These games treated it as if Pokémon Emerald didn’t exist. Features from Emerald were gone. Features, such as... the Battle Frontier. Where is it? “Where is it? Where the hell is it?” "Seven!" "Eight!" "Nine." "Ten." Hello fellow jerry cans. In a few weeks, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be released for the Nintendo Switch. So to celebrate the occasion, I think it would be a very good idea to look back at Game Freak’s most recent attempt to remake a Pokemon game that isn’t the best generation and region. And that is of course, the gen 6 Pokemon games: Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, released in 2014 for the 3DS. Except for the Let’s Go games, the general consensus of these games is that they are the worst Pokemon remakes because of the missing features. However, even though I acknowledge these games have a lot of problems, I believe these games are underrated gems on the 3DS that deserve more credit, because these games got many things right that other remakes have not, and even BDSP has already failed some of it, based on the trailers at least. So, let’s take a look back at Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Part 0: The Last Pokemon Game I was Hyped For Unlike my other reviews, before I start reviewing these games, I want to talk about my personal history with this game, because I have personal attachments to this game and the Hoenn region. Unlike Unova or Alola, your fellow jerry can may or may not be biased towards Hoenn games. You see, the Gameboy Advance was the game console I had as a child growing up. So naturally, I own all five gen 3 Pokemon games, and I played these games like a cult as a kid unlike other Pokemon games, which I have very little nostalgia for. I know the Hoenn region like I know the back of my hand, so I can draw the map of the Hoenn region on a blank piece of paper through just pure memory. This is my rendering of May even though I can’t draw anything other than stick figures. I still own the Prima guidebook for Pokemon Emerald, and the state of it can tell you how much I read this thing on the toilet during my childhood. I also had the poster with an epic drawing of Rayquaza, Groudon, and Kyogre that came with the guidebook plastered on my childhood bedroom wall that I have lost over the years, sadly. I still own Pokemon Colosseum and its Prima Guidebook too.
I am basically a genthreeer. So when Game Freak announced in a crappy rushed teaser video that they will remake the Hoenn games, my hype level went off the roof. These days, when I hear Game Freak is gonna attempt to do something my first thought is concern, or thinking “How are they gonna fuck it up this time?” But back then in 2014, think about it. Game Freak was a brilliant, chad god-tier monster game developer that made excellent games 4 years in a row without a hiccup, and even though the previous installment XY wasn’t very good, everyone didn't mind back then because the graphics were amazing. So based on Game Freak’s track record at the time, everyone had every reason to be hyped for the game, since the last remake Heart Gold and Soul Silver was excellent as well. The reason why I’m saying all of this is because ORAS was the last Pokemon game I was hyped for. Because back then, it wasn’t embarrassing to be a Pokemon stan, since the games were genuinely good. So I followed the release of ORAS by watching all the trailers, watching all the interviews of Junichi Masuda and this new tall guy called Shigeru Ohmori… Also just before the release of the game, there was the Pokemon World Championship 2014, which by the way is the last time I was interested in competitive Pokemon. In it, a legendary player named Se Jun Park won the tournament with a Pachirisu on the team, not with some dumb OP Pokemon like Salamence or Tyranitar. So to celebrate this, it was decided that the developers of Game Freak will come to Seoul, capital of Korea to congratulate him. They came to Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza DDP to congratulate Sejun Park, hold a fan meeting, and advertise the upcoming ORAS game with a press conference. Seoul is my hometown, and is still my current residence. And… I was actually there in the audience as a fan. Yeah, so unlike 95% of Poketubers on this website, I actually met Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori in real life. These are my personal pictures I took with my shitty Android phone back then. Masuda and Ohmori also took pictures of us. Do you see a funny gascan man in the audience somewhere? What’s funny is that I think if Masuda and Ohmori did this kind of event in current times, they might get jeered off stage after all the shenanigans they pulled in recent years, but back then, we cried out towards them like they were gods. After all, the reason I went to the event was to meet my childhood idol, Junichi Masuda, who had a hand in creating my childhood’s most memorable experiences. Oh how I was innocent back then. Times changed, and I am a jaded cynical 23 year old making YouTube videos that explain how Pokemon sucks and videos making fun of the man now, oh the irony… "I thought we had the same goals." "Things change. I changed. The game's over Masuda. I quit." Anyways, ORAS was the first and last Pokemon games I’ve ever pre-ordered, (which you shouldn't do by the way) and it was also the only game I bought both versions. Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was released on November 21st, 2014. My birthday is November 22nd by the way, so Pokemon Omega Ruby felt like Game Freak’s personal 17th birthday present to me. Your fellow jerry can ran happily to the store on his birthday to pick up the game, and this is the photo I took that day because I was amazed that the game wished me a happy birthday the moment I stepped into Oldale Town’s Pokemon Center. So I got my Groudon and Kyogre figure, Groudon thermos I still use to this day, and my body was ready to play Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. So what did I think of these games after playing it? After all that buildup, you might think I may hate these games, but... I did love it in the end. It’s the final Pokemon game I would call unironically excellent. But there were some serious problems with it of course, which left me sorely disappointed at that time, making ORAS the final Pokemon game I was every hyped for. But, after all that’s happened, the past seems to get brighter, and I now forgive some of its sins. "Every day, the future looks a little bit darker... But the past... Even the grimey parts of it... Keep on getting brighter." But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and let’s start from the ground up, starting with my favorite aspects of the remake. Part 1: Expanded Cutscenes and Characters If you asked me, what was the favorite aspect about Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, I would answer: adding so much character to the game, with the revamped characters, and the added cutscenes. The story is exactly the same as the original games because it’s a remake of a video game that had a really simple story, which is get all 8 gym badges and stop evil team from awakening a lizard or a whale, so the improved and fixed moments is what matters. Now understandably you may think I hate cutscenes in Pokemon games after my Ultra Feces and Ultra Urine review where I complained about the cutscenes, but that is not actually the case. The problem of the gen 7 games was that there were too many fucking cutscenes that broke the pacing of the game and made the game a really fucking boring movie. This game, and the gen 5 games frankly, have just enough cutscenes where you have enough freedom, so you don’t feel like you’re walking through a movie when playing ORAS. Hoenn is still not linear and there are many optional places to go, so you still feel like you’re EXPLORING the Hoenn region when you play this game. And the time between cutscenes are long, so it doesn’t feel like you’re interrupted by one every 5 minutes. Cutscenes are good when done right, and can