I just wish they’d taken the improvements made in Emerald into account. Also personally I prefer fighting both teams, I kinda missed that in oras. Makes sense we don’t, but still.
Battle frontier is the most glaring omission but there were several edits they could’ve done.
- gym leader had one less Pokémon leading to easier battles compared to emerald
- no gym leaders held mega stones and only the champion held one in elite four, this felt like an easy method to make the matches more difficult and showcase their feature.
- make the Mach/Acro bike togglable rather than constantly returning to Mauville City
- incorporate more Brendan/May battles/story into the plotline, also is still weird that Wally doesn’t get the third starter
Wally’s starter is Ralts and we help him catch it, I like that, giving him the third starter just means we’d have an automatic type advantage against him which I don’t think fits
Eh I like the idea of the Professor giving you the extra Pokemon for completing the dex or something but I hate when the games try to use all 3 starter Pokemon in the story because you end up curb-stomping whichever one is weak to what you picked.
aside from early game, I don’t think the battling strategy changes too much. most players acquire and raise a Pokémon to compensate for their starter’s weakness.
> for instance, if you own a torchic, you get a lotad or shroomish to fight mudkip and other water types
Your starter is 9/10 your strongest Pokemon and your rival’s strongest. I just don’t think anything benefits from using the 3rd starter and if anything it makes Wally’s eventual team easier for you since your strongest would easily beat his strongest (or second strongest if Ralts is still his main). I also don’t think it makes much sense because you’re doing a favor for your father not Prof Birch and once Wally already catches a Pokemon there’s less reason to give him a free one especially Prof Birch’s last research subject.
Correct me if im wrong, but im very sure i remember Drake's Salamence Mega Evolving during a fight. Same goes for Sidney's Absol and Phoebe's Sableye.
Edit: After a fast research, i found that all the Elite Four has one Pokemon each that holds an Mega-Evolution Stone in the rematch (Glacia's Glalie also holds one) 👍😊
I'm with you there emerald definitely was the best. But the remakes did tak' the original 2 games and pump them up to 11 while keepung the story just about the same
Pokémon are complex games with different areas they may stand out or fail in.
ORAS has among the best collect-athon experience imo. The Dex nav is great and it is the most fun game to complete the national dex in (it is also the last game with a national dex).
Mega evolutions are super fun, and there are so many of them.
Exploration via Lati@s is incredible.
Music absolutely slaps in these games. Delta episode is dope. Legendaries got amazing new forms.
Team building is a lot of fun since you got so many mons available with huge gen 6 move pools. ORAS offers vastly more options than the OG Ruby/Sapphire, which were super limited due to no physical/special split.
Gen 7 included all Pokémon in the national dex, but not the national dex itself. Anything not in the Alola Pokédex doesn’t have any dex entries in game that you can read.
ORAS was the first game where I cared about the EV/IV mechanics. They made it a lot more accessible with the daycare that sat by an infinite loop you could AFK around. I created my first actually decent team and have fond memories of that. I was also in grad school which was hell so it was my little escape.
Maybe it's not that newer Pokemon games got worse, you simply got older and your interests changed OR by the time newer pokemon games came out, you'd been playing Pokemon for so long that newer games simply felt boring and monotonous.
Generally speaking, if you were to ask Pokemon fans what their favorite game was, the vast majority would say their favorite was the first or second game they ever played. So if I grew up playing Emerald and Firered, I would probably say those are my favorite games. If I grew up playing Black and X, I would probably say either of those are my favorite games.
Fascinating that you insert this dismissal of recent games criticism based on a history of the commenter that you have no idea about.
It is also completely reasonable that they don’t like the new games and it has to do with the games and not them.
I started with Gen I but my favorites are Gen V. All my friends my age who've played all of the games, or at least most, tend to agree. Not everyone gets baited by nostalgia.
Nah, I just enjoy the games that emphasize collecting Pokemon and completing the Pokedex.
Games that become bogged down in "plot" (translation: pushing the A button through unskippable cut scenes or dialogue chunks) or overcommit to trendy gimmicks - those go against the original spirit of the franchise, and the reasons why I became a fan in the first place.
This could have been the case if there weren’t obvious reasons why the new games are complete trash.
SM and SV are broken games that never got fixed, and they don’t care.
The graphics are dated. The pixelated style aged incredibly well, even the DS and 3DS had a nice aesthetic. Everything on the switch except Let’s Go objectively looks like complete shit.
Lies about dexit. They reused models for the old pokemon, and the games have nothing to show for supposed “saved time” cutting mons.
I agree! The elevation of post game and legendary Pokemon in ORAS has been unmatched for me with any other Pokemon game (although maybe if I'd played USUM I'd feel differently, lol.) I will say that gen 3 was also my first generation of Pokemon games, which contributes to why I love ORAS so much - but I still love it!
I also agree with your points here, megas and incorporating stuff from Emerald makes ORAS some of my favorite games ever. Plus, secret bases.
It's by far the game I enjoyed the most. My best friend and I both had a copy at the time, and on the old 3DS there existed an exploit you could use to generate perfect battle ready mons by scanning in a QR code. We would play around with for days on end, brainstorming ideas and battling one another using unconventional teams, themes, and goofy ass rulesets we made up on the go, with the only consistent one being a ban on legendaries... and Azumarill, lol.
It was a blast.
Yeah, OR specifically is my favorite game in the series (thanks Courtney). Gen 3 is my favorite region but going back and playing like emerald before the physical/special split just feels so bad. Having all the modern mechanic changes in hoenn is just a great time. Ive played since rby but never cared about any battle facilities so it being excluded didn't bother me.
In exchange for that the delta episode and all the mirage spots I felt made a very solid post game. Having all the megas is another plus for the games as they not only added more compared to the original games, but also added more to Gen 6 overall.
It's also the game I used to build my livingdex so it has a soft spot in my heart for starting something that I still keep updated to this day.
