Like I said in my Pokemon Sapphire review, I hated Pokemon when the franchise first emerged a little while ago. But of course, the hatred was only a temporary feeling, and so here I am today, a teenager and still enjoying Pokemon for the good RPG that it is. Green to Yellow, Gold to Crystal, Puzzle League to Trading Card Game, Stadium to Snap, and now Ruby to Sapphire - I pretty much consider myself a so-called Pokemaniac. As soon as the Gameboy Advance released in June 2001, questions started to rise on the newest Pokemon games for the edgy new handheld about when they were going to be released. Now a year and 9 months after the Gameboy Advance’s release, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire have been released, but are they really the new Pokemon people were waiting for? I certainly think so.
Plot/Story
The Pokemon games, the mainline on the Gameboy, have never really had a real “plot” to the game. You live in a world full of Pokemon, which can be caught and trained by Pokemon Trainers, and can be used to battle other trainers and other Pokemon. You have the choice of choosing to be a boy or girl, and you want to be the Pokemon champion by defeating eight gym leaders for their respective badges en route to the Elite 4.
Once again your rival, who is opposite the gender you picked (May or Brenden), will challenge you at various points throughout the game. But Ruby and Sapphire already have something that the previous versions had not had, a more defined story other than collecting Pokemon and becoming a Pokemon Master. Now in Ruby, there is a new band of “evil-doers” who have replaced Team Rocket (eh, good riddens, I thought they were cool but after playing Ruby they’re just retarded) named Team Magma (such an original name, huh?), whose dream is to cover the world with more land, while Team Aqua is trying to prevent this from happening (the opposite in Sapphire).
Gameplay
First of all, there are a total of 202 Pokemon, with 200 being able to be caught legitly (the remaining 2 are like Mew and Celebi), and a few that are color exclusive and can only be obtainable by trading with someone (example - Seedot can only be found in Ruby, Lotad can only be found in Sapphire). Of the 200 Pokemon, there are only a few of the original 150 that made it into the game including Zubat, Geodude, Abra, Oddish, Goldeen, Magikarp, and Horsea - a few from the Gold/Silver versions like Crobat and Kingdra - and then the rest are the brand new Pokemon. Ruby and Sapphire are also incompatible to trade with any of the previous games, so no bringing your precious Charizard or Mewtwo from Red or Blue. This is done for one of the most obvious reasons as far as I can tell, the GBA’s hardware is way to advanced for Pokemon from any of the previous versions to be traded to Ruby/Sapphire.
Personally, I’m glad that Nintendo didn’t stick all 351 or so Pokemon into Ruby/Sapphire, because that would just be way too much all at one time. Right now I’m kind of excited to see how Nintendo uses the next Yellow/Crystal expansion to Ruby/Sapphire, and also the new Pokemon Stadium for the Gamecube, which I have a feeling will have something to do with catching all the unattainables at this moment in time.
Sadly, there are no new types in Ruby/Sapphire, so Dark and Steel are the most recent additions to the elemental line-up, which were introduced back in Gold/Silver. There are however an interesting mix of types this time around, including two of my favorites - Flying/Ground (Flygon) and Fire/Fighting (Blaziken - get it, firefighter?). Other new type mixes include a Water/Grass, Electric Water (actually this was introduced in Gold/Silver, but I’m just now experimenting with it), and a bunch of new Steel combinations like Steel/Rock (Aggron) and Steel/Psychic (Metagross).
Aside from having genders again, Pokemon now have another new nifty feature, which are the Pokemon abilities. Every Pokemon has some sort of ability, some useless, while others are helpful - and then there are ones that are kind of cheap, and also ones that don’t even make sense to be on the Pokemon they are. The Pokemon abilities are on an “always-on” type of thing, so they don’t waste any turns to use them. I think the abilities are great because they add a tad bit more strategy to battles. Abilities such as Koffing’s levitate serves as an immunity to one of its previous weaknesses, which is Ground. Others like Zigzagoon/Linoone/Phanpy’s pick-up, which randomly picks up items form the ground - rare items at that (we’re talking Nuggets, Ultra Balls, Rare Candies, Vitamins - even in the beginning of the game)- is the most useful. Then there are power-up attacks where a certain element’s attack will be higher when that Pokemon’s HP is almost out or when they’re burnt or confused or something, which is kind of useless if you ask me.
