Something about Gen 3 felt mystical to me. I'll never forget it.

Wait, you misunderstand. Steven was champion in Emerald, he just gave the title to Wallace to do some research. You can figt Steven in Emeralds post game and he's even stronger than before. He's pretty much the red of Emerald

"For Drake, you'll need a well-balanced team-" Can't hear you over me one shotting everything with Ice Beam

You missed one key element of Emerald, Steven is the new Red, the reason he wasn't the champion was because he's a post game battle that's about as high level and as hard as the battle with Red, he's in the furthest back room of Meteor Falls, and nobody tells you he's there or to go there, you have to find him the hard way.

Gen 3 is the best generation to me by far stuck to it no matter what. From the music, the pokemon, the layout, literally everything its just perfect to me

Gen 3 was so much more than just hoenn. It was FRLG and Colosseum/XD. It was the feel and atmosphere of the franchise reaching new heights. The great spinoffs of mystery dungeon and ranger. Man. There's was something for just about everyone back then. I really do miss that

Emerald is still my favorite game of all time. Absolutely beautiful

The raquaza cutscene had me fall in love with pokemon. The story was awesome, the map felt like you were going on massive adventures, and the music is still ingrained in me

You can still battle Steven in emerald, I think he's in a cave or something

That sealed emerald box makes me moist

THANK YOU for actually using an ACTUAL Picture of Satoshi Tajiri and not the Pokemon Company President Tsunekazu Ishihara like most people tend to do because they get them mixed up!

I've played all gens, and for sure the 3rd was the best. Soundtrack, Pokemon Designs, The Script, post-game, etc. I Love Hoenn!

Oh how i wish pokemon games now made it hard and challenging as R/S/E to catch legendaries like the did with the Regis...the feeling of solving the puzzle and finally seeing the Regis face to face was one of the best game experiences as a kid

I started with Sapphire, then Ruby, and finally ended up with Emerald. One thing I've noticed is that in Sapphire, the Pokedex entries are...gentler. They focus on things like how Aggron protects its environment and will restore a mountainside if it's damaged in a landslide or fire. For Aggron's Ruby entry, it says Aggron will aggressively attack anything that enters its territory. To me, this somewhat parallels Team Aqua's desire to wash humanity away into the sea to protect Pokemon, while Team Magma wants to dry up the oceans and create more land for humanity to dominate. Just a fun little thematic note.

Perhaps the greatest generation, I remember when I first got Sapphire for my Gameboy Advance SP, the hours I sunk into it.. the sound track became a part of my life. I recently installed an emulator and booted up Emerald.. I was overcome with a warm fuzzy feeling as soon as I heard the menu sounds. My gosh I love this gen. It was the last one I played.

You forgot the most epic, mystic battle ever in Pokémon... Steven in Meteor Falls, it's sooooo good and amazing

I believe the reasoning behind the evil team is about Pokemon habitats. Since like 50% of the game is either land or sea, it would kinda make sense. Of course they took it way too far (probably unknowingly considering their reactions when they see the fruits of their labor) though but that was most likely the point.

I don't remember if this was expanded upon in the originals but the remakes make it clear that team aqua and team magma are extreme activists trying to create more environments for Pokemon to live in. I distinctly remember someone from aqua saying something about it, at least.

Ahh gen 3... good times :). Even though Sun and Moon are amazing games with lots of innovation, Gen 3 is still the king of Pokémon. The engine it runs on makes the battles and overworld feel fast and fun with no unnecessary slowness, the graphics still hold up relatively well today, a great story, and great Pokémon, not to mention the nostalgic remakes of Red and Green. It just feels the most fun to me, not as dated as gen 1-2, but although I like the new gens as well, something about gen 3 just makes it feel more fun to play to me. Good review.

I have experienced this wonderful generation through a emulator on my phone it is great to play a game that I wasn't around for when it came out

You can catch rayquaza before the elite four

Gen 3 is my first introduction to Pokemon and will all ways hold a special place in my heart.

I give gen 3 a "too-much-water/10."

gen 3 doesn't only mean r/s/e. It also includes frlg, Colosseum, and Gale of Darkness.

Too much water?

You know I was 13 the first time I played Sapphire. Over 300 hours. When Emerald came out it...It was the perfection of pokemon games. Double battles, Best pokemon designs, best legendarys and after game quest, best Champion was Steven and my ALL TIME FAVORITE POKEMON METAGTOSS which you said nothing about! Gen 3 was my favorite and I have the fondest memory's of.

