Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anticlimax Boss: One of the more noted weakness of this set of games is that both the rival (who doesn't fully evolve his/her starter and is the only one who can't be battled infinitely) and the Aqua/Magma Bosses (who only use a mere three Pokémon, all of them ones that every one of their grunts use) are really pathetic compared to the rivals and evil team leaders in the rest of the series. Thankfully, this is more or less rectified in the remakes thanks to Brendan/May actually evolving their teams fully in Lilycove and getting one last hoorah as the Post Final Boss complete with their Mega Evolving starter! as well as Maxie and Archie adding a Weezing/Muk to their teams as well as having access to Mega Evolution with their Camerupt and Sharpedo respectively.
    • Wallace can fall under this in Emerald since his team of Water types can be easily countered, though he can still be a bit infuriating for some.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: This generation started the trend of marking what ball you caught a pokemon in. So yes, if you catch a Legendary in a Poke Ball, everyone will know.
  • Breather Boss: Tate and Liza are fairly easy in Ruby and Sapphire, only having 2 Pokemon between them, both of which are easily taken down by Surf which is required to get to their Gym in the first place. In Emerald though, they really stepped up their game.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny:
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Archie's and Maxie's battle theme.
    • Every battle theme in the whole game. And even the title screen and overworld music could qualify.
  • Demonic Spiders: Whismur. WHISMUR used UPROAR! Half of your team's health meters are yellow (or possibly red) thanks to it doing a lot of damage. And if you're not careful, it can result in a couple Pokémon fainting.
  • Disappointing Last Level: The last quarter of the game requires an immense amount of surfing. Hope you like Tentacool and Wingull (Though lots of repels will certainly help).
  • Discredited Meme: After the "Do you liek Mudkips?" meme came out in full force, a lot of people became sick of it pretty quickly.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Sure, Archie and Maxie were some of the least openly-evil villain bosses to begin with, but some fans go even further and remove any traces of responsibility for their crimes from them. And then there's their underlings, who get this treatment as well despite being Psycho Supporters or Jerkasses.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Mudkip, thanks to Memetic Mutation. There are plenty of people that never evolve their Mudkip at all because of this.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Archie, Maxie, and their Dragons.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Skitty and Wailord.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: The Team Magma grunts.
  • Foe Yay: Shelly seems to flirt with you no matter what your gender.
    • Maxie with Archie, as well as the player in Emerald.
    • Seviper and Zangoose can breed, despite being enemies.
  • Guide Dang It: So you want to catch the Regis do you? Good luck with that one unless you have a guide. That snazzy Milotic you saw Wallace using? Don't even think about trying to get it unless you have a guide. It's just not worth it.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The drought and flood songs are pretty creepy.
  • Junk Rare: Chimecho, found only in one area with a measly 2% encounter rate. Not terrible per se, but still nothing special compared to other easier caught Psychic types.
    • Skitty as well, thanks to it also having a 2% encounter rate.
  • Memetic Badass: Aggron, due to this poster. (Warning: Contains Cluster F Bombs)
  • Memetic Molester: Maxie, in certain fandom circles.
  • Memetic Mutation: so i herd u liek mudkipz
  • Misblamed: The one thing fans seem to remember to blame Game Freak for rather than Nintendo in the Pokémon games is the inability to transfer Pokémon from the first two generations' games to Ruby and Sapphire onward. However, this is - coincidentally enough - the one complaint that the company had no control over - the Game Boy Advance wouldn't allow interaction with the Game Boy and Game Boy Color games at all, even if they wanted to make it possible (which it probably would have been considering every other generation at least allows transfers from the old games to the new ones).
    • Not to mention, the haters of the series as well as even some of the fans...they don't even realize eight years later that Nintendo is only the publisher and most gameplay issues (with the exception of "Cutting off ties to previous generations") were actually due to Game Freak.
  • Moral Event Horizon: In Emerald, Maxie was more than willing to cross this by dumping a ton of rocket fuel into Mt. Chimney to force it to erupt by claiming that there was no more use for it, which would have killed a lot of people. Thankfully, when he's defeated for the last time, he realizes the error of his ways and ceases his criminal activities.
  • Older Than They Think: Species aside, Milotic is the first Shout-Out to The Ugly Duckling, long before Ducklett/Swanna.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Well, Scrappy might be too strong of a word here, but Steven is considerably more popular as the Champion than Wallace.
    • Some prefer Steven to Wallace because Steven uses the Steel type but doesn't exclusively use Steel-type Pokémon due to the lack of Steel-types in the Pokédex, so he's a bit more of a Worthy Opponent than Wallace; who uses Water-types and is quite easy to beat. Your Mileage May Vary; but some also prefer Wallace just because he helps Sceptile catch up...and the Water-type actually is rather powerful due to the "One type uses one stat".
  • The Scrappy: Wingull joins Tentacool and Zubat in the ranks of Pokémon Scrappies thanks to the fact that they're everywhere in aquatic routes.
    • Luvdisc, thanks to being more or less completely useless with it's only worthwhile function being that it provides Heart Scales for the Move Tutor.
    • Spinda to a lesser extent, it's stats are all below average (Sixty across the board), but it's a bit less hated for it's gimmick (No two Spinda share the exact same spot patterns, making them a bit fun to collect for some).
    • Mightyena. Let's see: Intimidate, Swagger, Sand-Attack, and Roar. Surely makes for an annoying foe.
