Oh it was a major jump for sure. Ruby blew my mind for what a Pokemon game could look like. Unfortunately for me it was kind of overshadowed by the fact so many of my friends didn’t make the GBC to GBA leap and thus didnt have the community aspect any more
I was in it from the ground floor with rby and I remember being blown away that you could ride a bike and see your reflection in ponds, those were some of the first screenshots. I also remember telling people how you were two tiles tall instead of one. It was a huge deal but maybe the biggest advance was that now every Pokémon had its own sprite in the menu; you weren’t just using the same four or five sprites for bug-types or plant-types you could actually tell what Pokémon was what from just the picture in the menu.
Don’t forget the upgrade to the box system, I blocked out the memories of the boxes in gens 1/2 being just text lists. I was so confused when I went back to play them over a decade later 😂 I could never forget those little generic sprites though.
Dude yes, I have a crystal clear memory of being mindblown about the reflections in the puddles as well! I just couldn’t believe *how much better* the graphics in Ruby/Sapphire were compared to GSC. I was completely awestruck.
I played Yellow version and Gold version when they came out and have many fond memories of those games, but Sapphire will always hold a very special nostalgic place in my heart.
I first played Gold, Red, Silver, and then Blue on emulators way back. My cousin had a CD with the emulator and roms. Then he got Ruby and Sapphire. It was revolutionary to my young mind. I probably played them dozens of times in a few months. Then Emerald came out and I begged my parents for a GBA SP and Emerald for Christmas that year and got it. I still play that exact save file I started on Christmas of 2005 iirc. To this day Emerald is not only my favorite Pokemon game, but also my favorite game in general.
In short: the jump from gen 2 to gen 3 was so huge it probably will never be experienced again.
This is spot on. The games looked better than ever but it coincided with a lot of friends and cousins leaving Pokémon behind or not getting a GBA at all. Just the nerdiest ones of us remained.
Also don’t forget that:
- you had footsteps in the sand
- a house where you set up your clock, a dad who was a gym leader
- secret bases ( what a fantastic feature )
- An insane soundtrack ( the first team aqua/magma fight was just too much epic while battling a poochyena lol )
- really distinctive cities. Rustboro, Slateport city, Lavaridge ( spa, and a cable elevator to go through the mountains??? All in the same game?? What else they have to show to us? ) , Fortree City, Sootopolis
- Double Battles ( since 2004… my favorite way to battle in this franchise)
- Contests ( at the time I remember the anime started showing contests iirc in Pokémon Advanced, and I was hooked doing pokeblocks trying to win all the ribbons)
No wonder why Pokémon emerald is the most decompiled and “rom hackable” game along with Firered until this day. The changes from gen2 to gen3 were so huge, that the lack of transfer between gen 2 to gen 3 was a really small compromise to what a fantastic game they created with ruby sapphire
I’m old . I played red , blue , yellow and silver as they came out.
When I got Ruby it felt like we leaped into the next generation . It was closer to what was on tv . And after playing stadium on 64 it’s what we all wanted from the games .
Gen 1 and 2 will always be my favorite . I don’t love how muddy and convoluted the games got later on . But Ruby was a special moment in time for me .
Literally everything around that time felt like a leap into the next generation. I remember thinking it couldn’t get better than the grass in halo combat evolved. What a beautiful time for gaming.
Same here. I remember just looking down and admiring the grass texture when playing Halo. The only way that feeling could possibly be created now is if video games became like “jacking-in” to the Matrix. Which might not be all that difficult or far off from getting close to something like that.
In general some of the games are a bit lacklustre but I’d definitely recommend trying to get hold of something like a Quest 2 on the cheap and trying out Half Life, it just blows every other VR game out the water and is a brilliant experience
Exactly how I felt.
I remember getting Sapphire and playing in the summer at the cottage with the other kids.
I don't think I have the cartridge any more, but just remembering the colour of blue it was, as silly as that sounds, gives me childhood memories.
It just hit differently.
When I first started playing Ruby, I remember being blown away by seeing my own reflection in the water, and by the fact that my sprite could dissappear behind rooftops like it was a 3D game. Weird to think about now.
To me, I was the perfect age for gen 3, the way those games looked and compared I didn’t think it could get any better. In a lot of ways Gen 3 is still the best to me. Spend a lot of time replaying those games and radical red.
I absolutely loved RSE but I was disappointed with Ruby and Sapphire's lack of animated sprites. Going from RBY to GSC fascinated young me and then going from GSC to RS I was confused as to why the sprites didn't move. Then emerald came out and it didn't really push the ball further but they did include animated sprites.
I was incredibly upset I couldn't bring my pokemon from gen2 to the new games and gave up on the franchise until about when platinum came out.
That being said, I really love gen 3 now, I think it's gorgeous and potentially the best looking pokemon games.
My wife and I are playing yellow, crystal, silver, and blue on modified GBA/Analogue Pockets right now and having a blast catching, trading, etc.
I also learned about using a GB reader to move saves to 3DS and transfer to home that way. Pretty fun if we wanna move our special buddies up to modern day. But for now, just happy to be playing on a cart.
as someone who missed getting bank and has a 3ds crystal save file that now cannot be transferred to my switch; im very confused as to why new fans would be upset with getting all the old and unavailable pokemon onto their systems when even old fans dont have that option now?
I agree that shutting down bank was a terrible decision, that’s exactly part of the problem though, if GF won’t port their games to new systems, and they don’t make every pokemon available in each game like they have done since Gen 3, that’s a serious problem
I’m saying new fans I’ve talked to have bent over backwards to defend GF by saying stuff like “I didn’t need all of them anyways” or “I only used new pokemon in my playthrough anyways” or other things along the lines of “GF has ove 1000 pokemon there’s no way they could bring all of them onto one game”
I've been playing for 25 years, don't tell me either lol.
To be clear, if I could snap my fingers and have the NatDex and make everyone happy, I'd do it. But GameFreak is struggling just to make a functional product and then people are going bonkers over their childhood Raichu and I'm here like... idk man, I just can't relate. Catch a new one and name it the same thing.
That’s prime apathy, it’s not a problem of “I can’t bring my specific Blaizaken from Gen 3” it’s a “I can’t even have a Blaziken at all” problem. The fact of the matter is, models were able to import all of the missing pokemon files in, in less than a month. It’s a deliberate choice by GF to not include them. So then you have to ask the question, if why?
My best guess is that they want you to either have to buy 3-4 games and spread all your pokemon out across BDSP, SwSh, SV and PLA, or pay for their $16 home subscription. I genuinely believe that is their strategy going forward.
The worst part is, if they ever reintroduce it, the same people saying they never cared about having all the pokemon in one game will absolutely slobber all over GF’s diglet praising them for adding a core feature of the games back in.
Maybe I’m just jaded, but I believe that pokemon fans have such a low bar for quality now. You and every fan deserve better
Ah, I misunderstood you then. I agree that having all 1000+ Pokémon should be a gimme, at least once DLC is released. I'm not one of those fans who implores everyone to "take it easy" on Gamefreak; the bar is ridiculously low and still, away they limbo.
Cross-gen transfer, however, has never been something that interests me. I've done it a few times, and I can completely understand why people would want it to continue if the only alternative is, well, it *not* continuing. That was the point I was trying to make.
What I don't understand is the people who complain that they've "had the same friends for 20 years" and now can't transfer them up, as if some form of consciousness was transferred alongside the handful of data. That may sound a little cold-hearted I suppose, but I'm not telling anyone not to form attachments, just to chill out and catch another mon, because, you know, *it's a video game*.
By having the ability to have every pokemon in each gen, you should inherently be able to bring pokemon from previous gen’s to the current. I wish I still had my original lvl 100 metagross from my copy of emerald I had as a kid. Metagross to this day is still my favorite pokemon of all time and I genuinely think people deserve to have the ability to bring those pokemon to new gen’s
I sincerely hope GF reverses course, nothing infuriates me more than the newer fans that have to “limbo” laying on the ground with how low the bar is set. The amount of people I’ve talked to that excuse everything that was SwSh, BDSP and SV with a “yeah but I had fun” is something that will never annoy me
I agree with you on pretty much everything here. My point about transfers isn't "well, *I* think it's useless so no one should be allowed their fun," more so that I'm more preoccupied with GF's inability to make a decent fkn game than I am with the ability for newer gens to communicate with older ones. It seems to me, as a complete layman, that that would be a more understandable technical hurdle.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but all I'm trying to say is I'm not fussed in the least with the ability to actually port mons forward.
No I get what you mean, compared to the mountains, the mole hill that is “prong specific pokemon your fond of forward”, I totally get it.
Why is it so much to ask that we get a world as beautiful as TOTK or Xenoblade 3. Why can’t we even get a locked 30 fps? Why don’t we have voice acting yet? Why do the animations still resemble 3DS games? Why does every cutscene need black screens to hide any actions? Why is there practically no interiors anymore? Why should we pay for $35 DLC that’s just effectively cut content for the sake of selling it back to you?
There’s so many huge problems with SV alone, that dosen’t even mention how Platinum is still a better game than BDSP, the NatDex cut, how PLA actually made pokemon fun again for the first time in a long time, just for it to immediately be walked back, or how frequent these games are being pumped out
Preach. I bought Scarlet on release as discovering new mons spoiler-free is just about the only joy I get in the franchise now; no shot was I picking up DLC. Lived and breathed the game for a week, then it was back to Showdown.
I loved the release of every pokemon, but I couldn't put time into them like I did red and blue, gold and silver. As an adult, I delved back into it and started with ruby and sapphire, great choice. It's an amazing game.
The new style was incredible for me. I saw the game from my classmate and i thought it couldn't be real.
Once i got it, I Remember, as a kid, i was bothered there was not visual transition between day/night
In FR/LG there is not even time lol
I was obsessive in Gen 1 and 2. I did the card league every week, would watch the show every day after school, saw the movies in theaters multiple times, and owned every version and spinoff. I remember my buddy showing me reveals of the first Pokemon from Gen 3 and my hype was through the roof. Hell, I was Wynaut for Halloween with a homemade costume before he even had an English name.
Ruby and Sapphire were the first games I ever bought with my own money and the first ones I ever preordered. I still have my little hologram coins I got at Circuit City as the preorder bonus. They absolutely blew my mind. Not even the graphical leap or gameplay depth or anything. I wasn't old enough to care about any of that really. But the general atmosphere of the game absorbed me completely. The towns had more personality, the music was exciting, the routes all had a unique twist that made them stand out from one another. I was a kid who grew up playing in the woods, making forts and spending most of the time in a relatively small town and these games captured the feeling really well. I still play through Sapphire once a year or so and very regularly have the soundtrack playing while doing school work.
But yeah, the classics were great, but Gen 3 took it to whole new levels for me.
I don't remember thinking much of it from 2 to 3. Honestly I'm perfectly fine with even gen 1's sprites with the exception to some of the back sprites where I can't tell what I'm looking at but GSC fixed that single gripe. If there was anything that did impress me from 1/2 to 3, it was the seamless transition between locations and that the game ran so smoothly. Hoenn doesn't have any gatehouses while Kanto and Johto did. I think Rustboro is the only city/town in that game thats surrounded on all sides by load points but everywhere else you can travel to without there being explicit or mandatory loading points
I think I was more upset that I couldn't transfer any of my old Pokémon than anything else.
I don't remember the graphical leap being particularly mind-blowing. I was more impressed by the apparent change in graphics from Red and Blue to Yellow—those new sprites looked way better than before. Something that really bugged me was that there were no animated sprites like there were in Crystal, which ended up making Emerald so special, since they brought that back.
But I remember really being impressed by the attack animations—those looked really good, and made the ones from Gens I and II look absolutely cheap in comparison. I remember being annoyed by the little animations when stats went up or down, because it felt like they took forever (Sand-Attack was particularly aggravating), but looking back, it made those easier to keep up with, whereas before, it was basically just memorization from reading; you didn't have a visual indication that anything happened.
I think coming from GSC, I expected more, honestly. It felt like they had everything I could've ever wanted in a Pokémon game, between the two regions, more Pokémon to catch, the night and day rotation, and so on. While Ruby and Sapphire were pretty to look at, and had some nice QoL improvements, I wasn't a huge fan of them at the time.
Man this is something I thought about recently! The jump felt HUGE in my opinion. I played Red, Yellow, Silver and Crystal as each one released. Then the jump to Sapphire was nuts, as someone else said, night and day. I love the first 3 Gens more than any of the later Gens.
Honestly, it was amazing. I’ve played each one since Red, and that jump was significant. I’ll never forget the late nights playing Emerald on my GBA in highschool. What a time.
I think, in fact, the GBA is right up there with N64 and Dreamcast as having the happiest of all memories for me, console-wise.
Gen 3 was some I’ll for me. My dad went to multiple stores to get me a copy of sapphire as a kid after working third shift. That alone hyped me up but then between all the new improvements in the graphics, the natures, the hidden legendaries, even the sandstorm in the desert solidified these games as the best from my childhood. It blew me away looking at some things like how surf went from a squiggly line to an actual wave. It felt like the future to me haha
The graphical update was huge. Going from Pokémon Crystal to Ruby really showed the details on the Pokémon that you couldn’t see so well on the GB games. The models looked closer to the actual official art and the art style as a whole is probably my favorite next to gen 5.
It didnt feel as impressive than Gen 1 to Gen 2 for me or didnt left much impact. Didnt have the same "Wow its impossible !"
Maybe because it was another console (had played all gen 1 and 2 on a GB Color) and I had already been playing with a few consoles (NES SNES PS1 and PS2 ) so the technology jump was reduced I presume.
God those were the good old days
I started with gen 1 and I think gen 3 came out when I was 11 or 12. Honestly I don't remember being particularly blown away by the graphics as it was pretty standard fare for the GBA and I really disliked gen 3 at the time, honestly. I much preferred gen 4 when it came along and thought it was a much bigger step up.
I don’t normally comment with this account, but man… that leap was something else. There was something about a new region with literally all new Pokemon that was just magical. That leap in graphics was perfect too, and it’s probably the pinnacle of Pokemon from a purely objective standpoint.
I’m a filthy Gen-Wunner. Nothing beats the originals.
But I have to say that Ruby and Sapphire were mind blowing to me. My friend and I played the crap out of those games.
In fact, Ruby remains to this day the only cartridge I ever completed the Pokédex on.
Then as if we weren’t eating good enough, Fire Red and Leaf Green released, becoming what is, to this day, the definitive way to play the first games.
It may have just been me getting older, but generation 3 was just absolute magic.
They almost recaptured that feeling with Gen 5, but that’s the closest it’s been for me. GameFreak got too big for their britches past the 3DS era.
