6th Gen Could Pokémon OmegaRuby and Pokémon AlphaSapphire have worked as Generation V games?

[PkmnTrainerElio]

I was thinking, could OR/AS have worked as Generation V games? I know it would have lacked Mega-Evolution and some of the 3D features currently in OR/AS, but, that's not important. There are four pros to the idea of the games being part of Gen V too...

1. They would have been able to coincide with the tenth anniversary, like FR/LG and HG/SS did.
2. Gen V would have lasted another year.
3. Pokémon X and Pokémon Y would have been released later and Game Freak would have had more time to work on them.
4. Pokémon Z may have happened, causing Gen 6 to last longer.

 

[Rivvon]

This is a very interesting topic. While not as graphically impressive, and lacking the Mega Evolutions that gave Groudon and Kyogre their Primal kick, being a part of gen 5 certainly could have proved beneficial to these remakes. At the very least, by running on a modified B2W2 engine, they could have easily incorporated the PWT from their predecessors, in a similar vein to HGSS using Platinum's Battle Frontier. This would have made the lack of Emerald's Frontier less jarring. And just imagine if they had included the Battle Frontier after all--it would be many fans' dream to have the PWT and a Battle Frontier in the same game!

I feel as though not as many storyline changes would (or rather, could) have taken place, at least in regards to the central premise (going back to the lack of Megas and therefore the lack of Primals), but I do think other changes could still occur (mainly Wally's improvement, and other NPC changes). So it honestly seems like it wouldn't be a huge loss--a successful narrative is driven by its characters rather than its basic story, after all.

I honestly think the biggest loss would come from not having the 3DS's improved Wi-Fi capabilities and StreetPass features, and even those I think could be justified by the extra in-game content the games could potentially have.

 

[PkmnTrainerElio]

This is a very interesting topic. While not as graphically impressive, and lacking the Mega Evolutions that gave Groudon and Kyogre their Primal kick, being a part of gen 5 certainly could have proved beneficial to these remakes. At the very least, by running on a modified B2W2 engine, they could have easily incorporated the PWT from their predecessors, in a similar vein to HGSS using Platinum's Battle Frontier. This would have made the lack of Emerald's Frontier less jarring. And just imagine if they had included the Battle Frontier after all--it would be many fans' dream to have the PWT and a Battle Frontier in the same game!

I feel as though not as many storyline changes would (or rather, could) have taken place, at least in regards to the central premise (going back to the lack of Megas and therefore the lack of Primals), but I do think other changes could still occur (mainly Wally's improvement, and other NPC changes). So it honestly seems like it wouldn't be a huge loss--a successful narrative is driven by its characters rather than its basic story, after all.

I honestly think the biggest loss would come from not having the 3DS's improved Wi-Fi capabilities and StreetPass features, and even those I think could be justified by the extra in-game content the games could potentially have.

True, the Delta Episode may have still existed, but it would have lacked the 3D side of it, possibly flying on Latias/Latios would have still existed too.

 

[Rivvon]

True, the Delta Episode may have still existed, but it would have lacked the 3D side of it, possibly flying on Latias/Latios would have still existed too.

There were some 3D elements to gen 5--mostly cutscenes. And the environments were a sort of 2.5D. With that in mind, they could have theoretically incorporated flying on the back of Latios/Latias if they simply didn't show the Trainer while on the overworld. Or if they did include the Trainer, then the Latios/Latias could have been a 2D sprite instead of a 3D model as well.

Although graphically it would have been a step backwards from gen 6, gen 5 was still impressive for its time, and featured the best storytelling the series has seen to date despite not having access to a dynamic 3D camera. So ultimately I don't think the graphics would be the biggest loss if ORAS were to theoretically have been gen 5 games.

 

[L'Belle]

I'm certain this could work out. The graphics are pretty good for a DS game. I think they could really make it work, and remain much features that were in ORAS

 

[OuterTsuchinoko]

I think they would have worked well as Gen 5 games instead. And from what you pointed out I think X&Y would have benefited from the extra time.

