Editor’s Note
This piece revisits the iconic Hoenn region from Pokémon’s third generation, capturing the nostalgic excitement of adventures in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.
It is well known that two is better than one: The double battles introduced in Ruby and Sapphire have persisted to this day and dominate as a format in Nintendo’s official competitive tournaments.
Although the Game Boy Advance was released in Europe in June 2001, it took another two years, more precisely until July 25, 2003, for Game Freak to release a new Pokémon game for the then-current handheld from Nintendo.
The 3rd generation was ushered in with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, set in the new Hoenn region. In addition to a staggering 135 new Pokémon, the 3rd generation brought countless other innovations that were to shape the games sustainably. Natures and abilities influence battles and contests, secret bases expand the gameplay experience even away from Pokémon brawls.
Furthermore, double battles introduce a completely new type of combat, where two Pocket Monsters on each side enter the ring simultaneously. On October 21, 2005, and thus another two years later, Pokémon Emerald was released.
Like Yellow and Crystal before it, Emerald is a special edition, building on the respective generation and featuring some new additions, such as a challenging battle zone in the post-game.
After FireRed, LeafGreen, HeartGold, and SoulSilver, many fans assumed that the 3rd generation would also receive a revival in the form of remakes. While the first remakes only took five years to arrive and the second ones took nine years, players had to wait a full eleven years to be able to travel back to the Hoenn region on November 28, 2014.
However, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are packed to the brim with innovations and reveal themselves as worthy successors that primarily build upon and improve existing concepts.
What catches the eye – and here the remakes of the 3rd generation do not differ from the other new editions – is the polished graphics. Instead of the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo 3DS is now used, skipping the intervening Nintendo DS. Due to the time span and thanks to the significantly more modern hardware, the graphical leap is correspondingly large.
Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are visually clearly oriented towards the other titles of the 6th generation, Pokémon X and Y. Character models are adapted, the environment is more detailed, and the Pokémon themselves look correspondingly more stylish. As with the other remakes, the music is also re-recorded, and although it undergoes changes, the trumpet-heavy sound essence of Ruby and Sapphire is preserved.
Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire also offer, for the first time in the history of the remakes, completely new story content. With the Delta Episode, which players can initiate after completing the main story, not only are the legendary Pokémon Rayquaza and Deoxys integrated into the plot, but the brand-new character Zinnia is also introduced.