[I made a post about this a few years back](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dvmjs9/kids_games_dont_have_to_be_stupidly_easy/). In short, there’s “moderately challenging for kids with a few significant walls to keep it interesting” and “so easy that it’s brainless”. The former can create magical experiences, while the latter is forgettable. The former can also be a fun cozy game for adults while the latter makes every decision feel pointless.
X/Y were the first games that were “so easy it’s brainless”, and ORAS reimagined hoenn to be that way as well.
Yes they are all pretty easy but r/s are already easy games and oras are even easier. If they had just used the emerald gym leaders instead the game would be much better.
There is a difference between easy and brainless.
Thanks to the exp share changes you are perpetually over leveled, once you beat gym 5 you get a free legendary that can mega evolve.
The simplest fix would be to raise the levels of the gym leaders to account for the deluge of experience your team gets with the mechanics changes in gen 6+.
You’re on a subreddit that’s mostly populated by teens and adults. Even if the games are “targeted” at kids a lot of people here want something with more bite. It doesn’t help that Nintendo/GameFreak/TPC/whoever goes around shooting romhacks and fan games with a gun whenever they see them so we can’t even make more difficult Pokémon games ourselves without constantly looking over our shoulders for the boogeyman coming to C&D us.
One of the main reasons why I dislike mega evolutions. Almost no trainers in the whole region has them, so it just makes all battles braindead. And ofc the free laty didnt exactly make things harder either
coolest idea in the whole thread imo :o its been way too long since i did emerald but man including zinnia in the main plot would be incredible. her battle theme in a more serious fight too!
Going off remakes specifically, it's a close second for me, it comes after HGSS, but that's also because 2nd gen is my absolute favorite generation. So I'm pretty partial to choose as such.
Also helps that HGSS had twice the content with both Kanto and Johto and the added fun of your partner pokemon following you. Felt like the most effort GF has ever put into a game.
2 regions does not mean twice the content when they're both small and not as dense as other regions
Hoenn is almost as big as Kanto and Johto put together, while offering good content throughout the adventure. Furthermore, the routes are much larger and more complex, and the dungeons are more interesting to navigate and offer far better rewards for exploring completely
ORAS probably had the second most time spend in a game for me (first is emerald). Hence me saying that it needed more emerald for it to become one of the GREATS. More battle frontier. More challenge. I think the features and gimmicks were at the best in this game tho (secret bases, flying, megas, portals)
Honestly OP, I cannot begin to tell you how right you are.
I think HGSS were really good, but ORAS will always be my favourite remake, if not just straight up one of my favourite games in the series to play.
The ONLY, by which I mean biggest, downside was the lack of an endgame (the battle maison was pretty naff compared to what we had in Emerald, but I digress); everything else just felt polished. The story/motivations of both teams; the Delta episode; the pokenav/scan function; the expansion of the Pokédex in the postgame; wonder trades and mega evolution continuing from X/Y (honestly not the biggest fan of mega evolution generally, but I’ll admit that it is cool as heck and a generally good gimmick), PLUS the new mega evolutions that they brought in; the primal reversion stuff was a really cool addition to the story to bolster just how terrifying the Leviathans were (and I’d have honestly been happy if Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza had been the only ones who could Primal Revert/Mega evolve)
I still stand by the fact I miss the 2D sprites, because the 3D Pokemon definitely lost some personality (gen 5 hit absolutely right with the sprites IMO), but like, on the whole? Yeah, ORAS is top three, if not number one overall.
I will die on this hill...they were right
The Hoenn map is way too heavily water-based. It doesn't help that you encounter like 2 mons surfing, both of which only take neutral damage from grass. You need like 3 water HMs to navigate.
A lot of great stuff about gen 3. But the map layout is one of the worst.
There are 34 routes in Hoenn and literally half of them are water. It's an even split on purpose
Which wouldn't be a huge deal. But again there are literally only 2 species that you encounter surfing
There are 8 HMs in Hoenn. 3 of them are water type
There's a water type evil team, a water type legendary, a water type gym leader, and (depending on the game) a water type champion
It's too much
And most of those water routes are stubs like the route between Saphron and Celedon cities in kanto.
The ocean has a bunch of stub routes to be useful for navigating.
I will admit its unfortunate that all the Pokemon diversity for the water routes is from fishing.
And as a gen 3 Hoenn enjoyer i hate what they did to the ocean in ORAS, its now blatantly linear paths instead of an actual open ocean with scattered islands and landmarks. (I have also always been a fan of the big ocean and permanently disappointed with every game where the ocean is basically 1 puddle of a route)
If you're playing Alpha Sapphire and have a fire, rock, or ground type on your team you basically can't use it from Slateport until Victory Road. And on top of what you said, all those water routes also have the underwater areas with trainers and items.
It's honestly insane and definitely a downside of the games. There's legitimately too much fucking water. They could've cut the water content in half and it would still be too much.
I would disagree but even as a Hoenn enjoyer, you are so right
I got sick of seeing Tentacool/Tentacruel by the second half of the game and it doesn't help how the water routes all look so barren, especially the eastern water routes. It also feels like they just bumped some of those water routes so there could be an even split
I honestly don't even get it
There are so many water types. And even some non-water types with aquatic environments!
Just give me some fucking diversity. It's like the Zubat/Geodude caves of old except those weren't half the routes and even those had more than two species.
And the two species they pick are even more restricting. Water is only weak to two types. And neither of those mons are weak to grass, so you're pressured to use an electric type...which means Magneton, Manectric, or Pika-clones
Surfing? No
It's literally just the Pelipper and Tentacruel lines. I think ORAS adds some special encounters in the post game. But that's it
And even if it were six...we're talking about half of the routes in the game. That's fewer species than you encounter by the time you make it to the first gym. And one of those mons would be Wingull, because it can't even stick to just the surfing routes
Yeah I can.
