After playing gen 3 for a couple months prior to this game, this almost made me feel nostalgic the most in comparison to other remakes like FireRed and HeartGold, since I've spent so much time in Hoenn and enjoyed the region a lot. With the jump to 3D and music transitioning outside of chiptune hits, Omega Ruby was such a treat to look at, both presentation and audio wise.
As a remake of Ruby and Sapphire, ORAS had changed so many features since that era with the many features added over the years, but also new elements to the story which is unique for a remake in Pokemon. Alongside seeing familiar characters and Pokemon returning in this game, we also have new faces like Zinnia and...oh, just Zinnia? Well, one new character. And we see her in the brand new post-game called the Delta Episode, which I'll get to in a second.
With X and Y being a hit back then, they also decided to add some functions from that game into this remake as well, with exp share functioning exactly how it did in Kalos. In the previous game, I stated that this wasn't that bad to me as I could easily balance out my team to avoid overlevelling. Well, throw that out of the window as I was 15 levels over with just my starter by the time I got to Mossdeep City, not because I wanted to use my starter being Swampert, but they still kept almost the same amount of HMs needed for your travels, which I cannot wait for them to scrap them later on, these are forever stupid to handle. As well as exp share being an easy mode, mega evolutions return as well, with some new ones found only in ORAS, such as Sharpedo, Garchomp, the Hoenn starters, the box art legendaries dubbed as Primal Reversions, and even Diancie got a mega too: the only mythical to ever have a mega form. I never really used these much unlike X and Y, since you get the mega bracelet after the Southern Island to get one of the Eon Pokemon 5 gyms later.
Yeah, that brings me to what else the remake offers. They added the Pokedex functions back from X and Y like Pokemon-Amie, Super Training, and the PSS, but they also added new functions like the PokeNav, which acts as a tracker for Pokemon in the area, beeping if you're near a wild one - making it easier to find some of the rarer Pokemon and even some with different moves. Later on, it allows you to find Pokemon outside of the Hoenn dex from Kanto to Kalos which is great, and became a very big help after I got to the post game for some of my favourites. Another thing they added was PokeBuzz which is basically the news feature, but it also incorporates StreetPass in this game, which I couldn't use unfortunately since it's 2024 and I have no one using StreetPass near me.
As of the post game itself, this was muuuuuch better compared to Kalos' post game. When becoming Champion, you hear about a meteoroid heading to Hoenn and you're thinking of some way to stop it while running into Zinnia, one of the Draconids who wishes to awaken Rayquaza to stop it. This was a really cool storyline near the end as it dives further into how Mega Evolution came into all of this and even adds context to the ancient war in Kalos. But you also get Deoxys as a reward for destroying the meteor which was a nice treat too, a space virus for free...how generous!
ORAS was so much fun to play through, although I kinda wished the HMs would've been gone in this game or at least shrunken down, but still holds up for a 3DS game 10 years later.
As a remake of Ruby and Sapphire, ORAS had changed so many features since that era with the many features added over the years, but also new elements to the story which is unique for a remake in Pokemon. Alongside seeing familiar characters and Pokemon returning in this game, we also have new faces like Zinnia and...oh, just Zinnia? Well, one new character. And we see her in the brand new post-game called the Delta Episode, which I'll get to in a second.
With X and Y being a hit back then, they also decided to add some functions from that game into this remake as well, with exp share functioning exactly how it did in Kalos. In the previous game, I stated that this wasn't that bad to me as I could easily balance out my team to avoid overlevelling. Well, throw that out of the window as I was 15 levels over with just my starter by the time I got to Mossdeep City, not because I wanted to use my starter being Swampert, but they still kept almost the same amount of HMs needed for your travels, which I cannot wait for them to scrap them later on, these are forever stupid to handle. As well as exp share being an easy mode, mega evolutions return as well, with some new ones found only in ORAS, such as Sharpedo, Garchomp, the Hoenn starters, the box art legendaries dubbed as Primal Reversions, and even Diancie got a mega too: the only mythical to ever have a mega form. I never really used these much unlike X and Y, since you get the mega bracelet after the Southern Island to get one of the Eon Pokemon 5 gyms later.
Yeah, that brings me to what else the remake offers. They added the Pokedex functions back from X and Y like Pokemon-Amie, Super Training, and the PSS, but they also added new functions like the PokeNav, which acts as a tracker for Pokemon in the area, beeping if you're near a wild one - making it easier to find some of the rarer Pokemon and even some with different moves. Later on, it allows you to find Pokemon outside of the Hoenn dex from Kanto to Kalos which is great, and became a very big help after I got to the post game for some of my favourites. Another thing they added was PokeBuzz which is basically the news feature, but it also incorporates StreetPass in this game, which I couldn't use unfortunately since it's 2024 and I have no one using StreetPass near me.
As of the post game itself, this was muuuuuch better compared to Kalos' post game. When becoming Champion, you hear about a meteoroid heading to Hoenn and you're thinking of some way to stop it while running into Zinnia, one of the Draconids who wishes to awaken Rayquaza to stop it. This was a really cool storyline near the end as it dives further into how Mega Evolution came into all of this and even adds context to the ancient war in Kalos. But you also get Deoxys as a reward for destroying the meteor which was a nice treat too, a space virus for free...how generous!
ORAS was so much fun to play through, although I kinda wished the HMs would've been gone in this game or at least shrunken down, but still holds up for a 3DS game 10 years later.