Pros: New Pokemon, More Variety Between Versions, Good Graphics, Difficult
Cons: Can't Transfer Pokemon From The Older Versions
The bottom line: I just got Pokemon Sapphire a Little While Ago And I Can't Stop Playing, What Does That Tell You?
When it comes to the topic of Pokemon there are three kinds of people; those who abhor it, those who love it, and also the kind of people who love it, but would sooner die than let anyone know that they like it. While Pokemon was one of the biggest phenomenons in the last couple of years, it's no secret that it has kind of taken a backseat to similar franchises, like Yu-Gi-Oh! for example, and it's only natural that Nintendo would want to revive what was one of their main sources of income in the last couple of years. It was apparent to Nintendo that to revive Pokemon they would have to make some changes in their next game so that they would be able to pass the next Pokemon off as something "new" instead of releasing another version of the same game that they have already released another version of. This time though, Nintendo decided that the only way they could really make a lot of changes to the series is to release it on their newest, more capable handheld; the Gameboy Advance. When I first saw screenshots of Pokemon's upcoming venture on the Gameboy Advance I was at first very cautious, as the game didn't look like anything new at all, but after seeing and hearing about some of the new features I decided to surrender my money to Nintendo, and so after a little stalling I pre-ordered the game in January and waited eagerly for it's release, but of course I talked my brother into reserving a copy of the other version so that I would have someone to trade with. Well, as it turns out both versions of the game arrived earlier today. So now it's time to answer the question you're probably about to ask, how did the game turn out?

Most people can't seem to get past the fact that on the surface Pokemon looks like a cutesy game which involves catching cute little creatures, and while I'm not particularly enamored by the whole layer of cute in these games, I can easily look past it and see how deep Pokemon really is. Pokemon is a deep turn based RPG where you do collect sometimes overly cute creatures, but you catch them for the purpose of battling them with pokemon in the wild and other pokemon trainers. Pokemon that you encounter in the wild can be caught, but those that belong to trainers can only be destroyed (or knocked unconscious).

Storyline
When it comes to the Pokemon series Nintendo has never tried to develop a truly engaging story with plot twists and epic aspects. Pokemon has developed it's tried and true method and used it over and over again, but for Pokemon Sapphire, it seems like Nintendo worked a little harder to make the plot slightly deeper. Each installment of the series has had you take the role of a pokemon trainer who sets out to be a master, and while this may sound interesting at first, seeing so little of variations in these games made this seem extremely shallow. While the quest to become a pokemon master is essentially the same in Pokemon Sapphire, Nintendo has taken the liberty of adding a couple of twists and new turns along the way.

At the very beginning of the game you are prompted to tell the game your gender, choosing your gender automatically determines who your main rival will be in the game, which will be of the opposite gender of the one that you choose. As with the older pokemon games, the story starts in a quiet little village, only in Pokemon Sapphire the game starts with the main character and his family moving to the small town. This time the stage is set in the land of Hoenn, which is much larger than both Kanto and Johto. The sad thing is that you do not travel to either Kanto or Johto in this game, and I was really expecting and hoping that the game would allow you to travel to the lands of the past pokemon games so as to give you the chance to capture a lot of the older pokemon.

Ok so we've got a rival and a goal to become a pokemon master, so what else does a pokemon game need to be a pokemon game? The answer to that is simple; you need a corporation of evildoers, but how can this work without the presence of Team Rocket? In Pokemon Sapphire, the closest thing to Team Rocket is in the form of a team of people that want to expand the ocean to better the lives of water pokemon, but at the same time this would worsen the lives of pokemon who live on land, these people are known as Team Aqua, and you'll be seeing a lot of them in Pokemon Sapphire. One very interesting aspect of this team is the fact that there exists another team of people that are the opposite of Team Aqua, as they want to make more land for land pokemon to live on, and this team is known as Team Magma. You won't be seeing too much of Team Magma in Pokemon Sapphire though, as Team Aqua takes a front seat as the evil corporation, but in Pokemon Ruby (the other version of this game) you'll be forced to take out Team Magma left and right. This is one of the biggest differences between the two versions, as they both have the different antagonists.

