Pokemon, due to its popularity and missed potential in many of its games, is often debated among gamers as to what the ideal Pokemon game would be. After playing this, I think these Hoenn games are pretty close to the ideal.
Let me clear this up quickly: third versions of Pokemon games have a status as being the definitive version of a set of games, and there is no reason to play any that came before it. While it is true that Emerald added some extra content, 90% of the game is just the same. If you play Ruby or Sapphire, you aren't missing THAT much from Emerald. Emerald has some solid additions, like the Ferry actually being a place you can explore, being able to get both fossils, and being able to cleanly go in a straight line from Verdanturf to Route 118, making breeding easier, and the Battle Frontier (namely, the Battle Factory, my beloved). However, Emerald is actually worse in a couple regards - namely being the PokeNav constantly going off from phone calls from random trainers, Ditto being accessible making breeding for the Pokedex more lame, and, for some reason, being able to catch a Level 70 boxart legendary before the Elite 4.
Onto the game, I've gotta say - WOW! The GBA games are the ones I tend to see the most nostalgia for these days (maybe it's just a generational thing?), and I've got no question as to why. One of the game's biggest strengths is its map - incredibly interconnected, loading zones take almost no time at all, and are super lovely to go through. This game truly feels like it takes advantage of its hardware and graphics - compare this to Gen 1 with its very basic map and routes containing nothing but trainers, this game has SCENERY! Beautiful waterfalls, carved out paths, reflections in the water, hidden crevasses, bike ramps, secret bases - not to mention the sheer variety of places you can go! What really sells me on the game is that you really don't have to explore all that much to progress, and being able to go to all these cool places on my own without being forced to makes this game feel genuinely open world in a way I've only seen Super Mario World match in how despite how small the world really is, objectively speaking, the amount of stuff everywhere, all the secrets, and how many random offshoots go to who-knows-where make this game absolutely exceptional. I mean come on, there's a desert, a cave with a high and low tide mechanic with a frozen over section, there's a ton of little diving spots that lead to new spots in the ocean you couldn't go otherwise, the entire Sky Pillar and Regi caves are barely alluded to, leading the player to have to find them on their own and be absolutely bewildered when they do. Gen 1 absolutely THRIVED off of playground rumors, so building the game like this absolutely plays to its strengths in a deceivingly massive world.
One thing that kills me is that people play these games with the speedup button practically held down, and it significantly dampens the experience in my eyes. It's a slow game, yes, but sit down, have a little patience. If you want to get a quick fill of battles, go play Emerald Rogue or Showdown or something. Speeding up so often in this game dulls you to the world, to battles, it numbs your experience a lot.
Really, I can't stress enough how much I love the map in this game. Had I been a young boy, I would likely have gone around the map so many times just to see if there was something I missed - which honestly, there's so much stuff that there probably ARE things I missed on this playthrough. Furthermore, the Pokemon in the region are also excellently selected. Pokedexes have to pick a ratio between old and new, and Hoenn's absolutely nails it on that end. Not just in ratio, but also how they're distributed - at the beginning of the game, it's almost exclusively new stuff, with the rare older Pokemon around as a familiar, relieving sight.
Playing this time around, I used a bunch of unorthodox Pokemon I normally would never use. My final team was Blaziken, Ninjask, Tentacruel, Minun, Claydol, and Glalie. While they had struggles in the beginning, all of them eventually grew into their own niche, and all performed super well. Ninjask struggles against singular Pokemon, but against whole teams, it'll Swords Dance up and wreck them. Minun's stats aren't very good, but in exchange, it learns a bunch of VERY useful status moves, like Thunder Wave, Charm, Encore, and Baton Pass. Glalie, despite being such a late catch, actually pulled its weight VERY well, especially into the Elite 4. Of course, having tons and tons of team members, all of which can work well and the player can feel a bond towards, is a strength of any mainline Pokemon game, but still, worth mentioning.
The game is fairly solid in terms of difficulty. It isn't as hard as Emerald's gym leaders are, but the game definitely can throw some punches, especially Norman's gym. They gave him two Slakings, which was fucked up. Barely won. The game does struggle with finding a good spot for levels later on, as my team was very often underleveled, but I guess that's the cost of using a full team of 6, huh? I just don't like grinding is all.
Unlike Emerald, you actually get into a fight with the cover legendary in this game, which came as an absolute shock to me. It ended up being pretty epic, all things considered. I had to weigh my choices between taking the easy way out and killing it, or struggling, struggling, and struggling to catch it. You have a lot of pressure, too, since you only have that one chance. Sadly, this coolness is significantly reduced by the fact that you have the Master Ball at this point, removing any tension at all. How lame!
