[Game Journal] _confused_piplup_ plays and rates GBA games

[_confused_piplup_]

Hello everyone! This is my personal spot where I'll talk about my passion for the GBA era and its games. Contrary to what you might expect, I didn't grow up with a GBA, indeed my first console was a Gray Nintendo DS Lite when I was 7. My passion for the GBA era started when I was around 10 and I bough Pokémon Emerald and I loved everything of that game, going from the graphics to designs and to songs. It was weird how despite having much modern games, I considered Pokémon Emerald to still be a better game than some others. Then, I started getting some other GBA games and I continued to have much fun.
In this first post I'll make a premise to this thread and talk about my relationship with the GBA and its games and my feelings and emotions for it.

Firstly, I started playing on my grey DS Lite and I was already enjoying the idea of retrocompatibility. At that time, I was around 10 and I was a lot into Pokémon (and now I'm probably worse lol) and sometimes I talked to my cousin and a friend who were a little older than me. They had the GBA and, in particular, the GBA SP. When I firstly saw it, I fell in love with it. I was happy about it because I was thinking about how I could play with them, since most of my friends only had a DS. I liked the idea of battling and trading Pokémon with them, but, unfortunately, that never happened because I only had a Gameboy Micro and we couldn't connect. Other than that, our interests were shifting quite a lot. I just really wanted to connect two GBAs and play multiplayer out of curiosity. But now, let me tell you how I got my Gameboy Micro. The first time I saw one was in an Airport and it was extremely overpriced, but it totally got my attention. I was 9 at the time. Later on, I had some friends with whom I often played Pokémon with and I traded my completed Pokémon Battle Revolution for this friend's Gameboy Micro and some games. I played all the games he gave me and I had so much fun with them! I really loved the style of those games and how entertaining they were. I started growing up and I kinda always kept desiring to own a GBA SP, but it never happened until recently. In August I got myself an used grey GBA with some games and finally my long lasting dream was crowned. It was a great deal among many people that were selling them for big prices. This is the first thing I want to talk about for a bit, because something changed. When I was a child and had my Gameboy Micro, I remember that you could go to Gamestop and they still sold some old GBA games for cheap. That was great! Nowadays, I feel like it's completely different because Retro-gaming has become a huge thing and therefore it's ironically becoming less accessible to play with actual consoles and cartridges. I'm not saying that's wrong of if that's good or not; I won't discuss this here. I'm just saying that the concept of Retro-gamning changed a lot with time.

So, the other point I'd like to spend a couple of words on is "Nostalgia". In this case, my feelings aren't nostalgic at all because I have never owned a GBA SP and my first console was my DS Lite, so I grew up with it and the DS era, not the GBA one. Instead, my approach to this thread is to find out and try old GBA games and try to fully complete them to have a proper and better experience of the games. I'll also post some updates on my GBA SP and Gameboy Micro (Yes, I still have it). While I don't like changing the consoles the way they are, I'm planning to eventually replace the screen with a better one in order to have an improved screen vision. Surely enough, at some point I'll change the cover of my GBA because it's a little scratched (I bough it this way). I'll dedicate one post to every completed game and I will talk about it, discuss about the things I enjoyed the most and the ones I liked less. And also, I'll also talk about some GBC games as I'll enjoy talking about the GBA SP feature of retrocompatibility, which is something I really didn't like about the Gameboy Micro. I'll also try to give each game a rating. I will keep all the posts updated as I keep playing the games, because maybe my idea can change or because I play the game another or more times. The idea of this thread is to explore the GBA catalog and talk about how good they are and probably were at the time.

Here's my GBA SP:

Spoiler:

That said, let's start playing!

 

[gimmepie]

I'll be watching this thread with interest! It's always cool to see people going back and falling in love with older games. I've been doing something a bit like that with the Final Fantasy series over the past few years.

 

[CoolKid575]

Me as well, I find it interesting when people review these older games. There's so much talk about retro gaming these days, but not as many people talking about how good these games were/are in an organized way.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

POKÉMON EMERALD ​

Pokémon Emerald is without any doubt one of my favorite games for the GBA and one of my favorites in general. Here's my cartridge of Pokémon Emerald.

