ORAS Vs Emerald - The Definitive Comparison

Pokemon emerald and Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire also known as auris are both set in the Hoenn region of the Pokemon Universe a few weeks ago I issued a poll asking which version was better and I was surprised to see how close the results were Emerald came in at 46 percent while Orris just edged out at 54 percent having never played either of these games I thought I might be in a unique position to do an objective comparison of which one is superior in other words I don't have a horse in this race red and blue are my favorite versions and let's be honest it's mostly due to Nostalgia because it's what I grew up with while an analysis of this nature is going to be largely based on subjective judgments going through everything that both games have to offer will give everyone a better understanding of what makes them so treasured to the players who hold them in such high esteem if you've seen my video about comparing bdsp to Pokemon Platinum you'll understand my format for this video I will compare features from both games and award points where each excels over the other however I'm going to add one tweak to the format based on your previous feedback each point will be weighted with one two or three points instead of just one for three points to be awarded it must represent a considerable contribution in both relevance and substance one other thing is that I will endeavor to compare the games as they were when they were released which will represent their best versions however I'm gonna try to avoid limitations that are based on Hardware since I'm mostly focused on gameplay experience let's get started with the story both games are based in the Hoenn region and the games largely follow the same storyline Team Magma and Team Aqua are vying to find and awaken the ancient Pokemon to achieve their goals in Emerald Team Magma's ultimate goal is to increase the landmass for land Pokemon while Team Aqua wishes to expand the Seas for water dwelling Pokemon in a much darker twist orris's Team Magma UPS the ante and States their goal is to increase the landmass to give Humanity more space on which to build and develop civilization while Team Aqua wants to flood the world with water to return the world to its state before the rapiciousness of man tainted the Earth Emerald provides the classic world-ending dilemma without making things too serious but aorus puts Armageddon to the Forefront not just once but twice in its storyline I like that they did this and I think it's worth a point for auris the looming catastrophe gives the player additional purpose in their Quest besides just collecting eight gym badges and becoming the champion also Archie of Team Aqua and Maxie of Team Magma received some extra character development and feel more fleshed out in aorus which I believe merits another Point their personalities feel more distinct and it's fun to see them come through in their dialogue that being said the fact that Emerald contains interaction with both teams makes the story feel much more complete the player gets to see more clearly the struggle between the two teams as they strive to awaken their respective ancient Pokemon this culminates in the epic battle between Kyogre and Groudon which can only be quelled by the intervention of Rayquaza you are in the presence of Pokemon deities and there's nothing your diminutive Pokemon are going to do to stop them when I played through Omega Ruby I thought it was odd that both Kyogre and Groudon had fought over the Region's territory in ancient times but only one of them was on the sea floor waiting to be awakened where's Kyogre did it lose and flee the area I don't think so the current state of affairs indicates it was more of a draw I'm probably over analyzing since the answer is really that you just need to go buy the other version to access the ancient counterpart therefore two points to Emerald for bringing the story full circle with both teams and three points for the showdown between the two ancient Pokemon the story feels more complete and emerald Boris added the Delta episode to the post game in this part of the story you'll need to save the Earth from an asteroid which is hurtling through space at terrible speeds you team up with Steven to form a plan to either destroy or teleport the asteroid out of its Collision Course during your travels you keep bumping into a member of the draconin people named Zinnia the Dragonite people have been charged with looking after the tower that Rayquaza calls home Zinnia has a different idea on how to save the Earth and calls Stevens methodology at travesty and to be honest she may not be wrong Steven's method involves using the life force of numerous Pokemon to power the rocket that would be used to dispose of the asteroid whether or not this means the Pokemon are sacrifice like pizza at a Weight Watchers convention I'm not sure but it certainly can't be good even though zinnia's idea is the more altruistic one as a character I found her slightly annoying and a bit Hollow not terrible but not amazing feel free to disagree with me on that but I felt like she didn't quite make the impact that the developers were going for she does however help you summon the mighty Rayquaza to come to your Aid after capturing Rayquaza you mount the legendary Pokemon and soar into space and obliterate the asteroid using nothing but the power of friendship and True Grit as the pieces of asteroid fall apart you encounter the alien-like Pokemon Deoxys ysd-axis help bent on destroying the planet I have no idea why not capture it and add