Pokémon Generation 3 In-Depth Review

what up guys my name is Stan from random tens and today's video is sort of a biggie in fact from the moment I released my Gen 2 review last December I immediately had people asking me to take a look at the next installments in the Pokemon franchise I'm not sure if this is because the video went over well or if Gen 3 is more popular than I thought but regardless here we are finally taking a look at this much requested video now of course the plan was always to review pokemon emerald for the end of Pokemon 2016 however depending on how this video does I might be more inclined to review Gen 4 faster than I initially would have but that's another topic for another day for now though we're looking at gen 3 is it worthy of being considered the best generation of all time or is it just another rinse and repeat game in the series well let's find out the games after the continued success of gold and silver Pokemon was a global juggernaut having sold tens of millions of games worldwide and undoubtedly many Nintendo handhelds in the process as you'd imagine this sort of money and acclaim led to the decision to continue the franchise past its initial conclusion with the gen 2 games and so Game Freak got right to work on a follow-up for their most lucrative IP this time however original Pokemon creator and director Satoshi Tajiri took on a much more minimal role within the team and left his baby in the hands of famed composer turned director junichi Masuda with Masuda at the helm it was decided that rather than continuing the story of red and Ethan this new installment would be intended as a reboot of sorts utilizing the brand-new gameboy advance as its hardware this new system and direction gave the team a lot more freedom to create new worlds and features and the soft reboot idea would eventually become a recurring mechanic in all subsequent main series games and on March 19 2003 after years of grueling work North America finally got their hands on the next installment in the blockbuster franchise pokemon ruby and sapphire despite being released to stateside at a time when pokemon was experiencing its first real downswing fans still came out in droves to purchase the brand new adventure and these two games combined would eventually become the Game Boy advances best-selling titles with polka mania back in the spotlight it to a much lesser degree gamefreak decided to stay true to the classic formula and give fans a definitive version of the game in the form of pokemon emerald released two years later now although I bought ruby along with the copy of sapphire for my younger brother right after their initial launch I never owned emerald myself however I did play the main campaign on a friend's copy during a weekend getaway to his parents farm yeah I wasn't exactly the most active kid at 12 years old regardless though emerald always sort of stuck out to me as the Director's Cut version of the original Gen 3 games and as such I'll be using it as the main subject for most of my review however unlike crystal there are some real differences worth pointing out here so I'll be sure to talk about the important changes between emerald and its predecessors where necessary and with that out of the way let's take a look at pokemon emerald the story as I mentioned in the previous section Gen 3 is a soft reboot of the series however most of the core plot mechanics from the Tajiri era are carried over into this game flawlessly this time around you take control of Brendan or Mei a 10 year old Pokemon enthusiast who's recently moved to a vast new region called Hoenn due to their father becoming one of its esteemed gym leaders immediately upon moving in your dad runs off to his dream job and leaves you to make friends in your new hometown of little room it's here that you'll meet your pseudo rival Brendan or may depending on which gendered avatar you picked and eventually their father the esteemed professor birch unlike oak and elm before him professor birch enjoys working in the field as his research focuses on Pokemon habitats but upon meeting him for the first time it's clear he's bitten off more than he can chew as a wild Poochyena is attacking him now it's up to you to choose one of the game's three new starter Pokemon save the professor and begin your Hoenn Pokemon adventure I won't lie I always really connected to this opening as a kid as I could relate to the Newtown scenario and I always thought the split-second decision of choosing a Pokemon here made much more sense than just getting one because you're ten you choose Treecko Torchic or if you're like me in this particular playthrough Mudkip to save someone but like a real life animal would it gets attached to you after your battle and so the decision to go out collecting Pokemon feels more natural regardless you eventually battle your rival get a pokedex and then eventually make your way to petalburg gym where your father commends you on your progress but clarifies you're still not at his level yet it's here that you also meet your other pseudo rival Wally for the first time Wally is a sickly boy with a big passion for Pokemon and with your help he eventually catches his own pocket monster and begins to feel confident once again it's after you help out Wally and get rejected