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Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people lov

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Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people love or hate ...

Previous Pokémon remakes have been well received by fans and critics. What gave the originals their split fanbase and do these fresh takes on the GBA classics soar to new heights, or should they be left in a seafloor cavern? Bulbagarden's Vice-Webmaster MAGNEDETH investigates.

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Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

MAGNEDETH said:
Speaking of non-updates, I really badly wanted to hear the great music of Ruby and Sapphire, remade on newer, better hardware, and it pretty much sounds the same.

It's worse than that. It's not even a faithful reproduction. Some of the instruments were left out entirely. As a result the music has less depth than the original in places. Some of the most noticeable differences are in the Route 104 theme, and the beginning of the rival battle theme. IMO the former was butchered.

Although there is a video series on YouTube which mashes up the RSE/ORAS music together.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Meh. Overall decent review. They tried to touch upon as many sides of the perspective as they could and made some real valid points. However, kinda fell flat and became a tad too personal in the sum up. FRLG & HGSS feeling fresh and new?

I'm also about the music part, "sounding the same" and "trying to sound faithful to the original" (ultimately screwing up what made many tracks so great, see Route 104, Victory Road and the E4 theme to name a few) while doing something are different things.

In any case, yes, Emerald is still the definitive game overall within Gen III and a very high-stander among main titles due to the sheer amount of playable content & options available and balancing of story and locations. Which would've really helped with Zinnia's ambitions if they bothered to go for it.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

MAGNEDETH said:
Speaking of non-updates, I really badly wanted to hear the great music of Ruby and Sapphire, remade on newer, better hardware, and it pretty much sounds the same.

It's worse than that. It's not even a faithful reproduction. Some of the instruments were left out entirely. As a result the music has less depth than the original in places. Some of the most noticeable differences are in the Route 104 theme, and the beginning of the rival battle theme. IMO the former was butchered.

Although there is a video series on YouTube which mashes up the RSE/ORAS music together.

Some of the music were beautifully done and redone - Zinnia's themes and Wally's themes really rocked things up, and some of the early routes on land sounded a lot better than expected. Too bad the trumpets aren't as distinctive as they were in the past, though, and I really really wanted them to keep the clapping in the Elite Four battle.

The article pretty much explained the general opinion, though I'd say the story was actually much better done than being a carbon copy of the RS plots. Some of the new dungeons added more depth to the story, like Sea Mauville. I do agree the region could have used a lot more diverse camera angles and take advantage of the beautiful nature that is the selling point of Hoenn. I really really wanted to see the night sky at Sootopolis because there was a description that the night view is supposedly stunning there.

I'm actually kinda glad that they kept a lot of Ruby and Sapphire elements. I would have welcomed new stuff, but I was more willing to go through a lot of nostalgia so the games appealed to me.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

I agree with most of the review excepts for the parts about FRLG. Aside from the Sevii Islands, the game is a complete carbon copy of the original. It's a shame Game Freak still hasn't learned their lesson with remakes. HGSS was definitely the best of the remakes. At least it really did try to do something new with Johto.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

The article pretty much explained the general opinion, though I'd say the story was actually much better done than being a carbon copy of the RS plots. Some of the new dungeons added more depth to the story, like Sea Mauville.
I should made it clearer that the story was tweaked to be a little more engaging, and I totally forgot to mention the changes to Sea Mauville and New Mauville. The former got a nice update, but I am curious about the idea of a half-sunken ship being a tourist attraction open to the public, while the latter was changed from a side-quest to two rooms and a switch. Lame.

I agree with most of the review excepts for the parts about FRLG. Aside from the Sevii Islands, the game is a complete carbon copy of the original. It's a shame Game Freak still hasn't learned their lesson with remakes. HGSS was definitely the best of the remakes. At least it really did try to do something new with Johto.
I should have also mentioned that the main part of FRLG was pretty much left alone, complete with flaws, but, and this could be just me, the flaws of FRLG just don't stand out as much as they do in ORAS. Moreover, FRLG was the first remake, so you expect some slip-ups. Besides, Sevii Islands make up for a lot of the issues. It was a substantial side-quest that added a lot to the games.

Thank you to everyone for reading and all of your feedback. Be it positive or negative feedback, I read it all and, if I decide to write anything else, I can use it to be a better writer.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

MAGNEDETH said:
Want a Gallade or Froslass? You're going to have to fight Inver a bunch of times or grind Super Training.
I thought you could also get a Dawn Stone before the Elite Four by defeating Wally who battles with a Mega Gallade and gives you the Dawn Stone just before you get to the Pokémon League for the first time.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

I'm giving this review a 7.8, too much MAGNEDETH.

I agree that they could have done a little bit more with ORAS, but in the end I thought that the games turned out okay. My only complaint is how ridiculously easy it was to breeze through the League. Even compared to the Kalos League in X/Y, something just didn't seem right.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Something that no other remake did, but absolutely should, is remix the original song to fit that town specifically. A lot of towns use the same music, so why not change it a little to make each town unique?

