A game of peaks and valleys. While Shin Megami Tensei 2 has some amazing moments the sum total experience was a step downward from its predecessor, especially in the gameplay department.

In terms of art this is a really beautiful game, with incredible sprites and many demons looking significantly better and more unique than their SMT1 incarnations. There's such a vast number of enemies and the backgrounds of save rooms, shops and other various locations show vastly more detail than those in the prior release. The UI has also seen some improvements and, while not perfect, is a step up from the very rough interface in SMT1 on SNES.

While overall I preferred the modern day post apocalypse of SMT1 this game's future setting of Tokyo Millennium is incredibly well realized, with a lot of effort going into establishing the culture and various levels of society therein as the player progresses, giving us the chance to put a magnifying glass to each of them. The environments you visit were all a joy to see and some of the late-game areas truly shocked me with some amazingly fun and cool sequences and locales.

Dungeons here were solid overall, roughly on par with SMT1 and maybe even a bit more inventive with some of its designs. There are some puzzle dungeons which are tricky and fun to navigate and there was usually a good sense of pacing throughout them.

The fusion system is as fantastic as ever and the huge number of new demons benefits it tremendously. The addition of an inheritance system (even if a simple one compared to later games) also brings it up a whole notch over the previous releases, as you now can put a whole lot more thought into what sort of combinations you're going for. The weapon fusion system from the prior game has also been expanded in a way that gives it far more use throughout the game.

One of the biggest faults this game has is how poorly signposted progression is. In SMT1 I generally felt that, outside of a few instances, the game did a good job of either expressly or subconsciously leading the player toward whatever their next goal was. SMT2 loses this completely though and there are so many sections of the game where in order to progress you have to return to a seemingly already completed area for what feels like no reason just to trigger whatever event will allow the story to actually move forward. Even when the game is guiding you properly it feels much more reliant on NPCs telling you precisely where to go and what to do, rather than SMT1 which strung the characters along with a more natural chain of cause and effect.

And while we're talking about this the layout of the map, which has a sort of central hub for large portions of the game, requires you to spend so much time moving back and forth through the same areas in a way that simply didn't happen to this degree before. It's a tiresome and draining experience to have to walk back through the same connecting tunnel over and over again. This presents gigantic pacing problems especially for the middle sequence of the game which feels like it puts the plot on pause for an unrelated and uninteresting side story.

Combat balance feels slightly better here but is still broken and exploitable. Once you figure out one of the handful of winning strategies there's very few things that will ever challenge or punish you for abusing that endlessly or push you out of your comfort zone. This is a problem with many of these games and not at all a unique fault of SMT2 though.

On top of this the negotiation and demon summoning systems are outright downgrades over the SMT1 system. No longer can you directly ask demons for money or magnetite, which means that you're much more limited in your capacity to summon allies for stretches of the game. In SMT1 I negotiated constantly throughout the game, in SMT2 I barely used it outside of recruitment. Maybe it was a bit too easy to become loaded up with cash or MAG through this method, but I would have preferred some light rebalancing over just removing these options. This might have one of the worst negotiation systems in a mainline game, it feels somehow even less robust than MT1 and 2 on the NES! And being unable to use my demons as much as I would have liked really sucked some of the fun out of the greatly improved fusion and team-building options.

The worldbuilding and payoff therein is where this game picks itself back up though and proves to be a real winner. It's full of intriguing characters and revelatory moments, all this with the quick pacing of an SNES rpg rather than the plodding, exposition heavy slog you might expect a more modern Atlus game to deliver these story beats. The themes of Law and Chaos are explored in even greater depth here, with the former philosophy in particular truly codifying itself in this game. And this time around every alignment has a satisfying and complete feeling ending, whereas in SMT1 it always felt as though the non-neutral routes were half-assed in their conclusion. It's a truly incredible journey that culminates in one of the greatest climaxes and ending sequences I've ever experienced in a video game, though there are so many other fantastic moments peppered throughout.

While it might sound like I've been harsh on the game I still felt the experience was worthwhile, even if not incredible like its predecessors. The ways in which it disappointed hold what is a good game back from being an all-time classic like many of the games in the series it's derived from. This is the first time in the series that I felt like playing my first playthrough without a guide hindered instead of enhanced the experience. The reward of figuring out what to do when I did almost never was enough to counter the frustration I felt as I wandered the entire game world figuring out what arbitrary NPC it wanted me to talk to. But at the same time playing with a guide at your side and constantly referencing it instead of becoming absorbed into the world isn't exactly fun either.

(This is petty but I also couldn't help but complain about this game being, what I view, as the beginning of this series' weird obsession with Masakado. He was present in some previous releases but this is the first time a game seemed almost fetishistic in its portrayal of this dude.)

My hope is to revisit this game if the PS1 version ever receives a retranslation and hope that the improved interface and updates will lift up my opinion of it, as there's something monumental here that was slowly chipped away at by a mountain of small grievances.

A pretty ingenious game, Fallout provides a small slice of well-crafted game world full of potential. The time limit is a stroke of genius that gives you enough urgency to avoid stupid behavior like rest-spamming or loot ferrying while lenient enough that as long as you don't totally ignore your key objectives you should have plenty of time to complete them.

Combat is a bit one note, mostly consisting of luring enemies around corners and abusing one's understanding of the AP cost for actions to deny them turns. While it's not devoid of tactical depth it does leave something to be desired. The body targeting system is a pretty clever idea, but due to damage being mostly homogenous across enemies and a lack of armor for specific body parts you're pretty much always best off attacking a few key weak points. It would be far more interesting if you were encouraged to tackle foes in different ways, going body or limb shots against enemies wearing helmets or disabling certain pieces of gear. The game plays with this slightly but it's simply too underdeveloped.

The worldbuilding is exceptional but even more so in how it's delivered to the player. Many sidequests and minor characters feedback into the major narrative of the game, often in unexpected ways and it leads to a cohesiveness that is ideal for crafting your own story. I was frequently performing some task that was seemingly unrelated to the game's main quest and would find myself uncovering new story beats or background details or even finding useful info or tools that fed back into it, giving the real sense that I was building up my character's own unique adventure.

The atmosphere throughout all of this is fantastic at capturing the moody, dusky wasteland and the pre-rendered backgrounds and clay models used for important NPC heads look great. There's a good amount here to see and do but also no real pressure to do all of it. Despite the max level of 20 I only got about halfway there by the time I'd beaten the game, meaning there's tons of wiggle room with clever play.

Fallout is a densely packed, 15-20 hour adventure full of replayability and in which nearly every moment feels meaningful. It's a shame more crpgs don't use this as a template instead of giving us needlessly massive games with actually interesting content spread far too thin across them. It's a game I can easily see myself coming back to many times to experience its atmosphere, explore missed and optional quests, attempt alternate solutions and pathways and just generally enjoy playing something good that doesn't demand I devote a month of my time to it in order to get something worthwhile from the effort.

As a series of game mechanics Diablo has a difficult time justifying itself. The gameplay loop is simple and lacking in variety, even for its short runtime. It's far too easy to circumvent nearly any obstacle by running headlong into it while sustaining yourself on a dripfeed of outrageously cheap potions. Tactical options (especially as the warrior I chose to play) are limited, with little more than some light kiting and funneling into chokepoints as options. Perhaps multiplayer increases what you can do here and the fun involved, but I chose to play solo.

Setting aside its gameplay faults, treating Diablo as 10ish hour experience about venturing deeper and deeper into the depths of depravity, melancholy and terror proves a far more worthwhile experience, and one I don't regret in the slightest.

In my short time with it the town of Tristram may be one of the most memorable locations I've experienced in a video game. The withered foliage and lifeless fields, melancholy soundtrack that plays with each return visit and the stories of its few, tortured inhabitants all sell the image of a decaying place, torn apart by the recent experiences wrought upon it. The story told here is straightforward and yet presents such a singular attitude with unwavering confidence in itself. By the end of the adventure I felt compelled to help rid the people here of the terror that had plagued them for too long.

The seemingly unending depths of the dungeon beneath the city reinforce the mood here exceptionally well, with only the dim radius of light around your hero as you venture further and further in, systematically clearing out floors and wary of danger at every turn.

It was interesting to see just how much of the roguelike DNA that Diablo was born from still lingered in its veins. I already knew the game originated from games like Angband and had even been turn based at one point in its development, but so many of the gameplay elements of the classic roguelike hold true here. The random shrines with blessings or curses, map layouts consisting of enormous rooms linked by tiny halls and even the presence of the game's villain as a regular enemy on the final map whose death calls an immediate end to the gameplay are all charming reminders of the game's historic roots.