The major problem with this idea though is that they would be the second pokemon games to be coming out on the DS when the 3DS would have already been released. Fans were already not entirely happy about B2/W2 being on DS. I remember people were a little upset over it so having another set of games on the old hardware when the 3DS would have been well established by then might not work in their favor.

I don't think not having Mega Evolution matters much and the graphics would have still been great. I prefer the non 3D graphics myself, and Gen 5 incorporated a good mix of both. PWT could have possibly been in it as well which would have been amazing. PWT is something that should have been in all games after it appeared.

Also I don't know how it would have coincided with 10th anniversary when Gen 5 already came out 4 years after that.

 

[Hikamaru]

I remember when I was speculating if 5th Gen was getting Ruby & Sapphire remakes, since I felt Hoenn could have worked with the 5th Gen engine just as much as with 6th Gen.

 

[Mortalis]

I wonder if ORAS was in the Gen 5 engine, would the Eon Flute still be a thing? I really liked Gen 5's graphics, wonder if and how soaring would have been done.

 

[llysender]

Eon Flute would still be perfectly viable as the intire unova save cars,grass and people was already in 3D. If solatorobo is anything to go by soaring would still have a pretty good draw distance. The only issue is that the lati@s would be a 8 directional sprite.

Personally I would want the gen5 engine more because it soft caps your pokemon's level hard and as such makes sure you don't cheese Steven mega metagross with a plussle. My only issue would be dexnav would be impossible to implement due to the lack of analog controls.

 

[OuterTsuchinoko]

Eon Flute would still be perfectly viable as the intire unova save cars,grass and people was already in 3D. If solatorobo is anything to go by soaring would still have a pretty good draw distance. The only issue is that the lati@s would be a 8 directional sprite.

Personally I would want the gen5 engine more because it soft caps your pokemon's level hard and as such makes sure you don't cheese Steven mega metagross with a plussle. My only issue would be dexnav would be impossible to implement due to the lack of analog controls.

Dexnav could have been implemented still if sneaking was applied to a button like L or R. Hold down one of those and sneak instead of full walking. There would only be one sneak speed in this case though instead of with analog where you can go at whatever speed you want, but that doesn't really matter as long as sneaking already is there.

What does softcap mean?

 

[llysender]

Dexnav could have been implemented still if sneaking was applied to a button like L or R. Hold down one of those and sneak instead of full walking. There would only be one sneak speed in this case though instead of with analog where you can go at whatever speed you want, but that doesn't really matter as long as sneaking already is there.

What does softcap mean?

Ture, I guess the pokemon could pop up at different locations in the tall grass like the surfing version to make up for the lack of analog control.

Softcap refers to the diminishing returns of exp making it harder to level up past a certern point(I think its around 7~10 levels over area average where the exp dropoff becomes quite extreme. Not to sure what are the exect figures). This makes the game more "balanced" as majority of the players won't grind with such low exp per fight.

 

[OuterTsuchinoko]

Ture, I guess the pokemon could pop up at different locations in the tall grass like the surfing version to make up for the lack of analog control.

Softcap refers to the diminishing returns of exp making it harder to level up past a certern point(I think its around 7~10 levels over area average where the exp dropoff becomes quite extreme. Not to sure what are the exect figures). This makes the game more "balanced" as majority of the players won't grind with such low exp per fight.

I guess I knew what it was, just didn't know a term existed for that. Good to know.

As for it popping up in different locations I think that would make it harder. I really hate dexnav in caves and surfing for that reason. I wonder what reason they even have for making it like that in ORAS to begin with. Why not just keep them all like the grass one?

 

[COOLTRAINER♂]

I don't see how swapping the games order would have helped either way. X and Y were an ambitious project in development for 3.5 years¹ with the help of a very large group of people, if they instead spent some of that time making OR/AS for the DS then you would probably still end up with just as many person-hours spent on XY, just released a little while later. Eventually you need to release a game, because you need to make back the money that was spent paying wages for years and you can learn lessons from releasing a finished game that help make next one even better.