it to your PC box where it can hang out with all the other Pokemon you forgot about all in all the Delta episode was an excellent addition to the aorus game and made Rayquaza feel special therefore I'm awarding three points to Oris for the Delta episode during your travels you find that you have two Rivals one is the opposite gender of your chosen character and the other is a shy sickly kid named Wally I do miss the days of red and blue when blue your rival would come around the corner talking smack and then you'd tell him in a silent but strong way to take a flying leap at a rolling donut while your gender opposite provides the same role in terms of testing your battle skills from time to time Wally arises as the more interesting rival the player serves as a bit of a mentor throughout the game and while he's calm and humble demeanor make him an endearing NPC in Emerald unfortunately your encounters with Wally end Victory Road in aorus Wally has evolved his route into a Gallade capable of mega evolving and can be found after beating the Pokemon League in the Delta episode and appears in the post game in the battle Resort Wally received more attention inorus and he feels like a more well-rounded NPC and his team is more challenging so I'm awarding a point to auris another NPC from which auris benefited was Steven he is the son of the president of the Devon Corporation and AIDS the player on their Journey he is the reigning champion of the Hoenn region in Pokemon Ruby Sapphire Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire however in Pokemon Emerald he is for some reason replaced by Wallace who also acts as the 8th gym leader Orris does a good job of giving Steven more screen time and personality it makes for a more momentous encounter with him when you reach the champion battle while Wallace specializes in water Pokemon Steven's team boasts a more diverse set of Pokemon and his Metagross is a force to be reckoned with while Wallace is easily defeated with a set of grass or electric Pokemon normally I don't think I would award a point for just switching leaders but Steven is an upgrade over Wallace in personality and implementation I also thought that the player's dad as well as a few other NPCs feel more fleshed out in Norris but not enough to Warrant an additional point but I thought it was worth mentioning for completeness during your progress through aoris you eventually run into Stephen and are whisked away to an island where you encounter Latios or Latias depending on your version Latios somehow expresses its unease over the state of the world and wishes to accompany you on your journey just like that free Legendary it reminded me of a quote from Thomas Paine that which we obtain too easily we esteemed too lightly did I make Latios a part of my team yeah but only as an ATM slave which is a whole other issue but I'm not going to go into HMS in this video in Emerald you find Latios or latius after completing the post game and it roams the world where you must track it and catch it the challenge is reasonable and the struggle provides a satisfaction that you wouldn't get otherwise therefore a point to Emerald for the capture of the Eon Pokemon however in addition to orus that I thought was awesome was the ability to hop on Latios or latius's back and ride through the air above the Hoenn region it gives you a special appreciation of the Hoenn region and it also serves in your tracking of other legendary Pokemon for this reason I'm adding two points to Orris for being able to ride on a legendary Pokemon Boris was released near the end of 2014 while Emerald was released in 2004. not only that Emerald was released on the Game Boy Advance and auris on the Nintendo 3DS this means that aorus has 10 years of quality of life updates behind it and updated Hardware one area where aorus takes advantage of the hardware improvements is the music the aorus soundtrack is phenomenal and is an improvement over emeralds I won't fall Emerald for its Hardware but I think orris's music speaks for itself and is a clear point for the game in fact I liked it so much I'm going to give it two points another addition to auris that warrant some attention is the Poke nav plus honestly I was not expecting to give a point in this area the Pokemon games have always included some type of little computer system that they try to Hype up in the game but I only end up using it when they absolutely force me to however the Pokemon plus featured a couple things that I actually utilized which were the Pokemon Amy app super training and the dexnav Pokemon Amy allowed you to play with your Pokemon which would allow you to earn Pokey Puffs which in turn could be used to raise the affection of your Pokemon this greatly helped with some friendship-based evolutions super training allows you to view how many effort value points are assigned to each stat and then increase them very helpful for those who try to make their team just the way they want them last and most significant in my view is the deck snap this is a tool that allows you to find rare Pokemon and Pokemon with better stats the Pokedex tracks the amount of times you have encountered a specific Pokemon for each time you encounter them the level increases and as the level increases the chances of additional features increases and you'll be able to see things like the Pokemon's type level potential held item hidden abilities and first move honestly this tool is so good that it's slightly irritating that it's not included in any games after aorus I'll award a point for each of these tools for three points total I'd like to take a moment