Most of my gripes with the game come in the very end, which felt weirdly rushed. "Rushed" isn't usually a term you see associated with Pokemon games (aside from the infamous performance issues of Scarlet/Violet), but it's weirdly fitting here. The Wally battle is super random and out of nowhere, and even stranger is the way he just stays there afterwards and you can fight him again sometimes? You enter Ever Grande City, which isn't even a city. It would have been cool to have a lovely place reserved for only the strongest trainers, retired champions and the like, with its own mart and houses and everything, but whatever. The Elite 4's teams are just... odd. Phoebe and Glacia using only 3 and 2 lines of Pokemon families, respectively, comes off as really strange. Two glalies, two Sealeos and a Walrein. Drake also only has three lines of Pokemon, although Emerald fixes it by replacing one of his Flygons with a Kingdra. Steven being the Champion is just kinda... alright, I guess? You only saw him a couple of times in the game (the Double Battle with him in the Mossdeep Space Center is only in Emerald). And when I beat him, May came in (???? these are supposed to be one-on-one matches, how did she even get in? The door always locks behind you in every room) along with Professor Birch, who told me to use Rock Smash to find Pokemon and then I got taken to the Hall of Fame. The whole ending part of this game after the 8th gym leader really does just feel unfinished, in all honesty. This is made worse by the fact that they don't have rematch teams! And you can't rematch Gym Leaders in this one! So grinding levels on Pokemon for Pokedex purposes takes a LOT longer in this game than it should in others. I beat the Elite Four for the first time in 39 hours, but I didn't complete the Dex until 62 hours in - most of which was spent just going to the Elite Four over and over! If you plan on also catching the whole dex, please, watch a show or movie in the meantime.
One other things I'll mention is this game has a lot of strange details that are easy to miss, like the TV channels showing things like the Game Corner's service day, the Energy Guru, and swarms. There's the VERY complicated Pokeblock mechanic as well. Contests are neat, but are hard to get into and aren't super rewarding. Secret Bases are badass, but in my adult age, aren't something I'll spend a lot of time doing. This game is absolutely chock full of things to do, but not all of those things are very interesting is what I'm trying to say.
This game left me wanting more. Like, why does this game not have cool quality of life things like showing you what's about to come in when you play on Switch and you hit A too fast and go straight to the Pokemon menu? Why does it not offer me to use another Repel after I run out? Why can't I go hunting for Pokemon with May?! That's not something I'd hold against it, though. It just means what I played was really good.
That's most of what I can say. Definitely a really really solid game, even if it is very slow and uninteresting at times. What's here is a genuinely great game. I haven't played most of the mainline Pokemon series, but I'd wager these are some of the best games out of them all.
Let me clear this up quickly: third versions of Pokemon games have a status as being the definitive version of a set of games, and there is no reason to play any that came before it. While it is true that Emerald added some extra content, 90% of the game is just the same. If you play Ruby or Sapphire, you aren't missing THAT much from Emerald. Emerald has some solid additions, like the Ferry actually being a place you can explore, being able to get both fossils, and being able to cleanly go in a straight line from Verdanturf to Route 118, making breeding easier, and the Battle Frontier (namely, the Battle Factory, my beloved). However, Emerald is actually worse in a couple regards - namely being the PokeNav constantly going off from phone calls from random trainers, Ditto being accessible making breeding for the Pokedex more lame, and, for some reason, being able to catch a Level 70 boxart legendary before the Elite 4.
Onto the game, I've gotta say - WOW! The GBA games are the ones I tend to see the most nostalgia for these days (maybe it's just a generational thing?), and I've got no question as to why. One of the game's biggest strengths is its map - incredibly interconnected, loading zones take almost no time at all, and are super lovely to go through. This game truly feels like it takes advantage of its hardware and graphics - compare this to Gen 1 with its very basic map and routes containing nothing but trainers, this game has SCENERY! Beautiful waterfalls, carved out paths, reflections in the water, hidden crevasses, bike ramps, secret bases - not to mention the sheer variety of places you can go! What really sells me on the game is that you really don't have to explore all that much to progress, and being able to go to all these cool places on my own without being forced to makes this game feel genuinely open world in a way I've only seen Super Mario World match in how despite how small the world really is, objectively speaking, the amount of stuff everywhere, all the secrets, and how many random offshoots go to who-knows-where make this game absolutely exceptional. I mean come on, there's a desert, a cave with a high and low tide mechanic with a frozen over section, there's a ton of little diving spots that lead to new spots in the ocean you couldn't go otherwise, the entire Sky Pillar and Regi caves are barely alluded to, leading the player to have to find them on their own and be absolutely bewildered when they do. Gen 1 absolutely THRIVED off of playground rumors, so building the game like this absolutely plays to its strengths in a deceivingly massive world.
One thing that kills me is that people play these games with the speedup button practically held down, and it significantly dampens the experience in my eyes. It's a slow game, yes, but sit down, have a little patience. If you want to get a quick fill of battles, go play Emerald Rogue or Showdown or something. Speeding up so often in this game dulls you to the world, to battles, it numbs your experience a lot.
