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User Rating: 9 | Pocket Monsters Emerald GBA
By kaleb002 | Review Date:
Kids love to collect things. Baseball cards, bottle caps, and for the past eight years or so, Pokemon games have captured the imaginations of young (and some older) collectors across the world. Nintendo likes to release two versions of each Pokemon game and then a year or two later release a third one to “complete” the series. Pokemon Red and Blue were later joined by Yellow. Crystal completed the Gold and Silver line. As it so happens, Pokemon Emerald is the last in the trilogy started by Ruby and Sapphire. Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald have a few common traits. They all add a few minor improvements over their predecessors, like improved graphics, tweaks to the story, and compatibility with past games. Who knew that by making relatively small changes to an older game would sell millions of copies? Nintendo was quick to realize young gamers would eat them up, and so we end up with Pokemon Emerald, a mildly enhanced version of Ruby and Sapphire that released several years ago.

For those readers out there who have never before played a Pokemon game, Emerald is a great place to start. Like all of the past Pokemon games, Emerald is a fun RPG for the Game Boy Advance. The quest will take most people 20 to 30 hours to complete and trying to collect all of the different monsters is addicting beyond belief. The ultimate goal is to stop the expansion of Team Magma or Team Aqua in order to retain balance in the world. This will only be successful by becoming the best Pokemon Trainer. The basic story line is identical to Sapphire and Ruby, but the game does add some new challenges in the form of Frontier Brain competitors. These trainers are much more difficult to beat and will add some serious competition for veteran Pokemon players.

At the start of the game the player selects which Pokemon he or she wants to begin the quest with. As a trainer, the player sets out to battle Pokemon and capture them in special Pokeballs. Upon a successful capture, that monster will join the party and can then be used in battle. Each Pokemon has its own hit points, experience level, and attacks. The monsters level up by winning battles. There are many different types of Pokemon, each with their own traits that make them advantageous to use against specific other types of monsters. By visiting different towns players will be able to battle against other Pokemon trainers in a gym. There are eight different gym leaders that must be defeated in order to become the ultimate victor.



Pokemon Emerald does feature a minor graphical upgrade. The monsters animate better during battles, ala Fire Red and Leaf Green. Some of the monsters have been relocated to other areas of the game to make the adventure a little different for past players. Other than these minor changes the game is pretty much identical to Ruby & Sapphire. Emerald supports the Game Boy Advance Wireless Adapter or the standard GBA link cable. Gamers can trade, battle, and communicate with Pokemon Leaf Green and Fire Red as well as Sapphire and Ruby. For those with a GameCube the game is compatible with Pokemon Colloseum as well.
Pokemon Emerald is an addictive RPG that should appeal to players who must own every single Pokemon game and to those who have never before played a Pokemon game. If you are a casual Pokemon game player who already owns Ruby or Sapphire and requires the adventure to be completely new to sit through a 30-hour quest, then by all means do not by Pokemon Emerald. There’s simply not enough new content to warrant a purchase. I personally don’t see the appeal in spending another $30 on a game that I’ve already played unless there are some significant improvements. Emerald does add wireless functionality and some minor graphic bumps, but that’s simply not enough. With Pokemon XD coming to the GameCube soon and the rumored Nintendo DS Pokemon games probably on the way, Emerald doesn’t shine as brightly as it could have.

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