I don’t necessarily think that I have to discuss what Pokemon is as a franchise or why it’s so popular, but for those who don’t know, Pokemon is a game series where you capture, battle, and trade monsters that can range from cute and cuddly to giant and ferocious.
My history with Pokemon dates back to when the anime’s first season was airing in the US; around 1999 would probably be the year that I first noticed it and fell in love with it. My favorite of all of them as a kid was Pikachu and he still remains my favorite because I loved the combination of an electric mouse who was adorable but can destroy you in battle!
Even though the games have been around since 1998 in the US, my first Pokemon game wasn’t until 2003 with the release of Pokemon’s third generation of games; Ruby and Sapphire. As previously mentioned in my last blog about Spyro, I only had one console/system every few years, so if I wanted to ask my mom for one, it had to of been a system that I knew had games that I would actually play and enjoy. The GBA was still relatively new in 2003, so I was able to get one Christmas of 2002 and played Spyro: Season of Ice for the time being.
Ruby and Sapphire added over 100 new creatures and let you explore a brand new region; Hoenn, which in my view is one of my favorite regions to explore in the entire series. A lot of people argue that there’s not much to do, or recite the usual “7.8 too much water” memes, but I loved Hoenn as a kid because of the fact that it was a huge tropical island for me to enjoy. This is also added to the fact that as a kid I essentially grew up near the beach, so Hoenn felt like home to me.
The new Pokemon also stirred some criticism when first released, but looking back a lot of them are some of my favorites just based on their designs. Some standouts include Grovile, Groudon, Rayquaza, Latios/Latias, and Blaziken.
You may say it’s nostalgia, but I will admit that some things about the game don’t necessarily hold up. The biggest example is the battle system and how moves worked. So I won’t go into full detail, but in Pokemon you have physical and special moves that deal more damage to your opponent if your Pokemon had more base attack or more special attack. However, moves that deal physical or special attacks were type-based, so moves that you would think would deal special attack damage were actually physical and vice versa. This was fixed in Diamond and Pearl, but this was a glaring problem for a lot of people even today and even I will admit that it is a problem as well.
Another big thing was the trading. This is what made Pokemon the empire it is today; the feature of trading Pokemon that you wanted with someone that also wanted a specific Pokemon he/she wanted. You could still do this is Ruby and Sapphire, but there was a catch; Pokemon caught in Gen 1 (Blue, Red, Yellow) or in Gen 2 (Silver, Gold, Crystal) could not be transferred to Gen 3, meaning that Lugia you caught in Silver couldn’t be traded over to Ruby. But don’t worry, because you could catch Lugia in Ruby/Sapphire…..but only through a Nintendo event that sadly doesn’t exist anymore without using cheats such as Gameshark.
This saddened me as a kid because although I didn’t have the previous games, I loved the anime so I was so pumped to maybe catch a legendary Pokemon like Entei or Mewtwo, only for them not to exist in the game at all until Fire-Red/Leaf-Green arrived the next year.
However, despite all the criticism, I still love these games because of how many hours I put into them. I remember doing Pokemon contests, listening to the fantastic music, training my party of 6 and finally conquering the elite 4 and champion, and then hunting down Latios all over the region. But my proudest moment was when I finally caught Rayquaza. Now this guy’s a dragon, which is one of my favorite creatures ever. He was also an emerald green which I love as a color. Finally, this guy was strong and I knew I had to get him. It took me days to get to him and even more days to catch him. I even cried every time I failed to catch him (hey I was 8 going on 9, ok!) But it was all worth it when my last ultra ball finally prevailed and I ran over to my mom, showed her what I did, and ran back my room to SAVE and enjoy my new friend.
I think that’s the overall theme of Pokemon and why people still love the series to this day; you make friends not only through capturing the creatures in the game, but also by interacting with others in real life and sharing your experiences with them. As a kid, I was extremely shy and although I had friends, I never really knew how to express myself. Pokemon was really the opening that I needed because it showed me that I could express myself and identify me as a person.
So overall, although Ruby and Sapphire are flawed, I still love them because of the memories that they gave me, and I will always cherish them.
As with last time, here’s a little video to close everything out; a cheesy but fun ad for Ruby and Sapphire that shows off the new features of the game!