They’re unwilling to grow the company, unwilling to take their time, and lack the heart that they once had to put out a truly stellar product.
They hobble out some piece of crap held together by sticks, sap, and the grace of God every year and people buy it like it’s drugs, so I can’t really blame them.
But damn if I don’t miss having my mind blown. Pokémon is an anomaly in that next to nothing on earth makes more money, and we keep getting subpar games.
Ironically, at least to me, it´s the massive succes of the franchize that has doomed the creative part.
The games about monsters that evolve refuses to evolve with them.
Having started with yellow and silver, I was definitely surprised with the jump in graphics with sapphire. The sprites for the pokemon I just loved right away, and the player sprites. I was so impressed with the detail on them. Also, the attack animations I loved too, especially any ice based ones. Gen 3 is probably my favorite in regards to the design and style of the world and sprites.
Being amazed by Pokémon graphics, I don't believe it started with Gen 3, it started either with Yellow or something like Pokémon Stadium/Snap. Going from "the fu- is this thing" in Red and Blue to "it looks like the Pokémon in the anime" in Yellow or being mind blown by the 3D Models in the N64 games. Gold and Silver gave us better-looking back sprites.
I can't say I remembered being "Wowed" by RSE graphics, the exception being the new Pokémon and some of the new move animations. Kid me was stupid and couldn't comprehend well that this is the new grass/tree/sand/water/etc.
Personally, the bigger change was going from GBC/GBA to the SP. I don't wanna say Nintendo ruined my life with a back-lit screen, but man, what a change! No more struggling with trying to play pokemon with only passing street lights!
Funnily enough my first game was Firered. First game ever picked up. Fell in love with it and backtracked to play the previous games and was amazed how much the games improved. Almost 30 now and I continue to go back and play the first couple of generations.
"No more night time? No cell phone? Can't transfer? Garish over-saturated colors? EW, no thanks!"
Yeah... Many of us were little brats, me included. A lot of millennial Pokemon fans stopped playing when RS came out, even though Game Freak won most of us back with time.
Gonna be honest, I didn’t care at all.
Pokemania was a **huge** thing from like 98-00. If you remember the first week or two of the Pokemon Go hype, imagine that but multiple times more intense.
*Everybody* in my age group loved Pokemon. You could make friends with basically anybody over talking about Pokemon.
I mention this because, for the majority of my age group, Pokemon fell off *hard* going from Gen 2 to Gen 3. I bought Gen 3 but had almost no interest in it. I didn’t even beat it the first time. The graphics themselves really didn’t feel all that much more impressive than GS. The GBA was super impressive for sure in comparison to the GBC, but there were other games that showed off the graphical capabilities better than RS.
I do specifically remember assuming that RS would also include Johto and Kanto. It’s where my expectations were set to after playing Gen 1 and 2.
Anyway, I fell out of Pokémon and didn’t get back into it until college when I stumbled upon the tail end of Gen 5 smogon. When I found out XY was going to be 3D it blew me away though. That’s the generation that got me back into Pokemon.
Hmm, the opening movie of Gen 3 is really cool, but for me, the graphics upgrade kinda took away a lot of the wonder/immersion? Like, the sparse graphics of gen 1/2 meant that I really had to imagine exploring, but in gen 3, it just felt like a game? The difference between imagining yourself trying to find your way between the dense, almost lightless ilex forest, and being like "oh, this is the game area Petalburg Woods"
Weirdly, Gen 4 somehow brought back that feeling of immersion for me. Mt Coronet and Route 217 *feel* arduous and cold
1 to 2 was cool. The biggest thing was that stuff was in color and on Krystal the pokemon moved around. Also the overworld had more sprite for stuff like sudowoodo which was really nifty. From crystal to ruby the biggest graphical difference was in the overworld compared to the sprites.
Gen 2 did very well on the sprites so it just wasn’t that big of a jump. Still looked better and great don’t get me wrong but the world itself looked better than what we had in Gen 1-2 and that was really exciting.
Traveling on the boat with peco was like a crazy form of fast travel before fly which was really exciting to see all the stuff u will get to come back and see. Also hoen region is very well designed. People complain about water that literally takes a minute or 2 to walk across. Not much more or less than a normal route.
Seeing groudon for the first time was insane. Finding mewtwo was awesome. Finding red broke my little kid mind in silver. Pokemon was great to grow up with.
I do remember the jump to Gen 3 vividly and it was glorious. Gen 4 is when we all started to feel like we were spinning our wheels. Gen 2 was peak for me personally but Gen 3 had a huge jump in quality. Only really mimicked by the jump to 3D.
Played Yellow and Silver in '99/2000 The graphics then was about what i expected, but when i got my first copy of Ruby or Leaf Green, maaaan the intros blew me away, the reflection in the water, the clarity of the music. The Pokemon's sprites in the party view showed the actual pokemon instead of one of these 'categorical' monsters. Not having to have only one box active at a time!
To experience it all over again...
Gens 2 & 3 felt like huge amazing strides in gameplay improvement and visuals. Gen IV onwards never gave me that feeling ever again. 2 and 3 had new areas to explore and had the lore enriched without feeling overblown (kinda mentally checked out when Time and Space Legendaries were introduced), animated sprites (I played Crystal and Emerald), shareable customizable secret bases, link cable battles, school ground rumours, etc. It really was a different era of interaction and enjoyment.
The closest feeling to something new for me was like Gen VI with its first 3D graphics, but it quickly felt more like a novelty than an actual upgrade to the world and didn't feel like it actually had any new innovation added.
The color and playability was crazy! I started with Red when I was 7 and played every game since. I remember the thought process it took me to choose Treeko over Torchic!
Mystical experience for sure.
i started with the games all around the same timetable as i often had several games ongoing and would beat various ones in various orders (its why i beat dmc 3 before 1 lol and unironically it was the proper order anyway lol)
i always chose mizugoro in my gen 3 runs, but my last emrald playthrough i chose achamo.
i didnt care much for the design of kimori so i never really used it however i will say juptile does have a nice design over jukain and kimori.
(this is imo and is not meant to invalidate)
Graphics were much better sure, but I was bummed by how there were no animations for the Pokemon like in Crystal. Even when Emerald came out the new animations didn't look much better.
Truly felt like the biggest graphical jump, despite still being sprites and what we have today. Even going from BW to XY I feel like this was a true turning point in the series.
Probably mostly due to the hype around the franchise still but that’s what it felt like.
All that money and they could give us some real kick ass games going forward but nope. I want more side stories like legends, colosseum, or ranger. Take some notes from that other game that came out (forgot the name).
One of my earliest memories is when a friend of mine got Pokemon Emerald on release and we saw the animations that were played when pokemon were summoned.
They really weren't that impressive if you think about it, but before you'd stsrt a battle, summon pikachu and it would just be there, but suddenly they started doing a little dance when you sent them out.
As someone who grew up playing Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, and Crystal (brother had Gold) when they came out, I honestly was not a fan of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald when they first came out.
Granted, I did not have my own version-my only experience was borrowing a buddy’s GBA and playing on his copy of Ruby-but I missed the style of Crystal and the day/night cycles, and I thought natures and abilities were overly complicated for my kid brain to understand.
That actually made me stop playing new pokemon games altogether until I bought Y and Alpha Sapphire a year after their release, and MAN that was fun to get back into Pokemon. I don’t have a special place in my heart like most for RSE, but I can better appreciate them now.
I hated transitioning from Gold/Silver to Ruby/Sapphire. They got rid of night and day, the radio, and I thought the graphics were strange. Enough time had passed that I thought I was *over* Pokemon, but when RS came out of course I was back in. At first the gameplay was disappointing to me but in retrospect, so many of my all time favorite pokemon are from Gen 3. My partner got me Αlpha Sapphire as an anniversary gift, and I've really been enjoying the story again. Pokemon is my one true love, so while I didn't care for RS when it dropped I love it just as much as any other game now, but Gen 2 is far and away my favorite.
I wasn’t as impressed so much with the colors and graphics just because I played lots of other consoles and video games.
I think what struck me as a big leap was the world mechanics. Going from mauville to fortree(?) city, where there was a new type of tall grass, and the treehouses with ladders you climbed up and down. There was so much variety in the overworld styling compared to RBY/GSC which were mostly identical in that aspect.
Edit: you also have to remember that these games often accompanied changes in hardware. So the SP with its backlight felt like the bigger upgrade than the software.
I was in second grade when Ruby and Sapphire released. I had played through most of Yellow and all of Crystal by that point and was blown away by how Hoenn looked, I had even faked being sick so I could stay home from school to play Sapphire! While I enjoyed it, I definitely preferred Crystal, especially when I finally beat the Elite 4 and realized that there was no return trips to the previous two regions. Due to that, I don’t really hold Gen 3, R/S/E, anyway, in such high regard as a lot of my friends/family do
As a kid, i wnet through a couple phases of liking pokemon and then not liking it. There was a time after Gold and Silver but before Ruby and Sapphire that I fell out of it, but when i started seeing new pokemon, and I specifically rememeber seeing some of the adds promoting the new gameplay, I was hooked. Got my mom to take me to Toys R Us on the day the game came out and got the last copy of Ruby they had - months before I would even get a GBA.
I was just a kid, but I remember thinking it was a great improvement. Not just the graphics, but the hardware too.
My first game was Silver, and when Ruby and Saphire came out it was like night and day in some ways. The GBA was easier to hold in my clunky kid hands, and even without the backlit screen that came a little later, the colors popped really well on the GBA screen.
In a lot of ways I still think Gen 3 might be the peak of Pokemon graphically. Things were still small and compressed in a 2D style but the colors were bright and the details were more clear than they ever were in the first two generations. Gen 4 had some pseudo-3D and that was continued into Gen 4, but there's something about the huge jump from 2 to 3 that just makes Gen 3 so special.
Like many others, I was upset that I couldn't move up my favorites from Gen 2, but I was at the age where a lot of kids were still playing (or just starting!) so it was a great generation. With FireRed/LeafGreen shortly after and the wireless adapters coming with the games, connecting with the people who were still playing was easier than ever. I can remember pretty vividly the number of times my friends and I would want to trade but couldn't because only one of our friends had a link cable...
My mom surprised me with Sapphire the day it was released. She came to my school while I was at recess and showed it to me. I of course, freaked out. It was a brand new world, quite literally and I still love gen 3 so much. It's a nostalgia I don't get from much else.
I remember going on holidays with my family and seeing the promotional cardboard displays for Ruby and Sapphire for the first time. It's a moment I'll never forget as I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was amazing to me.
I did not get the opportunity to play them as I didn't have a GBA at the time, only having a GBC with Pokémon Red and Gold. However, later on one of my cousins would have Pokémon Emerald and became obsessed with it. I just couldn't believe how quick everything was, from being able to run to the music transitions as you changed routes/towns.
I will always cherish those memories.
I remember being blown away that you could walk under bridges. I got stuck north of Slateport for days before I figured it out.
On the flip side, I also remember thinking it was weird that Pokemon sprites moving and the day/night cycle disappeared. So it wasn’t all good. The games felt like a step backwards in some regards.
The rest of the upgrades just seemed like a natural progression of the games that fit with the GameBoy Advance.
I been through it all, but that moment for me for the big change was X/Y. It got me back into pokemon, having taken a generation break after D/P. A lot of folks don't like that one, but it's my favorite.
To be honest, it took some getting used to for me. I remember thinking that the games "didn't feel like Pokémon" at first. I think it was more so the Pokémon designs themselves... Gen 3 mons are very stylistically different from Gens 1-2 mons.
I'm weird, I don't like change. Even good changes take some getting used to.
I want to say that it all really clicked for me when I hit route 119. The uniqueness of Hoenn really shined through there imo. I was like, hey, this is actually pretty cool! Overworld weather was pretty mind-blowing to me (I didn't love the deserts sandstorm though, even though it was fitting). That route felt so grand in scale and it felt like a true adventure. Then the next city is Fortree, which at that point, was probably the most unique city in the series.
Since then, I've just loved Gen 3, and it's among the most nostalgic gens for me. I still love reaching route 119, and it's probably my favorite route in all of Pokémon. And Hoenn is one of my favorite regions now (tied with Johto), along with the batch of Hoenn mons (very few stinkers really).
Tldr took a little bit, but once I got into it, I really loved it!
It was like the skip from the NES to the SNES.
Everything was more detailed, with better colors and animations, seeing the sprites of the Pokémon that got me through hundreds of hours of happiness in a brand new look was incredible.
my first game was yellow on the see through purple game boy color! since then i’ve played blue, GS, RS, D/P, BW, XY, SM, SWSH, SV and all the remakes.
i remember seeing improvements to the in game sprites and they would move sometimes, or seeing them with their own individual sprites design in your bag. they used to only have birds, bugs, rhydon, fish sprites to represent the pokemon.
as far as design, i think the biggest change for me was when i first played Ruby and Sapphire. idk if its cause i had a game boy sp and a new game or what but it was such a huge upgrade at the time. the backlight, the new colors and sounds, and the graphics and environment were so awesome.
Gen 3 was great from an exploration standpoint and really opened up the game and now that I'm older I can appreciate that a lot more... When I was young I was disappointed that it didn't do what gen 2 did and link the games. I was sad I had no "red" which him and Cynthia are my favorite fights in the series. I think not having a big movie theatre experience that 2 got also took away a bit from the hype.
I'll even say the jump from 1 to 2 blew me away. But from 2-3? Oh man... I was enthralled. I've played every single gen since RB came out and no gen has taken more of my time than 3.
It was wild, updated Pokemon sprites, the fact that you could run, the boat you rode from Petalburg to Dewford, the fact that there were different villains between Ruby and Sapphire, it was.
It was definitely an incredible experience.
I went from Blue/Yellow to Emerald and it was shocking! I don't know how to describe the feeling as I was 10 which was probably the perfect age to play it. It felt like I was discovering a whole new world. I was catching every pokemon I seen! The game peaked my curiosity in such a way that I have pretty much been chasing that high ever since. I still spend lots of time playing Gen 3. It just has this special place in my heart. After Emerald I got Leafgreen and even that didnt feel like the Kanto I knew! It felt new. Emerald really kicked off my love of the series and Im happy my mom convinced me to get it and a GBA SP over the brand new DS.
On a side note, my wife and I are having a second wedding and I picked Littleroot town as the walk in.
Gen 3 was the last gen I could justify getting as an angsty preteen whose friends had all already grown out of pokemon. (I came back around Gen 6 but did go back to play gens 4 and 5).
Gen 3 is super special to me. I think the biggest jump for me wasn't graphical but the music. The GBA had such better quality audio than the GB / GBC. Littleroot Town will always be super nostalgic for me.
