Something shifted the moment I found myself in Hoenn. Pokémon here isn't just a collecting game — it's a story where the landscape changes depending on whether you're destroying it or saving it. Yes, Game Boy Advance knew that back in 2002.

Ruby is a sequel to the series, but fundamentally different. You become someone who travels across the sea, trudges through dusty deserts, climbs enormous flowers. The criminal Team Magma wants to awaken ancient beasts — and you have to stop them, which basically means wandering the map, collecting eight badges, and defeating the league. Routine? Yes. But new are the colors, the dynamism, better animations, and especially the physical environment that actually changes — burning buildings, flooded areas, drought.

It plays the same way — pick your starter Pokémon, whether Treecko, Torchic, or Mudkip, and then do what you learned in previous installments. You catch, train, battle, collect experience. Battles remain turn-based, unhurried, without surprises. But generation three brought physical and special attacks distinguished by type, which is a change that now seems crucial — and it took a while before it became standard. In Ruby you still have to learn it, because the game doesn't explain it properly.

Why do we remember it? Because it was the right time. GBA had color, had the power to make the game look like a real world instead of an abstract grid. Hoenn as a region has its own character — tropical, ever-changing, at times almost unsettling. And then there are the Legendary Pokémon — Kyogre and Groudon, giant water and earth beasts that are essentially the source of all the trouble. This isn't just collecting — it's your share in the catastrophe you have to stop.

Today you see it differently. The graphics are tiny and pixelated, but colorful — still pretty. The pace is slower than you're used to from phones. The game has no hint system telling you where to go; you have to remember or check YouTube. But if you're okay with classic RPG without rush and you love changing weather, seas, and various biomes on one small map, Ruby is still fascinating.