Spoiler:

There's a little bit of funny story behind it. My parents and I were visiting a city and we were staying for a couple of days. I was around 10 at that time, more realistically I was 9. There was a bigger Gamestop in this city and I really wanted to get in and see what they sold. When I enter the shop, I realize it is organized pretty much like the one in my city, but it's definitely bigger and sells more things. I get to this glass container where there are many GBA games and they were all pretty cheap, we're talking about 15/20 euros max. I see some Pokémon games. There were many cartridges, at least 10 between sapphire, emerald and especially ruby. I was pretty undecided because I knew Emerald was a very famous game, compared to ruby and sapphire, but I had no idea it was the "improved" version. Or better, I could imagine that, but I wasn't sure. So, I was undecided between Pokémon Emerald and Pokémon Sapphire. I really like the color blue, so it was obvious that I was attracted to that game, but since I mainly heard people talking about Emerald, I felt like it was the right choice. I buy the cartridge and I was very enthusiastic about it!
However, after getting the cartridge out of the Gamestop, I realize something weird about my cartridge. When I bought it, I realized that some letters were missing from the title of the cartridge, but I was thinking it was a mistake of some kind, even because the cartridge was a little scratched. Instead, when I look at it more carefully, I realize many letters are missing and instead of spelling "Smeraldo", it spells "Emerald" and my dad realizes I got the English version of the game.
So I was sad, because at 10 I obviously didn't know English well enough to understand the game and I remembered that there weren't other Pokémon Emerald cartridges in the Gamestop glass showcase. So, I decide to get Sapphire instead, when I notice that there was actually only one Italian Pokémon Emerald cartridge! So, I finally get it and this time, it's the right one!

As soon as I get home, I take a look at the save file and I notice that the old owner completed the game, having caught Rayquaza and having chosen Mudkip. I explored the box a little bit and then I restarted the game. Now, one of my greatest memories of Pokémon Emerald is that it's one of the few games that got me to play for hours. I started the game, but then I couldn't get past a certain point. One day, some months later, my parents and I go out on a trip on a Sunday and, while we were out, I play Pokémon Emerald and I was following a video guide. I watch episodes and episodes and I play for hours, almost completing the game. The next day, I do the rest and I get to the point where I need to catch Rayquaza. There, I couldn't really complete the bike puzzle of the last floor of the Sky Tower, so I stop playing for a while again. During summer, at the beach, I let one of my friends try it out and he manages to do it! So, I finally get Rayquaza and easily beat the League and complete the game.

Another great memory is how hard it was to catch Kyogre. Funnily enough, it took me only 2 tries (with many ultraballs) to catch Groudon. Kyogre instead was way harder for some reason and I am not sure why! It took me at least 15 tries! I remember that when I caught it, I was at my grandma's house and as soon as it gets in the ball, I was so happy that my grandma came from the other room to ask me what happened lol.

Another small story is that when I checked out my Pokémon Emerald again after years (I think it was 2018), I randomly go in the grass and find Latios and I was totally not expecting that!

Since then, I left Pokémon Emerald for a while and I restarted my save file on the cartridge around 3 years ago. I haven't completed it yet, but I am now aiming to the entire completion of the game, in order to give a proper valuation to this amazing game.

I have to say that Pokémon Emerald kinda made part of my childhood and it's indeed my second favorite Pokémon game, after Pokémon DPPT. I love many of the soundtracks in the game, I love the map, the cities, the Pokémon designs. I really like Hoenn and gen 3. For this reason, I can't really say negative things about Pokémon Emerald, because even the little annoying things like catching a Feebas and figuring out how to evolve it are precious to me.

For a further discussion, I'll develop these topics, as they're the ones worth talking about: Designs, Map, Plot, Soundtracks.

DESIGNS

Artistically wise, I really love and enjoy Pokémon Emerald and in general the gen 3 style. I wish I knew more technical details about the GBA to understand how far they pushed the art style of the games. When I talk about designs, I talk about everything, going for the characters, to the cities and to Pokémon as well.

For what it concerns the cities, Hoenn is my second favorite region after Sinnoh and what I appreciate the most is how much variety it is among them, take as an example: Rustboro City, Lilycove City, Fortree City, Lavaridge Town, Mossdeep City, Pacifidlog Town, Sootopolis City. I feel like the main strength of these cities is that they're so unique that you can easily remember them, despite the region is pretty big. Hoenn itself is divided in two parts: one that is mainly land and references Groudon and the other one that has a strong connection to the sea, hence a reference to Kyogre. I find this detail very interesting and smart because not only it points to the plot of the game and tells a lot about what happened in Hoenn, but it also because it makes the exploration of the region very different.

