My least favorite thing about Emerald is definitely that they replaced Steven with Wallace. This would probably be in my top tier if literally not for that one thing. I'm not the biggest post game guy and either way a water champion is just bogus with team aqua, water gym leader, and all the surfing on top of that.
Battle frontier alone deserves atleast an A. This is also one of the only pokemon games that would give you a reason to keep playing after the main story
depends. while i would like it back, they need to strip all of the horrendous rng run killer sets like ones reliant on skillless items like bright powder and ohko moves, and some of the facilities were kinda crap across both major iterations. make it actually mean something to be good at the game instead of designing it so the player gets intentionally robbed. getting crit is one thing, having the plan be "haha you lose" is another.
@@pikminman13 I don't know if I'm just being really unlucky, but I've decided to run BF from emerald again some days ago. Completed the main story, then decided to drop me a perfect IV Milotic and Metagross because I couldn't care much about grinding to get them. Nature was fixed as Naive because, of course, I also got them shiny. Grinded for the perfect EVs and gave a shot at the battle tower to get choice band + moves for metagross. The amount of blind counters I've witnessed after a run was astonishing. Having only two pokemons + a placeholder (had yet to decided for the third member of the team) was an horrible experience. Around half of the teams were water type pokemons with electric/ground moves. I happened to have zero counterplay to that. Also, I'm running stall Milotic (surf - toxic - refresh - recover), and at least another enemy moveset/items just happened to perfectly counter that.
You mean that one area that forces you to play in a different style when brute force and type advantage was good enough up to that point, has massive rng issues, and rewards you with so little for all that effort? Nah, I'm good
@@Lunar994Your description can apply to pretty much every post game battle facility in the series. Personally I thought it was cool that Emerald had this big area that gave you a reason to use min maxed Pokémon. In a time when you couldn’t just go online and battle someone having access to challenging Ai opponents with the goal of winning practically a 2nd set of badges was cool.
I think the worst thing (and the game is still great and an overall improvement) was replacing Steven for Wallace as champion as we didn't need a water type a water type champion in addition to a water type gym leader
I think one of the reasons people rank Emerald so much higher on tier lists is because it makes R/S essentially pointless. There’s not really a reason to play them when Emerald exists besides a few exclusive Pokémon and a slightly different story (and a better champion but you can still battle Steven in Emerald anyways)
I play R/S because shiny hunting is regular in those whereas Emerald it’s really weird & difficult on shiny hunting . Emerald you have to actually follow specific out of game manipulation & I don’t want to do that. If I’m just playing thru the story tho, 100% Emerald :)
And it was the first time a specific item in conjunction with breeding produced a specific move, with a Pichu that learned Volt Tackle if a parent held a light ball.
Also, on top of Flame Body ability, Everstone increasing the odds of a specific nature from 1/25 to 1/2 and the whole way from Verdanturf town to route 118 in a straight line made the process of hatching eggs much less frustrating.
Sure the Rayquaza cutscene in Emerald was cool, but nothing will beat the experience of finding Sky Pillar in ruby and sapphire, being greeted with difficult puzzles with no idea what's gonna be at the end of the tower, only to finally be greeted with one of the coolest legendaries ever
Sky pillar was also a lot tougher. There’s like no where to train in emerald you mostly have to rely on rebattling the league which only going to 58 takes a while. I think the highest leveled wild pokes in sky pillar ruby/sapp were like in the 60s while in emerald it’s like 30s-40s.
BIG FACTS! I'll never forget it! I was in summer camp when a buddy I had made there saw me playing ruby and told me about sky piller and another legendary I didn't believe him but when I he showed me where to go I was so amazed lmaoo
Not only does the Battle Frontier make Emerald significantly better than R/S, I believe the Battle Frontier was the single greatest thing ever made in any Pokemon Game. This is the peak of the franchise for me.
As much as I had flund memorys of it. To many Pokemon there had Evasion Strategys. 3 Pokemon dont allow for much room for Failure, and Pokemon is famouse for its heavily Luck based Combat, whit Damage Ranges, and Accuracy. Many of the Frontier Facilitys are very Luck Based, and propper DV Breeding was a Nightmare. PWT was way better. But still one Generation to early. PWT whit better Breeding, the Rivals as Enemys, and 6 vs 6 Singles would be the perfect Facility.
Roar? There’s moves that hit no matter the evasion as well. It’s this whining why Pokémon is piss easy now. Also IV breeding is not a nightmare just takes patience.
@@chillinglikeavillful Roar? You heed to be able to counter any Pokemon in existence, over 200 fully evolved. OK, which Pokemon sould use Roar? Cause if its Scarmory, you wont roar a lot if its Kingdra, or Starmie. You wont roar eighter, if its the last one. Also 60 basepower isnt particular high, and its not very accessable.
Emerald also had a bunch of little quality of life changes, while most are pretty minor they do add up. - more bag space - when shopping, it now shows how many of each item you already have in your bag - when looking at TMs in your bag, it now shows the power and accuracy right there (in ruby and sapphire you had to click TM -> use -> select pokemon -> get to screen that lets you pick which move to replace and only THEN does it show the TM's power and accuracy) I know I am forgetting some but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. There are also some changes in Emerald that I don't know if I agree with, or maybe could have just been handled better. For instance, the phone mechanic where you can rematch trainers and gym leaders is awesome, but I really don't like how it interrupts gameplay to force you to take the phone call every time it rings. And the obvious one, replacing Steven as the champion. Steven was so much better as the champion thematically and mechanically, replacing him with Wallace and making Juan the 8th gym leader was a pretty bizarre change. Steven being a super boss in the post game was cool I guess but it was way more impactful having him as the champion. The post game in Emerald is already so expansive with the battle frontier that the Steven fight doesn't really seem all that necessary. If Emerald just had the same Ruby and Sapphire post game but now with this new Steven fight, it would have made more sense.
Other things too like: -Being able to add and remove items directly from pokemons in the boxes (You have no idea how many times I've deposited a pokemon only to realise I didn't take the exp share). -There's berries that reduce EVs so you can properly train if you mess up. -Item icons letting you sort through things faster and being a some extra eye candy for things. and a bunch of other stuff.
"Why can't you catch Surskit/Meditite/etc in Emerald?" That's nothing new, making some Pokémon unavailable has never been limited to the paired games. Weedle/Ekans/Meowth/Koffing in Yellow, Mareep/Girafarig/Remoraid in Crystal, Murkrow/Misdreavus/Glameow/Stunky in Platinum, just to name like half of the lines you had to trade to get.
I think their idea was to incentivize people to share Pokémon and play together. I admit that at the time when you finally obtained a rare Pokémon it was incredibly satisfying. They didn't translate this into the new generation with something more suitable for modern world gaming
Yeah third versions should have included all pokemons, or at least all the version exclusives. I can almost accept the lack of meditite or surskit given that they can be traded by both Ruby and Sapphire, but I won't excuse the lack of Lunatone and Zangoose, especially given that Lunatone is the only reliable way to farm moon stones.
And it's a terrible. Honestly, the fact that they already release two versions of the games that are 99% the same and then did third versions that are like 95% the same is kind of insane.
A few other tidbits: -New music. Kind of obvious and doesn't really effect gameplay, but I think a lot of the new music tracks are bangers, especially the Frontier Brain Battle Theme. -The Pickup ability was revamped and has a whole new items list based on level. -Pokemon Contests being isolated to Lilycove City. -New move tutors -The international releases removed e-Reader support, but you can still mix records to obtain these items. -The Trick House and Regi puzzles are a tiny bit different. -The best designed character in all of video gaming... SCOTT!!
Emerald was the only poke game where I maxed the in-game timer out. I also cycled the news crew so many times when I was a kid that they actually stopped rotating, and you'd just need to reload the route they were on for easy XP. Loved the game
Oh man, this unlocked a core memory for me and it not something I realized other people did. I must have batted that Exploud and Megnaton at least a hundred times.
Tate and Liza I remember in particular because of how more tactical their opening choices are. No longer can you sweep the field with Surf or Muddy Water, you need to counter Earthquake and Xatu being flying type isn’t affected.
There's something about Sapphire being my first ever portable Pokemon game, at age 9, that felt so full of wonder and excitement. I think I enjoyed my 1st ever playthrough of Sapphire more than Emerald purely because everything was so new and wondrous to me, even though I had the strategy guide. It was amazing. When I got Emerald 2 years later, it felt like a familiar world, and therefore not as impactful on my childhood. Emerald did wow me with it's cutscenes though, for sure! I remember exactly where I was in my old house (the kitchen) when I witnessed the Rayquaza cutscene. I never got into the Battle Frontier or Battle Tower much though, as I found them too difficult, and I enjoyed catching legendary Pokemon the most.
Sapphire was my first too, got it at a gamestop when I was 8 or 9 , and I remember being up until 2-330 in the morning playing with a GBA. Then, the SD and micros came along. 90-00's had the best shyt
Definitely my favorite part of emerald was the battle frontier. It was the reason for me even learning about EVs and IVs. It also has turned pokemon game from 30 hours to +300 hours for me.
I liked that Emerald made things much easier for the player to actually craft a team to conquer the battle frontier. All the tools are there if you dive deep enough. Something cool that maybe some players didn't realize is that you can influence the natures of pokemon in the safari zone with the pokeblock feeder. If you recall, certain pokemon like certain color pokeblocks when prepping for a contest, that mechanic is also based on a pokemon's nature. It turns out, you can attract the pokemon with natures you want in the safari zone this way too. Placing a blue pokeblock makes it more likely for you to find +spatk natures; modest, rash etc. So then you can mass catch a bunch of Natu who have a chance to have the ability Synchronize, with the desired nature. I think you can see where this is going. Once you have a pokemon with the desired nature and synchronize, you can find pokemon in the wild with the natures you want; making catching and breeding much easier. I believe Emerald is the first game that had the Everstone mechanic for passing down natures too. Then factor in Emerald added a location where only Ditto spawn. So in terms of building a good team from the ground up, Emerald is by far the best in the 3rd generation. Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed and LeafGreen don't come close. It was always harder to figure out IVs without a calculator, but Emerald does give you an IV checker in the battle frontier.
