Seeing these threads convinced me to play emerald for the first time ever. I played ruby as a kid for like an hour and never touched gen 3 again.
Fucking hell, Emerald is absolutely fantastic. Beautiful region, fun story and the game itself plays so smoothly, it runs quick and snappy. The music is amazing, too. Maybe my favorite pokemon soundtrack ever. Definitely in route themes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQTKfjLDt-o 