This is super late, but... Gen 3 is really my favourite. I remember the wonder I felt when I played Crystal, especially as a young girl who finally got to play as a girl. So when Gen 3 hit and, seeing those graphics just blew me away- at the time, they were SO. CLEAN. compared to what I'd seen before, so bright and beautiful. I'll never forget that feeling of wonder, the world felt real instead of like a game. The equivalent would be going from the original LoZ to BotW in one generation, that's the sort of feeling it gave. And I loved the exploration so much, I can't ;o; ) And I was never much on the battle part of pokemon, so I was always focused on DOMINATING those contests. Gen 1 has a special place that can't be taken, but 2 and 3 are awesome in a way that newer Pokemon games haven't been able to touch.

Gen 3 is my favorite. I still think it represented the biggest jump in the actual gaming experience between generations. I love me some gen 1 and 2, but everything from the graphics to all the new elements including contests/berries and tandem battles was light years ahead in terms of gameplay.

The 3rd generation is my favourite generation as well. I love everything of this version such as the plot, pokemons’ design, double battle system etc.

This is easily one of my most beloved games of all time. I probably played Ruby for 500 or more hours like yourself. They were always hours of getting lost in a world that felt magical, perfect, better than our own. I recall just turning on my Gameboy Advanced SP just to listen to Verdanturf Town's music as I sat under the covers in my bed when I was particularly down in the dumps, or if Mom n' Dad were upset. They're the purest essence of their genre in my honest opinion.

I feel like the making Wallace the champion worked great because; 1) The shock factor. Who the hell saw that coming? 2) Made sense why steven and wallace knew each other 3) We still got to fight Steven in the post game, In a similar way to fighting Red in gold & silver. And he's a LOT scarier there

I just came here to say Emerald is not only my favorite pokemon game, but is also a very big contributer to what love video games in general. It's just so good

Gen 3 was the first game with a serious storyline. It’s not the best game in the series, but it’s the one that made the series what it is today

the delta episode in oras was nice, but i still wouldve bought delta emerald for 3ds/switch, even in 2019.

There are so many mystical and mysterious things about Emerald that I loved as a kid... the strange pokemon you can catch in strange locations you would never go to normally like jigglypuff, the legendary pokemon like the regi's, the mysterious safari zone etc

You forgot the Gym Leader rematches post-game! I personally liked it when they were obtaining Pokemons from other generations. :3

Their motives are explained on several videos on KZfaq. It's just sadly not explained enough in the games but for Japan, expanding the landmasses would be really helpfull

Wally was introduced to perform the role of the person who teaches you how to catch a pokemon. And this was a different attempt. Unlike the previous games, this was performed indirectly. And I liked it though how they made him one of our rivals

Couldn't disagree more on this being the 2nd best game for post-game content. Had you kept the instruction manual for the game, it gives you an entire braile dictionary. Although the battle frontier has been slated as one of the best battle options for post-game content, I feel that the Pokemon World Championships that were introduced in generation 5 was by far my favourite. Being able to battle against different protagonists, gym leaders and region's reigning champions felt like a true test of ultimate muscle. That immense feeling of accomplishment when you defeat Red in the finals for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS is absolutely incomparable to the victory of a battle facility imo.

I absolutely love Gen 3. The graphics imo are perfect for Pokemon becaue they are colourful and still leave a bit open to the imagination. The music is briliant. I used to simply walk through the region because I loved all the places, the music, the graphics and the Pokemon which all fit the tropical feeling so well. To me, it feels like the richest region and it sparked my creativity and imagination as a kid and to this day.

I'll admit, tropious was just my HM slave.

Nah honestly Gen 3 has the best music in the series imo. way too good.

if I had to give an odd, but positive point to Gen III is how FRIENDLIER all the characters became. After growing up with the games and cartoons shoving gary and others nasty rivals just so they can antagonize us, having May/Brendon and Wally being so nice and friendly to us, being competitive in a healthy way, I couldn't help but get attached to them and look forward to our encounters. Same goes to the gym leaders, they all seemed nice and friendly in both dialogue and design.

Steven's battle in Emerald is one of the best battles in the series and I think totally overrides any gripe one can have with Wallace as Champion

Seeing Emerald boxed and sealed again after all these years.