Probably the only thing I would improve upon Emerald is the cutscene with rayquaza. I feel like it should have ended on a double battle with yourself and rayquaza vs Kyogre and groudon, which would have served as a much better climax. The game builds towards the increasingly harmful actions of team magma and aqua, but it just being solved by rayquaza coming down and telling groudon and kyogre to shut up and stop couple fighting just feels pretty anti climatic and takes away the seriousness of the situation. I understand why they didn’t do this, cause the main purpose of the story was team aqua and magma learning the error of their ways, but I still feel weird about emerald’s story because it’s pretty good but it lacks a legitimate climax.
I grew up with Sapphire and still haven't played Emerald, and it's so weird seeing other people's nostalgia for the cutscene in question. I'd assumed from Bulbapedia that the story ended with an actual climax of a double battle (a feature that was advertised on the back of the box for Ruby/Sapphire). I couldn't believe it when I found out there's no double battle. It was too perfect for this world.
I love Emerald to pieces. After having played Sapphire before, I did not expect it to impress me nearly as much as at it did. It just went the extra mile every single time. And those hidden, surprise sidequest npcs made the game feel so alive!
1 thru 5 still have the spirit of Pokémon the leap to 3D handheld wasn’t done well. In sprite form you can imagine the expresión of your character in 3D everyone is always smiling
Fuck yea legends. I just finished every last thing you can do in the game finally yesterday. It is crazy how it instantly became my fav game when I went it with pretty mild expectations. I love gen 4 with a passion and I appreciated and geeked every call back and detail and love the feeling of running around tossing smoke bombs and sticky globs and then sprinting up and getting back throws without stopping on a bunch and dodging in on alphas to stun them. I will pre order any new legends if they make another. I hope they do so much
Interesting decision to use the ORAS art to compare to Emerald (I suppose it makes the differences easier to spot from a glance). Going in, while I do agree Emerald is better than R/S, I would say the improvements are greater than Crystal to G/S but not nearly as large as D/P to Platinum. Also, Ruby and Sapphire still feel like entries to obtain alongside Emerald due to the different villain team you faces (along with Black/White, they are the entries that feel most justified in having different versions). 1:29 - There were also Pokémon given annoying relocation, such as making Mawile an end-game/Victory Road Pokémon. I had planned to use a Mawile in Emerald but ended up having to have one traded to me. 4:01 - The green look for May and Brendan does look nice and it kind of makes Wally fit in better with them as a sort of trio. 4:49 - I did particularly like the variety of trainer team ups you could get in these double battles through how they were positioned. In terms of Gym Leaders/Elite Four, the only downgrade I felt was having Wallace as Champion instead of Steven (though my younger brother did struggle against Wallace... with Emerald admittedly being the first Pokémon game he ever beat). 11:10 - Great analysis. As said, I still do think Sapphire and Ruby have their place (though ease of obtaining means the recent remakes are probably the go-to versions to play now), as I feel the story differences make them each feel more distinct than usual version differences. With Sapphire/Ruby being easier, I'd also recommend it more so for a younger or new-to-Pokémon player, whereas Emerald feels like the "for experienced players" version. My favourite part of Emerald is either the overall increased challenge or the increased Double Battle amount; can't decide between the two.
Wallace is a fairly competent Champ. Wather is a powerfull and diverse Type, most of his Pokemon are strong, and he focuses strongly on Types and Attacks to cover his Weaknesses. Icebeam, Earthquake, Types what resist Electric, and or Grass, and overall high Special Defense. He didnt got a Pokemon like Metagross, what just starts sweeping, but he souldnt be assamed of his Performance. Certainly more of a Fight then Lance...
I remember when Emerald was released. It was a big deal. Everyone had played Ruby and Sapphire and then FRLG came along with some huge improvements to the postgame that everyone liked. I remember Emerald's upgrade was hugely anticipated. I myself played Emerald's J rom back in the day, because like many other people I didn't want to wait for the U version!
Emerald is not like Platinum compared to Diamond/Pearl cuz that makes everything INSANELY BETTER whilst Emerald does make things way better it’s not as colossal as Platinum’s additions
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but I believe another incredibly important item is that with Ditto being catchable Natively, you can breed for more Pokémon a lot easier without needing Fire Red or Leaf Green. This is important because if you were like myself and started playing Pokémon later in your life (Emerald was my first game), you likely didn't have friends you could trade with. So having access to easy breeding with Ditto Natively was SO EXCITING because I could try to make better and stronger Pokémon while also Shiny Hunting!
Emerald was my first official game and will therefore always subjectively be my favorite, but I think that it is still among the best games of the series. Off course it didn’t hurt that two of my top 3 of all time were available in this game in mudki and Rayquaza
I’ve been trying to decide which version I should buy, hearing that emerald is the definitive but hesitant because of it being drastically more expensive. You have officially sold me! great analysis man :)
Emerald is where the series peaked for me. I probably spent a thousand hours on this game, challenging the battle frontier and completing the Pokedex. I probably remember the script almost perfectly. And of course that Rayquaza cutscene was pure cinema When ORAS were released, I thought these games were really good, but they were not the Emerald I love (although flying to space on Rayquaza's back to fight against Deoxys is such a non-credible moment that my child self would have been crazy over)
For me, personally, the series peaked at Platinum and I thought Gen III was a bit of a dip, though I have several friends who would murder me in my sleep if they heard me say that, lol. They had similar experiences to you with Emerald and its battle tower and for them, this was also the peak of trading with each other and playing together (not necessarily linked up, just sat in the same room and commenting on what they were doing and sharing advice with each other). For them, Gen III was the last time 'Gotta Catch Em All' was still both relevant and felt somewhat possible to do. Many of them continued to be fans of the franchise after, but Emerald was their peak. For me personally, it came a little later with Platinum
One hundred per cent agree, my man, Platinum was such an excellent game it's unbelievable. I started in Gen 1 and Platinum is my favorite Pokemon game. Just wish we couldve caught Darkrai
Most mind boggling thing is that they did not pass many of these important changes to ORAS. I did a run, where I would not use Exp share or Mega evolution and they where total pushovers regardless.
Yeah, that was such a disappointment for me cause I was sure they had included the emerald improvements. After all they already did that with HGSS. But then, hour after hour, I discovered that every little thing that was improved in Emerald was absent in the remakes. I always loved the improved and harder gym leader battles of Emerald, the Battle Frontier, the aesthetic changes all over the region. I would happily get rid of the Latios/Latias gimmicky flight to have those things in the remake.
@@samuelecallegari6117 Wasted potential right there, oras is easily the best game they released this past decade and could have been the best ever with the emerald template and a mega evolution balance.
Well, you can catch both Groudon and Kyogre in Emerald on top of Rayquaza. The placement of the Contest Hall as one building late into the game and replacing them with Battle Tents to be the main thing that I think was a dumb change. Also, Feebas' location being very specific and randomized when the game feels like it is something that I wished was changed. I think the main reason to get a ripped copy of Emerald or just getting Sapphire and Ruby is due to Emerald cartridges going for over $200 while the others are around $50. This explains why people will just pirate these games.
the thing is that ruby and sapphire are already very, very good. emerald is just improving on an already a tier game. in my opinion, r/s are the second best games as the introduction of a new gen, right behind b/w
Something i discover is that the Ruby and Saphire games we know and love were also technically "upgraded", at least if we count the original 2002 release in Japan. Still a great game, but oh man, there are a couple of annoying bugs in that version.
I love the emerald because of the animations in battles, that badass cutscene, the representation of the domains of groudon and kyogre (just look how balanced it is, there is a protruding land, shallow water, and deep water. They can both move freely to have a good fight, after the cutscene the shallow water is gone. What an attention to details), and the battle frontier. About those 7 missing pokemons, I think gamefreak wants you to play with other by trading, that's why there is no single official pokemon game that have all the pokemon.
due to the lack of a nationaldex, ruby and sapphire allow you to trade pokemon from outside the regionaldex, from the beginning of the game. therefore they are the only gen3 games with the possibility to playthrough with any of the 386 pokemon. without cheating , that is. and only with two gbas and a link cable, so... yeah. emerald is still a great improvement. my favorite addition in emerald are probably the stat-reducing berries
ive played emulator my whole life. when i learned to play on my phone it was the best. i learned how to trade with my games in the same phone. Id start ruby/sapphire games with the best team with egg moves and shi. is the best!!!❤❤❤❤
@@notearslefttocryy4194 what do you use to emulate them? And is the rom used the same as with PC emulators? I think I still have the ROMs saved somewhere. Got them before they cracked down on sites that have ROMs for downloads.
@@lloydirving6209certain emulators like MyBoy on phone let you play 2 games at once, then a “link cable” is able to be used. This is how I got trade evos on my playthroughs. I know I was playing co op Kirby gba back in the day on one computer so I knew the phone should be able to do it
sapphire and ruby are better for farming rare candies since pickup has no level restriction on the item pool meaning you have a permanent 10% chance to get a rare candy per zigzagoon in your party
Only 5 Pokemon were removed from RS, Surskit and Masquerain are just relegated to Emerald's postgame. There are also four more Pokemon that are only catchable at the Battle Frontier. RS's Battle Tower is also drastically different from modern battle facilities; the enemies all use wild Pokemon AI and aren't particularly challenging. Emerald's Battle Frontier was the first iteration of what we'd come to expect from battle facilities - not to mention that it also came with the opportunity to rent and fight against all of the Kanto and Johto Pokemon that weren't in Hoenn's regional dex. Emerald is also the first game that offers an IV judge, Nature inheritance, overworld abilities, EV resetting, and dedicated EV training areas for this reason. Emerald also has a revamped version of FRLG's battle facility in Trainer Hill, but no one ever talks about it
1:38 every third version omits some of the pokémon from the first two. this is to make it so that the third version doesn't just completely obsolete the first two versions and there's still reason to play/own them.
I just wish that emerald had sprite animations that weren't 2 frames that shake for a bit :/ Like crystal, it had proper unique animations for all 251 pokemon on weaker hardware.
