This truly was the advanced generation of Pokémon, and for a lot more reasons than just improved visuals and sound.
Familiar features were shown to players in much higher graphical fidelity- the GBA may not look like much now, but it was a pleasant advancement to jump right from 8-bit games to the 32-bit processor of the Gameboy Advance. Generation 2 added 100 new Pokémon, but generation 3 completely blew that out of the water and introduced the largest number of monsters since generation 1 (at the time of Ruby and Sapphire’s release, anyway). The third generation of Pokémon games released on the Gameboy Advance in early 2003 in North America, and it was on this new system that players got to experience 135 new critters to capture, train, and use in virtual dog fighting in the new region of Hoenn. So before the new blood of Pokémon arrives with a bevy of new monsters to catch, train, and exploit for personal profit, we at Game Industry News think it would be a great time to celebrate the history of this series with the first soft reboot of the franchise, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.Ĭheck out the entire Pokémon Celebration series of articles that have run so far.
The Pokémon series as a whole is roughly 23 years old now, spanning across 31 main entries before the 8 th generation titles come out for Nintendo Switch. We’re roughly a week out from the release of the 8 th generation of Pokémon games, Sword and Shield.
