All these years later, Pokémon still works
It's hard to believe that Pokémon has been around for as long as it has. Memories of everyone I know caught up with Red and Blue, talking about their collections, tricking each other into trading for bad creatures and singing the Pokérap are just a few choice bits. It was slightly embarrassing (we were all 13 to 15 then), but we didn't care. I even went as far as buying the 2.B.A. Master CD and the special Pokémon Yellow Game Boy Color. We eventually grew out of it, though; I don't think a single one of us ever owned Gold or Silver, although I still played through both. And now, seven years later, for reasons that escape me, I decided to dive back into the world I once knew with Pokémon Emerald, and I have not been disappointed.
Leaving Indigo and Johto behind, Emerald takes place in the disconnected Hoenn region and naturally has dozens of new fuzzy Pokémon to behold, some familiar to my eyes, some totally foreign, but all welcome sights. Red and Blue were large enough with 150 Pokémon, and then Gold and Silver added another hundred, and from what I've read, Ruby and Sapphire brought the total to 386. While they aren't all in one game, you can rest assured that such a large number guarantee that you'll never be bored with this game. Just like Yellow and Crystal were before it, Pokémon Emerald is a "director's cut" of sorts. From what I've seen of Ruby and Sapphire, Emerald touches them up slightly with things like a new typeface for the text, some different Pokémon animations, and other things of the sort. Then again, everything in this game looks great to my sore eyes. Anything would after so many years away.
Of course, at its core, Emerald is still about catchin' 'em all. Your character (you can choose between Brendan and May, I took May) just moved to the area, and the local Pokémon doc Professor Birch takes a liking to you, as does his grandchild, the character you didn't select who ends up becoming your rival, who for the first time isn't a jerk. Right away, this game felt very familiar, from the choosing of a grass, fire or water type at the beginning, to having to get through a forest early, to fighting a gym leader with rock-type Pokémon. However, despite its simplicity, it still feels just as bloody rewarding when you finally best a trainer or gym leader who gets to you, whether it's because you can't figure out a Pokémon's weakness, the Pokémon puts yours to sleep and it refuses to wake up, or the opposing trainer uses a Hyper Potion on his or her Pokémon when it has only one hit point left; the taste of victory was so close, and then BAM! All these years later, and it's still exhilarating.
As it has been in the past, there's enough story to keep you going. Even though it gets weak in a few places, it suffices in keeping you going. Whether it's because you strive to be better than you father (who's one of the more annoying gym leaders), because you have to stop opposing gangs Aqua and Magma from destroying the world (by either flooding it or turning it all to land, both so Pokémon can live more freely), or because you have to show those higher up that the small-town person can always make it in the big leagues, there's always a way to connect with that little character sprite on the GBA screen.
I won't deny it, I missed Pokémon. It stunned me when I bought this game that the show was still on TV, that the card game was still being made, and that the games were still selling well. The last things I remember before leaving my own personal Pokéworld were Ash leaving Charizard with the other Charizards, the ridiculously fun Karaokemon songs (which I ended up tracking down to play to this game), and the sad fact that YTV shuffled its schedule so I couldn't really watch it anymore, which essentially phased Pokémon out of my life altogether. Those were great "late childhood" memories, and they all started with the remarkably simple and enjoyable Game Boy games. You would strive to be better than every one, to raise the strongest Pokémon, to catch 'em all. All these years later, Pokémon Emerald proves that the formula I fell in love with years ago still works, and it's still enjoyable.