to ask that if you're enjoying the content please consider subscribing to the channel I'd greatly appreciate it if not don't feel obligated TMS are something that I've always valued in the Pokemon games they can really help to round out your team with stronger moves and they can make a large difference in the outcome of your battles in Emerald the TMS are one-time use which is sad since it can limit your ability to build out different Pokemon if you need to switch your team up at any point in the game sure you can purchase additional TMS with Battle Points but that's not until the post game and it involves quite a bit of grinding Orris made the tm's Everlasting so you didn't need to be afraid to use them if you needed them you could experiment how you want it therefore a point to Orris for their handling of the TMS and speaking of team building the amount of Pokemon available to you during your quest can vary dramatically Emerald's Pokedex contains 202 Pokemon the Pokedex for aorus follows the concept of the games it's based on but the only major difference from The Originals is that nine new Pokemon which were originally found in the Sinnoh region are now added to the Hoenn listing these include Pokemon like Gallade probopass and Magnezone however where there was a massive gap between the two is the emerald does not allow you to bring in Pokemon that are outside of the hoe index until after you beat the game whereas aorus will this means that you have access to up to 721 Pokemon far earlier having this option can really help mix things up for your playthrough and is a definite point for auris something that is a bit different between emerald and auris is their approach to Berry blending and the contest shows in both the blenders are used to create Pokey blocks which are then used to increase the Pokemon stats for the contest shows in Emerald the berry blender had a more elaborate process to create these blocks but in aorus the blender became a decoration for your Secret Base and you just use the pokeblock kit which really takes a challenge out of it while some players might appreciate the simplified process the contests are not a required part of the game and the stats they require don't affect the battling mechanics since they're not required there's no incentive to participate in them unless you really want to having the blender System in Emerald made the process more interesting and again more satisfying so a point to Emerald fort's approach to the berry blending system Emerald follows the same format for contest shows as Ruby and Sapphire and can only be found in Lily Cove City while in aorus they can be found in four different cities in Emerald the other contest shows are replaced by battle tents which I'll cover in a minute there are five different types of contests to participate in coolness Beauty cuteness cleverness and toughness and each contest has four ranks normal Super Hyper and master both follow similar formats but auris brought in additional features such as photo taking and NPC fans that will shout words of encouragement as well as give you special items depending on your rank auris also gives you a cosplay Pikachu which is a bit comical if you manage to win a mastering contest then a special painting will be made for your Pokemon when a master rank in all five categories and you will receive the contest star ribbon which has a special animation when a Pokemon is used in battle honestly I thought it was really cool while I did not delve too deeply into the contests I think the additional features deserve a point the battle tint set replaced the contest shows provide a glimpse of what you'll see later in the Battle Frontier players get a reward for winning three battles at a time which varies depending on the 10. but they do not award experience or prize money I debated on whether or not isolating the contest shows to Lily Cove city was a good thing but in the end they were replaced with an Innovative alternative so I'm all for it therefore a point to Emerald for the battle tense secret bases are special areas that you can decorate with various accessories furniture and Pokemon dolls the concept remains largely the same between both games but auris adds additional features that surpass those of emerald it added the ability to share your secret base with other players when you go to other people's secret bases you will meet a representation of their player there you can interact with these representations and invite them to return to your base which in turn helps you build up a special amount of Pals each secret pal has got a variety of features such as egg nurturing Gathering berries and picking up stones that are available when you speak to them but they can only do them once a day I think auris warrants a point for the updated functionality when making my comparison video for bdsp and platinum one of my more controversial points for bdsp was the addition of the fairy type so guess what I'm going to do here that's right a point to auris for including the fairy type I like that it is a strong counter to darken dragon Pokemon however in all fairness to those who don't like it I do think it is a bit ridiculous that it is completely immune to dragon type attacks it should be moved to the not very effective category instead in Pokemon Emerald there are a few areas the developers added to the Hoenn region that only appear in Emerald these include the trainer Hill Artisan cave desert underpass and Mirage Tower trainer Hill is a facility designed for trainers to race and battle through quickly each battle mode has a default time and if beaten