I have built this list for an individual with no experience with Pokemon speedruns, not owning any consoles/games/capture cards, etc. The most important factor to consider is that you should pick a game that you will enjoy speedrunning, which I obviously cannot determine for whoever reads this list. But if you need some help choosing between multiple games, I hope this tier list will aid you in doing just that. I have tried to rank each game in addition to sorting them into tiers, just note that if I were to recommend games I would probably just look at the tiers themselves. I have written blurbs for each game to help give you an idea of what you are getting into, Pokemon speedrunning is not for the faint of heart. Top Tier These are all amazing games to start speedrunning with. I ranked them in an order that I feel is accurate, however my personal ranking should not dictate which game to pick if you are choosing between 2+ games in this tier. These are all amazing games to start running with, I believe that you cannot possibly go wrong with any of the games in this list. There are issues with these games that I do try to detail in the blurbs I write, but they do not detract from your experience learning these runs. They make you a better speedrunner and should enhance your experience with these games. 1. Red Much harder speedrun than multiple games under this, but I still think Red deserves the top spot. Tied with gen 2 and Yellow as the easiest to set up regardless of what you already possess. This is also the most run and most optimized Pokemon speedrun, which means there is a giant community to learn from. I chose this for the top spot because it is the easiest game to get good at, you will get the most payout per time spent practicing here than in any other game. 2. Sword (Candyfloss) Probably the simplest and safest speedrun in all of Pokemon speedrunning. Very easy to obtain the console and capture it if you do not have either of those things (potato cam is also very viable). Very easy to learn the route, copes with the post-update menu lag slightly better than the other gen 8 routes. 3. Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee Arguably even safer than Sword Candyfloss fight-wise (just don't tell Archer), fairly simple concepts in the run, again the Switch is the easiest console to set up gameplay for. The two routes are similar enough (especially the late game) for me to tie these two games together for ranking purposes. (Note: Pikachu is the more complex version and it's hard to tell which game is faster, but speed doesn't matter due to the leaderboard split.) However, catch routing and catching makes this run more complex than Sword Candyfloss. The main reason I rank this lower than Sword Candyfloss is that this game requires a different set of skills than any other speedrun, which makes it slightly harder to switch games. That being said, the on the fly decision making this run requires is an amazing skill to have and will make you a better speedrunner in general. 4. Yellow Everything that Red is, just a smidge worse in every department. Do not let that deter you if you wish to start with Yellow, it is an extremely small difference. (The fact that I ranked it a whopping 3 spots below Red indicates just how beginner friendly Sword Candyfloss and Let's Go are. Let me again emphasize that you cannot possibly go wrong with any of the games in this tier.) High Tier Very good games to start speedrunning with. There are issues significant enough to drop these from the top tier, but it is unlikely you will have any issues if you choose to start speedrunning with these games. 5. Omega Ruby Another simple route, however 3ds games are the hardest ones to set up right now (3ds capture cards are really hard to come by, impossible if you don't know how to install it yourself). The difference in the routes' safety and speed is enough to justify separating Omega Ruby from Alpha Sapphire on this list. There is some stat-based decision making and fights will vary in significant ways depending on what stats you have, which is one of the defining traits of later gen speedruns. The skills learned here are more transferrable to other games than Sword Candyfloss and Let's Go. I believe this game is a top tier game if you already own a 3ds and the game (bypassing the need to set this game up), however this tier list assumes that you don't, and I have therefore placed this game in the high tier. 6. Alpha Sapphire Conceptually the same route as in Omega Ruby, just with worse pokes. This game is hard and slow enough for me to believe that this is not a top tier game regardless of your circumstance, therefore I have separated this from Omega Ruby. 7. X/Y If it isn't yet clear how beginner friendly gen 6 is, the 3 games' speedruns make up the top of the high tier in my opinion. This is a safer route than the ORAS route fight-wise, however it is even more reset heavy due to the fact that you are heavily relying on 20%s to go your way (Bunnelby and Hawlucha encounters, catching Hawlucha itself, a stupid Siebold range at the end of the game). In all honesty you should probably run ORAS instead of X/Y unless you absolutely refuse to run ORAS, but that does not drop X/Y from the high tier, on its own it is still a really good speedgame to begin with. 8. Sword (Sobble) Most difficult route to comprehend among those speedgames listed so far, but still not overly complex, and the fact this is a Switch game gives it a nice bonus. Some bad fights, but there's less danger, more complexity in this route. Note that Sobble resets can make this experience extremely drab. 9. Shield (Arcanine/Excadrill) Simpler than the Sobble route, just extremely reset heavy hours into the run. The Drilbur catch might just be the hardest fight in any Pokemon speedrun, and therefore I have ranked Shield below Sword. (Note: Running Candyfloss or Sobble in Shield is viable and has a much better chance of finishing than the Arcanine/Exacadrill routes, but they require more knowledge of their individual routes from Sword to be done, which means I do not think they deserve to be considered in this list, which is meant for beginners that do not understand these routes.) Mid Tier In this tier, games start to become less beginner friendly for various reasons. There is a lot that can be learned should you start with these games, and they're all safe enough that you probably won't suffer in the process of learning these games. This is by no means a guarantee, as the gap between this list's high tier and mid tier is by far the widest of the gaps in this list. (This tier is also the one I'm least confident in the ordering of.) 10. Gold First off in this tier is one of the easiest games to set up, due to Gambatte. Out of all the games that have manips in the standard route, this is by far the easiest game to do manipless. That being said, to truly master the manipless category, you need a deep understanding of the routing in this game, which is extremely difficult, hence why this is not a high tier game. And if you choose to learn the manips, gen 2 has some of the hardest manips in all of Pokemon speedrunning. Outside of the two spinners that get manipped, theres no consistent way to pass the non-rotato spinners, and outside of spinner passes, you cannot learn anything from this game better than if you just played Red/Yellow. 