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Home Page > Pokemon : The Extra Games - The Red Blimp

'Extra' Games

Having trouble deciding between Yellow and Red? Mixed feelings about Emerald over Sapphire? Take a look at this page to learn about the pros and cons of 'the Third Games'.

Pokemon games usually come in a set of two, for example: Red and Blue*, Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire, and Pearl and Diamond. The first two Pokemon games released (with the exception of the remakes FireRed and LeafGreen) always have an 'extra' game associated with it. It has differences in Pokemon availability, like between the first two, but it always has something extra, which is why here, they are called the 'Extras'.

For Red and Blue, Yellow is the new kid in town. It follows the anime (show) closely, and Jessie and James even appear more frequently than regular Rocket Grunts. You can get all the starters, and Gary's Pokemon change too: He gets an Eevee that evolves according to whether or not you beat him. You start off with a Pikachu that follows you around, a very nice concept that I adore, and I wish for it to be added on to future Pokemon games (a similar feature is available in Diamond/Pearl in that park in Hearthrome.).

The only downside, if you consider it a downside, is that the Missingno Glitch won't work, but, the mew Glitch and Glitch City still work, and Missingno can be accessed via the Mew Glitch.

Pokemon Yellow:

Overall, yellow's a cool game with awesome extra features, but it's really rather similar to Red/Blue. I'd reccomend it over Red/Blue unless it really bothers you that you can't choose your starter.

Gold and Silver are brothers in the Pokemon world, but Crystal is the long-awaited Sister. For the first time, you are allowed to play as a girl, and it also lets Suicune steal the show by having a backstory and it becomes easier to catch. Something almost everyone loved was the addition of day and night. The day care center will give you an egg (don't boil it, hatch it!), and Suicune is easier to catch. Also, there's a deal with Crystal and the last gym, the Dragon Gym: you get the badge by answering questions, if they are all right, you get Dratini with Extremespeed! The radio tower gives you a new thing: a show that, if you tune in, and get the right answer at the tower, will win you points to get stuff like protein and rare candy. The Pokemon are animated (and I mean animated with thought put into them, not the two-frame tweening of Emerald.)

Unfortunetly, Crystal has some sad downsides: you can't get Lugia until you reach Pewter city, and Ho-oh's pretty much pushed out of the game! You have to catch all 3 legendary beasts, and you have to have all the badges - it's much more annoying. Then you have to stumble through the standard city of mazes to reach the top.

Pokemon Crystal

Pros

Cons

The pros of Crystal definetly outweigh the cons, and you should get it, especially over Gold and Silver (unless, again, the lack of certain Pokemon and the changing of Lugia's and Ho-oh's movesets really bothers you.) Crystal was my first Pokemon gameboy game, and it is really great. Words can't describe it anymore.

Pokemon Emerald:

I don't like Pokemon Emerald's name because, originally, before Ruby and Sapphire were even being sold, I made up a fake game called Pokemon Emerald, and it had weather, and the mascot looked like Rayquaza, I didn't want it to, no idea what a Rayquaza was back then, and there was a problem with the mascot and other Pokemon that involved weather. Sounds familiar to the real Emerald....

Ignore my ranting about Emerald's name. Ruby and Sapphire had an unexpected addition, Emerald, and it is chock full of new features. The gyms are different, trainers are placed differently, there's a battle Frontier, and the Plot has improved in so many ways. Team Aqua apparently, are the good guys, sometimes the bad guys, and they and Tem Magma awaken Groudon and Kyogre, and they duke it out in the city. You must awaken Rayquaza to defeat them all, and yadda yadda yadda, cool plot. Also, there are animations, but they are nowhere near as cool as the Crystal ones.

The problem is, really, Emerald is bloated with new features, and I felt as if though my knowledge of R/ S was of no use in Emerald. They did not bring back wanted features, and Slateport marketplace is crowded with ugly balloons. That really bothered me. Blegh.

Pros:

Cons

Emerald is a wonderful game, and although it comes with too many extra features, it got me interested in battle strategies and EVs and IVs. Of course, that was me, but... yeah, try it out.

Pokemon Platinum

Alright, Platinum. I have to say, plot-wise, I like what they've done with Platinum. I can finally remember just why Cyrus wanted to destroy the world. It may just be me, but I feel as if I know more about Cyrus as a person as well. Some new characters were added as well: Charon and Looker. Looker just so happens to be my favorite character in the game, so yeah. Quite a few Pokemon had their movesets changed around a bit so that you can get better moves earlier (Scyther and Caterpie can now learn certain moves by level-up which they couldn't before). You can capture a bunch of Pokemon which would normally require FireRed and LeafGreen, such as Moltres, and in my opinion, the less the 3rd generation needs to be involved, the better. This is all nice and stuff, but I'm going to cut to the chase and state why I bought Platinum: Wi-Fi events. Remember when Nintendo gave away that Mew? I don't remember because I couldn't go. Thanks to Platinum fianlly utilizing the Wi-fi that Diamond and Pearl had, you can get those events without leaving the comfort of your home. Score!

The bad points... well, I've decided to do some EV training in this game, just because my teams are always very weak before the Elite Four (you have no idea how many times I lost to them in Crystal). I noticed that many good EV training spots in Diamond and Pearl have been removed. A good amount of the trainers I used to go to don't have the same Pokemon anymore. If Ev training is something you want to do, you'll have to get used to training with wild Pokemon. If you don't know what EVs are, you'll be pleased to know that I really can't think of anything that Platinum has worse than D/P.

Pros

Cons

I have to give Gamefreak props; they've come a long way since Yellow. I can't think of any significant reason why you would prefer Diamond/Pearl to Platinum, so if you need to pick, definitely go with Platinum.

* Technically, the pair should be Red and Green, and Blue should be the Third Game since that was how it was released in Japan. Yellow would then be the magical Fourth Game. I am going by the American releases, however, so Yellow is the Extra here. Plus, Blue didn't really do much besides making the graphics not look like vomit.

Author's Note: This is actually one of the first pages I wrote for Critter Cryptics. Memories~ If you were wondering why the writing style is so different here, it's because I didn't want to change it that much. Nostalgia rules.