Pokemon has always fitted itself into the world as a guilty pleasure for gamers over the age of 12, but Pokemon has been almost as big a success with younger gamers as it has been with those who are older and who have more gaming experience. It does, however take a lot for some people to get over the general cuteness of the series, as this is often times the one aspect of the games that people downsize the games for. I myself was once a pretty avid pokemon fan; I happily purchased both the yellow and blue versions for myself, while I talked my little brother into getting the Red edition with the sole reason being so that I could get all the pokemon, and so I needed to be able to trade with him. Yeah so maybe I'm a little selfish sometimes, but the series really grew on my brother and so he's not exactly mad with me. Sadly enough, I kind of fell out of the Pokemon groove for a while, I didn't purchase the gold/silver versions, nor did I seek out the Crystal version either, and just as I did it seems like the general public has also forgotten about Pokemon, which mainly seems to be associated with the fact that Nintendo hasn't released any new pokemon games for a couple of years. Well it would seem pretty dumb on the big N's part just to let what is probably their best selling brand of games at the moment just fade away into nothingness, and so they have been hard at work trying to add a newness to the series, while at the same time changing the hardware that the games appear on. After seeing screenshots for the latest incarnations of Pokemon I couldn't help but put my money down on a pre-order (and as you might suspect I also talked my bro into pre-ordering a copy of the other version). Well, since I already reviewed my copy of the game, Pokemon Sapphire, I decided to get in some playtime on my brother's version (Ruby) just to see how different the two copies are. Well, here goes the review...
For those of you that would like to read my review for the Sapphire version of Pokemon please let me direct your attention to here;
Jeremy1456's Pokemon Sapphire Review (Go Ahead, You Know You Want To)
Outside appearances don't mean a thing as far as I'm concerned, especially when it comes to Pokemon, as even though it has the appearance of a child's game, it is perfect for all ages. The gameplay is simple enough for a child to understand, while at the same time it isn't too shallow for everyone who isn't a child. With that said, Pokemon Ruby is actually a fairly deep role playing game, and I'm not afraid to admit that I play Pokemon games on the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance. There are some people though that just couldn't enjoy Pokemon as much as they wanted to, and for those people I say this, "If you didn't like pokemon then, than you won't like the new versions" as the games are, at heart, the same old creature collecting turn based RPGs.
In case you didn't know, Pokemon are creatures that pretty much take the place of animals in the world of Pokemon. Pokemon can be come across in two ways, you can find them either in the wild (in tall grass specifically), and also you will encounter pokemon that have been captured inside poke balls and are owned by pokemon trainers. These pokemons all have different characteristics; some are cute and cuddly looking, while others are fierce and menacing. These Pokemon can know up to 4 special moves at a time, some special moves can be used both in and outside of battle.
Storyline
As with the older pokemon games, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire are still more than a little shallow in the story department. What surprised me though is that Nintendo seems to have given an attempt (however slightly) to deliver some story elements that we haven't come to expect from the Pokemon series. On top of being able to choose your gender again, Nintendo has decided to add in a couple of new twists and turns along the way. The game does, however, still stick to the same old formula of the older pokemon games that we have accustomed to, but I have to give Nintendo props for taking it a little more serious than they have in the past.
Essentially your quest in Pokemon Ruby is to become a pokemon master, basically the best there is when it comes to battling pokemon, but before you get ahead of yourself you have to take in all the trials that are involved with this. First off you must travel across the giant land of Hoenn by land and sea capturing pokemon, capturing new pokemon, and battling with wild and trainer owned pokemon in an effort to make your creatures more powerful. Of course these aren't the only things you must do, as the biggest part of the game is collecting special badges, and upon collecting all of them you are privileged with the ability to challenge the elite 4 pokemon trainers, only after beating these 4 can you become the true pokemon master. Of course collecting badges is no simple task, as the only way to get them is by defeating Gym leaders in their Gyms in various cities across the continent.
