Pokemon Emerald Version

"This game is good, I've played it for over 100 hours!"

Pokemon Emerald is the third game, for the series of pokemon games set in Hoenn, created by good old nintendo. As usual, there is usually a third pokemon game made in a series, yellow came out after red and blue, crystal came after gold and silver, and so Emerald came out after ruby and sapphire. These games usually add a bit more content to the normal game, and your characters appearance usually changes (their clothes change to the colour of the game version usually). But don't worry, there is more added to the mix as well!

Graphics - 8/10

In the battle system, the pokemon are very well detailed, but the HP is more smaller compared to the other recent pokemon games, Fire Red and Leaf Green. This doesn't really matter much though. The character inside the battle is also detailed as much as the pokemon, but it gets a bit weird as you start to see what look like the same people again and again when battling trainers. At least they have different names. The animations are OK, but as with most RPGs, the animations can drone on for a bit, only to miss or something stupid like that. Fortunately, you can turn this off and make it so your pokemon just attacks them. Outside of battle, the graphics are what you would expect of an RPG game, especially for the Game Boy Advance. They are top down, with small characters, and many other small objects. Other objects that are bigger then your character are only usually twice the size, like with trees, or your normal building. Some buildings are bigger though. The graphics are decent enough, but not the best seen on the GBA.

Sound - 7/10

The battle music isn't exactly amazing, its more or less the same as for Ruby, Sapphire. The music dies down when a sound effect is playing inside battle, these are usually just your average GBA quality sound effects. Outside of battle, the music drones on in a constant loop, unless you leave the area or do something else like surf, or fly. The battle music is considerably better whilst inside the pokemon league though. Its more or less the same quality as Ruby and Sapphire, and Fire Red and Leaf Green.

Game play - 9/10

The game lasts quite a long time, what with 386 pokemon to catch, you can only get 4 or so from nintendo events, ensure that this game is a very hard game to master, and is still tough to get to level 100 with your pokemon. The game certainly does last a long time, and is one of the longest games for the GBA. So what makes this game different from other RPG games, it has the classic long life span, and the battle sounds familiar. Basically, its your classic turn based battle, the pokemon with the highest agility attacks first. But battle is a bit better. Instead of choosing from about 6 or so party members to enter the battle, you have 386 different pokemon to battle with. You can only carry up to 6 with you at once, so if one of your pokemon, well, faints (damn why cant they die!?), you can call another to finish the other pokemon off. You mainly battle other trainers, the more pokemon they have with them (again, they can only carry 6 just like you) the weaker they are, and vice versa. Its annoying though when trainers have about 5 of the exact same pokemon, the same level, that do the same things. Pretty pointless. Unfortunately, you can't capture trainers pokemon though. Good thing is, you can't get game over. If you lose all your pokemon, you return to the last pokemon centre, which is where you can heal your pokemon for free. Instead of capturing other trainers pokemon, you have to capture wild ones, which are a lot weaker then trainers pokemon. This means long hours of training them up, which is annoying when you have to keep going back and forth from the pokemon centre to the wild. Outside of the battle, you mainly just walk around, talking to people, and solving pretty basic puzzles with your pokemons special moves, which they can learn when they reach a certain level, or you can teach them with TMs, or HMs, which are special moves.

Overall - 9/10

This is one of the best pokemon games on the GBA, and is an improvement over Ruby and Sapphire with a lot more extra things added to the game, and not just the fact your bag and hair band are different colours! Its only for the hardcore pokemon fans though, if you already own ruby or sapphire, chances are, you wont need this game. If you want all of them, get it, and if you don't have either 3, get this one, it has more in it. You will need all 3 versions, including Fire Red and Leaf Green to fully master this game though, which is a real bummer. At least with the original Red and Blue, you only have 3 versions of the game to capture the pokemon on. Also, having a game cube will help a lot, colosseum and XD, and even Channel will help you get all those pokemons. But Channel is terrible. Overall though, your highly unlikely to get all the pokemon in the game, so it doesn't really matter. Any ways, this is good for a portable game, and should be enjoyable, if you have played the other pokemon games and liked them, you will love this one. Highly recommended.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/06