11. Moon I know this is kinda insane that I would rank a game that takes more than 5 hours to complete as a fairly average game for a beginner to run. And yes, you can roll your eyes at me. But here's why, for anyone crazy enough to listen. The route is almost like a Sobble route, structurally the same but with a little more safety. And because there's fewer free heals than in gen 8, you learn much more about long-term HP management than in gen 8. However, there are some huge obstacles that prevent this from making it into the high tier. For one, 3DS games are just hard to set up. More importantly, the amount of time just sitting through the game is extremely high, and combined with the fact that it takes roughly 20 minutes to get your starter and potentially reset the game, it is just not worth your time if you would like to build up experience with late gen speedruns. 12. FireRed/LeafGreen This game is deceptively brutal, but fairly simple to understand. This serves as an amazing introduction to gen 3 speedruns because it has all of the features you have to deal with in Sapphire and Emerald, just in much smaller doses. The route is surprisingly simple, even though your stats will vary way more than in any other game with manips. That being said, starter resets are extremely difficult, and there are tons of fights that can send you right back to the lab. The reason I think this game (barely) qualifies for the mid tier is that it is a great combination of so many features in light doses: the technicality of gen 3, the frame perfect manips that define gens 2 through 5, the varying stats that define late gen speedruns, and the HP management that defines every Pokemon speedrun. Very tough game to start with, but also a game that can help you branch off into essentially any other because you will acquire so many skills from it. 13. Black/White Shoutouts to Lillipup for making the route much safer, and also for forcing runners to create an extra manip for it. One of the safer routes now, also one of the more interesting ones. DS games are another pain to set up, but in general they tend to be pretty tough to run. Timer0 is one of the most annoying ways to mess up manips in any gen unfortunately. The most difficult aspect of this game is that you have to build your own manip. However, the hard work you put into that will be paid off with a greater understanding and appreciation of RNG, and also a fairly simple and safe speedrun after that. Low Tier This tier is the hardest one to define. Consisting mostly of harder versions of mid tier games, it can be argued (fairly well) that this tier is just an extension of the mid tier, rather than its own distinct tier. If you want to run these games, there's probably a fairly similar game in the mid tier that I recommend you should choose instead. 14. HeartGold/SoulSilver Manipped is absolutely horrible, because it requires a very long extended manip, and the fix revolves around a Radio Card manip that is honestly more tedious in the long run than something like building a gen 5 manip. But what gets HGSS out of the lowest tier all the way here is manipless, as this game has the easiest and best manipless route out of all the pre-Gen 6 (manipulable) games. However, there is still a lot that sucks about manipless, and don't expect to improve if you choose this route, this is the most volatile speedrun, and you will likely have to interact with the worst Pokemon speedrunning community, which somehow got even worse after the PSR split. 15. White 2 (Normal or Challenge Mode) This game is everything the Black/White is: fairly safe, forces you to build your own manips, manips of which can be ruined by Timer0. Just worse: there's more Timer0 values, the starter manip is much more important, and the last manip is later in the run. And as such, I have ranked this as a worse version of BW1: not the easiest to start with, but extremely rewarding should one play this game. Manipless has been going through some development these past few months, but at this moment, none of the routes are worth it. 16. Crystal Similar to White 2's case, Crystal is the harder version of Gold. However, much worse: a ton more spinners, and a Raikou manip more than an hour in. Quietly one of the hardest Pokemon speedruns out there, both for beginners and for experienced runners. 17. Diamond/Pearl Any DS runner will tell you that this is the dullest of all Pokemon speedruns, and there is a good amount of truth in that. That being said, this is easily the most beginner friendly of the DS games, as the manipped route is about as safe as it gets for Gen 4. However, Lucky Egg manip is pretty frustrating, regardless of whether it is extended or the save and quit developed by Garf. Manipless in theory is also about as easy as it gets, but the issue is nobody has really come up with good resources or route writeups for it. That might happen soon? 18. Ultra Moon Moon is one of the safest runs in PSR, Ultra Moon is one of the most dangerous. The major difference in the routes and difficulty make it such that it isn't worth it to take a run more than 30 minutes longer. However, outside of the fights themselves, this game is fairly easy and good for beginners. 19. Platinum With the development of the Chimchar route, running manipped is much better (but still pretty sucky). On the manipless front, there is a great amount of variety, but not a whole lot of quality for a beginner. Still a brutal game, still deals with the worst of all Pokemon speedrunning communities, but there is just enough going for it to get Plat bumped out of the lowest tier. NO Tier These games are brutal for beginners. You really should not consider starting with these if there is any game outside this tier you even somewhat wish to run. You will have an insane amount of trouble with these games if you do not understand their mechanics and Pokemon speedrunning in general. 20. Emerald And we now come to the hardest gen to speedrun. This is the only case where the upgraded version of the game is actually an easier speedrun, but that doesn't boost Emerald by a whole lot. Gen 3 requires multiple short but extremely difficult manips and has a lot of fights that can kill you. Running this game will make you a much better speedrunner in general, much like running gen 1 games. However, the difference is that this game is even more technical, much harder, and also not intuitive enough for a beginner to pick up. 21. Sapphire And for my last spot, congrats to Sapphire? This game has some really tough manips and extremely tough mechanics much like Emerald, but with even worse fights! It's even less beginner friendly than Emerald, and that's really something.