Now, let's talk about the characters' designs. I really like generation 3 designs. Wallace is one of my favorite characters and Pier is indeed a good one as well. Some gym leaders are pretty interesting and Winona is one of those, while I really like both Brendan and May, especially May. After Shawn, I think Vera is my favorite female character's design. I also like Lino a lot. The Elite 4 are not bad, but except maybe for Ester, most of them tend to be more forgettable than other in previous and newer generations. It doesn't come to my mind now any character that I think was a flop, even though I'd like to talk about Juan. He's pretty forgotten and most people don't take him seriously because he's not Wallace, but in my opinion his design is quite interesting, while I don't particularly like the overworld sprite. That's mainly because it is way too similar to Pier's.

Finally, I'll talk about Pokémon designs. So, the premise is that I read that Game Freak wanted to go back to designs that represented monsters, so more like generation 1. Now, if you know generation 1 designs, you'll probably agree on the fact that generation 3 designs are not exactly like those, but conceptually wise, I think they are. The ideas behind the Weather Trio's designs are really good and I really like all of them. They are indeed some of my favorite Legendary Pokémon. I love many of the Hoenn Pokémon and the starters make no exception. My real favorite ones are Milotic, Metagross, Latias and Latios, Swampert, Mudkip, Gardevoir, Mawile, Claydol, Torkoal, Salamence. But I also really like Pokémon that sometimes are not among the most liked and those include Lunatone, Solrock, Castform, Wailmer, Spinda, Gorebyss, Relicanth.
So, I really love Hoenn Pokémon, placing them probably at the number 1 spot for my favorite Regional Pokédex designs. Sinnoh is the second one and, despite its Pokédex has most of my favorite Pokémon, what makes the Hoenn Pokédex amazing is the number of Pokémon introduced, which is grater compared to the Sinnoh one.


MAP

I think I have said enough about the beauty of most of the cities in Hoenn, so in this section I'd like to talk about how enjoyable it is to explore the region. I really like Hoenn and I think that it offers quite a big map and thanks to some backtracking, it is really enjoyable to travel around Hoenn. In contrast with Sinnoh, there are no difficult map puzzles in the games, but some exceptions could be the Team Aqua and Team Magma Hideouts, Abandoned Ship, Seafloor Cavern and the Regi Trio Ruins.

The main problem, often highlighted by many Pokémon players here is that "there's too much water". I'm personally not trying to the defend the game in any way, but I'll just say that in my gameplays of Pokémon Emerald it did feel it was boring just few times. It's a design choice that I personally respect and that I appreciated more than having hated it. Another thing to point out is that one of my all time favorite feature was the Dive exploration that was unfortunately brought back in gen 5 just for one thing. I feel that it was a pretty good idea to let the players explore the underwater world, which is not only pretty extended in the game, but it also allows you to skip some encounters when you're not in the tall grass.

PLOT

Here we are at one of the weakest points of Pokémon Emerald and, in general, of the third generation of the Pokémon series. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot to praise, but there are some aspects of the story of Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, that almost make no sense.

First of all, one of the greatest virtues of gen 3 is that they built the base for the lore of the Pokémon World. The idea was well developed, because imagining two Pokémon that fight against each other to create the Oceans and the Land not only is extremely cool, but it is also quite in line with what happened in the history of our planet. Now, Rayquaza is an interesting Pokémon as well and what I liked about it was especially that it was venerated as a deity by the ancient population. Unfortunately, this was only told in ORAS, so in gen 3 it's simply the "King of the Skies". It's cool anyway, but the fact that people prayed it to calm down Groudon and Kyogre is what makes Rayquaza the rightful third member of the Weather Trio, in my opinion.

Now, on the other hand, the Villain Teams story is quite weak. A point to Game Freak for deciding to leave Team Rocket and making a new Team, basically starting the tradition of " a new region with a new evil team". However, the plans of those teams are pretty weak and overall almost don't make any sense. Expanding the Land to improve the human's progress is not really a steady idea and expanding the Sea to stop human's progress and give more space for marine Pokémon feels too excessive, even though in line with Hoenn geography. Surely, Cyrus' plans sound very similar, but there's more depth to it and no turning back. Instead, both of the Team Aqua and Team Magma leaders have this kind of redemption, that occurs too fast in the story, not giving too much insight on their personalities.
Someone could argue that the plot has never had a huge spotlight in Pokémon games, but not only I believe this is quite false, I also think that they did a very good job with the Legendary Trio, so I really don't see why they couldn't have done more with the Evil Teams.

