Pokemon Director says the most difficult games to make were Ruby and Sapphire on GBA

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire don't appear to be the greatest of technological leaps on the surface, but they were anything but easy for developer Game Freak to deliver to the public. In speaking with Game Informer, Game Freak co-founder and Pokémon director, producer, and composer Junichi Masuda revealed that these were the games that gave the development team the most trouble. Yes, even more than going full 3D with X/Y.

To be fair, Masuda says that the difficulty in getting Ruby and Sapphire out wasn't entirely internal, there was also an immense amount of pressure to prove that Pokemon wasn't a dead brand.

Masuda said:

"After Gold and Silver came out, it was a huge hit around the world, but shortly after everyone was saying, 'That’s it. The Pokémon fad is over! It’s dead!'"

As the saying goes, lightning never strikes twice in the same spot, so considering Gold and Silver were able to actually improve on the masterpieces that are Red/Blue/Yellow, Pokemon was bound for a fall. Though it seems that outside forces had already anointed that to be so.

During development, Masuda traveled to the United States and noticed that Pokemon merchandise was disappearing from store shelves. In its place was Star Wars, which was just launching Attack of the Clones at the time. Stress began to pile up so much that he even ended up in the hospital at one point due to stress.

Masuda said:

"I got really stressed out and had to go to the hospital and had some stomach issues and had to get a camera inserted and they didn’t know what it was – very stressful."

On the technical side of things, Masuda says that there were some challenges as well. The Game Boy Advance was a pretty significant step up from the Game Boy Color, and it presented "a different aspect ratio, a lot more colors, and sound channels." While it was an improvement, development was "more resource-intensive."

Fortunately, things turned out well in the end as Ruby and Sapphire sold very well, despite cutting fans off from the Pokemon they had spent so many hours raising in Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, and Silver. Fortunately, we have Pokemon Bank today.

Source: [Game Informer]