Tufts Blogs

With the release of the updated Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby games, it’s time we gave the world’s most profitable RPG franchise and second-most profitable video game franchise overall (after, of course, the Super Mario games) a second look.

12 years ago this month, the original Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire games were released. A year later, Emerald came out, with an updated storyline. These games were groundbreaking in their time, and, personally, are still my favorite in the franchise. First off, the were the first Pokémon games made for the GameBoy Advance format, and the first to appear on the GameBoy Advance SP (which, in my humble opinion, is the still the best mobile gaming device ever made– indestructible, backlit, small enough to fit in your pocket, the first flip console, great battery life, stereo sound, richer colors, etc.) Ruby and Sapphire took full advantage of the more powerful SP, with more diverse battle animations, richer, brighter colors, and more Pokémon than ever.

In Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald (RSE) were the first real updates to graphics. Certainly, Gold and Silver and Crystal offered a wider range of colors than Blue and Red’s respective eponymous hues, but most of the world was made up of the same bland building templates, from literal buildings to grass and trees. In RSE, though, we actually get a number of new visual updates, from even taller grass (which even incorporates new physics– you can’t ride a bike through it) to a variety of trees to new architecture on the buildings. Of particular note is the Devon Corporation’s Headquarters. It’s use of beautiful stone and gothic arches gives you a sense of wealth and stature and assists the storyline as the CEO sends you along on various errands, promising a reward. The company’s grandiose appearance suggests that the prize is actually worth something, and incentivizes you to complete the task. This is a nice break from the seemingly random errands you run in the previous games, with seemingly no connection to the plot.

This is not singular to the Devon Corporation or the game’s graphics– throughout the game, side missions and gyms play a greater role in the actual plot than in previous games, where it seems there is little direction and plot relevance. Previously the story line seemed like an afterthought, secondary to your quest for gym badges. In RSE, the two are intertwined. You cannot advance the story line and challenge the final of eight gym leaders, Wallace, until you have completed the story line, which is justified, not arbitrary, since it is Wallace’s city that is the center of the literal storm that gathers in the third act of the story line, and gym leaders are basically de facto mayors of their towns. Steven, the intrepid and apparently powerful trainer with whom you interact on multiple occasions acts as a sort of mentor and foil to the main character– you. Steven ultimately turns out to be the Champion of the Elite Four, and you get your chance to face off against him in a final realization of success in your quest to be the very best, like no one ever was. 

All this is fairly cursory and shallow analysis. But this game runs deeper. What continues to intrigue me about this game and what keeps it on my top five list of greatest games (along with Bioshock Infinite, MarioKart Double Dash, the Forza franchise, and Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag) is its social commentary in the form of the villains of the games: Teams Aqua and Magma. For the first time in the Pokémon franchise, we get a team other than the classic Team Rocket. What is unique about RSE is that there are two teams and both teams appear in all three games. In Ruby, Team Aqua helps you oppose Team Magma’s attempts to increase landmass by increasing volcanic activity, where in Sapphire you team up with Team Magma to stop Team Aqua’s plans to expand the oceans.

This seems pretty par for the course with a Pokémon game– a misguided and poorly organized team that is doing generally bad things. However, that’s where the similarities end. In RSE, Teams Aqua and Magma are not driven by greed and a desire to control Pokémon for material gain, like Team Rocket, but instead by ideology. They each have propaganda in which they truly believe. Magma asserts that land is necessary for life and more of it would mean more space for people and Pokémon– basically Hitler’s argument for lebensraum, or living space. Aqua maintains that water is necessary for life, and is where we all came from, and that larger oceans would create a richer diversity of life in the Hoenn Region. This ideological split is particularly poignant in Emerald, where you side with neither team, and instead act as a third-party morally neutral arbiter, stopping each team in turn from achieving their extremist ideological goals.

The teams serve as a parallel to politics: two opposing teams, claiming basically the same thing, both desiring the best for humanity, but with opposing opinions on how to achieve their mutual goal. They refuse to accept that they are at all similar, and use ad hominem attacks to tear down the other side.

Sound familiar? Even the teams' colors– red and blue– evoke a comparison to our political system. As divisions in congress are driven ever deeper and entrenched in our society, the lessons of Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald seem more and more relevant. We cannot continue to be so blinded by differences that we do not see that we all ultimately want the same thing. We need to take a lesson from Pokémon and work together to save ourselves. Teamwork, trust, and hard work– these are the lessons we draw from Pokémon. That sounds quaint and naïve, but maybe in today’s cynical world, that’s just what we need– a little dose of innocence and wide-eyed confidence in humanity.

Simple, beautiful graphics, a tighter and more concise plot in an open world game, and sociopolitical commentary– what more could you ask from a game made 12 years ago for 12-year-olds?