Pokémon Gamedown: Week 3 - GBA

I voted for Emerald. Like it's description says "it's an enhanced remake of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire" and who doesn't like remakes? Also you were able to get both Groudon and Kyogre in Emerald which was way better than having to go through the game twice in Ruby/Sapphire just to "catch 'em all". Now although Firered and Leafgreen were good games I felt like Emerald brought more to the table then what they had such as moving Pokemon sprites in battle.

I just voted for all of them...
Generation III is, in my opinion, the generation that improved a lot on the previous games, but still wasn't completely finished.

All the games made good improvements and additions. Ruby and Sapphire is where the games really started to have a decent story line involved. In the previous games you just battled the Gym Leaders and became Champion. There were some legendary Pokémon just waiting in a cave to be captured. The Gen II games added a little post-game to that story, but those were just some more Gym Leaders. RS introduces not only one, but two evil teams (of which one doesn't act evil in the version you're playing), who you meet occasionally through your quest in beating the Gym Leaders. The legendary Pokémon Groudon and Kyogre actually have some lore involving them and you meet one of them during the story and have to face it.
You gotta love Team Magma and Team Aqua. They have goals which don't make much sense, try to control ancient mythical while they themselves hardly know how to evolve their Poochyena and Zubat.
Furthermore Ruby and Sapphire introduce an upgraded pc system (the old one had a lot of drawbacks), cool secret bases you can decorate, abilities to give some more flavor to the Pokémon and the amazing double battles. (And they are the first games in which you actually have a Dad.)
The cons of these games are the lack of a good post-game (the only thing you can do is going to the Sky Pillar and capture a Rayquaza), the rival not being much of a challenge (his/her only fully evolved Pokémon is one Swellow in the final battle), the Grunts being terribly weak and annoying and a few details (like the pc not having the Move Items function).

FireRed and LeafGreen are great remakes from the first games, adapting the original world to the data and possibilities of the third generation. But it's not just that, a group of seven islands is added. The story of three fitting between the seventh and eighth Gym, where was nothing of a new area to explore in between in the first generation games. The other four islands form a nice post-game, involving a small quest with Team Rocket, second generation Pokémon being obtainable, a Daycare and the Trainer Tower. Additionally, the Elite Four can be rematched too where they have stronger Pokémon.
Cons of these games are the lack of a good training spot around lv60. Level 55 is the highest level trainers use who you can battle with the VS Seeker, but the lowest level of the stronger Elite Four is 68 I believe, leaving a gap in between. And for some reason day and night times aren't implemented, making you need to trade your Eevee over to RSE to evolve it into Umbreon or Espeon, but that trading resets its happiness...

Now Emerald is seen as an enhanced version of Ruby and Sapphire, right? So that might make you wonder why I still voted for Ruby and Sapphire. Let me explain. Yes, the Battle Frontier and the enlarged Safari Zone are a great additions. I really liked it. But the antagonism of both the evil teams isn't completely worked out in my opinion. It feels more like about half of the encounters with the evil teams from Ruby and Sapphire are used for Team Magma and the other half for Team Aqua, adding an extra headquarters for Team Magma (which made more sense than needing to surf to the ground team hideout), but it wasn't completely balanced. You face Archie only once, but Maxie thrice. Why does Team Aqua have a MasterBall and Team Magma not? (Why did they leave it in their hideout and not bring it why trying to control Kyogre?) I really liked the double story Ruby and Sapphire had, contradicting each other. The one seeming good and the other bad and messing everything up. Emerald didn't have this.
Emerald, having Rayquaza as mascot, insinuates that the story involves Rayquaza as main Pokémon and that it will be obtainable earlier in the game, but it's done completely the other way around! Kyogre and Groudon are moved out of the story line and put away in the post-game!
This looks like a lot of comments on the game, but don't get me wrong! I love Emerald, but RS have their features too.

