Pokémon Ruby Sapphire Starter Trio
Image: Nintendo Life

In 2003, Pokémon was at a bit of a crossroads. The first two sets of entries in its canon — Game Boy debuts Red and Blue, followed by sequels Gold and Silver — had cemented the series as one of the biggest of all time in gaming, defining millennial pop culture. With the arrival of Nintendo’s new handheld, the Game Boy Advance, Game Freak was poised to continue its dominance of the medium with the third generation of critters in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, which saw their European release on this day 20 years ago.

However, it was also a time when the franchise was on a decline from its commercial heyday as the kids who had considered the first two generations as their bread and Butterfree had become uninterested teenagers. Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire still became best-selling titles on the GBA — with reported lifetime sales of over 16 million — but this was still a notable drop from the first two generations, which had surpassed 30 and 20 million, respectively, suggesting a waning of mainstream popularity. Those who were still on board, however, were offered a new adventure in the sunny, standalone region of Hoenn, which popped with 16-bit visual splendour, served up reinvigorated gameplay mechanics and introduced favourites like the meme-able Mudkip, Rayquaza and (sometimes for slightly more disturbing reasons) Gardevoir.

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Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire
Image: The Pokémon Company

While we’re looking back at Ruby and Sapphire with decades-old nostalgia, what’s interesting is that nostalgia was actually the catalyst for their very creation. Following the initial trend of basing the Pokémon world on areas of Japan, Hoenn is based on Kyushu, the most southerly, subtropical of the country’s four main islands. It was here that director Junichi Masuda would spend his childhood holidays, escaping the bustling metropolis of Yokohama to visit his grandparents. He’d spend endless summer days exploring the lush wilderness, catching fish and collecting beetles. He’d even build treehouses, which gave life to the Secret Base feature where you could find and decorate your own cosy hidey-hole.

As well as the flora and fauna, the warm-hearted denizens of Kyushu won Masuda’s affection. The friendly southerners inspired the respectful relationship between humans and Pokémon, a central tenet of the games’ theme of harmony. This is even reflected in the name 'Hoenn' itself, which can be loosely translated from Japanese as “abundant bonds.” The director took this to heart; while inspiration stemmed from his grandparents' home, his own daughter, Kiri, was born during development and her namesake would appear as an inquisitive NPC in Sootopolis City. To Masuda, Ruby and Sapphire are a symbol of familial legacy.

It wasn’t just the nebulous concept of childlike wonder that informed the games, though; Kyushu and Hoenn were geographically identical — except that the latter was flipped 90 degrees anticlockwise to better fit on the GBA screen. Several real-life landmarks were closely recreated in Hoenn, too; Mount Aso, an active volcano on the Japanese island, was the basis for Hoenn’s bubbling Mount Chimney, while the numerous onsen around Aso’s base inspired Lavaridge Town. The famous port city of Nagasaki lines up with Slateport City’s market harbour and Masuda’s surprise at how Kyushu’s sea teemed with fish might have influenced Pacifidlog Town, a maritime settlement held above the waves by a shoal of Corsola.

Tanegashima, an island off the coast of Kyushu, was positionally relative to Mossdeep City, and both were home to space centres, with Hoenn’s holding some notoriety. The unassuming location originally didn’t serve any real purpose but featured a wishing rock outside and a launchpad for rockets. Given that there were mythical Pokémon programmed into the games based on wishes and aliens — Jirachi and Deoxys, respectively — it’s no surprise that there were rumours about being able to obtain them via the Space Center, putting many confused players in a Spinda. Not me, of course — even as a kid, I was too shrewd to fall for such hoaxes. Ahem.

The story differed cosmetically between each version. In Ruby, Team Magma was trying to awaken the legendary Groudon to expand the land for humans and Pokémon, while in Sapphire, Team Aqua wanted to harness Kyogre’s power to flood the world for aquatic creatures. These motivations weren’t as manifestly immoral as those of the avaricious Team Rocket — you could even argue that they’re honourable if a little madcap — but Hoenn was a place that relied on balance; that Teams Magma and Aqua threatened that natural equilibrium made them enemies of the people. With such apocalyptic stakes, Ruby and Sapphire were an extension of the bucolic escapism the series was founded upon, pushed to dizzying extremes.

With this new region of Pokémon also came new ways to handle them. Aesthetic and narrative improvements weren’t the only kind present, as Generation III had perhaps the biggest impact on the series’ gameplay to date, adding features that are Absol-utely integral nowadays, especially in the competitive scene. Pokémon now had bespoke abilities and natures that affected how their stats were distributed, which could turn the tide of battle as well as make each player’s team feel more unique. That’s not to mention double battles and a more robust weather system that would have you thinking more tactically about which of your combative companions you sent out. It all felt somehow the same yet very different.

Pokémon has changed over the years (to varying extents of critical success) but Ruby and Sapphire are undeniable waypoints in this evolution. It’s fitting that you can still transfer monsters from them to modern instalments, a sort of cross-time connectivity seldom seen in gaming. Legendary designer Ken Sugimori, who was born in Kyushu, told Nintendo Dream magazine shortly after their release that the theme of Pokémon is “youthful summer vacation adventures.” In that spirit, Masuda’s ambition was to bring his own nostalgic wanderlust to a new generation through advancing technology, producing titles that were as vibrant as they were engrossing. If Hoenn has ever hit you differently compared to other games in the series over the last 20 years, then he succeeded.