Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald is the peak of the pixel era (GBA, 2002)

The Pokemon quest with my daughters continues. We finished Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Crystal, and now we’ve conquered Pokemon Emerald. Generation 1 was groundbreaking, generation 2 was a huge leap forward, and yet generation 3 still found ways to inject a ton of new features. Every new mainline Pokemon game introduces some kind of new feature, but the gravity of these changes certainly lessened after generation 3.

Gen 3 brought a truckload of new features — 77 unique abilities (Levitate, Sturdy, etc), 25 different natures that affect stat growth, double battles, in-game and in-battle weather effects, plantable berries, revised contests, secret bases, a sleek new UI, two new HMs, two new villainous teams, and a massive improvement in graphics and sound on the Game Boy Advance. Emerald in particular introduced the Battle Frontier, a hefty post-game feature.

Almost everything about this generation is vastly improved. This is my favorite visual style among all mainline Pokemon games. Gen 3 is the only generation on the GBA, and I prefer the purity of this pixel art to the 2.5D-ish environments of gens 4 and 5. There are so many clever visual tricks they employ in gen 3. I love the bouncing flowers, the reflections in the puddles, the footprints in the sand, and the insanely bright and vibrant colors.

The familiar gameplay loop is more enjoyable than ever. You catch and train Pokemon, battle trainers, collect badges, conquer the Elite Four, and of course, you play a critical role in a high stakes Pokemon story. I will say, the story in gen 3 may be one of the best in the franchise. Pokemon writing in general is not particularly good (except for perhaps Legends: Z-A), but generation 3 suffers the least from that childish Saturday-morning-cartoon plot we’ve come to expect from the franchise. Gen 3 has some great dialogue, some genuinely funny lines, and a fairly engaging story about the opposing machinations of two new villainous teams.

We are introduced to 135 new Pokemon in gen 3, and SO many of them are just wonderful. The long list of my favorite new ‘mons in this gen includes Mudkip, Zigzagoon, Ludicolo (what a delightful goof), Seedot, the Ralts line, Breloom, Whismur, Plusle/Minun, Roselia, Spinda, Lunatone, Duskull, and Absol. What a lineup. Many of my millennial Pokemon friends especially cherish the gen 3 ‘mons. My daughters always take turns nicknaming the Pokemon we catch as we play, and of course we shared plenty of laughs at “Big Booty Kirlia.” We began calling her that after my youngest asked “Why does she have a big booty?”

I will always favor the classic chiptune music from gens 1 and 2, but I still love the retro feel of the gen 3 soundtrack. The GBA had notoriously horrible audio quality, and I tolerate this for very few GBA scores. The epic gen 3 soundtrack remains worthy of a listen in spite of the horribly compressed sampling.

I only have a few complaints about the gen 3 games, other than the audio quality. There are WAY too many HMs in these games. A whopping SIX of these HMs are required to complete the main story. I tried to utilize an “HM slave” when possible, but the HM requirements just became too much. I bit the bullet and started parsing out HMs to my main fighting squad. Thankfully, you can use the Move Deleter in Lilycove City to clean up your movesets before taking on the Elite Four. Somehow, the HM absurdity gets even worse in gen 4, with a total of eight HMs.

There’s a lot of water in gen 3. I’m usually too cheap to invest in Max Repels, but I made liberal use of repels when surfing across what feels like endless ocean late in the game. The new Dive mechanic is fun, and breaks up the vast waters a bit, but there’s still just too much water travel.

Similar to the previous gens, gen 3 also requires a hefty grind before tackling the Elite Four. I fought nearly every trainer I could to ensure I was properly leveled for gym battles, and yet, after making my way through Victory Road, I was still about 12-15 levels below the Champion’s Pokemon team. My daughters have zero patience for grinding, so I decided to use a rare candy hack to bring our team up to a competitive level. We still found the Champion battle to be challenging. This is one of the tougher Elite Four gauntlets in the franchise, especially if you’re underleveled.

There’s one more miff I want to get off my chest about Emerald in particular, but it’s quite spoilery, so I’ll share it below in my “Spoiler Talk” section.

All in all, gen 3 is a nearly perfect nostalgia-fueled Pokemon game with peak pixel graphics, an iconic lineup of new ‘mons, and one of the best Pokemon stories in the franchise. I highly recommend that every Pokemon fan give Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald a full playthrough.

Warning. Spoilers ahead.

For some reason, Game Freak decided to change who the Champion is in Pokemon Emerald. In Ruby and Sapphire, Steven Stone is the Champion, which makes perfect sense. He’s a well written character with an interesting Pokemon team, and he shares multiple points of interaction with the main character throughout the game. This has been the pattern in every Pokemon game so far. The Champion is typically a significant person of interest with ample amounts of involvement in the story. This is good. It helps the final battle with the Champion feel meaningful.

In Emerald, for whatever reason (probably just to add one more item to the list of unique changes featured in Emerald), Steven is not the Champion. Instead, you face some rando named Wallace with whom you’ve had barely any interaction. In Ruby and Sapphire, Wallace is the final gym leader in Sootopolis. In Emerald, Wallace is present for a bit of dialogue in Sootopolis, but some other rando named Juan is the gym leader there instead. I do like Juan’s character and design, so no complaints there, but making Wallace the Champion over Steven was a very poor decision. Emerald is easily the best version of the gen 3 games, except for this horrible substitution.

What do you think? Who’s the better gen 3 Champ, Steven or Wallace?