give meaning to scenes in the games. For example, I instantly knew that I was gonna enjoy this game when I first started it, because I seriously think ORAS has the best intro for any Pokemon game. I like how it starts with the original Gameboy Advance screen which was a nostalgia trip, but then, the camera zooms out to show that it’s actually the screen of the Pokenav. I always found it funny in previous games that devices like the Pokedex and the Pokenav always had the design of the console it was on, so actually seeing that the Pokenav had the design of the Gameboy Advance SP was a nice touch Then we get to see the truck from the intro of the movie actually fucking moving finally which was shocking after 10 years. Next, we see Pokemon hanging out in the forest, which is a lot better than the professor pulling out a Pokeball to show you what a Pokemon is. It goes along nicely with the theme of the Hoenn games: nature and coexistence. Anyways, the point is, the opening cutscene isn’t too long and isn't a chore to get through, and it’s done neatly and is memorable so that’s why it works. Adding cutscenes worked. I’ll show how more cutscenes added more character to important NPCs like gym leaders. in the original games, the gym leaders were kinda boring because this was a pre-gen 5 Pokemon game, but it was understandable because it was 2d pixel art. So in this game, they added more character to the gym leaders through little nice cutscenes or adding lore. For example, I like how surfer dude Brawly isn’t just a generic guy wearing an orange shirt. He is an athletic guy now that lifts his weights bro, and his gym is an actual… gym. An actual surfer dude. For Wattson, I like how he actually made Mauville City into a mall like he hinted in the original games. But if you’ve been to Sea Mauville and read all the lore and text regarding Mauville City you know that he’s a tyrannical businessman behind the scenes that mistreated his workers such as making them overwork, not giving their wage on time, causing natural harm through pollution. In fact Sea Mauville is a place where you can find a diary of a young boy whose father works for Wattson, and he never shows up at home because of work, suffers from depression, and his wife is cheating on him by sleeping with another man? What the fu- I also like how when you fight Flannery, even the dialogue is the same as the original games (yeah, imagine if they added a shit ton of dialogue to make it like USUM and me it terrible), they added this little cutscene of her face going all crazy while she does her “puny trainer speech, fear me” speech. All the gym leaders got redesigns that make them all look hot, and the waifu baiting level of this game is off the charts Imagine this game coming out in 2021 on the Switch with all the creepy fans on the internet. Imagine characters getting redesigns and aren’t wearing the same clothes in a fucking Pokemon remake, right? Probably my favorite cutscene of the game is when you defeat Norman. Again the dialogue is the same as the original, but we get extra little details now of Norman closing his eyes and then smiling at the end. Cool little detail that warms the heart. I also like the added cutscene of Norman and Wally’s father talking about their children when you defeat him. It expands Norman’s role as your father in the story, and him being the franchise’s still one and only father character makes him one of my favorite gym leaders of all time. This game is about family… "It's about family, and that's what's so powerful about it..." Speaking of Wally’s father, let’s talk about the rival Part 2: Expanding the Rivals Wally in the original games was kinda forgettable? He only shows up like twice in the game, so when you get to the end of Victory Road, you’re like "Who the fuck are you?" and then remember it’s that 1 kid from the beginning of the game. He didn’t have his own theme like Brendan or May. Probably the only thing memorable about him was that he used a Gardevoir. That’s it. Now conversely in ORAS… I like how in this game, they made him more memorable by giving him meaningful cutscenes when you meet him, so he feels more animated, pun intended. His new design works well as both a shy timid boy and a brave handsome young man at the end. And, when you battle him in Victory Road, it’s one of the best rival fights in the series with the epic music and flower petals flying everywhere. This is how you do a remake, and why I like ORAS. You get a character that wasn’t fully developed in the original games, give the character a new and refined design, and in the end, make him memorable by adding character with epic cutscenes and events. Will you fucking do that and not have everyone wear the same clothes for 15 years, Pokemon Rehashed Diamond and Unnecessary Pearl? I also love May and Brendan in this game too. You know, out of all the Pokemon games that aren’t gen 5 or 7 where stories are the main focus, I do think the Hoenn region had the best story and characters. It’s like the only region to give you an actual father and mother, and it’s also the only game to give you a romantic interest. Brendan X May is canon my friends! Some say the game forces you to ship so it’s weeb cringe shit, but I think slight romance tease is better than most other games where the rivals are either fucking annoying or just fucking terrible. You may call me a dumbass shipper, but I found the final cutscene in the Delta Episode where the main character takes Brendan or May out to a date to the space center pretty heart-warming, and a neat way to wrap up the game of the story. Also, in the original games, Brendan and May like disappeared from the game after Lilycove City? You couldn’t fight your rival with a fully evolved form starter, which was really fucking dumb. Even Pokemon Emerald didn’t fix this, which was really perplexing. Thank god this game finally fixed it because Brendan or May shows up more in the story after Lilycove, and you get a final bonus fight with them after the end credits at Route 103, where you first battled them. They even use a mega evolved starter, which is a huge improvement from the original games. Oh and speaking of End Credits, this game also had the best End Credits in the entire series? The game actually records which Pokemon you used during important battles, and you get to see them in the end credits. This is way better than the overrated Diamond and Pearl ending with the stupid bicycle or the lazy, rushed, half-assed Heartgold Soulsilver ripoff ending of USUM. Ah, everything boils down to how USUM fucking sucks in the jerry can world. Part 3: Magma and Aqua Double-Pack This may be personal opinion, but I think Pokemon splitting up into 2 versions of the same game is a scumbag business practice I really believe it’s on the same level as loot boxes or microtransactions or fucking gacha games. It’s literally selling the same game twice but with minor differences, and it’s highway robbery. Yeah, you only need to buy one of them, but you need both versions to “Gotta catch ‘em all!” Maybe it was a nice marketing gimmick that worked in the 90s and early 2000s when everyone linked their Gameboys with Link Cables in the playground, but we’re in the 2020s now. Everyone uses online. I can’t believe there are people stupid enough to buy Double Packs, and that’s where Game Freak can get extra dough. Remember when other franchises attempted this and failed miserably or got harsh fan backlash? Pokemon can get away with anything. However the only games I do think it’s worth buying both are… Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. The game story feels actually different enough, so I think it’s actually worth playing both games. Maybe don't play it back to back, but they’re different enough. And the main difference between versions is of course the antagonists: Team Magma and Aqua. I love how they revamped both teams in this game, and they made them really different. Even though the story is the same, the two teams feel very different unlike the original games. Let’s compare Archie and