6th Gen History Repeating?

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

Though the enemy's mons would also have had a stab issue, for example Archie's Sharpedo didn't get stab that matches it's better offensive stat as both it's types were special (I also don't think it had any good moves that match it's type type...can't quite recall).
Who knows perhaps three gens from now everyone will be asking for Hoenn re-remakes like Kanto fans are now...though perhaps ORAS will be seen in the same light as the originals were during Gen V (and XY).

 

[Pendraflare]

Wait a minute. Let me see if i'm getting this straight.

First in 2003 people hated Ruby and Sapphire then mostly for the fact that it had no backwards compatibility, then in 2011 when Black and White were mainstream people started loving Ruby and Sapphire, and now they call these games the worst in the series? This is news to me, so no, i'm not getting it.

Although if nothing else, I think Junichi Masuda's excuse for not putting the Frontier and character customization in the game (and a Challenge Mode for that matter) is one thing that really pissed people off.

 

[Foamster-Whiskey]

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are re-makes of Ruby/Sapphire and Emerald, so what was in them games is pretty much going to be the same in ORAS. So with character customization in XY it's not going to be put into ORAS

 

[Pendraflare]

^ That's kind of a valid point. In thinking about it I doubt that they would want to redesign the original characters out of the outfits they already had. With XY being new games and all it's understandable and hopefully for future games, but not in full-fledged remakes.

 

[Lucifer]

To be honest, I do miss the character customization feature from X and Y. I'm not too fond of Brendan's outfit but I can deal sheesh.
As for the games being too easy, that's a really naive complaint. The player's choices effect that more than the AI.

The Exp. Share is probably the most significant factor affecting my gameplay personally because it quite a bit overtrained me for all the gyms from the point I'd received it forward as I'd leave it on. A Pokemon that out levels a gym leader's or any trainer's for that matter is not going to have too hard a time even with a type disadvantage but type still plays such a role that a single pokemon can be the difference between an easy and a difficult experience.

Let's examine my Wattson battle in Alpha Sapphire as an example. Wattson's entire team here has a secondary type of Steel, I'd begun with Torchic, a fire type which evolves with fighting as a secondary type both type advantages to steel. Once again the Exp. Share had me arriving in Mauville about two levels above his strongest Pokemon, as a result of all three of these factors I'd taken his entire team out in under five moves with my Cumbuskin alone.
If I'd done a few things differently I can imagine it being a bit more of a difficult battle. Because the Torchic line is pretty useless I have a feeling my Cumbuskin would have fallen very behind in level had I not had that Exp. Share turned on or not received it at all. Just as out levelling your opponent can cancel out a type advantage so is true the vise-versa, an under-leveled Pokemon can also cancel out the opponent's type disadvantage. If I'd played with the same team but had chosen to begin with Treeko, even with the use of the experience share to over level me I might have once again been in trouble because said team did not really have an electric or steel strength and to ice the cake had a fair bit of electric weakness. I could, however, have possibly mimicked my real experience in the hypothetical Treeko scenario with the choice to capture and train a geodude which is immune to electricity. Considering, however that rock is weak to steel that geodude might have still failed had I not used the Exp. Share to over level it.

Looking at Liza and Tate now, again my team was over-levelled and I conquered their rock weaknesses rather than psychic with my Superior and Sharpedo.

There can be cases of poor execution on the AI's part, I'll admit. Flannery may have had a chance against my over leveled Seaking had she not started out each of her Pokemon using Sunny Day (though not too likely since Princess took them each out with one Water Pulse/Waterfall hehe) and moving down a generation to Soul Silver/Heart Gold Whitney's changed tactic to spamming Stomp instead of Rollout caused her to do a fair bit less damage. With some moves they use it's a case of rolling the dice though. The first time I battled Whitney in SS she never once used Milk Drink but the second time I did when I restarted the game she did once, maybe twice (it's been a while) and might have even used super potions which totally didn't happen the first time. This also leads me to another example of how different choices in Pokemon used can change the experience, the second SS Whitney battle was a bit more daunting than the first without an Impish quagsire to take all the stomps with barely a dent.

In the end it's still all about choices even when the AI changes things up on you and with remakes like AS/OR the fact that we know what to expect can also effect those choices or even our perception of the battles. Age can also be a factor because over the years and with each new generation release you learn more. Honestly, it wasn't until I was training a swellow around route 111 where lots of Machop dwell that I discovered by accident that flying moves are super effective against fighting. type Pokemon.

Basically, the player makes it easy NOT the developers.