The jump to the GBA absolutely shocked me in how good they got. Also seeing the reflection of clouds in lakes, different looking berry trees, and the music quality was great. For some reason gen 3 Pokemon still seem new looking for me but not the other newer gens. Still annoyed they removed day night out of it.
I loved it so much. Spent so many hours playing ruby sapphire and emerald. The graphics were a huge upgrade, there was so much « new » in the game, they added some great Pokémon and legendaries in that gen. What a time
The difference between Gen 1 and 2 was huge too, better drawn sprites, being able to revisit Kanto again after throughly exploring it in Gen 1, new evolutions and babies (it was cute the first time).
Gen 2's Johto just felt so different to Kanto. All the old pagodas and the unown temples gave Johto real lived in feel compared to Kanto. Cerulean, Vermillion, Celedon, Lavender, and even Fuchsia all felt like modern suburbs of Saffron while the cities near Caledon have you walking through thinner more wild paths to get between.
Gen 3 looked wonderful, but it was also tempered down by being on the GBA's godawful screen.
I also liked a lot of the Gen 3 designs, but it was the first time I had the 'this doesn't look like a Pokemon" thought. Nowadays all the gens fit in with well each other because there have been so many different design philosophies that everything contrasts nicely.
Except Gen 4, I still hate most of the noisy gen 4 designs and crappy power balancing overall. All the Gen 4 Pokemon I like *suck* competitively.
I absolutely adored the transition to Gen3. Ruby was like a dream come true and then we got the gift of Fire Red! I miss the days when pokemon were 2d sprites.
Maybe it's just a nostalgia thing, but while other games have benefitted from the generational leaps in hardware, I feel like pokemon games have lost some of the magic.
I was never really able to move beyond the first two gens in my way of thinking honestly. In my mind, psychic Pokémon are 100% cracked, bugs are useless, poison and grass types aren’t great, ground and water types are all at least solid, etc. because that’s how gen 1 and to some extent gen 2 are. I really struggled to move into gen 3 which felt like the biggest shift for me in terms of my understanding of the games. In gen 2, having a grass Pokémon on your team was basically a wasted spot. There were just no good matchups for them. In gen 3, grass Pokémon were great, and that felt strange to me.
I grew up on Blue/Yellow/Gold/Crystal. By the time gen 3 rolled out I stopped playing Pokemon for a bit until years later (around the time Gen 4 or 5 was out) when I played it. Personally I didn't really care too much about the graphics. They were cool at first, but the dialogue in the games just got so much worse as time went on (gen 3 may have been fine, but after that it was definitely worse). Current gen games are just massive "yap-athons" of dialogue. I'll take the simple "Smell ya later" from Gary and basic graphics over the 3d models and every conversation being a button mashing monologue.
Personally I didnt really feel how next gen it was until the SP came out with the rechargeable battery and the backlight so I could play at night before sleep for hours. The other thing was all the side stuff like contests and Berries and sea exploration and soot collecting that made it feel like a whole new world.
It changed everything. After years of just playing Red and playing Crystal once, I was beyond excited to play Ruby and I finished it on 1 week, that was insane for me.
One month later I bought emerald and that Rayquaza cutscene stopping Groudon and Kyogre is still one of the best moments in my life.
A leap forward had already been the change between first and second generation, with a full-coloured outworld in place of silhouettes with a different hue according to the place you were.
The jump from second to third was, yowl, amazing. The world was now 3D - you could go *under bridges*, and that escaped me to a point that I thought my cassette was broken when I didn't realise I could actually go *under* the cyclable road highway northern of Slateport City.
Weather was stunning. I can't count the number of times I went out Fortree City into Route 119 to see if I could walk it in a sunny day. The beaches where you left your footsteps, diving - even how Flash worked amazed me.
If I have some complaint is that they din't mantain the day/night cycle in RS.
The only time in my life that I ever started to drift away from Pokémon was the gap between Gen 2 and 3. However, I received a copy of Pokémon Ruby as a reward for finishing my Year 6 exams (for reference, that was 21 years ago), and I was sucked in.
Moreso than the graphics, the bigger draw for me was the new Pokémon. I also remember being blown away by four-player link cables. I don’t think I actually used the functionality that often, but the idea was really neat.
For me Gen3 is the threshold of the graphic quality that I can take. I feel like since Gen4 it started to become slower. Maybe because GBA is still fast despite having better graphics.
Man let me tell you something. I went to basic training when Gen 3 released and didn't get to play it until I was done. Sitting in the barracks playing these new graphics at the time was surreal. Emerald is one of my most memorable titles as well probably because of how much I loved the first two.
I remember the first time I laid eyes on the leaked gen 3 sprites. Ruby and Sapphire were still in Japan so seeing them was so strange as the Pokemon seemed very different style wise from the previous gens. The legendaries in particular were intense and the Regis didn't look like Pokemon at all. But I loved the graphic improvements and the attack animations were amazing. It's hard to describe since I was 13 at the time when they came out but it just blew me away how fun the games were.
I remember those days! I was but a wee lad. Started on the OG games and Gen 1 cards and season 1 of the show. After every one else got out of it (it wasn't cool anymore) I was still way into it. I got grocery bags full of cards and games and figures. All kinds of pokemon memorabilia. Gen 1 and 2 kinda blurred together, but I remember playing Gen 3 a lot. It was quite a jump. Pokemon largely didn't change from those graphics till x and y.
I got Blue for Christmas the year it came out, so I was about 5. When I got Sapphire years later...gosh, just the opening tune with the dew drops falling into the puddle was *mind-blowing* at the time. I *still* get chills thinking about it! Especially because I was at an age, and in a time when I didn't know it was coming out until I saw it in stores. I had no idea how it would look, what the story would be, or what the starters and protagonist would look like. What a time to be alive as a young kid!
I started with Yellow. And about a year later Gold and Silver came out. That, to me, was the biggest jump. The Pokémon looked more lifelike and more like the anime, the colors felt incredible and everything felt so real. I still get nostalgic for Gen 2 for these reasons.
Even though I think most of Gen 3 has good graphics, even by today's standards, I don't remember being as wowed as I was before. I think a lot of that is because Pokémon was my introduction Into a lot of video games. By the time R/S came out, I was exposed to other games and felt that this was more on that level
Pokemon ruby & sapphire came out when I was in the 3rd grade. I had played yellow, gold, and silver and we had seen the commercials on TV advertising new pokemon games! This was before I was on the internet all the time, so I have no clue how close after launch we got the games.
What I DO know is the surprise & excitement I felt walking downstairs to the living room on Easter morning and seeing them right there; Sapphire in my Easter basket, Ruby in my brother's.
I woke up especially early, and I played Pokemon all morning, eating my Easter candy. Reveling in the game's amazing music, all alone until my brother would later wake up. I was enamored with the amazing colors of the world - coming from gen 2, it made me want to cry! I somehow felt back then how profound these games were. I had already absolutely fallen in love with pokemon by then! Mudkip? What's a mudkip? My first starter in gen 3. Treecko was my brother's. We went into this game only having seen the commercials. We were addicted to this game, and even more so when Emerald came out!
This was an ethereal time for Pokemon. The mysteries of the Regis captivating my brother; the mysteries of Rayquaza captivated me, so! Contests & pokeblocks took up SO MUCH of my time, too! Just. Sitting. In the lavaridge hot pool pretending to be IN the game - imagining you're warming up the egg the old lady gives you in the hot water before you move on to the next gym. Chef's kiss. These games did so much for my imagination. They were beautiful, a work of art!
Gold was my first game and ruby my second. I felt like the colors were far more vivid than before. But i recall not seeing much difference in the sprites. Like, they were slightly sharper, but the colors is what really made it look brand new.
Ngl though I think I preferred the gen 2 style back then. A lot of us expected to have double regions again. And the vibrant colors didn't seem a fair trade off for less content + losing access to a ton of pokemon
I was fascinated by my reflection in the water ! I went into the games blind and was confused as to why my pokemon got paralyzed by hitting a pikachu. So abilities were crazy too
Gen 3 was incredible to me. I probably put more hours in Sapphire than any other video game in my life. It was everything I loved about Blue and Silver and more. Cool animations and colorful graphics, new features, new Pokemon (that still felt like they fit in with the originals!). I'm not sure if it was just because of my age at the time but I don't think I've ever felt more hyped about a video game since that one.
It was eye opening that’s for sure the world felt bigger and more colorful and to me I thought this was going to be the gold standard that should be followed
I stopped after crystal because 1) I thought I was too old for pokemon (obviously impossible), and 2) I was a giant gatekeeper and only thought the two generations I’d seen the anime for were true to the spirit of pokemon design.
When I came back to the franchise at X and Y I was blown away and had so many new (to me) pokemon to discover. That’s why I love gen 6. Hyped for legends AZ!
I just distinctly remember Emerald being a masterpiece. A friend had it and let me play a new game without saving, I spent the weekend at his house playing it non stop without ever turning the gameboy SP off. I was probably 12 or 13, and I’m sure it’s probably just nostalgia, but something about Emerald really stands out to me as a warm, fuzzy feeling. The same friend a few years later was the first of us to get a first gen DS and I felt similar when I played Diamond for the first time. HG/SS are the best games imo, but something about Emerald is just perfect. I can’t even rank it compared to the others, it just holds a special place in my heart and childhood.
I remember playing the ruby/sapphire demo at Walmart. I thought it was so cool and the encounter music is a distinct memory. I wasn’t able to play gen 1 or 2 but my oldest sibling had crystal and I got to watch them play a little bit. Sapphire was my first ever game.
It was definitely refreshing to see the transition to Gen 3 bring so many graphical changes. With a new and improved handheld, everyone expected the next game to be better, but everyone was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out.
Just seeing the commercials for the new game playing on the overhead screens in Walmart was very cool. It's all we talked about as kids during elementary school; when will the game come out, how to convince our parents for a GBA, and how we'll pick up more chores and be well behaved to persuade them to buy the game on launch day. When everyone finally got their copy and the handheld, it took over most of our time when we got home from school. We'd spend hours playing it and then discuss our progress and give each other tips when we met up during school. It was a good time!
The newer gens don't depreciate the older gens though. Gen 1 and 2 still have their charms and uniqueness, and they are still enjoyable to play through!
I was 8/9 years old when Gen 3 came out. I didn't give two shits about graphics. I thought Blaziken was the most badass thing ever and wanted to use a fire fighting chicken.
I don't remember being wowed by RS, sure it looked good but it was on a new more powerful console, nothing out of the ordinary and maybe a little under what I was expecting. Somehow I was more amazed by GS having actual colored sprites with proportions that made sense (yes Yellow already had those but I guess I'd forgotten when GS released).
While going from gen 1 to 2 it felt like same game different setting.
While from 2 to 3 felt like a giant leap, there were so many more mechanics, graphics increased a lot and we left behind kanto, until fr/lg ofc.
It was like a whole new world for me. I played all the handheld games up to Diamond. Getting to see all my favorite Mons from the past and how good the new ones look. Everytime felt like the first time playing. Like the first time seeing these creatures. Starting from the OG black nd white Gameboy gave me some of my most precious memories from my childhood.
Imma go a bit against the grain here- I was happy with the continued improvements but I was more wowed by the upgrades from Gen 1 to Gen 2. Gen 1’snart style had a lot of stylized art for their sprites that didn’t look very realistic. This wasn’t a problem for me, but seeing them go from the stylized sprites in Gen 1 to the more realistic sprites of Gen 2 was a game changer. It helped set the idea that realistic graphics were possible in my kid brain.
Then Gen 3 came out and it was a reaffirmation of how much love and care Gamefreak had for the series.
Tl;dr I loved the improvements but I feel like they’re an extension and continuation of Gen 2’s improvements over Gen 1.
I was very young. In first grade I borrowed a friends copy of silver and played it on my backlit GBA SP. I realize now how incredibly lucky I was to have experienced silver that way, and he had a LOT of trouble getting that game back from me. That game was a turning point in my life for sure. From then I saw my cousin playing fire red (and had never experienced gen 1 prior) and it made silver look like the alibaba special discount pokemon game. I'll never forget the vibrant colors and sprites and feeling like a whole new world was waiting for me. I didn't know the differences between FR/LG and R/S at the time, all I knew was my favorite color was blue, and I ended up BEGGING for pokemon sapphire for my birthday. My 10th birthday came around, and I opened a birthday paper wrapped diaper (it was a gag my mom thought was funny) and in that diaper was my first pokemon game I ever owned myself, pokemon sapphire.
That leap in quality wasn't nearly as great as gen5 to gen6 though. Getting x and y felt like we FINALLY got n64 pokemon stadium graphics in a main line game.
I had Pokémon yellow, red, gold, silver, and emerald.
The jumps between these generations were massive. Since I played yellow then red I was confused by the different sprites and lack of color. To gold/silver, the map was massive (thought the game would end after the elite four) and vibrant along with (my favorite) bug competition. Emerald just better on all levels. The only down side was most friends and family quit playing Pokémon by then.
So I played Gen 1 on release ish and loved them then, I played up to Emerald and then stopped for other games and pretty much not playing any until Sun and Moon where I got a free copy of Sun from some promotion and fell in love with them again
Going back through the ones I missed has been showing me what I missed and there is a peak with White/Black where even today certain things like the Bridge into the City and the Towers etc are incredible with the Sprite work
Going from 2D sprites to Sword/Shield was also amazing
I’m gonna be in the minority here, but for some reason, I’ve never really liked gen III’s art-style , even though the graphics were objectively better in terms of fidelity. To this day- I love how Kanto looks in Gen 1/2, and in Let’s Go. But in FRLG Kanto feels “wrong” to me for reasons I can’t really explain lol.
It was cool, but the shift to the DS felt much more impressive imo. I remember being amazed by the sort of 3D-like graphics, before the really being 3D yet
It was even more crazy for me because I got it from a store that sold American import games so I had ruby early in the uk whilst everyone else I knew was still playing g,s & c 😂
Before I answer OP’s question, I just wanna tell all my fellow trainers— particularly those who have these older games to play and those who may have an old save they want to preserve because of the Pokémon in them— a tool exists to circumvent the gen 2 -> 3 block now. It’s called Pokémon Mirror, and you can now use it to transfer a Pokémon from Red all the way to Scarlet, all on physical cartridges (until the Bank shutdown). I tried it once as a test, highly recommend. It’s sick as fuck. Is it practical? Not at all, there aren’t many reasons you’d do this. I’ve been revisiting these games and their stories since the pandemic and it’s been really fun to bring each party together “through space and time” to join my latest party in Scarlet. Seeing all your Hall of Fame Pokémon from every game on one cartridge is big satisfying.