offers a rare in-game item as a prize Artisan cave desert underpass and Mirage Tower are all special areas that contain unique Pokemon I'm not sure why these weren't included in aorus I think trainer Hill deserves a point in itself while the other three deserve a point altogether for a total of two points one area that is unique to auris is the C mauville area assuming I'm saying that right while Emerald has the abandoned ship along Route 108 Boris takes a concept further and adds a quest to catch Spirit tomb it seems that in every game that Spirit tomb is available there is always some lengthy and tedious process to catch it I didn't really care for the way Legends Arceus platinum or bdsp approached it but I think Orris does a fantastic job with the puzzle they created C model is also the place where you'll encounter the legendary Pokemon Lugia given that you meet all the conditions so a point to aorus for C model and the spirit tomb Quest the Safari Zone can be found in both auris and emerald and is an area where you can catch some rare Pokemon while the layout remains largely unchanged the Safari Zone in Emerald is only accessible to trainers participating in the Safari game in this game players may only use Safari balls and rather than weaken wild Pokemon in battle players must use non-conventional tactics to try and catch them in aorus the Safari game has been removed and players can enter the Safari Zone area without paying a fee the Pokemon found here are collected through normal battles and can be found in tall and Long Grass again I'm not sure why Orris would go in a different direction here but I enjoyed the Safari Zone more in Emerald due to its distinctive approach to catching Pokemon so a point to Emerald for the Safari Zone one mechanic where Emerald suffered is what's known as the physical special split to understand this you need to understand the basic mechanics of the Pokemon games Pokemon have an attack and defense stat and a special attack and special defense stat in emerald and in games prior to Emerald certain element types only had one classification for example ice and dark types were only considered special attacks this meant that if you had an ice type Pokemon you needed one with a high special attack stat for it to do any damage however if you have a Pokemon like Sneasel which generally has a much higher attack stat than its special attack stat you'd drastically weaken it by making all of its moves special attacks in Pokemon games after Emerald the developers added additional physical moves to balance these Pokemon out and the games are much better for it it has such a lasting impact that I'm awarding two points to Orris for having this mechanic another area where Emerald is going to suffer is in the cartridge itself I debated on including this since it's a hardware issue but I think it's worth noting given its impact for those of you who don't know Pokemon game cartridges with the Game Boy Advance used to contain internal batteries these batteries were needed to let you save your game and the affected time-based events Emerald is not a game you complete in one sitting so being unable to save your game is a complete non-starter also killing time-based events meant that you could not evolve certain Pokemon like Espeon or Umbreon assuming you even made it that far without saving in order to fix it you would have to open the cartridge desolder the battery from the circuit board and then re-solder another battery onto it I'm not sure many are willing to attempt this thankfully 3DS games no longer have this issue so I'm awarding a point to auris it is an area that is going to be largely subjective so feel free to disagree with me it is the character and Pokemon Sprites I really like the Sprites in Pokemon Emerald and during my research it sounds like many players feel the same way many hold them as Timeless and they hold up well against their 3D counterparts many consider the 3DS to be underpowered so the Sprites suffer as a result I don't know if it's a Nostalgia thing but I prefer the Emerald's rights over those of Horus I'm awarding a point to Emerald the flow of the game is a bit different between emerald and auris Aura seems to Hold Your Hand much more throughout the story NPCs will often escort the player to plot areas rather than letting the player figure things out for themselves the Pokemon games are not known for their overarching difficulty so I generally dislike when they go out of their way to play the game for you along the same lines I believe the emerald Gym Leaders present a better overall Challenge on comparison gym leaders and emerald generally have one more Pokemon than their aorus counterparts it was also Watson in Pokemon Emerald that tanked my first nazoc challenge with his manectric a Pokemon not found in his lineup in aorus it should also be noted that gym leaders can be challenged again in Emerald after defeating the Elite Four each gym Leader's lineup and levels will change with each encounter after the 4-3 match their team in levels will remain the same I have always really enjoyed rematching the gym leaders since you get to see them as real competitors and not stepping stones therefore I'm awarding a point for the added difficulty of the gym leaders and two points for being able to rematch them whereas aorus does not feature these rematches curiously enough auras does offer rematches with the Elite 4 and champion and that provides a fair bit of challenge with improved Pokemon lineups and much higher levels whereas Emerald does not so a point to auras for including them even though I think it's odd that both