by your dad that our protagonist can battle the first gym leader Roxanne of rustboro city it's also in this area that you'll encounter the first instance of Team Aqua a pirate like organisation who are up to no good now it's here that I have to address the first major change emerald makes to its story which is rather than have Team Aqua or Team Magma be the nefarious group of Gen 3 players must take on both I will be giving my thoughts on this update later but just know that - a few extra Team Magma battles the plot is virtually the same regardless of whichever version you choose at least until very late in the story once team aquas grunts are disposed of you'll be thanked by mr. stone the president of the Devon corporation and asked to deliver a letter to his son Stephen you'll also receive a new device known as the pokénav which sort of works as an all-purpose smartphone and with the mission in hand our hero ventures across the sea to do for town where he delivers the letter to Stephen stone a rock collector after taking on the second gym leader brawly once the letters been delivered it's time to hit the open sea once again however this time our player travels to Slateport City where they'll be confronted with team aquas leader archie hill issue a stern warning not to get in his way again and after delivering the devon goods acquired during the first Ocwen counter to captain stern it's time to head north to marvel it's here you'll battle both your rival and Wally once again on the way - and in Marvel City respectively honestly there's not much to say about mayor Brendan here however in Wally's case he's feeling much stronger since moving to the cleaner verdant turf town and makes it clear he wants to be a strong trainer - it's also right here in Marvel that you can claim the third gym badge from the electric Watson get it and afterwards you'll travel through many new routes and towns until you reach Team Magma in the hollowed-out meteor falls in all three versions you'll actually run into both teams here and in Emerald it's also where you learn that Team Magma wishes to expand the world's land mass in order to build model homes I've actually always been pretty confused when it comes to their motivations is even though theirs is just as dumb you could argue team aquas plan to expand the sea could be at extreme activism but then they die yeah they're not the smartest crime organizations going but even still it's up to you and your Pokemon to fort them whenever they might turn up again which is really soon as you chase whichever team was driven out of meteorite Falls up to Mount chimney where you'll battle its leader and prevent the apocalypse halfway through the game and we've already saved the world once you know compared to the radio tower thing in Gen 2 these groups feel a lot more threatening anyways when you finally disposed of the red plague you'll be able to continue your adventure by beating lavaridge town s fire type leader Flannery and then making your way back to petalburg to show your dad how much you've improved once defeated Norman will award you with his gems badge as well as some encouraging words and after picking up surf next door from Wally's grateful father it's time to head north towards fortress city on the way there you'll have to battle Team Aqua or magma again at the weather Institute depending on the version but in terms of the city itself this is one of my favourite areas in the entire game as it's a wild forest utopia comprised of livable tree houses that make it radiate with identity it's also in this town that you can battle winona the flying-type gym leader after you receive the Devon scope from our good friend Steven stone with the sixth badge added to your growing collection you'll then be ready to visit mount pyre where you'll once again run into team aquas leader Archie who stolen the red orb in order to awaken the legendary Pokemon Kyogre in the original two games the player is given the remaining orb in order to counteract the evil plot however in Emerald it's revealed that Maxie has already stolen the blue orb and so you must take down both teams before it's too late this is where my least favorite part of the campaign comes into play as you'll be battling grunt after grunt and going back and forth across Hoenn in order to put an end to Team Magma and Team Aqua once and for all this is of course made even worse than emerald as you have to effectively stop not one but two evil crime organizations with what are effectively the exact same goals and the games really don't do anything to make this slog feel more bearable I'll touch on this a little bit more in depth in my con section later on but in my brief opinion it's the worst kind of patting and it just makes the game slow down at this point eventually though both parties lose control of their respective mascot legendary and after obtaining the seventh badge from twins tate and liza in mossdeep city you'll travel to the cave of origins in sootopolis city to set right in Ruby and Sapphire it's here that you can catch either Groudon or Kyogre which puts an end to the temporal chaos going on around the world however an emerald you must visit the sky pillar and awaken the legendary Pokemon Rayquaza who basically just nags the other two into submission and then