One of the best (and often overlooked) things about Emerald IMO is the fact that some abilities now do other things outside of battle, like influencing what wild Pokémon you find, hatching eggs quicker, etc., that's not a thing in other gen 3 games. Very useful for breeding, which makes sense with the Battle Frontier. As for the bad stuff, I think level 70 Rayquaza before the Elite Four is just absurd. Of course you don"t have to use it, but the option being there at all is abusrd. I mean, level 45 Groudon in Ruby and level 40 Lugia/Ho-Oh in GSC are fine, you're not gonna solo the league just because you have one of those (except Kyogre but Kyogre itself is absurd regardless of levels). Edit: Ruby/Sapphire have the Meditite line and run roughly twice as fast on emulator. That's about it for positives.
Unless you are already overleveled at that point of the game, you would gonna have to sacrifice a masterball and trust me, you need that masterball for one of the roaming Pokemon.
Honestly I like the Rayquaza thing. I mean it's a very jrpg thing. You have the super boss that you already encountered during the story and they give the chance to catch him even before the Pokémon league. It's not that easy if you are at a normal level so I think the reward is balanced.
@@sebastiankulcheWhat if I don't care about the Battle frontier? Is still a massive design oversight. Which games have it though? Gen 1: Mewtwo is in the post game and the birds aren't that broken. Gen 2: Crystal doesn't but Gold/Silver do. Is a bigger deal with Ho-Oh than with Lugia btw because Ho-Oh is better on offense. Gen 3: Breaks the difficulty curve, specially Emerald. Not that getting a primal is much better though. Gen 4: Same as Ruby/Zaphire. Gen 5: Kinda? I think it's fair to use a legendary vs another one and there's no way your dragon will beat Hydreigon Because Ghetsis team feels made to defeat N. B2/W2 straight up negates box legendary before postgame. Gen 6: They give you a M-Lucario, a Kanto starter with megastone and a box legendary. Why do you think everyone says they're way too easy? Gen 7: Is a weird case. In Sun Moon it's given for free, while in Ultra You have to go out of your way to get the broken pokémon, but that's still too powerful of a tool similar to Emerald. Gen 8: They forced you to get an eternatus who can easily sweep Leon. In legends Arceus they don't give you the legendary up until somewhat before the Volo battle which is kinda like the N context. Gen 9: Finally I can say something good about a Switch pokémon game and it is taking the approach of only allowing the bikes in the literal last battle like Black/White.
@@N12015 I never said anything about the Battle Frontier (plus you cant use legendaries). I mean, if you gonna complete the Pokedex, using a masterball on Rayquaza, unless shiny, is a waste imo.
I doubt anyone can confirm or deny it, but pretty sure the reason a few mons are not available is so you still need a copy of both Ruby and Sapphire to catch them all. Gen 3 is my favorite of them all but completing the dex in these games is a nightmare. I'd say the main reason why I never bothered to do it is because kid me tried to and had his hopes crushed by the gamecube / event exclusives mons, couldn't even get the diploma that ignores event exclusive mons since I didn't have Sapphire for Lunatone and I didn't want to reset either of my FRLG files for the third Kanto starter. Also the reason why you get only one of the Eon duo is so you can find the other through the Eon ticket from record mixing with a RS savefile that got the event. One of the biggest changes between the RS Battle Tower and the Frontier is that there's Open Level. My biggest issue with RS is that there's almost no postgame, and the main part of it, the Tower, has an insane barrier of entry because it has only Level 50 and Level 100 modes. If your team is any bit above 50, which is the usual since Steven's Metagross is lv58, you either have to swap to a new team or grind to level 100. When the highest leveled trainer pokemon in the game is said lv58 Metagross. Grinding from lv 50-60 to 60 is much better than to 100, and you get new rematches to help.
Lets be honest guys, this is a problem the entire series had and it was something they should get rid since the first entry. The only games that saved from this are the Mystery Dungeon games and Red And Blue (due to having the least amount of Pokemon and zero events).
Ruby and Sapphire had to use the link cable to send the missing Pokemon to Emerald, Another thing Emerald that could use is the Wireless Adapter that made trading and battles easier especially with Firered and Leafgreen.
Ah, i see you're a fellow OG Pokemon lover lol you're one year older than me. I thoroughly enjoyed this short video. Straight to the point and well put together facts about a classic. Well done
I remember everyone at my daycare had a gameboy and there was like a pokemon hierarchy with Gen3. I started with R&S and evolved to emerald and i remember you didnt know jack unless you played the first 2 gen3 games, and even then, i couldnt say shit to the kids who played earlier gens. We treated those guys like royalty lol. It was almost an honor to get traded a previous gen pokemon and kids were trading their lunches or even other GBAs. Some kids had 2 emeralds, 1 just to farm and reset. I remember one dude would literally just shiny hunt all day then he'd trade them for a legendary or masterball. Another guy traded his pair of jordans for a latios. Everyday we had battles, who had best pokemon for contests, who had best and biggest base. The pokemon league was just the beginning, the real fun started after you beat the game
An Emerald gold card is probably the hardest flex outside of like world championship wins and whatnot. I dreamed of an Emerald Gold card as a 10 year old kid. I finally earned mine at age 23, and it’s easily my proudest video game achievement, nothing else even comes close, it took me over a thousand hours to get it. The people who think Emerald is bad never earned theirs.
R/S have a few niche advantages over Emerald. Specifically being able to use the E-Reader cards and being able to play on the GameCube via Pokémon Box. But 99% of players aren’t going to care about that.
I might be the only one on the Internet but I think the part where Emerald is worse is the champion. Wallace is one of the most uncharismatic gym leaders of all gens and he got to be the champ over Steven? Thats a major downgrade. Steven’s team is more iconic, his theme and his ace are better. And you can rematch the champ, you cant rematch Steven in his Red like battle as far as I know. Drastically better? Only that change alone makes all the other additions to the gym leaders and Elite 4 completely pointless. Is like taking Lance out of the league in gen 2.
I agree with Steven being a much better champion, but I do still think Wallace belongs in the Elite 4 at least. He's got the best mono-water team I've seen in the whole series. I definitely agree on the leadership aspect of it though, he's just not as interesting.
One thing where Pokemon Emerald is beaten is that Ruby and Sapphire allowed the player to trade pokemon from FRLG to their game without needing the national dex.
Emerald is better than R/S but R/S are still amazing games. I personally wouldn't put Emerald an entire tier above R/S cause R/S still clears 90% of other pokemon games. I guess one tier higher I could understand, but any more than that is crazy and totally undervaluing the foundation that R/S established.
I played emerald first and when I played ruby a couple years later I was like wait where are the double battles. I feel like that is one of the best changes emerald made, along with the battle frontier ofc.
I was fortunate enogh to have played all 3 as a kid, owning Sapphire/Emerald and trading with a friend for Ruby. Emerald is just a masterpiece, pixelated era greatness 🙌🏼 thanks for the video.
If Ruby/Sapphire had the Battle Frontier I'd actually say they were superior. I'm not keen on the complete overload of double battles in Emerald in the main game.
As someone who never liked battle frontier or don’t care about most post game content in most main line Pokémon games (I care about the main campaign way more than postgame content), I mostly enjoy Emerald for the subtle things that didn’t exist in R/S. More double battles, different wild encounters, abilities affecting the overworld and fixing the psychic gym in general. Tho tbh, fixing the psychic gym and having more double battles are the only things I miss when I play the remake cause besides that I prefer the remakes over Emerald, that and largely thanks to bringing back Steven as the champion rather have him stuck as a postgame boss that I didn’t know existed until like after the remakes came out. Also the remakes were the first main line games where you could catch a mythical Pokémon ingame without having to use mystery gift so that’s a huge plus for me even if it’s postgame content. That being said, I found it funny how so many people hype up battle frontier nowadays but back when I was as a kid, everyone including me hated it and most people didn’t start caring it until long after they stopped adding it because not enough people were using it. Sorry for the long comment
I loved reading this, keep the long comments coming! I definitely agree with how the opinion on the Battle Frontier has shifted over the years. I think it's just because it's so much more accessible now with the plethora of information online these days. Back then it was a far more arduous process as you had to figure everything out on your own. And yeah my favorite part of Emerald was definitely the gym leader team updates and the increased amount of double battles.
Honestly yeah I personally rank it a tier above Ruby and Sapphire. It just adds a lot of small things, like the updated story and the updated teams and more optional double battles as well as the battle frontier
Sapphire is by far my favorite Pokemon game because I had it from release all the way up into high school and it travelled from the West coast to the Midwest with me, and, yes I am very much dating myself here. It has been the only Pokemon game that I have maxed out the in-game timer and money counter in including multiple level 100 teams. Mind you, this was still in the early internet era where the competitive scene wasn't as accessible as it is now and information is as well known about the "best" teams; I was sort of just slogging through it. I didn't have a lot of money growing up and I became very attached to the mons that I captured and trained. Attached to the point in present day where I purchased a cart ripper to rip the save game (don't have a classic DS) and archive my team. But that, that's a whole story in and of itself. But I had to reply through a majority of the game recently, and I noticed many of the flaws that I ignored as a kid. Things that many would take for granted in the modern day with the way the current Pokemon games work. I still love this game, it formed a core memory in my mind that I will never forget. Like capturing Kyogre in a Net Ball or soft resetting on Rayquaza because he kept sweeping my team and finally capturing him in a Timer Ball in the basement of my neighbor's house in 2005. I ended up capturing the same teams and naming the same things I did when I was younger in Alpha Sapphire, making them the spiritual successors to my original gamesave.
I think the only thing thats worse in emerald imo is the trade restrictions. In ruby and sapphire, you can trade anything over from FR/LG as well as R/S/E, even eggs, right from the start. However in emerald you can only trade over whats in the hoenn dex until you beat the elite four, which is a little annoying.
Started off with Sapphire also as a kid but thank God our parents got me & my brother both a copy of Emerald. Fell in love with it and never turned back (unless it was to trade Pokemon between my games)
Emerald also had the all the events in game. Eon ticket for the lati you didn’t choose, mystic ticket for ho-oh lugia, aurora ticket for deoxys and while unreleased outside of japan the old sea map for mew. Ruby and sapphire only got the eon ticket.
Excluding several pokemon from emerald ensured that fans would still have to buy atleast two games in order to complete the pokedex. I cant think of any other reason than that.
