Gen III is the best Pokemon Generation

[makelearns6]

I think in terms of balance, variety, and new features added, Gen III takes the cake. A lot of people were upset when it came out because it took away a lot of pokemon from the previous generations (locking them away until the post-game or until colosseum/fr/lg came out) but I think the new Pokemon added more than made up for it. Pokemon Emerald is extremely replayable and the Battle Frontier offers a post-game that goes on indefinitely while providing plenty of challenge. Also Gen III added abilities, which is probably the most important gameplay addition/change next to the Physical/Special Split of Gen IV. Also, Gen III didn't run at a snail's pace like the later games (I'm looking at you Diamond and Pearl).

 

[Rodpaco]

I agree. The Emerald Battle Frontier was imo the best post-game content in pokémon history. Everything about Hoenn is epic: the music, the legendaries, the mystery, the exploration, etc ; you can't get bored in it. And Ruby & Sapphire were the first games to introduce a much more well-thought-out plot and evil team, when compared to gen 1 & 2, while also keeping the amounts of freedom and difficulty of the previous generations (there was very little hand-holding, unlike more recent games).

And, if you consider FR/LG gen 3, I'd say the Sevii Islands are pretty underrated. They added a nice post-game to the Kanto adventure and I was pretty disappointed not to find something similar in HG/SS and OR/AS.

 

[TwilightBlade]

I totally agree that Gen 3 is amazing although I never got the hoopla about the Battle Frontier because unless you were a great battler who knew everything there was to know about battle strategies, EVs, IVs and everything else then you were pretty much doomed to misery there. :[

 

[OwensJB]

I totally agree that Gen 3 is amazing although I never got the hoopla about the Battle Frontier because unless you were a great battler who knew everything there was to know about battle strategies, EVs, IVs and everything else then you were pretty much doomed to misery there. :[

I was never a huge BF fan but it was a cool way to spend your spare time.

I think what made generation 3 so great was that it was like a fresh start since you couldn't rely on the old games to get stronger Pokemon. It was kind of cool to begin from scratch.

 

[Auraninja]

Gen III and Gen VI are my favorite generations because they both have Hoenn.

 

[Leonhart]

Gen III is probably my second favorite Pokemon generation after Gen II, so I do have a lot of fond memories of it. I remember when I first found out about Kakureon (Kecleon), Hoeruko (Wailmer), and Ruriri (Azurill), and how I mistook them for fanart at first. Sapphire is my favorite Gen III game, followed by LeafGreen if we're counting the Kanto remakes as part of the Gen III era.

 

[Ishiftyounot]

I've never beaten a Gen III game, which is ironic given the first Pokemon game I ever played was Sapphire on my childminder's old Gameboy Advanced (ah, the days when the poisoned animation when you walked made me think the game was bugged and restarted every time). When I owned the games myself they'd always restart right before the end of the game (I got to the Pokemon League in LeafGreen, and Mossdeep City in Emerald) so I've not had the best of times with this generation.

However, I just love it! Not quite as much as Gen IV (I adore HG/SS and the Sinnoh games) but I bought LeafGreen and Sapphire off of eBay just to re-live the nostalgia from the first time I played Pokemon. The sprites just call to me more than any other generation (I don't even know which I prefer out of the FR/LG, R/S or Emerald sprites), the music is supreme (Blue's Champion theme is probably my favourite Champion theme out of all the games, maybe nowadays a bit behind Leon's and the original SM one), the battles were genuinely challenging (I still have PTSD for the rival battle below Cycling Road in R/S/E) and I hear both FR/LG and R/S/E have good post-games. So whilst for me personally it's not the best, Gen III comes pretty damn close.

 

[Redbird]

Gen III was the worst generation, and I'm not exaggerating. It almost caused me to drop Pokémon altogether. From my experience, most of the Gen III lovers are people who started with it, so they can't help looking at it through nostalgia goggles (and didn't realize how disappointing it was compared to previous generations when they first played it, having no prior experience with Pokémon games).

R/S dropped compatibility with old games, screwing old players over. It restricted players to Hoenn Pokémon (despite having all Pokémon in the code), and then forced them to buy more games to catch the rest. It had a nigh-nonexistent post-game, by contrast with Gen II, with had a whole second region with its own set of gyms. And no, Emerald's Battle Frontier wasn't enough to make up for it. All the complaints about X/Y's lackluster postgame and Sw/Sh's Dex cut reflected many of fans' most common complaints about R/S when it came out. It also started the odious trend of new regions copying Kanto, by recycling many of Kanto's landmarks such as the Safari Zone, the cycling road, etc., resulting in the series becoming increasingly formulaic. It dropped most of Gen II's most unique and best received features, such as the day/night cycle, weekly events, etc. I could go on and on.

 

[Auraninja]

Gen III was the worst generation, and I'm not exaggerating. It almost caused me to drop Pokémon altogether.

Subjective.

From my experience, most of the Gen III lovers are people who started with it, so they can't help looking at it through nostalgia goggles (and didn't realize how disappointing it was compared to previous generations when they first played it, having no prior experience with Pokémon games).

While I do have nostalgia for it, I started with Gen II and have also played most of Gen I before Gen III.

R/S dropped compatibility with old games, screwing old players over.

They couldn't prevent that.

It restricted players to Hoenn Pokémon (despite having all Pokémon in the code), and then forced them to buy more games to catch the rest.