flies away it's a little anticlimactic but with things set right and Team Aqua and team magma coming to a truce it's now time to claim your final gym badge from Juan and citta polis and take on the Pokemon League challenge once again before you can make your mark however your old friend Wally shows up at Victory Road to see if you're strong enough to test your mind and in doing so proves that he's grown up quite a bit since your last encounter but after dispatching the green haired is mattock it's finally time to battle the Elite Four first up this time around is Sydney a dark-type user like many of the Elite Four Sid loves to use status effective moves and will mess your team up through strategy rather than sheer force so it's always a good idea to stock up on berries and healing items before taking on this incarnation of the Pokemon League after him it's on to feed a ghost type user who seems sweet at first but can send your Pokemon to the afterlife with one bad move once again patience is key here and soon you'll find yourself face to face with Glacia the appropriately named ice type specialist of the elite for my particular team had a few troubles with the ice queen but overall I feel like she's actually the most forgiving member and mainly serves as an appetizer to the dragon master of the Elite Four drink Drizzy here certainly isn't as tough as Lance but his Pokemon do have far more type variety and so if you want to beat this walking pirate stereotype you're going to need a well balanced team once he goes down however you'll be ready to take on the Hoenn region champion mr. Steven stone unless you're playing emerald in which case you'll be facing off against the former città Palace Gym Leader Wallis to see who's the true Pokemon master Wallace is no pushover but I've always felt like he was a poor replacement for Steven especially from a narrative standpoint either way when you finally emerge victorious and become the new champion of the Hoenn region you'll meet up with old friends and have your name registered in the pokémon Hall of Fame a fitting end to a tumultuous journey of course unlike gold and silver this is the final act of the game and beyond some exceptional postgame events and attractions we've reached a definitive ending at least story wise the pros something I've always appreciated is that along with the obvious one in regards to friendship and Trust each generation of Pokemon has its own distinctive theme and corresponding lessons that it tries to bring into the fold for example generation one explores heavy themes involving science and the ambiguous ethics of experimenting on and corrupting nature however in this generation of games the developers took a different approach and decided to bring nature to the forefront and explore themes of tampering with and manipulating our natural surroundings in many ways it's sort of a reversal of Gen 1 however it doesn't leave much ambiguity at all from Professor birch to settings and locales to the new Pokemon you get a sense the Game Freak wanted to reel in the science and myth and give players the most organic feeling pokemon adventure yet and I believe they succeeded in this regard the theme of nature also directly ties into one of the many new features this game brought with it which is the environment itself like the real world the weather all around Hoenn changes based on various meteorology cool factors including a pokemons move or ability not only does this create more immersive and visually appealing battles but it also goes a long way in making this world feel more alive and make strategy that much more important along with this feature Ruby and Sapphire were also the first core games to implement abilities and Pokemon nature's into every past and present pocket monster giving the games a much-needed boost of strategy and challenge now obviously Pokemon will never be the most complex of RPGs but these two small additions really opened up the meta game to a variety of new options and effectively created viability in competitive battles speed boosts Blaziken anyone these games also expanded the ideas of IVs that is individual values and boosted each pokemons from 15 to 30 one in each main category this allowed even more variety and along with nature's really helped turn breeding into its very own genre of Pokemon game another obvious addition to the series that always makes me smile is the new double battle mechanic it seems so simple and like such a mainstay now but even to this day I would still much rather lock eyes with two trainers rather than one personally I think this opens up the game to more strategy as well as allows other Pokemon to grow faster if they're at a slight level disadvantage plus seeing new and unique ways of Pokemon working together never gets old and by far I think double battles may be my favorite new addition to come gen 3 while mixing up the battle formula the developers also tried their hands at creating new and inventive ways in which to use Pokemon first up we have contest a type of optional minigame that allows trainers a way to show off the appeal of their prize Pocket Monsters rather than they're powered as you can probably tell from the lack of footage collecting ribbons from these contests was never really my thing but I sort of think