A Brief Revisit to the Classic Pokémon Sapphire

Image from Bulbapedia

I have recently been playing Pokémon Sapphire and noticed that things felt different. I realized this was because I was getting it confused with Pokémon Emerald. I’ll be going through some of the differences that I noticed. I will only be touching on the differences up to where I am currently at.

Gyms

One difference between Pokémon Sapphire/Ruby and Pokémon Emerald is the layout of the gyms as well as the Pokémon that each gym leader has. We will start of with Roxanne, the Rock type gym leader.

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In Sapphire/Ruby Roxanne only has a Geodude and Nosepass while in Emerald she has two Geodudes and a Nosepass. Only one Geodude will be depicted since it isn’t a different Pokémon. The difficulty was about the same between the versions.

The layout of the gym was also different with there being more trainers inside as well as a different layout in Emerald version.

The first image is how the gym looks in Sapphire/Ruby and the second image after using the slider shows how it looks in Emerald.

In the second gym not much is different except for the team that Brawly, the Fighting type gym leader, uses.

His team in Sapphire/Ruby consisted of Machop and Makuhita.

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His team in Emerald consisted of Machop, Meditite, and Makuhita.

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His team in Emerald was about the same difficulty as his team in Sapphire/Ruby. His Meditite usually only uses Focus Punch, or at least did when I last played Emerald.

In the third gym once again things did not change much when it comes to appearances, but Wattson’s Pokémon did change. Wattson is the Electric type gym leader. The only changes to the gym trainers was the addition of a new trainer in Emerald as well as changing the appearance of another.

His team in Sapphire/Ruby consists of Voltorb, Magnemite, and Magneton.

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His team in Emerald consisted of Voltorb, Electrike, Magneton, and Manetric.

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I found his team in Emerald to be more difficult than in Sapphire/Ruby. He had one more Pokémon on his team in Emerald. His Manetric was tough to handle due to its speed. It could easily sweep whatever of your team is left after having to get through his other two Pokémon.

Double Battles

Double battles were introduced in this generation, but I realized how easy it was to miss most of these encounters. In Sapphire and Ruby you have to talk to trainers for a double battle to initiate. In Emerald they work like a normal encounter.

Route 104 has the first double battle in the game that you will most likely encounter.

In Sapphire/Ruby you have to talk to them in order to battle them. In Emerald if you walk past them with two Pokémon they act like any normal trainer and challenge you to a battle.

The only thing that has changed about route 116 from Sapphire/Ruby to Emerald was the addition of a trainer. This created an opportunity for a double battle.

Other Observations

One thing that I noticed was that in Rustboro when you talk with your rival May/Brendon, they do not challenge you to a battle. In Emerald they do, but you can turn them down.

The Pokémon that chases Professor Birch in the beginning of the Sapphire/Ruby is different from the one in Emerald. In Sapphire/Ruby he is chased by a Poochyena and in Emerald he is chased by a Zigzagoon.

Another change is with the Pokenav and how it functions between the versions. In Sapphire/Ruby you can not call anyone using the device and gym rematches are not available. In Emerald you can call any trainer who has been registered. Gym leaders are also available to be challenged again. In Sapphire/Ruby there is an option called Trainer’s Eyes where you can see information on certain trainers you have battled, as well as gym leaders.

In Emerald this option was changed into Match Call. The difference was that you could call trainers that were registered as well as being able to call gym leaders. You can also receive calls. In all versions you can rematch trainers with a Pokéball next to them.

Conclusion

As usual thank you all for reading and continuing to support my content. This post only contained a small amount of differences in between the different versions. I might do another post in the future as I progress but no guarantees. As usual if you would like to keep up with my activities on Twitter you can follow me @realgamerwithg1.