Darn I missed the first two weeks! Glad i saw it now though!Anyway my vote went for Emerald. I really enjoyed it's extra features, the new pokemon added, new areas, etc. I loved the improved safari zone, it was lot of fun to explore and had great pokemon! The battle frontier was also amazing, even though I only beat one facility XD. It offered a variety of wide and tough challenges that helped add replay value and a more competitive aspect. The story was also great. The champion may have been different, but him being the same type as a leader and the first single type champion made wallace a unique final fight, especially with his different team. The twist on both evil teams was nice as well, they sort of let you pick your side which added a fresh new take on the story. For these reasons I chose Emerald, which has let it become one of my favorite games of te series!

Though my first ever purchase was Leaf Green. I feel disappointed when I found that so much useless key items like tech tv and small post-game content about TR collecting gems for their purpose and on how the 2 admins that we see on HG/SS or G/S and talking about the rocket revival. There's no way to get gen 3 pokes and only certain pokes are found and need of trading with 2 GBA consoles.

but Emerald shines to those remakes and R/S with more fun content to add and an interesting story to boot.

I think Ruby and Sapphire should win :3 They were refreshing after Kanto and Johto and it was interesting how one team was good and the other bad. Emerald didn't have Zangoose haha, that's a major negative point for me as I always used it on Ruby, haha. But R/S were the first games with relatively big differences between the versions and that alone deserves some cred. Emerald had some more content and slightly different looks yeah, but I still think the originals hold up well.

Don't get me started on FR/LG. They aren't very good at all. :]

Firered and leafgreen they wewere first 2 Pokemon games and I have very fond memories of them and still play them from time to time

This is a really tough choice for me. I'm probably gonna have to go with Emerald. Although I probably played Ruby a heck of a lot more, and have plenty of fond memories involving FireRed, I do very much enjoy the additions and upgrades Emerald brought. The updated character designs were a huge plus, too. I absolutely love how they look!

Ohh my gosh... this is one of the hardest polls around. While I absolutely adored R/S/E, FR/LG introduced one of my favorite things to the franchise - the VS Seeker - which brought me many fond memories when playing as a kid. I'd stick around the Sevii Islands, constantly rebattling trainers to get my favorites to lv. 100. Was even more fun back then since I didn't know or care about IVs. :')

But R/S/E were also really good and were the peak of my love for Pokemon. I found so much to do there and was obsessed with the berry blender, secret bases, new Hoenn Pokemon, and pretty much everything else introduced in these games. I'll probably go with R/S primarily for nostalgia, though part of me didn't think Emerald was really necessary and I couldn't hook myself playing it the same way as R/S. So Ruby and Sapphire get my vote.

I honestly can't believe i'm saying this, but my vote goes to FireRed and LeafGreen. I've talked before about why Ruby and Sapphire are my second least favorites (only ahead of GSC), but I like FRLG because I tend to enjoy using the Pokémon there more, the region looked better on the GBA, and there were the Sevii Islands which I liked quite a bit. It just stood out to me, even if it wasn't quite among my all-time favorites I don't think.

FRLG are perhaps the most boring games of the series. I prefer going retro with RBY versus FRLG. They didn't really add much new to the original game as did HGSS and ORAS remakes. And really GF, not incorporating Espeon and Umbreon evolutions, among others, in FRLG is just beyond idiotic and definitely contributes to these titles as being...pointless and boring.

RSE games were phenomenal and perhaps the most distinctive games of the series. Double battles, abilities, island/tropical region, most quirky pokemon designs, battle frontier, competitions, and let's face it MILOTIC are some of the reasons why RSE games are top-notch.

FireRed/LeafGreen are some of my favorite Pokemon games ever. I prefer the (admittedly badly-done) remake of Kanto over Hoenn. The graphics were better, the music sounded better, and I just simply had more fun playing a less-glitch-filled romp through a region I visited before. Hoenn just never grabbed my interest.