Some time ago, I claimed to not even be a Pokémon fan anymore, having given up on Pokémon Gold out of frustration. But after returning to Pokémon Gold, I ended up finding it to be perhaps even better than the excellent originals, and thus I was a Pokémon fan again. And although I delayed it several years, I finally picked up one of the Gameboy Advance’s first Pokémon games, Pokémon Sapphire. Yes, even at my age of 21½.

Pokémon is one of the “big three” Nintendo franchises, along with Mario and Zelda. In fact, it can be argued that Pokémon is in a class of its own, given the way its games outsell other games by frightfully large margins. How could Pokémon Emerald, a very similar game to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, become the second-highest selling game of the year last year, despite the fact its predecessors had sold like mad as well? There’s no denying it: Pokémon, while no longer a phenomenon like at the turn of the century, is still one of the most reliable gaming franchises that exists today.

In fact, I probably don’t need to explain to you how the game works. I mean, if you’re on this site, you’ve had to have played Nintendo games, and surely had to have played Pokémon games, right? We probably all know how this RPG works: you use these creatures known as Pokémon to battle opposing Pokémon. Every Pokémon has its own type, or perhaps two types, which have strengths and weaknesses against other types, and they all have their own moves, which have types of their own. For example, Fire's good against Grass but weak against Water, while Water's weak against Grass. And then there are cases like Normal attacks not working at all on Ghost types. Attacks need not be the same type as the Pokémon using them, though they're more effective if that is the case. In fact, a Pokémon can have four attacks, all of which can be a different type than the Pokémon itself! Of course you use these attacks on opposing Pokémon, trying to make them faint. If it’s a wild Pokémon, you can either defeat it or try to weaken it to the point where you have a good chance at catching it with some type of Pokéball. Against opposing trainers, it’s all about defeating their Pokémon; there’s no catching opposing trainers’ Pokémon (at least not in this game).

And of course, the goal is to go through the game, catching Pokémon and defeating opposing trainers, collecting badges from the eight gym leaders, before defeating the Elite Four and the Pokémon League champion. And there’s probably some bad guys you’ll have to deal with along the way, Team Aqua (in Sapphire), Team Magma (in Ruby), or both teams (in Emerald).

What is there more for me to say? That this Review is based on a 0-4 star scale? That is actually a good point; you may notice that my Reviews of my other Pokémon games give them only 3 stars each. However, I think that each of those games is better than 3 stars; my opinion of them has changed, for the better, and each of them should probably receive 3½ stars. And forget all my hating on Pokémon Gold; that game was excellent, and I really overreacted out of frustration the first time I reviewed that game.

Graphics: **½

The first complaint, and probably the biggest, I’ve heard about this game, is that the graphics aren’t that great for the Gameboy Advance. Have you seen other games on the Gameboy Advance? This game looks better by comparison, and I think the graphics in this game are quite good, actually. Okay, there’s no 3D battling, and sure, the graphics won’t blow you away or anything. And yes, they still are sprites. But seriously, it could look a lot worse. I think the graphics are better than average for this system. I hope for more on the DS’s next generation, when I ever do get a DS, that is.

Sound: *½

The music in this game strays from the classic Pokémon-style themes. You’ll still find the classic Gym music any time you enter one, and the evolution music is still in the game, but there is a lack of the tunes that defined the earlier Pokémon games. Remember that old sad Saffron City song? Maybe I was the only one who found it sad, but it gave me a feeling that the people of the town felt something from their Silph Company building being invaded. Or how about that great marching tune out on the docks south of Lavender Town? The list could go on and on, into the Gold/Silver/Crystal generation. This game has a few tunes that are pretty good, but most miss the mark by not really giving you a feeling for the atmosphere that you are in. They aren’t necessarily bad; they just don’t fit in quite right.