I really love Hoenn. As much as I loved the first two gens as a kid, I feel like it was with Ruby & Sapphire that the series truly found its identity. And honestly I love the remakes too. Maybe the originals had a little more flair to them (Sprites always over models) , but... I feel like ORAS are the most complete feeling entries in the series. There's so much to them, I LOVED the bottom screen stuff from ORAS. It made me actually interested in catching 'em all

The motives of magma and Aqua are based on the land mass issue that were going on in Japan around this time!

I loved the braille puzzles. I remember being familiar with braille already enough to recognize what it was, which meant I knew it was language and English basically with character replacement, and I was familiar with a character replacement language before due to learning fake languages in fantasy books. So just using intuition and context I solved the puzzles as for example being "Down, Up, Left, Right". If I remember correctly, and using that information I mapped certain braille characters to the alphabet and kept up the context based translation from there. It was *one of* the best feelings I've had in gaming.

Gen 3 always has a unique feel. Maybe it’s how uncanny some of the Pokémon are in that generation. But there will always be special about gen 3.

I'm a genwunner through and through. I was 12 when red and blue came out, almost the perfect age to be a Pokemon freak...but for some reason, gen 3 is my absolute favorite. It's the Pinnacle of Pokemon imo. I love gen1, was always meh abt gen2 and I was probs 20 for gen 3 but DAMN I always go back to it. And not even firered and leafgreen, while I really enjoyed those, I really love RSE.

The motivations of the teams is a little more fleshed out in the remakes. Magma wants to expand land mass to deal with overpopulation to create more area for humans to populate, Aqua wants to expand the ocean to create more habitat for Pokémon. Still kinda weird but it kinda makes sense I guess?

I started with gen 1 and 2 but definitely spent the most time on gen 3. It was the first game that had significant activities to do outside of the main story. Contests, berry farming, secret bases, challenging legendary hunting and puzzles in most of the gyms! Plus during gen 3 you pretty much only encounter new Pokémon. When playing gold and silver I feel like I always encounter gen 1 Pokémon in the wild.

I remember as a kid i would only trained my sceptile, because until the elite 4 i basically stomp roll through the game, then drake with his salamence and flygon Destroyed me with his flamethrowers. I just restarted the game and pick swampert because i was convinced that it was the better pokemon

I've played through Emerald multiple times, and Ruby and Omega Ruby each only once, so Wallace will probably always be the Hoenn Champion I remember the best. I don't think it was any kind of a "mistake" that was "realized to be wrong" later on. For example, if you pay attention during the Delta Episode, you'll see that the events of Emerald (at least as far as Wallace being the Champion goes) are canon in the remakes too. For me, Steven's status in Emerald is just like Red's: a retired Champion, who works as the post-game super boss. And it works out great. He's still a strong opponent, technically standing even higher than the Pokémon League. All in all, Emerald is one of my favorite Pokémon games, and the Champions in it work out perfectly IMO. PS. I'm just playing through LeafGreen, so I'm really looking forward to your Kanto remakes review.

I haven’t played or thought about Pokémon in years. I played emerald on my gameboy advance sp in elementary school. I loved that game so much that it brought me back to watch this video all these years later. Thank you for this video. Watching the gameplay and remembering the storyline was refreshing

I have strong nostalgia for gen 3. I love gen 1 and 2 the most, but gen 3 was absolutely beautiful. Playing it is like wearing your most comfortable hoody in your bed, on a rainy day with hot chocolate on the bedside table. It's so comforting playing it.

Emerald was my very first Pokémon game. Feel like it’s a great star. The style of the GBA games feel very consequential although I think the DS games build on that a lot and have a very dense atmosphere in terms of graphics, lighting and music.

Well shit. I just went through a 30 minute video without using the skip 10 seconds forward button

Gen 3 was special because the legendaries were some of the best designed of any generation, the region is rich and detailed and memorable, and the themes are incredible (especially littleroot, rayquaza theme, and vendaturf).

You forgot that the hidden bases when you mixed records kept the team your friends had. So it would help you level up your Pokemon. You could ask a friend to have a team full of legendaries so that you could fight them for exp sharing.

NOSTALGIA 😭😭😭😭😭

Brilliant review. Can't wait for Gen 4's review.

Your videos are so awesome. I love to rewatch them. The production value and care put into these videos is astounding!

