A small step forward, with a big view of the future of the series.
This has always been a great game, in my library at least.
You have the standard copy-paste formula of the major Pokemon RPG's, adventurer from X town travels throughout Y region to beat Gym Leaders and become champion of the Pokemon League, all while fighting Team Z and your rival. Rather than diminishing from the experience, the familiarity and intuitiveness make it easy to use, whether you're a vet or picking up a Pokemon game for the first time. It has a few new features, but apart from the double battle, new features for berries, and the Battle Frontier, nothing worth writing about.
The graphics are good, and I would argue, better than the new DS games. I prefer clarity and sharpness over 3D. Similar to Ruby and Sapphire, a generation better than Gold and Silver, and a world apart from Red, Blue, and Yellow.
The music isn't too remarkable. It's good, and it's varied enough to prevent, in my opinion, it getting stagnant, but it doesn't stand out quite like the originals, but that could be my nostalgia kicking in.
The controls are easy to master, same as all other Pokemon games.
The new Pokemon are interesting, along with a good selection of legendaries for the collector(the cover Pokemon being my favorite of all time, except for Mew of course).
All in all, this game, while similar to all the other ones, stands out through it's storyline, (which I left out because A. There are tons of places to read about it, and B. I don't like giving spoilers.), its Pokemon, and its ability to stick to the tried and true formula without getting old.
As the last Pokemon game on the GBA, except for FireRed and LeafGreen, this was the game that set up the stage for the ones to follow, to cross the threshold to the future of the series.Read full review