Maxie for example. In the original games, Maxie and Archie were basically the same person with just different designs. They talked the same, only difference was one guy liked water and one guy liked land. They were really bland villains and their goals of trying to expand the sea or earth weren’t even explained well. Now in this game, Maxie is a mad scientist that is quite respectful to the player, and his defeat animation always gets a good laugh out of me. His calm and calculating demeanor makes him quite intimidating but likable at the same time. On the other hand, Archie is now Long John Silver with the accent, and a tanned pirate that always calls the player scamp. And, he doesn't look like a gay pirate anymore, and looks like an actual badass pirate captain. Their motivation got fixed too. Maxie now properly explains that humanity needs more land so he will use Groudon to create more land for the advancement of humanity. Archie kinda ripoffs Team Plasma by having his motivation be expanding the ocean for Pokemon life, sort of like eco-terrorism. Their plans might still make no sense, but the game doesn’t play it up seriously and it feels camp, which isn’t a bad thing. Their unique and different personalities affect their respective team atmosphere too. I like how militaristic Team Magma is, and it’s clever how their Magma Salute can make up the letter M. Maxie feels like a scientist cult leader. His cold hearted leadership actually makes him and Team Magma pretty intimidating. On the other hand, Team Aqua feels like cool thug pirates, and Archie feels like a leader who’s a bro to everyone, while being a charismatic leader at the same time. Both of their battle screens are epic too, when you battle Maxie for the final time it feels like you’re battling him in Dante's Inferno, and when you battle Archie it looks like Percy Jackson and Aquaman went apeshit and created a whirlpool or something. They’re also the only villains in the entire series that have redemption arcs, so they are unique. Being able to team up with Maxie in the post game area was pretty epic. See Game Freak, you don’t have to rely on comically evil supervillains or horrible twist villains to make villains that are lovable and intimidating at the same time. On that note, let me go write my Maxie x Archie fanfiction. The admins are very memorable too, especially Magma Admin Courtney and Aqua Admin Matt. "As in what do you call a guy with no arms and no legs laying on the front porch? Matt." In the original games, you wouldn’t even remember admin names cause they’re so bland, but they made them so distinctive here. Courtney is basically now an anime yandere girl. She literally makes hentai noises in game and talks about ANALyzing the player, so how can a horny teen like me not like that in 2014? Aqua Admin Matt on the other hand, may be the first official gay character in Pokemon. I loved the little details of Matt having gay fantasy porn videos about Archie in his room in the hideout. Matt my bro, I think Archie prefers Maxie over you. I’m sorry, but you need to take the L. Anyways, for these reasons, Team Magma and Aqua in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are my favorite villain teams in the entire series. Yup, based jerry can does not go with normie picks like Team Plasma or Team Rocket. Oh and by the way, I personally like Team Magma better because of Maxie and Courtney. And I also agree with Team Magma’s view that we need more land? After all 70% of the Earth’s surface is ocean and us humans have been fighting wars over land since the dawn of time, so I think we could use more land. So, I played Omega Ruby, and the footage used in this review is from Omega Ruby. #TeamMagmaBest. Anyways, point is, they did such a great job at making Team Magma and Aqua different and likable, so ORAS may be the only games worth buying 2 copies, and that’s saying a lot. So, go buy the Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Double Pack if you agree with me and pray to our lord Ohmori that the game cartridge doesn’t die or something. Oh, and if you’re willing to buy double packs, did you know that me, Gireum, is now a double pack too? I opened a new channel called Gireum Blue that is for video essays about movies such as Star Wars or the MCU, so go check it out. The current red channel will be for gaming, like Pokemon. I’ve followed the spirit of Kanto by splitting it into Red and Blue. Link is in the description below. Peace! Anyways, to wrap up my point, in this game, Archie starts to call you a scamp. He didn’t call the player a scamp in the original games. So why is gen 3 Archie calling the player a scamp in USUM, localization team? This isn’t the Archie from ORAS. Can’t you even get that right, you fucking piece of shit game? Part 4: Kaiju Monsters Other than the characters, the only thing changed about the story in the main campaign is Groudon and Kyogre. What I always liked about the generation 3 legendaries was that they’re forces of nature, and the message of the game was that you shouldn’t fuck with mother nature or else it’ll bite you in the ass. What this game does well is that they did a real good job making Groudon and Kyogre feel like real monsters. Kaiju monsters that is, which they are kinda based off of. When you enter the Cave of Origin, the fact that you have to put on a special suit makes it feel like you’re actually going into the literal den of the beast, or H E double hockey sticks with magma if you’re playing Omega Ruby. And the radio stops working and the bottom screen of the 3DS goes crazy, these are really effective ways to make the legendary Pokemon feel special and intimidating. Much more effective ways to show the power of legendaries than OH NO, DARK SKIES, LARGE PARASITE FLOATING IN THE SKY or IT’S A BLACK DARK DRAGON OUT OF AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION THAT STEALS LIGHT or some BS. I also like that scene where you hop on the back of the legendaries? It was kinda cute and endearing to be honest. Like Groudon and Kyogre is offering to take you to their dens for an honorable legendary battle. "Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will legendary!" Groudon and Kyogre also received new uber forms called Primal Reversions, which to be honest is just the same thing as Mega Evolution but with a different name, but I really like Primal Groudon and Kyogre designs so I don’t care. I just like the fact that they were creative, you know, and gave the legendaries new forms so it’s not just a 1 to 1 remake? Gosh, I wanted some new cool look for Dialga and Palkia on the box art of the remake… Part 5: Music Let’s stop talking about characters and talk about something else that I like from these games. I’ve never talked about the music of Pokemon games separately in my previous reviews, because all Pokemon soundtracks are, you know, good? Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose and their team are indeed brilliant musical geniuses. But as a genthreeer, I must highlight how much I love the soundtrack of these games. I’m sorry gen four Sinnoh lake theme stans, but Hoenn had the best music out of the series up to this point. And I think this game does the soundtrack justice. It’s really impressive how they managed to convert the original, unique Gameboy Advance tracks into modern music. For this game, Game Freak decided to go with very orchestral music. It’s kinda the first time the series attempted this, and they did a good job with it considering it’s their first. Yeah I know Pokemon X and Y had modern music, but that game’s soundtrack felt more rock and techno music, not orchestral like this game. I’ve seen people not like this decision, but I believe if you’re gonna remix classic soundtracks, orchestral music is the way to go. Like all the town, city, routes themes are so well made, and even though it’s probably synth music and not live music, it feels grandeur like a real orchestra. Personal highlights for me are Verdanturf Town with the piano, the Surf theme (which is the best in the series by the way), Sootopolis City, and Victory Road. For the battle themes, I love the trainer theme, the gym leader theme, and of course the elite four theme, which may all be the best in the series, no pun intended. But it’s not just orchestral music. The game incorporates modern synth sounds into the soundtrack well, such as the rival battle theme that added a funky, slapping beat to the song My favorite remix may be Maxie, and Archie’s theme. Like when I heard that bass drop on my 3ds’s tiny speakers, 17 year old Gireum’s jaw dropped. Much better than the USUM remix. Part 6: The DexNav Apart from the characters and the story, my favorite thing from this remake… is surprisingly the bottom screen. There are actually many features to choose optionally from the bottom screen, and they all have nice UI. I won’t talk about the features introduced in XY such as Pokemon Amie cause again, save that for the XY review. However I’ll talk about the other major feature, and that is the DexNav. Why do I like it so much? Well, I think ORAS has my favorite catching mechanic for any Pokemon game. So I’ll explain how it works. In the overworld, Pokemon will appear as rustling grass, which was a feature introduced in gen 4. Then on the bottom screen, you can see what Pokemon it is, and sometimes the Pokemon will have special egg moves or hidden abilities, which might be enticing for those competitive stans. You have to walk slowly, sneak upon the Pokemon or else it’ll run away. This means you have to gently push your analog stick towards it. Also on the bottom screen, it shows which Pokemon live in the area, sort of like the habitat list from Black and White 2, which felt sorely missing in X and Y. And Pokemon you have already caught will appear on the screen, and if you click on it, that Pokemon will appear on the overworld. So hilariously you can now summon super rare Pokemon like Bagon or Skitty infinitely on the overworld if you’ve already caught it once. There are many reasons why I like the DexNav so much. First, it’s the first game in the series that introduced a real-time element into Pokemon gameplay, pretty naturally too I might add. Since you have to sneak upon it and use your controls, it’s not just mindless walking left and right with the d-pad until you run into the right Pokemon or run from it if it’s not like the older games. Second, since you can see what Pokemon it is, there’s less stupid RNG involved. You don’t have to spend like 40 hours running around the same spot looking for a Chimecho while running away from Pokemon. Third, it makes completing the Pokedex fun since there’s less mindless RNG going into catching Pokemon. Even though I only have pictures left because I stupidly deleted my old save file, Pokemon Omega Ruby is still the one and only Pokemon game where I completed the regional dex. I caught all Hoenn Pokemon. And with the help of online features like the GTS and the Pokemover transfer from generation 5 Pokemon games, and because there were 2 day cares so it was really easy to breed Pokemon, I actually caught 587 Pokemon out of all 719 Pokemon in generation 1 to 6. Yes, Pokemon hater Gireum was truly a Pokemon stan back then... "Things change. I changed." Oh yeah, speaking of the national dex.. Part 7: More Than Original Pokemon Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire ironically was the last Pokemon game to be quote unquote “complete”, because it was the last Pokemon game to have a national dex. Even though in the gen 7 games you can transfer Pokemon that aren't on the regional dex from previous generations, the national dex did not exist so there was no point of collecting. Then in gen 8, you can’t even transfer old Pokemon because they were too lazy or rushed or incompetent to transfer all the models from the 3DS to the Switch. Like seriously, what the fuck? Why am I reminded of the iPhone here? You know how Apple has been steadily taking away features on the iPhone with each installment to see what they could get away with? First they take away the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, then they take away the free Lightning-3.5mm adapter included in the box with iPhone XS, then they take away the charger that comes in the box with the iPhone 12. Mark my words, we’ll get an iPhone that has no physical buttons and port at all when wireless charging technology becomes good. Is Game Freak copying this scumbag practice by seeing how lazy they can get by steadily taking out features and testing the customers’ tolerance for BS with each new installment? From no battle frontier to no national dex to no transferring... Jesus christ.. Erm, where was I? Oh right, the Pokedex in ORAS. Did you know that Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is the ONLY Pokemon remake that actually expands the original regional dex by including every new evolutions of original existing Pokemon from games that came after it? Not even Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, HeartGold and Soul Silver, and most likely Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were able to accomplish this. You might be surprised with HeartGold and Soul Silver, but in that game, they essentially soft locked some Pokemon from evolving without trading to the Sinnoh games, and they don’t even appear in the Johto Dex. These include Pokemon such as Magnezone, Mawile, and Gliscor. Anyways, what I’m saying is, the original Hoenn Dex was 202, but in this game, it’s 211. They added ALL new evolution forms of gen 1 to 3 Pokemon introduced in gen 4 such as Roserade, Gallade, Probopass, Froslass and Chingling into the Hoenn Dex You can get all of these Pokemon in the main campaign. Why am I so obsessed with this? Well I believe one of the reasons you want to play an actual goddamn Pokemon remake is not just for better graphics or quality of life improvements implemented in later games. One of the reasons we like Pokemon remakes is because we get new updates to original Pokemon creatures like new forms such as new evolved forms, mega evolutions, and updated stats and abilities. I mean, why replay the same game again if the Pokemon are going to be the same? It’s more content. That’s why I was happy to catch even useless baby Pokemon added like Budew. Also, it just isn’t just you who use new evolutions. The NPCs also use new evolutions too. Wally is the biggest example, cause he’s using a mega Gallade instead of Gardevoir, cause his sexual taste went form femboy to just boy. Also, the Elite Four uses new evolutions too. In the original games Phoebe used 2 Banettes and 2 Dusclops, proving how rare ghost types are, but in this game, she also uses a Dusknoir in the team. Glacia used 2 Glalies and 3 Walrein family which was fucking dumb, so in this game, the Sealeos have been replaced by gen 4 Pokemon Froslass. Also I mentioned this was the last Pokemon game to give us the National Dex, right? Well in every game before this, the National Dex was acquired in the post game, making it post game content But in this game, you get it after the 8th gym. Non-Hoenn Pokemon begin to sprout up all over the Hoenn region, giving you incentive to explore the region again. Also, the trainers in Victory Road, unlike the original game, use national Pokemon, and many of them use tough biscuits like Rhyperior or Darmanitan, making it the most challenging part of the game. I loved this version of Victory Road, and it’s the only part of any official Pokemon game that felt like a Drayano rom hack or something because there’s so many plentiful Pokemon. I do wish these kinds of sections were longer, but I was happy with what I got. Anyways, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will apparently have only generation 1 to 4 493 Pokemon in the game. We won’t get new gen 8 evolutions like Mr. Rime or Obstagoon in the game, and we wouldn’t be able to get post gen 4 Pokemon in the post game. Ugh, ORAS might not be perfect, but it felt complete and refreshing compared to what we’re about to get in BDSP. Part 8: Fly Me to the Moon… Let’s get to another favorite feature of this game… And of