(This is a review of the original release with the expansion, not the Enhanced Edition)

It's impressive how dedicated a young and inexperienced Bioware was to faithfully recreating the low level D&D experience. This unfortunately includes all the not-so fun parts of it like random oneshots from low level enemies and mages who can't do shit. Unfortunately for Baldur's Gate it lacks all the cool ancillary elements that help you forget about this like eating pizza while joking around with your pals and a cognizant DM to paper over the rough patches of the game.

If you can get past this early-game roughness though you'll find that slowly but surely the game opens up and starts to become something really interesting. I think it was around the Nashkel Mines that it finally began to win me over. With some levels under our belts battles finally felt a little more like I was winning by strategy rather than luck and exploration became feasible. A whole lot of your time for the first half of the game is going to be spent wandering around random woodlands and chopping through hobgoblins and wolves, praying you don't get ambushed by a clearly unwinnable battle on map transition. Baldur's Gate is roughest when you begin and only grows better the more you play.

By the time you reach the titular city proper you'll finally be in a level range that you'll feel competent just in time for the game to open up and give you the opportunity to take on more or less any sidequests you want. There's a ridiculous amount of optional stuff going on here and I didn't even come close to doing all of it, probably not even half if I had to guess.

The Real Time With Pause combat the game uses has become contentious over the years. For many players the need to frequently interrupt the action by pausing to issue commands sort of defeats the benefits of real time. The only occasions you get to enjoy seeing your characters actually chop through enemies unimpeded is during fights with mindless trash mobs. Outside of that you'll be tapping that space bar every few seconds to issue commands. The hybrid gameplay fails to fully capitalize on the tension and finesse of a full time system or the relaxed planning of a turn based one.

Despite my issues with the system and even with its faults there are genuinely fun and engaging encounters to be found across the game. There were plenty of times I came up against a tough battle that I had to really think, strategize and plan my party around to tackle without any losses. The game is also really good at distributing fun tools like wands, potions and spells that give you creative opportunities for how you want to tackle each encounter. I was always finding cool ways to use these to help in fights that seemed insurmountable otherwise.

Pathfinding in this game is a pain in the ass. When you click on a location your characters will frequently take the most roundabout path possible or start to go in the completely opposite direction cause they bumped into another npc or minor obstacle. It requires you to babysit them a lot and is just annoying. They also have a frustrating tendency to break formation meaning you'll often end up with your squishy mages and thieves standing in the front lines if you aren't constantly engineering for them to sit in the back. It just adds a whole lot of busywork without real value to the simple act of moving around. This is exacerbated by the dungeon designs which use tabletop-style narrow corridors that your party is going to constantly get stuck moving through.

I also found the attempt to simulate rest and travel ambushes to just be annoying. The fatigue mechanic makes it clear that playing without resting wasn't the developer's intent. But getting ambushed early on can be a death sentence, especially if you really needed to recharge your spells, and having it happen in the late game is nothing more than a minor nuisance. It really feels awkwardly implemented and like they just never found a satisfying way to balance the system.

The story in Baldur's Gate does as much as possible to stay out of the player's way for as long as possible. The majority of the game is going to be whatever you make of it, adventuring and doing random odd jobs for NPCs like getting their items back from some monsters who stole it or the like. Companions are likewise very barebones, most consisting of just an introductory recruitment and possibly a single questline. There's only occasional party banter and no one has much of anything to say. There are a ton of different NPCs to recruit though meaning you'll have a lot of freedom in how you want to build out your party.

It's only in the final third of the game or so that the plot that has been slowly building up starts to come together. Ultimately there's not much to be said about it unfortunately save for the fact that the antagonist's methods are surprisingly well thought out and there are some interesting revelations that are built up to well. But really this isn't a game that puts much emphasis on its major plot. Baldur's Gate seems more interested in letting the player make it the kind of story they want to.

Of the expansion content I only engaged seriously with Durlag's Tower and found it to be a really fun experience. It was easily the best dungeon in the entire game and full of interesting encounters, traps, puzzles and some surprisingly effective storytelling, with Durlag's story serving almost as a sort of cautionary tale toward the potential fate of our would-be hero. Absolutely worth playing through.