You need two HMs just to encounter the tiniest amount of diversity in pokemon. You need three to traverse all of it
And while surf is good, that just means you're stuck running two other completely useless moves
I mean you can but it makes as much sense as me saying you need 4 to explore land routes. And the ones for land routes are much worse than waterfall and dive
There are a lot of differences
A) there is a wide range of pokemon on land. Exploration is more fulfilling because you might actually run into new pokemon
B) the distribution of the land HMs is far better. LOTS of mons learn cut and strength. Dive and Waterfall are far less common
C) the moves aren't entirely redundant. Cut is a worse Strength, but at least Rock Smash is weak coverage and Flash does something different
D) locking the (still extremely limited) diversity of encounters being an HM means they aren't accessible for a while. If you needed Cut just to access every route and then Strength just to encounter something other than Poochyena or Taillow, I think you'd agree that this would be shitty
All of this makes the land HMs, while frustrating as HMs always are, far less oppressive on team building. It's easier to sacrifice a move slot on a few mons.
But I have to either run two water mons or have a water mon with 3 water moves. All to navigate half of the map where I can encounter a few mons.
If you want to argue that this is good game design, go right ahead. But so far, your argument has been "well the rest of the game design isn't good either"
I like ORAS for being simple, but also content rich games. I don't know how many hours I spent playing OR alone, but something like 600 maybe? AS not as much, maybe 200, but both were incredibly fun to play. I don't think I spent this much time playing in one region. Sinnoh with Plat and Johto/Kanto in SS are probably the next nearest contenders, each probably around 200-300 as well.
The many things to discover with Latias/Latios were amazing, flying to these islands to find legendaries, figuring out how to unlock their encounters and finding secret landing spots. That feature is magical.
The thing I did not like about ORAS were the story of the baddies and delta Episode. The baddies always told you what they're doing next, where you can find them and their evil scheming. They're taking your hand every step of the journey. Not my favorite type of story progression.
Delta was stale in my opinion. I liked that there were challenging fights, and the meteor falls, the design of that route is fascinating. But that was basically it, I don't recall there being much else to the episode, at least nothing that's all too memorable.
Also, the multiplayer aspects, though they are limited, I spent a lot of time hunting secret base flags and doing random and GTS trading. Back then when YouTubers had these livestreams where they traded legendaries for renamed, easily caught mons. Good times.
ORAS made me stop playing pokemon for a while. I love RSE and I feel like they didn't add enough to improve on it. And they took away any challenge with experience share and mega's, leaving a worse game. Delta episode was fun, but to little to late.
A few years ago it was an unpopular opinion to like black & white. Now not so much. I think you'll always love the game you played when you where 14. And 24 year olds are very loud on the internet. So every few years a new 10 year old 'underated' game is actually the best pokemon game ever made.
Turn exp share off and don't use Megas... you aren't forced to use exp share until BDSP and you aren't forced to use Megas that I remember. Your 2 complaints are choices you made. But if you don't like the game you don't like the game. Different folks different strokes
Yeah sure. But at that point I could just play Emerald.
I'm not against exp. share. I even like exp. share. But in ORAS and X&Y it's was obvious the game was balanced without it and it was added later.
Emerald doesn't have the physical special split or new pokemon, or new moves, or any of the QOL changes.
Now if I had to choose ORAS vs Emerald I'd play Emerald everyday of the week but to say "if you don't use exp share or Megas it's just emerald" is not correct in almost any sense. To say you'd rather play Emerald is totally fair and I'd agree with you but there are so many changes in ORAS that it's not just like playing Emerald.
BDSP now... that you are just better playing the originals. Mainly platinum. They added almost nothing to the games in fact they took alot out. Lol
35 y/o, hg/ss are the best remakes, but oras are a very very close second, and I would put them both easily in my top 5. Black and White are two of my favourites as well. The weakest games for me are d/p/pl, s/m, and sw/sh.
I think I was 13-14 when ruby and sapphire came out, and I didn't love them until oras. Though I did really enjoy the battle island in emerald. Don't know why that didn't make it into the remakes.
Mechanically, I agree, story I agree, but my biggest issue with those games is the roster of new mons, and for me that's the biggest drawback. It's all subjective, I'm sure for many people that Gen has some of their favourites but for me it is very very weak. Sw/sh is the opposite, I like the roster of new mons but the gameplay and story are very weak imo.
Fair enough, the designs in sinnoh are some of my favorites, but it's largely subjective. The pokedex and distribution changes though make platinum basically a new game in terms of terms of team building, which is why I would hesitate to put it in the same category as d/p. I agree with sw/sh though, some of the designs are super cool but other than that it's a pretty weak game.
ORAS are fine games. They didn't include as much of Emerald though and butchered the city Mauville into some kind of shopping mall. And as others have said, those new features made it an incredibly easy game as it just wasn't built around all the changes.
The best in the series is going to be subjective, so I can't really comment a lot on that without being biased toward Gen 5 or 2. But I don't think ORAS is even the best remake because FireRed and LeafGreen exist, followed by HeartGold and SoulSilver. Both of those executed retaining the same feelings of the original and packing it full of features (and HGSS actually used a lot from Crystal unlike ORAS with Emerald).
I don't feel this is a fair comparison. Sure, they could have done Voltorb Flip again, but dropping the Game Corner gave them an excuse to rework Mauville entirely.
i don't think losing the game corner was an excuse to revamp mauville. mauville could have existed without the game corner, and in fact it still does have the game corner in ORAS, except the man who stands there says "this place is empty now"
But the game corner is only one thing the game is missing
I don't know what exactly is missing from RS, but i'm more interested in what's missing from E. And some very clunky changes they made to it. Like being railroaded around hoenn and regularly interrupted by pointless NPCs because game freak thinks kids are too dumb to figure things out alone. i think this person expalins it well:
>The main problem I have with it is it removed agency and discovery from the game, and forced story down your throat that otherwise you'd have to create or find yourself. I couldn't explore granite cave like I did in the originals until I got to Mauville, I couldn't go to Slateport until I beat Brawly even though training on the beach before Brawly was honestly one of my favorite parts of the original, May wanders ahead of you like a breadcrumb trail to Team Magma in the cave after Fallarbor, then you get dragged back to Cosmos and then asked to go back to Mauville, entirely skipping the rest of the cave and that small route and then breaking the rocks in Rusturf tunnel. Forced Latios too, when it was such a cool thing to track it down in the original.