One thing I particularly liked about this game was the added aspect of a struggle with the main character. On top of having quite a few recurring characters in the game, your character has more than one rival to deal with. Also, one thing I found that was cool with the story in Pokemon Ruby was the fact that your character's father is an actual Gym Leader, but he won't let you challenge him to a battle until about midway through the game. Another interesting aspect in the game is the evil corporation in Pokemon Ruby, this team of people (specifically known as Team Magma who want to expand the land for pokemon to live in) is much unlike the evil corporation in Pokemon Sapphire which is known as Team Aqua, this team is bent on expanding the oceans for aquatic pokemon. Team Aqua does make a few appearances in Pokemon Ruby, as Team Magma also appears in Pokemon Sapphire.
Gameplay
As I mentioned earlier, in the beginning of Pokemon Ruby you will take control of a young guy/girl on his or her quest to become the very best, like no one ever was, but what does it take to be a pokemon master? Well I'll tell you, it takes a strong collection of pokemon with powerful abilities, but how exactly do you capture these pokemon now? The first pokemon you receive in the game is simply given to you (whichever one you choose to use when saving the kindly professor gets the honor of being the first one you get in the game), but after being given this pokemon it will be up to you to catch more, which is done by throwing a poke ball at a weakened pokemon.
You will engage in a battle with a pokemon in one of two ways; either you will randomly run into a wild pokemon in the tall grass, or you will challenge/be challenged by another pokemon trainer. There are essentially 3 types of battle in Pokemon Ruby, and these types of warfare are as follows: battle with a wild pokemon, trainer battle, and 2-on-2 battles. Battling with wild pokemon is often times the most common of these forms of battle, and are simply just a battle against one pokemon. A battle with a trainer is slightly more complex though, as a trainer can have more than one pokemon and also has the ability to use items on their pokemon to either heal or up it's abilities. The final type of battle is the 2-on-2 battles in which your character will send out 2 of your pokemon to battle with 2 enemy pokemon. The only thing I dislike with the 2-on-2 battle type is that these battles are actually very uncommon, and few to none of these battles are actually required to progress in the game.
All pokemon rookies should know this about the game before spending their money; Pokemon Ruby is a rather difficult game, much harder than the older pokemon games. What I found with this title is that I can no longer simply zip through Gym Leaders and other boss figures, for one of the first times in pokemon history I actually lost to a Gym Leader 4 times in a row. This was the lightning based Gym specifically, and while I had such a hard time on it my brother was able to zip through it on his first try, but then again I was able to beat the Gyms that he had trouble with easily too, this game's difficulty seems to be very different from player to player, and seems to be directly related with which pokemon you choose to start with.
On top of all of the enhancements Nintendo managed to squeeze into this game, another one that quickly comes to mind is the fact that Pokemon isn't quite such a tiresome ordeal anymore. One of the major problems I had with the older pokemon games was that the movement was so slow, and while it is still pretty slow in Pokemon Ruby, Nintendo has opted to give your character a set of running shoes early on in the game which can make your character run, and then later in the game you will receive the ultra fast bike that could run circles around the bike found in the former pokemon titles.
Every game has it's drawbacks, but Pokemon Ruby (not being the absolutely perfect game it is) has a couple downfalls. First of all, while I know it's petty, Nintendo obviously ran out of ideas for naming pokemon, as they seem to have used all of the really good names on the first 3 pokemon games. Some of the names for the new pokemon are downright weird sounding, but amongst the horrific naming scheme there are a couple that just roll off the tongue and actually sound pretty cool, my favorite new pokemon name is Sableye (not sure if it was in Silver/Gold/Crystal though).
Nintendo knows that the public really digs collecting stuff, and so on top of collecting pokemon your character will also collect various items while questing about in the land of Hoenn; items have always been a big part of the pokemon universe. Nintendo has brought the technique teaching HMs and TMs again, and the HMs are still as integral to the gameplay as they have always been. All of the same HMs have returned for Pokemon Ruby; your pokemon can still surf, cut, and use flash to light up dark caverns in the game, and yes, these still are simply given to you when you need them, I guess this is better than being required to search for them across the land and so forth.
There are only three things that you need in order to get the maximum amount of enjoyment out of this brand of game; an open mind, the ability to get past the cute look, and of course a like for RPGs. Of course having a lot of time on your hands won't hurt either, as no matter which version of pokemon you get (Sapphire/Ruby) you'll need to spend a lot of time playing the game in order to actually beat the whole thing. And now here's my message to Nintendo, start working on Pokemon Jasmine (or whatever the next pokemon game will be).