Characters: ***

When I speak of Pokémon characters, I talk about both the trainers and the Pokémon themselves. First, the trainers: yet again, they are a great variety of very interesting people, with a couple more pretty female gym leaders added this time along (Roxanne and Flannery). Pokémon games somehow make their trainers even more interesting than the Pokémon themselves, which I’ve always found amazing. I’ll have to take off something for Team Aqua, who I battled against in Sapphire: not that I don’t like the idea of Team Aqua, but that their characters really didn’t seem like real villains. They were stupid, much like Jessie and James from the animé. They have guys who give away information to you, and you’ll find them just standing around towns telling you their plans. I would think they’d be a lot rougher if they were real villains. You don’t really have a difficult rival in this game, either; whichever gender you choose, the other one will be your rival. I chose the female, in order to try to match the animé; I named her May, which matched the animé perfectly, her being Norman’s daughter. My rival, though, only appeared a few times, was rather friendly, and then just went off to work on his computer. It made me miss one of my favorite all-time characters, the Gold/Silver/Crystal rival, who was one of the best-developed characters in a Pokémon game.

So how about the Pokémon themselves? About half of them are new; the other half of them are from previous generations, mainly the first generation. You’ll still find Pikachu and Marill, as well as my favorite Pokémon, Sandslash and Starmie. The newer Pokémon have all sorts of strange type combinations, which makes battling harder than ever before. My favorite new Pokémon is Plusle, which looks like a Pichu with red plus signs on it; there is a similar one named Minun, with blue minus signs on it. Other new Pokémon I like are Blaziken, the most-evolved form of my starter Torchic (who I chose to match the animé, as May had a Torchic too), Absol, and Medicham. Every Pokémon now has some special ability, which kicks into play in battle without you having to do anything; for example, some Pokémon will paralyze others upon being attacked; others will injure opposing Pokémon if attacked physically; still others can make the weather change upon entry to battle.

Overall, the new Pokémon as well as the new trainers support Pokémon Sapphire well. Naturally I would have rather seen another fifty to one hundred more Pokémon in the game, as well as some species showing up more often. Still, the characters do their part in this game, which is always a good thing.

Difficulty: ½

What happens when you try to cater your game to little kids too much? You end up with an entirely too easy game, which is beaten way too easily, and making the experienced gamer want more. How come I only lost one battle from the start of the game to my crowning as Pokémon League champion (to Fortree gym leader Winona)? How come I was able to breeze past pretty much any trainer besides a gym leader and the Elite Four? How come even catching Pokémon is easier than ever before? (I could also add that Team Aqua is an absolute pushover, but Team Rocket in the original three games was also way too easy as well.)

So this game, in trying to appeal to the younger audience, ends up way too easy for an experienced Pokémon player like me. Okay, so people over the age of 20 aren’t supposed to be playing Pokémon games, but still, I bet there were many Pokémon fans who found this game to be way too easy. I would have rather had to really train up to be able to win battles, while I only really wasted time leveling up my Pokémon before the Elite Four (as opposed to just barging into the gym and getting enough experience from the lackeys before the gym leader).

How much does this hurt the game? I can’t say it hurts it very badly, as opposed to something like making the game way too difficult to make it through without spending half your life on it. It does take away some of the real accomplishment out of winning the game, though; it always felt good once I got past Sabrina in the originals, because she was so difficult. And there were the battles with Whitney, Pryce, and the second generation Elite Four, which were taxing wins that were really thrilling. In this game, I did have some good battles with Norman and the Elite Four, and my original loss to Winona, but besides those? Easy wins. Not nearly as much as in the first two generations.

Story: *½

This story cannot match up against the classic original story, or the even-better Gold/Silver/Crystal story. The fact that your father is a gym leader does add something to the story. Nevertheless, the fact that your father, Norman, is so into his Pokémon training that he isn’t even much of a father, doesn’t really help the story much; most fathers would care a lot more for their child trying to become the Pokémon League champion. Also, there’s more, with some Steven guy showing up all the time; he’s always there in a tough situation, but just leaves for you to take care of it. Of course he’s made out to be some sort of hero, and the Pokémon League champion in Ruby and Sapphire (not in Emerald), while I view him as more of a coward who lets some little kid take care of the dirty business. And if Team Aqua (or Magma, in Ruby) is such a pushover, and not really that scary, how does it feel like accomplishing anything when I take out their organization? This storyline is okay, but not quite what I was hoping for. What we need is a storyline where half the gym leaders are members of Team Rocket, and the Elite Four are also evil… if only such a storyline were put into a game…

Controls: ****

There isn’t much to write about here. The controls are extremely simple. Really, they don’t matter much in this game. I guess fishing does take some timing with pressing the A button, which I do like, and making Poké Blocks also takes some timing in a Mario Party-like mini-game, but that’s about it when it comes to actual timing with controls in this game. Everything else is super simple.