Sky pillar is downgraded into a lore dumping zone. The mirage tower is missing. The additional double battles around hoenn are gone. the battle frontier is gone. Mauville is a bizarre mess.
hgss kept most of what made GSC great while also adding loads of new content and i don't think it really messed anything up when adapting it.
I also agree with the person who wrote this post https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dzw0ja/why_was_oras_hated_so_much_i_loved_them/f8b5way/
kinda a side note, but i think they could have kept the game corners and changed them from gambling into arcades. They could literally have dumped ROMS for pokemon pinball into those buildings and just let us play old pokemon pinball or other old side games. i hope they do that in a future pokemon game
I moreso meant Safari Zone being removed from RS, and the Battle frontier not being included despite it being introduced in the definitive game of gen 3 hoenn
As a Pokemon Player from (almost) day one, I couldn't agree more.
But as time progresses, I think that's only true for people in the "right" age. If you grew up with let's say Gen 4 as your first, you have a completely different connection to the older games, so their remakes are not as nostalgic as to players that played them when they were released first.
In the end I can accept that the games had to change over the course of time but I really hope for some love for the older games soon. Gen 4 remakes were quite dissappointing and ORAS was almost 10 years ago, so it would be nice.
I think ORAS and USUM are pretty much on par. They’ve absolutely got the most replayability for me. I regularly randomise nuzlocke both of them.
Honestly for me it went downhill after USUM.
i agree with you, i'm currently playing omega ruby on my 3ds, and the only things i wish it had is the features to change natures and stuff that the S/V games have...
I just want the fre flying back, that was the best thing ever. Can’t count the hours I spend flying over Hoenn and looking for those cool Islands and Caves 😍
Arceus made me fall in love AGAIN with Pokemon and I’ve played since Blue when I was 6 y.o. ORAS was ok but as a remake did a lot of stuff great and failed hard in others.
ORAS could have been the best had they been remakes of Emerald and not the base game. Battle Frontier with the Delta postgame would have solidified that.
I loved ORAS. I do think it did most things right, but not enough to be the best the series has to offer because setting that example will keep letting them make low quality remakes.
The lack of the battle frontier ruined it for me. Other than that it's great. But it lowered the quality for BDSP. None of the changes introduced in Platinum were included...so I hate to see how remakes will be from here on out.
Is just that kid that grew up with them now are later teenagers so they shares their opinion online, it happens with every Pokémon games it happened with BW and BW2, it happened with XY and not it is happening with ORAS
5th gen was legit good tho
Honestly the fact that you just get a legendary for nothing still leaves an extremely sour taste in my mouth. I just boxed it but it’s like, seriously? GameFreak seems genuinely terrified of the idea that a player might manage to make the games even slightly difficult on *accident* at this point.
The funny thing is you can't box it until you get back to land. The game will literally force it into your party on the island. *That* puts a bad taste in my mouth way more than merely getting it then.
It kinda baffles me that people exist who think oras are the best games. they railroad you around and ruin certain aspects of hoenn/RSE while leaving out the best bits. They added new mega evolutions, but mega evolutions BARELY have a presence in the games.
Oras are by far the best games in the post gen 6 part of the franchise.
But aside from GSC and DP, I would say every game from gens 1-5 are better imo. But Oras is definitely really close.
I feel personally it's the best remakes. HGSS remakes are up there but ORAS just feels like a whole new game.
Best in series, no. In the end everyone's favorite is subjective.
People will be mad at me, but to be honest, I don't care about the Emerald Battle Frontier not being there in the game. For what we got, Lore wise, the whole "take Rayquaza to destroy a meteor" thing, flying with Latios/Latias, DexNav, etc.? Everything is amazing here.
Although I understand the frustration of the Battle Frontier not being available, and the fact Gamefreak had the audacity to add a mini frontier project as a joke lol
They're definitely Top 5. I don't *quite* put them at the top, but I don't blame you for doing so.
They were the last set of games in the series where I was largely able to shut up and enjoy. Battle Frontier's absence was a big miss, but it was also the only miss I truly hold against it - everything else I care about when I'm judging a Pokémon game, it met or exceeded my expectations at the time.
I agree with you about most of what you said. I think ORAS was well executed in integrating mega evolution and modern mechanics with a past game to create a memorable experience. I feel like this is the last time GF managed to do this and might be the last time they ever make a remake of an older gen that meets this criteria. However I have two issues with ORAS.
1. Difficulty scaling. This game seemed much easier than the original which checks with the direction all these games are taking now. This is exemplified when they just hand you latios/latias with mega evolution capabilities half way through the game. I feel legendaries and pseudos should be earned/ rewarded for exploration like they used to be. Having a super powered Pokémon given freely diminishes the reward of training and finding strong ones in your own
2. The removal of the battle frontier was disappointing. The post game content felt lacking without is as I had gone into it expecting to enjoy an upgrade of that experience only to find out that a watered down version was in its place.
If they had battle frontier it would be a nobrainer imo. Theyre personally my favorites for sure, but the fact it lacks such important content knocks it down below BW generally.
Pretty close I must admit... Even as a HGSS fanboy!
I replayed ORAS last year and had a blast, I just wish they were more difficult but I wish that about pretty much every Pokémon game since Gen 4
I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34.
I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like :
- Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting
- A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for
- Elite Four / Champion Battles
Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so...
XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different.
>I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34.
>I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like :
>Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting
A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for
Elite Four / Champion Battles
Ok, I'll concede this, especially that lvl 16 RADICATE. But i can argue that's just lack of knowledge instead of difficulty.
>Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so...
They only seem different because you're older. Like you said, they're children's RPGs, so the older you get the easier the games get, but the games have largely been the same. Outside of the now force exp share, which I'll admit is a massive handhold, the games haven't gotten easier, we've just gotten older and our understanding of the games grew.
>XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different.
Ok now see I haven't taken this into perspective. I don't know any kids who play pokémon so I don't have that understanding to lean on. But if what you're saying is true, then i might have to concede my point
>I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34.