I will NOT keep my mouth shut when emerald's battle frontier had a beautiful duping system 😤😤 you can't forget about that, OP Also I have a story from 2016. I was in the Marines and went training to 29 Palms and I remember being in the laundry room during my off time and I was waiting next to a Marine playing 3rd gen on his phone. He was struggling to get to rayquaza with the mach bike. I helped it out because I grew up with 3rd gen to where I last played it 2 or 3 years prior. It was awesome. He was stoked
This is why I really don’t vibe with OR/AS. Emerald is just in a league of its own, and there was no reason they couldn’t include it’s best element in the remakes. HG/SS did it with crystal and they still sold two versions. It just makes no sense.
For me personally The Battle Frontier: There were interesting formats like Arena and Palace. EV Berries: Was useful coz this was when I started caring about stats, unlike in Sapphire where I just ungabunga'd through. Ditto and Smeargle: Just these 2 alone make up for the missing pokes from RS. I remember spending time creating TM trees after Smeargle became available. Everstone: More predicable way of passing Nature (though its still not 100% in E) Off Battle Ability effects: I found Compound Eyes very helpful for getting more Heart Scales for the Relearner. And it came just in time for the shards Move Tutor: Self-explanatory.
The only change that i wish they had avoided would be placing those Battle Tents where the contest halls used to be. Ik they were supposed to be "training" for the BF but I'm sure they remained untouched for most players' playthroughs. On the other hand, I loved having Contest Halls in different cities-felt like an actual sidequest-and Emerald stuffing all the contests into Lilycove City made Contests feel much less significant 😢
Yeah the battle tents were definitely the easiest piece of content to avoid. They could have just added them in different cities/towns or even had both. Slateport is HUGE, could have easily fit both there
Recently lost my sapphire copy that being the first Pokemon game I had made gen 3 my favourite. tho I’ve never played emerald I’ve always heard great things about it. Now if I want to replace them it’s so expensive and it’s not even a guaranty to be a legitimate copy. Maybe one day. Thanks for the great video and keep it up.
The first gen 3 game I got was Emerald. Never bought it, I found it on the ground, partially trampled into the dirt at a cross country meet. I dug it out and popped it in my Gameboy only to find a 10-minute save file. Later, I got sapphire and gave it to my sister.
I love everything about Emerald more except one thing. I hate that they removed Steven as champion so much that I have no choice but to choose sapphire and Ruby.
All I know for sure is that May went from having really short femurs and long tibias in ruby/sapphire to having really long femurs and short tibias in emerald.
Maybe it's just my own nostalgia speaking, but as someone who never really cared about the battle frontier or double battles, the fact that they changed the champion to be a water type trainer in a game with a water type gym, an enemy team themed sround water, and half of the map being water. 7.8, too much water, but ironically. Stephen deserved better
The one and only thing I loved about Ruby and Sapphire over is the contests. Simple and fun. But Emerald wins hands down, being able to battle Steven, receive Johto starters, and of course the best part the Battle Frontier.
@@animeladka1264 How? Take off the nostalgia glasses. Like I said, the contests are worth playing in Ruby/Sapphire. Other than that Emerald’s Battle Frontier gives the players extra hours to train and strategize to beat the frontier brains, also time to train to fight Steven with level 70 Pokémon, also a chance to have both Groudon and Kyogre.
@@attache675 Yes, actually you are right. But the thing is all you Emerald fans, always throw shade at us Ruby Sapphire fans at the every chance you get, yes your game maybe better by adding a few new locations, better gym leader teams also battle frontier and some other things, but the thing you guys forget is Emerald came two years after Ruby Sapphire cane out way back in 2002. So ofcourse it is better by building onto the foundation of hoenn as region laid by Ruby/Sapphire we know today, so we have to also acknowledge that Ruby Sapphire was also revolutionary for when it came out as it had graphics which were 100 times better than what came before of it example GSC, also it added lots of new features and new things like contests, secret bases, creating brand new 135 mons we still cherish today as being iconic and great, for the first time ever, being only being able to catch brand new hoenn mons for most of the game, thereby establishing itself as different and unique region and at the same time, being connected to the prior pokemon regions and a few more things. So the the fact of the matter is without Ruby Sapphire and the improvements they made to classic pokemon formula there would be no Emerald version like Ruby, Sapphire wouldn't exist without the prior generation games. I first played Ruby Sapphire few years ago, OMG!! 😊 It is such a great game and has stood the test of time. But don't get me wrong I also like emerald.
If we talking about gen 1 - 3 crystal is honestly the one i run back to this day but when i did played emerald growing up cuzo had ruby so i did the 3 starter thing and man when i tell you one of the best experiences as a kid
While I definitely do agree that Emerald is the better game, and sure, by a good margin, I simply don’t like how marginalized the original Ruby and Sapphire typically are by the fanbase, because in my opinion, they’re still some of the very best games that gamefreak has put out for Pokémon. Of course, I’m very partial to Hoenn in general, but they all had such a sense of wild adventure and tropical-ness that really isn’t matched in any other games. From the locales, to the music (which is damn near perfect, in my opinion) and the vast, tropical map that is the Hoenn region, there is just so much character and uniqueness that is lacked in most of their games… and they never brought back the amazing diving feature, which I think is a shame, because diving and exploring the oceans is such an amazing concept… I mean, I know I’m mostly splitting hairs here, but I really think the original games are overlooked and under appreciated overall. I’d rather play any of the Gen 3 games over anything from Gens 1 or 6 onwards, without contest.
I guess I could have been a bit more clear in my conclusion section. The question I posed at the beginning of the video was "Is Emerald THAT much better?", followed by a comment mentioning that most players would put Emerald 2 full tiers higher than Ruby or Sapphire on a tier list. So I guess that was kinda the intended question to answer, "Is Emerald really deserving of two full spots on a tier list over Ruby and Sapphire? Or are the games closer than that? Is Emerald just a small DLC?" And I concluded with "Yes, Emerald deserves to be 2 tiers higher than Ruby and Sapphire". But I will admit, looking back on the video I probably should have been more explicit with that conclusion. Perhaps I should have made up a quick Tier list just to outline how much better I thought Emerald was, instead of leaving it up to the viewer to assume. I'll have to work on that for future videos.
If we take in consideration battle frontier that could be a separated Pokemon game that takes much more hours playing compared to the main story itself
Just like Nintendo made separate games with exclusive pokemon to encourage either trading with friends or buying a copy of the opposite games, I'm sure Emerald was no different. Buy emerald, youre gonna need BOTH ruby and sapphire to complete the dex
What is your favorite thing about Pokémon Emerald?
Quagsire
My least favorite thing about Emerald is definitely that they replaced Steven with Wallace. This would probably be in my top tier if literally not for that one thing. I'm not the biggest post game guy and either way a water champion is just bogus with team aqua, water gym leader, and all the surfing on top of that.
The entire game. Is that good.
Mareep
The Battle Frontier for sure
Battle frontier alone deserves atleast an A. This is also one of the only pokemon games that would give you a reason to keep playing after the main story
Yeah for sure
depends. while i would like it back, they need to strip all of the horrendous rng run killer sets like ones reliant on skillless items like bright powder and ohko moves, and some of the facilities were kinda crap across both major iterations. make it actually mean something to be good at the game instead of designing it so the player gets intentionally robbed. getting crit is one thing, having the plan be "haha you lose" is another.
@@pikminman13 I don't know if I'm just being really unlucky, but I've decided to run BF from emerald again some days ago. Completed the main story, then decided to drop me a perfect IV Milotic and Metagross because I couldn't care much about grinding to get them. Nature was fixed as Naive because, of course, I also got them shiny. Grinded for the perfect EVs and gave a shot at the battle tower to get choice band + moves for metagross.
The amount of blind counters I've witnessed after a run was astonishing. Having only two pokemons + a placeholder (had yet to decided for the third member of the team) was an horrible experience. Around half of the teams were water type pokemons with electric/ground moves. I happened to have zero counterplay to that. Also, I'm running stall Milotic (surf - toxic - refresh - recover), and at least another enemy moveset/items just happened to perfectly counter that.
You mean that one area that forces you to play in a different style when brute force and type advantage was good enough up to that point, has massive rng issues, and rewards you with so little for all that effort? Nah, I'm good
@@Lunar994Your description can apply to pretty much every post game battle facility in the series. Personally I thought it was cool that Emerald had this big area that gave you a reason to use min maxed Pokémon. In a time when you couldn’t just go online and battle someone having access to challenging Ai opponents with the goal of winning practically a 2nd set of badges was cool.
I think the worst thing (and the game is still great and an overall improvement) was replacing Steven for Wallace as champion as we didn't need a water type a water type champion in addition to a water type gym leader
but we got Steven as a better upgraded version and secret Boss
@@AgrestisAnima yes. But he fit more as a champion.
@@juandiegotorres9632 True. I'm glad they added in the story that he WAS the champion but decided to follow his hobbies instead. He is so cool haha
THAT YOU CAN'T REMATCH@@AgrestisAnima
@@AgrestisAnimathis
I think one of the reasons people rank Emerald so much higher on tier lists is because it makes R/S essentially pointless. There’s not really a reason to play them when Emerald exists besides a few exclusive Pokémon and a slightly different story (and a better champion but you can still battle Steven in Emerald anyways)
I play R/S because shiny hunting is regular in those whereas Emerald it’s really weird & difficult on shiny hunting . Emerald you have to actually follow specific out of game manipulation & I don’t want to do that. If I’m just playing thru the story tho, 100% Emerald :)
zigzagoon’s pickup ability wasn’t held back be levels in R/S. Steven is also a better champion than Wallace.
@@ganymedehedgehog371Narratively, or Fight? Cause I think Wallace sould be stronger.
@@playyuhThat's pathetic...
@@illseeyaonthedarksideofthemoon stop talking
Not sure if this has been mentioned, Emerald added field effects for a lot of abilities, like Compound Eyes and Flame Body!
Very true and really cool!
And it was the first time a specific item in conjunction with breeding produced a specific move, with a Pichu that learned Volt Tackle if a parent held a light ball.
Also, on top of Flame Body ability, Everstone increasing the odds of a specific nature from 1/25 to 1/2 and the whole way from Verdanturf town to route 118 in a straight line made the process of hatching eggs much less frustrating.
