Pokemon ORAS ~opinions~

Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire ~opinion~

Good things: Start with running shoes.

Movement overall is really natural + good to handle.

Game overall was incredibly pleasing to the eye. This isn't a huge deal to me, but I do appreciate the work put into it (especially some of the cutscenes, the camerawork was great, e.g. the Birch cutscene)

Speaking of which, the Birch cutscenes, especially the ones AFTER the Elite Four. Those are the type of touches I love to see, -especially- in a remake. Something not necessary, but awesome and cute and funny, just really nice touch.

Honestly so many little touches like this throughout the game, that I really respected. Another good example: After you beat Norman, that little moment where he talks about being proud of his kid along with Wally. Really nice.

Gym redesigns (except T&L) were good.

Elite Four design overall was great, with the corridors (and having the foresight to only play them once) and picture panels and personality and such, overall really, really well done.

Elite Four rematches being in at all, and then their execution was very good.

Lisa was a cool new character.

I like the powerup contest things (when you max out the stars) and the Poke goes insane and does some hyper special move. Again, nice touch.

May x Brendan <3

Delta Emerald postgame was nice, without being anything incredibly fantastic. Just a really good addition to the games. I liked Zinnia (especially her disrespect, even to people like Steven), and the adaptation to put in Rayquaza to the games was a lot more suiting, I feel. I would've enjoyed it more if it was a bit more optional and not pushed on you as much but hey, it's not that big a deal.

The soundtrack, overall, is way better than RSE. There are two tracks (Champion and one other that gets mentioned later...) that I don't like as much, but overall a big improvement, and a few new tracks got added that are really great too.

Liked the story overall. Even though it was a remake, and very little was tweaked, what they did tweak I liked (The Link Cable alternate dimension in Delta Emerald? Great touch)

Soaring with the Eon Flute was a really cool idea and well implemented too.

I probably wouldn't appreciate this if I didn't speedrun Emerald...but having the option to get teleported to where I want to be after an Event early game is so excellent. Fuck Abra bitches, I've got Brendan to take me straight back to Mauville, back to Norman.

Being able to Fly to spots on Routes is really cool, and makes navigating really nice (and also takes away any feeling of there being more water than there should be, if anything it feels like there is less)

The water animations overall were really nice (I especially liked Dive/underwater touches overall)

Primals were done well, good cutscenes, good implementation into the story, etc. Little touches like the Suit, Red/Blue orb vs Blue/Red orb were really nice.


Bad things: All these damn legendaries. Now I'm fine with the game having this many legendaries, and the way they incorporated the soaring into finding some was really cool. But then they just fucking drop out of a black hole? Fuck off, that's some straight bullshit. Completely takes away from the legendary feel, kills a lot of history too honestly.

Entering one tile spaces with the Mach Bike (I thought this shit was meant to have slow acceleration not jumpstart to make ladders a complete bitch)

T&L's Gym redesign, complete shit. They got them all right except this one.

Flannery's character redesign was shit, made her seem incompetent/stupid/childish.

The teams were based off R&S rather than E, which is fine in most cases, but they are a few times were it just seems wrong. Best example I'd say is Wattson not having a Manectric, and the fact that he can have his last Pokemon as a god damn Voltorb is a little insulting to be honest.

Should not have played Rayquaza Jesus Music during the whole buildup climbing Sky Pillar (lost all it's emotion and feeling by playing it too long, and yes I call is Jesus music, deal with it)

Abandoned Ship was by far, by -so- far my favourite track from RSE. It is my least favourite in these games, how the fuck did they botch it so badly? Ugh.

Steven has a fucking Carbink in his rematch team, fuck off that is not a champion poke.

Forced HMs. And I don't mean you have to use HMs, I've always been fine with that. I mean them just being given to you, let me work for them a little hey?

Speaking of, forced Secret Power/Base. Ok...but fuck that cutscene is way too long. WAY too long.

Mega implementation overal wasn't very good. Not even mentioning the Latis, just getting the stones just felt out of place, and especially if you hadn't played X/Y it'd just be like "why is there some sparkly shit giving me a mega mewtwo stone just chilling out here in plain sight before E4? Stupid as shit." And then things like "hmm that's an intruiging stone...actually isn't it a Pidgeotite?" *I obtained Pidgeotite!* Like...no. The enemy implementation of it was fine actually, just on your end it felt really...wrong.


Great things: No additional hand holding, in fact if anything there was less. They let you just go straight off and get bodied if you don't grind/know exactly what the fuck is coming, no extra tutorials, etc.

Character redesigns overall are fucking fantastic. So much detail to personality put into all of them, there are a few standouts (Maxie, T&L's dance come to mind straight away) but just about every single one was done fantastically, even if it was just a little touch.

Wally. Could put him into the above category, but holy -shit- they did Wally well. His whole redesign, the theme they gave him, hell they even sped up his menu speed on the tutorial for crying out loud! What more could you want?! And then his final battle comes, and that setting, then those eyes and the music holy shit, so fucking terrific. AND they give him by far and away the best new Mega in Gallade? Fuck. Yes.


Awful things: Forced free Latios/Latias at midway point complete with Mega Stone. Complete joke, the latis are by a mile my favourite Hoenn pokes (their megas are absolute shit designs too), and it completely takes away from them, let alone destroys the pace of the game.

No Battle Frontier. Everyone knows this is shit, even gamefreak themselves based on all the teasers, and there's a ton of different theories going around that t'll eventually come into the games, which if it does, is all good (so long as I don't have to pay for it)


Also, they did a few major redesigns throughout like Mauville City, which was alright but fuck off with that changed perspective controls, Abandoned Ship to New Mauville which I didn't like so much but the lore was pretty good,

Overall: Really fucking enjoyed the games. At the moment, I'd put it just below Black 2/White 2, but with a Battle Frontier it'd be just about on par with Pokemon Yellow (for the list I'm talking about, see http://pastebin.com/XFywpf06 ) I'm sure I forgot some other things, but overall really enjoyed what they did, just made a few bad decisions along the way (like 85/15 good though)