course it’s the Eon Flute. Basically, after you defeat Groudon or Kyogre, you can use the Eon Flute to summon Latios or Latias. You can ride on their back in real time, and explore the skies of the Hoenn region. Man, this mode in the game might be simple, but it was a dream come true for me. Even though the map is not that big, I still love it and I’ll explain why. First, it actually has practical usages. In my USUM review, I complained about the Mantine surfing because it had nothing to do with the chore mechanic of the Pokemon games, it’s a stupid mini game they put in at the last minute, and it’s only usage was to farm BP. Well the flying in this game actually isn’t useless eye candy, because the Eon Flute is a key item, so you can use it instead of HM move fly. It has the practical usage of being able to move across the map without the usage of an HM slave. Second, they also have mirage islands that randomly spawn across the map, so there is some exploration to do. You can get non-Hoenn Pokemon in these mirage spots. So there is another practical usage to the Eon Flute. Third, just being able to see the actual Hoenn region from the sky rendered in full 3D is just awesome? I played the The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword remaster recently, and it has a similar sky flying gimmick with animals called Loftwings. But in that game, the land beneath is covered by clouds, so it made me feel like I was exploring an empty, dull void, not an epic open world Zelda game. It was the the dumbest fucking thing ever, and made the Loftwing feel like a gimmick. Conversely in this game, you can actually see where you’re going on the ground, so it feels like free, unlimited exploration of the Hoenn region, and less like a gimmick. Wow, a Pokemon game actually beating something from a Zelda game, would you look at that.... "Impossible." One of the main reasons I play Pokemon is for the adventure and the exploration, and finally seeing the region I played the hell out of as a child from the sky almost brought a tear to my heart. That image of the Hoenn region map I loved to stare at in the Pokemon Emerald Prima guidebook felt like it came to real life. Zipping from Mt. Chimney to Sootopolis to Dewford town… Ah... Nowadays, Pokemon Sword and Shield got so fucking lazy they couldn’t even animate a cutscene of you getting on a bird Pokemon when using fly. Like, seriously, what the fuck? Hopefully Pokemon Legends Arceus captures the epic grandeur feeling of exploring the sky, seeing it’s going to be the first open-world Pokemon game. Whelp, I wrote that into the script too soon Part 9: Map Design and Teleportation I think I’ve praised the game enough, so I want to briefly talk about things I have mixed feelings about, starting with the map design. I won’t talk much about the visual aesthetics of the game, because I want to save my thoughts on generation 6 Pokemon graphics and artstyle until I get to review Pokemon X and Y. Anyways, the Hoenn map. After playing gen 7 and 8 games, it felt refreshing playing a time where they still cared about creative map design. I actually had trouble getting through some of them like some of the Trick House puzzles, and the game doesn’t treat you like a fucking toddler in those sections. I think this game really uses the camera well in some places, and the grid and chibi design helps to fill the uncanny valley. I think the graphics looked fucking beautiful in some places of the map, especially Meteor Falls. There’s actual attention to detail in the graphics, such as your reflection on the waxed part of the floor at Norman’s gym. The hallways between the rooms of the Elite Four really utilized the graphic effects very well. There’s also really cute sections on the map like this tv studio in Mauville city. What is up jerry can alert nation, I’m your host, based Giruem Red… Let’s get right into the news! Anyways, point is, there is actual passion to the graphics and map design of this game. Like, can you name a single moment in gen 7 or 8 Pokemon games where they were creative with camera angles or they utilized beautiful colors like this game? Instead, we got embarrassing moments in the game such as lazy hallway island trials or the lazy distortion world ripoff or literally a city that’s a fucking hallway. See why I’m saying the past looks beautiful now? Anyways, there was a nice quality of life improvement too. In the previous games, you could only fly to cities and towns you’ve already visited In this game, you can fly to any city or town PLUS route, dungeon, cave, and with the Eon Flute, makes it the Pokemon game that is easiest to get around the map. I hope this feature is back in BDSP, cause some places in Sinnoh are a pain in the ass to backtrack. But there was a feature that I think was intended by the developers as a quality of life improvement, but fans see as hand holding. You see, the game offers to teleport you to your next destination in some places. On one hand, I don’t think it’s a bad change, because the game doesn’t force you to teleport, and they left it as an option. You can ignore your rival if you want. However, the layout of the original Hoenn routes weren’t designed with this kind of teleportation in mind. Like when you do the Meteor Falls quest, the game takes you back to Fallarbor Town, then offers to teleport you to Mauville City. But the original games intended for you to continue travelling through Meteor Falls, then to northern Route 115, then to Rustbro, go through Rusturf Tunnel and break the rocks for the couple, then back to Mauville. Like you will miss big parts of the game here if you teleport! But then again, in the original games, it was pretty cryptic where you’re supposed to go next in many parts, so I had to rely on the Prima Guidebook back then. Conclusion is, I’m mixed feelings about the teleportation thing. You be the judge if this was good or bad game design. Part 10: Too Much Water 7.8/10 I normally wouldn't talk about this, but it’s such a famous meme regarding this game, so let’s indulge for a bit. For those who lived under a very big white rock, I’ll explain. When this game came out, IGN rated the game 7.8 out of 10, which was kind of low for a Pokemon game, especially compared to other games. I mean these clowns gave Pokemon X and Y a 9 out of 10, Pokemon Sword and Shield a 9.3, and Pokemon Fucktard a 9. Seriously? Wata Games literally rate games better than these people. Anyways, one of the main points they gave a 7.8 was… “Too Much Water”. People said this was a ridiculous way to review a game, and that IGN was a secret subsidiary of Team Magma. But the thing is… I do think IGN had a point, and this game is indeed. Too. Damn. Wet. Especially if you’ve played Pokemon Alpha Sapphire like the IGN reporter did. Like, half of the Hoenn region is water? One problem I have with the Hoenn region is that all the land routes are so colorful and diverse and the other half of the region is just featureless blue ocean that all look the same It was like this in the original games and it’s like this in this game too. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if they dried up some of the areas and built bridges in the remake in some of the ocean routes. 90% of the trainers on these water routes are swimmers who use the Wailord or Tentacruel family which makes it repetitive, and all the wild Pokemon that appear in the routes are the same everywhere. Like everything from Route 127 to 134 literally are the same thing And this game’s legendary is a water type Moby Dick and the main antagonists are pirates that use water type Pokemon and you are required to use 3 Water type HM moves… Yeah, ORAS does indeed have too much water. Good job pointing that out, IGN. I suggest you go play Omega Ruby if you want to be dry. Oh and speaking of rating games with numbers, I normally don’t rate games, and I have no intention of rating games at all. Because if I start rating games with numeral numbers, there will always be those assholes in the comments saying Developing a video game isn’t a fucking test? I don’t want to be a scumbag profit company like College board and grade tests, so there will be no number rating from me, of course unless I change my mind in the future. So, I give Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, an 8 out of 14 chocolate chip scones. Part 11: Hoopa Ring Legendaries One thing I didn’t mention about the national dex was that Game Freak made it so that if you owned all 4 generation 6 Pokemon games, that being X, Y, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire, you can collect all 721 generation 1 to 6 Pokemon, minus the event ones of course. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I applaud Game Freak for this choice, because I believe it’s the only generation where every Pokemon is collectible and self-contained in a single generation. Maybe it was their final gift to us national dex fans before pegging us in the ass starting with the next generation. Anyways, then came the problem. What about the legendaries? Pokemon X Y had only 7 legendary Pokemon, and these games needed to cram in 31 other legendary Pokemon. I guess it would have been hard to write in lore, create dungeons, remix every individual theme for these 31 Pokemon, so Game Freak decided to cut corners with a Pokemon called Hoopa. Basically every legendaries that weren’t in the original games do appear, but they appear in these black holes that are spread across the map. Some Pokemon like Ho-Oh and Lugia appear in dungeons like Sea Mauville, Heatran appears in Scorched Slab. Some Pokemon like the lake spirits appear in mirage spots that spawn in the world in certain times of the day. Some Pokemon like Dialga or Palkia appear in dark clouds in the sky. Yeah, so prepare to use the Eon Flute a lot. All the legendaries use the original battle themes without any remixes. The lore for this is that Hoopa is a Pokemon that can create wormholes through space time to bring legendary Pokemon from other worlds to Hoenn, so the soundtracks used are old music? When I first played this game in 2014, I was really angry about this feature. It felt like a lazy contrived way to have all the legendaries in the game, and the fact that they used the older music stank of rushing, being lazy, and cutting corners. Which it is… But after all the newer games like the horrible lazy Ultra Warp Ride in USUM and the legendary battles in Sword and Shield… I changed my mind about it. At least this game didn’t rely on horrible gimmicks like playing Superman 64 with motion controls, or online co-op giganta max battles. At least not all the legendary Pokemon are all acquired in the same way and isn’t stupid RNG, and they’re spread out. You see, they did cut corners, but it felt like they did it out of a good cause, not to be lazy. They wanted to include every legendary Pokemon, so they picked quantity over quality. Of course, they could have spent extra time to create 30+ dungeons and events to have every legendary feel special like Black and White 2, but I don’t feel laziness or maliciousness or cynicism from the developers in this game, like we do currently with recent games. Part 12: Rapid-Fire Round Before I talk about the final 2 problems of this game and the post game Delta Episode, I’m gonna do a lightning, rapid-fire round of minor things in the game that’s not significant enough to talk about longly. This video is already getting pretty drowned out as it is. Ready? The contest mode in this game is pretty bad and forgettable, but I’ve never liked the contest mode in the original games too or the gen 4 games quite frankly, so "Do I look like I give a damn?" At least they gave us a character associated with contest mode now, which is an improvement. The hidden bases mechanic in this game was excellent! You can create QR codes to post images online, making it easy to share so it was the best online content on 3DS Pokemon in my opinion. Exchanging QR codes with friends was fun, and people uploaded EXP grind shops online, which was hilarious. Hopefully the secret bases in BDSP are good like this too. HM moves suck. This game requires too many, but this was a problem with most Pokemon games before generation 7, so I won’t talk about it separately in this video. There weren’t 5000 Kanto references in this game unlike Pokemon X and Y or the gen 7 games, and this may be the last game in the series where they didn’t rely on fucking gen one nostalgia. The main character has emotions! Brendan and May aren’t emotionless, ruthless, fake T-800 exo-skeletons in this game. Why did they fuck it up in the next installment? If you play as May, I like the little detail that makes her cute like bending on her knees when talking to little kids. She also kneels down when talking to someone sitting down. Oh, don’t kneel in front of the hiker... "Oh my..." One dumb thing about Pokemon X and Y was that gym leaders didn’t get 3D models in battle, but instead used static images like every trainer in the game. Only the rivals and Team Flare got them for some reason. This game has the same problem too. All the gym leaders and elite fours use static images when you battle them. I don’t mind random trainer NPC’s having static images, but gym leaders though? They’re important NPC’s and I feel like I’m fighting a PNG image, not an actual character. Sorely disappointed with this small detail. Let’s also talk about mega evolutions. This game introduced a lot of mega evolutions that weren’t in X and Y. I like most of the designs, especially Slowbro, but I don’t understand why non-Hoenn Pokemon got them in a Hoenn game remake? Like Beedrill and Pidgeot didn’t need megas, we should have given it to poor Flygon. Does Game Freak just hate all ground-dragon type Pokemon that aren’t Garchomp? "I hate you!" Another thing about megas. In X and Y, only fucking 4 NPC’s used mega evolutions in battle which was a missed opportunity. Now in this game, more NPC’s use it in battle, such as the Elite Four in their rematches. Still sad that gym leaders don’t use it though. Well that’s it for the rapid fire round. Let’s now talk about the first major problem of this game. Part 13: The Easy Difficulty I will be brief with this, because it’s a simple topic, but it’s a serious problem with the game. ORAS has 2 big problems, and this is one of them. And that is of course, this game is way too fucking easy. I understand Pokemon X and Y being easy, and Sword and Shield too cause it’s the first games on a console so you don’t want to alienate casual gamers, and first games on the console always sell the most. But ORAS isn’t that. It was intended for nostalgia-ridden lifeless Hoenn stans like me, who are likely hardcore fans. Why is this game so easy? This game has the same problem with Pokemon X and Y, and it’s that the EXP Share is way too overpowered. Now, don’t get me wrong. Unlike other Pokemon fans, I love the new EXP share. Sharing all the EXP to all Pokemon instead of just one makes you grind less, and makes your team levelling up more balanced. The problem is that the level-scaling of the game feels like they didn’t design it with the EXP share in mind? Every gym leaders are underleveled so it’s comical. Also, there are some really baffling creative decisions that make the game easier than it really is. Like why are the Magma and Aqua admins all using 1 Pokemon each? That wasn’t even a thing in the original games. I love me my yandere sex android robot. Make her challenging for god sake, Game Freak! There’s nothing much to say other than, well, the game is too easy. Personally I still think Pokemon Sun and Moon had the best difficulty in Pokemon because it’s still a decently challenging game even when you have the EXP share on. So that’s at least something Game Freak learned from this game, but then unlearned in Sword and Shield. Part 14: The Lack of Emerald Content The other main problem of this game is obviously: ignoring Pokemon Emerald. If Pokemon Emerald didn’t exist, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is a perfect remake that improved almost every aspect from the original Ruby and Sapphire games. But