My first Gen 3 game from back in 02, haven't played since due to Pokemon Emerald being superior in almost every way.

Decided to play this for the hell of it. Being the first game I played this year, I had a blast despite the games shortcomings. It's a great game with wonderful music, a superb region and charming graphics. Was disappointed there was no 'superboss' at the end and if you want to use a unique team (like I did) then you have limited options until you have 4 badges.

If you haven't played a gen 3 game, just play Emerald instead, but you can't go wrong with Ruby, Sapphire or their 3d re-makes.

All of this applies to Ruby as well.

Gen 3 is a classic, and one of my favorite Gens. I still love these games quite a bit, and they're fun to play... but there's no reason to play them over Emerald nowadays. They were great for the time, and have great nostalgia value regardless though. If you're playing Gen 3 for the first time, however, play Emerald instead.

Score: 84

The jump from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance was truly an outstanding leap in Pokemon. Playing a game in the region of Hoenn after one of the Johto games feels like the developers had so much more they could work with, and it shows. Many of the problems in Gen I & II are now gone (though not all: the endgame level curve is still steep, the type diversity is better but still not fully there especially re: Steel type), and the game has more diversity in types of routes, now including a desert and a volcano! Though this game loses the branching that Pokemon had been known for up to this point, the story is legitimate and the dungeon quality ranges from decent to very good, with the only complaint being how many HM moves you need to know in victory road.

I really think Sapphire (and Ruby, also) is a great game on its own merits. It's a bit of a shame that Emerald is just Better, and you really do feel that when going back to Sapphire, but I'm basing my judgement on this games own merits, not that "it's not Emerald", especially since Emerald did derive from Ruby & Sapphire.

Alright, let's talk about the 3rd generation of Pokemon! In my opinion, Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire represent the biggest leap in the Pokemon franchise. I personally believe these games took the series the most amount of steps forward compared to any other generation. I don't believe these are incredible and ground-breaking video games by any means, but, for Pokemon's standards, they are pretty darn good.

The most noteworthy aspect about these games is how much harder the battles are compared to the previous generations, and that's primarily due to the improved AI, the slow level-up curve of the Pokemon used by the player, and the introduction of abilities. There's much more critical thinking involved with battles compared to the first 2 generations, so players will be spending more time in battles. Furthermore, the introduction of EV's and natures means that the Pokemon in these games have far more personality than their predecessors. Not every Pokemon of the same species the player captures is going to be practically identical anymore. Their stats will change in different ways, and they may have different abilities that cause them to gain certain advantages or disadvantages compared to other members of their species.

Let's talk about the new plot. This is the first time in the franchise when Team Rocket isn't the primary crime organization, and it just feels so refreshing. Despite how retarded Team Aqua and Team Magma's plans are, at least they don't involve just making money. Furthermore, the region the teams operate in isn't Kanto or connected to Kanto; it's an entirely new location with completely new NPC's, many new Pokemon, and an almost entirely different style of music. Whereas Gold & Silver were pretty much just a continuation of Red & Blue with a very lackluster set of new things in them, Ruby & Sapphire felt like a completely new slate for Pokemon. In my opinion, there is only 1 other generation of Pokemon games that felt like this, and I'll talk about it when I get to it.

Hoenn is, in my opinion, easily the best Pokemon region of this franchise so far. It just feels so much more alive than Kanto & Johto. Some reasons for why that is include the fact that everything is in full color as opposed to being monochromatic (Gen. 1) or having a very basic color scheme and execution (Gen. 2), detailed visuals, overworld weather conditions, etc. The world is just so much more interesting to explore. In Gen. 1 and (ESPECIALLY) Gen. 2, I never got that sense of wonder from going through the region city by city and route by route; it always felt like more of the same. Here, however, the world is just so much more unpredictable and exciting. Take the underwater areas, the chambers of the regis, the ENTIRE section between Mauville City and Fortree City, Seafloor Cavern, Sky Pillar, Meteor Falls, the routes before and after Fallarbor Town, Pacifidlog Town, Team Aqua and Team Magma's hideouts (in Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald), and Mt. Pyre. So many interesting and exciting locations filled with natural wonders just waiting to be explored. It's genuinely a breath of fresh air compared to the absolute SLOG that was the journey through Johto.

It's not just the region that has this sense of newness to it; it's also the music. Now, I'm not a music expert; in fact, I know next to NOTHING about music theory. So, unfortunately, I'll be quite brief here. All I'll say is that, if you compare the soundtrack of Gen. 3 to those of Gen. 1 and Gen. 2, it feels almost entirely different. I don't know if it's the trumpets or the fact that the system is not 8-bit anymore, but, either way, I just love the novelty in it. Again, it goes back to what I said earlier about how these games felt like a completely blank state for Pokemon. Some of my favorite themes include the Gym theme, the Gym Leader theme, Cave of Origin's theme, Petalburg Woods's theme, the crime boss's theme, Steven's theme, Groudon, Kyogre, & Rayquaza's theme, and the rival's battle theme.

While I do think these are great Pokemon games, I don't think they are incredible games in general. There will almost always be a glass ceiling when it comes to my ratings of Pokemon games, and that's because, while these games are fun to play, they're nothing special, in my opinion. There's nothing about them that ever really blows me away. The characters & storylines are practically never well-developed and nuanced, even in the games that are much better in these aspects, like Black & White. The character motivations seem very superficial and questionable most of the time, and the plots never really proceed in a way that make sense. In fact, a lot of things never make sense in these games. For instance, why do the adults always give up their evil plans after losing Pokemon battles to kids? Are they not able to carry out their malicious schemes without their Pokemon? Also, why in the living fuck do Maxie & Archie want to expand the world's landmass and seamass, respectively? They don't even seem like scientists with real, practical applications behind these goals; they just seem like schizos who got high one too many times and thought it would be a cool idea to raise these primordial deities of nature because of how much it would fuck the world up.

