:O
There's way too many Pokemon to get easily familiar with them these days (especially since Black & White 1/2 are designed to not have the previous generations pokemon in the games till you complete the story and at that point you won't really want to play anymore unless you get really deep into online play or breeding)
There's remakes for the DS of some of the earlier generations. HeartGold and Soulsilver are absolutely excellent although not as good as the original Red/Blue/Green/Yellow games.
Dont think I'll bother with going through the older titles, theres too many of them, and there will be a 3DS pokemon game released next year too. From what I've read black + white 2 is the most critically acclaimed title of the most critically acclaimed and best selling series on the DS
So it cant be bad, even if its a kids game. And I really really like RPGs. The closest thing I've played to this game before is Cthulhu saves the world and penny arcade 3 and I cant get enough of them and want more. And I also have Kid Icarus, Shinobi and OOT to play ... the last 10+ days without my 3DS have been slowly destroying me on the inside