Gameplay: ****

What has made the Pokémon games so successful? Excellent gameplay, better than I’ve seen in any other role-playing game (and yes, I’ve played a Final Fantasy game). It really is a lot of fun to go through this game, battling other trainers and catching Pokémon. More things have been added to this game, such as the ability to dive underwater, which can lead you to places unreachable merely by surfing. This game adds in 2-on-2 Pokémon battles, which may not be that common but still are fun to play when they occur (including one gym leader battle). There are also Pokémon contests, which involve feeding your Pokémon candy known as Poké Blocks, then increasing their attributes, before using moves in the contests to showoff to the fans (among which are Johto gym leaders Whitney and Jasmine, who for some reason have traveled to Hoenn for these contests). These contests may not be as fun as battles, but they are a nice change of pace as well as something extra to the game. The Safari Zone is probably the most fun it’s ever been; also, with all sorts of different balls available with which to catch Pokémon, you have more of a strategy with which ball to use (and the specific ball you used to catch your Pokémon will appear when you throw out your Pokémon, a nice touch). You can pick up berries on trees and plant them as well; these help you make Poké Blocks or help your Pokémon just like items from Poké Marts.

The gameplay in this one is excellent, as it’s been in the past. This is what makes Pokémon such a successful franchise. You can criticize the franchise all you want for all sorts of reasons, but it’s hard to argue with games with great gameplay.

Replayability: *½

Just when it was looking so good, I have to find a dark lining around a silver cloud. After you become Pokémon League champion, then what? There’s the problem. Sure, you can keep on trying to catch Pokémon to add to your Pokédex, certainly a fun goal to try to accomplish. And trainers will want rematches; though, unfortunately in Ruby and Sapphire, not the gym leaders (Emerald, I think, has gym leaders give rematches). But there isn’t that much else to do; you can go to the Battle Tower, but unfortunately that only will allow you to battle trainers with teams of all level-50 Pokémon or all level-100 Pokémon, and you’ll probably have a team of Pokémon in the high 50’s at the time, disqualifying them from level-50 battling but making them hopeless against level-100 Pokémon (or not; I won my first battle against three level-100 Pokémon with my high-50’s Pokémon… who knows how that happened). Still, the Battle Tower isn’t that much fun, as it could have been if the opposing trainers had teams of Pokémon that were all of your Pokémon’s highest level, making it a more fair battle. So, unfortunately, this game isn’t so replayable after it’s finished. That’s a shame, because it could have been even better. You can’t visit either previous land of Kanto or Johto. (Imagine a Pokémon game that allows you to visit Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn! That would be something else…)

Fun Factor!: ****

This game is a whole lot of fun, and that’s really one of the keys to its success. It didn’t bore me; it kept me playing and playing through the Elite Four battles because I was having so much fun with it. Pokémon games are a lot of fun, and that’s something that has made them so great; the strategy in battling mixed with the joy of winning or catching a Pokémon makes the games really enjoyable, including Sapphire.

OVERALL: ***½

Pokémon Sapphire is better than F-Zero: GP Legend, which I recently called the best on the GBA. No, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald are the best games on the GBA, as they are all very similar (I have Sapphire; supposedly Emerald’s the best, but I didn’t get it due to a slightly higher price on it… yeah, I’m cheap). If you have a GBA and don’t have this game, you’re missing out on a very good RPG, and another successful Pokémon game. It may not be quite as good as the first two games, which deserved higher ratings from me, but still, it’s a very, very good game. It’s well worth the purchase, if you haven’t bought it already.

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