They said Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire would never get remade. That people should just stop clamoring for them, that all the places that people saw "evidence" of a remake was just silly, desperate. It was beginning to look like Ruby and Sapphire remakes were Pokémon equivalent of Half-Life 3*.
And yet here we are: Hoenn (the location that Ruby and Sapphire take place in) is confirmed.
Pokémon fans have exploded over this announcement—and it's not hard to see why. The third generation of Pokémon games are highly underrated, with some folks going so far as to call them the worst generation. But these games were when double battles were introduced. When Pokemon designs started getting really interesting. When neat features like hideouts were introduced. That's when stuff like natures started existing. That's when Pokemon's biggest meme, Mudkip, came into existence. Let's not forget the Battle Frontier, or the contests—both neat additions, in my books.
Personally, out of all the Pokémon games in the franchise, Emerald—the final game in the third generation—defined my childhood way more than Red & Blue ever did. I can still hear the music from the game in my head, sometimes, even though it's probably been like a decade, and even though I played a few other games in the franchise growing up, too.
I'm not the only one that feels this way, judging from the excitement online—and mind, this is that Nintendo has barely unveiled anything about the remakes.
The internet reacted with joy, lots of people got on the hype train.
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Sure, some people still made fun of those who wanted the remakes really badly...
Some folks even took the opportunity to rub the announcement in other people's faces:
If not take the opportunity to tell other folks that someone had totally called it:
But overall, most of the reaction online was positive. Specifically, a lot of the reaction online couldn't help but make references to Ruby and Sapphire's heavy usage of trumpets:
(That's the specific song that gets stuck in my head sometimes, by the way).
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One person is even trying witchcraft to get the game early:
And naturally, there's already fan art.
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Some folks are even trying to figure out if the legendaries on the covers are actually mega evolutions:
"The Groudon and Kyogre on the box art are clearly PHYSICALLY different to the originals," razmos writes on their blog. "They are definitely form changes/mega evolutions, it is not simply "Lit up" or drawn that way to make them look cooler," he guesses.
And finally, big, well-known Pokemon fans have thrown their hats into the ring and have started discussing the remakes:
What about you, what do you think about the new remakes? Let us know in the comments.
*Note that I think any sensible person could have predicted they'd EVENTUALLY remake these games....eventually.
To contact the author of this post, write to patricia@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter@patriciaxh.