These are just some of the aspects that have been changed/added to the new pokemon games, but there is one more off the top of my head that I thought was interesting. The game adds a sort of conflict with the main character, because you see, the fifth gym leader is none other than the main character's father. I was really surprised in this because it didn't seem like Pokemon had ever done anything like this in any of the past games.

Gameplay
As I mentioned earlier in this review, in Pokemon Sapphire you take control of a young guy/girl who wants to become a pokemon master. In the beginning of the game you will meet up with the new pokemon professor (Prof. Birch) who you must save, upon saving him he will give you the pokemon that you used to save him with from his pack. This is just the very start of the game though, as before you know it you'll be catching and raising pokemon left and right. Collecting Pokemon doesn't carry as much importance as battling them, as I'm pretty sure you could go through the whole game catching few pokemon.

As with most turn based RPGs battles will erupt randomly, but not all of these battles occur like this, as there are several staged battles throughout the game. The staged battles occur whenever you speak to a gym leader, or are spotted by another pokemon trainer, at which point the battle will erupt. Thankfully, random encounters occur when your character is trudging through the tall grass, and therefore you can sometimes avoid the chance at getting in a fight with a wild pokemon. The bad news though is that you don't need to be in the grass for random encounters to occur when inside a cave, as the battles will start for no good reason.

There are essentially three forms of battle in this game; encounters with wild pokemon, trainer battles, and the latest addition to the pokemon universe; two-on-two battles. In an encounter with a wild pokemon you just simply knock it out and then the battle ends, while in a battle against a trainer you will often have to fight more than one pokemon before snatching victory. The two-on-two battles are where the game shines though, as you send out 2 pokemon at once against two other pokemon, the winner is determined when one of the trainer's pokemon both faint. The only real problem I have with the two-on-two battles is that none of them have been required yet (I've logged more than a couple hours into the game), and from what I hear there is only like one of these battles that you actually have to fight.

Another new addition to the pokemon universe is in the form of pokemon abilities. These are special perks that each pokemon has, and they add a fair amount of newness to the series. The pokemon abilities work like this; each pokemon has a special ability, for example on occasion one pokemon might be able to pass on a status effect they have suffered to their opponent, while another pokemon's ability will make it so that any attack on this pokemon will inflict damage on the opponent.

In a similar fashion to pokemon silver and gold, in Pokemon Sapphire you have the ability to equip your pokemon with items mainly berries. These berries will do special things for your pokemon, such as healing them when their HP is low and so forth. This option wasn't particularly helpful to me as I don't use it a lot, but many will be glad that Nintendo decided to include it.

One thing that I found particularly great about this game is the fact that it is not an easy game to play. This is the hardest pokemon game yet, as Nintendo not only made the Gym Leaders stronger than they typically have done in the past, but the days of simply using ultra powerful pokemon are now gone, as the stats seem to be more equally distributed between the many species of these critters. Basically what I'm saying is that now you just can't rush through every gym without a hitch, rather you will often have to try multiple times before you are able to beat particular gym leaders. I found that the difficulty on certain gym leaders varies from player to player, as my brother had a difficult time on the Gym Leader with fighting pokemon I was able to win without a problem, and while he was able to beat the Gym Leader with pokemon of the electric persuasion on his first try, I had to try more than once to beat him.

Alright now it's time to talk about the bad aspects of this game. First off, one of the things that really shouldn't bother me so much, but does is the naming scheme. In the first round of pokemon games I thought that Nintendo had created some unique and sometimes cool names for the pokemon (you can't tell me that Gyrados isn't a cool name), but when silver, crystal, and gold were released it seemed as if Nintendo was just creating names that sounded really weird to say, and most of them were really nothing special (Miltank anyone?), but with Pokemon Sapphire Nintendo had to create even more names for all the new Pokemon, and the end result is a little strange.

Along the quest your character will acquire many items, many of which are an extreme necessity for proceeding in the game, and others just power up your pokemon. The main items that you will need to proceed in the game are in the form of HMs. These special machines will teach your pokemon moves like rock smash (which breaks rocks in your path) and Surf (the move that will allow you to ride on the back of a pokemon while they swim).