Assuming a DS version of OR/AS came out after Black/White 2 then it would be a time when major support for the DS was long-gone and the wi-fi services were about to be terminated. (and a lot of people wouldn't have been able to fully enjoy the game because the original DS models don't work with modern wi-fi security)

 

[Mis]

That battling system would've been a little boring. I"m glad they waited for this generation to provide the remakes. I love seeing the battles in three-d. It's amazing. I like these games so much. I used to always stare at hte protagonist when i played, and avoided battling. ^_^ hahahah :) It's good that we'd waited.

 

[akaMike]

Personally I enjoyed the generation five games graphics styles much more than the current generation games graphics styles. I liked the whole 8-bit birds eye view style sprites and surroundings rather than the whole Mii type sprites with 3D like buildings.

 

[Sopheria]

I actually prefer it as part of 6th gen. One of the best things about the game is having the Hoenn region in full 3D graphics, and we would have missed out on that in 5th gen. Also, there's no knowing for sure that Z would have been made if OR/AS had been in fifth gen instead. For all we know the exact same thing would have happened, X and Y with no third version, and they'd just move straight on to 7th gen.

Would it have worked? Yes. Would it have been ideal? That I'm not too sure about.

 

[Hikamaru]

I actually prefer it as part of 6th gen. One of the best things about the game is having the Hoenn region in full 3D graphics, and we would have missed out on that in 5th gen. Also, there's no knowing for sure that Z would have been made if OR/AS had been in fifth gen instead. For all we know the exact same thing would have happened, X and Y with no third version, and they'd just move straight on to 7th gen.

Would it have worked? Yes. Would it have been ideal? That I'm not too sure about.

I can understand this, because had OR/AS been 5th Gen there could have been the possibility of 6th Gen being even shorter if Game Freak wanted to just move straight to 7th Gen rather than a third version, especially with their focus of surprise that they have been doing lately.

 

[Gandhi Savage]

This is such an interesting topic and something I've always thought about and spoken to a few friends about too! I'll go through a few pros and cons to be fair and a little evaluation as well. (This is my first post in months so I'm a little rusty!)

PROS
I feel the hype for the game was at its peak after B/W and maybe extending to B2/W2. Everywhere you looked you'd see "HOENN CUNFRIMED" memes and while I'm sure this was a factor in Game Freak holding out so that they could treat us to 6th gen graphics but I feel they really missed the boat by delaying.

I also preferred the 5th gen graphics to the newer 3D 6th gen ones. This is a personal preference so I don't expect everyone to agree with me!

CONS
The lack of mega evolutions is a major miss as Mega Rayquaza and the Primal Reversions of the mascot legendaries were awesome.​

 

[Sopheria]

This is such an interesting topic and something I've always thought about and spoken to a few friends about too! I'll go through a few pros and cons to be fair and a little evaluation as well. (This is my first post in months so I'm a little rusty!)

PROS
I feel the hype for the game was at its peak after B/W and maybe extending to B2/W2. Everywhere you looked you'd see "HOENN CUNFRIMED" memes and while I'm sure this was a factor in Game Freak holding out so that they could treat us to 6th gen graphics but I feel they really missed the boat by delaying.

I also preferred the 5th gen graphics to the newer 3D 6th gen ones. This is a personal preference so I don't expect everyone to agree with me!

CONS
The lack of mega evolutions is a major miss as Mega Rayquaza and the Primal Reversions of the mascot legendaries were awesome.​

Interesting perspective! Although, theoretically Primal Reversion could have still been a thing without Mega Evolution existing yet (since alternate formes have always been a thing, more or less, especially for legendaries). But yea, I agree the hype was highest during gen 5, since everyone was expecting it at that time.

 

[TheLegendaryGuy]

Man, i love it as it is. I mean, this hoenn region looks sooo cool with the new megas and all those graphics which didn't exist in gen 5. It was a wise decision on the part of Gamefreak to launch it as we know it today.