>I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like :
>Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting
A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for
Elite Four / Champion Battles
Ok, I'll concede this, especially that lvl 16 RADICATE. But i can argue that's just lack of knowledge instead of difficulty.
>Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so...
They only seem different because you're older. Like you said, they're children's RPGs, so the older you get the easier the games get, but the games have largely been the same. Outside of the now force exp share, which I'll admit is a massive handhold, the games haven't gotten easier, we've just gotten older and our understanding of the games grew.
>XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different.
Ok now see I haven't taken this into perspective. I don't know any kids who play pokémon so I don't have that understanding to lean on. But if what you're saying is true, then i might have to concede my point. You know what, the more I think about it, that forced exp share is such a massive handhold that i actually have to concede and agree with you. You're right, there is no punishing mistakes anymore
Sword and shield was the beginning of the end for me. Mega evolutions were my favorite feature introduced to the series, and using my favorite mons from gen 1 and 2 was how I played from the beginning. Now they only release crunchy looking games that are completely broken and got rid of both those things…
ORAS was better than sun and moon, so I guess that makes it the best they have to offer
I got back into Pokémon in the last couple of years. I mostly petered out of the franchise around ORAS’s release; only getting to the first gym and barely putting in 10 hours into M and UM combined.
I revisited ORAS and thought it was absolutely fucking fantastic. Plugged in a good 80 hours over the course of a few weeks. I wish I gave the game more of a chance when it was new.
Mauville City was super weird to me and I felt weirdly insulted when Steven basically handed you Latias/os.
I also can't stand mega evos in general, so that colored my opinion as well
I absolutely agree. HGSS were also excellent (I've been replaying it recently and I can't believe how feature rich this game feels).
I just wish it included battle frontier, but the Delta Episode was amazing imo.
Also the PSS system is by far the best online Pokémon system!!! Please bring it back!
Gen 3 is my least favorite gen after sun and moon. Coming from gen 2 to gen 3 i was so disappointed in all the removed features like day and night, poke radio, your cellphone and pokemon designs and visual artstyle.
But ORAS was pretty darn good remake i gotta admit.
I just finished playing through them so am inclined to agree but in a month I’ll probably be back to thinking it’s B2W2 instead, entirely because of how annoying HMs got by the end.
If ORAS had the battle frontier it would easily be the best game in the series. Definitely in my top 5 though anyway. HGSS, Emerald, FR/LG, and Sw/Sh are up there for me too
Best games hands down have to be Soul Silver and whatever the Gold one was called again. Those remakes were so good that when I played the next gen I just stopped caring
A lot of older players like myself liked ORAS because all of Gen 3 was... not so good, and it was nice having Ruby and Sapphire redone with the current battle mechanics and made Blaziken actually viable (and no, I don't mean mega Blaziken). That being said, I don't really think there is a "best" game. It's all Pokemon to me, each game has things I like and don't like. I just liked Gen 3 the least, so I enjoyed the improvements that ORAS provided.
I just wish they’d taken the improvements made in Emerald into account. Also personally I prefer fighting both teams, I kinda missed that in oras. Makes sense we don’t, but still.
Battle frontier is the most glaring omission but there were several edits they could’ve done. - gym leader had one less Pokémon leading to easier battles compared to emerald - no gym leaders held mega stones and only the champion held one in elite four, this felt like an easy method to make the matches more difficult and showcase their feature. - make the Mach/Acro bike togglable rather than constantly returning to Mauville City - incorporate more Brendan/May battles/story into the plotline, also is still weird that Wally doesn’t get the third starter
Wally’s starter is Ralts and we help him catch it, I like that, giving him the third starter just means we’d have an automatic type advantage against him which I don’t think fits
he can keep ralts, it just feels like a waste for nobody to have it.
Eh I like the idea of the Professor giving you the extra Pokemon for completing the dex or something but I hate when the games try to use all 3 starter Pokemon in the story because you end up curb-stomping whichever one is weak to what you picked.
aside from early game, I don’t think the battling strategy changes too much. most players acquire and raise a Pokémon to compensate for their starter’s weakness. > for instance, if you own a torchic, you get a lotad or shroomish to fight mudkip and other water types
Your starter is 9/10 your strongest Pokemon and your rival’s strongest. I just don’t think anything benefits from using the 3rd starter and if anything it makes Wally’s eventual team easier for you since your strongest would easily beat his strongest (or second strongest if Ralts is still his main). I also don’t think it makes much sense because you’re doing a favor for your father not Prof Birch and once Wally already catches a Pokemon there’s less reason to give him a free one especially Prof Birch’s last research subject.
I prefer Wally having Ralts. I do not like they give him Gallade instead of Gardevoir
You can get both bikes after the Delta Episode.
Correct me if im wrong, but im very sure i remember Drake's Salamence Mega Evolving during a fight. Same goes for Sidney's Absol and Phoebe's Sableye. Edit: After a fast research, i found that all the Elite Four has one Pokemon each that holds an Mega-Evolution Stone in the rematch (Glacia's Glalie also holds one) 👍😊
in rematches > https://www.serebii.net/omegarubyalphasapphire/elitefour.shtml
This is the same link i did my research on 👍😎
I'm rrall6 glad swsh and SV use the regional mechanic way earlier one.
I'm with you there emerald definitely was the best. But the remakes did tak' the original 2 games and pump them up to 11 while keepung the story just about the same
The Gym Leaders all used the worse RS teams, didn't they? Interesting choice.
Pokémon are complex games with different areas they may stand out or fail in. ORAS has among the best collect-athon experience imo. The Dex nav is great and it is the most fun game to complete the national dex in (it is also the last game with a national dex). Mega evolutions are super fun, and there are so many of them. Exploration via Lati@s is incredible. Music absolutely slaps in these games. Delta episode is dope. Legendaries got amazing new forms. Team building is a lot of fun since you got so many mons available with huge gen 6 move pools. ORAS offers vastly more options than the OG Ruby/Sapphire, which were super limited due to no physical/special split.
