Hoenn: Cooler than you think

[Swampert91]

theres nothing wrong with having a big region it makes it longer but frustrating but i personally like the hoenn region cause i just love mudkip!!!

[luciano]

Loved Mudkip as well. Very exotic and I loved the feel of it.

[Bedazzled]

I really enjoyed Hoenn. i actually had alot of pokemon that were consitered 'rare' in other 3rd generation games, or so my friend says. one thing I hated was the extremely long path going to fortree. if it had a cute little town in the middle I'd be happy, but once I start playing my game again I'll have to redo that. D;

thing I loved about it was the big changes in pokemon. like all the variety of water and fire and not much grass. oh, and the electric. thing I hated was groudon.

[Shinra]

Hoenn was probably my favorite behind Johto, mainly because of the Pokemon. It felt a lot like Hawaii for some odd reason, and I'd never been to Hawaii.

[Midna312]

Ruby was my first pokemon game. I miss the Hoenn region cuz I got a DSI XL so I can't play ds games anymore... I love Hoenn!

[Danika294]

Hoenn wasn't all bad. I did like that it had a whole new feel to it. I miss using Dive and having fun underwater. Its not my favourite region but I don't hate it either.

And by the way, what is so bad about Sinnoh? I LOVED Sinnoh. I had wayyyy too much fun there.

[Lucario]

So most of the time maybe people tend to like the region of their first pokemon game. just like me i like johto coz silver was my first game. so if i were to rank them it would be "Johto, Sinnoh, Kanto, Hoenn". well this doesn't mean i hate hoenn. and maybe there are people like me who are sentimental(nostalgic) maybe that's why they prefer the old generation's stuff/thingy. even gamefreak added the GB sounds for HGSS.

well if hoenn was bigger maybe it will be all better. but i love it's mysteries too. it is because of the gen3 game that i sharpened my RPG gamer instincts. i mean not all of pokemaniacs around knew how to hunt the regis.

oh.. just to share.. one time i played my FR on my ds and it is like WT*. it looked so lame in terms of graphics. technology sure is fast.

[MACandCHEEZWIZ1]

Hoenn was my least favourite region for a few reasons.

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The rivals are terrible. They have no personality, and no competitive drive. Wally, maybe, but he wasn't that exciting. Brendan/May never even fully-evolved their starter. HUH I LosST AgEN? Lol I GivE up ImmA Go HElp My Dad kthxbai. The evil teams were stupid. They were trying to do idiotic things. Hey guys, let's get rid of all water on the planet to make the world a better place! Hey guys, let's get rid of all the land. We aren't even thinking of the OBVIOUS repercussions. The music comes next. Now I'm not saying that Ruby and Sapphire had terrible music, but a lot of it just didn't appeal to me. Yeah, I know, trumpets everywhere. If they gradually went into the theme like they did now, and used a few different instruments, I would be fine. But it was Fortree's theme that made me want to get out of there as soon as possible. The geography was fantastic, except for quite a few water routes. If they just added a few islands and rocks everywhere to make it like a maze, I would have loved it. Dive was so cool, and it felt neat to be under the sea, looking for treasure and rare Pokémon. Hoenn was ahead of its time. The things they wanted to show just couldn't be shown, even with the GBA's graphics. Mount Chimney would look amazing on the 3DS, with a red volcanic glow lighting up the area around it at night. The character designs could use some touching-up. Brendan looked alright during Emerald, but more could be done for the hat/hair thing. May's appearance is a bit bland. The Regi thing was superb. Thanks to Gen III, I know Braille. The amount of stuff you would have to go through to get some legendaries is astounding, but worth it. The post-game content could use a bit of work. The Gym puzzles were fun, and were some of my favourites, but could be expanded a bit. The Pokémon designs were neat, and they have a very Hoenn feel to them.

If I had to compare, in my own opinion, IV > II > I > III, but that could change in time. Gen I is Pokémon at its absolute base. Gen II was an expansion to Gen I, and that connection just stood out for me. It was also my first game (Silver, although I wanted Red before), so it nostalgia might be affecting my opinion. Gen III felt like it had nothing to do with anything, but it did introduce a significant overhaul to the structure of a Pokémon, and I accept that it had to happen, despite the lack of connectivity. FireRed and LeafGreen were Gen III and Gen I together, but it fixed a few problems Ruby and Sapphire had. Emerald was definitely the most complete. The music introduced in it sounded much better than Ruby and Sapphire. Gen IV is my favourite Gen. It felt the most complete. It contained a significant amount of content and graphical updates that brought back quite a few players. The layouts of HeartGold and SoulSilver are beautiful, and it's that subtle tings like the wind and being beside the water that get me. Platinum feels like the highlight of Gen IV, and complete the story nicely. Cyrus' goal to destroy the universe is given a reason. He even knows fully well what he's doing. Even the inclusion of Arceus and its constant relation to the story in small ways was a real treat. I haven't yet played Gen V, but from what I've seen and heard, the story is the most interesting yet. Plus, I can't get over the fact that Game Freak included all that stuff on two tiny cartridges.