Pokemon Emerald exists. It can’t unexist, but Game Freak chooses to ignore it. Did they think we were dumb? Do they still think we’re dumb by ignoring Platinum? Well, maybe we are dumb. Game Freak’s effort of pretending as if Pokemon Emerald didn’t exist in this game’s main campaign is up to the level of comic absurdity. It’s almost to the level of the Japanese government denying World War 2 war crimes or the Chinese government denying an incident at a square in 1989. They’re really trying to erase history, but we jerry cans never forgot. For example, the gym leader teams. Every gym leader in ORAS is based off their incarnation from Ruby and Sapphire, not Emerald. Tate and Liza only use Lunatone and Solrock just like Ruby and Sapphire and don’t use extra Pokemon, making their fight anticlimactic and easy. Pokemon Emerald was also the first game in the series to introduce gym leader rematches, but that’s a feature not here too which is surprising because even the previous barebone game X Y had gym leader rematches! So except for Wallace in the Delta Episode, you only get to fight gym leaders once. So due to that, Tate and Liza feel like png images that send out Solrock and Lunatone that can be beaten in 30 seconds with a Surf attack…. Minor dungeons added in Emerald are gone too. Remember Mirage Tower at the desert route? Well, that’s gone, so the fossils are just lying around the desert for anyone to pick up apparently. This is such a small minor dungeon, was it so hard to design it in 3D? In the original Ruby and Sapphire, Team Aqua and Magma acted exactly the same with minor differences, so there were some unintentional comedy moments. Like why was Team Magma’s base in the sea? Pokemon Emerald fixed it by having Team Aqua’s base be next to Lilycove, and create a new hideout for Team Magma under Mt. Chimney. It makes sense for an organization that literally calls themselves “Magma” to have their base be under a fucking volcano, right? Well, this game went back to the original games and brilliant scientist Maxie is a moron by building a base on ocean rocks. Also, Groudon hiding out in a cave under the ocean in Pokemon Ruby was dumb as hell too? In Pokemon Emerald, they fixed it by moving Groudon to under Mt. Chimney. Again, this game copies Pokemon Ruby, but now this time, poor ground type Groudon has to rise out of the ocean and walk on the sea to get to Sootopolis. Biased towards Alpha Sapphire, aren’t we? "Why are we still here, just to suffer?" And of course, we have the final missing part of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. The thing that made everyone get angry, and the thing that made me lose some confidence in the franchise. And of course, that is the Battle Frontier. "Where is it?" The lack of the Battle Frontier has been a running joke on my channel for over a year now, so let’s finally talk about it in detail. It’s really a shame the Battle Frontier is not in the game, because the ingredients for it are there in the game I’m saying this because there are these gimmick battles that felt like they could have been used for a Battle Frontier, but they didn’t. I counted three in the game. First, in Mauville City, there is an NPC that challenges you to Inverse Battles. Inverse Battles is a neat and fun idea which I’m surprised was dropped after generation 6. Basically, type advantages are reversed, and attacks that are not effective will be super effective and attacks that are super effective will be not be effective. It’s a super cool mode where you need to think outside of the box. Second, again in Mauville City, there is the Food Court mini game. Basically, you place an order and you wait at a table. Trainers fight you consecutively, and you have to make sure to end the battle in the exact numbers of turns as the game tells you to do so, such as 5 turns. It’s a nice minigame that requires you to do precise timings. Third, Pokemon X and Y introduced horde battles, where you fight 5 wild Pokemon at once. This game introduces a trainer version of that, where you fight 5 trainers at once. Problem is, it only happens twice in the game! Couldn’t they utilize this feature more? And they dropped horde encounters after gen 6. Anyways, if they took these 3 battle ideas and created 3 facilities, plus the traditional renting facility Battle Factory, and the vanilla Battle Tower, boom. That’s 5 facilities right there, a perfect Battle Frontier. I don’t think designing a Battle Frontier is hard? Only if they took like 2 months more time of development to design new characters and model the facilities… But no, instead we got the Battle House, a straight up copy of the one from Pokemon X and Y. I think they literally pressed copy paste on it, and changed nothing except the battle music, because some of the trainers that appear in it are NPC’s that only appear in Kalos. Like, what the fuck? And as the cherry on top of this shit sundae, they rub salt in our wound by teasing there will be a Battle Frontier. There are NPC’s around the Battle House talking about how they’re building a Battle Frontier, and to top it all off, a model of the Battle Frontier is displayed, and saying construction has started. They even remixed the Frontier Brain music for the forgettable Battle Chatelaines, just to add more tease to our musical ears and cocks. Let’s briefly stop and just think about this for a moment, because this could only mean 3 things. Think of it logically, there are only three possibilities of the explanations. "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." One. Game Freak was originally planning on making the Battle Frontier a DLC for the game, but something came up and they decided not to. Two. The people at Game Freak are sadistic sociopaths who find pleasure in teasing their fans and rubbing it in our faces knowing we want a Battle Frontier, but not giving it to us. Or three. The people at Game Freak thought we wouldn’t care if the Battle Frontier was gone and all the references to it were nice easter egg fanservice. Well I hope it’s the first explanation, because option 2 implies we are masochists, and option 3 means they’re tone-deaf as fuck, but I think option 3 is probably the most likely explanation, considering their complete obvlivousness in recent years. "How poetic." Anyways, instead of giving us Emerald content, they decided to give us something else, and that is of course the Delta Episode. Let’s finally talk about that. Part 15: The Delta Episode and Shigeru Ohmori I feel like Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was a turning point for the Pokemon franchise. This game was directed by Shigeru Ohmori, in his first debut as Pokemon director. It wasn’t directed by Junichi Masuda, but that wasn’t a surprise because he only directed “first duo games” like Ruby and Sapphire or Black and White or X and Y. Watch my Cannes Festival reject short film if you want to see the full history of that, link is in description below. Anyways, Shigeru Ohmori directing this game wasn't strange. What was strange is what came after. Shigeru Ohmori would go on and direct Pokemon Sun and Moon, then Pokemon Sword and Shield, which are the next two “first duo games”. It felt like Mr. Masuda was handing over the reign of the franchise to Mr. Ohmori, and this game was the beta test. And looking back now, this game feels like the preview for what’s to come, and I could feel that mostly from the Delta Episode. What I’m saying is, the Delta Episode feels like a beta test for Pokemon Sun and Moon. So what is the Delta Episode? It’s the main post-game content of this game. So after the main campaign, you go on a 2-hour story mission, where you assist a character named Zinnia. Apparently a meteor is falling from the sky and going to destroy the world, and you must awaken Rayquaza to stop it. How is it a beta test for Sun and Moon? Well we both have story focused storylines where the main character takes a back seat and instead, a cute pandering anime girl becomes the main character who has family issues. We both have too many boring cutscenes with too much