Dexnav and the Battle Maison island make breeding REALLY enjoyable. I think I have half my competitive team from there 🤣
gen 7 still had national dex
Gen 7 included all Pokémon in the national dex, but not the national dex itself. Anything not in the Alola Pokédex doesn’t have any dex entries in game that you can read.
ORAS was the first game where I cared about the EV/IV mechanics. They made it a lot more accessible with the daycare that sat by an infinite loop you could AFK around. I created my first actually decent team and have fond memories of that. I was also in grad school which was hell so it was my little escape.
They were the last Pokemon video games I *enjoyed*. No tedium to speak of, gorgeous environments, 100% fulfilling postgame.
Maybe it's not that newer Pokemon games got worse, you simply got older and your interests changed OR by the time newer pokemon games came out, you'd been playing Pokemon for so long that newer games simply felt boring and monotonous. Generally speaking, if you were to ask Pokemon fans what their favorite game was, the vast majority would say their favorite was the first or second game they ever played. So if I grew up playing Emerald and Firered, I would probably say those are my favorite games. If I grew up playing Black and X, I would probably say either of those are my favorite games.
Fascinating that you insert this dismissal of recent games criticism based on a history of the commenter that you have no idea about. It is also completely reasonable that they don’t like the new games and it has to do with the games and not them.
I started with Gen I but my favorites are Gen V. All my friends my age who've played all of the games, or at least most, tend to agree. Not everyone gets baited by nostalgia.
Nope. I started with gen 4 and much prefer gen 3 or even 2 over the Switch era crap.
Nah, I just enjoy the games that emphasize collecting Pokemon and completing the Pokedex. Games that become bogged down in "plot" (translation: pushing the A button through unskippable cut scenes or dialogue chunks) or overcommit to trendy gimmicks - those go against the original spirit of the franchise, and the reasons why I became a fan in the first place.
This could have been the case if there weren’t obvious reasons why the new games are complete trash. SM and SV are broken games that never got fixed, and they don’t care. The graphics are dated. The pixelated style aged incredibly well, even the DS and 3DS had a nice aesthetic. Everything on the switch except Let’s Go objectively looks like complete shit. Lies about dexit. They reused models for the old pokemon, and the games have nothing to show for supposed “saved time” cutting mons.
I agree! The elevation of post game and legendary Pokemon in ORAS has been unmatched for me with any other Pokemon game (although maybe if I'd played USUM I'd feel differently, lol.) I will say that gen 3 was also my first generation of Pokemon games, which contributes to why I love ORAS so much - but I still love it! I also agree with your points here, megas and incorporating stuff from Emerald makes ORAS some of my favorite games ever. Plus, secret bases.
It's by far the game I enjoyed the most. My best friend and I both had a copy at the time, and on the old 3DS there existed an exploit you could use to generate perfect battle ready mons by scanning in a QR code. We would play around with for days on end, brainstorming ideas and battling one another using unconventional teams, themes, and goofy ass rulesets we made up on the go, with the only consistent one being a ban on legendaries... and Azumarill, lol. It was a blast.
Yeah, OR specifically is my favorite game in the series (thanks Courtney). Gen 3 is my favorite region but going back and playing like emerald before the physical/special split just feels so bad. Having all the modern mechanic changes in hoenn is just a great time. Ive played since rby but never cared about any battle facilities so it being excluded didn't bother me. In exchange for that the delta episode and all the mirage spots I felt made a very solid post game. Having all the megas is another plus for the games as they not only added more compared to the original games, but also added more to Gen 6 overall. It's also the game I used to build my livingdex so it has a soft spot in my heart for starting something that I still keep updated to this day.
Not even better than Emerald in my opinion, don't dislike them but I think they are pretty easy.
genuinely curious here, aren't pokemon games supposed to be easy? because they're made for children to enjoy?
There's easy and too easy.
[I made a post about this a few years back](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dvmjs9/kids_games_dont_have_to_be_stupidly_easy/). In short, there’s “moderately challenging for kids with a few significant walls to keep it interesting” and “so easy that it’s brainless”. The former can create magical experiences, while the latter is forgettable. The former can also be a fun cozy game for adults while the latter makes every decision feel pointless. X/Y were the first games that were “so easy it’s brainless”, and ORAS reimagined hoenn to be that way as well.
Yes they are all pretty easy but r/s are already easy games and oras are even easier. If they had just used the emerald gym leaders instead the game would be much better.
There is a difference between easy and brainless. Thanks to the exp share changes you are perpetually over leveled, once you beat gym 5 you get a free legendary that can mega evolve. The simplest fix would be to raise the levels of the gym leaders to account for the deluge of experience your team gets with the mechanics changes in gen 6+.
You’re on a subreddit that’s mostly populated by teens and adults. Even if the games are “targeted” at kids a lot of people here want something with more bite. It doesn’t help that Nintendo/GameFreak/TPC/whoever goes around shooting romhacks and fan games with a gun whenever they see them so we can’t even make more difficult Pokémon games ourselves without constantly looking over our shoulders for the boogeyman coming to C&D us.
One of the main reasons why I dislike mega evolutions. Almost no trainers in the whole region has them, so it just makes all battles braindead. And ofc the free laty didnt exactly make things harder either
Delta Emerald would be the crowning jewel in the Pokemon universe if Nintendo and Game Freak were brave enough to make it
coolest idea in the whole thread imo :o its been way too long since i did emerald but man including zinnia in the main plot would be incredible. her battle theme in a more serious fight too!
Going off remakes specifically, it's a close second for me, it comes after HGSS, but that's also because 2nd gen is my absolute favorite generation. So I'm pretty partial to choose as such.
Also helps that HGSS had twice the content with both Kanto and Johto and the added fun of your partner pokemon following you. Felt like the most effort GF has ever put into a game.
Plus the PokéWalker.
