Pokémon Emerald is perhaps the very first peak of Pokémon (not counting the first ever appearance of the franchise), a game that feels like a grand adventure in a small form factor and that ultimately did amp up the standards for every Pokémon game subsequently, with a bunch of variety when it comes to the semi-tropical region of Hoenn, and a definite upgrade when it comes to intertwining the actual story unfolding in the world with the gameplay and the player, everything that goes down in this game really does make the world feel way more alive than the past two generations, and I think that's one of the strongest points of Pokémon Emerald and it makes me understand why people recommend it so much as a newcomer entry.

Generation III brings with it an extensive cast inhabiting the Pokédex, berries, a whole new HM and lotsa walking. While Game Boy era Kanto felt like a walkable city (or well, country), Hoenn in the other hand feels exactly the complete opposite, a lot of the times you're gonna make your way through the most remote of places in order to get to one city to another, and the final quarter of the game is purely water, and they didn't have enough with making it flooded, they also had to add in the ability to submerge with and HM to further expand underwater exploration... And it kinda sucks!
Lord have mercy on the kid that decided to choose Mudkip or kept Pelipper as a sort of jack of "all" ""trades"" when it comes to both Flying and Water moves, because this game make you bloat your Water-type Pokémon with an astonishing amount of 3 whole HMs; Surf, Waterfall and now Dive, that are very much necessary to actually beat the game (and that's not counting having Cut or when you eventually find Fly which by the time you get it you're gonna question even why to have it at that point since they give it to you so late), and that's already four games in a row where my Water-type of choice has to have the exact same build because apparently no one at Game Freak oversaw this madness to stop it from happening sooner.

Besides that all, the game feels pretty well, the new region is very popping and pretty looking with those cutting-edge GBA ray-traced graphics, it feels very fair and balanced not counting the fact that there's still a general problem with grinding levels and how time-consuming that is especially for endgame duels. The post-game isn't anything super surprising, besides a lot of battle padding, and you don't even get to catch any of the main legendaries until you beat the Elite Four.

...But it's all resolved by the fact that you befriend a guy whose niche hobby is rocks and kissing dudes in the side AND then help fix Archie and Maxie's broken marriage. What's not to love.