that's the point this gave players who prefer the cosmetic appeal of Pokemon more ways to bond with their virtual creatures and although the mechanics could use some work the idea itself is at least fresh which still makes it a winner in my books another new minigame style addition is the inclusion of the secret base all around Hoenn you'll find small holes and walls or enormous tree bushes that you can use a new TM secret power to hollow out and build yourself a personalized fort now although contest had the option of using a link cable to play with others it never really caught on in the same way that secret bases did with my small group of friends as a 10 year old I spent an embarrassing amount of hours trying to find the best furniture and most spacious cave to house my special tree fort also I could then compare and contrast with the other kids at my babysitter's there's mostly no point to it of course but it was a fun little addition nonetheless that I think also mildly expands the role of nature in these games however finally and what may be the most famous postgame feature we have the illustrious battle frontier now sadly this battle heavy island is an emerald exclusive but in my opinion this is the reason why that game stands apart home to seven different types of battling buildings the frontier is what you get when you take the battle tower from Ruby and Sapphire and inject it full of pocus steroids it's owned and operated by a shady man named Scott who's been bumping into our protagonist since the first main town and with his blessing you can take the frontier challenge and truly prove your abilities depending on which facility you tackle first you'll discover a varying degree of challenges each dome or arena boasts its own type of unique battling structure but no matter which you choose after enough victories you'll be challenged by the respective buildings frontier brain who can be a real pain in the ass to reach in fact I spent multiple hours just trying to capture footage of one of these frontier brains and even then it was only at the Silver level and I just happened to win because my way Lord knew a ghost type move so yeah the battle frontier is no walk in the park but trust me when I say that when playing the game for fun rather long-winded review this one postgame feature ads dozens of additional hours of content and I truly believe this is emeralds greatest strength and speaking of postgame this may sound blasphemous but next to Gentoo secret canto surprise I wholeheartedly believe that these games have the strongest after credits adventure of any Core Pokemon experience once the Elite Four is beaten for the first time you'll find yourself going off and hunting down tons of legendary Pokemon as well as probably checking out most of the optional features like contests once the main campaign is finished depending on which version you have the legendaries will be slightly different in terms of what you can add to your collection with Kyogre and latias being sapphire exclusives and Groudon and latias being rubies and in the case of emerald you basically get a shot at catching all three Hoenn mascots although you actually get a choice as to which eon pokemon you want however without a cheating device it's almost impossible to obtain the other especially nowadays despite being roaming Pokemon latias and latias aren't nearly as annoying as the legendary beast from gen 2 and in fact I actually ran into the one I chose Latios while surfing near pacifidlog town while completing another postgame quest the secret of the Reggie's yes folks on top of featuring two brand new legendary roaming Pokemon as well as three mascot Legendary's were also treated to another trio the legendary golems unlike the legendary birds or the legendary beasts Regirock registeel and regice can only be unlocked after the player completes what may be the most cryptic puzzle in all of Pokemon history in fact I would go as far as to say that this is some castlevania to red crystal type levels of both and you know what I like it unlike that game gen 3 was one of those juggernaut titles that almost every other kid on the playground had so word of mouth was much more common on the schoolyard and even without having reliable internet at the time I was still able to complete the puzzles with the help of a few knowledgeable friends and it's the initial intrigue in the way it leads to this sort of communication that I think makes this series so great in the first place and despite not caring too much about the reggie's themselves the mystery surrounding them was always one of my favorite parts of exploring ho ins post game world now before I move on to the cons there are a few more positives I want to address in terms of music once again each new town and each new theme breathes just a little more life into these games and I feel like this is the gen where composure go each a noise really came into his own yes there are a lot of trumpets and no I don't think the music is more iconic than gen ones but there are a ton of standout tracks like the surf theme that I would rank among the series best I'm not going to get too in-depth into the music as I feel like the whole it's great but not as iconic as Gen one thing will be a recurring theme among the remainder of these in-depth