Unfortunately, I'll have to reserve judgment on the entire soundtrack of
Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire (ORAS) in comparison to their
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (RSE) predecessors, although it seems like some tracks like Zinnia's battle theme and Wally's battle theme have been well-received, so that's good to hear.. Preliminary thoughts on the music (I am not really one who can sufficiently describe music as I would like to, so apologies if some of these remarks don't make much sense :~):
-I
really like the booming percussion featured throughout in the
"Battle! VS Wild Pokemon (Hoenn)" ORAS arrangement, although I felt that a few "sub-melodies" from
the RSE version were lost in the transition.
-I inadvertently heard
the remix of the Hoenn Battle Frontier overworld theme ("Battle Resort)", but it sounded decent from the segment that I heard.
-The
ORAS arrangement of "Pokemon Main Theme" was inferior to
the RSE composition, in my opinion. Even in the early segments of the song, some sub-melodies that you can hear in the RSE version fail to be present in the ORAS version (compare the RSE beautiful melodic trills of 0:13-0:20 to what is
supposed to be in the ORAS repetitive segment of 0:13-0:20; so much beautiful melodic diversity lost!) , which dampened my outlook on the whole soundtrack, sorry to say. -_- I mean, it's essentially the first song (and arguably one of the most iconic of Hoenn) of the game.. >_>
-I think that
the ORAS version of "Battle! VS Team Magma Grunt/Team Aqua Grunt" removed the tubular bells (sadly, prominently replaced with some...
other instrument..it sounds brass-ish), harp (or piano?) thing, and "malevolent-sounding buzzing" in one portion that were arguably iconic (and one of my favorite) components of
the original RSE song.. Granted, I haven't heard the
whole song, but when my favorite part is seemingly ruined, there doesn't seem like there is much to salvage..
-the
ORAS version of "Battle! VS Team Magma Leader/Team Aqua Leader" is probably my greatest disappointment so far..
--While I
do like how the ORAS version's introductory segment (percussion of sorts?) has more of a nice-sounding melody to it (not that
the original RSE version's introductory notes were
bad, so to say), the "secondary" melody that begins seconds later that was comprised of backing brass in the RSE version (either French horns or trumpets; hard to distinguish all of the brass happenings {XD}~_~ - I guess I would call them something like "pumping" brass horns/instruments in the original version, as if valves were getting opened and closed in rapid succession..?) now sounds
very weird...as if someone was swishing saliva with one's mouth closed, with visually-unappealing food particles getting sloshed around in their mouth at the same time. {XD}-_-
--Also, the general tempo of the ORAS song (at least from what I can tell) seems to have been (slightly?) reduced, which detracts from the intimidating imposing nature and intensity of the RSE composition.
--The ORAS version's "bass drop", while interesting to hear in terms of placement and decent-sounding, didn't do much for me as it apparently did for other people. {XD}
--Furthermore, the brass
after the bass drop sounds really "laborious", as if the brass-instrument players are having a tough time playing the song compared to the seemingly "effortless" brass players of the RSE version (this sensation of "trying hard to play brass instruments" may stem from the reduced tempo/speed of the song..?). I was hoping to hear additional sub-melodies that "built" upon the original composition, kind of like in
this fanmade remix. In particularly, I would have loved to hear something like the "piano trills" that begin at 0:14, as well as something that conveys "escalation" like the lovely "step-wise climbing phrase (evocative of the notable '8 escalating notes' in the Team Magma Grunt/Team Aqua Grunt battle theme)" between 0:23 and 0:31 (and even the aforementioned fanmade remix seems to at least maintain a tempo similar to the RSE version of the song - really, that fanmade great remix (up until 0:55; :S) is what I was expecting ORAS to achieve).
-Regarding the ORAS version of
"Battle! VS Pokemon Trainer (Hoenn)", I'm sorry, but the synthesizer/synth just sounds
horrible/over-produced/unfitting at around 15 seconds in (I think this melody was carried by brass instruments in
the RSE version). It's like the song is blatantly trying to tell me "Hey! I'm using a weird synth for the melody! Hope that's okay; thx plox". The subsequent violin didn't sound as powerful as the original RSE brass, in my opinion.. The song does an okay job of keeping the general melody (especially during the "stuff gets serious"/low-sounding part), although the synth that crops up right before the loop point still manages to be annoying, unfortunately..
-I don't want to outright blast the song without even hearing it yet, but I apparently read that
the ORAS version of "Battle! VS Elite Four (Hoenn)" took out
the RSE version's distinctive clapping sounds, which were another of my favorite sounds.. I'll wait until hearing the whole thing, but there had hopefully be something that is worth the omission of the classic clapping.. :(
-I heard
"Pokemon Gym" and "Fortree City (at least one of the remixes)"; these sounded decent, although I think Fortree had way more brass..?
-Whichever remix of
"Battle! VS Super-ancient Pokemon" did it, I like the idea of the one that (from what I've read) fades in and out and interspersed the original RSE composition with the ORAS arrangement. A shame that this tidbit was spoiled; I would have loved to discover this musical treat firsthand in the games themselves... :(
Apologies if this post seemed overtly negative... I guess I'm particularly
more critical of Hoenn music remixing/rearranging since I've heard a lot of the tunes for so long, as well as since the Hoenn music already had "sounds/melodies" that were defined/refined already.. {XD} Now I see how some
Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal fans felt about the
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (HGSS) arrangements (although, out of the 2 HGSS songs that I've heard so far; both of them were amazing ^_^). The overall ORAS soundfont seems to provide a nice, rich, vibrant sound to some of the original compositions (still on the fence about the soundfont's execution of violin), so at least there's that positive..