Vol. 1, Issue 27 - The Legacy of Pokémon: Part 4 - Generation 3
The continuation of The Legacy of Pokémon feature, focusing on my experiences through the third generation of Pokémon, the latest Pokémon news, and more from the mailbag!
Johto Times issue 27 is here! For this issue, I will be sharing the next part of my ongoing feature: The Legacy of Pokémon. In part 4, I dive into my experiences with Generation 3, detailing Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire, playing FireRed and LeafGreen, and attempting to get a high score in Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire for the Official Nintendo Magazine! We have more news and more from our mailbag, so Wynaut grab yourself a drink, sit back, and relax with our latest issue?
News
The Pokémon World Championships 2023 begins tomorrow, August 11th - 13th 2023 in Yokohama, Japan. The annual tournament brings together trainers from around the world to compete in games such as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon Unite, Pokémon GO and the Pokémon TCG. You will be able to keep up to date with everything related to Worlds via the official website. We wish all participants the very best of luck!
Source: Pokémon
Prior to Worlds 2023, a special concert took place today (August 10th 2023) by the NHK Symphony Special Orchestra, featuring pieces of Pokémon and classical music, which was live streamed on the Official YouTube Channel. Proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Pokémon With You Foundation, which was set up to provide disaster relief for children affected by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. An archived replay (with the exception of a few titles) can be accessed until August 14th 2023 for anyone who was unable to watch it live. At a later date, a digest version will be available on “Pokémon Kids TV” YouTube channel.
Source: ePlus.jp
A Pokémon Presents live stream aired on August 8th detailing the latest news on products, events and services by The Pokémon Company. We have summarised some of the announcements below:
A new short animated series was announced called Pokémon: Path to the Peak. Set in the world of competitive Pokémon trading card game play, it features a hero named Ava with her partner Pokémon, Oddish. The first episode will be available on the official Pokémon YouTube channel from August 11th 2023.
An Original Animated Web Series called Pokémon: Paldean Winds was also announced, focusing on several academy students as they grow and come into their own. This series will begin on September 6th 2023.
More information was given on the upcoming Detective Pikachu Returns title for Nintendo Switch, releasing on October 6th 2023. The game can now be pre-ordered on the Nintendo eShop and at participating retailers.
A new trailer for the Pokémon Horizons anime, along with updates on mobile titles Pokémon GO, Pokémon Masters EX, Pokémon Unite, Pokémon Sleep, and Pokémon Café Remix were discussed.
Pokémon Trading Card Game, originally released on Game Boy Color, and Pokémon Stadium 2, originally released on Nintendo 64, are now available to Nintendo Switch Online users (Please note: Pokémon Stadium 2 is only available to those with the premium Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription).
A new event called Get Mew and Mewtwo has begun in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. Players are eligible to receive Mew until September 18th 2023, by entering the code GETY0URMEW in the Mystery Gift menu. Then, between September 1st - 17th 2023, you will be able to face Mewtwo with the Mightiest Mark, in an in-game Tera Raid Battle event. It was promised that ‘something special’ would occur if you take Mew to the fight!
The Teal Mask, part one of Scarlet and Violet's DLC content (The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero), received a release date of September 13th 2023. A new trailer showed off further information on both The Teal Mask and Part 2: The Indigo Disk.
Additionally, brand new Pokémon were revealed! First up is an evolution of Applin called Dipplin, which resembles a toffee apple. An evolution of Duraludon called Archaludon, and two new Paradox Pokémon based on Raikou (Raging Bolt) and Cobalion (Iron Crown), were also revealed.
An archive of the stream can be found below to see the announcements in full:
Source: The Pokémon Company
Feature: The Legacy of Pokémon: Part 4 - Generation 3
By the time Ruby & Sapphire were ready to release in the UK, many of my local friends and those who I knew growing up were drifting away from Pokémon but my love for the series continued to grow. At that time I didn’t own a Game Boy Advance (GBA), and while money wasn’t as tight as it used to be, I definitely couldn’t justify the price of the console. I was trying desperately to find a good deal so I could purchase the game at launch but with consoles selling for between seventy and ninety pounds at the time it was looking very unlikely.
