Looking Forward: 3:10 to Hoenn: Outlook and Speculation from a Lifelong Die-Hard

[Ivysaur]

Alongside what V Faction said, I'd like to point out how you cite Generation 3's lower sales in comparison to the past generations...

Sales slumped as the franchise’s hay day died out

But how can you cite this as a fault of Generation 3? The five mainstream Pokemon games were the top five best-selling GameBoy Advance games of all time. This was a time where the popularity of portable gaming decreased as a whole, and Nintendo faced much stronger competition from Microsoft and Sony, especially the PlayStation 2, which still remains the best-selling console of all time.

 

[PDL]

I'm going to be honest here, I couldn't get past the first 2 paragraphs of the actual article due to all the weasel wording.

Gen II was nowhere near as perfect as people make it out to be. How on earth can people even stand playing that set of games when leveling a monster is such a goddamn chore? This doesn't occur with any of the other games.

This is even evident in the remakes, Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I've managed to playthrough Soul Silver, but I fear that I'll never ever get around to finish Heart Gold. Although it might be faitauge from playing the Gen IV games.

Also, everyone forgets just how unbelievably buggy the gameboy/gameboy color games were. Everyone thinks it's cool that they were, but the developers would obviously see it as a problem if people only play the game in a way that isn't ment to be played (being utterly broken due to the ton of bugs present). Not being compatable with them rids the problem entirely.

 

[make_it_worse]

Well, yeah, the franchise gone dropped like a rock since this Generation 3 started, lack of connectivity, and our aim to "catch 'em all" popped like a bubble.
I liked RSE too, beating the game was only our aim, but i felt sorry for all the fans who wanted to catch them all but they didn't have the thing to do it, due to lack of connectivity.

This year, I just started Gen IV, it's a nice start. And I started to dream out to Catch 'em all to, but i was too late, because i missed all mistery gifts.

Yeah, I have ruby and firered english version, dreaming to complete the Pokédex, but see, the Language Lock Ruined it, so if the Game Freak hears me, please take out lacks of connectivity and the Language Lock, it's just ruining the franchise,..

 

[rbogey]

For me, the complexity of the designs for Gen V is most apparent in Rehiram and Zekrom. I'm not a fan of Gen V yet, the features all sound cool, but I don't like the Pokemon. I also didn't like Gen III because I just played through Hoenn so much that I got sick of it. Same thing happened with Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's true that the designs were I think the starting point of the complexity, but some of my favorite designs came from Hoenn. A brontosaurs with wings made out of leaves? Awesome.

 

[yoyozoo]

It’s a well known fact the days of Ruby and Sapphire were a dark time for the franchise. Sales slumped as the franchise’s hay day died out, many fans left the franchise for one reason or another, and to this day, it still remains the most controversial era to this day on message boards. Seriously, start a topic on a message board about it and watch the blood pour.

FULL STOP.

Are you trying to say ever time someone mentions that they like Gen. III a massive flame war will ensue?

Well, It seem like just in this thread people are mentioning that Hoenn was there favorite generation and there's no flames spitting out.

Hoenn happens to be my favorite generation, I actually liked the more complex character designs and such. Gen. III was the generation of Pokemon that really brought me into the series. Nothing more after Ruby and Sapphire brought a smile to my seven year old face.

So yes, I freely admit that Gen III. would be the generation that I'll have the fondest memories about. I wasn't around when Gen. III came out and I can be completely wrong when I say that there were never flamewars over this subject, but to go and say that it still brings flamewars, even after the game came out eight years ago is wrong IMHO.

[sub]Y'know what? I haven't been on this forum as often as I used to anymore to notice any flamewars over this subject. So I may be completely wrong. /hidesunderarock[/sub]

 

[PDL]

This year, I just started Gen IV, it's a nice start. And I started to dream out to Catch 'em all to, but i was too late, because i missed all mistery gifts.

Yeah, I have ruby and firered english version, dreaming to complete the Pokédex, but see, the Language Lock Ruined it, so if the Game Freak hears me, please take out lacks of connectivity and the Language Lock, it's just ruining the franchise,..

Have you been under a rock since 2003? the Language Lock has been eliminated since the Gen III games. The Japanese and English GBA games are compatable with one another. The Gen IV games take this a step further and actually encourage you to trade with other regions to get certain bonuses (Pokédex entries in that language, the ability to get shinies easier by breeding Pokémon from different language carts...)

Also, starting since Gen III, they dropped the "Gotta Catch'em All" slogan since it's now very very difficult to do so on your own. It's possible if you know people you can trade with over Wifi though.

 

[V Faction]

Are you trying to say ever time someone mentions that they like Gen. III a massive flame war will ensue?

Perhaps he misspoke and meant massive debates.

Which is very true.

But that's the nature of the beast.

Have you been under a rock since 2003?

I'm pretty sure that person has.

 

[Marik]

I sure hope Isshu doesn't turn out like Hoenn did...

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I sure hope Isshu doesn't turn out like Hoenn did...

Hoenn was interesting, I thought. If Isshu is like Hoenn, except with those minor complains fixed? That's not so bad... might even be really good.