reviews but some of my personal favourite tracks include Oldale town Slateport City route 110 Verdun turf town route 113 the battle frontier main theme and many many more and finally one of the best parts of this game is the inclusion of Wally he's not exactly a rival in this game in fact he's almost like your apprentice in a lot of ways but he's a solid character who feels shutout and a lot of this games about him taking back control of his life and doing the things he wants to do and I think that makes him pretty relatable of course I could also go into detail about how he's only able to do all of this after gaining a friend in our hero as well as moving to a town untampered by pollution therefore reaffirming the whole friendship is king and leave nature alone themes the games trying to present but honestly he doesn't need all of that analysis he's just a likeable character who grows along with you and although he certainly no silver is so much better than the other pseudo rival in this game speaking of which the cons as some of you likely noticed when talking about the story the rival character that is Brendan armée started to have less of an impact and just sort of fade it off altogether this wasn't a deliberate choice but in actuality that's just sort of what the game does with this character sure I skipped a few of the later battles in my rundown but that's because your rival in this game starts off great and then just sort of becomes an afterthought in fact it's actually Wally who you battle with before they leave for not Brendan or May which sort of summarizes everything wrong about this characters inclusion I love the idea of this person being the professor's kid and all but what's their true purpose what's their end goal I mean I know they want to follow in their dad's footsteps but considering they never even fully evolved their starter Pokemon that sort of seems like a bad career choice it's not that I dislike them entirely but at the end of the day they have the smallest impact of the series so far throughout these reviews and when they show up to congratulate you for beating the Elite Four you sort of wish wall-e came instead and speaking of the Elite Four who thought making Wallace the champion and emerald version was a good idea it's not even that he's a bad trainer it's just compared to Stephen he's practically a stranger it's clear that this was added in to give players of Ruby and Sapphire a little shock when they made it to the end of Emerald to prove that this game is different but in my opinion this is one instance where that doesn't work heck even the games would canonically make Stephen the Hoenn league champion once again in both future games and the eventual remake so it's clear that even Game Freak knew this was a major misstep and one can't talk about missteps without bringing up emeralds handling of Team Aqua and team magma let me get this straight right now in terms of gameplay and battling emerald is the far superior game however in terms of the overall narrative and pacing Ruby and Sapphire are actually the best options not only do they have a champion who feels earned but battling against one evil team is more than enough the amount of backtracking especially in Emerald feels absolutely chore like and was clearly only introduced to Pat out the game besides that though I think Team Aqua and team magma as groups are a mixed bag when it comes to quality they solve my no identity problem from the last review by having specific themes motifs colors and even leaders that are all their own all of this stuff combined does give them an identity especially compared to the black and white Team Rocket and it absolutely makes them memorable my only gripe is that their plans make no sense Team Magma wants to cover the world and land but once again there's no motivation for why it would sort of make sense if they worshiped Groudon and the only way to revive him is by expanding the current landmass but even that's not a great reason and it's certainly not what they're after here and as I mentioned in the story section aquas just as bad as their red counterparts because submerging the entire world in water means that they'll drown so yeah sorry guys but their motives just don't cut it for me in these games as for the whole too much water thing it never really bugged me in fact when I think of Hoenn I fondly remember it as the beautiful tropical region with lots of waterfalls and the cool underwater city I will however say that the utilization of HMS in this game is ridiculous surf and a few others are obviously fine but Meno man does it suck when you have to effectively plan your party around a gems for example I wasn't planning on having two water types and a Hariyama on my team but because this game goes out of its way to force the player into using a gems like dive and rock smash at every turn I found myself having to build my team around both battle ability and usefulness on the map and it's just a little too much here for my taste I mean you can argue that Gen 1 also used a lot of a gems to solve puzzles especially later in the games but with those installments it felt like necessary padding due to tech limitations here it just feels like intentional blow and besides the unnecessary padding that's my only real gripe