If you can get past the rough opening and the cumbersome nature of the pathfinding you'll find a game that I think is well worth experiencing and enjoying. At the very least it's worthwhile to get to the city of Baldur's Gate so you can enjoy the full sandbox experience the game has to offer of traveling and adventuring.

Separate Ways completes the RE4 remake by serving as a reservoir to catch most (albeit not all) of the memorable setpieces from the original 2005 game that didn't quite find their way into the main game.

In this regard it's a monumental step up over the previous version of Separate Ways even if it technically has to siphon away some of the base game's goodness to do so. The encounters here are solid and the pacing is fast. It does still occasionally dip into its precuror's tendency to rehash areas from the base game without doing quite enough new with them to justify it. That's not to say that it's without entirely new ideas as there's a couple of quite clever uses of old areas and some completely new ones (though a notable lack of battleships).

Little has changed about combat between Leon and Ada, the most notable addition being the use of Ada's grappling hook which lets her zip instantly to a stunned enemy to deliver a melee attack. It's a nice feature that helps alleviate those frustrating moments when an enemy is just a bit too far to get in for a melee strike, while still warranting cautious play and not ziplining yourself into the center of a pack of enemies. Aside from this one wrinkle all the positives and negatives of the original game's combat are still present. The game continues to impress with its frenzied and mobile combat, tight ammo economy and hardy enemies. At the same time the occasional awkward sluggishness of movement and super armor on late-game enemies remain sore spots.

The storytelling is of the same quality as the base game, which is to say that it utterly fails to exude the same charm its namesake so effortlessly channeled. Only Luis' charismatic performance is a reprieve from the otherwise dull scene direction in the remake. The rest of the remake's script can't help but give the impression that it's in a hurry to get itself over with.

Overall a practically mandatory addition to the game that's well worth the low price of entry. If you liked what the game had to offer already then this is more of it in a very well-made package.

Condenses Pokemon down into its core, mechanical appeal. You lose all of the adventure game trappings in the process, but these tend to be the least-polished elements of fan games. What you gain in return is a fast-paced, streamlined game where each run feels like a complete, satisfying experience despite only taking a few hours. All killer, no filler, as the saying goes.

The randomization leads to interesting team compositions you would never otherwise consider and your limited supplies mean that resource management is relevant in a way it's never been in the main series or even most fan-games. Permanent KOs for your Pokemon mean you'll really consider your actions in battle and their long and short-term consequences. Smart play is heavily incentivized and rewarded.

On top of this there's a load of unlockables (either by completing the game or using a secret switch in the hub) like more Pokemon all the way up to Generation 8, double battles as a format, and a ton more.

The only major downside is how routes tend to feel a bit samey and like in any roguelike there's going to be rare runs where you feel like the game just has it out for you.

Replaying Red today it's a beautifully paced game that makes you feel like you've gone on the adventure of a lifetime in just a dozen hours or so. Attempting to denigrate it by posting gigantic lists of bugs or comparing it to its successors is an effort that undermines what the experience of actually playing the game is like. No one seriously thinks or cares about the fact that swift has a 1/256 chance of missing when they're racing down cycling road, hunting for rare catches in the Safari Zone or about to do battle for another badge, nor should they.

Red/Blue feature some of the more interesting dungeons in the series like the towering teleport maze that is Silph Co. or the haunting Pokemon Tower. And I particularly appreciate how the game begins in linear fashion and slowly opens up, giving the player more freedom in how they want to explore the world during the middle segment before narrowing down yet again for the finale at the League.

There are nitpicks I can levy against the game like the fact that a lot of Pokemon really seem to lack interesting learnsets which makes the process of leveling less exciting, or that enemy AI is a little too eager to give you free wins at times, but these are minor bumps in the road of what is a great and fun experience that's still worth playing for anyone.

I think it's particularly noteworthy that this is one of few RPGs I can think of in which your motivations are primarily proactive. While there is something of a villain that's more of a sidestory compared to the real motivator of becoming champion. The lack of world-ending stakes gives the adventure a sense of purity and makes it truly feel your own.