My Ratings For: Pokemon Sapphire

Graphics: 8/10
The thing that took the most getting used to in Pokemon Sapphire was definitely the graphics, never has Pokemon even come close to looking this good on the old Gameboy Color. With that said, Pokemon Sapphire looks pretty much standard for a Gameboy Advance game at first, but it isn't until you actually engage in a battle that you will see just how good this game looks. Sure, maybe Nintendo still forgot to include full backgrounds for the battle scenes, but I won't hold that against them. There are a plethora of effects in this game, such as the rolling mist and wavy reflections in the water, but there are also several other effects that are more subtle, like the footprints in the sand and the falling ashes from the sky on the volcano. I would still have to say though that the battles are the most impressive looking part of the game, as each of the pokemon look great.

One of the big improvements graphics-wise is the menu screen. Whereas the pokemon games of old had a very small set number of icons to represent the pokemon in your group, Pokemon Sapphire has a small icon of the pokemon that it represents, only this game doesn't use the same icon for some pokemon; all pokemon have their own animated icon that is a visual presentation of what they look like. Like I already said, it's the little touches that impressed me the most with this game.

The Gameboy Color had an extremely restricted color palette, and so it was only natural that the old pokemon games looked awful on the system, but thankfully enough the Gameboy Advance's palette of colors is much larger and more vibrant. Pokemon Sapphire uses colors like nobody's business, and each of the pokemon have an elaborate amount of detail to them that gives this game a look of it's own.

Story: 6.5/10
Yeah so maybe this game's story isn't all that great, and even though it follows along the premises of the older Pokemon games it still manages to outshine every other pokemon game, with the default exception of Pokemon Ruby of course. To be honest with you, Pokemon Sapphire just doesn't have that epic save the world feeling that other RPGs have, and while an RPG doesn't exactly need a "save the world" storyline, there just has always been something indescribable missing from the storylines in all of the pokemon titles. That's all right though, as the pokemon games have always relied on the gameplay rather than storyline.

Control: 9/10
It's almost like a written law that 2-Dimensional turn based RPGs will always have at least decent control, but this is because of the obvious simplicity in the control system. Pokemon Sapphire actually manages to improve in this field from pokemon's former outings on the Gameboy Color, and this is not simply because of the move to the Gameboy Advance's button layout. Once your character acquires the running shoes from the character's mother you can hold the B button and run, this makes things a little faster in the beginning of the game, but once you do get the bike things just zoom by.

Sound: 9.5/10
Again here's another comparison that I'm going to make between the Sapphire and older editions of Pokemon. The sound has drastically improved in Sapphire from the older games in the pokemon series, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this is associated with the fact that the Gameboy Advance is more powerful than the Gameboy Color, way more powerful. There isn't just one or two catchy song in Pokemon Sapphire, there are almost 12! Seriously, I even as I write this I find myself repeating some of the really good songs in my head over and over again. One minor disappointment about the game's music is the Gym Leader battle music; it was so much stronger in the first batch of pokemon titles.

The sound effects have also evolved quite a bit also, and no longer consist of simple bleeps and chimes. Sure, the sound effects are still slightly on the simple side of things, but they are no longer annoying in the least bit for me, whereas in the former pokemon games I often developed headaches from wearing headphones while playing the games. Each pokemon has it's own sound (or cry as the game calls it), and these cries really demonstrate the nature of these pokemon.

Fun Factor: 9.5/10
Pokemon is still as fun as it ever was, if not more fun. Pokemon Sapphire is a very enjoyable experience, and I still have a lot to go. The whole time that I was writing this review I have also been playing the game and trying to cram as much playtime as possible in my day (I just got it today so I've been playing it non-stop). With that said now is the perfect time for all of the non-fans to give pokemon a chance, especially since the whole pokemon takeover has pretty much died down. Pokemon Sapphire is such a good game though that I think it has the potential to bring pokemon back to it's former glory.

Overall Rating: 9.3