I played that game Sands of Destruction recently. It wasn't that great. It would have been better if it was a lot more challenging. Also, some of the characters tended to say the same things over and over in battle. It started to go a little something like this:
"Here comes the paaaaain!"
"It's probably my fault."
"It's probably my fault."
"Here comes the paaaaain!"
"Here comes the paaaaain!"
"It's probably my fault."
"I'm not afraid of this power anymore!"
"It's probably my fault."
"Here comes the paaaaain!"
Still, one of the characters, Taupy the bounty hunter teddy bear, was almost awesome enough to justify the rest of the game on his own.

Anyway, I have Pokemon Soul Silver now, and it's going pretty well so far. I wanted to spend my weekend playing it, but instead I squandered it doing my taxes... Sigh.