Two years may as well be a lifetime in the eyes of an eight year old boy. The two I spent between the release of Pokemon Red and Silver were full of countless new experiences, memories, friends made and lessons learned. Two years older and wiser and yet just as much of an unrepentantly dorky child who was just as Pokemon-obsessed, if not more so. I was unsurprisingly eager to get my hands on the newest game. Some of my most cherished childhood memories were spent staying up late with my father as we watched cartoons or old horror films and played and traded and battled with one another.

How's the game now though?

Game Freak must have been at a crossroads after the massive success of the first Pokemon games as there was a still-incomplete, but very far in-progress demo of Gold and Silver in 1997 that was largely scrapped. Some ideas from that game remain in the final product, but less than you would expect. Silver and Gold went through a long process of iteration and development was delayed.

There were some easy wins when it came to polishing up aspects of the engine and mechanics that basically everyone could agree were flawed in Red and Blue. Fixing various bugs, adding some new types and moves to rebalance the chart a little, adding bag slots for improved inventory organization, splitting special attack and defense into two stats and of course a hundred new Pokemon to play around with. The addition of items to battle adds a new element of pre-fight strategy, choice and synergy that gives battles just a little extra spice (even if nearly everybody would just default to using Leftovers if they could). The enemy trainer AI is also a huge improvement, at least for major battles anyway.

Most of these were good changes with no, or comparably small downsides. The awesome Gen 1 Hyper Beam was never quite as cool again once they fixed its recharge turn in this game, the formerly competent ice types were really left in the dust by the addition of new weaknesses and resistances, and the addition of many new items made dealing with the slightly larger but still limited inventory space just a bit more annoying than before. But these are little nitpicks in the grand scheme of things.

Outside of mechanical changes to existing systems though what particular stuck out to me in Silver is how much effort the developers placed into elements that would add to the immersion of the world. The game now features time tracking and a day/night cycle that mirrors that of the real world, with various daily events or those tied to specific days of the week like the bug catching contest, a changing color palette and wild encounters depending on the time of day, berries that regrow over time, a phone system for rematching trainers, a radio to listen to, a vastly expanded postgame (more on that later), etc etc.

The design makes it clear that Pokemon is no longer just a game you play through but a world that players can inhabit and come back to visit and spend time in long after completion. It's a really impressive feat for the Gameboy and it's no wonder I can remember spending such a huge amount of hours playing this game as a child even once I had dried up all the content. Compare this to Red in which I would always simply start a new save file shortly after becoming champion.

Silver doesn't come without its downsides compared to its predecessor though. As nice as all these new elements are it feels that some of that adventure along the way was lost in return for them. Dungeons and routes which were once full of danger feel comparatively sparse and simple in navigation now. There's nothing quite as intricate or imposing as the tower Silph Co. building from the first game or the harrowing trek through the original Victory Road. Gen 2 isn't without meaningful dungeons entirely, but they definitely play a far less prominent role than in the previous game.

In addition to smaller, simpler maps it feels as though the trainers are also fewer in number and the wild encounters are notably low in level. This in particular presents a small problem when it comes to team building, as it means there's a lot less experience to go around for a large player party, while also meaning if you choose to add a new Pokemon to your party at any point in the game there's a decent chance it will be significantly underleveled. On top of this many of the roster additions are either awkwardly placed or feel underwhelming statistically compared to the original set of Pokemon, meaning there's arguably less team variety between playthroughs. The lack of access to elemental stones is really frustrating with how many Pokemon need them to evolve.

Like Red before it this game also opens up around the time you get your fourth badge and lets you tackle several gyms in any order. The game attempts to account for this though by making these areas all of comparable levels which has the effect of meaning whichever two you go for last will generally be a lot easier than the first. It would have been better to still give the player that same freedom while keeping a linear progression of difficulty. Those who go off the beaten path are generally doing so because they intentionally want to face harsher challenges and most players are smart enough to know that if they run up against a wall they should go try a different path if one is open to them. This fumbles something that was executed perfectly fine previously.

These elements compound to make the middle of the adventure feel boring as there's both little stakes and little progress in terms of team growth. This is all on top of the shortness of routes and few and small dungeons makes Johto feel like a smaller, less exciting place to traverse than Kanto in the previous game was. And all this while mirroring Kanto in ways that weren't really necessary, such as how HMs are found in a similar order and at similar progression points in the game. At times it feels like Game Freak were a little unwilling to step from the shadow of their previous success and try something more new and unique over repeating the same gym challenge again, even if in a less satisfying manner.