This is hardly unique to R/S. Yeah, they have more missing Pokemon than say, G/S, but it's kind of the standard now for better or worse.
You do seem to acknowledge this later on in your post, so I won't say much more on this.

It had a nigh-nonexistent post-game, by contrast with Gen II, with had a whole second region with its own set of gyms. And no, Emerald's Battle Frontier wasn't enough to make up for it.

I would argue that G/S's Kanto Gyms isn't even a post game, and if it was, then G/S has a very short main campaign.

All the complaints about X/Y's lackluster postgame and Sw/Sh's Dex cut reflected many of fans' most common complaints about R/S when it came out. It also started the odious trend of new regions copying Kanto, by recycling many of Kanto's landmarks such as the Safari Zone, the cycling road, etc., resulting in the series becoming increasingly formulaic.

You can have similar features like Safari Zone and be different. Other features like Cycling Road are more callbacks than straight up copied.

It dropped most of Gen II's most unique and best received features, such as the day/night cycle, weekly events, etc. I could go on and on.

The day/night cycle would have frozen up after the battery went out, leaving permanent day or night. The one advantage in hardward R/S has over G/S is that the battery drying up in R/S doesn't lead to save data termination. In G/S the save file would disappear, so the battery wouldn't freeze the time because it the save data would disappear regardless.

 

[RedBlastoise]

I loved Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen but my opinions of Ruby and Sapphire are way lower because they had a really bad postgame with almost nothing to do unless you liked the Battle Tower.

 

[Ignition]

Eh Gen 3 is the middle of the road. None of its games are something I’d consider to be the best of the series and while I appreciate the new additions (Pokémon, characters, Abilities, Natures, Doubles), there’s nothing I think is extraordinary. Also Hoenn is a chore to get through when most of its routes are boring and tedious water routes. Also Battle Frontier is overrated

 

[Sakuyamon]

The games from generation 3 were amazing there's no denying that but I don't think I would go as far as to claim that generation 3 was the best.

I hated how hard it was to fill the Dex in those games and how you needed to trade between RSE, FRLG and the GameCube games to fill the Dex.

 

[RedBlastoise]

The games from generation 3 were amazing there's no denying that but I don't think I would go as far as to claim that generation 3 was the best.

I hated how hard it was to fill the Dex in those games and how you needed to trade between RSE, FRLG and the GameCube games to fill the Dex.

Yeah I hated how you had to rely on so many different games just to catch 'em all. Getting Ho-Oh and Lugia was especially hard since they were only found in Colosseum, Gale of Darkness and through the event tickets.

 

[Leonhart]

Getting Ho-Oh and Lugia was especially hard since they were only found in Colosseum, Gale of Darkness and through the event tickets.

Even though Houou and Lugia could be attained by playing those games, I never got the chance to get them via those methods since I never actually bought those games myself. A friend of mine owned Colosseum, although he kept the Houou for himself and didn't trade it despite him having cloned it with the Emerald cloning glitch.

 

[jaden767]

Gen 3 is amazing even if I don't agree that it's the best. I hated how the time and day system got removed but I loved the new Pokemon and the Hoenn region. The Kanto remake games were cool too.

 

[Hunter Zolomon]

I really enjoyed the Battle Frontier in Pokemon Emerald. The Battle Frontier was a load of fun. The gen 3 games have amazing legendary Pokemon as well. Gen 2 is still my favorite of all time, but the gen 3 games definitely rank high for me.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I think Gen III is the most balanced pre-Fairy type but I don’t think it’s the best. The biggest flaw for me is the near impossibility to complete the Pokédex if you only have one GBA or DS and no link cables or wireless adapter to trade between games. Add in the reliance on the GBA Player to get Jirachi and Pokémon found in Coliseum and XD and you have another major hinderance as the GBA Player is pretty hard to find at a reasonable price given that it didn’t sell very well.

 

[Ditto B1tch]

Yes, it is the best. All the next game versions so far are strongly inspired in the third generation style. The formula worked really well.
Only fault of Generation III is not adding new types that would fit perfectly the Pokemon added in that generation (sound type for Whismur's line, Jigglypuff's line; and cosmic type for Jirachi and Deoxys) and many others added in later generations.

 

[Sakuyamon]

I think Gen III is the most balanced pre-Fairy type but I don’t think it’s the best. The biggest flaw for me is the near impossibility to complete the Pokédex if you only have one GBA or DS and no link cables or wireless adapter to trade between games. Add in the reliance on the GBA Player to get Jirachi and Pokémon found in Coliseum and XD and you have another major hinderance as the GBA Player is pretty hard to find at a reasonable price given that it didn’t sell very well.

Yeah back in gen 3 you had to work extra hard to get all the Pokemon and you needed to trade alot. I love how easy things are now but that was a big flaw in the older games.

 

[Orphalesion]

Not sure about "best" generation, but it's defenitely the generation where Pokemon got *really* good for me. In Gen 1 and 2 many types were restricted to just one or two lines or difficult to find during the maingame (Dark for example) And I really disliked that.

And then Gen 3 came along and suddenly there were a whole number of Dragon, Ghost, Steel, Dark etc. Pokemon. When I ran itno Poochyena on the first route, I couldn't believe that you get a Dark type this early, and that Mightyena stayed with me till the end.

It was also the first generation when Pokemon designs became really colourful, having more than just one or two colours to them. So I liked that as well.