GAMEPLAY

This is probably where the review should start, but having analyzed most of the main components of the game, there's not much to talk about the overall playing experience, but mostly about the technical parts of the gameplay, like the difficulty and the experience curve. So, I think the game is overall not the best balanced in the series, but at the same time, not too bad. Swampert is a pretty powerful starter and while I haven't tried any other starter, it's type combination goes pretty well against several gym leaders and it's also an overall pretty strong Pokémon for the League. It can learn useful moves like the Water move HMs. The game is not easy, but not too difficult. I feel like there are only few points where it generally gets harder. The first point it's against our father and the other one is against Tate & Liza, if the team is too under-leveled. Other than that, the game generally goes pretty fast and fluid. Catching Rayquaza before the Pokémon League makes the League way easier, but I have to say that Wallace is stronger than what people might remember. I think that having Swampert against Pier was probably an advantage. The exp curve is not too bad, except for the points I mentioned before and there's also a high chance to be under-leveled for the Pokémon League.
The Special and Physical move depending on the type is pretty interesting, but I am glad it was changed in gen 4. There are good items across the region and interesting Pokémon to catch and try out, to make interesting teams. A problem I noticed is that there is a good amount of Pokémon with late evolution available early in the game, like Whismur, Aron, Trapinch, Wailmer.
An interesting thing to add is how more common double battles are. Truly a feature that I wish was more common in other Pokémon games as well.

SOUNDTRACKS

When it comes to game soundtracks, Pokémon Emerald is second only to Pokémon DPPT. There are many soundtracks I am fond of and I think GF did a great job with them, especially considering the hardware they were dealing with. I don't really have any soundtrack in mind that I don't enjoy. For different reasons, they're all pretty good and even the most forgettable ones fit very well the place in which they were positioned.
Now, going to my favorite ones, I indeed have to mention the Littleroot town theme song, the VS rival one (second only to Barry, for my tastes), the VS Evil team battle song, the Regi Trio Battle music (one of my favorite overall), <. I just wanna say about this one, that it really had an incredible effect on me. Catching the Regi was hard as usual and very long, so I had to listen to the song very often and after a while I was pretty much annoyed by it, but going ahead I kept listening to it and I really just started vibing with it and it's been forver on repeat lol. Finally, I'd say it's the super iconic opening theme. That's how you introduce a game lol.
Actually, I like almost all of the city soundtracks, so I won't include them in the list above, but they're almost all honorable mentions.

POST GAME

This is one section to keep an eye on! The Post Game is basically the Battle Frontier. I think I only once obtained a silver symbol, but I might be wrong. In any case, I am planning to get all the gold symbols once I finish the main story on Emerald another time. I have never done it, but I have played and explored most of the facilities in the Battle Frontier. This is probably one of the most interesting areas of the game and of the entire series of games. First of all, the difficulty becomes very high and then, as a player, you might not expect the Bosses to have Legendary Pokémon. I think this part of the game is incredibly interesting because it's surely an approach to the most competitive part of the series, but it's especially a way to understand what GF considered competitive and difficult about the Pokémon games. I won't go too far on this, because, as I have said before, while I have tried all the facilities, I only once maybe obtained a silver symbol. This is definitely not enough to give a proper judgment about the Battle Frontier.

THE LITTLE THINGS

This is the most not objective part of the post. In all honesty, this is very personal, but at the same time very important in a game. I played a good amount of games, mostly Pokémon games and I have to say that it's just amazing how still nowadays we find out new things about the older titles. That's one of the greatest aspects of earlier Pokémon generations and in this case, of Pokémon Emerald. I am talking about the Contests, the Secret bases, the invisible Kecleon, the Trick House, Mirage Island, Trainer Hill and so on. All those incredible little things make the game iconic, interesting and unique. As of now, I really only want to focus on the first three.

- CONTESTS: I prefer Sinnoh contests, but those were the first contests and put the basics for the 4h gen contests too. It was a very fun feature and a great thing to do even in the Post Game, considering it's such an optional thing to do. Getting all of the ribbons is surely very hard, but also more interesting. I think GF tried to work a lot on the concept of collection in its series. Adding ribbons to the game is definitely an example of that. It was shinies in gen 2. Same goes for the symbols in the Battle Frontier. However, I appreciate it being an optional thing, because it gives the players the opportunity to choose for themselves how far to go in the game. Going to the contest itself, I liked the things you had to do and I find extremely interesting how moves have a certain feature. This means that you might need to make movesets only to win the contest. I find this a very cool thing.

