Total, there are around 649. 156 or so new ones.
In a nice twist, you can only natively find the new Pokemon in Unova until you obtain the National Pokedex. In addition, the music is great, the areas are robust, and the story is much more interesting than that of Diamond and Pearl. Also, the battle system has been slightly changed. It still plays out the same way as before, but it just seems smoother. The Pokemon are constantly animated and the camera pans around when you're not doing anything. Also, at certain points in battle, the music changes. When a Gym Leader sends out their last Pokemon, the music shifts to a different track. When your Pokemon's HP hits red, instead of beeping, the tempo of the music kicks up a notch. All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised with the quality of the games.

Pokemon Sapphire/Ruby was where I started as well. But anyone ever heard of Pokemon Colosseum and it's sequel : Gale of Darkness for Gamecube? Very, very good. About black and white, I recently sold my DS, and I'm not buying a new one just for 2 games. Maybe the 3DS, but we'll see. I'm also waiting in joyful hope for the coming of our savior: the Ubercalc.

Were Colloseum and Gale of Darkness just arena-based RPGs? Or where they full RPGs like the GB series where you could explore maps? I didn't like Pokémon Stadium because you just fought Pokémons and trained, with no dungeon exploration.

PersonallY I never got much into Pokémon, though, because of the whole "must shell away money for 2 games for full features" mentality Nintendo had back then. This is the same reason why I never got into Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons. To me it seemed like they tried to make money by making ppl buy an extra game just to get full features on another. Then later they released merged versions of both Pokémon games, such as Yellow, so ppl who bought both Blue and Red just to get all 150 Pokémons only to see Yellow come out afterward must have been pissed. (although I heard in Yellow and other merged Pokémon games it takes much longer to level up)

I started with Pokémon Yellow, and I pretty much stopped there as well...

Were Colloseum and Gale of Darkness just arena-based RPGs? Or where they full RPGs like the GB series where you could explore maps? I didn't like Pokémon Stadium because you just fought Pokémons and trained, with no dungeon exploration.

It's both overworld and battle, but the Pokémon catching mechanics are a bit different. There are no wild Pokémon, and certain Trainer Pokémon can be captured using the Snag Machine.

PersonallY I never got much into Pokémon, though, because of the whole "must shell away money for 2 games for full features" mentality Nintendo had back then. This is the same reason why I never got into Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons. To me it seemed like they tried to make money by making ppl buy an extra game just to get full features on another. Then later they released merged versions of both Pokémon games, such as Yellow, so ppl who bought both Blue and Red just to get all 150 Pokémons only to see Yellow come out afterward must have been pissed. (although I heard in Yellow and other merged Pokémon games it takes much longer to level up)

Yellow and the other "third games" don't have a different leveling curve, but they don't have every Pokémon from the first two versions either. Just like RB, Yellow is missing a few Pokémon that can only be obtained in the other games.

You left out Chrono Trigger.  :'(
Chrono Trigger is probably the best RPG I've ever played. The graphics and music are beautiful, especially considering it was a SNES game, it had a gripping story and fantastic characters.

hell yea, CT is one of the best.

I would also like to add Wipeout XL, a wonderful futuristic racing game
and the Metal Gear Solid series, "just a box"

EDIT: btw, the soundtrack to Wipeout XL is one of the best to ever be included in a video game. Featuring artists such as: The Chemical Brothers, Photek, The Prodigy, The Future Sound of London, Underworld, and Daft Punk!

Quote from: FinaleTI on March 20, 2011, 10:28:10 am

You left out Chrono Trigger.  :'(
Chrono Trigger is probably the best RPG I've ever played. The graphics and music are beautiful, especially considering it was a SNES game, it had a gripping story and fantastic characters.

hell yea, CT is one of the best.

I would also like to add Wipeout XL, a wonderful futuristic racing game
and the Metal Gear Solid series, "just a box"

EDIT: btw, the soundtrack to Wipeout XL is one of the best to ever be included in a video game. Featuring artists such as: The Chemical Brothers, Photek, The Prodigy, The Future Sound of London, Underworld, and Daft Punk!

Did CoLD SToRAGE contribute to this soundtrack as well? I remember he contributed to Wipeout Pure and the original Wipeout soundtracks. He's the guy who founded MTV Music Generator series.

BTW MTVMG is another nice serie of games too. It's a dead genre, because now music games focuses on rhythm rather than creation. It isn't really a serie of game, but rather tools to create music. The first MTVMGs were way ahead of their time when they came out, because back then most people couldn't afford a computer to create.



The last MTVMG (that wasn't done by Jester Interactive) is terrible, though.