[wraith89]

I agree that Gen III was the black sheep of the Pokemon games... (maybe Gen V now... but I have not played it yet so I cannot tell)... but Gamefreak did the right thing though. They decided to start over again and overhaul the entire Pokemon series, at the expense of the old Gen I/II games. They later started developing on that concept via Gen IV, so all was not lost, but at that time, yeah, Gen III did feel really different. High risk, high reward... and Pokemon still grows. Storyline was weird, your "rival" wasn't really too powerful, the E4 ladies had repeats of Pokemon all over their team which kinda sucked (what a shame... Ghost and Ice are two of my favorite typings)... and a lot of stuff felt lacking in Gen III. The Pokemon were exotic, which was pretty cool, and the starters were no longer "rehashes of each other" (Gen I/II starters have nearly the same stats... Charizard = Typhlosion stat wise, no joke). Nonetheless, it was still Pokemon to me, but I cannot say the same about Gen V, but that's a different story altogether.

[RenegadeShroom]

Let me state, for the record, Sceptile/Blaziken/Swampert <3

Now, moving on. I liked Hoenn's exotic atmosphere, and Pokemon designs were great, overall. Flygon and Sceptile especially. :]

The plot may not have been much, for a mainstream Pokemon game, but the geography was awesome, music was quite good, and I actually had fun exploring the region, it brought me back to the first time I played Yellow version. Hoenn was my favourite region, seeing as I don't judge mainstream Pokemon games by their story, anda remake would be abso-frackin'-lutely awesome. That is all.

[wraith89]

lol... Pokemon is like the only game I do not play for story (probably because it isn't all that interesting... unlike Fire Emblem or something) so I guess I can overlook that. The region exploration was quite fun, especially stuff like the Regis, who would otherwise be hidden (without a guide I think I would have NEVER known about their existence or how to even get them... although one guy in Pacifilog [sp?] mentions the three beings of rock, ice, and steel), half of Hoenn being filled with water, volcanoes, the route with ashes looking like snow, etc...

[RenegadeShroom]

Agreed, entirely. Pokemon story, aside from PMD2, sucks, horribly.

[Elendriel]

If anyone read my introduction a couple of days ago, you´ll know that I´m quite the old fan for the PKMN games. Been playing since the B/R/Y days. Every gen has brought us something different and just to say it... amazing. With the first ones was the games themselfs, second one we got a way to Reproduce our beloved pkmn, making it possible to get, lets say, all three starts without having to restart a game. It also brought us new types and new features like the always loved PokeGear plus the first time we where able to be outside on the dark and really see it on a game.

Hoenn brought, a break from Team Rocket and the mostly over exploited Kanto region, lets face it, doing the same thing for a third time on the row... it would have killed the franchise right there and then. So they parted from EVERYTHING that we knew, and tried to show us that the diversity on the pokemon world was not only on the pokemon, but on the world itself. We got some many things that at least I was expecting... like being able to actually dive and go into an active volcano. Yeah the not being able to get most of the old pokemon was a disappointment, but lets face it we got some pretty good ones out of the change (like the beldum, ralts, trapinch lines, to name a few). We got to fly, dive, climb on trees and go into dangerous caves... and after we were over with that they gave us something better, a trip back to Kanto to make that pokedex shine complete (lets face it, they were planing to make us buy 5 games since R/S came out).

Hoenn was not bad, it was different, but that doesn´t make it bad. I for one loved the games they were new and amazing and thank Sugimori, different (and that decision must have been hell to make)

[mebizzle]

I started with Blue way back when Pokemon was released here and I have had at least 2 games from every gen since then. I have to say though, despite Kanto and Johto being fond childhood memories, Hoenn has been my favorite setting yet. Yes, after being spoiled by the 16 badges in Gen II it sucked being cut off (and I still think that we should be able to visit every region in a single game sometime in Gen V or Gen VI) but Hoenn was exotic. It helped too that the technology had made a leap from the GBC to the GBA, but I still loved the R/S games (never played Emerald). The only thing that I didn't really like about them overall were the Pokemon designs; I liked alot of them, but the ones I don't like I really couldn't care less about.

[Splittah]

I loved Gen 3. I played Ruby first. Then got half-way through Sapphire until Emerald came out and finished it twice. I agree that it did have the Hawaii/tropical feel to it however the abundance of water and the presence of Mt. Pyre just bugged me through the whole game. I actually skipped the Fortree Gym and went to the next city before I came back.