LONG BLOG
Pokemon 20th Series Retrospective Generation 3: Ruby and Fire Red
Generation 3 Ruby, and Fire Red
By the time generation 3 rolled around I had a subscription to Nintendo Power. In these magazines, I got early screen-shots and promo info for Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. I bought a Game boy Advanced for these games, I wore the thing out. It still works, sort of, but I have to press real hard on the down and left button. My cousin came to visit just after Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire came out, and he bought my brother Sapphire so we played a ton. Its funny I don't remember being as excited for Ruby as I was for Silver.
Pokemon Ruby
Starter: Torchic
trainer card: 3 stars
Ruby was in a word not great. I think it hit me right around the middle of the game after the weather institute. There didn't seem to be any omnipresent threat; Sure team magma wanted to expand the land mass but the effects on the Pokemon world weren't particular made clear. There wasn't anyone like Blue who was annoying and beat you at every turn or Silver who was not only better then you but evil. The game's new Pokemon were mostly... disappointing due to the lack of new iterations on previous Pokemon, that being said there were some pretty great, like Latias, Metagross and the Regi trio. I feel the lack of older Pokemon evolution made the game weaker overall. I mostly used Blaziken and Mightyena to beat the game. When I played through with my cousin we caught all of the Pokemon in Hoenn.
Going into this I had beaten the elite four, and had a full Hoenn pokedex. So I had two challenges left beat 50 trainers in battle tower or win 4 more contests. I... don't like contests all that much. So I took the tower, Salamence, Latias, and Metagross. In three tries I had defeated the 50th trainer. My spearhead, Salamence probably beat 40 odd trainers on his own, to mark the occasion I did something I never do, I gave Salamence a nickname, Sally. Is Ruby a good game? To me no, it feels like 2 steps back from Crystal. Crystal's sprites moved, had a day and night system, and two whole regions to explore. Ruby has static sprites, it tracks time but only in the background, and has one region. The system had many important behind the scenes fixes. All the changes prevented trading from the old games to the new gen 3 games. My prized shiny team got left behind, I did however manage to trade for a shiny Oddish. I got burnt out by this game, this is were the franchise sort of died for me.
Pokemon Fire Red
Starter Charmander
trainer card: 2 stars
Fire Red brought me back in. I was sort of done with the franchise after Ruby, But hey, I loved my Charmander and I wanted to be able to use it in new games. At the point in my life nobody was really into Pokemon, so I went on this journey alone mostly. I got a satchel for buying the game too. Friend who was into Pokemon did get Leaf Green but we stopped hanging as much, no more staying up till after 12am to mystery gift.
Some Pokemon just seem to stick with you some how. My original Charizard was female and my new one was as well, It felt like my Charizard had somehow transferred over to my Fire Red. I got my Gengar back too. The Sevii Island quest was pretty great. It gave Moltres a proper home and the maps for the 7 islands effectively add a whole new region. I actually love this game. It's still not quite crystal, but to me the definitive the best version of Pokemon red. Going into this I beat the the the elite four. There are were three remaining stars for this game, one of the stars for this game is for wireless mini games. Two more for pokedex completion. One for the first 150, the second is for collecting all Pokemon but event Pokemon. Since I had very little Pokedex completion I went for Kanto pokedex completion. I had to borrow Leaf Green from an acquiescence to get a freaking Bellsprout, I grabbed a few more Pokemon, in the end I got my final Pokemon (Omastar!) and hit 150/150. I am now a Bronze Card trainer.
Bonus Round!
Pokemon Emerald.
I didn't like Ruby. The idea of doing the whole adventure again just seemed exhausting. So I skipped it. But I did end up buying it. For a girl I was dating at the time.
A wired thing happened when I was playing Ruby I came across my ex's secret base. It's always been strange to me how games get frozen in time when you save them, you can come back years later and there are all these details that come back that you had forgotten about.
Its disappointing that the best game from generation 3 is a remake. There were numerous necessary improvements but not being able to transfer long loved Pokemon was a serious let down. Over all the game feels like a better generation 1 game but it doesn't compare to the Generation 2 games. In part 1 I mentioned that there is a better way to play gen 1 games, that's this remake. If you're going to pick one up make it one of the remakes.
LOOK WHO CAME:
