JuzamDjinn2500
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All my other socials (Librarything, Letterboxd, Serializd,, TierMaker, RateYourMusic, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) have the same username (JuzamDjinn2500.)
All my other socials (Librarything, Letterboxd, Serializd,, TierMaker, RateYourMusic, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) have the same username (JuzamDjinn2500.)
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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.
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.
This review contains spoilers
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.
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.
This review contains spoilers
As with the previous sister game of this franchise (Pokemon Yellow), there isn't much to be said about this game that can't be also said about Gold and Silver. Because of that, I'll be pretty brief here. You can read my Gold and Silver review for an in-depth look at my thoughts on the second generation of Pokemon games.
Overall, I really don't like the concept of a sister Pokemon game. In fact, I don't even like the concept of having two games for each new generation. It just feels like a scam to me. These three games feel practically the exact same. The extremely minute differences do not justify the production of 3 entirely distinct products. Each generation should only constitute a single game. However, we, as Pokemon fans, are stupid, so we give GameFreak our money, and they continue shilling out multiple copies of the exact same game every single year. The irony is genuinely hilarious, especially when you consider how critical everyone is of new Pokemon games these days.
I guess I'll briefly discuss the small additions to this game as there isn't much else to talk about. Obviously, the first and most noticeable difference is the ability to play as a female character. This really should have been an option from the very beginning of the franchise, but whatever. It doesn't really change anything about the gameplay, so I couldn't care less about it.
The Battle Tower is pretty fun; though, in retrospect, it does feel a little lackluster compared to the Battle Tower of upcoming generations and (especially) the Battle Frontier. It's fine for what it is, but I don't really care that much about it.
The new sprite animations are okay. It's weird that they included them for the first time in Crystal, removed them in Ruby & Sapphire, then brought them back again in Emerald. GameFreak operates in very strange ways sometimes, I tell you.
I will say that my favorite new feature in this game is the new soundtrack. I honestly feel like every new song in this game is a hit. Euisine's theme, the Legendary Beasts' theme, and Clair's theme are all utterly fantastic. I could listen to them for hours.
Also, the new lore (while very minimal) brings a lot of life to Johto. Most of the NPCs in Ecruteak city talk about how much history it has, though this history wasn't explored that much in the first two games. Here, we get some interesting insights into Johto's past that really start to build a solid foundation for the overall Pokemon timeline.
I guess that's really about it, honestly. I mean, what else can I talk about? These sister games are almost always the exact same as the first two games! Why is this a thing, GameFreak? Why do we need to play 3 games when we could just play 1? Oh, right. Money. Greedy, brilliant bastards.
Overall, I really don't like the concept of a sister Pokemon game. In fact, I don't even like the concept of having two games for each new generation. It just feels like a scam to me. These three games feel practically the exact same. The extremely minute differences do not justify the production of 3 entirely distinct products. Each generation should only constitute a single game. However, we, as Pokemon fans, are stupid, so we give GameFreak our money, and they continue shilling out multiple copies of the exact same game every single year. The irony is genuinely hilarious, especially when you consider how critical everyone is of new Pokemon games these days.
I guess I'll briefly discuss the small additions to this game as there isn't much else to talk about. Obviously, the first and most noticeable difference is the ability to play as a female character. This really should have been an option from the very beginning of the franchise, but whatever. It doesn't really change anything about the gameplay, so I couldn't care less about it.
The Battle Tower is pretty fun; though, in retrospect, it does feel a little lackluster compared to the Battle Tower of upcoming generations and (especially) the Battle Frontier. It's fine for what it is, but I don't really care that much about it.
The new sprite animations are okay. It's weird that they included them for the first time in Crystal, removed them in Ruby & Sapphire, then brought them back again in Emerald. GameFreak operates in very strange ways sometimes, I tell you.
I will say that my favorite new feature in this game is the new soundtrack. I honestly feel like every new song in this game is a hit. Euisine's theme, the Legendary Beasts' theme, and Clair's theme are all utterly fantastic. I could listen to them for hours.
Also, the new lore (while very minimal) brings a lot of life to Johto. Most of the NPCs in Ecruteak city talk about how much history it has, though this history wasn't explored that much in the first two games. Here, we get some interesting insights into Johto's past that really start to build a solid foundation for the overall Pokemon timeline.
I guess that's really about it, honestly. I mean, what else can I talk about? These sister games are almost always the exact same as the first two games! Why is this a thing, GameFreak? Why do we need to play 3 games when we could just play 1? Oh, right. Money. Greedy, brilliant bastards.