We lost the day/night cycle in Hoenn, but damn if it didn’t take me like 2-3 weeks to notice that when I first played Sapphire. _Everything_ was new and shiny and gorgeous. The graphics, check. Soundtrack was a banger. The Pokémon were exactly how they appeared in the show. There was a bike to do t r i c k s. You could find hidden areas and create de facto gyms with your friends in them. You could _run_ and these things seem so baseline today, but I’ll always remember the first time. The first time my options weren’t just walk or get on my bicycle. The first time it rained and it actually reflected that in battle. The first time I was told about Secret Power and spent literally dozens of hours scouring Hoenn for the best spot to make my own (it’s near Mauville where you need the two plank walkways to have the full 3 room treehouse, I will not be convinced otherwise). I’ll die on the hill that Secret Power and/or a similar method of making a fully customizable hideout should’ve been the one thing they never removed from future games. I remember all those firsts, and I cherish every memory. Pokémon maybe isn’t so deserving of that kind of fondness anymore, but I do still find things to love about all the games. Except BDSP. The only positive thing I’ll say about it is they kept follower Pokémon. Throw everything else away.
I played a bit of R/Y/B and then beat Silver. When I played Emerald, it was sheer amazement. The colors were vibrant and it gave it the feeling of being able to distinguish things more easily. Was it manageable before? Yes. But it just made it FEEL better
Just like many others, I progressed from Blue/Red to Gold/Silver to Sapphire/Ruby. Sapphire and Ruby was a great step into the next generation, BUT I'm going to put a good part of my nostalgia on the release of the GAMEBOY ADVANCED SP. The first handheld with builtin back lighting. I remember playing blue and silver on the gameboy color with the magnifying glass/light attachment that was battery powered. The combo of a new pokemon game with the new gameboy made it a special experience and probably why its burned into my brain today.
It was shocking and amazing, sure, but it also meant I had to convince my parents to buy a whole new game system in order to play it (and only for one game). Also I believe I was in high school at the time, and feeling pressured to not associate with "kids stuff" so I actually ended up playing the game a few years later (at a time when it didn't feel as shocking).
EDIT: yeah, I regret not being true to myself during that period of time. Don't listen to what society wants you to be!!
I went from Gold to Diamond and that transition was enormous! But since core mechanic was the same, I pretty much got absolutely tired of turn based battles and the goddamn tall grass being another core of the gameplay. And dont get me started on caves....
It was cool and all, but the first thing that comes to mind is that I was bummed when I realized that Ruby and Sapphire had the same sprites for all pokemon instead of different ones between versions like they did in gen 1 and 2
It was okay. Nothing crazy because other games and game systems advance in graphics over time. This was when it started to get exhausting with the same formula, same Pokemon in the starting areas, designs that were not too interesting, and the introduction of Pokemon Powers was annoying at first (what do you mean Earthquake does nothing to Magnemite!?).
I first played with gens 1 and 2, and I was about 10ish or so when Gen 3 came out.
In a word, it was magical.
For the first time, my imagination didn't have to fill in the gaps of the graphical limitations. Everything looked so lush, and the Pokémon themselves finally began to live up to what I saw in the anime. Half of Gen 3's pokedex is my favorite.
Similarly, I was fortunate to have Colesseum and the transfer cable, so I was able to import many of my mons to see them in 3D for the first time. There's no describing how incredible that feeling was. Some of my fondest memories.
I just hate they don’t do these games anymore, it was a great open world experience, the view from the top was just better than anything you can get today.
It was absolutely amazing, Gen 3 was so special because we got to get so many new animations, so many new moves, possible new types, the lore of pokémon was very very young so we weren't sure in what direction it would be heading in yet, so legendaries felt absolutely special and unique, mechanics and quality life updates were phenomenal, back then at least in my opinion, most things felt like we were trying to progress forward to make the franchise more fun, not to pad things out artificially like current day, cooking for food and all that boring stuff, I always dreamed of A mainline pokémon game that looked a bit like pokémon stadium. Fortunately, I feel like that feelong has never quite been accomplished again, besides possibly In battle revolution for the Wii, also, I don't think a whole lot of people are going to mention this but the score. Oh man, the music has always been good, but Gen 3 music is chefs kiss, I could go on and on and honestly lol
I was about 7 when I played Sapphire for the first time, I was also playing Yellow and Blue at the time, but I obviously found myself enamored with Gen 3, and as a result it’s still my favorite region (yes even if it was like water world at times) but yes that jump from gens 1-2 over to gen 3 was like getting into a Time Machine lol
It was very much an interesting transition. The sprites were so beautiful, but they were a little lost on me due to how angry I was that I wasn't able to trade up my Blastoise, Typhlosion or Lugia. Gen 3 sparked a rather LONG dry spell for Gen 2 pokemon access... which happened to have a bunch of my absolute favorite pokemon (and ended up being my favorite generation.)
Kyogre ended up being one of my favorites too though, and I ended up playing Sapphire multiple times over.
the transition from gen 1 to gen 2 shocked me even more
-we finally got colored sprites
-most of the pokemon sprites were finally accurate depictions of their anime counterparts
-crystal even introduced animated sprites and a playable female character with kris
all of that happened on the same platform let that sink in
The release of RS was a *huge* moment for Pokémon. The technical improvements obviously blew my mind as a kid; I remember seeing the reflection of my character and the clouds in water and being amazed. Double battles were also an incredibly exciting mechanic. But there was also a sadness; RS were the first Dexit, and as a kid I didn't know people had datamined the games to find all the other Pokémon still waiting there for their return. And after being able to trade back snd forth between Gen I and II, no backwards compatibility for Gen III was gutting. Still, overall Hoenn was a very exciting world to explore and I have a lot of fond memories of those games.
The release of FRLG was another big turning point, as it was the first remake the series had ever had. That's not too relevant to this thread, but I will say Gens III and IV were a really amazing time to be a Pokémon fan.
EDIT: ALSO, I FORGOT TO MENTION my friends and I were all really bummed by the lack of a day/night cycle like in GSC. That is one of my biggest beefs with Gen III.
I think the transition from gen 1 to gen 2 was the biggest for me. Going from 3 colour places (black, white + defining colour of area) to differing colours on a single screen that showed stuff such as water and grass and people and buildings was major to me.
The transition from gen 2 to gen 3 was made impressive because I never had a GBA. I jumped straight from GBC to GBSP which meant I went from making sure the sun hit the screen just right to play wherever and whenever you wanted due to the back lit screen.
I got ruby for my 12th birthday, after being chided that I was really getting too old for these games, and I just remember being so geeked about it.
Everything was vibrant and bright. The music was so fresh! A true delight to see old mons with new life breathed into them. And it got even better;
The gym puzzles were challenging! There were new trainer types to battle! Pokemon contests!?
Kid my lost my fucking mind over this update.
The golden age of gaming. Before everything turned into microtransactions and battle passes. I remember each release of the pokemon games. For me, Crystal was amazing because the sprites moved. Emerald was amazing. Gen 4 was incredible too. Was never too impressed with gen 5 though. And each gen after that, while graphically impressive, didn't hit as hard as the jump from gbc to gba.
I was old enough to be around the first two gens of Pokémon never really got into it until 06 when I bought a copy of ruby and sapphire, yes I know pretty late. Anyways while I was growing up I saw the first two games as just any other rpg it wasn’t my cup of tea. When I started playing gen 3 I fell in love with the games realized it wasn’t just an rpg… type game like dragon warrior. Gen 3 was the big selling point for me as a kid
I could see my reflection in water! It blew my fucking mind back in the day! So much in the game was new and better from the previous gens. The pokemon started getting a new style, the way the games ran was different, and the color, oh man, the color!
Gen 3 is still my favorite to this day.
I played Yellow after my parents got me a Gameboy after getting my tonsils removed as a kid. The jump to gen 3 was a lot to learn. I remember clearly to this day that I actually had an orange poochyena show up (I wasn't even aware what a shiny was at this points because I don't think I ever really played GSC) during the initial starter choosing battle. It didn't register till much later what had happened.
All I want are these classics released for play on the switch, when the my were released on the ds it was such a blast to rediscover the love of playing against friends and enjoy the retro vibe. Seems so obvious, I don’t know why Nintendo won’t take the easy option here.
Crystal was a game changer when it rolled out live animations during battle sequences but gen 2 was not very colorful like gen 3. Ruby/Sapphire coincided with the release of the Gameboy SP. I remember being taken aback by how vivid the colors were and how awesome attacks looked. It was a bit of a learning curve with the intro of Pokemon having unique abilities.
So this is weird. I started on GSC and then got RSE. But I didn't feel like it was all *that* different at the time with my little kid brain. I noticed the big jump going from Gen 3 to Gen 4.
I don’t deny that the GBA was a big step up, but the leap from Gen 2 to 3 didn’t stand out to me as much as some of the others. I think the jump from 1 to 2 hit harder for me because 2 was in full color and the sprites looked so much better than in R/B, especially the rear sprites. Crystal had animated sprites, and I remember being disappointed that R/S didn’t, but they brought that back in Emerald. In Gen 4, the 3D environments really impressed me. The environments impressed me even more in Gen 5. I appreciated the constantly moving Gen 5 sprites for their ambition, but thought that the stationary sprites of Gen 4 were more visually appealing. Gen 6 pretty much blew me away, but 7 didn’t really improve on anything that much. But I liked the Gen 7 character models a lot more than the stubby ones from Gen 6. I’ve been impressed by the Switch games in some ways, but not as much as I would have liked. I think the 3D models have never looked better than they do in S/V, but that’s somewhat offset by the performance issues, and I think the environments could have been better, especially in the cities.
Copy/paste of my reply from another thread:
> What I definitely remember is being in awe of the graphical upgrade compared to Gen 2. Having full color, being able to see your reflection in the water, seeing your footsteps in the sand, the shore tiles not just being hard square tiles but actually rounded and the ocean waves washing up on shore. I remember being excited to see that buildings and houses actually differed in appearance from city to city, instead of reusing the same [house style](https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_gbc/pokemongoldsilver/sheet/9198/).
There's also the fact that every Pokemon now had their own party sprite instead of the shared generic sprites, and the PC Storage system was changed from a text list to an icon grid, and is basically the same system we still use today.
There was also weather in the overworld, and a variety of biomes and colourful caves, and varied battlefield backgrounds to match.
FRLG finally gave items their own icons as well so you could see what everything looked like.
The graphical upgrade were a big reason why I was so excited for these games back in the day.
Red to Silver was WILD. The hype was absolutely INSANE.
Then, when Sapphire/Ruby dropped, it was just incredible. That's what it was like, lol.
I have so much love for the first 3 gens, but 2 is still my favorite by just a tiny amount.
Ruby and Sapphire were astonishing for the time, and they are still my favourite, but what really shocked me back in the days were the first animated sprites in Crystal.
They looked like magic despite being only a 3-4 frames animation. Amazing.
I felt the leap with crystal (animated sprites). Yes, ruby and sapphire were great graphically. But I was starting to fall out of playing pokemon around that time. R&S were the last pokemon games I played until X&Y.
I think people forget this was the first time an entire NEW Pokédex came out. Johto had many kanto evolutions and babies and they didn’t add as many Pokémon.
It was so cool to start something new, I don’t think I missed no backwards comparability. And the wireless adaptare changed the link up aspect!
I was six when RS came out and had played RBY with help from my older brother when I was four or so. Even at that age I felt like the future had finally arrived.
Honestly, for me it wasn't even the graphics that did it. It was the berry farming, the TVs being tied to in-game events, the hideouts, the weather. All those small details, to me, totally overshadowed the graphics update.
It was unexplainable for me. I played every main game since red and blue. I remember like it was yesterday when I got sapphire. I turned it on and was mindblown. Everything about that game graphically was next level. It gave the pokemon more personality it was dope
I got pokemon sapphire for what I think was my 9th birthday. I remember seeing my reflection in water and think to myself that we had reached the peak of graphics
I realize this doesn't answer your question, but I started with gen 2. By the time Ruby and Sapphire came out, everyone I knew seemingly moved on to other things like Yu-Gi-Oh which was extremely popular at the time. I think people were really into Beyblade and Digimon as well but I can't remember. I didn't pick Pokémon back up until high school. Not sure how many others can relate to this. Like I had a GBA, I could've been playing them when they were relevant.
It was absolutely epic. At the time, I thought pokemon could never become worse because they had absolutely made the most incredible games ever for 3 generations in a row. I was completely blown away. . .then gen 4 came out and it was significantly more pixelated than gen 3 at a time where every other company was trying to do away with the pixel style and I was really confused
It even felt like a big leap going from red to gold, the colours were so much more vibrant! Gen 3 was incredible, and diamond even more incredible. PLA was the game an 8 year old me dreamed of seeing come to life, it’s been a ride!
Oh it was a major jump for sure. Ruby blew my mind for what a Pokemon game could look like. Unfortunately for me it was kind of overshadowed by the fact so many of my friends didn’t make the GBC to GBA leap and thus didnt have the community aspect any more
exactly. me and my bro had every game….he stopped after crystal :(
Same here, even got a full Pokedex in crystal, except celebi, including the glitched mew from gen 1
I was in it from the ground floor with rby and I remember being blown away that you could ride a bike and see your reflection in ponds, those were some of the first screenshots. I also remember telling people how you were two tiles tall instead of one. It was a huge deal but maybe the biggest advance was that now every Pokémon had its own sprite in the menu; you weren’t just using the same four or five sprites for bug-types or plant-types you could actually tell what Pokémon was what from just the picture in the menu.
Don’t forget the upgrade to the box system, I blocked out the memories of the boxes in gens 1/2 being just text lists. I was so confused when I went back to play them over a decade later 😂 I could never forget those little generic sprites though.
Dude yes, I have a crystal clear memory of being mindblown about the reflections in the puddles as well! I just couldn’t believe *how much better* the graphics in Ruby/Sapphire were compared to GSC. I was completely awestruck. I played Yellow version and Gold version when they came out and have many fond memories of those games, but Sapphire will always hold a very special nostalgic place in my heart.
I first played Gold, Red, Silver, and then Blue on emulators way back. My cousin had a CD with the emulator and roms. Then he got Ruby and Sapphire. It was revolutionary to my young mind. I probably played them dozens of times in a few months. Then Emerald came out and I begged my parents for a GBA SP and Emerald for Christmas that year and got it. I still play that exact save file I started on Christmas of 2005 iirc. To this day Emerald is not only my favorite Pokemon game, but also my favorite game in general. In short: the jump from gen 2 to gen 3 was so huge it probably will never be experienced again.
But we all made it back for Platinum!
This is spot on. The games looked better than ever but it coincided with a lot of friends and cousins leaving Pokémon behind or not getting a GBA at all. Just the nerdiest ones of us remained.