text, and we both have a story about some mcguffin about legendary Pokemon. Difference is, Delta Episode is only like 2 hours long, but Sun and Moon is the whole entire game. I think this kind of storytelling method is a staple to Shigeru Ohmori’s style as director, because every game he touches turns into a linear cutscene nightmare Pokemon game, hence why I am pointing out this transfer of power in the Pokemon development team with the game. So basically Delta Episode is Ohmori using the post game content as a test subject to try this kind of style, then fully developing it in the next installment. Am I saying Shigeru Ohmori ruined the Pokemon franchise like how Elon Musk ruined humanity? "Possibly." Now I’ll talk about things that didn’t work with the Delta Episode. First of all, I really do not like Zinnia, for many reasons. She's a character that doesn’t work for me. First, she’s an entitled self righteous know-it-all and she keeps treating people like idiots? She’s an asshole to everyone, especially to Steven. Look, I’m not a Steven stan but I don’t want to see someone calling the champion who was the final boss an idiot. "You stupid!" Second her dialogue is just endless exposition dump to exposition dump to exposition dump. It’s just poorly written. Third, she has the same problem with Lillieh in a sense that she takes the role of the main character while you, the main character, takes a back seat as the cameraman. You become the side character, and what should be the side character becomes the main focus of the story. Fourth, she appears out of nowhere? I think they should have given her a bigger role in the main campaign like a team admin or something, but in the game, she only shows up twice for like 2 seconds each. There is no build up to her or the Delta Episode. The Delta Episode is also the time where the Pokemon franchise introduced multiple parallel earths theory to the Pokemon lore. Basically one of the scientist’s plans is to create a wormhole to send the meteor into a different dimension, but Zinnia stops them because it’ll send it to the Ruby and Sapphire world of Hoenn. I like that they call the wormhole “link cable”, like the thing that connects literal Pokemon cartridges or “worlds” together. But this opened a can of worms with the parallel earths thing, and Game Freak got carried away with the concept in the next generation, and finally jumped the shark in the brainless Rainbow Rocket Episode in USUM I swear to god BDSP or Legends Arceus not mention this again, because I’m getting sick and tired of the Pokemon Multiverse. "Hello, Lucas." And finally, the main problem with the Delta Episode is that it’s so fucking boring! You don’t visit any new areas except until the end, and it’s just constant backtracking to places like Granite Cave or the team hideout or Meteor Falls. They literally force you to revisit Mossdeep City 3 times, and one time ist just for Steven to tell you something. Couldn’t you do this over the phone, mate? But despite all of the BS I hate from the Delta Episode, I don’t care about it. I still do like the Delta Episode. Do you know why? It’s a simple reason. It’s because… YOU GO TO OUTER SPACE BABY!! Like who the hell would not go through 5 spontaneous orgasms when you ride on Rayquaza’s back, and fly out to outer space? That fucking awesome moment when Rayquaza crahes into the meteor, and then the triangle pops out, and does the movement of the puzzle you find on Birth Island, and then holy fucking shit! It’s fucking Deoxys, the most badass looking event legendary Pokemon that ever existed! Then you throw out Rayquaza against Deoxys, and you’re actually fighting a Pokemon in OUTER SPACE, MOTHERFUCKER! You forget all the boring bullshit you’ve just went through the last 2 hours, and that just looks like buildup to something fucking awesome looking back. Pokemon finally did it, we finally went to space just like James Bond, Jason Voorhees, and Mario! Ironic that a Pokemon game named after celestials couldn’t even pull this off properly and made it stupid. Ahem, point is, Delta Episode has a lot of problems, but it gets good the moment you reach Sky Pillar, because truly awesome things happen on it. Who cares about shitty characters or crappy stories when you get awesome music and you go out into space to fight an alien being? See Mr. Ohmori, you can shove shitty stories and lazy cutscenes up our ass as long as you have something awesome at the end of it as a payoff! I really do hope Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl at least gives Giratina and the Distortion World the Delta Episode treatment, but knowing Junichi Masuda these days, Giratina will be sitting on its ass in a cave waiting to be caught, surrounded by Zubats. No distortion world, cause that’s too much work. Conclusion If I had to summarize Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire with 1 movie line, it would be this. “We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close." I really do think Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is an excellent remake. It added so much character to the classic region of Hoenn and its lore, the game looked beautiful, the game actually felt complete and is the best game to play for Pokedex completing enthusiasts, tried to make it fresh with new features such as the Eon Flute and Delta Episode, and is overall a solid remake. It didn’t have embarrassing moments like hallway sections or cringe graphics and animation like we do with current games. It also wasn’t a quote unquote “faithful” 1 to 1 remake upscaling HD port, and they actually cared for once. Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire may be the most frustrating games in the series, because despite its accomplishments, there were 2 major problems If this game wasn’t so easy, and they didn’t act as if Pokemon Emerald didn’t exist in the main campaign, it really could have been one of the best Pokemon games, up there with games like Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver or Pokemon Black and White 2. If they just playtested it a bit more, and had like 2 more months of development time, maybe they could have perfected it. It’s a shame they didn’t, because overall, like the previous game Pokemon X and Y, the entire generation 6 Pokemon feels like a missed opportunity, because the potential was ther But after 7 years, (gosh it’s been that long since this game came out? I’m getting old..) would say the game has aged well. Even though the next game Pokemon Sun and Moon wasn’t terrible I would say ORAS was the final time the Pokemon series felt like a classic Pokemon game. Oh yeah, the all-time highpoint of the franchise was obviously Black and White 2, but this felt like the last time Game Freak was actually passionate with the games. It was the last time the game actually felt fucking complete. The next remake we’re getting is a 1 to 1 remake without any of the freshness or risks Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire took. We won’t get new forms for Pokemon, new mega evolutions, or character redesigns of all Sinnoh characters in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. So yes, the Hoenn remakes may be disappointing in some aspects, but I would still call it a well-made game. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is still worth trying out if you’ve played the original Pokemon Emerald, unlike Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which I still see no incentive to buy when Pokemon Platinum exists. So come join me on Twit I’m currently streaming Pokemon Platinum time to time, so I can make a video about it next, link is in the description below. Anyways, since this game introduced the Pokemon mulvtiverse, maybe in a parallel universe, there exists a Pokemon Delta Emerald version, where all the improvements made in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire AND the content from Pokemon Emerald exist in one, ultimate Hoenn game. But we don’t live on that Earth, and one can only dream about it. So get to work, 3DS hackers and modders!