with this generation of games at times they really try to recapture that Gen 1 magic instead of just doing their own thing not all the time mind you but enough that it does keep reminding you of Kanto now I know that Gen 1 is iconic for a reason and creating an improved game while keeping that feel should sound like a smart decision but I think in hindsight it's a little frustrating because only a few years later we actually got gen 1 remakes using the exact same engine and for those wondering I'm not just talking about actual events in the game such as the first gym having a rock-type leader or three of the four elite 4 members sharing typing with their Gen 1 nation I'm speaking more to the fundamentals of the game the progression it's not that these games have no originality I think they keep things pretty fresh action just in general I wish they took a few more risks 13 years ago because maybe then we wouldn't be stuck in this perpetual loop of soft reboots but that's a discussion for another day and with those little NIT picks out of the way I think it's time we start to wrap this up after one final category the Pokemon themselves the Pokemon in past installments of these reviews I've talked about the good and bad generational Pokemon in the pros and cons sections respectively but with this video I figured I'd switch it up firstly Ken Sugimori and his team did a great job of making nearly every Pokemon feel like an organic extension of the Hoenn region from more animalistic designs like corphish and wall rain to Pokemon that incorporate weather and climate into their actual designs like swablu or Tropius this is the generation for those who prefer natural-looking pokemon rather than the scientific or machine looking ones we see more of today some of my personal favorites include sceptile Ludicolo Gardevoir slaking shedinja nosepass Mawile medicham metric Sharpedo Flygon Altaria Cradle II dusk all Tropius absol clay lye and most of the legendary however despite there being so many good ones there's few that I would consider great and there's also still a few odd or forgettable ones including Mightyena lombre surskit Gulpin spoink spin de Cacnea ball toy and love disk once again I want to state that I don't hate any of its designs but to me and probably a few others Gen 3 is that generation that has very few bad additions but rarely introduces iconic ones again it's all good just not great also I totally forgot grumpig was even a Pokemon let alone from way back in Gentry whoops so overall there's a lot of good to this game and there's some bad or uninspired aspects as well but having compiled all of these highlights and lowlights let's throw them into my thought blender and finally wrap this up final verdict you know it's funny because as a kid I went absolutely nuts over these three games between them all I probably poured more than 500 hours into the Hoenn region and I don't regret a single second of it because I still love these games to death I think they took one of the most iconic games of all time and rebooted them into something a little more accessible a little more challenging and a lot more immersive and I would highly recommend either of these three to any fan of the series in fact I would still go as far as to say that these are still the superior versions when compared to their 2014 remakes for those who like a little more challenge in their Pokemon experiences and in terms of pure battling and strategy I don't know if you'll ever find a game with more to do than emerald the games got great characters epic set pieces fun mechanics and the best postgame experience Gentoo notwithstanding so what are you waiting for if you recently rediscovered the franchise thanks to the likes of Pokemon go or just a diehard fan of the series who hasn't taken on the original home and adventure in quite a while I think it's the perfect time that you pack your bags strap on your running shoes and break out your old SP Pokemon generation 3 gets an A - it's a phenomenal entry in the neverending adventure series but some pacing issues at the very end as well as some confusing motivations just keep it from being perfect well that went longer than expected they always do but I hope you guys enjoyed reliving a little piece of my childhood with me today and I hope you're just as excited for the next installment in this series of course no Gen 3 review could be complete without talking about some very important remakes and so next time on this show we're going to be taking a look at firered and leafgreen for the Game Boy events I know I know pokey month is turning into a whole poke a summer but with the 20th anniversary maybe that's not such a bad thing anyways I'm hoping to get that out in the next few weeks and I really hope that you guys join me for that mini review but until then follow us on twitter at random tens if you have any questions or you just want to talk and as i always say happy hunting baby rhinos i don't know what that was you

Channel: RandomTens

Views: 696,194

Keywords: pokemon, gen 3, hoenn, ruby, saphire, emerald, review, advance, gba, emulator, in depth, randomtens, pros, cons, gameplay, story, gen 2, gen 1, game freak, treeko, mudkip, torchic, starters, may

Id: BtKFW5Avp2w

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2016