This generation will ALWAYS be my favorite, because it was the first that I started. I have fond memories of playing Emerald over and over when I was 7/8...and I’m 20 now. I remember once I made a dragon-ish team cause I thought dragons were the coolest thing ever. I had Blaziken, Walrein, Gardevoir, Flygon, Altaria, and Salamance. Plus, Emerald had the Battle Frontier and there hasn’t been anything like it since. I’ve still yet to beat it. I had Leaf Green too, and have fond memories playing that game too. Charizard is my favorite Pokémon, so I was super excited to get a Charmander and travel through Kanto like Ash did in the anime. Good memories...

u can battle in emerald Steven -.- With Level 90

Emerald is my childhood and, in my opinion, is the best gen, though it could have been better, and was the game i caught my first shiny of my favorite pokemon....( if you couldn't tell its mudkip)

I just want to pose a few counter points just to give food for thought with your cons. 1.) You don't battle your rival May/Brendan as much because they aren't focused on battling. They want to become a professor and catch 'em all. So it makes sense that you don't battle your rival at the end. Plus, if we did battle the rival at the end, Wally might have been the forgettable one. 2.) I think the reason people don't like the motives of Team Magma/Aqua is that the strife and wars they always talk about is no where to be seen. They refer to real world issues and talk about it like it exists in the Pokemon world when it clearly doesn't. The only reason we need to stop them is they want to upset the balance of nature. Their motives don't make sense, but I think it is better that way to prove they are truly insane and are not thinking clearly until they have released the legionaries. I also don't see battling both of them as "padding" considering the game was just supposed to be Ruby/Sapphire 2.0. Plus, it wouldn't make sense if you have to fight both teams up to the conclusion and then only take out one and the other kind of disappears. 3.) People often forget that Pokemon is an RPG. You will need to use HMs to traverse the region. Getting upset that you have to use HMs is very silly when you stop to think about it. Of course you will need to use HMs and plan your team around them.

You know gen 2 was always my favorite, for most of the reasons you stated. But gen 3 always stuck with me the most. I think you just nailed why. I had always had a hard time making friends and had finally started to fit in when I was 12. Then we moved and I went through a really tough time. This was right around the time that gen 3 came out. The entire game was a mirror of my situation. In a new and unfamiliar place, going out alone trying to make friends and connections. I never thought about it like that until this video. As a guy who writes multiple 10k word reddit posts overanalyzing games daily, it's not often I get a mind blown moment that I haven't already considered.

"Nags them to stop" :l or uses his Air Lock to stop their weather powers, and cant keep fighting.

emerald was so good. i lost it when i went to egypt :(

Gotta love Gen 3 Ive always had a soft spot for it. I guess because its the gen I grew up with along with FireRed and LeafGreen.

I remember trying to figure out the braille puzzle for the regis for AGES when I was just a young, dumb kid. I had a notebook filled with the combinations and I tried to interact with them in certain patterns. After filling my notebook with patterns, I got discouraged and looked it up on a forum. It was glorious when I finally got it. Pokémon ruby is still my favorite pokemon game for nostalgia.

Amazing review! I'm looking forward to when you review games from other series.

This shit is so nostalgic to me, everything from the music and graphics, ORAS ain't even close to what the originals were!

I’m 31 now.. havnt played a Pokémon game since Gold.. my daughter is now 7, I got her Pokémon let’s go pickachu for Christmas and I’ve been hooked again..randomly found your channel on KZfaq.. and now I think I’m gonna go grab a system to play all the old games again.. never experienced this but it looks great! Thanks mate!

now just gotta wait for gen 4 before that remake lol. I love your reviews stan. really orginal pokemon video on youtube I've seen so far keep it up

Didnt mention the riddlehouse and that you can battle Steven in emerald afterwards where he has like lvl 85 steel pokemon, kind of a Red thing in Silver/Gold. Too bad you forgot to mention it or never even found out about it "i only found out about the steven fight because i was looking for bagon)

I think that Generation 3 has the potential. If they were to remaster Emerald with better gameplay things, then it'll be the best Pokemon game ever

Sapphire wasn't just my first Pkkemon game. It was my first video game in general. I had somewhere around 850 hours into the game when the cartridge was stolen, but I still loved it. I also still laugh at the fact that one of my strongest pokemon was a lvl 100 Volbeat.

"I LIKE trumpets". "Hey, I did too... 20 songs ago... Oh God, you're from Hoenn, aren't you?"

“Green haired asthmatic” I love it

EMERALD THOUGH! MY CHILDHOOD!

