Pros: Let me first say... what the hell happened? Why is there so much less, and so many removed features from Gold & Silver? It's like this generation was a reboot of the series, which, is not necessarily a bad thing! In fact, this generation was a great introduction to a whole new age of Pokémon fans. And also, this is our first 16-bit Pokémon game, with detailed sprites, lots of color, and an art style that's super easy on the eyes. It's as if we received a Pokémon game for the Super NES. And while not everything from the previous generation returns, there are some new features to the series here, particularly 2-on-2 "double" battles (which took advantage of the GBA's new four player link cables), and a simple but very useful new mechanic, the run button, yeah, you can just run anywhere on the overworld, which is a nice in-between walking and biking. Also, battle mechanics with new abilities, are refined in this game for the most part, and other new gameplay modes like events such as Contests are pretty neat, where you can build Pokémon stats for beauty, toughness, cuteness, smartness, etc, and put them in a contest where they're judged upon, it's alright. But in general, these new additions didn't hit nearly as hard as the new additions in Gold & Silver did.

Cons: Like I said previously, what the hell happened. In so many ways, this game killed Pokémania for the generation of people that grew up with Red & Blue and moving on to Gold & Silver, such as myself. But the ways it did that, were, one, there was no connecting to the prior generations, no link cable trading, nothing, it was like a hard reset. Which, that just cut the cord for those of us who built upon our journey going from Red to Gold, expecting to go from Gold to Ruby... But nah... And two, no day and night cycles, the real time clock features felt like a significant step down here, not to mention other new features that Gold & Silver introduced were not really expanded in significant ways, like new types or breeding. Gold & Silver introduced so much to the series, that to see this new generation introduce one or two major things, and remove other major elements really sucked... man, what a kick in the gut it was upon first playing. And then comes the Pokémon themselves, and I know this is a very subjective thing, but... I'm not a fan of their new designs here, a lot of new patterns, stripes, zig-zag shapes, somethin' was changing in the way new Pokémon started to look starting with this game, and I'm not sure if it's because the new console power allowed them to showcase more complex designs or what, but I wasn't a fan. Like, what the heck is going on with Blaziken? Why are their legs so long, and standing up like a human person? That whole thing started a bad trend in my opinion for third stage starter Pokémon that's still felt in the series to this day. And the region itself, I don't wanna say too much water, but the land of Hoenn wasn't really doin' it for me either, and another step down from Gold & Silver that allowed us to travel to other regions. Just, time after time, this game paled in comparison to Gold & Silver, and I would not call it an improvement whatsoever.

What it means to me: If you couldn't tell, this was not my Pokémon, and it absolutely killed all hype I had for the series for, I don't know, decades. The gameplay is fine in a vacuum, it's an alright game on its own, but when put up against previous games in the series, it was an awkward reset... If you were someone who grew up with this one, I could see how you'd enjoy it the most, I mean, it's essentially an SNES caliber Pokémon game, that's not a bad quality to have.