Hyper Cutter makes you cut more grass with Cut is the strangest one
I prefer emerald just because the font is better
Is it really? Haha I didn't even realize
They removed the colon after the Lv during battles
Best change
Sure the Rayquaza cutscene in Emerald was cool, but nothing will beat the experience of finding Sky Pillar in ruby and sapphire, being greeted with difficult puzzles with no idea what's gonna be at the end of the tower, only to finally be greeted with one of the coolest legendaries ever
Sky pillar was also a lot tougher. There’s like no where to train in emerald you mostly have to rely on rebattling the league which only going to 58 takes a while. I think the highest leveled wild pokes in sky pillar ruby/sapp were like in the 60s while in emerald it’s like 30s-40s.
@@Oost129 or roselia. Yeah it’s in ruby and sapphire but that was a decent grass type missing
BIG FACTS! I'll never forget it! I was in summer camp when a buddy I had made there saw me playing ruby and told me about sky piller and another legendary I didn't believe him but when I he showed me where to go I was so amazed lmaoo
you guys suffer from an extreme case of nostalgia
Not only does the Battle Frontier make Emerald significantly better than R/S, I believe the Battle Frontier was the single greatest thing ever made in any Pokemon Game. This is the peak of the franchise for me.
As much as I had flund memorys of it. To many Pokemon there had Evasion Strategys. 3 Pokemon dont allow for much room for Failure, and Pokemon is famouse for its heavily Luck based Combat, whit Damage Ranges, and Accuracy.
Many of the Frontier Facilitys are very Luck Based, and propper DV Breeding was a Nightmare.
PWT was way better. But still one Generation to early. PWT whit better Breeding, the Rivals as Enemys, and 6 vs 6 Singles would be the perfect Facility.
wait until you hear about Colosseum
battle frontier sucks lmao
But seriously, too much evasion
Roar? There’s moves that hit no matter the evasion as well. It’s this whining why Pokémon is piss easy now. Also IV breeding is not a nightmare just takes patience.
@@chillinglikeavillful Roar? You heed to be able to counter any Pokemon in existence, over 200 fully evolved. OK, which Pokemon sould use Roar? Cause if its Scarmory, you wont roar a lot if its Kingdra, or Starmie. You wont roar eighter, if its the last one.
Also 60 basepower isnt particular high, and its not very accessable.
Emerald also had a bunch of little quality of life changes, while most are pretty minor they do add up.
- more bag space
- when shopping, it now shows how many of each item you already have in your bag
- when looking at TMs in your bag, it now shows the power and accuracy right there (in ruby and sapphire you had to click TM -> use -> select pokemon -> get to screen that lets you pick which move to replace and only THEN does it show the TM's power and accuracy)
I know I am forgetting some but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. There are also some changes in Emerald that I don't know if I agree with, or maybe could have just been handled better. For instance, the phone mechanic where you can rematch trainers and gym leaders is awesome, but I really don't like how it interrupts gameplay to force you to take the phone call every time it rings. And the obvious one, replacing Steven as the champion. Steven was so much better as the champion thematically and mechanically, replacing him with Wallace and making Juan the 8th gym leader was a pretty bizarre change. Steven being a super boss in the post game was cool I guess but it was way more impactful having him as the champion. The post game in Emerald is already so expansive with the battle frontier that the Steven fight doesn't really seem all that necessary. If Emerald just had the same Ruby and Sapphire post game but now with this new Steven fight, it would have made more sense.
Yeah those are great points!
Other things too like:
-Being able to add and remove items directly from pokemons in the boxes (You have no idea how many times I've deposited a pokemon only to realise I didn't take the exp share).
-There's berries that reduce EVs so you can properly train if you mess up.
-Item icons letting you sort through things faster and being a some extra eye candy for things.
and a bunch of other stuff.
It also brought over the item pictures from FRLG.
"Why can't you catch Surskit/Meditite/etc in Emerald?" That's nothing new, making some Pokémon unavailable has never been limited to the paired games. Weedle/Ekans/Meowth/Koffing in Yellow, Mareep/Girafarig/Remoraid in Crystal, Murkrow/Misdreavus/Glameow/Stunky in Platinum, just to name like half of the lines you had to trade to get.
God i always hated that
I think their idea was to incentivize people to share Pokémon and play together. I admit that at the time when you finally obtained a rare Pokémon it was incredibly satisfying. They didn't translate this into the new generation with something more suitable for modern world gaming
Yeah third versions should have included all pokemons, or at least all the version exclusives. I can almost accept the lack of meditite or surskit given that they can be traded by both Ruby and Sapphire, but I won't excuse the lack of Lunatone and Zangoose, especially given that Lunatone is the only reliable way to farm moon stones.
I liked how in Yellow it was based on team rocket plus the bug Ash didn't catch
And it's a terrible. Honestly, the fact that they already release two versions of the games that are 99% the same and then did third versions that are like 95% the same is kind of insane.
A few other tidbits:
-New music. Kind of obvious and doesn't really effect gameplay, but I think a lot of the new music tracks are bangers, especially the Frontier Brain Battle Theme.
-The Pickup ability was revamped and has a whole new items list based on level.
-Pokemon Contests being isolated to Lilycove City.
-New move tutors
-The international releases removed e-Reader support, but you can still mix records to obtain these items.
-The Trick House and Regi puzzles are a tiny bit different.
-The best designed character in all of video gaming... SCOTT!!
hey y'all scott's here
I kinda liked the contests being in the towns the Gyms weren't though barring your hometown, Oldale, and Pacificlog
Emerald was the only poke game where I maxed the in-game timer out. I also cycled the news crew so many times when I was a kid that they actually stopped rotating, and you'd just need to reload the route they were on for easy XP. Loved the game
Oh man, this unlocked a core memory for me and it not something I realized other people did. I must have batted that Exploud and Megnaton at least a hundred times.
@@5daysofcoffee Atleast!!!!
Omg i thought that i glitched out the news crew when they stopped rotating and thought it only happened to me
@@fernandosavillon4048 same for me too! if you went to the top of the route and came back down they'd reset too so it was a good grind spot
I beat the elite four so many times I won’t let me see the first record anymore lol
Tate and Liza I remember in particular because of how more tactical their opening choices are. No longer can you sweep the field with Surf or Muddy Water, you need to counter Earthquake and Xatu being flying type isn’t affected.
solrock and lunatone also arent affected
There's something about Sapphire being my first ever portable Pokemon game, at age 9, that felt so full of wonder and excitement. I think I enjoyed my 1st ever playthrough of Sapphire more than Emerald purely because everything was so new and wondrous to me, even though I had the strategy guide. It was amazing. When I got Emerald 2 years later, it felt like a familiar world, and therefore not as impactful on my childhood. Emerald did wow me with it's cutscenes though, for sure! I remember exactly where I was in my old house (the kitchen) when I witnessed the Rayquaza cutscene. I never got into the Battle Frontier or Battle Tower much though, as I found them too difficult, and I enjoyed catching legendary Pokemon the most.
Sapphire was my first too, got it at a gamestop when I was 8 or 9 , and I remember being up until 2-330 in the morning playing with a GBA. Then, the SD and micros came along. 90-00's had the best shyt
I love the contest feature. I just hate that it’s moved all to Lilycove.
I liked traveling from town to town collecting ribbons like badges
Same, I think it was the only downgrade from RS
Definitely my favorite part of emerald was the battle frontier. It was the reason for me even learning about EVs and IVs. It also has turned pokemon game from 30 hours to +300 hours for me.
I liked that Emerald made things much easier for the player to actually craft a team to conquer the battle frontier. All the tools are there if you dive deep enough. Something cool that maybe some players didn't realize is that you can influence the natures of pokemon in the safari zone with the pokeblock feeder. If you recall, certain pokemon like certain color pokeblocks when prepping for a contest, that mechanic is also based on a pokemon's nature. It turns out, you can attract the pokemon with natures you want in the safari zone this way too. Placing a blue pokeblock makes it more likely for you to find +spatk natures; modest, rash etc. So then you can mass catch a bunch of Natu who have a chance to have the ability Synchronize, with the desired nature. I think you can see where this is going. Once you have a pokemon with the desired nature and synchronize, you can find pokemon in the wild with the natures you want; making catching and breeding much easier. I believe Emerald is the first game that had the Everstone mechanic for passing down natures too. Then factor in Emerald added a location where only Ditto spawn. So in terms of building a good team from the ground up, Emerald is by far the best in the 3rd generation. Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed and LeafGreen don't come close. It was always harder to figure out IVs without a calculator, but Emerald does give you an IV checker in the battle frontier.
Probably the only thing I would improve upon Emerald is the cutscene with rayquaza. I feel like it should have ended on a double battle with yourself and rayquaza vs Kyogre and groudon, which would have served as a much better climax. The game builds towards the increasingly harmful actions of team magma and aqua, but it just being solved by rayquaza coming down and telling groudon and kyogre to shut up and stop couple fighting just feels pretty anti climatic and takes away the seriousness of the situation.
I understand why they didn’t do this, cause the main purpose of the story was team aqua and magma learning the error of their ways, but I still feel weird about emerald’s story because it’s pretty good but it lacks a legitimate climax.
If the Rayquaza was level 70 like the one you can catch, then this would also encourage you even more to come back to Sky Pillar.
It would had been the Battle against Eternamax 10 years earlier. 😂
I can get down with that idea.
I grew up with Sapphire and still haven't played Emerald, and it's so weird seeing other people's nostalgia for the cutscene in question. I'd assumed from Bulbapedia that the story ended with an actual climax of a double battle (a feature that was advertised on the back of the box for Ruby/Sapphire). I couldn't believe it when I found out there's no double battle. It was too perfect for this world.
I love Emerald to pieces. After having played Sapphire before, I did not expect it to impress me nearly as much as at it did. It just went the extra mile every single time. And those hidden, surprise sidequest npcs made the game feel so alive!
As a person who only loves gens 1-5, thank you for making older gen content. Not a big fan of the new stuff except legends.