 

[Marik]

Well, they've already done better on Pokemon designs... there isn't a whole shitload of water... and they're going to have backwards compatibility... that's three problems fixed. I don't think it'll be very similar.

 

[GodofPH]

But you know, Pat, what gets me isn't the whole problem people have with designs or the technology... It's that this subject matter keeps getting brought up again and again. When is it going to be enough? Couldn't this have been more an article of "What Generation V is doing right" or "...is doing what we like" instead of "What Generation III did wrong"?

If you look at the second half of my article, it is me praising Game Freak for correcting many of the missteps in Generation V that had led to a backlash against Generation III.

 

[V Faction]

And it should've been the focus part of the article. For something titled "Looking Forward", there's a lot of dwelling in the past.

 

[SacredTrickster]

Was the third generation really as bad as the article said I liked it someone tell me way it was bad

 

[Bittersweet]

It doesn't look like Gen V will cause as many "issues" as Gen 3 did with the then-loyal fandom.

And, to me the Gen V designs seem pretty diverse; there really isn't any one art style that's been prominent in most designs. They're very diverse; which is good, because you're bound to find a few things you like.

And I am LOVING everything I've seen from Gen V so far!! The only thing I'd change is to make the battle field a little less plain; maybe a blade of grass in the scenery here and there?
Also, I hope that we'll have 3D overworld sprites in Gen 6 at least...

 

[GodofPH]

And it should've been the focus part of the article. For something titled "Looking Forward", there's a lot of dwelling in the past.

The approach I take in my columns each week is to look at something new in Generation V, and compare it to similar things in the past to put it in context on how that feature relates to the franchise as a whole.

If you want pure, unfiltered speculation; there is plenty of it in the forums.

 

[V Faction]

The approach I take in my columns each week is to look at something new in Generation V, and compare it to similar things in the past to put it in context on how that feature relates to the franchise as a whole.

If you want pure, unfiltered speculation; there is plenty of it in the forums.

Actually, the forums (specifically the Generation V forums) are a rather nice place to get confirmed info right on the spot before other sources. There are people who find images, do research, and post translations. They're quite lovely. Might you spend a spell in them one of these days?

But more to the point, if you want to compare something, simply going in a list format (Gen III did this, this, this, and this; Gen V is doing that, that, that, and that) works wonders, like the second half of your article does as you pointed out. No fuss, no muss. Then again, I suppose just listing facts doesn't draw in the crowds.

 

[Volphied]

It’s a well known fact the days of Ruby and Sapphire were a dark time for the franchise. Sales slumped as the franchise’s hay day died out, many fans left the franchise for one reason or another, and to this day, it still remains the most controversial era to this day on message boards.

It's also a well known fact that sales of pokemon games started to fall with Gold and Silver.

Pokémon Red, and Blue (20.68 million approximately: 10.23 million in Japan, 9.85 million in US, 3.56 million in UK
Pokémon Gold and Silver (15.2 million approximately: 7.6 million in US, over 7 million in Japan, 600,000 in UK)
# Pokémon Crystal (3.85 million approximately: 2.1 million in Japan,1.65 million in US, 1 million in UK)
# Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (13 million)
# Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (11.82 million)
# Pokémon Emerald (6.32 million)
# Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (17.39 million)
# Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (8.4 million)


You know what's funny.

Emerald sold almost twice as much as Crystal.
And the GEN1 remakes still sold more than the GEN2 remakes
Sure is 'dark times'...

 

[Marik]

Why the Johto hate bro? The reason Crystal has such poor sales is that it came out right before the GBA did. And yeah, your argument for Johto being dark times falls apart once you say that Gold and Silver sold better than Ruby and Sapphire. Just sayin. As for FR and LG, of course they sold huge. THEY'RE KANTO GAMES. Those are the big money makers. Good day sir.

 

[Volphied]

Why the Johto hate bro? The reason Crystal has such poor sales is that it came out right before the GBA did. And yeah, your argument for Johto being dark times falls apart once you say that Gold and Silver sold better than Ruby and Sapphire. Just sayin. As for FR and LG, of course they sold huge. THEY'RE KANTO GAMES. Those are the big money makers. Good day sir.

By just 2 million? That's a very small difference.

You should note that game sales went down sharply once Gen2 came out. Despite the fact that people could play them on the original game boy.

Gen3 came out on the GBA. So not only you had to buy the cartridge, you also had to buy the handheld, making it much more expensive. Yet the sales of Gen3 still remained impressive.

 

[winstein]

I actually thought it was a wonder that the third generation of Pokemon was the sleeping point for the franchise, and I myself didn't know I stopped there, but not because of the reasons everybody stopped caring about Pokemon. When there were less Pokemon available in Sapphire, I thought that there are less Pokemon, but when I hacked the game a long time ago using codes and found that there were actually old Pokemon in the game (when I saw that there are codes to obtain them), I wondered how it was obtained at that time (obviously now it is easy to figure out how to get them).

Yeah, Hoenn was not memorable to me, but come to think of it, it is better than how I remembered it.