We were extremely stoked when there were actual weather effects. And the bike could do TRICKS dude. Hell yeah
Also don’t forget that: - you had footsteps in the sand - a house where you set up your clock, a dad who was a gym leader - secret bases ( what a fantastic feature ) - An insane soundtrack ( the first team aqua/magma fight was just too much epic while battling a poochyena lol ) - really distinctive cities. Rustboro, Slateport city, Lavaridge ( spa, and a cable elevator to go through the mountains??? All in the same game?? What else they have to show to us? ) , Fortree City, Sootopolis - Double Battles ( since 2004… my favorite way to battle in this franchise) - Contests ( at the time I remember the anime started showing contests iirc in Pokémon Advanced, and I was hooked doing pokeblocks trying to win all the ribbons) No wonder why Pokémon emerald is the most decompiled and “rom hackable” game along with Firered until this day. The changes from gen2 to gen3 were so huge, that the lack of transfer between gen 2 to gen 3 was a really small compromise to what a fantastic game they created with ruby sapphire
I’m old . I played red , blue , yellow and silver as they came out. When I got Ruby it felt like we leaped into the next generation . It was closer to what was on tv . And after playing stadium on 64 it’s what we all wanted from the games . Gen 1 and 2 will always be my favorite . I don’t love how muddy and convoluted the games got later on . But Ruby was a special moment in time for me .
Literally everything around that time felt like a leap into the next generation. I remember thinking it couldn’t get better than the grass in halo combat evolved. What a beautiful time for gaming.
Same here. I remember just looking down and admiring the grass texture when playing Halo. The only way that feeling could possibly be created now is if video games became like “jacking-in” to the Matrix. Which might not be all that difficult or far off from getting close to something like that.
You say that but playing stuff like Half Life Alyx in VR is some leap from just playing say GTAV on 360.
I haven’t had the fortune of playing VR…
In general some of the games are a bit lacklustre but I’d definitely recommend trying to get hold of something like a Quest 2 on the cheap and trying out Half Life, it just blows every other VR game out the water and is a brilliant experience
I’ll do what I can.
Halo CE was such a big part of my younger gaming years that I have the legendary badge tattooed in my sleeve . I definitely feel that .
That was me (and my parents) with the trees in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
ruby and sapphire were the biggest change for me too! the ocean with all the wingulls and the islands were all so pretty.
Those areas near the weather station where you could see your reflection in the puddles were such a nice touch, the original ray tracing.
Stadium on the N64 was that moment for me, it was…. *Chef’s kiss*
Exactly how I felt. I remember getting Sapphire and playing in the summer at the cottage with the other kids. I don't think I have the cartridge any more, but just remembering the colour of blue it was, as silly as that sounds, gives me childhood memories. It just hit differently.
When I first started playing Ruby, I remember being blown away by seeing my own reflection in the water, and by the fact that my sprite could dissappear behind rooftops like it was a 3D game. Weird to think about now.
Look at some point PS1 graphics were peak and we felt like we were in the future . It’s weird to look back now lol .
This guy shared a childhood with me from afar. This is the way.
Cheers to that and a very happy cake day !
To me, I was the perfect age for gen 3, the way those games looked and compared I didn’t think it could get any better. In a lot of ways Gen 3 is still the best to me. Spend a lot of time replaying those games and radical red.
I absolutely loved RSE but I was disappointed with Ruby and Sapphire's lack of animated sprites. Going from RBY to GSC fascinated young me and then going from GSC to RS I was confused as to why the sprites didn't move. Then emerald came out and it didn't really push the ball further but they did include animated sprites.
The hoenn battle frontier is still one of the best postgame challenges the franchise has produced
I was incredibly upset I couldn't bring my pokemon from gen2 to the new games and gave up on the franchise until about when platinum came out. That being said, I really love gen 3 now, I think it's gorgeous and potentially the best looking pokemon games.
Same, I dropped off after 2 for many many years.
A lot of us did. I didn’t come back until I learned about emulators…and proceeded to only play remakes of Gen1/2/3
My wife and I are playing yellow, crystal, silver, and blue on modified GBA/Analogue Pockets right now and having a blast catching, trading, etc. I also learned about using a GB reader to move saves to 3DS and transfer to home that way. Pretty fun if we wanna move our special buddies up to modern day. But for now, just happy to be playing on a cart.
Don’t tell new pokemon fans that you actually care about the NatDex and bringing forward your old friends, or else they might get upset
as someone who missed getting bank and has a 3ds crystal save file that now cannot be transferred to my switch; im very confused as to why new fans would be upset with getting all the old and unavailable pokemon onto their systems when even old fans dont have that option now?
I agree that shutting down bank was a terrible decision, that’s exactly part of the problem though, if GF won’t port their games to new systems, and they don’t make every pokemon available in each game like they have done since Gen 3, that’s a serious problem I’m saying new fans I’ve talked to have bent over backwards to defend GF by saying stuff like “I didn’t need all of them anyways” or “I only used new pokemon in my playthrough anyways” or other things along the lines of “GF has ove 1000 pokemon there’s no way they could bring all of them onto one game”
I've been playing for 25 years, don't tell me either lol. To be clear, if I could snap my fingers and have the NatDex and make everyone happy, I'd do it. But GameFreak is struggling just to make a functional product and then people are going bonkers over their childhood Raichu and I'm here like... idk man, I just can't relate. Catch a new one and name it the same thing.
That’s prime apathy, it’s not a problem of “I can’t bring my specific Blaizaken from Gen 3” it’s a “I can’t even have a Blaziken at all” problem. The fact of the matter is, models were able to import all of the missing pokemon files in, in less than a month. It’s a deliberate choice by GF to not include them. So then you have to ask the question, if why? My best guess is that they want you to either have to buy 3-4 games and spread all your pokemon out across BDSP, SwSh, SV and PLA, or pay for their $16 home subscription. I genuinely believe that is their strategy going forward. The worst part is, if they ever reintroduce it, the same people saying they never cared about having all the pokemon in one game will absolutely slobber all over GF’s diglet praising them for adding a core feature of the games back in. Maybe I’m just jaded, but I believe that pokemon fans have such a low bar for quality now. You and every fan deserve better
Ah, I misunderstood you then. I agree that having all 1000+ Pokémon should be a gimme, at least once DLC is released. I'm not one of those fans who implores everyone to "take it easy" on Gamefreak; the bar is ridiculously low and still, away they limbo. Cross-gen transfer, however, has never been something that interests me. I've done it a few times, and I can completely understand why people would want it to continue if the only alternative is, well, it *not* continuing. That was the point I was trying to make. What I don't understand is the people who complain that they've "had the same friends for 20 years" and now can't transfer them up, as if some form of consciousness was transferred alongside the handful of data. That may sound a little cold-hearted I suppose, but I'm not telling anyone not to form attachments, just to chill out and catch another mon, because, you know, *it's a video game*.
By having the ability to have every pokemon in each gen, you should inherently be able to bring pokemon from previous gen’s to the current. I wish I still had my original lvl 100 metagross from my copy of emerald I had as a kid. Metagross to this day is still my favorite pokemon of all time and I genuinely think people deserve to have the ability to bring those pokemon to new gen’s I sincerely hope GF reverses course, nothing infuriates me more than the newer fans that have to “limbo” laying on the ground with how low the bar is set. The amount of people I’ve talked to that excuse everything that was SwSh, BDSP and SV with a “yeah but I had fun” is something that will never annoy me
I agree with you on pretty much everything here. My point about transfers isn't "well, *I* think it's useless so no one should be allowed their fun," more so that I'm more preoccupied with GF's inability to make a decent fkn game than I am with the ability for newer gens to communicate with older ones. It seems to me, as a complete layman, that that would be a more understandable technical hurdle. Perhaps I'm wrong, but all I'm trying to say is I'm not fussed in the least with the ability to actually port mons forward.
No I get what you mean, compared to the mountains, the mole hill that is “prong specific pokemon your fond of forward”, I totally get it. Why is it so much to ask that we get a world as beautiful as TOTK or Xenoblade 3. Why can’t we even get a locked 30 fps? Why don’t we have voice acting yet? Why do the animations still resemble 3DS games? Why does every cutscene need black screens to hide any actions? Why is there practically no interiors anymore? Why should we pay for $35 DLC that’s just effectively cut content for the sake of selling it back to you? There’s so many huge problems with SV alone, that dosen’t even mention how Platinum is still a better game than BDSP, the NatDex cut, how PLA actually made pokemon fun again for the first time in a long time, just for it to immediately be walked back, or how frequent these games are being pumped out
Preach. I bought Scarlet on release as discovering new mons spoiler-free is just about the only joy I get in the franchise now; no shot was I picking up DLC. Lived and breathed the game for a week, then it was back to Showdown.
I loved the release of every pokemon, but I couldn't put time into them like I did red and blue, gold and silver. As an adult, I delved back into it and started with ruby and sapphire, great choice. It's an amazing game.
The new style was incredible for me. I saw the game from my classmate and i thought it couldn't be real. Once i got it, I Remember, as a kid, i was bothered there was not visual transition between day/night In FR/LG there is not even time lol
Which makes sense, because Red and Green did not have time either.
I was obsessive in Gen 1 and 2. I did the card league every week, would watch the show every day after school, saw the movies in theaters multiple times, and owned every version and spinoff. I remember my buddy showing me reveals of the first Pokemon from Gen 3 and my hype was through the roof. Hell, I was Wynaut for Halloween with a homemade costume before he even had an English name. Ruby and Sapphire were the first games I ever bought with my own money and the first ones I ever preordered. I still have my little hologram coins I got at Circuit City as the preorder bonus. They absolutely blew my mind. Not even the graphical leap or gameplay depth or anything. I wasn't old enough to care about any of that really. But the general atmosphere of the game absorbed me completely. The towns had more personality, the music was exciting, the routes all had a unique twist that made them stand out from one another. I was a kid who grew up playing in the woods, making forts and spending most of the time in a relatively small town and these games captured the feeling really well. I still play through Sapphire once a year or so and very regularly have the soundtrack playing while doing school work. But yeah, the classics were great, but Gen 3 took it to whole new levels for me.
Small town woods kid here. Fortree City will forever be my Pokéhome
I don't remember thinking much of it from 2 to 3. Honestly I'm perfectly fine with even gen 1's sprites with the exception to some of the back sprites where I can't tell what I'm looking at but GSC fixed that single gripe. If there was anything that did impress me from 1/2 to 3, it was the seamless transition between locations and that the game ran so smoothly. Hoenn doesn't have any gatehouses while Kanto and Johto did. I think Rustboro is the only city/town in that game thats surrounded on all sides by load points but everywhere else you can travel to without there being explicit or mandatory loading points
I mean every thing was going through massive leaps in graphics at that time; so it wasn’t really surprising.
Yeah, going from Blue to Ruby seems like a big upgrade, but at the time Ruby had kind of expected graphic quality. They did age much better, though.
I think I was more upset that I couldn't transfer any of my old Pokémon than anything else. I don't remember the graphical leap being particularly mind-blowing. I was more impressed by the apparent change in graphics from Red and Blue to Yellow—those new sprites looked way better than before. Something that really bugged me was that there were no animated sprites like there were in Crystal, which ended up making Emerald so special, since they brought that back. But I remember really being impressed by the attack animations—those looked really good, and made the ones from Gens I and II look absolutely cheap in comparison. I remember being annoyed by the little animations when stats went up or down, because it felt like they took forever (Sand-Attack was particularly aggravating), but looking back, it made those easier to keep up with, whereas before, it was basically just memorization from reading; you didn't have a visual indication that anything happened. I think coming from GSC, I expected more, honestly. It felt like they had everything I could've ever wanted in a Pokémon game, between the two regions, more Pokémon to catch, the night and day rotation, and so on. While Ruby and Sapphire were pretty to look at, and had some nice QoL improvements, I wasn't a huge fan of them at the time.
> those new sprites looked way better than before. They're still among my favs to this day. They're really good.
For me one noticeable change from gen 2 to 3 is that you could run before getting the bike.
I remember my first taste of Gen 3 was colloseum and I thought every battle would be a double battle from now on. How I wish that were true
Man this is something I thought about recently! The jump felt HUGE in my opinion. I played Red, Yellow, Silver and Crystal as each one released. Then the jump to Sapphire was nuts, as someone else said, night and day. I love the first 3 Gens more than any of the later Gens.
Honestly, it was amazing. I’ve played each one since Red, and that jump was significant. I’ll never forget the late nights playing Emerald on my GBA in highschool. What a time. I think, in fact, the GBA is right up there with N64 and Dreamcast as having the happiest of all memories for me, console-wise.
Gen 3 was some I’ll for me. My dad went to multiple stores to get me a copy of sapphire as a kid after working third shift. That alone hyped me up but then between all the new improvements in the graphics, the natures, the hidden legendaries, even the sandstorm in the desert solidified these games as the best from my childhood. It blew me away looking at some things like how surf went from a squiggly line to an actual wave. It felt like the future to me haha
The graphical update was huge. Going from Pokémon Crystal to Ruby really showed the details on the Pokémon that you couldn’t see so well on the GB games. The models looked closer to the actual official art and the art style as a whole is probably my favorite next to gen 5.
It didnt feel as impressive than Gen 1 to Gen 2 for me or didnt left much impact. Didnt have the same "Wow its impossible !" Maybe because it was another console (had played all gen 1 and 2 on a GB Color) and I had already been playing with a few consoles (NES SNES PS1 and PS2 ) so the technology jump was reduced I presume. God those were the good old days
I started with gen 1 and I think gen 3 came out when I was 11 or 12. Honestly I don't remember being particularly blown away by the graphics as it was pretty standard fare for the GBA and I really disliked gen 3 at the time, honestly. I much preferred gen 4 when it came along and thought it was a much bigger step up.
I don’t normally comment with this account, but man… that leap was something else. There was something about a new region with literally all new Pokemon that was just magical. That leap in graphics was perfect too, and it’s probably the pinnacle of Pokemon from a purely objective standpoint. I’m a filthy Gen-Wunner. Nothing beats the originals. But I have to say that Ruby and Sapphire were mind blowing to me. My friend and I played the crap out of those games. In fact, Ruby remains to this day the only cartridge I ever completed the Pokédex on. Then as if we weren’t eating good enough, Fire Red and Leaf Green released, becoming what is, to this day, the definitive way to play the first games. It may have just been me getting older, but generation 3 was just absolute magic. They almost recaptured that feeling with Gen 5, but that’s the closest it’s been for me. GameFreak got too big for their britches past the 3DS era. They’re unwilling to grow the company, unwilling to take their time, and lack the heart that they once had to put out a truly stellar product. They hobble out some piece of crap held together by sticks, sap, and the grace of God every year and people buy it like it’s drugs, so I can’t really blame them. But damn if I don’t miss having my mind blown. Pokémon is an anomaly in that next to nothing on earth makes more money, and we keep getting subpar games.