In the end, though, I still appreciate how much effort went into the design of these games. I honestly feel that, without them, people would've gotten burnt out of the Pokemon franchise LONG ago.

Alright, let's talk about the 3rd generation of Pokemon! In my opinion, Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire represent the biggest leap in the Pokemon franchise. I personally believe these games took the series the most amount of steps forward compared to any other generation. I don't believe these are incredible and ground-breaking video games by any means, but, for Pokemon's standards, they are pretty darn good.

The most noteworthy aspect about these games is how much harder the battles are compared to the previous generations, and that's primarily due to the improved AI, the slow level-up curve of the Pokemon used by the player, and the introduction of abilities. There's much more critical thinking involved with battles compared to the first 2 generations, so players will be spending more time in battles. Furthermore, the introduction of EV's and natures means that the Pokemon in these games have far more personality than their predecessors. Not every Pokemon of the same species the player captures is going to be practically identical anymore. Their stats will change in different ways, and they may have different abilities that cause them to gain certain advantages or disadvantages compared to other members of their species.

Let's talk about the new plot. This is the first time in the franchise when Team Rocket isn't the primary crime organization, and it just feels so refreshing. Despite how retarded Team Aqua and Team Magma's plans are, at least they don't involve just making money. Furthermore, the region the teams operate in isn't Kanto or connected to Kanto; it's an entirely new location with completely new NPC's, many new Pokemon, and an almost entirely different style of music. Whereas Gold & Silver were pretty much just a continuation of Red & Blue with a very lackluster set of new things in them, Ruby & Sapphire felt like a completely new slate for Pokemon. In my opinion, there is only 1 other generation of Pokemon games that felt like this, and I'll talk about it when I get to it.

Hoenn is, in my opinion, easily the best Pokemon region of this franchise so far. It just feels so much more alive than Kanto & Johto. Some reasons for why that is include the fact that everything is in full color as opposed to being monochromatic (Gen. 1) or having a very basic color scheme and execution (Gen. 2), detailed visuals, overworld weather conditions, etc. The world is just so much more interesting to explore. In Gen. 1 and (ESPECIALLY) Gen. 2, I never got that sense of wonder from going through the region city by city and route by route; it always felt like more of the same. Here, however, the world is just so much more unpredictable and exciting. Take the underwater areas, the chambers of the regis, the ENTIRE section between Mauville City and Fortree City, Seafloor Cavern, Sky Pillar, Meteor Falls, the routes before and after Fallarbor Town, Pacifidlog Town, Team Aqua and Team Magma's hideouts (in Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald), and Mt. Pyre. So many interesting and exciting locations filled with natural wonders just waiting to be explored. It's genuinely a breath of fresh air compared to the absolute SLOG that was the journey through Johto.

It's not just the region that has this sense of newness to it; it's also the music. Now, I'm not a music expert; in fact, I know next to NOTHING about music theory. So, unfortunately, I'll be quite brief here. All I'll say is that, if you compare the soundtrack of Gen. 3 to those of Gen. 1 and Gen. 2, it feels almost entirely different. I don't know if it's the trumpets or the fact that the system is not 8-bit anymore, but, either way, I just love the novelty in it. Again, it goes back to what I said earlier about how these games felt like a completely blank state for Pokemon. Some of my favorite themes include the Gym theme, the Gym Leader theme, Cave of Origin's theme, Petalburg Woods's theme, the crime boss's theme, Steven's theme, Groudon, Kyogre, & Rayquaza's theme, and the rival's battle theme.

While I do think these are great Pokemon games, I don't think they are incredible games in general. There will almost always be a glass ceiling when it comes to my ratings of Pokemon games, and that's because, while these games are fun to play, they're nothing special, in my opinion. There's nothing about them that ever really blows me away. The characters & storylines are practically never well-developed and nuanced, even in the games that are much better in these aspects, like Black & White. The character motivations seem very superficial and questionable most of the time, and the plots never really proceed in a way that make sense. In fact, a lot of things never make sense in these games. For instance, why do the adults always give up their evil plans after losing Pokemon battles to kids? Are they not able to carry out their malicious schemes without their Pokemon? Also, why in the living fuck do Maxie & Archie want to expand the world's landmass and seamass, respectively? They don't even seem like scientists with real, practical applications behind these goals; they just seem like schizos who got high one too many times and thought it would be a cool idea to raise these primordial deities of nature because of how much it would fuck the world up.

In the end, though, I still appreciate how much effort went into the design of these games. I honestly feel that, without them, people would've gotten burnt out of the Pokemon franchise LONG ago.

I sincerely and thoroughly do not care how much this game cut out in relation to the Gen 2 games, as far as I'm concerned that's just proof Pokemon games should've stayed self-contained experiences, cause this is one of the best glow-ups in the whole series. Like imagine if every Pokemon was allowed to get away with All Of This.

It has so much to get attached to. Team building is more fun than ever, double battles are a neat distraction, contests aren't half bad, and of course kid-me was addicted to spiffing up my secret base. This series worrying about being backwards compatible forever is one of the things holding it back and this game is proof.