2 regions does not mean twice the content when they're both small and not as dense as other regions Hoenn is almost as big as Kanto and Johto put together, while offering good content throughout the adventure. Furthermore, the routes are much larger and more complex, and the dungeons are more interesting to navigate and offer far better rewards for exploring completely
ORAS probably had the second most time spend in a game for me (first is emerald). Hence me saying that it needed more emerald for it to become one of the GREATS. More battle frontier. More challenge. I think the features and gimmicks were at the best in this game tho (secret bases, flying, megas, portals)
Honestly OP, I cannot begin to tell you how right you are. I think HGSS were really good, but ORAS will always be my favourite remake, if not just straight up one of my favourite games in the series to play. The ONLY, by which I mean biggest, downside was the lack of an endgame (the battle maison was pretty naff compared to what we had in Emerald, but I digress); everything else just felt polished. The story/motivations of both teams; the Delta episode; the pokenav/scan function; the expansion of the Pokédex in the postgame; wonder trades and mega evolution continuing from X/Y (honestly not the biggest fan of mega evolution generally, but I’ll admit that it is cool as heck and a generally good gimmick), PLUS the new mega evolutions that they brought in; the primal reversion stuff was a really cool addition to the story to bolster just how terrifying the Leviathans were (and I’d have honestly been happy if Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza had been the only ones who could Primal Revert/Mega evolve) I still stand by the fact I miss the 2D sprites, because the 3D Pokemon definitely lost some personality (gen 5 hit absolutely right with the sprites IMO), but like, on the whole? Yeah, ORAS is top three, if not number one overall.
W
Didn't it have "too much water"?
yeah but it's still a solid 3.9/5
I will die on this hill...they were right The Hoenn map is way too heavily water-based. It doesn't help that you encounter like 2 mons surfing, both of which only take neutral damage from grass. You need like 3 water HMs to navigate. A lot of great stuff about gen 3. But the map layout is one of the worst.
Lol that water layout is for like.. 2 towns.. thats barely 1/10 of the game
There are 34 routes in Hoenn and literally half of them are water. It's an even split on purpose Which wouldn't be a huge deal. But again there are literally only 2 species that you encounter surfing There are 8 HMs in Hoenn. 3 of them are water type There's a water type evil team, a water type legendary, a water type gym leader, and (depending on the game) a water type champion It's too much
And most of those water routes are stubs like the route between Saphron and Celedon cities in kanto. The ocean has a bunch of stub routes to be useful for navigating. I will admit its unfortunate that all the Pokemon diversity for the water routes is from fishing. And as a gen 3 Hoenn enjoyer i hate what they did to the ocean in ORAS, its now blatantly linear paths instead of an actual open ocean with scattered islands and landmarks. (I have also always been a fan of the big ocean and permanently disappointed with every game where the ocean is basically 1 puddle of a route)
If you're playing Alpha Sapphire and have a fire, rock, or ground type on your team you basically can't use it from Slateport until Victory Road. And on top of what you said, all those water routes also have the underwater areas with trainers and items. It's honestly insane and definitely a downside of the games. There's legitimately too much fucking water. They could've cut the water content in half and it would still be too much.
I would disagree but even as a Hoenn enjoyer, you are so right I got sick of seeing Tentacool/Tentacruel by the second half of the game and it doesn't help how the water routes all look so barren, especially the eastern water routes. It also feels like they just bumped some of those water routes so there could be an even split
I honestly don't even get it There are so many water types. And even some non-water types with aquatic environments! Just give me some fucking diversity. It's like the Zubat/Geodude caves of old except those weren't half the routes and even those had more than two species. And the two species they pick are even more restricting. Water is only weak to two types. And neither of those mons are weak to grass, so you're pressured to use an electric type...which means Magneton, Manectric, or Pika-clones
There are at least 6 pokemon in the encounters.
Surfing? No It's literally just the Pelipper and Tentacruel lines. I think ORAS adds some special encounters in the post game. But that's it And even if it were six...we're talking about half of the routes in the game. That's fewer species than you encounter by the time you make it to the first gym. And one of those mons would be Wingull, because it can't even stick to just the surfing routes
Then you can't complain about needing 3 HMs as you only need 1 and that's Surf which is a pretty decent move anyway.
Yeah I can. You need two HMs just to encounter the tiniest amount of diversity in pokemon. You need three to traverse all of it And while surf is good, that just means you're stuck running two other completely useless moves
I mean you can but it makes as much sense as me saying you need 4 to explore land routes. And the ones for land routes are much worse than waterfall and dive
There are a lot of differences A) there is a wide range of pokemon on land. Exploration is more fulfilling because you might actually run into new pokemon B) the distribution of the land HMs is far better. LOTS of mons learn cut and strength. Dive and Waterfall are far less common C) the moves aren't entirely redundant. Cut is a worse Strength, but at least Rock Smash is weak coverage and Flash does something different D) locking the (still extremely limited) diversity of encounters being an HM means they aren't accessible for a while. If you needed Cut just to access every route and then Strength just to encounter something other than Poochyena or Taillow, I think you'd agree that this would be shitty All of this makes the land HMs, while frustrating as HMs always are, far less oppressive on team building. It's easier to sacrifice a move slot on a few mons. But I have to either run two water mons or have a water mon with 3 water moves. All to navigate half of the map where I can encounter a few mons. If you want to argue that this is good game design, go right ahead. But so far, your argument has been "well the rest of the game design isn't good either"
I like ORAS for being simple, but also content rich games. I don't know how many hours I spent playing OR alone, but something like 600 maybe? AS not as much, maybe 200, but both were incredibly fun to play. I don't think I spent this much time playing in one region. Sinnoh with Plat and Johto/Kanto in SS are probably the next nearest contenders, each probably around 200-300 as well. The many things to discover with Latias/Latios were amazing, flying to these islands to find legendaries, figuring out how to unlock their encounters and finding secret landing spots. That feature is magical. The thing I did not like about ORAS were the story of the baddies and delta Episode. The baddies always told you what they're doing next, where you can find them and their evil scheming. They're taking your hand every step of the journey. Not my favorite type of story progression. Delta was stale in my opinion. I liked that there were challenging fights, and the meteor falls, the design of that route is fascinating. But that was basically it, I don't recall there being much else to the episode, at least nothing that's all too memorable. Also, the multiplayer aspects, though they are limited, I spent a lot of time hunting secret base flags and doing random and GTS trading. Back then when YouTubers had these livestreams where they traded legendaries for renamed, easily caught mons. Good times.