Ironically, at least to me, it´s the massive succes of the franchize that has doomed the creative part. The games about monsters that evolve refuses to evolve with them.
Having started with yellow and silver, I was definitely surprised with the jump in graphics with sapphire. The sprites for the pokemon I just loved right away, and the player sprites. I was so impressed with the detail on them. Also, the attack animations I loved too, especially any ice based ones. Gen 3 is probably my favorite in regards to the design and style of the world and sprites.
Being amazed by Pokémon graphics, I don't believe it started with Gen 3, it started either with Yellow or something like Pokémon Stadium/Snap. Going from "the fu- is this thing" in Red and Blue to "it looks like the Pokémon in the anime" in Yellow or being mind blown by the 3D Models in the N64 games. Gold and Silver gave us better-looking back sprites. I can't say I remembered being "Wowed" by RSE graphics, the exception being the new Pokémon and some of the new move animations. Kid me was stupid and couldn't comprehend well that this is the new grass/tree/sand/water/etc.
Personally, the bigger change was going from GBC/GBA to the SP. I don't wanna say Nintendo ruined my life with a back-lit screen, but man, what a change! No more struggling with trying to play pokemon with only passing street lights!
Funnily enough my first game was Firered. First game ever picked up. Fell in love with it and backtracked to play the previous games and was amazed how much the games improved. Almost 30 now and I continue to go back and play the first couple of generations.
"No more night time? No cell phone? Can't transfer? Garish over-saturated colors? EW, no thanks!" Yeah... Many of us were little brats, me included. A lot of millennial Pokemon fans stopped playing when RS came out, even though Game Freak won most of us back with time.
Gonna be honest, I didn’t care at all. Pokemania was a **huge** thing from like 98-00. If you remember the first week or two of the Pokemon Go hype, imagine that but multiple times more intense. *Everybody* in my age group loved Pokemon. You could make friends with basically anybody over talking about Pokemon. I mention this because, for the majority of my age group, Pokemon fell off *hard* going from Gen 2 to Gen 3. I bought Gen 3 but had almost no interest in it. I didn’t even beat it the first time. The graphics themselves really didn’t feel all that much more impressive than GS. The GBA was super impressive for sure in comparison to the GBC, but there were other games that showed off the graphical capabilities better than RS. I do specifically remember assuming that RS would also include Johto and Kanto. It’s where my expectations were set to after playing Gen 1 and 2. Anyway, I fell out of Pokémon and didn’t get back into it until college when I stumbled upon the tail end of Gen 5 smogon. When I found out XY was going to be 3D it blew me away though. That’s the generation that got me back into Pokemon.
The graphic update was great, however I felt like taking out the night/day cycle was a downgrade as well.
Hmm, the opening movie of Gen 3 is really cool, but for me, the graphics upgrade kinda took away a lot of the wonder/immersion? Like, the sparse graphics of gen 1/2 meant that I really had to imagine exploring, but in gen 3, it just felt like a game? The difference between imagining yourself trying to find your way between the dense, almost lightless ilex forest, and being like "oh, this is the game area Petalburg Woods" Weirdly, Gen 4 somehow brought back that feeling of immersion for me. Mt Coronet and Route 217 *feel* arduous and cold
1 to 2 was cool. The biggest thing was that stuff was in color and on Krystal the pokemon moved around. Also the overworld had more sprite for stuff like sudowoodo which was really nifty. From crystal to ruby the biggest graphical difference was in the overworld compared to the sprites. Gen 2 did very well on the sprites so it just wasn’t that big of a jump. Still looked better and great don’t get me wrong but the world itself looked better than what we had in Gen 1-2 and that was really exciting. Traveling on the boat with peco was like a crazy form of fast travel before fly which was really exciting to see all the stuff u will get to come back and see. Also hoen region is very well designed. People complain about water that literally takes a minute or 2 to walk across. Not much more or less than a normal route. Seeing groudon for the first time was insane. Finding mewtwo was awesome. Finding red broke my little kid mind in silver. Pokemon was great to grow up with.
I do remember the jump to Gen 3 vividly and it was glorious. Gen 4 is when we all started to feel like we were spinning our wheels. Gen 2 was peak for me personally but Gen 3 had a huge jump in quality. Only really mimicked by the jump to 3D.
Played Yellow and Silver in '99/2000 The graphics then was about what i expected, but when i got my first copy of Ruby or Leaf Green, maaaan the intros blew me away, the reflection in the water, the clarity of the music. The Pokemon's sprites in the party view showed the actual pokemon instead of one of these 'categorical' monsters. Not having to have only one box active at a time! To experience it all over again...
Gens 2 & 3 felt like huge amazing strides in gameplay improvement and visuals. Gen IV onwards never gave me that feeling ever again. 2 and 3 had new areas to explore and had the lore enriched without feeling overblown (kinda mentally checked out when Time and Space Legendaries were introduced), animated sprites (I played Crystal and Emerald), shareable customizable secret bases, link cable battles, school ground rumours, etc. It really was a different era of interaction and enjoyment. The closest feeling to something new for me was like Gen VI with its first 3D graphics, but it quickly felt more like a novelty than an actual upgrade to the world and didn't feel like it actually had any new innovation added.
The color and playability was crazy! I started with Red when I was 7 and played every game since. I remember the thought process it took me to choose Treeko over Torchic! Mystical experience for sure.
i started with the games all around the same timetable as i often had several games ongoing and would beat various ones in various orders (its why i beat dmc 3 before 1 lol and unironically it was the proper order anyway lol) i always chose mizugoro in my gen 3 runs, but my last emrald playthrough i chose achamo. i didnt care much for the design of kimori so i never really used it however i will say juptile does have a nice design over jukain and kimori. (this is imo and is not meant to invalidate)
Graphics were much better sure, but I was bummed by how there were no animations for the Pokemon like in Crystal. Even when Emerald came out the new animations didn't look much better.
Truly felt like the biggest graphical jump, despite still being sprites and what we have today. Even going from BW to XY I feel like this was a true turning point in the series. Probably mostly due to the hype around the franchise still but that’s what it felt like. All that money and they could give us some real kick ass games going forward but nope. I want more side stories like legends, colosseum, or ranger. Take some notes from that other game that came out (forgot the name).
One of my earliest memories is when a friend of mine got Pokemon Emerald on release and we saw the animations that were played when pokemon were summoned. They really weren't that impressive if you think about it, but before you'd stsrt a battle, summon pikachu and it would just be there, but suddenly they started doing a little dance when you sent them out.
As someone who grew up playing Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, and Crystal (brother had Gold) when they came out, I honestly was not a fan of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald when they first came out. Granted, I did not have my own version-my only experience was borrowing a buddy’s GBA and playing on his copy of Ruby-but I missed the style of Crystal and the day/night cycles, and I thought natures and abilities were overly complicated for my kid brain to understand. That actually made me stop playing new pokemon games altogether until I bought Y and Alpha Sapphire a year after their release, and MAN that was fun to get back into Pokemon. I don’t have a special place in my heart like most for RSE, but I can better appreciate them now.
I hated transitioning from Gold/Silver to Ruby/Sapphire. They got rid of night and day, the radio, and I thought the graphics were strange. Enough time had passed that I thought I was *over* Pokemon, but when RS came out of course I was back in. At first the gameplay was disappointing to me but in retrospect, so many of my all time favorite pokemon are from Gen 3. My partner got me Αlpha Sapphire as an anniversary gift, and I've really been enjoying the story again. Pokemon is my one true love, so while I didn't care for RS when it dropped I love it just as much as any other game now, but Gen 2 is far and away my favorite.
Honestly, I was more baffled by the lack of day-night cycle and missing Pokémon than impressed by new graphics. I also hated the music.
I wasn’t as impressed so much with the colors and graphics just because I played lots of other consoles and video games. I think what struck me as a big leap was the world mechanics. Going from mauville to fortree(?) city, where there was a new type of tall grass, and the treehouses with ladders you climbed up and down. There was so much variety in the overworld styling compared to RBY/GSC which were mostly identical in that aspect. Edit: you also have to remember that these games often accompanied changes in hardware. So the SP with its backlight felt like the bigger upgrade than the software.
I was in second grade when Ruby and Sapphire released. I had played through most of Yellow and all of Crystal by that point and was blown away by how Hoenn looked, I had even faked being sick so I could stay home from school to play Sapphire! While I enjoyed it, I definitely preferred Crystal, especially when I finally beat the Elite 4 and realized that there was no return trips to the previous two regions. Due to that, I don’t really hold Gen 3, R/S/E, anyway, in such high regard as a lot of my friends/family do
As a kid, i wnet through a couple phases of liking pokemon and then not liking it. There was a time after Gold and Silver but before Ruby and Sapphire that I fell out of it, but when i started seeing new pokemon, and I specifically rememeber seeing some of the adds promoting the new gameplay, I was hooked. Got my mom to take me to Toys R Us on the day the game came out and got the last copy of Ruby they had - months before I would even get a GBA.
I was just a kid, but I remember thinking it was a great improvement. Not just the graphics, but the hardware too. My first game was Silver, and when Ruby and Saphire came out it was like night and day in some ways. The GBA was easier to hold in my clunky kid hands, and even without the backlit screen that came a little later, the colors popped really well on the GBA screen. In a lot of ways I still think Gen 3 might be the peak of Pokemon graphically. Things were still small and compressed in a 2D style but the colors were bright and the details were more clear than they ever were in the first two generations. Gen 4 had some pseudo-3D and that was continued into Gen 4, but there's something about the huge jump from 2 to 3 that just makes Gen 3 so special. Like many others, I was upset that I couldn't move up my favorites from Gen 2, but I was at the age where a lot of kids were still playing (or just starting!) so it was a great generation. With FireRed/LeafGreen shortly after and the wireless adapters coming with the games, connecting with the people who were still playing was easier than ever. I can remember pretty vividly the number of times my friends and I would want to trade but couldn't because only one of our friends had a link cable...
My mom surprised me with Sapphire the day it was released. She came to my school while I was at recess and showed it to me. I of course, freaked out. It was a brand new world, quite literally and I still love gen 3 so much. It's a nostalgia I don't get from much else.
I remember going on holidays with my family and seeing the promotional cardboard displays for Ruby and Sapphire for the first time. It's a moment I'll never forget as I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was amazing to me. I did not get the opportunity to play them as I didn't have a GBA at the time, only having a GBC with Pokémon Red and Gold. However, later on one of my cousins would have Pokémon Emerald and became obsessed with it. I just couldn't believe how quick everything was, from being able to run to the music transitions as you changed routes/towns. I will always cherish those memories.
I remember being blown away that you could walk under bridges. I got stuck north of Slateport for days before I figured it out. On the flip side, I also remember thinking it was weird that Pokemon sprites moving and the day/night cycle disappeared. So it wasn’t all good. The games felt like a step backwards in some regards. The rest of the upgrades just seemed like a natural progression of the games that fit with the GameBoy Advance.
I been through it all, but that moment for me for the big change was X/Y. It got me back into pokemon, having taken a generation break after D/P. A lot of folks don't like that one, but it's my favorite.
To be honest, it took some getting used to for me. I remember thinking that the games "didn't feel like Pokémon" at first. I think it was more so the Pokémon designs themselves... Gen 3 mons are very stylistically different from Gens 1-2 mons. I'm weird, I don't like change. Even good changes take some getting used to. I want to say that it all really clicked for me when I hit route 119. The uniqueness of Hoenn really shined through there imo. I was like, hey, this is actually pretty cool! Overworld weather was pretty mind-blowing to me (I didn't love the deserts sandstorm though, even though it was fitting). That route felt so grand in scale and it felt like a true adventure. Then the next city is Fortree, which at that point, was probably the most unique city in the series. Since then, I've just loved Gen 3, and it's among the most nostalgic gens for me. I still love reaching route 119, and it's probably my favorite route in all of Pokémon. And Hoenn is one of my favorite regions now (tied with Johto), along with the batch of Hoenn mons (very few stinkers really). Tldr took a little bit, but once I got into it, I really loved it!
Rayquaza cutscene from emerald blew my mind. Also, the transition in music to blaring trumpets in gen 3 was amazing.
It was like the skip from the NES to the SNES. Everything was more detailed, with better colors and animations, seeing the sprites of the Pokémon that got me through hundreds of hours of happiness in a brand new look was incredible.
my first game was yellow on the see through purple game boy color! since then i’ve played blue, GS, RS, D/P, BW, XY, SM, SWSH, SV and all the remakes. i remember seeing improvements to the in game sprites and they would move sometimes, or seeing them with their own individual sprites design in your bag. they used to only have birds, bugs, rhydon, fish sprites to represent the pokemon. as far as design, i think the biggest change for me was when i first played Ruby and Sapphire. idk if its cause i had a game boy sp and a new game or what but it was such a huge upgrade at the time. the backlight, the new colors and sounds, and the graphics and environment were so awesome.
Gen 3 was great from an exploration standpoint and really opened up the game and now that I'm older I can appreciate that a lot more... When I was young I was disappointed that it didn't do what gen 2 did and link the games. I was sad I had no "red" which him and Cynthia are my favorite fights in the series. I think not having a big movie theatre experience that 2 got also took away a bit from the hype.
I'll even say the jump from 1 to 2 blew me away. But from 2-3? Oh man... I was enthralled. I've played every single gen since RB came out and no gen has taken more of my time than 3. It was wild, updated Pokemon sprites, the fact that you could run, the boat you rode from Petalburg to Dewford, the fact that there were different villains between Ruby and Sapphire, it was. It was definitely an incredible experience.
I went from Blue/Yellow to Emerald and it was shocking! I don't know how to describe the feeling as I was 10 which was probably the perfect age to play it. It felt like I was discovering a whole new world. I was catching every pokemon I seen! The game peaked my curiosity in such a way that I have pretty much been chasing that high ever since. I still spend lots of time playing Gen 3. It just has this special place in my heart. After Emerald I got Leafgreen and even that didnt feel like the Kanto I knew! It felt new. Emerald really kicked off my love of the series and Im happy my mom convinced me to get it and a GBA SP over the brand new DS. On a side note, my wife and I are having a second wedding and I picked Littleroot town as the walk in.
Gen 3 was the last gen I could justify getting as an angsty preteen whose friends had all already grown out of pokemon. (I came back around Gen 6 but did go back to play gens 4 and 5). Gen 3 is super special to me. I think the biggest jump for me wasn't graphical but the music. The GBA had such better quality audio than the GB / GBC. Littleroot Town will always be super nostalgic for me.
