Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (Nintendo GameBoy Advance) - Retro Game Review - Tama Hiroka

Today Tama reviews Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, games that have been criminally misunderstood for their entire existence. Can Tama overcome her Pokemon nostalgia to look at the game for what it really is? How does history reshape our understanding of what they were trying to say?

You are definitely gonna wanna see my reviews of other Pokemon games:

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I stream on Twitch as TamashiiHiroka

Sources:

0:00 - Intro
1:33 - Part 1: The (hi)story
9:12 - Part 2: What we didn’t see
22:31 - Part 3: Weird risks that put people off
39:14 - Conclusion

#Pokemon #Ruby #Sapphire #PokemonRuby #PokemonSapphire #GBA

[Tama-Hero]

There was a lot this video needed to do, including examine a game's themes through the lens of newly discovered information and look critically at something I have never focused on that way before. I didn't have room to talk about every single aspect of these games and whether they hold up nor could I fully discuss all of the parts that I love about them and explain why that is. So I may end up following this up with another video some time where I have room to do that more. This video has a couple very specific jobs to do and in doing that eats up 42 minutes so for now I will have to leave it where it is lol. I hope that you will join me when I return to these games in the future and am able to share more of my feelings and thoughts. I just have a lot of feelings about video games okay

[truegreen]

People ALWAYS have to understand that every part of history has context. You did a great job setting the stage for this review.

[Zai_Nomi]

Fun story about the regi codes: I was on holiday with my family and a friend when we got to the regi part. We didn't have any internet whatsoever. So to crack the code we used the braille on a drug package to slowly figure out the alphabet. It took us ages but we felt like absolute masterminds :D

[rattyeely]

Watching the beginning of this video just learning about the history of land reclamation in Japan and then slowly realizing you were basically describing the real-life version of these games plot was really cool, great video

[mexican]

I know a guy who caught a feebass and bred them and sold them. He made the prices high and sold only male ones so he would have a monopoy.

[rongray]

Lol, "too much water." Sounds like Team Magma propaganda.

[BGsofia]

Did you... did you just explain, give the whole backstory, almost 20 years later, the whole Magma vs Aqua thing? That's huge! Can't wait until this video gets traction among the Pokemon community, this new perspective changes everything!

I must admit, at first I threw a little bit of a tantrum when I started playing Ruby&Sapphire. I was very attached to Crystal, still am, and I resented everything that changed. However, once I actually played the games, I really enjoyed them. I LOVED hunting down the Regis, it spoke to my love for adventure stories as a kid, made me feel like Indiana Jones (that needs to be the concept for the next live-action Pokémon movie!).

I agree with you that the Hoenn games' story is very underrated. In fact, I've been stating for a while that ORAS' story can rival gen 5's -- now that they took the time to flesh out the entire main cast (Maxie, Archie, their admins, the rivals, Steven, his dad...), adding Zinnia and the Delta Episode (which one could argue also expands on the dangers of technology, althought IMO it's more tradition vs technology than nature vs technology). Really, ORAS could've been the best games in the series if it weren't for all the hand-holding and no Battle Frontier.


The Hoenn games have always been about celebrating the beauty and richness of nature, of geology, I've known that for a while. I was today years old when I found out the drama behind those celebrations, though. Great job on this video, Tama! Can't wait for the one on FRLG!

[antoniedekoning]

I would also like to point out the fact that rubies and sapphires are two gemstones that are essentially the same crystal structure, Corundum, it's just the way we've perceived it that makes us think they're different. I never really realised how the titles of these games are representing two different ideas that are at their core the same. (I mean the later titles tended to be more on the nose, but RSE really had a lot in terms of interconnected ideas and philosophies)

[Nagol]

I dont like how im old enough for these games to be called "retro" :(

[Thesilentvoice...]

I never knew that environmental issues in Japan were actually reflected in the RSE games. RSE is my favourite gen besides gen 2. Wow. A lot of research must have went into this video. Great job.

[qitiandashen]

Tama: "btw Ruby Sapphire was political the whole time"
Me: *spits out Soda Pop*

[Arashinx]

I played ruby for the ENTIRETY of my childhood and I never had a glimpse of this weight on storytelling. I'm brazilian and only was really fluent at english at the age of 15 or so (when playing pokemon was already 3d), now I'm pretty sad about the message I missed.
I mean, the concepts wouldn't completely translate well since land is not a physical problem living in a continental-size tropical country, ; so my child version didn't really understand why someone would want to wake up a legendary beast to just flood an entire country. There's plenty of room to everybody (especially if you ignore the aristocracy and the slavery past)!
But I just can't think of a better people to listen to this message than young brazilians. I mean, I've been raised listening at school about the amount of trees, and how they used to be everywhere, and how every year people kill another piece of the rainforest at Amazônia even though it's crucial to life anywhere on the planet. I was that one anxious kid that always secretly worried about what would humanity do when the world's natural resources were finished. And always felt dumb about doing it. No other kid ever talked about this things. It's just immensely funny to realize that my favorite Pokémon game for so long has been talking to me when nobody else was. And I just couldn't understand it. I guess even funnier is that through this games, especially pokemon, is that I got interested into understanding english. Maybe I also knew that there were something for me in it too. Who knows, right?
Thank you for giving me this, I thought I had already experienced everything good this game could offer and now it has all been renewed. Pra você que também aprendeu inglês jogando Pokémon, parabéns por chegar até aqui. Um vídeo inteiro em inglês não é pouca coisa não. Tmj e temos que pegar<3

[went]

"I just have a lot of feelings about video games okay"
Hi Tama. We understand you and we love you for that.

[joedorben]

This video is huge, seriously. SO MANY people have shat on RSE over the years for how "nonsensical" the plot and evil teams' motivations were. Need to start pointing them towards this

[lilybeejones]

Okay I don't know how I missed this in my feed, but holy shit Tama. I've followed you for 12 years or something, and these long form reviews are so good. I ADORED the explanation of the land reclamation project. It makes these games feel so much larger, thank you for letting me revisit my childhood through a new lens for 42 minutes.

[JohnGlasscock]

Gen 2 & 3 will always have my heart 🖤

[Kain]

i love these longer, more explained reviews. most reviewers give maybe 20 minuets of the review, but they don't give the review time to explain backstory/ meaning to the game. this is one of the reasons why i love your videos so much, because you show that you actually care about what your talking about and your personal experience with it.

[Viditxonexandxonly]

I love the video.
There is an ocean of meaning you've found and a vast colorful landscape of themes and ideas you explored.

...
Totally unbiased here.

[animatedink]

Gen 3 has remained my favorite gen of the series to this day, and I've been with this series since the very beginning. Hoenn is without doubt the most gorgeous and fascinating region of all, being very diverse with its habitats and its towns. Also as I love being around anywhere there's water, I didn't mind all the ocean travel. For the first time, I got a sense that we REALLY were saving the world of Pokemon when Groudon and Kyogre were released and caused a "the darkest hour" where if we failed, everyone would die. Double battles, secret bases, and the music. Oh my God, the music! And last but certainly not least, my favorite (non-legendary) Pokemon came with this gen, Flygon.

[beebybabby]

it's 2022, i'm 24 years old, Pokemon Sapphire was my first ever videogame and i basically worship Hoenn as my #1 comfort place even now. even still, i had no idea until today that Maxie and Archie's goals actually had a context where they made sense. despite how much i adore the Hoenn games, i always conceded when people talked about how pointless the Magma and Aqua conflict is- and while the writing of it is DEFINITELY too vague in the originals, i've now found an appreciation for it all these years later. thank you so much for this video, it just goes to show that there's always more to learn and understand from eachother!