I don't mean for all this to sound as though the game is bad, since it's generally not and I still enjoyed my time traveling through Johto. Still, these lesser elements stood out to me as I was playing and it's impossible to avoid comparison to one's predecessor when so directly following it up and mirroring its layout. The trip to become champion isn't nearly as engaging or fun as Red/Blue and whether or not the newly added elements are enough to counterbalance that for you is going to vary from player to player. I personally preferred the more exciting pacing of Red. It's a shame though since there was ultimately nothing preventing Silver from achieving that too, it just seemed to fall to the wayside of the game's other pursuits.

Perhaps what Generation 2 is most famous and infamous for is its postgame, in which after beating the champion again the player is able to return to the previous game's map and explore it all over again. This has been lauded for being a shocking twist and impressive feat for the gameboy as well as criticized for the cut down and simplified nature of Kanto needed in order to fit the game into Gold and Silver's development time.

After the initial excitement of returning to the familiar map from the first game wears off there's a distinct sense of hollowness to visiting Kanto. Viridian Forest has been cut down leaving only a tiny path in its wake, an eruption has destroyed Cinnabar Island save for a tiny pokecenter, the enormous mausoleum that was the Pokemon Tower has been stripped down and replaced with a radio tower, the Safari Zone is permanently closed after the warden suddenly took off, and our former player avatar from Red version has been missing for three years.

Past even these examples so many of the people and places we'd visited during our previous adventure feel like worn down versions of their former selves. Rampant urbanization (a theme already touched on lightly in Red/Blue) has taken its toll on Kanto. The vibrant forests of Satoshi Tajiri's childhood that inspired these games are no more. This stands in stark contrast with Johto which is steeped in tradition and ancient landmarks.

The postgame of Gold and Silver, whether by design intent, development limitations or a happy marriage between the two, manages to invoke the feeling of looking back upon a happy past that brings back good memories, but can ultimately never be returned to in the same way. Playing through Kanto in Gen 2 was the first time I'd ever felt this particular bittersweet nostalgia as a child and it's an even stronger sensation now in adulthood. In much the same way my modern playthroughs of this game will never quite be the same as those unforgettable memories, but it's still nice to reminisce every now and then.

For as melancholy as this all might sound it needn't be seen as a bad thing, perhaps best exemplified in the game's final challenge. On the top of Mt. Silver we face off against none other than our previous self, a ghost of the past who upon defeat wordlessly departs as we end the game with the knowledge that we've become a stronger, smarter and hopefully better version of what we once were.

The credits for the original release of Pokemon Red lists just 23 names, for Silver this was bumped up slightly to 28. By contrast Pokemon Sapphire features more than 60 developers in its credits. The transition from the Gameboy Color to GBA was apparently a difficult one for Game Freak as recounted in interviews, with this also being the first title in which Masuda took over as full time Director.

Despite the apparent internal difficulties I would say it doesn't show much in the final product, as Sapphire comes across as an extremely polished and good-looking GBA game. The spritework both on the overworld and in battle has taken a considerable leap in detail. The use of negative space is pared back as all battles and tiles on the overworld now feature full-colored backgrounds.

This all works to give the game a vibrant, colorful feeling that suits the tone of adventure and exploring a completely new place that's set up by the intro of our character moving to a new town. There's none of the melancholy of Gen 2 here, with Hoenn portrayed as a distinctly lively and energetic place full of adventure.

This game also marks the point at which more overt fantasy elements started to become introduced into the world. Obviously the Pokemon themselves were always fantastical creatures, but outside of this the world of Red/Blue felt more like an analogue to our own modern day world with the presence of Pokemon being the key distinguishing factor. Even the most powerful legendary Pokemon was a product of science rather than divine intervention. Silver/Gold took us to a more rural setting and introduced more elements of mythology to the world, but largely left the veracity of these elements as mysteries for the player to speculate on.

Sapphire (and its sister game Ruby) are the first time we see Pokemon displaying god-like, world changing powers outside of random Pokedex entries that have no bearing on the actual gameplay. It's also the first time in which legendary Pokemon feature prominently in the plot (as despite their presence on the box art the legendaries remained optional sidequests in Gold/Silver). Now they both define the plot as well as dictate progress through the game more so than the traditional league championship story does. The environments we travel also end up feeling more fantastical and divorced from our own world than those in Gold and Silver were, with Sootopolis and Fortree being notable examples.