Gen 1-5 ftw (well 2-5, but it's OK)
@@Hatchumosc1 well, 3-5 but sure 👍
@@Hatchumosc1 I much prefer gen 1 over gen 2 lol. But in general first 5 gens are fantastic, huge gap in quality between 1-5 and 6+
1 thru 5 still have the spirit of Pokémon the leap to 3D handheld wasn’t done well. In sprite form you can imagine the expresión of your character in 3D everyone is always smiling
Fuck yea legends. I just finished every last thing you can do in the game finally yesterday. It is crazy how it instantly became my fav game when I went it with pretty mild expectations. I love gen 4 with a passion and I appreciated and geeked every call back and detail and love the feeling of running around tossing smoke bombs and sticky globs and then sprinting up and getting back throws without stopping on a bunch and dodging in on alphas to stun them. I will pre order any new legends if they make another. I hope they do so much
Emerald was the peak for me, with Black/White 2 coming in at close second. SoulSilver/HeartGold and Platinum are tied for third.
Interesting decision to use the ORAS art to compare to Emerald (I suppose it makes the differences easier to spot from a glance). Going in, while I do agree Emerald is better than R/S, I would say the improvements are greater than Crystal to G/S but not nearly as large as D/P to Platinum. Also, Ruby and Sapphire still feel like entries to obtain alongside Emerald due to the different villain team you faces (along with Black/White, they are the entries that feel most justified in having different versions).
1:29 - There were also Pokémon given annoying relocation, such as making Mawile an end-game/Victory Road Pokémon. I had planned to use a Mawile in Emerald but ended up having to have one traded to me.
4:01 - The green look for May and Brendan does look nice and it kind of makes Wally fit in better with them as a sort of trio.
4:49 - I did particularly like the variety of trainer team ups you could get in these double battles through how they were positioned. In terms of Gym Leaders/Elite Four, the only downgrade I felt was having Wallace as Champion instead of Steven (though my younger brother did struggle against Wallace... with Emerald admittedly being the first Pokémon game he ever beat).
11:10 - Great analysis. As said, I still do think Sapphire and Ruby have their place (though ease of obtaining means the recent remakes are probably the go-to versions to play now), as I feel the story differences make them each feel more distinct than usual version differences. With Sapphire/Ruby being easier, I'd also recommend it more so for a younger or new-to-Pokémon player, whereas Emerald feels like the "for experienced players" version. My favourite part of Emerald is either the overall increased challenge or the increased Double Battle amount; can't decide between the two.
Wallace is a fairly competent Champ. Wather is a powerfull and diverse Type, most of his Pokemon are strong, and he focuses strongly on Types and Attacks to cover his Weaknesses.
Icebeam, Earthquake, Types what resist Electric, and or Grass, and overall high Special Defense.
He didnt got a Pokemon like Metagross, what just starts sweeping, but he souldnt be assamed of his Performance. Certainly more of a Fight then Lance...
If anything Emerald is the easiest to obtain through ROMs lol
I remember when Emerald was released. It was a big deal. Everyone had played Ruby and Sapphire and then FRLG came along with some huge improvements to the postgame that everyone liked.
I remember Emerald's upgrade was hugely anticipated. I myself played Emerald's J rom back in the day, because like many other people I didn't want to wait for the U version!
Emerald is not like Platinum compared to Diamond/Pearl cuz that makes everything INSANELY BETTER whilst Emerald does make things way better it’s not as colossal as Platinum’s additions
Yeah I do agree with that
not having the super ugly font from R/S is really important for me. all the text looks so incredibly ugly in R/S. like what happened there??
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but I believe another incredibly important item is that with Ditto being catchable Natively, you can breed for more Pokémon a lot easier without needing Fire Red or Leaf Green.
This is important because if you were like myself and started playing Pokémon later in your life (Emerald was my first game), you likely didn't have friends you could trade with. So having access to easy breeding with Ditto Natively was SO EXCITING because I could try to make better and stronger Pokémon while also Shiny Hunting!
Luckily, the Hoenn pokemon left out of emerald are all catchable in XD Gale of Darkness and can be transferred over.
I really should try and get the GameCube games, never played them!
Emerald was my first official game and will therefore always subjectively be my favorite, but I think that it is still among the best games of the series. Off course it didn’t hurt that two of my top 3 of all time were available in this game in mudki and Rayquaza
I’ve been trying to decide which version I should buy, hearing that emerald is the definitive but hesitant because of it being drastically more expensive. You have officially sold me! great analysis man :)
Awesome! I hope you enjoy it!
I am a little jealous you've not (assumedly) played gen 3. I Hope you get as much enjoyment as we have out of it :)
Emerald is where the series peaked for me. I probably spent a thousand hours on this game, challenging the battle frontier and completing the Pokedex. I probably remember the script almost perfectly. And of course that Rayquaza cutscene was pure cinema
When ORAS were released, I thought these games were really good, but they were not the Emerald I love (although flying to space on Rayquaza's back to fight against Deoxys is such a non-credible moment that my child self would have been crazy over)
For me, personally, the series peaked at Platinum and I thought Gen III was a bit of a dip, though I have several friends who would murder me in my sleep if they heard me say that, lol. They had similar experiences to you with Emerald and its battle tower and for them, this was also the peak of trading with each other and playing together (not necessarily linked up, just sat in the same room and commenting on what they were doing and sharing advice with each other). For them, Gen III was the last time 'Gotta Catch Em All' was still both relevant and felt somewhat possible to do. Many of them continued to be fans of the franchise after, but Emerald was their peak.
For me personally, it came a little later with Platinum
One hundred per cent agree, my man, Platinum was such an excellent game it's unbelievable. I started in Gen 1 and Platinum is my favorite Pokemon game. Just wish we couldve caught Darkrai
Most mind boggling thing is that they did not pass many of these important changes to ORAS. I did a run, where I would not use Exp share or Mega evolution and they where total pushovers regardless.
Yeah it was fun for the first playthrough but i'd rather just play Emerald if I want the Hoenn experience.
Yeah, that was such a disappointment for me cause I was sure they had included the emerald improvements. After all they already did that with HGSS.
But then, hour after hour, I discovered that every little thing that was improved in Emerald was absent in the remakes. I always loved the improved and harder gym leader battles of Emerald, the Battle Frontier, the aesthetic changes all over the region. I would happily get rid of the Latios/Latias gimmicky flight to have those things in the remake.
@@samuelecallegari6117 Wasted potential right there, oras is easily the best game they released this past decade and could have been the best ever with the emerald template and a mega evolution balance.
@@nameless458ORAS being the best is sad...
Well, you can catch both Groudon and Kyogre in Emerald on top of Rayquaza. The placement of the Contest Hall as one building late into the game and replacing them with Battle Tents to be the main thing that I think was a dumb change. Also, Feebas' location being very specific and randomized when the game feels like it is something that I wished was changed.
I think the main reason to get a ripped copy of Emerald or just getting Sapphire and Ruby is due to Emerald cartridges going for over $200 while the others are around $50.
This explains why people will just pirate these games.
Good point
the thing is that ruby and sapphire are already very, very good. emerald is just improving on an already a tier game. in my opinion, r/s are the second best games as the introduction of a new gen, right behind b/w
Emerald's obtainable Pokemon rose!
Emerald's graphics sharply rose!
Emerald's battle system rose drastically!
This ^^
What really makes emerald better then Ruby and sapphire is you don’t realize how limited Ruby and sapphire are until you play emerald
True!
Something i discover is that the Ruby and Saphire games we know and love were also technically "upgraded", at least if we count the original 2002 release in Japan. Still a great game, but oh man, there are a couple of annoying bugs in that version.
I love the emerald because of the animations in battles, that badass cutscene, the representation of the domains of groudon and kyogre (just look how balanced it is, there is a protruding land, shallow water, and deep water. They can both move freely to have a good fight, after the cutscene the shallow water is gone. What an attention to details), and the battle frontier. About those 7 missing pokemons, I think gamefreak wants you to play with other by trading, that's why there is no single official pokemon game that have all the pokemon.
due to the lack of a nationaldex, ruby and sapphire allow you to trade pokemon from outside the regionaldex, from the beginning of the game. therefore they are the only gen3 games with the possibility to playthrough with any of the 386 pokemon.
without cheating , that is. and only with two gbas and a link cable, so... yeah. emerald is still a great improvement. my favorite addition in emerald are probably the stat-reducing berries
ive played emulator my whole life. when i learned to play on my phone it was the best. i learned how to trade with my games in the same phone. Id start ruby/sapphire games with the best team with egg moves and shi. is the best!!!❤❤❤❤
@@notearslefttocryy4194 what do you use to emulate them? And is the rom used the same as with PC emulators? I think I still have the ROMs saved somewhere. Got them before they cracked down on sites that have ROMs for downloads.
Emerald can still trade any Pokémon with colosseum before you get the national dex if you have a GameCube.
@@notearslefttocryy4194 You could trade pokemon from different emulated games all on one phone? How do you do that?
@@lloydirving6209certain emulators like MyBoy on phone let you play 2 games at once, then a “link cable” is able to be used. This is how I got trade evos on my playthroughs. I know I was playing co op Kirby gba back in the day on one computer so I knew the phone should be able to do it
sapphire and ruby are better for farming rare candies since pickup has no level restriction on the item pool meaning you have a permanent 10% chance to get a rare candy per zigzagoon in your party
That is true, I'll definitely give you that
Yeah pickup was broken in Ruby/Sapphire
Only 5 Pokemon were removed from RS, Surskit and Masquerain are just relegated to Emerald's postgame. There are also four more Pokemon that are only catchable at the Battle Frontier.
RS's Battle Tower is also drastically different from modern battle facilities; the enemies all use wild Pokemon AI and aren't particularly challenging. Emerald's Battle Frontier was the first iteration of what we'd come to expect from battle facilities - not to mention that it also came with the opportunity to rent and fight against all of the Kanto and Johto Pokemon that weren't in Hoenn's regional dex.
Emerald is also the first game that offers an IV judge, Nature inheritance, overworld abilities, EV resetting, and dedicated EV training areas for this reason.
Emerald also has a revamped version of FRLG's battle facility in Trainer Hill, but no one ever talks about it
Surskit and Masquerain were effectively removed if you have a dead battery. Which, by now, all cartridge should have.
