Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire

This is the definitive version of Pokemon. Improvements from Gen. 2 and a story more grounded in the world, Ruby and Sapphire take over to still provide the best Pokemon experience to date. Thank god for Game Boy Advance!

why would groudon fight kyogre at sea lol

Now, this review won't be perfect for a variety of reasons. I'm not well versed in previous Pokémon games. My only exposure to the franchise was through a small bit of Pokémon Red, a few spin-offs, the show, and Pokémon Shield. I'm also not the best in explaining each individual thing about types and stuff like that. The third and final reason is that I did a Nuzlocke of this game (Look it up if you don't know) Which I did successfully complete. But here's my attempt of a review.

Pokémon Sapphire might've gotten me into Pokémon. The game looks stunning for a GBA game and Hoenn is so fun to explore and take in. The music is great and the battle mechanic is really engaging.

This game introduced the 3rd Generation of Pokémon and with that, came a lot of cool Pokémon such as Breloom which is now my favorite Gen 3 Pokémon. In this game, you have a choice of 3 starters (Like most of the games). Mudkip, a water Pokémon, Treeko, a Grass-type Pokémon, and Torchic, a Fire-type Pokémon. I chose Mudkip, which was a good choice. There are a lot of Water Types in Gen 3. Almost too much as Fire-Types are basically kicked in the dirt in this game. The Pokédex is weird in this game due to this imbalance of types which makes me feel bad for people who enjoy Fire-Type.

You get the choice to play as either Brendan (The Male Pokémon Trainer), or May (The Female Pokémon Trainer). Choosing either will only result in your rival being either Brendan or May depending on who you choose.

Like most Pokémon games, there are 8 Gyms you must go to. The goal is to collect those badges in said Gyms and challenge the Elite 4 and become the Pokémon League Champion while foiling Team Aqua's plans of flooding Hoenn. Speaking of Team Aqua, I wish they had more development. The story feels pretty incomplete which I heard is fixed in Emerald as it basically combines the story of Ruby and Sapphire. Also, Kyogre is an awesome legendary and I'd recommend saving a Master Ball for him.

Gen 3 also introduced Double Battles but unfortunately, they are barely used. Also, some gyms really should've had more variety with the Pokémon. This includes the Elite 4. Overall though, the Gyms and the Elite 4 is pretty good.

This Nuzlocke has made me want to casually play more Pokémon games. I'm happy that I'm dipping my toes in this franchise.

A significant step-down from the prior generation because of one critical element: pacing. These games can get very dull, very quickly, and there are a variety of reasons for this. There is an excess of unavoidable grass, trainers, and areas accessible only by way of an HM. You spend a lot of time on the routes in the game because you keep having to stop every five seconds to battle a trainer, fight off a wild Pokémon in the grass, or wait for that stupid cut animation to finish. The level design is annoyingly convoluted as well. Sometimes there are multiple paths forward, but because of the top-down view angle, it's impossible to tell which path is the correct one. I found myself stumbling upon secrets easier than the main path. There's usually grass patches on all the paths, and that makes the backtracking longer. You practically want to register (hotkey) repels you'll be using those things constantly. Routes 119—123 were a goddamn nightmare.

Another thing related to these games' shitty pacing that bothers me is that it is difficult to tell what type of Pokémon individual trainers would use. In the earlier games you can pretty easily tell who will be using what type of Pokémon based on that trainer's appearance, but that's rather unintelligible here. I found myself like 50% of the time having to switch Pokémon at the beginning of every trainer battle because I was at a type disadvantage, or I just faced a trainer who used the opposite type and I forgot to switch. Of course the last straw for me is the length of the routes themselves.

I actually found the end-game to be rather enjoyable. A lot of people complain about the huge ocean sections, but I found routes 124 and beyond to have significantly better pacing than the rest of the game. By that point, I had been conditioned to have 20 max repels on me at all times, and not having to use cut every five seconds and not having to guess what type the trainers would use (always water obviously), actually did favors to the pacing.

Still not a game I can say is average. If I'm going to replay one of the older Pokémon games, I won't be reaching for this one.

Franchise fatigue was already starting to set in by this point, and Pokemon could not keep up. While the visual upgrade was very nice for a game like this, the GBA's soundtrack did no favours for the soundtrack, and besides that, the world just simply didn't feel as inspired besides your family history locking you off from an early gym. This lack of innovation would end up highlighting the limitations of the combat, which relies too heavily on its rock-paper-scissors elements system without the AI to truly take advantage of how deep the growth process can get. The metagame simply doesn't match the top layers of gameplay, which would harm the series more as it went on.

By the time that Ruby came around, i felt that the series was already starting to get too formulaic. Ruby tried to innovate in some areas, but removed some other features as well.

In terms of pokemon and level design, its decent but a step down. The new pokemon are a mixed bag really, some good ones others not so much. The map does have way too much sea to get through, which can get annoying if you dont bring repels with you. But i do enjoy the overal campaign. Its easy to beat but has good pacing and keeps things interesting by throwing new pokemon at you consistently. The double battles are a nice addition and they do manage to change things up a bit. There are also a lot of quality of life improvements like the running shoes that overal manage to make the overal experience much more enjoyable.

It features the best end level content though, in which you are given the chance to improve your skill in the tower. I also think it featured the best Elite 4 set in terms of replayability.

Overal its a great game, despite not being nearly as iconic as the last two entries.