To be honest I never saw it as a grail, I don’t remember hearing people talk about it as such before I joined E4.
5 Likes
It was lowest pop for a while and a cool card. I think celebi is now highest price. As long as it’s not Charizard I guess but it was cool to have a gen 3 pokemon
2 Likes
Indeed. The Celebi makes sense, I’ve felt like that card has been underappreciated since forever. Was not surprised when it started climbing.
3 Likes
One thing I enjoyed is how they added unique level up moves to different stages. I love stuff like that. Giga Drain, Hydro Pump and Flamethrower on the basic starters only, Explosion on Seedot, Dig on Nincada.
One of the first times I saw Ruby in action was at some church event where a friend was playing it on his advance. I remember seeing Camerupt and being wowed. Then, after getting the game myself, to find out it learns Rock Slide when it evolves, that was cool. That kind of thing would not have happened in Gen 2.
4 Likes
Hoenn=Home 
I still have the shiny starter trio I hunted in Oras. Treecko was a female and took 5 days of SR’s on 2 consoles lol Torchic came quicker and mudkip was a hatch. Can’t wait to bring them to SV
6 Likes
We also haven’t mentioned what I would say is arguably one of the biggest contributions to the game, double battles. Such a unique idea at the time and has lived the test of time so much that VGC is double battle format. Real OGs know tho that the first double battle tho will always be Seedot and Lotad.
9 Likes
Double battles were an awesome addition. So glad that they decided to stick with it and not ditch it like so many of their other battle modes that they’ve tried to introduce (granted none of them were as good as doubles). Doubles + underwater. The things that are undeniably Hoenn.
6 Likes
Hey I can still be a kanto kid and occasionally be a hoen ho too. I may have started in kanto but man did I love Pokémon so much up until gen 4. Although I really enjoy gen 6 and gen 9.
Gen three was so great. Emerald is close to a perfect Pokémon game. The ex era is probably my favorite type of cards minus gold stars. If I didn’t grow up with base set I probably would only exclusively collect ex. Plus they made gen 1 remakes in gen 3. There is much to love
4 Likes
i will take any gen 3 opportunity to simp for Rebecca
4 Likes
I was at an age when Pokémon Red/Blue and Gold/Silver came out that it was a bit more harder to play so I never really got into them so deeply as I would have wanted with out the help of my older brother helping me get some where I wanted too go too in the game lol
When R/S came out I fell in love with the legends especially Groudons box art so I picked ruby and played the heck out of it and completed my first ever Pokémon game 
Then when Emerald came out as I saw all the posters in my EB games announcing it I was so excited! It was another game I chose too complete all the way through and well because of that game I fell in love with now my favourite as for many people, Rayquaza!
Emerald made me want too collect the TCG again as I wanted the Rayquaza GS that was impossible for me too find , it’s EX card , and then the trio Ex’s from firered/ leaf green set
So long story short , Hoenn got me back into Pokémon really both the games and TCG 
Rayquaza is the goat , period. 
7 Likes
also evilteams got great glowup in remakes
4 Likes
Hard to describe the happiness I get when I hear the soundtracks from these games, hours and hours went into it and not a second wasted. Glorious
5 Likes
Speaking more to the tcg side of this era, while ex was a lull point that has now provided really great collectability and scarcity relatively speaking (for products that are still mass produced like Pokemon cards). Looking closer at boxes since that’s an area I really like.
I see a monumental shift in attitude towards collecting and investing in this era. Many of the big box investors now include ex with WOTC in their portfolio and for good reason. The ex boxes are harder to find than most WOTC and the amount of people who want them is growing daily. Many ex boxes eclipse even the highest end WOTC as of right now in price which is absurd! DF is selling (more than once privately) for just under 40k while deoxys and trr are also anomalies. In the entire era there is only a single set that is worth less than 10k (hidden legends).
And those prices are not simply hype driven imo. They’re driven by the fact that you literally can’t find these things. You can have the money, be willing to pay 10-15% over last sale and crickets. Nothing. It’s really remarkable. And for the generation getting into this era, the 3-pack blister prices are skyrocketing. To me this means that people want sealed ex and it’s only a matter of time before the collector pool grows even more. The future is bright for ex tcg
8 Likes
Ex era exs are my goal right now next to my shadowless base set. The gengar from fire red leaf green is just so nice. Don’t get me started in the Salamance 
4 Likes
the water delta species ray is one of my most favourite cards from that era
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So many great rookie appearances. For me swampert sceptile salamence sableye dusclops ludicolo aggron grumping altaria flygon all peaked with their first appearance card!
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I can’t put into words how much I love Hoenn and how much nostalgia I feel for it.
Most of my collection consists of cards from the EX era
6 Likes
I was looking at Pokerevs openings through the passed on his site and yes he has opened EX era boxes but at a much much lower rate than WOTC and D/P …
He’s one of the big guys now who does openings as most of us know so even he isn’t opening EX boxes that much when you compare too his WOTC openings , this is me also thinking that he has the options too open all the EX he wants since he probably has a ton in his collection that we do know but he isn’t opening possibly since they are indeed rare
Pokerev even made it a huge deal when he was going too open the one and only EX Deoxys box ever on his channel
I’m thinking your on point with how EX will do down the road
2 Likes
Ex boxes also have massively skewed expected values based on the rarity tiers. Gold star sets that are pretty lame save for the gold stars still command monster prices. It makes opening them and buying them extremely risky. I prefer early ex and sets without gold stars to open and buy because EV is more standardized at the cost of not having the big wig chase card. I’m in the minority here though as these sets are not very popular
3 Likes