20 years of Ruby & Sapphire.
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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