I know you made this a few years but I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

Emerald is my favorite Pokemon game. I love having both Aqua and Magma and having to stop the both of them, it made the story feel so much more cinematic and epic. Emerald's story just feels so grand - stopping two evil teams who are at war with each other and having to go hunt down Rayquaza and awaken it from its slumber to stop Kyogre and Groudon from duking it out and destroying the world. Brendan/May is disappointing I must say, and Wallace isn't the best champion.

Do Gen 4!!!!

Favorite Generation :), starters are just MMM

Damn... I miss this game so much! Although i played gen 1, 2 and 3 in order as a kid, and love all of them almost equally, gen 3 might be my favorite. I have great memories from that period of my life. I also miss my old friends that used to play with me.

> Team Aqua wants to flood the entire world and that's dumb. (Not a literal quote, but that's the gist.) Uh, sure, I'll grant you that it would be dumb if that was their goal, but it's not. The game never even implies that. In fact, it says the opposite, because in Sapphire and Alpha Sapphire, after they release Kyogre and it starts its torrential downpour, they realize the error of their ways. If their goal was to literally flood the world so we'd never see the land again, it "raining too hard" would not be a problem. I mean, what do you think causes Archie to realize his mistake? Is it "Oh, Kyogre is going to flood the entire Earth in a day instead of two like I planned. This is awful! I've made a huge mistake!"; no, of course it's not. They want to EXPAND the world's oceans. Sure, we never get told how much they wanted to expand it by, but we definitely know their goal was absolutely not 100% of the Earth's surface.

My favorite game, emerald I think I’m going to design my own generation based on it, taking the best parts from it and the other generations I’ve played

I personally think pokemon ORAS are some of the best pokemon games. Absolutely beautiful music, the pokemon designs, great online features, Delta episode, and GREAT reigon. ORAS is just overall amazing. In my opinion, much, much better than the originals.

The too much water thing actually makes sense in sapphire. Mainly cause of how unbalanced it gets since there isn’t a ground type gym leader and the fire type one is so quick since she’s only there to be that last fight before Norman that you are meant to steamroll and only lose if you don’t stand a chance against Norman. So why in a game with a water legendary you have to battle or capture in story, 3 water HMs, and most of the area water would you consider a water type gym leader. Let alone put him as the leader to fight right after fighting the water legendary who you go to after fighting the water evil team. Even switching him with Brawly would have helped this but it’s why I prefer Ruby. Then at least the water HMs have use for the later half of the game in battle and while it does mean you fight a fire gym leader after a ground and fire team, that battle was early enough you only had a few battles, so little in fact it could be part of the gym since that one was so short.

I'm not sure it was done on purpose, but I laughed at the "It was a bit anti-climatic" part considering Rayquaza cancels climates.

To me, instead of team Magma and team Aqua seem more childish than threatening. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is how threatening the teams are: Rocket gets 5 Aqua and Magma get 3 Galactic gets 7 Plasma (black and white) get 3 Plasma (b2 and w2) get 5 And Flare gets 1.

Gen 3 was, in my opinion, the best visually; I prefer sprites and GOD it looks good, Gen 4 is good too but something about the simplicity of Gen 3 while still being vibrant, unlike its predecessors, makes me adore it for visuals alone. Also you take that back about Spinda you heretic

I'm so happy you did this. I never grew up with Gen 1 and this was my first true Pokemon game. I played sapphire but when I got Emerald, that game never left my game boy and even to this day I still play it a lot. When thinking of gen 3 I'd honestly rather play emerald than the remakes even I loved the remakes.

I grew up with Sapphire playing on a Cobalt SP when I was 9, right after the game came out in the US. Good times. Fun fact, Ruby and Sapphire just so happened to come out in Japan on my grandpa's 65th birthday, November 21, 2002.

Yeah. Gen 3 is still the best gen

Gen 3 was Pokemons peak

Emerald was the best poke game Ive ever played by miles, from the regis enigma, to the kyogre and groudon hunt by looking at weather news, and the best battle frontier ever, only true hardcore masters had all the golden coins, i mean to get a golden coin u needed to beat 1 of the leaders which usually had legendary pokes like regis and zapdos while u couldnt use any legends urself and sometimes were given pokes your not used to, this after a crazy win streak ofc. Best battle frontier, best enigmas, best interactive weather=best game.

Pokemon emerald will always have a special place in my heart. i brought emerald because of the battle frontier and the ability to get pokemon from gen 1 and gen 2 that were not in ruby or sapphire. 10/10