The Magma dungeon on Mt. Chimney is one of my favorite Pokemon dungeons, and it gives Team Magma and Groudon the climax they deserve.
Totally agree, they definitely needed something.
1:38 every third version omits some of the pokémon from the first two. this is to make it so that the third version doesn't just completely obsolete the first two versions and there's still reason to play/own them.
I just wish that emerald had sprite animations that weren't 2 frames that shake for a bit :/ Like crystal, it had proper unique animations for all 251 pokemon on weaker hardware.
Yeah I definitely agree with this
One of the best (and often overlooked) things about Emerald IMO is the fact that some abilities now do other things outside of battle, like influencing what wild Pokémon you find, hatching eggs quicker, etc., that's not a thing in other gen 3 games. Very useful for breeding, which makes sense with the Battle Frontier.
As for the bad stuff, I think level 70 Rayquaza before the Elite Four is just absurd. Of course you don"t have to use it, but the option being there at all is abusrd. I mean, level 45 Groudon in Ruby and level 40 Lugia/Ho-Oh in GSC are fine, you're not gonna solo the league just because you have one of those (except Kyogre but Kyogre itself is absurd regardless of levels).
Edit: Ruby/Sapphire have the Meditite line and run roughly twice as fast on emulator. That's about it for positives.
cuz Kyogre is kyOgrePowered
Unless you are already overleveled at that point of the game, you would gonna have to sacrifice a masterball and trust me, you need that masterball for one of the roaming Pokemon.
Honestly I like the Rayquaza thing. I mean it's a very jrpg thing. You have the super boss that you already encountered during the story and they give the chance to catch him even before the Pokémon league. It's not that easy if you are at a normal level so I think the reward is balanced.
@@sebastiankulcheWhat if I don't care about the Battle frontier? Is still a massive design oversight. Which games have it though?
Gen 1: Mewtwo is in the post game and the birds aren't that broken.
Gen 2: Crystal doesn't but Gold/Silver do. Is a bigger deal with Ho-Oh than with Lugia btw because Ho-Oh is better on offense.
Gen 3: Breaks the difficulty curve, specially Emerald. Not that getting a primal is much better though.
Gen 4: Same as Ruby/Zaphire.
Gen 5: Kinda? I think it's fair to use a legendary vs another one and there's no way your dragon will beat Hydreigon Because Ghetsis team feels made to defeat N. B2/W2 straight up negates box legendary before postgame.
Gen 6: They give you a M-Lucario, a Kanto starter with megastone and a box legendary. Why do you think everyone says they're way too easy?
Gen 7: Is a weird case. In Sun Moon it's given for free, while in Ultra You have to go out of your way to get the broken pokémon, but that's still too powerful of a tool similar to Emerald.
Gen 8: They forced you to get an eternatus who can easily sweep Leon. In legends Arceus they don't give you the legendary up until somewhat before the Volo battle which is kinda like the N context.
Gen 9: Finally I can say something good about a Switch pokémon game and it is taking the approach of only allowing the bikes in the literal last battle like Black/White.
@@N12015 I never said anything about the Battle Frontier (plus you cant use legendaries). I mean, if you gonna complete the Pokedex, using a masterball on Rayquaza, unless shiny, is a waste imo.
I hate that most of the improvements introduced with Emerald are not in ORAS. That's one of main reasons why I didn't like ORAS as a remake
I doubt anyone can confirm or deny it, but pretty sure the reason a few mons are not available is so you still need a copy of both Ruby and Sapphire to catch them all. Gen 3 is my favorite of them all but completing the dex in these games is a nightmare. I'd say the main reason why I never bothered to do it is because kid me tried to and had his hopes crushed by the gamecube / event exclusives mons, couldn't even get the diploma that ignores event exclusive mons since I didn't have Sapphire for Lunatone and I didn't want to reset either of my FRLG files for the third Kanto starter.
Also the reason why you get only one of the Eon duo is so you can find the other through the Eon ticket from record mixing with a RS savefile that got the event.
One of the biggest changes between the RS Battle Tower and the Frontier is that there's Open Level. My biggest issue with RS is that there's almost no postgame, and the main part of it, the Tower, has an insane barrier of entry because it has only Level 50 and Level 100 modes. If your team is any bit above 50, which is the usual since Steven's Metagross is lv58, you either have to swap to a new team or grind to level 100. When the highest leveled trainer pokemon in the game is said lv58 Metagross. Grinding from lv 50-60 to 60 is much better than to 100, and you get new rematches to help.
Yeah that makes sense. The Pokémon Company really wants you to buy EVERY game just to complete the dex.
Lets be honest guys, this is a problem the entire series had and it was something they should get rid since the first entry. The only games that saved from this are the Mystery Dungeon games and Red And Blue (due to having the least amount of Pokemon and zero events).
Ruby and Sapphire had to use the link cable to send the missing Pokemon to Emerald, Another thing Emerald that could use is the Wireless Adapter that made trading and battles easier especially with Firered and Leafgreen.
Ah, i see you're a fellow OG Pokemon lover lol you're one year older than me. I thoroughly enjoyed this short video. Straight to the point and well put together facts about a classic. Well done
I remember everyone at my daycare had a gameboy and there was like a pokemon hierarchy with Gen3. I started with R&S and evolved to emerald and i remember you didnt know jack unless you played the first 2 gen3 games, and even then, i couldnt say shit to the kids who played earlier gens. We treated those guys like royalty lol. It was almost an honor to get traded a previous gen pokemon and kids were trading their lunches or even other GBAs. Some kids had 2 emeralds, 1 just to farm and reset. I remember one dude would literally just shiny hunt all day then he'd trade them for a legendary or masterball. Another guy traded his pair of jordans for a latios. Everyday we had battles, who had best pokemon for contests, who had best and biggest base. The pokemon league was just the beginning, the real fun started after you beat the game
In Gen 3 I played Fire Red, Emerald, then Ruby in that order
When I got to Ruby it was obvious that I had gone back in time to an older game
I love your Gengar mascot buddy
“Is Pokemon Emerald that much bett-“
Yes, next question
Fun fact. I (28 M) have still not played pokemon emerald. Played pokemon ruby like crazy tho
An Emerald gold card is probably the hardest flex outside of like world championship wins and whatnot. I dreamed of an Emerald Gold card as a 10 year old kid. I finally earned mine at age 23, and it’s easily my proudest video game achievement, nothing else even comes close, it took me over a thousand hours to get it. The people who think Emerald is bad never earned theirs.
Would love to do that one day!
R/S have a few niche advantages over Emerald.
Specifically being able to use the E-Reader cards and being able to play on the GameCube via Pokémon Box.
But 99% of players aren’t going to care about that.
Maybe not but I'm glad you brought those up!
I might be the only one on the Internet but I think the part where Emerald is worse is the champion. Wallace is one of the most uncharismatic gym leaders of all gens and he got to be the champ over Steven? Thats a major downgrade. Steven’s team is more iconic, his theme and his ace are better. And you can rematch the champ, you cant rematch Steven in his Red like battle as far as I know. Drastically better? Only that change alone makes all the other additions to the gym leaders and Elite 4 completely pointless. Is like taking Lance out of the league in gen 2.
I agree with Steven being a much better champion, but I do still think Wallace belongs in the Elite 4 at least. He's got the best mono-water team I've seen in the whole series. I definitely agree on the leadership aspect of it though, he's just not as interesting.
One thing where Pokemon Emerald is beaten is that Ruby and Sapphire allowed the player to trade pokemon from FRLG to their game without needing the national dex.
I actually didn't know that. Good to know!
Emerald is better than R/S but R/S are still amazing games. I personally wouldn't put Emerald an entire tier above R/S cause R/S still clears 90% of other pokemon games. I guess one tier higher I could understand, but any more than that is crazy and totally undervaluing the foundation that R/S established.
For all it's faults I've put an staggering amount of hours into Gen 3 games, Emerald mostly. It's just so replayable
I played emerald first and when I played ruby a couple years later I was like wait where are the double battles. I feel like that is one of the best changes emerald made, along with the battle frontier ofc.
I was fortunate enogh to have played all 3 as a kid, owning Sapphire/Emerald and trading with a friend for Ruby. Emerald is just a masterpiece, pixelated era greatness 🙌🏼 thanks for the video.
If Ruby/Sapphire had the Battle Frontier I'd actually say they were superior. I'm not keen on the complete overload of double battles in Emerald in the main game.
Totally get that if you're not a fan of double battles. I just don't like the gym leader fights as much in Ruby and Sapphire.
As someone who never liked battle frontier or don’t care about most post game content in most main line Pokémon games (I care about the main campaign way more than postgame content), I mostly enjoy Emerald for the subtle things that didn’t exist in R/S.
More double battles, different wild encounters, abilities affecting the overworld and fixing the psychic gym in general.
Tho tbh, fixing the psychic gym and having more double battles are the only things I miss when I play the remake cause besides that I prefer the remakes over Emerald, that and largely thanks to bringing back Steven as the champion rather have him stuck as a postgame boss that I didn’t know existed until like after the remakes came out.
Also the remakes were the first main line games where you could catch a mythical Pokémon ingame without having to use mystery gift so that’s a huge plus for me even if it’s postgame content.
That being said, I found it funny how so many people hype up battle frontier nowadays but back when I was as a kid, everyone including me hated it and most people didn’t start caring it until long after they stopped adding it because not enough people were using it.
Sorry for the long comment
I loved reading this, keep the long comments coming! I definitely agree with how the opinion on the Battle Frontier has shifted over the years. I think it's just because it's so much more accessible now with the plethora of information online these days. Back then it was a far more arduous process as you had to figure everything out on your own.
And yeah my favorite part of Emerald was definitely the gym leader team updates and the increased amount of double battles.
Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire and Delta Emerald In Nintendo Switch
Honestly yeah I personally rank it a tier above Ruby and Sapphire.
It just adds a lot of small things, like the updated story and the updated teams and more optional double battles as well as the battle frontier
Sapphire is by far my favorite Pokemon game because I had it from release all the way up into high school and it travelled from the West coast to the Midwest with me, and, yes I am very much dating myself here. It has been the only Pokemon game that I have maxed out the in-game timer and money counter in including multiple level 100 teams. Mind you, this was still in the early internet era where the competitive scene wasn't as accessible as it is now and information is as well known about the "best" teams; I was sort of just slogging through it. I didn't have a lot of money growing up and I became very attached to the mons that I captured and trained.