One morning on July 4th 2003, exactly three weeks before the release of Ruby & Sapphire, I was out shopping with my mum and came across a small independent store with a GBA in the window. There wasn’t a price on it, but because there was also a Game Boy Color marked up at forty-five pounds I assumed it would cost significantly more than that. Despite this, I went in to the shop and asked the guy behind the counter if he could get it out of the window so I could inspect it. I noticed it had no battery cover, and had a few light scratches across the screen. I asked the employee if he had a price in mind for it.
The person behind the counter was taking care of the shop while his boss was out, and he was unsure about the price, so he pulled out a catalogue from under the desk to get a rough estimate on the value. I made the point that it didn’t have its battery cover, or its original box, and that it had some scratches on the screen, and asked him to factor those things into the price. I expected to hear a ballpark figure of around sixty pounds, or another figure way above what I could afford, but was shocked when he asked if fifteen pounds would be OK. I couldn’t quite believe my ears and in response I simply dove into my wallet, paid the money, and left quickly before he could change his mind. My mum couldn’t understand why I had the stupidest grin on my face for the rest of the day; it was because I could now afford my first Pokémon game at retail launch!
Three weeks later I went to my local Gamestation, obtained my copy of Pokémon Ruby, and absolutely loved it. Everything about the game felt so new and shiny compared to Crystal, and despite seeing all those screenshots on Serebii leading up to release, I was even more impressed once it was actually in my hands. I was finally experiencing the Hoenn region for myself. The one feature I was most looking forward to was creating my own secret base. My first base was inside a cave on Route 116, eventually I settled into a larger base inside a shrub just outside of Fortree City. Secret Bases were a ton of fun, and I enjoyed decorating them with all sorts of items I collected throughout the game.
During this generation Latios became my favourite Pokémon, and quite overwhelmingly so! I don’t clearly remember why; it was probably something as simple as being a really cool looking Pokémon, and how he was shaped like a jet plane and would move super fast, especially in the Pokémon Heroes movie. In various chatrooms and online forums I adopted the nickname of Latios, and it’s the Pokémon a lot of my friends would associate me with back then.
He featured prominently across my community’s forum banners, avatars and forum signatures, and it was the main reason I chose Pokémon Ruby over Sapphire since it was the version that gave easiest access to Latios. When I finally encountered it in the game I already had a Master Ball and used it without hesitation. Some friends even drew Latios artwork for me, which I was super appreciative of. Latios continued to be my number one favourite for a few more generations until another came along to steal his crown…
During my research for this feature, I discovered that my original team consisted of a Groudon (Lv. 62), a Latios (Lv. 58), a Blaziken (Lv. 54), a Pelipper (Lv. 50), a Sharpedo (Lv. 44) and a Salamence (Lv. 50). However, the first entry in the Hall of Fame where this information would have been displayed has been overwritten, as the game only stores the first fifty entries. Because of this, I was only able to source the information from entries 3 and 4. Pokémon Ruby was also the game in which I captured my first full-odds shiny: a Zigzagoon! I evolved it, but aside from showing it off to people for bragging rights, it never really got much use.
The following year, on February 21st, 2004, Gamestation stores across the UK hosted an EON Ticket Event, which allowed the player to visit a special location in-game called Southern Island to catch a Latios (in Sapphire) or Latias (In Ruby). One of those events happened at my local store, allowing me to catch the counterpart to Latios. I never believed I would see an official Pokémon event anywhere nearby, as many of them seemed to happen in much larger cities miles from my hometown, so I was super excited by this news. I jumped at the opportunity to visit. The day was pretty great: I received the Latias and a goodie bag filled with various items like posters, mini figures and temporary tattoos. The best part of the event was meeting other Pokémon fans, one of which was Gavin, someone who became a good friend and one I am still in contact with.