- SECRET BASE: one element that made the game really nice. It's one of those unnecessary things that are just there to add more things to an already complete game. It's a fun feature and I think that decorating the secret base was one of the most interesting things to do in gen 3. Collecting things for the Secret base is interesting and falls into the category of the collection concept I was talking about in the previous point.

- THE INVISIBLE KECLEON: while it's probably the element that stands the less on this list, I think it was actually not only a pretty good and fun feature, but it was a great addition in the game because it shows a Pokémon with its peculiar features. Keckleon without being invisible would have probably been even less known, so I am very happy for this. Also, the first time playing the game, not knowing what that invisible spot was, I was very amazed to find out it was a Pokémon I had never seen before. To be a perfect feature, they should have made more invisible Kecleon spots around the region, changing the level accordingly. However, I have to say that it could have probably been seen as repetitive from the players' point of view. So, maybe it was a safe choice.

A honorable mention is SHOAL CAVE.The idea of making a map change according to the time of the day was really cool. The fact that it was the water (tides), an important element in this game, makes it even better.

HOW OLD IS THIS GAME?

This is an interesting and provocative question I'd like to add at the end of all of my reviews. Since we're talking about old games, it's reasonable to question whether the game is still enjoyable nowadays or if it's worth skipping and, in general, how old it feels. Surely, we need to keep in mind that we can't compare older games to newer games, considering the new consoles are way more powerful than older ones. But in terms of replayability or how interesting a game is, there are always some considerations to do. Simply put, it could be seen as "Would you recommend someone to play this old game today?"

When it comes to Pokémon Emerald, the answer is an easy yes. Pokémon Emerald is indeed one of the best games in the Pokémon series and despite personal tastes, it has a lot to offer on a console that isn't so powerful. Compared to other GBA games, it's a game rich of content and relatively long. Adding the cut scene was a really good idea and that's something that made Pokémon Emerald iconic as well. Great music, good sprites and graphics, an amazing exploration of a great map, the Battle Frontier, the Contests and all the other little things, 386 Pokémon, all in few MBs. This is pretty incredible for me. Also, while it might sound strange, it's interesting to play a Pokémon game where physical and special damage is managed differently. This is something that changed from gen 4, so it's really cool to go back and try an old way to handle moves.

The other point that someone could make when it comes to this question is: how does this game compare to ORAS? I think that even in this case Pokémon Emerald is a valid alternative, but mainly for one reasons: ORAS and Emerald are very different games. While they share most of the story and the map and the music, it's also true that Emerald narrates another story and ORAS adds so many things, that it's just a different experience. Take the Mega evolution and the new story, which is basically rewritten to be coherent with that and take also the Delta Episode. ORAS is one of my favorite remakes because it goes back to an old story and region, but it innovates it giving the player a new feeling and a new experience. While very similar to the original games, playing the remakes or the original ones will somehow feel different. The other big difference is obviously the gameplay, especially since we receive a Latios/Latias in ORAS quite early during the adventure, not to mention megas. Emerald also has the Battle Frontier compared to ORAS, which is another reason why Emerald is still not an old game.
Considering Let's GO Pikachu and Eevee a "reboot" of Pokémon Yellow, we could expect the same for other third titles, like Crystal and then, maybe, Emerald. So, maybe one day I'll have to talk about this again!

 

[gimmepie]

God, I remember being a kid playing Emerald for the first time and how infuriating that last (I think) floor of the Sky Tower was. Glad to see I'm not the only one. I think a lot of people have really fond memories of Gen III because it felt... grander I guess? More ambitious? It was the first time the cities and environments felt so varied, the first time we got double battles I think, the first time we got Abilities. Emerald also just has one of the best postgames even now. Platinum's was great too and the SwSh Crown Tundra DLC was amazing but you had to pay for that. Can't talk about how the newest DLC stuff compares yet.

It was cool seeing your thoughts on everything! Although, I'd suggest making your CSS a bit easier to read.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

It was cool seeing your thoughts on everything! Although, I'd suggest making your CSS a bit easier to read.

That's really true. I tried my best while trying to use the color green and something that recalled gen 3. I will try to change maybe the background and keep that in mind for the next games. Thanks for the feedback!