Actually, HGSS did that with the Ecruteak City/Cianwood City theme.

Anyway, great review, I agree with pretty much everything you said. Although one thing that bothers me that you didn't mention was the regional dex. A lot of the older regions have some significant variety problems (in Hoenn's case, it's that there isn't enough Ice, Ghost, and to a lesser degree Dragon and Fire types in the dex and they could use some more Water types to fill the massive amount of Water routes and make them more varied) and I'd really wish they'd start updating the regional dexes in the remakes more than just tossing in a handful of cross gen evos, I'd like to see something more like what we get in Platinum or BW2.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Pretty solid review. Most of the things you liked and disliked match with my own thoughts.

You gotta wonder what these games would've been if released a Gen earlier. Everyone was expecting them, but nope, they skipped a Gen. Result is, ORAS has all the advantages of XY like the (for Pokémon standards) great graphics and exploration (seriously, I love how moving around is not limited to tiles anymore). However, personally I think that for skipping a Gen and the amount of time they had to create ORAS, it still feels kinda lackluster. I'm very undecided to say if I liked RSE or not. They definitely had something unique, but placed against some of the other games in the franchise, you can clearly see the shortcomings of these games. I still enjoyed them a great deal for what they were, not compared to any other games (except, yes, the huge amount of water).

Now, ORAS honestly does feel like they just threw a fresh bucket of paint over it. Little improvement, with some of the mistakes of the old games still there. I also dislike the sudden change in Mauville, seriously what's the point? I get it, Hoenn never really had a 'capital' like Saffron, Goldenrod, Jubilife, Castelia, Lumiose. But they didn't make exploring any easier. And seriously, how is a mall a city? It honestly just feels like a giant mall that would be part of Lumiose.

Still gotta give GameFreak props for some of the revolutionairy changes they add from time to time. First there was the addition of TM's not disappearing (best change EVER). There's multiple changes in this game that I love, which I think the game should get props for, and which you also mentioned. The PokéNav Plus, the ability to fly everywhere, the lower encounter rate on water, being able to Fly without a HM slave (I don't really mind the cutscene personally, I mean I don't have to carry around a pointless Pokémon with Fly anymore). All changes that keep me from not liking this game. If just the overall feel was more like they improved immensely on RSE. I don't feel this personally, and I think it's a shame.

Oh and surfing on Sharpedo, it's awesome and makes Surfing also less annoying. Hope they keep this, or build on this with every Pokémon having a Surf sprite instead of a generic blob. And they should also build on the flying on Lati@s thing, I hope we'll be able to Fly on any Fly-capable Pokémon in the future, no matter how much extra programming that would mean. Hanging on a Pidgey would be hilarious.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

I'm actually glad ORAS doesn't have a single Sky Battle. I'm going to put my opinion as honest and as blunt as possible: Sky Battles are without a doubt the worst feature GF has ever created. It was poorly thought out and poorly executed and i hope it never, ever returns in any future game.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

To each their own.

I personally loved ORAS, even more than HGSS and FRLG. Yeah, they were not anything special and they were obviously there to cash in on people's expectations of a remake, but the same could be said of the other two previous remakes. I also loved the music much more than HGSS because they sounded more faithful to what we heard originally to fit in with the modern 3DS sounds. I guess I am just miffed that HGSS messed up the awesomeness of the Kanto gym leader music. XD

Now mind you I'm not saying they are perfect. I wish they brought back walking Pokemon, but I'd imagine that would take a lot of work to program. Much more than just a few pixels following you around. They could have also added more elements from Emerald instead of just Ruby and Sapphire, but still, I'm not too upset over it. They did what remakes should do: be a remake. I didn't see too much of a difference in HGSS or FRLG to call them different from the original material, either. They only felt fresh and new because of graphic changes, but aside from aesthetics, they were really nothing too special.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Before I say this, I love ORAS but that's probably because my first set of Pokemon games were Ruby and Sapphire, the original. I respect your review and your thoughts.

This was a pretty great review I felt like you shared your opinion well on the topic. I agree with many of the points such as mauville changing drastically, and how the Delta Episode is basically just flying over half the region over and over until the end (I do think it was a great plot however).
One thing that did really bother me was certain areas such as the soar feature or the music. It sounded like you were just trying to find things to complain about specifically with soaring. Everyone wanted the soar feature included (or at least almost) and you treat it like a bad thing because of the animations. It takes 5 seconds to do and isn't a big of a deal. Sure you don't have to like it, but it seemed like you were just making it sound bad cause of it, considering almost every HM if not all HMs have an animation that go with it, with fly itself probably taking up the most animation time.