Note: Since Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby are the same with the only changes being in the story the cartridge color, the startup screen, a couple of the pokemon that you can catch, and a couple of other really small things I decided to simply copy this next section from my review of Pokemon Sapphire since these aspects are exactly the same in both games, but for the few miniscule things that are different I have changed them accordingly.
My Ratings For:
Pokemon Ruby
Graphics: 8/10
The thing that took the most getting used to in Pokemon Ruby was definitely the graphics, never has Pokemon even come close to looking this good on the old Gameboy Color. With that said, Pokemon Ruby looks pretty much standard for a Gameboy Advance game at first, but it isn't until you actually engage in a battle that you will see just how good this game looks. Sure, maybe Nintendo still forgot to include full backgrounds for the battle scenes, but I won't hold that against them. There are a plethora of effects in this game, such as the rolling mist and wavy reflections in the water, but there are also several other effects that are more subtle, like the footprints in the sand and the falling ashes from the sky on the volcano. I would still have to say though that the battles are the most impressive looking part of the game, as each of the pokemon looks great.
One of the big improvements graphics-wise is the menu screen. Whereas the pokemon games of old had a very small set number of icons to represent the pokemon in your group, Pokemon Ruby has a small icon of the pokemon that it represents, only this game doesn't use the same icon for some pokemon; all pokemon have their own animated icon that is a visual presentation of what they look like. Like I already said, it's the little touches that impressed me the most with this game.
The Gameboy Color had an extremely restricted color palette, and so it was only natural that the old pokemon games looked awful on the system, but thankfully enough the Gameboy Advance's palette of colors is much larger and more vibrant. Pokemon Ruby uses colors like nobody's business, and each of the pokemon have an elaborate amount of detail to them that gives this game a look of it's own.
Story: 6.5/10
Yeah so maybe this game's story isn't all that great, and even though it follows along the premises of the older Pokemon games it still manages to outshine every other pokemon game, with the default exception of Pokemon Ruby of course. To be honest with you, Pokemon Ruby just doesn't have that epic save the world feeling that other RPGs have, and while an RPG doesn't exactly need a "save the world" storyline, there just has always been something indescribable missing from the storylines in all of the pokemon titles. That's all right though, as the pokemon games have always relied on the gameplay rather than storyline.
Control: 9/10
It's almost like a written law that 2-Dimensional turn based RPGs will always have at least decent control, but this is because of the obvious simplicity in the control system. Pokemon Ruby actually manages to improve in this field from pokemon's former outings on the Gameboy Color, and this is not simply because of the move to the Gameboy Advance's button layout. Once your character acquires the running shoes from the character's mother you can hold the B button and run, this makes things a little faster in the beginning of the game, but once you do get the bike things just zoom by.
Sound: 9.5/10
Again here's another comparison that I'm going to make between the Ruby and older editions of Pokemon. The sound has drastically improved in Ruby from the older games in the pokemon series, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this is associated with the fact that the Gameboy Advance is more powerful than the Gameboy Color, way more powerful. There isn't just one or two catchy song in Pokemon Ruby, there are almost 12! Seriously, I even as I write this I find myself repeating some of the really good songs in my head over and over again. One minor disappointment about the game's music is the Gym Leader battle music; it was so much stronger in the first batch of pokemon titles.
The sound effects have also evolved quite a bit also, and no longer consist of simple bleeps and chimes. Sure, the sound effects are still slightly on the simple side of things, but they are no longer annoying in the least bit for me, whereas in the former pokemon games I often developed headaches from wearing headphones while playing the games. Each pokemon has it's own sound (or cry as the game calls it), and these cries really demonstrate the nature of these pokemon.
Fun Factor: 9.5/10
Pokemon is still as fun as it ever was, if not more fun. Pokemon Ruby is a very enjoyable experience, and I still have a lot to go. The whole time that I was writing this review I have also been playing the game and trying to cram as much playtime as possible in my day (I just got it today so I've been playing it non-stop). With that said now is the perfect time for all of the non-fans to give pokemon a chance, especially since the whole pokemon takeover has pretty much died down. Pokemon Ruby is such a good game though that I think it has the potential to bring pokemon back to it's former glory.
Overall Rating: 9.3
|
Gumtree.com