Attached to the point in present day where I purchased a cart ripper to rip the save game (don't have a classic DS) and archive my team. But that, that's a whole story in and of itself. But I had to reply through a majority of the game recently, and I noticed many of the flaws that I ignored as a kid. Things that many would take for granted in the modern day with the way the current Pokemon games work. I still love this game, it formed a core memory in my mind that I will never forget. Like capturing Kyogre in a Net Ball or soft resetting on Rayquaza because he kept sweeping my team and finally capturing him in a Timer Ball in the basement of my neighbor's house in 2005. I ended up capturing the same teams and naming the same things I did when I was younger in Alpha Sapphire, making them the spiritual successors to my original gamesave.
Emerald is honestly one of my top 3 ever Pokémon games . And was the game that got me heavy into Pokémon
I think the only thing thats worse in emerald imo is the trade restrictions. In ruby and sapphire, you can trade anything over from FR/LG as well as R/S/E, even eggs, right from the start. However in emerald you can only trade over whats in the hoenn dex until you beat the elite four, which is a little annoying.
Also emerald has the item and Pokémon duplication glitch, b/c of the battle frontier
Started off with Sapphire also as a kid but thank God our parents got me & my brother both a copy of Emerald. Fell in love with it and never turned back
(unless it was to trade Pokemon between my games)
Emerald also had the all the events in game. Eon ticket for the lati you didn’t choose, mystic ticket for ho-oh lugia, aurora ticket for deoxys and while unreleased outside of japan the old sea map for mew. Ruby and sapphire only got the eon ticket.
Fun fact:
Emerald also had one great graphical change in adding icons to backpack items
Ruby Sapphire. ❤❤❤❤❤
this video was a great idea, thank you for making it!
Excluding several pokemon from emerald ensured that fans would still have to buy atleast two games in order to complete the pokedex. I cant think of any other reason than that.
Yeah that makes sense
I will NOT keep my mouth shut when emerald's battle frontier had a beautiful duping system 😤😤 you can't forget about that, OP
Also I have a story from 2016. I was in the Marines and went training to 29 Palms and I remember being in the laundry room during my off time and I was waiting next to a Marine playing 3rd gen on his phone. He was struggling to get to rayquaza with the mach bike. I helped it out because I grew up with 3rd gen to where I last played it 2 or 3 years prior. It was awesome. He was stoked
That's awesome!
This is why I really don’t vibe with OR/AS. Emerald is just in a league of its own, and there was no reason they couldn’t include it’s best element in the remakes. HG/SS did it with crystal and they still sold two versions. It just makes no sense.
For me personally
The Battle Frontier: There were interesting formats like Arena and Palace.
EV Berries: Was useful coz this was when I started caring about stats, unlike in Sapphire where I just ungabunga'd through.
Ditto and Smeargle: Just these 2 alone make up for the missing pokes from RS. I remember spending time creating TM trees after Smeargle became available.
Everstone: More predicable way of passing Nature (though its still not 100% in E)
Off Battle Ability effects: I found Compound Eyes very helpful for getting more Heart Scales for the Relearner. And it came just in time for the shards
Move Tutor: Self-explanatory.
TM trees??
The omitted pokemon from Emerald that are available in Ruby & Sapphire would absolutely be to incentivise the trading aspect and keep that going.
The only change that i wish they had avoided would be placing those Battle Tents where the contest halls used to be. Ik they were supposed to be "training" for the BF but I'm sure they remained untouched for most players' playthroughs. On the other hand, I loved having Contest Halls in different cities-felt like an actual sidequest-and Emerald stuffing all the contests into Lilycove City made Contests feel much less significant 😢
Yeah the battle tents were definitely the easiest piece of content to avoid. They could have just added them in different cities/towns or even had both. Slateport is HUGE, could have easily fit both there
In short: yes
In long: heck yes.
Recently lost my sapphire copy that being the first Pokemon game I had made gen 3 my favourite. tho I’ve never played emerald I’ve always heard great things about it. Now if I want to replace them it’s so expensive and it’s not even a guaranty to be a legitimate copy. Maybe one day. Thanks for the great video and keep it up.
The first gen 3 game I got was Emerald. Never bought it, I found it on the ground, partially trampled into the dirt at a cross country meet. I dug it out and popped it in my Gameboy only to find a 10-minute save file. Later, I got sapphire and gave it to my sister.
The Battle Frontier boss music will always be my favorite Pokemon music.
I love everything about Emerald more except one thing. I hate that they removed Steven as champion so much that I have no choice but to choose sapphire and Ruby.
Yep that's fair
@@grumpygengar22 if they let us rematch, that would be worth it, but just one post game fight is not enough
All I know for sure is that May went from having really short femurs and long tibias in ruby/sapphire to having really long femurs and short tibias in emerald.
Lol
Maybe it's just my own nostalgia speaking, but as someone who never really cared about the battle frontier or double battles, the fact that they changed the champion to be a water type trainer in a game with a water type gym, an enemy team themed sround water, and half of the map being water. 7.8, too much water, but ironically. Stephen deserved better
That's fair
Stil playing Emerald again at age 35
The fact that the artwork in the thumbnail for “Ruby/Sapphire” May is actually her ORAS artwork is bothering me
Yeah I'm getting that a lot
The one and only thing I loved about Ruby and Sapphire over is the contests. Simple and fun. But Emerald wins hands down, being able to battle Steven, receive Johto starters, and of course the best part the Battle Frontier.
Ruby, Sapphire 🐐 solos emerald. 😂😂😂😂
@@animeladka1264 How? Take off the nostalgia glasses. Like I said, the contests are worth playing in Ruby/Sapphire. Other than that Emerald’s Battle Frontier gives the players extra hours to train and strategize to beat the frontier brains, also time to train to fight Steven with level 70 Pokémon, also a chance to have both Groudon and Kyogre.
@@attache675 Yes, actually you are right. But the thing is all you Emerald fans, always throw shade at us Ruby Sapphire fans at the every chance you get, yes your game maybe better by adding a few new locations, better gym leader teams also battle frontier and some other things, but the thing you guys forget is Emerald came two years after Ruby Sapphire cane out way back in 2002. So ofcourse it is better by building onto the foundation of hoenn as region laid by Ruby/Sapphire we know today, so we have to also acknowledge that Ruby Sapphire was also revolutionary for when it came out as it had graphics which were 100 times better than what came before of it example GSC, also it added lots of new features and new things like contests, secret bases, creating brand new 135 mons we still cherish today as being iconic and great, for the first time ever, being only being able to catch brand new hoenn mons for most of the game, thereby establishing itself as different and unique region and at the same time, being connected to the prior pokemon regions and a few more things. So the the fact of the matter is without Ruby Sapphire and the improvements they made to classic pokemon formula there would be no Emerald version like Ruby, Sapphire wouldn't exist without the prior generation games. I first played Ruby Sapphire few years ago, OMG!! 😊 It is such a great game and has stood the test of time. But don't get me wrong I also like emerald.
two words. Battle Frontier
Ruby, Sapphire 🐐 solos emerald. 😂😂😂😂
If we talking about gen 1 - 3 crystal is honestly the one i run back to this day but when i did played emerald growing up cuzo had ruby so i did the 3 starter thing and man when i tell you one of the best experiences as a kid
imagine not talking about the font once? feel like that's the most noticeable change
Never noticed the difference but now I have to check that out haha
While I definitely do agree that Emerald is the better game, and sure, by a good margin, I simply don’t like how marginalized the original Ruby and Sapphire typically are by the fanbase, because in my opinion, they’re still some of the very best games that gamefreak has put out for Pokémon.
Of course, I’m very partial to Hoenn in general, but they all had such a sense of wild adventure and tropical-ness that really isn’t matched in any other games. From the locales, to the music (which is damn near perfect, in my opinion) and the vast, tropical map that is the Hoenn region, there is just so much character and uniqueness that is lacked in most of their games… and they never brought back the amazing diving feature, which I think is a shame, because diving and exploring the oceans is such an amazing concept…
I mean, I know I’m mostly splitting hairs here, but I really think the original games are overlooked and under appreciated overall. I’d rather play any of the Gen 3 games over anything from Gens 1 or 6 onwards, without contest.
That is very true!
I thought the point of this was to determine how much better it was. Your conclusion was I will never stop making vidoes about them.
I guess I could have been a bit more clear in my conclusion section. The question I posed at the beginning of the video was "Is Emerald THAT much better?", followed by a comment mentioning that most players would put Emerald 2 full tiers higher than Ruby or Sapphire on a tier list. So I guess that was kinda the intended question to answer, "Is Emerald really deserving of two full spots on a tier list over Ruby and Sapphire? Or are the games closer than that? Is Emerald just a small DLC?" And I concluded with "Yes, Emerald deserves to be 2 tiers higher than Ruby and Sapphire". But I will admit, looking back on the video I probably should have been more explicit with that conclusion. Perhaps I should have made up a quick Tier list just to outline how much better I thought Emerald was, instead of leaving it up to the viewer to assume. I'll have to work on that for future videos.
In short words. Yes. Gen 3 is also my favorite gen out of the first 3 forsure! In order from 3-2-then first gen
Never understood why they replaced Steven with Wallace as champion.They were like "you know what R/S really need? MOAR water" 😂
It’s a real shame there was never a GBA remaster of Pokémon Yellow.
That would have been pretty sick!
@@grumpygengar22 I imagine someone might have made a custom ROM for it though.
If we take in consideration battle frontier that could be a separated Pokemon game that takes much more hours playing compared to the main story itself
Yeah I'd buy that, it really is a completely different experience
Mate they took out those few pokemon to still keep some value on Ruby and Sapphire in terms of trades.
Yeah that makes sense
Arent we all still salty the frontier was never added in the remakes?
Just like Nintendo made separate games with exclusive pokemon to encourage either trading with friends or buying a copy of the opposite games, I'm sure Emerald was no different. Buy emerald, youre gonna need BOTH ruby and sapphire to complete the dex