 

[Altairis]

Well, I guess it can be said this because after a while the same formula DOES get old, even if ORAS specifically wasn't designed to bring many new things to the table. At its core, the game is basically is the same as every other Pokemon game, with some shiny new features. I really like several of the ORAS-specific features, such as the DexNav and Soaring, but given Nintendo's pattern of keeping larger features specific to the game they were introduced in (such as walking Pokemon in HGSS, character customization in XY, with the exception of Pokemon Amie), it's likely that these features won't be in the next Pokemon game. I mean, even if these WERE in the next game, it would just become repetitive and everything would be the same except for a few small characters, plot, and location.

Don't get me wrong, I love ORAS. But maybe the sales are just falling because the basics are the same: 8 gyms, elite four, only some post game. In the end, though, Pokemon will still get money regardless of how "good" the games actually are.

 

[Pendraflare]

That's basically true - different games have different features, so it's not likely that we're going to get much of the same small side things in more than one game a lot of the time. If they were, it probably would kill the uniqueness of some of them.

 

[lexxiel]

To be honest i stopped playing pokemon back in the gold/silver for the game boy color and recently came back to ORAS and I have to say i enjoyed it greatly, I picked up a copy of X and have started playing that as well but I feel i enjoyed playing Alpha saphire more so i might have to give x more time but i can put Alpha down XD

 

[Pepperton]

I haven't even heard that many people bashing the remakes, to be quite honest. In my own opinion, though, ORAS was a great pair of games that lived up to my expectations, definitely. I think a lot of people had their expectations very high, and were a bit disappointing to see the lack of changes from the originals, which bugs me because it is a remake, by name, and should follow the originals as much as possible. The difficulty didn't affect me, even as someone who plays competitively. Steven was extremely hard to take down, and I had EXP Share on the whole game.

 

[Birthday Thunder]

ORAS was to me, the worst pokemon games to date. For remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, they were fine but almost every new feature fell short.

1. Secret Bases - I mean, what the heck were they thinking by making the maximum amount of pokemon you could have on your team three?!! Oh and don't even get me started on the whole "you can make your own gym with other trainers in it and you as a gym leader! BUT we're going to make their teams rattatas, pidgeys and caterpies!! Not the teams you want to make your gym theme complete with. Such a wasted potential there and downright lie about what could have made secret bases the best thing in the game. I'm still fuming about that all these months later.

2. No Battle Frontier - This was the biggest disappointment for so many fans of emerald's battle frontier. According to an interview I read with one of the creators of the game, the only reason they didn't put it in was because new and inexperienced players wouldn't be able to beat it or something like that. Also something about strategies needed for each facility would be too complicated. Please, what a lazy cop-out to not put anything extra into the postgame.

3. Soaring - BORING (see what I did there?)

4. No rematches with the gym leaders - Let's allow you to re-battle every trainer except the gym leaders. Sounds like a great idea! You know, they're the strongest people aside from the elite 4, but they aren't really all that important to the story for a simple rematch.

Honestly, I would list more, but I'm fearful of all the game's defenders starting a war with me over my opinions. I will say, dex nav is awesome!

 

[giradialkia]

I thought I'd posted in this thread before, but I guess not. So I'll do so now! :)

All in all, there are a lot of factors new to ORAS that change things up significantly, even though it stays reasonably true to the original games. Honestly though, I think they've done very, very well with the re-introduction of Hoenn, and that it absolutely won't follow in the footsteps in the originals as 'the worst (or at least, the least successful) generation of games'.

Some of the things introduced, such as Mega Evolution and the renewed EXP share, definitely changed the way the game was played. There's no way around saying that the EXP Share made it substantially easier - I turned it off periodically throughout the game, and managed to be on a par with Steven by the end of the game, but it was hard to find a medium! When it was on, I'd become overlevelled before too long, and while it was off, I'd fall a bit short. It definitely taught me how to better (more enjoyably) utilise the new mechanics of the EXP share.

That said, there are some features omitted from ORAS that did leave me a little disappointed, such as the lack of an ability to customise your character. Plenty of people (even in this thread) have reasonably argued that the feature was present in XY because they were new games, but even so, I would've liked to at least be able to change the CLOTHES of my character, if not the hairstyle, etc. Although it did bring me back into that feeling I love from Pokémon games, setting up a canon, and whatnot.

I do agree with points 2 and 4 raised by Birthday Thunder above, though; people have argued the lack of a Battle Frontier with "It wasn't in the original games, so it won't be in the remakes.", and I honestly don't know what those people are thinking. To HELL with that! There are plenty of things that weren't in the originals - one of the major things wrong with FRLG was sticking with that sentiment, omitting features that could simply add to the renewed world. If ORAS left out Mega Evolution throughout the story, it would've been quite boring. But look what they did! They introduced it, and not only that, gave you access to a Lati mid-story. That was great!
I mean, the Battle Resort Island is nice and all, but the fact that it's still a Battle Maison sorta bugs me a bit. I would've liked it to be a Battle Tower again, although to be quite fair, I see why that's hard to reintroduce. The Maison made it super fast to blast through loads of battles, quitting whenever you want. A tower makes it harder, and would require more cutscenes and so on. Though even with all this in mind, I still would've loved to have played through a modernised Battle Frontier. It was a really fun post-game feature of Hoenn's, so it's a shame they left it out.