games exclude one or the other I'm not sure why they wouldn't just do both another new feature that Orris brought with it were Mega Evolutions and honestly I think they're one of the better gimmicks that the developers have come out with I say they're better mostly because I like the visual Transformations the Pokemon go through some of them look super cool that being said the Mega Evolutions can really trivialize your gameplay there are only a few trainers you fight against that can also Mega Evolve their Pokemon basically allowing you to trample most of your opponents even the Elite 4 can't Mega Evolve their Pokemon until you're facing them in the rematches I think this is another hand-holding feature that lacks proper balance I'll add a point to auris for the Mega Evolution but I'm going to add a point to Emerald for having better overall difficulty getting farther into the post game both games have a plethora of legendary Pokemon that can be found however aorus really goes above and beyond offering up to 32 of them that can be found Emerald on the other hand only features 12 legendaries four of which are all locked behind events that are no longer accessible it does appear that with a complicated workaround you could unlock them but I'm not sure it's worth going through all the trouble now while I can appreciate that these events emphasize how rare and special they are making them forever unreachable is disappointing given the amount of legendaries available I'm awarding two points to Orris the other major feature in the post game of most Pokemon games is the ability to test your battle skills against other trainers to earn rare items there is the Battle Mason and I looked this up and I'm pretty sure it's pronounced misson but I'm not gonna say it so Mason it is there's the Battle Mason in Oris and the Battle Frontier in emerald in terms of post game activities this is where Emerald really shines in aorus the Battle Mason is a battle facility where you can participate in single double and rotational battles you can also partner up with other NPCs for doubles battles the Battle Frontier in Emerald dwarfs the Battle Mason giving you access to the battle Factory battle arena battle dome battle Pike battle Palace battle tower and battle pyramid each facility offers a different approach to Pokemon battles honestly you could spend way more time here than you did in the entire main game I won't go into a ton of detail here on these but my favorite was the battle Factory where you use rental Pokemon to battle other trainers you don't know which Pokemon you're going to be able to rent or what moves they'll have once you rent them you're given a small bit of information on your opponent and the opportunity to switch up your lineup and then you're thrown into the fire I'm awarding two points to the battle Factory and one point to each of the other battle facilities in the Battle Frontier I was curious as to why the Battle Frontier wasn't included in games following emerald and I found a translation of an interview with junichi Masuda who's been working with game freak for a very long time where he said that they didn't include the Battle Frontier in future iterations because only a very small part of players would have fully appreciated and made use of this feature nowadays players get bored and frustrated more easily and they aren't interested in things that are so demanding and challenging the closer to the data than I am but I think I am joining a number of other players who lament the fact that it hasn't been included and most likely won't be included in future iterations of the game and now the final verdict I cannot believe that the score is as close as it is but I think that it makes sense given the split in the poll that I issued I honestly did not think it would be this close and I did not doctor the score for any particular area to reach this result every point that I awarded was my own personal honest opinion in my opinion I like Orris just a little bit more but it's mostly due to the quality of life features updated mechanics music and updated Pokedex I really hate to say this since I was hoping to reach a more definitive conclusion but which is better is going to be largely based on what's important to you the post game in Emerald is unrivaled in my experience while auris brings a more modern feel the fact that Emerald being 10 years older than Orris holds up as well as it does is a demonstration of its Excellence especially in the post game if Emerald had the same updates that Oris does I think it would be the clear winner well everyone I think that's going to be it for now I have created a Google sheet stock with the ranking that I used for the video feel free to check it out and update the numbers with what you would have changed and see how the score changes this video took me over a month to make and required a ton of hours in both gameplay and research to make like I've earned your subscription then I would greatly appreciate it I would also love to hear your thoughts on the matter so feel free to drop me a comment below thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one [Music] oh really good

Channel: GameSmith45

Views: 84,428

Keywords: pokemon, post, game, bdsp, post game, gamesmith45, pokemon platinum, review, guide, better, gameplay, scarlet, violet, pokemon music, giratina, legendaries, poketch, story, platinum post game, pokemon violet, pokemon scarlet, emerald, oras, omega ruby, alpha sapphire, new pokemon games, nintendo switch

Id: hZnc0GM7H-I

Length: 26min 23sec (1583 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022