I really don't want to make this a rant on your review, cause it was really well explained. As I said, places like mauville were changed to much, delta episode taking too long. etc. As you said you are not really a fan of remakes and that's fine.

it's kinda weird how someone would think one way but then someone else would agree the exact opposite.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Wow, what a great review. Everything I read, I agreed with for the most part. It's a shame, these games really had the potential to be better.

I have to say, my biggest qualm has to be the easiness. Especially what they did with Brawly; unforgivable.

Oh. And the Lati@s distribution and lack of Battle Frontier too. Especially the Battle Frontier. I never got Emerald and only experienced the Battle Frontier in Platinum. However, when I learned that that wasn't the original BF, and that Hoenn's was significantly better, I was really looking forward to that in ORAS (especially since the previous remakes included extra content or features from the third version). But nope.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

I think the Soar animation itself isn't the biggest issue: the Fly animation takes just as long, and is just as annoying. I'd prefer a faster animation, or just an easy way to disable them (like how you can turn off move animations in battle).
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Despite me disagreeing with the majority of what was in the article, I found the article interesting at many points. The writing style here is definitely great as most of the key points are backed up with some evidence, even if I am on the other side of the coin to say in the least.

Ironically, in reading the article, despite it being against RSE and ORAS, I found myself finding new ways to love ORAS, or at least ways to rejuvenate it. I mean, some of the mentions here seem to act from a more bitter perspective yet I keep looking at the words and thinking about what ORAS means to me. For example, the article brings up berry patches, Team Magma/Aqua, same music, and the general region design as a flaw in ORAS and/or in RSE, however, I found myself loving these features almost more than anyone else could have. Perhaps I'm a bit weird, and I certainly know I am, and I don't quite understand the feeling itself, but I know that my love is stronger due to reading this.

One thing I would like to touch upon is the fact that, unlike RB or GSC, I feel that RSE were the closest to perfection one could get. I mean closer than the other sets of games at the very least, which with their updates, got a bit more out of the deal. I always saw RSE as more complete games than the other two, and is still, better than the remakes of these games even (although maybe I'm the only one who feels this way; but I'd still play RSE over HGSS or FRLG any day, unless I need something in the other two games). Strangely enough, a lot of what the article says I can apply to the other two remakes as well, like not adding enough, or some issues with the originals, which are either intrinsic to the region, or something they chose not to fix (or made worse by fixing). I suppose most of the issues here stem from issues with the the source material more than anything else. Remakes often reinforce, rather than redo, old themes as they are meant to convey the same feeling as they once did before; and I suppose that comes into play here.

Overall, this article got me thinking about ORAS, and how they were as games over the entire day; which is certainly good for any writing piece. For some odd reason, when I come across someone, or some text I disagree with, I let it get to me for a while until I realize my true feelings about the topic at hand. Usually I come to my senses and I get an even better feeling of the thing I loved most; I usually don't let opinion pieces change me unless I truly feel the exact same way, which is only in rare instances. ORAS is certainly one of my favorite games of all time, only rivaled by the originals themselves, which is somewhat strange to say; however, I will say that I did like GSC more than I ever did like HGSS for an example and that was mostly due to the feelings I got when the games first came out (I suppose it's also relevant in this case too as Hoenn isn't exactly new.) I, as a RSE fan, happened to enjoy these games perhaps because they helped me return to the feelings I had when playing the originals, and I feel that the games have achieved their purpose of getting the true fans of RSE excited, hyped, and satisfied. At least that is what I believe.

(Sorry if this is a bit long; I wasn't meaning to write this much, but I just kept getting new ideas.)
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

As somebody who played Emerald exclusively, I am disappoint to constantly hear how ORAS incorporate virtually no Emerald elements. Wattson without a single Hoenn native Pokemon is a crime against Pokemanity. Plus, I generally like Manectric's design, so to see him without his everywhere-but-Ruby-Sapphire-signature-Pokemon is just not the same at all.
 
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Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Here's an interesting question for y'all. Do you guys think ORAS may have turned out differently if they were remade in Gen 5 instead of Gen 6? I know that there were quite a few people that were really wanting/expecting R/S/E remakes in Gen 5.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

Here's an interesting question for y'all. Do you guys think ORAS may have turned out differently if they were remade in Gen 5 instead of Gen 6? I know that there were quite a few people that were really wanting/expecting R/S/E remakes in Gen 5.

Definitely. Mega Evolutions wouldn't have existed, so not only would the new Megas and Primals not have existed, but the storyline probably wouldn't have been improved as much. As far as content goes, it's possible that there might have been actual post game content, but it's difficult to say for sure.
 
Re: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A retrospective review: A close look at why people

My only problem with ORAS is the easiness and handholding. I don't need to be teleported across the region to get to where I need to go, May. I can travel myself.


Not to mention the lack of a Battle Frontier in favor of my most hated Battle building
 
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