Pokemon Ruby Version

"The Game that keeps evolving to its next and greatest form, even to today."

The next age in the Pokemon series begins. Gold, Silver, and Crystal fresh in our minds, I look into Ruby and Sapphire as the next generation of Pokemon, and hope it lives up to its excellent predecessors. Here is what I have found in my dealings with these games.

8/10 Graphics: The standard GBA graphics are impressive, and Ruby/Sapphire have an impressive showing, the best graphics of the series to date. Some of the sprites don’t appeal to my eye, but they are all high quality works of art, right down to the last hair on Ninetales. Each Pokeball has its own different color opening, and every attack is rendered quite well. Even some of the unimportant effects, such as the reflection in the water, the rain, footprints in the sand, and other such things (I could go on) are spectacular. Someone did their homework when they made these graphics.

8/10 Sound/Music: While some of the music and sounds are inspiring, others are quite a drawl, Team Magma/Aqua battles by far have some of the best music heard of, but some places the music is not bad, just uninspiring. The Pokemon calls are excellent, each individual one, though some are ridiculously long (Aggron comes to mind). Each Pokemon’s call also has a more painful sound when they faint, Nintendo definitely put some effort in.

10/10 Gameplay: This is what the series boils down to. Pokemon is ALL about the Gameplay. Each individual pokemon has its own stats, moves, and strategy. This forms almost unlimited team combinations and moves. They have also added a whole new twist, moves aren’t just for battle anymore. The contests are a new and difficult challenge, since some of the best contest moves are quite horrible in battle. Splash for example is useless in battle, but if used as the last appeal in a contest, it scores a lot of points. Then there is leveling up, the new EV system, and many other elements, which just make its Gameplay perfection for the serious RPGer.

6/10 Story: Pokemon still has the old “be the best trainer” Ideal, but this time it actually DOES have a storyline. You just moved to Hoenn, a new land with brand new pokemon! Your father is already acting as a Gym Leader, and you have to go off on an adventure, and defeat the Gym Leaders and Elite 4. But Wait! There’s more! You have to deal with a dirty organization of crooks with a crazy ideal along the way and stop them from releasing a legendary pokemon with enough power to alter the entire surface of the earth forever!

10/10 Replayability: I touched on this in Gameplay, but its easy to see that, like the rest of the Pokemon series, Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire can be replayed an infinite amount of times, with different teams resulting each time. Especially now in Ruby/Sapphire, where the new EV system comes into play. You could catch the same exact team, but the stats each time would ALWAYS be different. In fact, I have played through a few times, and NEVER gotten the same team. I have my favorites, but the stats were always vastly different. Your Play Time varies, since the game is sort of over after you beat the Elite 4, I would say Game Time will be around 20 hours. However with so many different pokemon leveling up can be quite a tedious task, you WILL spend a few hours leveling up your pokemon, and it gets difficult near the end of the game. The Elite 4 have had a MAJOR upgrade from previous versions.

8/10 New features: You have heard me mention the EV system multiple times, so now I will explain it. The EV system, or Effort Value system is what makes the game so unique, no matter what you do, your stats will nearly ALWAYS be different in EVERY different scenario. Each different pokemon has its own EV modifier, when you defeat that pokemon, you gain Effort Points in that pokemons highest stat. It takes 4 EVs to go up one stat point, and you can have up to 255 in one stat. Now, you can have up to 510 effort points, what this means, is that you CANNOT max out all your pokemon’s stats. In fact, you can only Maximize 2, but you should probably go for a more even spread.

Now, Along with EV’s, your pokemon also have IV’s, or Individual Values, the IV can be any number from 1 to 31, each affecting the stat 1 point. I’ll show you how these work together.

Here is an example. Rhydon has a maximum attack stat of 359, in order to get this number you need an IV of 31, and 252 EV’s in Attack. This will result in an Attack of 359. Now, if Rhydon has a 30 IV it would be 358, and if Rhydon had only 248 Effort Points, Its attack would be 358.

Next comes personality modifiers, pokemon now have personalities, and these directly affect their stats. If a pokemon has a brave personality, it will have increased attack but lowered speed. Each personality effects stats in a different way. But a raised stat takes it a multiplies it by 1.1(110%), and a lowered stat multiplies ir by 0.9(90%) So lets take that 359 attack stat Rhydon, and give it a Brave personality. It now has a 395 attack stat, and its speed. (assuming maxed EV’s/IV’s) is 160. So as you can see, with EV’s, IV’s and personalities, you will ALWAYS get different results. Only problem with this new system, is its so advanced, even I probably haven’t covered anything, it also makes finding out your Hidden power nearly impossible. And as for calculating final stats? Forget it, it’s impossible. However, the element of surprise makes each new game a totally different experience.

Another new feature is contests, I touched on this. Basically, Pokemon can eat certain foods that enhance their coolness, beauty, smartness, cuteness, or toughness. Just as the moves they learn also have these 5 “types”. Some moves are ineffective in battle, but powerful in contests. Splash comes to mind, if Splash is the last appeal in a round, it scores 6 hearts. So it is a very good move to use when your pokemon is last in line. There are also many combo’s. Basically, contests have nearly as many facets as the EV system. So a team good for contests may not be good in battle, just as an excellent battle team may do poorly in contests.

2 VS 2 Battling is another new feature, and moves can function completely differently. You’ll have to be careful using your Rhydon’s Earthquake, because it hits your partner now too! So choosing moves for 2/2 is difficult, some hit both opponents, some hit everyone, and some are still single target. Some of the best moves have been made dangerous, while some are seemingly powerful, but not. For example, Surf hits both opponents, but the damage done is now ½ of what it does to 1 opponent. Explosion’s devastating force hits everyone, but there is no power cut.

Rent/Buy: Definitely BUY! There are very few ways you could complete the game over a 5 day period, and get the same satisfaction as you would if you had the game and put hours worth of work into your team. Not to mention, being GBA games, they won’t cost you more than $40 anyway, so why rent 5 or 6 times when you can just buy it and enjoy yourself whenever you want? The only deal is, you have to be an RPG fan. The aspects of the game are infinitely complex. And while the battle system is straightforward, and it isn’t TOO challenging, unlocking every secret takes time and intelligence, that and if spending hours turning your Trapinch into a Flygon doesn’t appeal to you, then don’t do it. Most people should get a good deal of fun out of it. But Serious RPG fans will hold this game a gem (pun intended) in their collection.

If there was only 1 thing I dislike about Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, it’s that some of my old favorites weren’t in it. There are only 202 pokemon in it, out of a total of 386, so some of my old friends from GSC and RBY, Charizard, Octillery, Houndoom, and Jolteon got cut out. Even so, there are enough diverse pokemon to cover your tastes, and I’ve still got my old buddies Rhydon and Magneton. In short, if you are a hardcore RPG player, than pokemon Ruby/Sapphire is for you. If you aren’t, you’ll still enjoy it, but completing all the tasks may become tedious for you, and many of the more advanced parts of the game(contests for example) will drive you completely insane.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/03, Updated 06/30/03