As well as that, the rematch feature of the Pokénav+ was greeeeeeeeat, but the fact that they plain just didn't let you rematch the gym leaders also sucked. Sure, another feature introduced in Emerald, but one that positively influenced the game, literally no reason to leave it out in ORAS (HGSS did it, even though it wasn't in the originals, so nobody start with that! :P).

Despite its few lackings, I really think ORAS pulled out all the stops, or at least most of them, and was a great playing experience. I've been tempted to get AS just so I can play the story mode a couple more times!

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

I thought I'd posted in this thread before, but I guess not. So I'll do so now! :)

All in all, there are a lot of factors new to ORAS that change things up significantly, even though it stays reasonably true to the original games. Honestly though, I think they've done very, very well with the re-introduction of Hoenn, and that it absolutely won't follow in the footsteps in the originals as 'the worst (or at least, the least successful) generation of games'.

Some of the things introduced, such as Mega Evolution and the renewed EXP share, definitely changed the way the game was played. There's no way around saying that the EXP Share made it substantially easier - I turned it off periodically throughout the game, and managed to be on a par with Steven by the end of the game, but it was hard to find a medium! When it was on, I'd become overlevelled before too long, and while it was off, I'd fall a bit short. It definitely taught me how to better (more enjoyably) utilise the new mechanics of the EXP share.

That said, there are some features omitted from ORAS that did leave me a little disappointed, such as the lack of an ability to customise your character. Plenty of people (even in this thread) have reasonably argued that the feature was present in XY because they were new games, but even so, I would've liked to at least be able to change the CLOTHES of my character, if not the hairstyle, etc. Although it did bring me back into that feeling I love from Pokémon games, setting up a canon, and whatnot.

I do agree with points 2 and 4 raised by Birthday Thunder above, though; people have argued the lack of a Battle Frontier with "It wasn't in the original games, so it won't be in the remakes.", and I honestly don't know what those people are thinking. To HELL with that! There are plenty of things that weren't in the originals - one of the major things wrong with FRLG was sticking with that sentiment, omitting features that could simply add to the renewed world. If ORAS left out Mega Evolution throughout the story, it would've been quite boring. But look what they did! They introduced it, and not only that, gave you access to a Lati mid-story. That was great!
I mean, the Battle Resort Island is nice and all, but the fact that it's still a Battle Maison sorta bugs me a bit. I would've liked it to be a Battle Tower again, although to be quite fair, I see why that's hard to reintroduce. The Maison made it super fast to blast through loads of battles, quitting whenever you want. A tower makes it harder, and would require more cutscenes and so on. Though even with all this in mind, I still would've loved to have played through a modernised Battle Frontier. It was a really fun post-game feature of Hoenn's, so it's a shame they left it out.

As well as that, the rematch feature of the Pokénav+ was greeeeeeeeat, but the fact that they plain just didn't let you rematch the gym leaders also sucked. Sure, another feature introduced in Emerald, but one that positively influenced the game, literally no reason to leave it out in ORAS (HGSS did it, even though it wasn't in the originals, so nobody start with that! :P).

Despite its few lackings, I really think ORAS pulled out all the stops, or at least most of them, and was a great playing experience. I've been tempted to get AS just so I can play the story mode a couple more times!

ORAS missing the BF and lacking rematches sure looks bad when you compare it to what the previous remake pair had...HGSS had the Battle Tower which was in Crystal only plus the rest of the Pt BF, also it had rematches against the gym leaders. I must say it's quite sad that only one out of the three remake pairs thus far have had rematches against gym leaders...ORAS seems to taunt the player though with those things as Wallace says he'll like to battle the player again if you talk to him after defeating the league (and I think DE too), and Brawly also mentions getting stronger. Then there's the BF being built and how Scott is already done recruiting the BFB with Lucy being the last one.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

So Bulbapedia has posted an article regarding the criticisms of ORAS, and I thought I would like to share it with you guys: https://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Omega_Ruby_and_Alpha_Sapphire:_A_retrospective_review

 

[Palkia]

ORAS was to me, the worst pokemon games to date.

The entirety of Gen V waves hi.

OR/AS were the best in the series so far, although the lack of battle frontier was annoying and the mega evolutions were shoehorned into the game awkwardly. I think the real issue what that HG/SS felt like they had all the features of Crystal just split into two games. Meanwhile OR/AS are much more based on R/S than E. Some of the touches that made emerald really special are absent, although all the new features that subsequent games past emerald brought make it a more even, if less cohesive, experience. Really ORAS feels like a real follow up to X/Y rather than a R/S remake, basically using the same wireframe but building the game from the ground up. It really feels like the first remake that doesn't replace the original for better or worse in my eyes.