  • Scrappy Mechanic
    • The incredibly exhausting way of catching a Feebas, and then evolving it to a Milotic.
    • The fishing mechanic as a whole was much more needlessly complicated than in the other generations. Previously and after, you would cast your line and wait a few seconds and either get a bite or don't. In this generation, there's a needlessly long series of button pushes that literally amounts to "Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite! Oh a bite!"
    • Berry farming could be aggravating, since it lacked any means of finding where you planted your berries and a dead battery (For the game cartridge, not the system) makes berries completely impossible to grow.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: When originally released, there was no hint of a Generation I remake, meaning that around 184 Pokémon were completely absent from the games. The only hint that they would return was their isolated data, which usually indicates event Pokémon (a very beloved game mechanic). That, combined with a number of expies for the missing 'mons, replacements for Team Rocket, no way to return to Kanto or Johto, minimal time-based events, and an overall similar structure to Generation I led many a fan to think RS was a franchise reboot, and said fans were not happy.
  • That One Boss: Tate and Liza in Emerald really step up their game thanks to not being stuck exclusively with Lunatone and Solrock. In fact, their new strategy makes Surfing them to death a lot less effective thanks to Sunny Day, Light Screen, and Solarbeam on Solrock to handle your water types. Add in Calm Mind which boosts both Special stats, and you realize that they earned their nickname of the "Murder Twins" handily.
    • Norman in general is this, thanks to having TWO Slakings, both of which have ungodly stats and are only stopped from completely flattening your team thanks to their hindering Truant ability. He's slightly less of a That One Boss in Emerald, though, since he only has one Slaking, possibly to make up for Tate and Liza. He's still got that other Slaking, though...
    • Despite being only the second Gym Leader, Brawly can be nasty if you're unprepared. His Makuhita is at level nineteen, four levels higher than Roxanne's ace, and is fought almost directly after her too, making quite the level jump. It's all around nice and bulky, getting even buffer and bulkier thanks to Bulk Up. Get ready to be manhandled by this little fat bastard over and over again, even with a decent flying type on your hands.
    • Wattson is even worse, especially in Emerald thanks to having access to not one, but two Pokémon that are fully evolved earlier than they should be. His Voltorb has access to Self-Destruct (Which is an almost guaranteed one-hit KO this early in the game), his Magneton resists almost everything you throw at it, and his Manectric is powerful in general. And to make things worse, his Pokémon's signature move is Shockwave, meaning all of them are capable of nailing you with a decently powerful STAB move that never misses early in the game. And to make things worse, if you didn't start with Mudkip (gains a ground type upon evolving, making the nightmarish Wattson a pathetic joke)? Better hope you picked up a Geodude at Dewford, because that's the only other Ground type you'll have at this point!
    • Flannery is also pretty bad, but downright nasty in Emerald. Her Torkoal is ridiculously bulky at this point in the game, hits frighteningly hard with Overheat (a ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY BASE POWER FIRE ATTACK, and that's not even factoring in STAB!), Attract to make to where your male Pokémon will have a hard time (Or more accurately, never) attacking, Body Slam to likely (or always) paralyze them, and Sunny Day to weaken water types. To make things, worse, a lot of Flannery's other Pokémon know support moves like Reflect and Light Screen, meaning that if you don't floor them with one hit, by the time Torkoal comes out, you are SCREWED.
    • The last leg of Victory Road, merely inches from the exit, has a surprise (they're hiding under a bridge) encounter with a couple of Ace Trainers. They both have Slaking, and the female also has Gardevoir, which has Skill Swap (one of the skills that can remove Slaking's "moves only every other turn" limiter, Truant, by exchanging abilities; and worse, can pass it to you). Fortunately, you can bypass them, but if it's your first time through, you wouldn't know they were even there until they see you. Good luck.
      • You can just barely see the tops of their heads if you're paying close attention, so you can talk to them individually to avoid the Skill Swap... But since they both have Slaking, even separately they could still count for this.
  • That One Level:
    • The Sky Pillar. Anyone who doesn't have good finger-reflexes and control over the Mach Bike is going to pull their hair out trying to get to Rayquaza, let alone catching the bastard. The good news is if you do catch him, the trip down is trivial since falling down is probably what you've been doing in the pillar. Thankfully, it's so much less of a hassle in Emerald... though the Mirage Tower takes it's place as infuriatingly annoying to navigate.
    • Traversing the ocean is also considered one of the worst parts in all of the main games. On the other hand, the Under the Sea segments are considered some of the most memorable parts, very likely because one can only encounter wild Pokémon if one travels in seaweed. As a result, some people use Dive in order to avoid encounters when surfing.
  • Unconventional Learning Experience: Obtaining the Regis requires the player to learn some Braille.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Wally's Gardevoir is male and always is a male. It's in the data.
    • Also, Maxie. His English Gender Blender Name doesn't help matters.
    • Speaking of Team Magma, TABITHA. Who is male, by the way.
      • And Tabitha's name is even more confusing than Maxie's is.
    • Mossdeep Gym Leader Tate has been mistaken for being a girl by many fans. It doesn't help that he looks almost exactly like his sister, Liza.
  1. ↑ RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL, RYDEL
  2. ↑ "Yes Town? Never heard of it." Or, "You have to have come from somewhere!"
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