I've been promising for a while that I would do a full explanation why I hate Gen III of pokemon, specifically Ruby and Sapphire, since I hint at it so much. So I'll start at the beginning.

I got into Pokemon when I was 11 years old. It was the franchise that turned me into a gamer. I was obsessed. I watched the show religiously, I always asked for Pokemon cards, pokemon toys. Hell, I even have Pikachu slippers and Pokemon sheets. I had all 3 versions of the game (this is what happens when you are a single child and gameboys aren't allowed at school, and none of your other friends are into it). When Gold and Silver came out, I was thrilled, the games were amazing. The features were expanded, the new pokemon were awesome and there was so much to do. And when Crystal came out I literally waited in front of the doors of Best Buy so I could get it before anyone else could. Crystal is still my favorite pokemon game. The story was expanded, the battle tower was awesome and the animation in the battles were just what I thought the franchise needed.

So when I learned a new set of games would be released for the gameboy advance, I of course got ready for the new generation. I begged for GBA from my grandmother for half a year, and when the games came out I was willing to go out in the middle of a blizzard to try to get the games.

I finally got Ruby and Sapphire and immediately started playing it. And from the get go I knew something was wrong.

Follow up:

The graphics were awesome for the time, don't get me wrong, but I started to play the game in the afternoon, and when I set the time the environment didn't change. They had gotten rid of the day/night aspect of the game! This was the first of the laundry list of things I dislike about the game.

1. Only 8 Gyms
In G/S/C, there were two sets of gyms because of the two Pokemon countries, and after defeating the Elite Four you had the option of facing the Kanto gyms from the first game in order to gain access to Silver Mountain. So seeing that Hoenn has tons and tons of towns and knowing GBA games have way more memory than Gameboy games I expected at least 16 gyms. But no, there are only 8 gyms, just like the first gen of the game. Half of the towns there is nothing to do, and no reason to go back to them. Even when there were towns on the first two gens of the game that didn't have gyms, there was usually something else to do: go shopping, visit a dungeon, SOMETHING. So instead expanding the gameplay, they reduced it.

2. Elimination of Day/Night feature

One of my favorite parts of G/S/C was having to play at different times of the day in order to get all the pokemon. Granted, that meant my mom yelling at me to go to sleep because I had school the next day, but it was an incredibly fun feature. But for reasons I don't understand, they totally cut it out. Ironically, time is still a factor in the game, like when the tide moves in Sheol cave, but there is no change in the graphics.

3. No animations

Yes, I *know* Emerald has little animations when the pokemon pop out, but Ruby/Sapphire don't. Crystal, a previous generation game had animation, so it wasn't a memory issue, it was a laziness issue. And it shows.

4. Contests

The most useless and worst feature added to pokemon. They are a total waste of time. You have to grow berries, make Pokeblocks, teach pokemon useless moves all in the name of getting ribbons which do absolutely nothing to expand the gameplay. The only pokemon it makes a difference to is Feebas, a pokemon that is damn near impossible to get.

5. The elimination of pokemon

This one probably the one that annoyed me the most. Gen II was probably my favorite set of pokemon designs. Houndour, Houndoom, Mareep, Steelix, the Gen II pokemon were almost entirely badass. And Gen one was full of great pokemon too. But of the 200 pokemon pokedex of R/S, only about 60 of the original 251 make the cut. And most of them are lousy pokemon. Houdour gets the cut, but we have to go through another generation of Zubat/Golbat dodging in caves. And as for the replacement pokemon...

Gen III pokemon are awful

Now, I don't hate all Gen III pokemon. Latios and Latias are cool, and Skitty is cute, but for the most part the Gen III pokemon are ugly, overly complicated, and their stats leave much to be desired. Not to mention the fact that most of the new pokemon were either water types, or some water combo. In a game system already flooded with a type (no pun intended) the last thing this game needed was water-types. Also, the legendaries are terrible looking. The Regis don't look anything like pokemon, they aren't cute or funny, they are mountains with 6 eyes and arms and Kyogre, Groundon and Rayquazza look more like digimon than pokemon. And it looks like for every pokemon they cut out they had a ripoff replacement. Caterpie got replaced with Wurple, Dratini with Bagon and so on.

I was so disappointed with R/S that I almost quit playing the games. I never made it to the elite four and I never even started ruby. The show took a nosedive and most of the toys were lame as well. I stopped buying the cards and pretty much moved on. For my birthday I had the option of getting a DS or a PS2, and I went with the PS2 because I was more interested in Kingdom Hearts. It wasn't until some badgering from my friends and a cheap copy of Pokemon Platinum that I came back to the franchise. But I have grown older and wiser. While I look forward to Black and White, I am choosing to be cautiously optimistic.