 

[Candy]

So Bulbapedia has posted an article regarding the criticisms of ORAS, and I thought I would like to share it with you guys: https://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Omega_Ruby_and_Alpha_Sapphire:_A_retrospective_review

It's funnt since my opinion on ORAS is practically the same as the one who made the article: the feeling that ORAS feels more like a remake than an updated remake of RSE. As my post on this thread:

If I want to be honest, I actually view ORAS as a prettied up version of the original RSE. Aside from plotline, the whole place looks like a pure C+P of the original Hoenn in terms of looks and locations. FRLG gets the Sevii Isles, HGSS gets a new Safari Zone and the Pokeathlon and ORAS? Nothing. A whole big cauldron of nothing. No Battle Frontiers, no extra features, and really, the only new feature we got was the Soaring in the Sky feature

 

[Sun]

The Pokémon main series formula: New region, new Pokémon, 8 badges, E4 and a champion, crime syndicate team.

I got no problem with them, in fact I enjoy it a lot. I love how they can make a new plot while blending in the formula. :)

As for the games becoming more easier? That was actually verified by one of the Game Freak staff (go Google the interview article yourself). The reason for making the games easier because Pokémon is facing more and more challenges nowadays, challenges including from fellow handheld Nintendo games to free cellphone/tablet games etc. Hence the introduction of Horde Encounters and Super Training for easier EV training, Friend Safari and PokeNav encounter, easier breeding mechanics (Destiny Knot-breeding, female Pokémon being able to pass egg moves, male Pokémon passing HAs, etc.), easy level up techniques: instant rematch from Trainers Eye in OrAs/Battle Chateau in XY, easier access to Lucky Eggs and the change with Exp. Share. And more. So the games are made easier to attract more casual players, more diverse group ages.

 

[Hikamaru]

So Bulbapedia has posted an article regarding the criticisms of ORAS, and I thought I would like to share it with you guys: https://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Omega_Ruby_and_Alpha_Sapphire:_A_retrospective_review

I did a read of that piece by MAGNEDETH, and I do sorta agree with his statement about the water routes being one of the cons with Hoenn. There were like so many of them and they always had the same Pokemon, plus it was easy to get lost (I remember the hell that was my original Ruby playthrough) but thankfully the AreaNav and lowered encounter rate makes it less of a hassle now.

Team Magma/Aqua's appearances were also not very well fleshed out, again another thing fixed up by the remakes. Also, while Hoenn had its negative things it did have its positives, such as the introduction of natures, abilities and a revamped EV system helped build the competitive scene as it's seen today.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

They should've added more water mons to the originals...From Gen I-IV there were issues with species per type diversity. Well Gen I-II's main issue in that regard is that they didn't make many dragons and ghosts... Gen III-IV was not including enough ice, and fire types (among others) from past gens...

 

[KillerTyphlosion]

Oras did a lot of good and amazing things. I mean the intro was so awesome. The dexnav was cool and really usefull. But all these changes makes the game to easy at some point. Even if you don't ev train, use exp share or rebattle trainers every 5 seconds. Most of my pokémon levels were close to steven's levels while I had turned off exp share and I only rebattled the first 2 rich kids for a bit of money. In the originals my pokémons levels were mostly of the time below level 50 when reaching the e4.

Not to mention you just get latios/latias handed out to you. That is just stupid and not only that you get his mega right away. The lati's should have remained post-game and make a side quest to get the mega stone and the flute so you can soar with him. But cathing the lati's should have remained the same as in the originals.
And it would be cool if you could soar with every pokémon that knows fly. Just make it a big black bird or something but some things can only be reached with the lati's.

No battle frontier also sucks. I was really looking forward for the battle frontier and was really dissapointed by this.

The fact that oras brought a lot of new features to the table was good. Most noteable is flying to every route and the dex nav. But Compared to HG/SS I think they could have done better. The only thing I didn't like in hg/ss is that red had lapras in stead of espeon. And that you couldn't get the elemental punches early. Oras new features are really good but I still find the game lacking and I hope if they ever remake gen 4 they remake everything and don't screw something up.

 

[Sun]

They should've added more water mons to the originals...From Gen I-IV there were issues with species per type diversity. Well Gen I-II's main issue in that regard is that they didn't make many dragons and ghosts... Gen III-IV was not including enough ice, and fire types (among others) from past gens...

As the captain of PC Water-type club myself, I say the amount of Water-type in Hoenn is more than enough. :)

The lack of Ice-type is understandable considering Hoenn's a tropical region. It's just weird to see the likes of Dewgong, Sneasel, Cloyster, etc. getting stuffed in that Shoal Cave. Fire-types were on the right amount.