I, personally, was hooked to the originals. I invested many hours into catching and training my merry band of Pokemon, ranging from a tiny electric mouse to a psychic cat-like creature. The game was a quality RPG that many chose to pass over due to the kiddiness of the anime series that was released around the same time state-side. Of course, the game felt overdone to me as releases continued on and I bid farewell to the series. I would occasionally buy one of the new games but never really got into them as I had in the past. I thought the addiction had been broken.

Fast forward to June 2005, shortly after I had picked up a copy of the newest release, Pokemon Emerald, for my girlfriend. She encouraged me to pick up my own copy and play so that we could trade Pokemon. I resisted for a bit but gave in. 5 days and 35 hours later, I had beaten the game and captured over 70 Pokemon. While I'm nowhere near finished with the game (there are over 300 Pokemon to catch in all), I am addicted once more. The series has definitely gone forward from its roots.

Pokemon Emerald is, at its core, a solid RPG. Instead of collecting tons of weapons to equip your characters with, though, you'll collect Pokemon. These little creatures have varying types and each of these types will play into the composition of your team. You can choose to focus on a couple of types of Pokemon or you can choose to build a team of wildly different Pokemon. You can choose strong Pokemon or cute Pokemon. With over 300 of the little critters to choose from, you'll have a hard time sticking to only 6 of them.

> While Emerald is essentially the same game as Ruby and Sapphire, it does make some additions to the series to make it a worthwhile pickup. There are some added animations in the game that really serve to spice the battles up and give you something new to see if you've played either Ruby or Sapphire. From what I could tell, though, there weren't any new Pokemon added. Some other small things were changed but really aren't that noticeable unless you heavily played the other games (I didn't know about them without reading about them online).

Raising your Pokemon is pretty simple -- use them to fight. In your travels across the world of Hoenn, you'll find many other trainers like you to battle with along with wild Pokemon (at least, if you travel through the grasses and water across the land). Defeating these trainers or wild Pokemon will net you experience. Of course, you'll need to capture some of these wild Pokemon, too. The stronger the Pokemon is, the harder it is to catch. Some of the toughest Pokemon can take you a long time to find -- we'll forget about the time you can spend trying to catch them.

Each battle takes a surprising amount of strategy, too, and uses a good amount of logic. Using a grass-type Pokemon against a fire-type is a bad idea, for example (fire burns the grass)! Each type will have some strengths and weaknesses and most of them make sense. There were a couple that didn't make much sense but were likely included or excluded for game balance. This element makes the game a great one to pick up for a kid -- they'll learn to reason things out and build logic-type skills when choosing what Pokemon to pit against their opponent.

Of course, you're limited in the move-set you can give to each Pokemon. They can't learn a long list of moves -- they can only know four moves at once. Each move has a certain power and accuracy rating and a type of damage that it does. They also have a limited number of uses. Choosing the right "build" for your Pokemon is another surprisingly deep element of the game. Giving a Pokemon a move that is its type will also enhance the damage of it, encouraging you to give a Pokemon moves that seem to be fitting for it.

You can also spend your time entering contests with the Pokemon you raise, giving you a non-violent way to "battle" other Pokemon. This is another element of the game that can get incredibly deep if you choose to pursue it. Personally, I didn't enjoy them that much, but will likely give them another shot now that I've beaten the main storyline of the game. You'll use the same four moves that you use in battle, but instead of battling other Pokemon with them, you'll be attempting to appeal to judges while making the other Pokemon look bad.

The only negative part of this game is the sound. You'll hear slightly varied "voices" for each Pokemon and very few other sound effects during the game. The only thing that really changes from area to area is the music which, given the system, was decent. Hopefully, the next game in the series capitalize on the power of the DS and the cries of each Pokemon are more true to their television counterparts.

Overall, Pokemon Emerald is a very complete package. The game looks good and plays well. There is a deep, involving main storyline along with things to do after you've completed the main story. The game is also kid-friendly, a nice bonus in today's market filled with games that are either kid-friendly or adult-friendly, but not both. This is one of few games you can play along with your kid, though you'll need a second cartridge -- each one allows only one save game. This isn't too bad, though, as you can pick up one of the others (Ruby or Sapphire) and get Pokemon that another player can't get and trade with them. Ignore the kiddiness of the anime and pick this one up. You'll end up addicted to it like I was.