Technically some of these elements were first introduced in Crystal, which leaves that particular title as a sort of bridge between the storytelling of the first two generations and this one. While attempting to do something new isn't a bad thing, the overall plot is very sparse and a little bit nonsensical even for a lighthearted adventure. I ultimately preferred the more proactive storylines of Red and Silver, but a better execution of what Sapphire goes for wouldn't necessarily be bad.

Some big mechanical shakeups are introduced in this generation with the addition of Natures and Abilities for Pokemon. Abilities add a nice bit of battle flavor to each Pokemon beyond just their stats and learnsets, and while they do increase the burden of knowledge on the player I think it's ultimately well worth it. I was impressed with how conservative the abilities in this game are as well, with very few absurdly powerful ones (though some like intimidate are clearly a cut above the rest).

I'm slightly more mixed on the inclusion of Natures, which determine which of a Pokemon's core stats will be increased and decreased. While nice for adding variety on paper, there's no doubt that some Natures simply mesh better with certain Pokemon. As such it can be disappointing to catch something you wanted and realize it has a Nature that is almost entirely detrimental to it. Most Pokemon will have around 4-8 of the 25 Natures that benefit their playstyle. This means they're far more likely to have a suboptimal one, and while they may still be perfectly usable for completing the game that fact will always nag at the back of your mind once you understand the system.

On another gameplay front Game Freak did make efforts to improve Pokemon learnsets in this game. While they're still fairly conservative most Pokemon continue to gain better moves as they level up now, with very few 'garbage' moves at higher levels as they once had. Access to coverage moves (particularly by TMs) has increased somewhat too, and while still restrictive enough to keep teambuilding interesting it does somewhat move Pokemon further away from the rock-paper-scissors dynamic that defined Red/Blue and mostly remained true in Silver/Gold. Switching to make better use of type advantage is ultimately less effective when many Pokemon will have sneaky moves unrelated to their type in their arsenal.

This especially hurts Pokemon with lots of weaknesses and specific defensive roles like Aggron. We're not quite at the point where it's easy to have an individual Pokemon that can cover all its own weaknesses, but we do inch ever closer to that potential future. There's at least little/no power creep visible in this game and if anything many of the Hoenn Pokemon aside from some obvious contenders feel a bit weak compared to their Kanto/Johto counterparts.

While Sapphire is still a comfortably easy game to play through it does contain more advanced enemy trainer AI and better team composition than any of the Gameboy games. Trainers are more likely to have evolved Pokemon later into the game and to make more effective use of their moves, some even employing niche strategies. A random Milotic-carrying NPC toward the mid-late game even managed to surprise me with their defensive strategy that nearly managed to take my team out.

Sapphire notably cuts back on the more immersive elements introduced in Gold/Silver. There's no more day/night cycle or phone and while the real-time clock still exists its only major use is for growing berries. Events based upon days of the week are a thing of the past and ultimately the game returns to the more focused, adventure-based structure of Red and Blue. It is also even more linear than both previous games with few points in which the player can get badges out of order (and virtually no reason to when they can). This isn't necessarily a bad thing as it leads to a more focused gameplay experience and Ruby/Sapphire come with their own additional gameplay elements in the form of secret bases, and more notably contests.

Contests provide a method of progression and gameplay for raising Pokemon that doesn't involve battle, which makes them a fantastic introduction to the overall gameplay structure. I do wish there was slightly more to them, as it'd be great if contests had their own alternate 'endgame' like the battling side of the equation, but even without that they're still a nice feature. Secret bases are more limited in scope and basically expand on the room decorating element of Gold and Silver, but with far more decoration options as well as the ability for the player to choose where in the overworld they want their base. There's not ultimately much you can really do with them, but it is a fun little side feature for those that want to keep on playing.

It's very difficult for me to find faults with Sapphire as it's a polished game with lots of fun features and content. It's admirable how well Game Freak were able to make their transition to the GBA seem effortless despite the apparent internal struggles with this title. This easily ranks up there among the better games on a platform with a whole lot of good titles.