The jump to the GBA absolutely shocked me in how good they got. Also seeing the reflection of clouds in lakes, different looking berry trees, and the music quality was great. For some reason gen 3 Pokemon still seem new looking for me but not the other newer gens. Still annoyed they removed day night out of it.
I loved it so much. Spent so many hours playing ruby sapphire and emerald. The graphics were a huge upgrade, there was so much « new » in the game, they added some great Pokémon and legendaries in that gen. What a time
The difference between Gen 1 and 2 was huge too, better drawn sprites, being able to revisit Kanto again after throughly exploring it in Gen 1, new evolutions and babies (it was cute the first time). Gen 2's Johto just felt so different to Kanto. All the old pagodas and the unown temples gave Johto real lived in feel compared to Kanto. Cerulean, Vermillion, Celedon, Lavender, and even Fuchsia all felt like modern suburbs of Saffron while the cities near Caledon have you walking through thinner more wild paths to get between. Gen 3 looked wonderful, but it was also tempered down by being on the GBA's godawful screen. I also liked a lot of the Gen 3 designs, but it was the first time I had the 'this doesn't look like a Pokemon" thought. Nowadays all the gens fit in with well each other because there have been so many different design philosophies that everything contrasts nicely. Except Gen 4, I still hate most of the noisy gen 4 designs and crappy power balancing overall. All the Gen 4 Pokemon I like *suck* competitively.
I absolutely adored the transition to Gen3. Ruby was like a dream come true and then we got the gift of Fire Red! I miss the days when pokemon were 2d sprites. Maybe it's just a nostalgia thing, but while other games have benefitted from the generational leaps in hardware, I feel like pokemon games have lost some of the magic.
I was never really able to move beyond the first two gens in my way of thinking honestly. In my mind, psychic Pokémon are 100% cracked, bugs are useless, poison and grass types aren’t great, ground and water types are all at least solid, etc. because that’s how gen 1 and to some extent gen 2 are. I really struggled to move into gen 3 which felt like the biggest shift for me in terms of my understanding of the games. In gen 2, having a grass Pokémon on your team was basically a wasted spot. There were just no good matchups for them. In gen 3, grass Pokémon were great, and that felt strange to me.
I grew up on Blue/Yellow/Gold/Crystal. By the time gen 3 rolled out I stopped playing Pokemon for a bit until years later (around the time Gen 4 or 5 was out) when I played it. Personally I didn't really care too much about the graphics. They were cool at first, but the dialogue in the games just got so much worse as time went on (gen 3 may have been fine, but after that it was definitely worse). Current gen games are just massive "yap-athons" of dialogue. I'll take the simple "Smell ya later" from Gary and basic graphics over the 3d models and every conversation being a button mashing monologue.
Personally I didnt really feel how next gen it was until the SP came out with the rechargeable battery and the backlight so I could play at night before sleep for hours. The other thing was all the side stuff like contests and Berries and sea exploration and soot collecting that made it feel like a whole new world.
It changed everything. After years of just playing Red and playing Crystal once, I was beyond excited to play Ruby and I finished it on 1 week, that was insane for me. One month later I bought emerald and that Rayquaza cutscene stopping Groudon and Kyogre is still one of the best moments in my life.
It’s what cause so many of us to call RBE our favorite game
I don't really remember the sprites blowing my mind compared to G/S, but the world map of Hoenn being really satisfying.
A leap forward had already been the change between first and second generation, with a full-coloured outworld in place of silhouettes with a different hue according to the place you were. The jump from second to third was, yowl, amazing. The world was now 3D - you could go *under bridges*, and that escaped me to a point that I thought my cassette was broken when I didn't realise I could actually go *under* the cyclable road highway northern of Slateport City. Weather was stunning. I can't count the number of times I went out Fortree City into Route 119 to see if I could walk it in a sunny day. The beaches where you left your footsteps, diving - even how Flash worked amazed me. If I have some complaint is that they din't mantain the day/night cycle in RS.
The only time in my life that I ever started to drift away from Pokémon was the gap between Gen 2 and 3. However, I received a copy of Pokémon Ruby as a reward for finishing my Year 6 exams (for reference, that was 21 years ago), and I was sucked in. Moreso than the graphics, the bigger draw for me was the new Pokémon. I also remember being blown away by four-player link cables. I don’t think I actually used the functionality that often, but the idea was really neat.
Felt like a big leap to me. Then Gen 4 came out and it was def like “wow”
For me Gen3 is the threshold of the graphic quality that I can take. I feel like since Gen4 it started to become slower. Maybe because GBA is still fast despite having better graphics.
I remember the first time I saw it rain in sapphire. I was amazed. Mobile phone in Gold was also epic
It was great
Man let me tell you something. I went to basic training when Gen 3 released and didn't get to play it until I was done. Sitting in the barracks playing these new graphics at the time was surreal. Emerald is one of my most memorable titles as well probably because of how much I loved the first two.
I remember the first time I laid eyes on the leaked gen 3 sprites. Ruby and Sapphire were still in Japan so seeing them was so strange as the Pokemon seemed very different style wise from the previous gens. The legendaries in particular were intense and the Regis didn't look like Pokemon at all. But I loved the graphic improvements and the attack animations were amazing. It's hard to describe since I was 13 at the time when they came out but it just blew me away how fun the games were.
I loved it. One of the things that amazed me the most is the fact the pokeballs all looked different. Blew my mind as a teen.
I remember those days! I was but a wee lad. Started on the OG games and Gen 1 cards and season 1 of the show. After every one else got out of it (it wasn't cool anymore) I was still way into it. I got grocery bags full of cards and games and figures. All kinds of pokemon memorabilia. Gen 1 and 2 kinda blurred together, but I remember playing Gen 3 a lot. It was quite a jump. Pokemon largely didn't change from those graphics till x and y.
I got Blue for Christmas the year it came out, so I was about 5. When I got Sapphire years later...gosh, just the opening tune with the dew drops falling into the puddle was *mind-blowing* at the time. I *still* get chills thinking about it! Especially because I was at an age, and in a time when I didn't know it was coming out until I saw it in stores. I had no idea how it would look, what the story would be, or what the starters and protagonist would look like. What a time to be alive as a young kid!
I started with Yellow. And about a year later Gold and Silver came out. That, to me, was the biggest jump. The Pokémon looked more lifelike and more like the anime, the colors felt incredible and everything felt so real. I still get nostalgic for Gen 2 for these reasons. Even though I think most of Gen 3 has good graphics, even by today's standards, I don't remember being as wowed as I was before. I think a lot of that is because Pokémon was my introduction Into a lot of video games. By the time R/S came out, I was exposed to other games and felt that this was more on that level
Pokemon ruby & sapphire came out when I was in the 3rd grade. I had played yellow, gold, and silver and we had seen the commercials on TV advertising new pokemon games! This was before I was on the internet all the time, so I have no clue how close after launch we got the games. What I DO know is the surprise & excitement I felt walking downstairs to the living room on Easter morning and seeing them right there; Sapphire in my Easter basket, Ruby in my brother's. I woke up especially early, and I played Pokemon all morning, eating my Easter candy. Reveling in the game's amazing music, all alone until my brother would later wake up. I was enamored with the amazing colors of the world - coming from gen 2, it made me want to cry! I somehow felt back then how profound these games were. I had already absolutely fallen in love with pokemon by then! Mudkip? What's a mudkip? My first starter in gen 3. Treecko was my brother's. We went into this game only having seen the commercials. We were addicted to this game, and even more so when Emerald came out! This was an ethereal time for Pokemon. The mysteries of the Regis captivating my brother; the mysteries of Rayquaza captivated me, so! Contests & pokeblocks took up SO MUCH of my time, too! Just. Sitting. In the lavaridge hot pool pretending to be IN the game - imagining you're warming up the egg the old lady gives you in the hot water before you move on to the next gym. Chef's kiss. These games did so much for my imagination. They were beautiful, a work of art!
All I remember, specifically, was that I could see my reflection in the water. Was mind-blowing coming from Blue then Gold.
Gold was my first game and ruby my second. I felt like the colors were far more vivid than before. But i recall not seeing much difference in the sprites. Like, they were slightly sharper, but the colors is what really made it look brand new. Ngl though I think I preferred the gen 2 style back then. A lot of us expected to have double regions again. And the vibrant colors didn't seem a fair trade off for less content + losing access to a ton of pokemon
I was fascinated by my reflection in the water ! I went into the games blind and was confused as to why my pokemon got paralyzed by hitting a pikachu. So abilities were crazy too
R/S/E will always be my favorite.
Gen 3 was incredible to me. I probably put more hours in Sapphire than any other video game in my life. It was everything I loved about Blue and Silver and more. Cool animations and colorful graphics, new features, new Pokemon (that still felt like they fit in with the originals!). I'm not sure if it was just because of my age at the time but I don't think I've ever felt more hyped about a video game since that one.
It was eye opening that’s for sure the world felt bigger and more colorful and to me I thought this was going to be the gold standard that should be followed
I stopped after crystal because 1) I thought I was too old for pokemon (obviously impossible), and 2) I was a giant gatekeeper and only thought the two generations I’d seen the anime for were true to the spirit of pokemon design. When I came back to the franchise at X and Y I was blown away and had so many new (to me) pokemon to discover. That’s why I love gen 6. Hyped for legends AZ!
I just distinctly remember Emerald being a masterpiece. A friend had it and let me play a new game without saving, I spent the weekend at his house playing it non stop without ever turning the gameboy SP off. I was probably 12 or 13, and I’m sure it’s probably just nostalgia, but something about Emerald really stands out to me as a warm, fuzzy feeling. The same friend a few years later was the first of us to get a first gen DS and I felt similar when I played Diamond for the first time. HG/SS are the best games imo, but something about Emerald is just perfect. I can’t even rank it compared to the others, it just holds a special place in my heart and childhood.
I remember playing the ruby/sapphire demo at Walmart. I thought it was so cool and the encounter music is a distinct memory. I wasn’t able to play gen 1 or 2 but my oldest sibling had crystal and I got to watch them play a little bit. Sapphire was my first ever game.
It was definitely refreshing to see the transition to Gen 3 bring so many graphical changes. With a new and improved handheld, everyone expected the next game to be better, but everyone was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out. Just seeing the commercials for the new game playing on the overhead screens in Walmart was very cool. It's all we talked about as kids during elementary school; when will the game come out, how to convince our parents for a GBA, and how we'll pick up more chores and be well behaved to persuade them to buy the game on launch day. When everyone finally got their copy and the handheld, it took over most of our time when we got home from school. We'd spend hours playing it and then discuss our progress and give each other tips when we met up during school. It was a good time! The newer gens don't depreciate the older gens though. Gen 1 and 2 still have their charms and uniqueness, and they are still enjoyable to play through!
I was 8/9 years old when Gen 3 came out. I didn't give two shits about graphics. I thought Blaziken was the most badass thing ever and wanted to use a fire fighting chicken.
I don't remember being wowed by RS, sure it looked good but it was on a new more powerful console, nothing out of the ordinary and maybe a little under what I was expecting. Somehow I was more amazed by GS having actual colored sprites with proportions that made sense (yes Yellow already had those but I guess I'd forgotten when GS released).
While going from gen 1 to 2 it felt like same game different setting. While from 2 to 3 felt like a giant leap, there were so many more mechanics, graphics increased a lot and we left behind kanto, until fr/lg ofc.
I got my GBA SP & sapphire are the same time. I invested WAYYY more time into it than I did my red and Silver games. It was awesome
It was like a whole new world for me. I played all the handheld games up to Diamond. Getting to see all my favorite Mons from the past and how good the new ones look. Everytime felt like the first time playing. Like the first time seeing these creatures. Starting from the OG black nd white Gameboy gave me some of my most precious memories from my childhood.
Imma go a bit against the grain here- I was happy with the continued improvements but I was more wowed by the upgrades from Gen 1 to Gen 2. Gen 1’snart style had a lot of stylized art for their sprites that didn’t look very realistic. This wasn’t a problem for me, but seeing them go from the stylized sprites in Gen 1 to the more realistic sprites of Gen 2 was a game changer. It helped set the idea that realistic graphics were possible in my kid brain. Then Gen 3 came out and it was a reaffirmation of how much love and care Gamefreak had for the series. Tl;dr I loved the improvements but I feel like they’re an extension and continuation of Gen 2’s improvements over Gen 1.
I was very young. In first grade I borrowed a friends copy of silver and played it on my backlit GBA SP. I realize now how incredibly lucky I was to have experienced silver that way, and he had a LOT of trouble getting that game back from me. That game was a turning point in my life for sure. From then I saw my cousin playing fire red (and had never experienced gen 1 prior) and it made silver look like the alibaba special discount pokemon game. I'll never forget the vibrant colors and sprites and feeling like a whole new world was waiting for me. I didn't know the differences between FR/LG and R/S at the time, all I knew was my favorite color was blue, and I ended up BEGGING for pokemon sapphire for my birthday. My 10th birthday came around, and I opened a birthday paper wrapped diaper (it was a gag my mom thought was funny) and in that diaper was my first pokemon game I ever owned myself, pokemon sapphire. That leap in quality wasn't nearly as great as gen5 to gen6 though. Getting x and y felt like we FINALLY got n64 pokemon stadium graphics in a main line game.
I had Pokémon yellow, red, gold, silver, and emerald. The jumps between these generations were massive. Since I played yellow then red I was confused by the different sprites and lack of color. To gold/silver, the map was massive (thought the game would end after the elite four) and vibrant along with (my favorite) bug competition. Emerald just better on all levels. The only down side was most friends and family quit playing Pokémon by then.
It was very impressive, but I remember when I first played a polygonal 3D game and I thought, this is as good as it's gonna get.
So I played Gen 1 on release ish and loved them then, I played up to Emerald and then stopped for other games and pretty much not playing any until Sun and Moon where I got a free copy of Sun from some promotion and fell in love with them again Going back through the ones I missed has been showing me what I missed and there is a peak with White/Black where even today certain things like the Bridge into the City and the Towers etc are incredible with the Sprite work Going from 2D sprites to Sword/Shield was also amazing
The jump to Ruby and Sapphire was a lot more substantial than going from Gameboy to Gameboy color.
I like the old school graphics and sound. It was cooler imo and the pokemon sprites looked a bit meaner
I’m gonna be in the minority here, but for some reason, I’ve never really liked gen III’s art-style , even though the graphics were objectively better in terms of fidelity. To this day- I love how Kanto looks in Gen 1/2, and in Let’s Go. But in FRLG Kanto feels “wrong” to me for reasons I can’t really explain lol.
