Age 26
any
Clan of Fools, Waterdeep
Seen December 14th, 2022
Posted December 14th, 2022
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.