Pokémon Emerald is amazing in theory, but it totally lost me in practice
Abilities, double battles, natures, weather, running shoes, full color, menu sprites for every Pokémon… the game was a massive evolution, but I didn’t enjoy playing it much.
I grew up with Pokémon Blue Version as Pokémania was hitting the US. So I can’t rate that fully objectively. But I played both Gen 2 and Gen 3 for the first time as an adult, within the last couple years. So I feel like I can give a less biased review to those.
Whereas Pokémon Crystal blew me away with how well it held up, Emerald just felt… like an unfinished product to me. The art is just… dopey? Obviously it has more colors, more stuff on screen, etc. compared to Crystal but… it just sort of looks off to me? Like the Pokémon sprites are pretty good, but it’s right when the series started to solidify every monster as these perfect objects that never changed again. Which is sad. And more importantly, UGH do the NPCs just look really awful in this game. Particularly the overworld sprites.
Music was good, but I prefer the Gen 1-2 chiptune vibe.
They tried to do something in this game to make it less linear, but honestly I just didn’t care for it at all. It just feels like a lot of meaningless wandering and backtracking to get through the Elite Four in this game. Also, ugh I did not care at ALL about Team Magma or Team Aqua. They all talked so much and kept saying the most obnoxious stuff like “haha i’m gonna blow up a volcano because it’s epic” like ok dude w/e can I keep playing Pokémon? At least Team Rocket was like “I’m doing crimes lol” these guys are just supervillain idiots.
There’s something to be said for Gen 2 introducing a bunch of boring “it’s just a bird” and “it’s just an octopus” type monsters. Gen 3 is a bit better about the creativity, but certainly has its share of stinkers. Worse, though, is the really cool guys they added that feel like complete trash to use. Luckily I didn’t suffer with Mawile very long, but it was complete dead weight against the Elite Four after I scooped it up on Victory Road to replace my HM mule. And wtf Gardevoir was just not the effort at all. Don’t even get me started on the legendary Pokémon for Gen 3 either. At least Rayquaza is kinda cool.
Speaking of HMs, ugh are they miserable in this game. There’s an absolutely absurd amount. I mean, 3 water HMs to beat the game? Give me a freaking break.
Gen 3 adding abilities and double battles are both obviously huge milestones for making Pokémon battles more interesting… but I just couldn’t really get into this game that much as an RPG compared to Crystal.
