The Ruins of Alph

[PikaSnap]

What is your opinion of the Ruins of Alph in G/S/C?
What was your experience with the Ruins like?
Did you try to collect all of the Unown?

For me, the Ruins were always a very mysterious place, and the music played within the ruins was one of my very favorite tunes of the games. The easter egg of hearing the Unown noises when turning on your PokeGear radio was also a treat! Plus, the Ruins were the only place to catch Natu and Smeargle- two of my favorite Pokemon!

However, I seemed to always struggle with the sliding puzzle games! The only puzzle I could solve was Kabuto, the others were so hard for me to solve because the pieces were so grainy and pixelated. Aerodactyl and Ho-oh were especially hard for me to solve!

I never managed to catch all of the Unown, because imo the prize of collecting the whole alphabet was never worth it to me.

Discuss the Ruins below!

 

[Lorde]

I didn't care much for the Ruins of Alph if I'm being honest. I mean the puzzles there were cool, but only being able to solve them once was disappointing in my opinion. I collected all 26 Unown from there in Silver version at least, but that was it.

 

[KyogreThunder]

I found the location to be mysterious,but I wish there were more puzzles to solve.The treasure chambers in Crystal and the remakes were cool,though.

 

[Kalosian]

The ruins were a somewhat interesting place, I did personally find it to be one of the very few places of interest in Johto. They felt mysterious to some degree which I liked. My experience with the ruins was nothing out of the ordinary, I solved the puzzles, caught some Unown and picked up items there. Also battled the trainers and caught Natu and Smeargle when I got access to the later area of the ruins. From what I remember, I never tried to collect all of the Unown because I found them rather annoying, they were surprisingly hard to catch and hard to weaken as they were very weak, and the worst thing was when they randomly fled from the battle. As for the puzzles, I remember some of them being rather hard for me to solve as a kid, pretty sure I struggled for a while with some or maybe even most of them.

 

[Miss Alexis]

I loved the concept of Ruins of Alph When I was little I always came back to ruins of alph to solve the puzzles and catch more unowns! I was so excited to see that one day when I tried to leave the ruins, a bunch of scientist surrounded me! After that I continued to catch more unowns and expected more, but was disappointed when nothing happened :/

 

[Primal Crusader V]

The Ruins of Alph was always that place I tended to pass by, only because there's a lot more to do in other areas, such as the Pokeathlon and generally moving on with the story. Don't get me wrong, though. I loved the concept of the Ruins of Alph, and I really think they could have expanded upon it (Aside from the changes implemented in HG/SS). Quite honestly, the area itself gave purpose to the Unown pokemon, but I really believe that, if GF were to add any more features, then a fully-functional cavern filled with puzzles and hidden lore could do the trick.

 

[Tactical Squirtle]

The ruins of alph was a place of great mystery for me (the music surely helped). I got really excited solving each of the puzzles. I only did them because of a rumor I had heard from another kid in school that an item would be found at the end that would unlock Celebi (Ilix forest also had mysterious music). It was definitely a great addition to the game IMO, however I wish there was more of an event/reward once completing all of the puzzles.

 

[Aquarelle]

I thought the Ruins of Alph were very interesting when I first played GSC as a kid. I used to make up my own stories about the history of the ruins and whatnot when playing. I caught a few of the Unown on my Gold, but the only game in the series where I caught all of them was my Platinum. I've always been kind of "meh" about the Unown tbh and just didn't feel like getting them all on GSC (I may go back and catch them all on HGSS later, though).

My favourite part of the ruins was definitely the sliding puzzles. Those were pretty fun and I loved trying to complete them. I was okay at the Kabuto puzzle, but the other ones always gave me trouble. I didn't know what half the pieces were supposed to be.
Still, I think I managed to complete them all on Gold eventually.

 

[Kutie Pie]

The Ruins of Alph has to my favorite area in Johto. It got its legend expanded in Crystal, but in Silver, it was very mysterious, if a bit creepy. The puzzles were a great touch, I felt, I've always loved puzzles, so to have that in the game made me happy, complete with the "LE GASP" that I let out when the floor gave way the first time and entering a suddenly-empty ruin. It was also nice that they got progressively more difficult, even if it was frustrating at first. The Unown were a bit of a surprise, I remember, and I thought it was awesome that they were all different. It took me a bit to realize they were of the alphabet, and so I had fun figuring out which ones were what letter, even catching all 26 of them on the request of the researcher, and eventually I was able to read them. I thought figuring it out made me "special", lol.

The music still unnerves me, though, yet I still keep going back there (which is a bit ironic because it's the same for Ilex Forest, and that place has always creeped me out through the music alone). I think I discovered the radio signal on accident, it was one of the weirdest, freakiest things in the game.

I remember two "rumors" that a couple of friends had made up surrounding the Ruins of Alph. In elementary school, the one friend said that the Unown were just underlings to a larger eyeball that laid dormant in the Ruins. In middle school, the other friend said in Crystal, you could battle Ancient Mew after collecting all of the Unown and other mumbo-jumbo in which the Ruins crumble to reveal the Mew mural and the Mew comes out of it.

I was a pretty gullible kid at the time, and also I didn't use the Internet as much around that time, so I never questioned the authenticity (though I was a bit skeptical with the Ancient Mew encounter). Still are fun memories, though, of old-school playground rumors.