With a new game comes a new world, as Hoenn is the continent that Ruby/Sapphire take place on, and Kanto/Johto are nowhere to be found. That’s okay though, because Hoenn is about twice the size of both Kanto and Johto. There are 8 new gym leaders that you have to defeat, a new Elite Four w/Champion, and also new trainers to be fought. You’ll use the Pokemon that you catch to battle other trainers and gain experience from beating them to go to the next level (you know, tradition RPG elements). In Red/Blue, once you defeated a trainer once, you could never battle them again. In Gold/Silver, this changed a little with the cell phone device, where after beating certain trainers, their number would be recorded in your cell phone and they’d randomly call for a rematch. Not only did the same damn saying get annoying - “I almost caught a (
insert name here), but it got away. It was SOO close too.” - but it was just so damn frustrating to find them to battle again. Now in Ruby/Sapphire, this little problem has kind of been fixed by way of the “Trainer’s Eye.” There are 70 trainers in the Trainer’s Eye, including the eight gym leaders (which, sadly, are never opt for rematches), and the 5 Elite Four members. So not every trainer you fight will be recorded in the Trainer’s Eye, but 70 is plenty enough when you figure that each one (aside from Gym Leaders) of them will battle again and again up to five times. Their Pokemon won’t be the exact same or same level each time either, so you might see a level 23 Magnemite and Loudred in one battle, and then when you battle them again they might now have a level 30 or so Magneton and Exploud. The highest level that I’ve ever seen any of the Trainer’s Eye Pokemon at is level 40, but when you’re trying to train for the Elite 4, the experience will add up. The trainer’s eye is also perfect for when you’re training a team of pure-breds, which I’m currently in the process of doing once I get my current team to level 100 (Wailord, Gardevoir, Lanturn, Flygon, Ninetails, Aggron), which will eventually be replaced by all level 5 Wailmer, Ralts, Chinchou, Trapinch, Vulpix, and Aron (once they’ve become of level, I’ll compare stats between them and my original team).
Aside from traditional Poke on Poke battles, Ruby/Sapphire include 2 vs. 2 battles, where the first two Pokemon in your team will be sent out to battle another trainer’s tag team duo, and so you’ll use both of your Pokemon’s attacks to deal damage instead of one. 2 vs. 2 battles add a whole other level of intensity and strategy, as some moves that one of your Pokemon use may also do damage to your other Pokemon. Using the right combo of Pokemon in 2 vs. 2 battles can be very deadly, such as using a flying type and ground type, so when Earthquake or another ground attack won’t affect your flying Pokemon, or using an electric attack on Lanturn to replenish it’s HP if it’s getting low - you know, stuff you kind of have to think about, but is actually really simple.
The replay value in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire is extremely high, as there is plenty to do once the Elite 4 is defeated. First of all, the Battle Tower opens up, which lets you take your Poke-skills and fight your way through trainers until you lose with only 3 Pokemon in two level divisions - Level 50 and under or Level 51 to Level 100. Obviously, you’re going to want to have your team of 3 at or close to level 50 or 100 in order to make it anywhere near the last of the trainers ( I tried going through the 100 division with a lvl.62 Gardevoir, lvl.55 Flygon, and lvl.52 Lanturn - I lasted through the first two trainers and then got
SMOKED). The battle tower is a great way to work on your strategy, however there is no experience to be gained through the tower, if you’re wanting to level up you’re going to have to deal with the Elite 4 for tons of experience.
Second, breeding and training a final team to your liking can take quite a long time to complete. Like I said before, I’m currently in the process of breeding a new team, and the hardest part to doing this is deciding which moves I want to breed on to the new Pokemon. I’ve already put over 100 hours in this game
EASILY, and breeding alone will probably take me another 100 or so hours to do, so plenty of replay value in breeding. Then there’s multiplayer, where you can trade Pokemon with your friends via the game link cable, and then of course you can link up to battle your buddies, both 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2, or you can partner up with a friend and battle 2 other friends for very interesting 2 vs. 2 battles.
Graphics
The visuals have been totally revamped from the GBC, looking very nice with my pretty GBA SP’s light that lets colors resonate more than before. Which, speaking of colors, look very nice with the GBA hardware. The animations of the Pokemon are much more fine now, so you can really distinguish color from color, and also the amount of activity that goes on are nice graphical touches like the sandstorm in the desert, Rain near the weather institute, and other small little noticeables like reflections in the water and footprints in the sand.
The new Pokemon in Ruby/Sapphire kind of resemble earlier Pokemon as it looks like Nintendo ran dry of creativeness with the new Pokemon. Taillow is a copy of Pidgey and Aggron is a copy of Rhydon, but there are also new ones that I think are really cool, like Gardevoir (as long as it’s female), Aggron (so what if it looks like Rhydon, it’s cool), Flygon, and Blaziken. Then there are some weird looking new Pokemon like Shiftry and Nosepass, those Pokemon just gives me nightmares about how ugly it looks.
Sound
The sound is basically the same as the other Pokemon games, with a few tunes that sound like remixed versions from the earlier games, but it does have some cool city/town themes that I enjoyed. The Pokemon cries have also been worked on, and thank god that there are none that have a loud screeching cry this time, at least from what I’ve seen.
Overall
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire are a great addition to a GBA (SP) library, especially if you enjoyed the previous games. If you skipped Gold/Silver because of them being too much of the same, go ahead and get Ruby/Sapphire, there is totally enough new in them that a purchase is definitely warranted. I definitely cannot wait for future online battles, trading, etc. through the Gameboy Player, Pokemon Stadium 3, and Broadband Adapter (or narrowband) - lets see if Nintendo finds Pokemon online to be profitable ( I certainly as hell think it would sell great).
happy gaming
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