Pokémon fans surprised with gorgeous Ruby/Sapphire remake you can try free now

As great as modern video games can be, sometimes you can't beat taking a trip down memory lane to play classics such as the beloved Pokémon franchise on Nintendo.

Pokémon made its debut on Nintendo Game Boy in 1996 and today is arguably more popular than ever. That being said, the more recent Pokémon Scarlet and Violet weren't as well received as many had hoped with Metacritic scores of 72 and 71, respectively.

Check out the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet trailer below!

In our review of Pokémon Scarlet, we said it’s a great game held back by poor performance but “if this is what an open-world Pokémon game is now, it's tantalising to consider what is coming in the future.”

Now fans eagerly await the arrival of the next mainline entry, Pokémon Legends: Z-A which is currently set to be released on the Nintendo Switch in 2025 and perhaps even the Switch 2.

While we wait for the arrival of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, not only can we play the newly released Pokémon TCG Pocket but also these glorious fan remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, originally released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002.

“The English versions of Pokémon Magma Ruby and Aqua Sapphire tech-demos for Nintendo DS are finally out, translated by AdAstra_GL tweeted lightplatinumds.

“Pokémon Magma Ruby and Pokémon Aqua Sapphire are Generation IV ROM hacks which are enhanced remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire for the Game Boy Advance,” reads the description of the remakes.

“The whole Hoenn region has been reimagined to give a new gameplay experience while retaining the essence of the original games.”

At the time of writing, this is a demo of the remakes and not the full games. Hopefully, the full remakes will arrive one day before Nintendo gets a chance to shut down the project. We’ll have our fingers crossed.