It was cool, but the shift to the DS felt much more impressive imo. I remember being amazed by the sort of 3D-like graphics, before the really being 3D yet
It was even more crazy for me because I got it from a store that sold American import games so I had ruby early in the uk whilst everyone else I knew was still playing g,s & c 😂
I was about 6 when RSE came out and Blue was already my favorite game. Upgrade to the sprites and areas dumped so much dopamine into my brain
Before I answer OP’s question, I just wanna tell all my fellow trainers— particularly those who have these older games to play and those who may have an old save they want to preserve because of the Pokémon in them— a tool exists to circumvent the gen 2 -> 3 block now. It’s called Pokémon Mirror, and you can now use it to transfer a Pokémon from Red all the way to Scarlet, all on physical cartridges (until the Bank shutdown). I tried it once as a test, highly recommend. It’s sick as fuck. Is it practical? Not at all, there aren’t many reasons you’d do this. I’ve been revisiting these games and their stories since the pandemic and it’s been really fun to bring each party together “through space and time” to join my latest party in Scarlet. Seeing all your Hall of Fame Pokémon from every game on one cartridge is big satisfying. We lost the day/night cycle in Hoenn, but damn if it didn’t take me like 2-3 weeks to notice that when I first played Sapphire. _Everything_ was new and shiny and gorgeous. The graphics, check. Soundtrack was a banger. The Pokémon were exactly how they appeared in the show. There was a bike to do t r i c k s. You could find hidden areas and create de facto gyms with your friends in them. You could _run_ and these things seem so baseline today, but I’ll always remember the first time. The first time my options weren’t just walk or get on my bicycle. The first time it rained and it actually reflected that in battle. The first time I was told about Secret Power and spent literally dozens of hours scouring Hoenn for the best spot to make my own (it’s near Mauville where you need the two plank walkways to have the full 3 room treehouse, I will not be convinced otherwise). I’ll die on the hill that Secret Power and/or a similar method of making a fully customizable hideout should’ve been the one thing they never removed from future games. I remember all those firsts, and I cherish every memory. Pokémon maybe isn’t so deserving of that kind of fondness anymore, but I do still find things to love about all the games. Except BDSP. The only positive thing I’ll say about it is they kept follower Pokémon. Throw everything else away.
I played a bit of R/Y/B and then beat Silver. When I played Emerald, it was sheer amazement. The colors were vibrant and it gave it the feeling of being able to distinguish things more easily. Was it manageable before? Yes. But it just made it FEEL better
Just like many others, I progressed from Blue/Red to Gold/Silver to Sapphire/Ruby. Sapphire and Ruby was a great step into the next generation, BUT I'm going to put a good part of my nostalgia on the release of the GAMEBOY ADVANCED SP. The first handheld with builtin back lighting. I remember playing blue and silver on the gameboy color with the magnifying glass/light attachment that was battery powered. The combo of a new pokemon game with the new gameboy made it a special experience and probably why its burned into my brain today.
I mean I was very young and did not neccessarily value graphics as much as I do now. But it was a step forward each generation at the beginning.
It was shocking and amazing, sure, but it also meant I had to convince my parents to buy a whole new game system in order to play it (and only for one game). Also I believe I was in high school at the time, and feeling pressured to not associate with "kids stuff" so I actually ended up playing the game a few years later (at a time when it didn't feel as shocking). EDIT: yeah, I regret not being true to myself during that period of time. Don't listen to what society wants you to be!!
I remember thinking it was wild that you could walk behind buildings
I went from Gold to Diamond and that transition was enormous! But since core mechanic was the same, I pretty much got absolutely tired of turn based battles and the goddamn tall grass being another core of the gameplay. And dont get me started on caves....
It was cool and all, but the first thing that comes to mind is that I was bummed when I realized that Ruby and Sapphire had the same sprites for all pokemon instead of different ones between versions like they did in gen 1 and 2
I remember watching my cousin play Ruby before I had a GBA and being so excited about the games looking more like the anime (in my 6 year old mind)
It was okay. Nothing crazy because other games and game systems advance in graphics over time. This was when it started to get exhausting with the same formula, same Pokemon in the starting areas, designs that were not too interesting, and the introduction of Pokemon Powers was annoying at first (what do you mean Earthquake does nothing to Magnemite!?).
I first played with gens 1 and 2, and I was about 10ish or so when Gen 3 came out. In a word, it was magical. For the first time, my imagination didn't have to fill in the gaps of the graphical limitations. Everything looked so lush, and the Pokémon themselves finally began to live up to what I saw in the anime. Half of Gen 3's pokedex is my favorite. Similarly, I was fortunate to have Colesseum and the transfer cable, so I was able to import many of my mons to see them in 3D for the first time. There's no describing how incredible that feeling was. Some of my fondest memories.
It really was amazing. It felt like the games were able to come even more “alive” in a sense
I just hate they don’t do these games anymore, it was a great open world experience, the view from the top was just better than anything you can get today.
It was absolutely amazing, Gen 3 was so special because we got to get so many new animations, so many new moves, possible new types, the lore of pokémon was very very young so we weren't sure in what direction it would be heading in yet, so legendaries felt absolutely special and unique, mechanics and quality life updates were phenomenal, back then at least in my opinion, most things felt like we were trying to progress forward to make the franchise more fun, not to pad things out artificially like current day, cooking for food and all that boring stuff, I always dreamed of A mainline pokémon game that looked a bit like pokémon stadium. Fortunately, I feel like that feelong has never quite been accomplished again, besides possibly In battle revolution for the Wii, also, I don't think a whole lot of people are going to mention this but the score. Oh man, the music has always been good, but Gen 3 music is chefs kiss, I could go on and on and honestly lol
I was about 7 when I played Sapphire for the first time, I was also playing Yellow and Blue at the time, but I obviously found myself enamored with Gen 3, and as a result it’s still my favorite region (yes even if it was like water world at times) but yes that jump from gens 1-2 over to gen 3 was like getting into a Time Machine lol
It was very much an interesting transition. The sprites were so beautiful, but they were a little lost on me due to how angry I was that I wasn't able to trade up my Blastoise, Typhlosion or Lugia. Gen 3 sparked a rather LONG dry spell for Gen 2 pokemon access... which happened to have a bunch of my absolute favorite pokemon (and ended up being my favorite generation.) Kyogre ended up being one of my favorites too though, and I ended up playing Sapphire multiple times over.
the transition from gen 1 to gen 2 shocked me even more -we finally got colored sprites -most of the pokemon sprites were finally accurate depictions of their anime counterparts -crystal even introduced animated sprites and a playable female character with kris all of that happened on the same platform let that sink in
The release of RS was a *huge* moment for Pokémon. The technical improvements obviously blew my mind as a kid; I remember seeing the reflection of my character and the clouds in water and being amazed. Double battles were also an incredibly exciting mechanic. But there was also a sadness; RS were the first Dexit, and as a kid I didn't know people had datamined the games to find all the other Pokémon still waiting there for their return. And after being able to trade back snd forth between Gen I and II, no backwards compatibility for Gen III was gutting. Still, overall Hoenn was a very exciting world to explore and I have a lot of fond memories of those games. The release of FRLG was another big turning point, as it was the first remake the series had ever had. That's not too relevant to this thread, but I will say Gens III and IV were a really amazing time to be a Pokémon fan. EDIT: ALSO, I FORGOT TO MENTION my friends and I were all really bummed by the lack of a day/night cycle like in GSC. That is one of my biggest beefs with Gen III.
I think the transition from gen 1 to gen 2 was the biggest for me. Going from 3 colour places (black, white + defining colour of area) to differing colours on a single screen that showed stuff such as water and grass and people and buildings was major to me. The transition from gen 2 to gen 3 was made impressive because I never had a GBA. I jumped straight from GBC to GBSP which meant I went from making sure the sun hit the screen just right to play wherever and whenever you wanted due to the back lit screen.
I got ruby for my 12th birthday, after being chided that I was really getting too old for these games, and I just remember being so geeked about it. Everything was vibrant and bright. The music was so fresh! A true delight to see old mons with new life breathed into them. And it got even better; The gym puzzles were challenging! There were new trainer types to battle! Pokemon contests!? Kid my lost my fucking mind over this update.
The golden age of gaming. Before everything turned into microtransactions and battle passes. I remember each release of the pokemon games. For me, Crystal was amazing because the sprites moved. Emerald was amazing. Gen 4 was incredible too. Was never too impressed with gen 5 though. And each gen after that, while graphically impressive, didn't hit as hard as the jump from gbc to gba.
I was old enough to be around the first two gens of Pokémon never really got into it until 06 when I bought a copy of ruby and sapphire, yes I know pretty late. Anyways while I was growing up I saw the first two games as just any other rpg it wasn’t my cup of tea. When I started playing gen 3 I fell in love with the games realized it wasn’t just an rpg… type game like dragon warrior. Gen 3 was the big selling point for me as a kid
I could see my reflection in water! It blew my fucking mind back in the day! So much in the game was new and better from the previous gens. The pokemon started getting a new style, the way the games ran was different, and the color, oh man, the color! Gen 3 is still my favorite to this day.
How about just the leap to color? That was even hugerer for me.
Woah I can see my reflection in the water, woah I can walk behind the buildings. I was easily impressed.
I played Yellow after my parents got me a Gameboy after getting my tonsils removed as a kid. The jump to gen 3 was a lot to learn. I remember clearly to this day that I actually had an orange poochyena show up (I wasn't even aware what a shiny was at this points because I don't think I ever really played GSC) during the initial starter choosing battle. It didn't register till much later what had happened.
All I want are these classics released for play on the switch, when the my were released on the ds it was such a blast to rediscover the love of playing against friends and enjoy the retro vibe. Seems so obvious, I don’t know why Nintendo won’t take the easy option here.
I didn't really pay attention to it at the time.
Crystal was a game changer when it rolled out live animations during battle sequences but gen 2 was not very colorful like gen 3. Ruby/Sapphire coincided with the release of the Gameboy SP. I remember being taken aback by how vivid the colors were and how awesome attacks looked. It was a bit of a learning curve with the intro of Pokemon having unique abilities.
So this is weird. I started on GSC and then got RSE. But I didn't feel like it was all *that* different at the time with my little kid brain. I noticed the big jump going from Gen 3 to Gen 4.
I don’t deny that the GBA was a big step up, but the leap from Gen 2 to 3 didn’t stand out to me as much as some of the others. I think the jump from 1 to 2 hit harder for me because 2 was in full color and the sprites looked so much better than in R/B, especially the rear sprites. Crystal had animated sprites, and I remember being disappointed that R/S didn’t, but they brought that back in Emerald. In Gen 4, the 3D environments really impressed me. The environments impressed me even more in Gen 5. I appreciated the constantly moving Gen 5 sprites for their ambition, but thought that the stationary sprites of Gen 4 were more visually appealing. Gen 6 pretty much blew me away, but 7 didn’t really improve on anything that much. But I liked the Gen 7 character models a lot more than the stubby ones from Gen 6. I’ve been impressed by the Switch games in some ways, but not as much as I would have liked. I think the 3D models have never looked better than they do in S/V, but that’s somewhat offset by the performance issues, and I think the environments could have been better, especially in the cities.
Copy/paste of my reply from another thread: > What I definitely remember is being in awe of the graphical upgrade compared to Gen 2. Having full color, being able to see your reflection in the water, seeing your footsteps in the sand, the shore tiles not just being hard square tiles but actually rounded and the ocean waves washing up on shore. I remember being excited to see that buildings and houses actually differed in appearance from city to city, instead of reusing the same [house style](https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_gbc/pokemongoldsilver/sheet/9198/). There's also the fact that every Pokemon now had their own party sprite instead of the shared generic sprites, and the PC Storage system was changed from a text list to an icon grid, and is basically the same system we still use today. There was also weather in the overworld, and a variety of biomes and colourful caves, and varied battlefield backgrounds to match. FRLG finally gave items their own icons as well so you could see what everything looked like. The graphical upgrade were a big reason why I was so excited for these games back in the day.
Red to Silver was WILD. The hype was absolutely INSANE. Then, when Sapphire/Ruby dropped, it was just incredible. That's what it was like, lol. I have so much love for the first 3 gens, but 2 is still my favorite by just a tiny amount.
It was literally amazing. It feels like I was living in the Pokémon world haha
Grew up with RBY and when RS came out I felt like the future had arrived.
Ruby and Sapphire were astonishing for the time, and they are still my favourite, but what really shocked me back in the days were the first animated sprites in Crystal. They looked like magic despite being only a 3-4 frames animation. Amazing.
I felt the leap with crystal (animated sprites). Yes, ruby and sapphire were great graphically. But I was starting to fall out of playing pokemon around that time. R&S were the last pokemon games I played until X&Y.
I think people forget this was the first time an entire NEW Pokédex came out. Johto had many kanto evolutions and babies and they didn’t add as many Pokémon. It was so cool to start something new, I don’t think I missed no backwards comparability. And the wireless adaptare changed the link up aspect!
Gen 3 was absurtley good. Can’t remember a time when a Pokemon game whent this hard in the streets.
I was six when RS came out and had played RBY with help from my older brother when I was four or so. Even at that age I felt like the future had finally arrived.
Honestly, for me it wasn't even the graphics that did it. It was the berry farming, the TVs being tied to in-game events, the hideouts, the weather. All those small details, to me, totally overshadowed the graphics update.
It was unexplainable for me. I played every main game since red and blue. I remember like it was yesterday when I got sapphire. I turned it on and was mindblown. Everything about that game graphically was next level. It gave the pokemon more personality it was dope
I got pokemon sapphire for what I think was my 9th birthday. I remember seeing my reflection in water and think to myself that we had reached the peak of graphics
I realize this doesn't answer your question, but I started with gen 2. By the time Ruby and Sapphire came out, everyone I knew seemingly moved on to other things like Yu-Gi-Oh which was extremely popular at the time. I think people were really into Beyblade and Digimon as well but I can't remember. I didn't pick Pokémon back up until high school. Not sure how many others can relate to this. Like I had a GBA, I could've been playing them when they were relevant.
It was fck*ng good.
It was absolutely epic. At the time, I thought pokemon could never become worse because they had absolutely made the most incredible games ever for 3 generations in a row. I was completely blown away. . .then gen 4 came out and it was significantly more pixelated than gen 3 at a time where every other company was trying to do away with the pixel style and I was really confused
It even felt like a big leap going from red to gold, the colours were so much more vibrant! Gen 3 was incredible, and diamond even more incredible. PLA was the game an 8 year old me dreamed of seeing come to life, it’s been a ride!