Really, I can't stress enough how much I love the map in this game. Had I been a young boy, I would likely have gone around the map so many times just to see if there was something I missed - which honestly, there's so much stuff that there probably ARE things I missed on this playthrough. Furthermore, the Pokemon in the region are also excellently selected. Pokedexes have to pick a ratio between old and new, and Hoenn's absolutely nails it on that end. Not just in ratio, but also how they're distributed - at the beginning of the game, it's almost exclusively new stuff, with the rare older Pokemon around as a familiar, relieving sight.
Playing this time around, I used a bunch of unorthodox Pokemon I normally would never use. My final team was Blaziken, Ninjask, Tentacruel, Minun, Claydol, and Glalie. While they had struggles in the beginning, all of them eventually grew into their own niche, and all performed super well. Ninjask struggles against singular Pokemon, but against whole teams, it'll Swords Dance up and wreck them. Minun's stats aren't very good, but in exchange, it learns a bunch of VERY useful status moves, like Thunder Wave, Charm, Encore, and Baton Pass. Glalie, despite being such a late catch, actually pulled its weight VERY well, especially into the Elite 4. Of course, having tons and tons of team members, all of which can work well and the player can feel a bond towards, is a strength of any mainline Pokemon game, but still, worth mentioning.
The game is fairly solid in terms of difficulty. It isn't as hard as Emerald's gym leaders are, but the game definitely can throw some punches, especially Norman's gym. They gave him two Slakings, which was fucked up. Barely won. The game does struggle with finding a good spot for levels later on, as my team was very often underleveled, but I guess that's the cost of using a full team of 6, huh? I just don't like grinding is all.
Unlike Emerald, you actually get into a fight with the cover legendary in this game, which came as an absolute shock to me. It ended up being pretty epic, all things considered. I had to weigh my choices between taking the easy way out and killing it, or struggling, struggling, and struggling to catch it. You have a lot of pressure, too, since you only have that one chance. Sadly, this coolness is significantly reduced by the fact that you have the Master Ball at this point, removing any tension at all. How lame!
Most of my gripes with the game come in the very end, which felt weirdly rushed. "Rushed" isn't usually a term you see associated with Pokemon games (aside from the infamous performance issues of Scarlet/Violet), but it's weirdly fitting here. The Wally battle is super random and out of nowhere, and even stranger is the way he just stays there afterwards and you can fight him again sometimes? You enter Ever Grande City, which isn't even a city. It would have been cool to have a lovely place reserved for only the strongest trainers, retired champions and the like, with its own mart and houses and everything, but whatever. The Elite 4's teams are just... odd. Phoebe and Glacia using only 3 and 2 lines of Pokemon families, respectively, comes off as really strange. Two glalies, two Sealeos and a Walrein. Drake also only has three lines of Pokemon, although Emerald fixes it by replacing one of his Flygons with a Kingdra. Steven being the Champion is just kinda... alright, I guess? You only saw him a couple of times in the game (the Double Battle with him in the Mossdeep Space Center is only in Emerald). And when I beat him, May came in (???? these are supposed to be one-on-one matches, how did she even get in? The door always locks behind you in every room) along with Professor Birch, who told me to use Rock Smash to find Pokemon and then I got taken to the Hall of Fame. The whole ending part of this game after the 8th gym leader really does just feel unfinished, in all honesty. This is made worse by the fact that they don't have rematch teams! And you can't rematch Gym Leaders in this one! So grinding levels on Pokemon for Pokedex purposes takes a LOT longer in this game than it should in others. I beat the Elite Four for the first time in 39 hours, but I didn't complete the Dex until 62 hours in - most of which was spent just going to the Elite Four over and over! If you plan on also catching the whole dex, please, watch a show or movie in the meantime.
One other things I'll mention is this game has a lot of strange details that are easy to miss, like the TV channels showing things like the Game Corner's service day, the Energy Guru, and swarms. There's the VERY complicated Pokeblock mechanic as well. Contests are neat, but are hard to get into and aren't super rewarding. Secret Bases are badass, but in my adult age, aren't something I'll spend a lot of time doing. This game is absolutely chock full of things to do, but not all of those things are very interesting is what I'm trying to say.
This game left me wanting more. Like, why does this game not have cool quality of life things like showing you what's about to come in when you play on Switch and you hit A too fast and go straight to the Pokemon menu? Why does it not offer me to use another Repel after I run out? Why can't I go hunting for Pokemon with May?! That's not something I'd hold against it, though. It just means what I played was really good.
That's most of what I can say. Definitely a really really solid game, even if it is very slow and uninteresting at times. What's here is a genuinely great game. I haven't played most of the mainline Pokemon series, but I'd wager these are some of the best games out of them all.