I also used to play Ruby & Sapphire with my friend Adam, that same friend who originally let me play his copy of Pokémon Gold on his pink Game Boy Color. By complete coincidence, it turned out that Adam and Gavin were already friends, and the three of us continued to battle, trade Pokémon, and share our secret base creations together. Gavin would come over to play Pokémon Colosseum with me on my GameCube, and he even managed to obtain a copy of Pokémon Channel so we could both catch a Jirachi!
I remember winning a couple of online giveaway contests in 2003 and 2004. The first was some Pokémon cards from one of the websites I mentioned earlier called Pokéschool, which I won by making five posts on their new forum. I received a Winner Stamped Dark Venusaur promo card and a Holo Fire Energy Pokémon League promo.
The other contest I won was for being the one millionth visitor to a Pokémon fan website called HomeNHeart, which was also known as Pokémonaholic. The contest was called “One in a million”, and the prize was an electronic Pokédex. It took months to arrive as it was sent via surface shipping and I had almost given up hope of it ever being delivered. But eventually it did, and it was such a cool item that I never got the chance to own previously; I was super grateful for it. I still have these prizes, and sometimes I look back at them with some fond memories; I will always be thankful to the generosity of those online communities that provided them for their readers.
On October 1st 2004, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen arrived in the UK. The retailer GAME was selling both titles as a bundle at launch for fifty pounds, so Gavin and I went to the store to purchase them and split the cost between us. We both initially wanted FireRed, but after a discussion, Gavin agreed to buy LeafGreen instead. We took them into the local shopping centre to test the bundled wireless adapter so we could gauge the signal range between us.
Gavin stood on one side of the centre, and went up to a different floor in the elevator, and we would check to see if we were still connected inside the multiplayer lobby: the Union Room. Obviously the range was abysmal, but wireless battling and trading in the first Pokémon remake was pretty fun and I had a great time with it. While I enjoyed the remake, all I really wanted at the time was an updated version of Gold and Silver, which was first fuelled by hearing remixes of some of Johto’s music in the post-game content: the Sevii Islands.
By 2006 I was getting older, and pretty much every person I knew who enjoyed Pokémon growing up around me had long since moved on from the series. I also began to drift further from the franchise; I had stopped watching the movies and the anime, and no longer had interest in collecting the trading cards or any merchandise. I started to have less time for the online community I had built up and wasn’t actively searching for the latest information on the series.
I went to sixth form college and started to play different kinds of games on Nintendo such as Metroid and Super Smash Bros., and less of Pokémon. But shortly after college I found a copy of Pokémon Emerald in a local WHSmith store, and decided to treat myself as a reward for completing my studies. While I enjoyed revisiting Hoenn, it wasn’t quite the same, and I started to question if I was finally done with the franchise.
Towards the end of 2006 and into early 2007 I spent a few months trying to get the highest score I could in Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire in order to submit it to the Official Nintendo Magazine. I really enjoyed this spin-off title and was determined to get the best score I could. I spent hours trying to build up a large multiplier in order to increase my score. While I was able to reach a massive score of 20,261,568,631, it still wasn’t enough to top the leaderboard for the three months the event ran. Regretfully during one month in particular however, I didn’t submit my score in time for the magazine to go to print, and I would have been on top of the leaderboard for that issue of the magazine…
Mailbag
Want to be a part of our newsletter? You’re welcome to submit content including (but not limited to) questions, fanart, short stories, your cherished memories, photographs of your collection, and anything else you think you want us to see. This week, Tristan from Issue 23 has got back in touch once again with another question for our mailbag!
What was your thoughts of the Detective Pikachu movie?
Tristan S, North Carolina
Hi, Tristan! It’s great to hear from you again, and thank you for your question! Despite being sceptical to begin with, I found Detective Pikachu to be a very enjoyable movie. I enjoyed the story and the connection between Tim and Pikachu (played by Justice Smith and Ryan Reynolds respectively). I am a big fan of Reynolds, so I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. It proved to me that Pokémon live-action movies can absolutely work, and I hope that we will see a sequel to it in the future. A big shout-out to the credits of the film too, which were a nice throwback to the original Game Boy games. If there are any readers who have yet to see Detective Pikachu, I urge you to do so!
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