Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire

Felt to me like it was bad in comparison to the previous two games. More of the same, additions I didn't care about, and I maybe was growing too old to enjoy it.

More Pokemon. ... Yay, I guess? Not too much innovative was added to this, and I felt like the series started to lose its luster.

the Pokemon in gen 3 are, for the most part, great. Blaziken is the best, Gardevoir rules, etc. but the seams of the formula start to show here, and the emphasis on water takes away from one of the greatest aspects of the series, which is the intricate and lived-in settings. nothing is less memorable than a deluge of dark blue, and these games have it in spades. a big misstep in the direction of the series, and one from which it never recovered, even if the gameplay remained intact.

I played it. It's Pokemon. You walk around and you snatch monsters and train them like nerds in a gym until they're buff enough to crush your greatest enemies. There's nothing very noteworthy about these ones.

Another solid but generic Pokemon RPG.

This is for Emerald, as it's not a separate listing.

While the addition of Abilities adds some more depth to battling, the world and story just didn't grip me as the previous games did.

It's not just diminishing returns here, the game experience is badly hampered by how on-the-rails the game is. You are barely allowed any freedom to explore or skip gyms and come back. You just follow a list of things to do while getting a predictable skill-ramp. This was never the point of Pokemon, you need to be able to explore. It is still good though, but the combat isn't enough when there are now far too many Pokemon for the average person to remember.