeartGold right now. Black and White will launch in a few months. See how many of the Pokemon you can get before then. If you can get a Starly/Starravia/Starraptor from someone with a Johto game that's the one I'd use as my "Flier" (I teach them HM Fly, let em learn Aerial Ace, Brave Bird, and Close Combat on level up). If you can get an Old Amber in the Ruins of whatever (break rocks, leave and come back to respawn them) you can get an Aerodactyl which is my second choice for a flier after Starraptor.

There's nothing easy about Pokemon especially in the Battle Frontier or in competitive battling. The story itself is normally kid-easy but really is only 20% or less of the gameplay. If you can get a hold of a Beldum/Metang/Metagross that guy will rip the everliving crap out of most stuff (he has a way low catch rate, trade someone for one, preferably a baby, he levels pretty easy with Headbutt which you can teach for free in the forest). Totodile is probably the best starter, Chicorita is the worst (weak to almost every early gym battle you have, and the wild plant type Pokemon are just as good). I like Elekid for an electric, Lucario is nice for a Fight type, but since you probably won't have one just do standard Machop. Finishing your regional Pokedex you will find almost impossible when you play your first Pokemon, but the more you play the easier it becomes.

Most of the Pokemon I listed above have good movesets on levelup, you can hunt down TMs and really tweak them out. Learn about breeding, natures, and EV training if you really want to blow your mind.

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Thx.

To be honest, I'm glad to hear it's mostly text. Nothing ruins a game more for me than a bad dub.

the most I have spent on ds games was with the remakes of Final Fantasy III & IV which are really good in my opinion.

Final Fantasy III was the first rpg I have ever completed because i used to have this habit where i would play a rpg get stuck and quit but not with this game I went crazy with it and ended up beating it clocking in forty-two hours. this game was awesome because of the job system which allowed you to switch jobs and there are many of them. at the end i believe my party was ninja, knight, dragoon and devout. I wish a lot more game had this kinda system that way you can have the party the way you want it.

After that I picked up Final Fantasy IV remake and this was the first time playing it and probably the best remake square has ever made for a Final Fantasy game. even though the character models were a little odd like the third game they ramped up the difficulty so old tricks on bosses you used to be able to do on the snes version changed to make it feel you weren't playing the same over again which I am sure pleased many people who played it on the snes. the game wasn't too hard for me but that might be because i had a little habit of being overleveled at any given point to the fact where at the final boss i had 4 out of 5 characters level capped at 99 and Kain being the one at level 92 because of the fact that he leaves the party like a dozen times at least! by the time I beat it I ended up clocking in eighty-two hours and i didn't even do new game plus. The reason it took me that long was I made damn sure i had all the sidequests. Overall great story great music and some great creative bosses for the time.

I have a question: are the pokemon ranger games any good? i like the main series, but I don't really know anything about the ranger series.

No.

This

Trying to think of fun non-Pokemon/DQ/Golden Sun/chibi-chibi games...

Mystery dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer.
And both Shin Megami Tensei DS iterations.

EDIT: Thinking more, Dark Spire FTW. DS Doom is fun, but nothing new (the homebrew).

What, Golden Sun Dark Dawn ain't good in your opinion?

Now I didn't say that. GS:DD is fun, but I think it rests a little too heavily on the laurels of its predecessors. Which I fondly remember.

I think it's a little kid-toned. It's still an excellent game.

Do either of you think that it's nowhere near as pretty as the first two? The use of close up camera shots in the cut-scenes shows the very nasty looking models.
Against the sprites of the first two, there's no contest.

Well, the DS has it's flaws, but it isn't that bad. The summons are a little bit better looking and varied, but that's about it. Still a great addition to the series, no?

Well... I started playing it and then decided it'd been too long since I'd played the originals so I'm in the middle of TLA at the moment. What I've played seemed good!

Golden Sun tops my wishlist, but I don't want to buy it before I handle some of my DS backlog. DQ IX, Spirit Tracks, SMT: SJ are all untouched on my shelf. Not to mention Advance Wars...