Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

Nostalgia unbound.

Many people ask what is my favourite pokemon game. I tell them Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald straight away, no questions asked. These pokemon games always had a place in my heart due to being the first pokemon games I truly played and the ones I keep playing even today. The 3rd generation of pokemon games really worked for me, although not for others, as I loved Hoenn and I loved all the new pokemon. However, can the newest remakes in the series truly live up to the originals? Let’s find out!

The story is very true to the original counterparts. You play as either Brendan or May, people who have recently moved to the region of Hoenn. In this region you will gain a pokemon and will proceed on your journey to become a pokemon master while along the way stopping the nefarious Team Magma or Team Aqua from changing Hoenn forever. The story isn’t exactly original but it’s a pokemon game so what do you really expect? They do tie in various new points of the series to the Hoenn region however, such as the implementation of Mega Evolutions and give better reasonings as to why Team Aqua/Magma do what they do. They also focus a lot on character development, especially with your 2 rivals, Brendan/May and Wally. These characters in the original were rather bland and boring however here they have true character arcs and you actually feel as though you are going on a true journey with them. Along with making the stakes a lot higher than the original, and the introduction of an entire new story after you complete the game titled the ‘Delta Episode’, there is a lot more story-wise here than anything the originals had.

Choose your starters!

The presentation of this game is perhaps it’s greatest aspect. Hoenn is recreated almost perfectly in the new 3D engine carried over from X/Y which allows you to see Hoenn and all of it’s pokemon in true 3D. Little touches allow the world to seem a lot more alive, from the packs of random flying wingulls that appear over the oceans to the much more expressive character models, it makes Hoenn seem all that more real and with the much more vibrant and varied colour pallet it makes Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire even more pretty than X/Y. The music however is absolutely perfect, every original Hoenn track is remixed to a perfect orchestral level (even retaining some of the trumpets!) and mixes the right blend of new and nostalgic music to make it a blast to listen to. This is one of the only games where I was whistling along to every track I heard, even if it was the first time hearing it! Listening to a faithfully recreated Hoenn soundtrack is now one of my new favourite ever things to do.

The gameplay hasn’t changed too much from either X/Y or even the original games. The new changes from the originals are much appreciated as it makes some Hoenn pokemon a lot more useful in battle. The introduction of mega evolutions too help to change up the formula for a lot of the pokemon you can find (my personal new favourite mega is Mega Beedrill). The big new things however is the dexnav and the soaring technique. The dexnav is a new ability added to the bottom screen that allows you to scan for particular pokemon in an area. You can then specifically find this pokemon in the grass and if you can sneak up on one it can have rare moves or abilities! This helps the ‘catch’em all’ vibe really stick out as you now have a literal list per area as to what pokemon you need to capture, along with helping to get pokemon with special moves. This also helps more pokemon to become viable throughout the game and thus can help make getting some of your favourite pokemon much easier to get. The other feature is soaring in which at a point in the game you gain the ability to ride a specific pokemon in real time over Hoenn, allowing yourself to travel to old town and areas, explore new ones and perform tricks in the sky. This effectively replaced the need to use the move fly for me as this worked even better and was a lot more fun to experience. Seeing Hoenn fully modeled from the sky makes it a lot more of a beautiful place and especially helps to make the game more smooth. Almost all the features added into the game (such as the experience share from X/Y) help to make the game a lot more streamlined and as such help to make the experience a lot better.

I personally chose Omega Ruby, check out Primal Groudon!

However there are some problems with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. The most obvious problem I found was that even though the new features helped to streamline the game, it also made the game much easier. From having access to pokemon with much better moves and not needing to grind at all with the new EXP share I never actually lost once during my entire adventure. These features can be not used thankfully which might help make the game a bit more challenging. Secondly the same 3D lag problems from X/Y are here, and sometimes it is even worse than before making the 3D feature useless once more. Finally there is a huge piece of post game content which is missing, the Battle Frontier. For those that don’t know the Battle Frontier was a new feature added in Emerald that was an entire new island that consisted of many new facilities and challenges. It has a lot of charm and personality to it, and even included it’s own form of gym badges with the implementation of Frontier Brains and their symbols. I realise this is a remake of Ruby/Sapphire however they add so many things from Emerald and even tease the fact that the Battle Frontier is being built that it just seems weird that it isn’t there.

All in all however, this game is a beautiful trip back to Hoenn. From the visuals to the sound and the new gameplay additions this game truly delivers. I did not think it was possible, but this game improved upon everything that the original Hoenn trilogy had and thus are now my favourite games in the series. If you get the chance I highly encourage you to get and play Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Experience Hoenn in your own way, it’s a wonderful place to stay.