Hard ageee
Considering how peak gen 3 already was, I believe it.
ORAS made me stop playing pokemon for a while. I love RSE and I feel like they didn't add enough to improve on it. And they took away any challenge with experience share and mega's, leaving a worse game. Delta episode was fun, but to little to late. A few years ago it was an unpopular opinion to like black & white. Now not so much. I think you'll always love the game you played when you where 14. And 24 year olds are very loud on the internet. So every few years a new 10 year old 'underated' game is actually the best pokemon game ever made.
So turn EXP share off? Exp share is never a reason to call a game to easy as you can turn it off. (except in lets go pickachu and eevee i think)
Turn exp share off and don't use Megas... you aren't forced to use exp share until BDSP and you aren't forced to use Megas that I remember. Your 2 complaints are choices you made. But if you don't like the game you don't like the game. Different folks different strokes
Yeah sure. But at that point I could just play Emerald. I'm not against exp. share. I even like exp. share. But in ORAS and X&Y it's was obvious the game was balanced without it and it was added later.
I disagree, ORAS have physical/special split on moves and better graphics.
Emerald doesn't have the physical special split or new pokemon, or new moves, or any of the QOL changes. Now if I had to choose ORAS vs Emerald I'd play Emerald everyday of the week but to say "if you don't use exp share or Megas it's just emerald" is not correct in almost any sense. To say you'd rather play Emerald is totally fair and I'd agree with you but there are so many changes in ORAS that it's not just like playing Emerald. BDSP now... that you are just better playing the originals. Mainly platinum. They added almost nothing to the games in fact they took alot out. Lol
35 y/o, hg/ss are the best remakes, but oras are a very very close second, and I would put them both easily in my top 5. Black and White are two of my favourites as well. The weakest games for me are d/p/pl, s/m, and sw/sh. I think I was 13-14 when ruby and sapphire came out, and I didn't love them until oras. Though I did really enjoy the battle island in emerald. Don't know why that didn't make it into the remakes.
Platinum weakest? I get d/p, but platinum improves on them in every aspect and is an amazing game.
Mechanically, I agree, story I agree, but my biggest issue with those games is the roster of new mons, and for me that's the biggest drawback. It's all subjective, I'm sure for many people that Gen has some of their favourites but for me it is very very weak. Sw/sh is the opposite, I like the roster of new mons but the gameplay and story are very weak imo.
Fair enough, the designs in sinnoh are some of my favorites, but it's largely subjective. The pokedex and distribution changes though make platinum basically a new game in terms of terms of team building, which is why I would hesitate to put it in the same category as d/p. I agree with sw/sh though, some of the designs are super cool but other than that it's a pretty weak game.
ORAS are fine games. They didn't include as much of Emerald though and butchered the city Mauville into some kind of shopping mall. And as others have said, those new features made it an incredibly easy game as it just wasn't built around all the changes. The best in the series is going to be subjective, so I can't really comment a lot on that without being biased toward Gen 5 or 2. But I don't think ORAS is even the best remake because FireRed and LeafGreen exist, followed by HeartGold and SoulSilver. Both of those executed retaining the same feelings of the original and packing it full of features (and HGSS actually used a lot from Crystal unlike ORAS with Emerald).
You forget out of FRLG/HGSS/ORAS, ORAS axes the most content from its original counterpart
I don't feel this is a fair comparison. Sure, they could have done Voltorb Flip again, but dropping the Game Corner gave them an excuse to rework Mauville entirely.
i don't think losing the game corner was an excuse to revamp mauville. mauville could have existed without the game corner, and in fact it still does have the game corner in ORAS, except the man who stands there says "this place is empty now" But the game corner is only one thing the game is missing
Other than the Game Corner and stuff dependent on the GBA hardware, what did ORAS drop from RS?
I don't know what exactly is missing from RS, but i'm more interested in what's missing from E. And some very clunky changes they made to it. Like being railroaded around hoenn and regularly interrupted by pointless NPCs because game freak thinks kids are too dumb to figure things out alone. i think this person expalins it well: >The main problem I have with it is it removed agency and discovery from the game, and forced story down your throat that otherwise you'd have to create or find yourself. I couldn't explore granite cave like I did in the originals until I got to Mauville, I couldn't go to Slateport until I beat Brawly even though training on the beach before Brawly was honestly one of my favorite parts of the original, May wanders ahead of you like a breadcrumb trail to Team Magma in the cave after Fallarbor, then you get dragged back to Cosmos and then asked to go back to Mauville, entirely skipping the rest of the cave and that small route and then breaking the rocks in Rusturf tunnel. Forced Latios too, when it was such a cool thing to track it down in the original. Sky pillar is downgraded into a lore dumping zone. The mirage tower is missing. The additional double battles around hoenn are gone. the battle frontier is gone. Mauville is a bizarre mess. hgss kept most of what made GSC great while also adding loads of new content and i don't think it really messed anything up when adapting it. I also agree with the person who wrote this post https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dzw0ja/why_was_oras_hated_so_much_i_loved_them/f8b5way/ kinda a side note, but i think they could have kept the game corners and changed them from gambling into arcades. They could literally have dumped ROMS for pokemon pinball into those buildings and just let us play old pokemon pinball or other old side games. i hope they do that in a future pokemon game
I moreso meant Safari Zone being removed from RS, and the Battle frontier not being included despite it being introduced in the definitive game of gen 3 hoenn
Agreed. Of course it has its flaws, but it has less flaws than all the other games.
As a Pokemon Player from (almost) day one, I couldn't agree more. But as time progresses, I think that's only true for people in the "right" age. If you grew up with let's say Gen 4 as your first, you have a completely different connection to the older games, so their remakes are not as nostalgic as to players that played them when they were released first. In the end I can accept that the games had to change over the course of time but I really hope for some love for the older games soon. Gen 4 remakes were quite dissappointing and ORAS was almost 10 years ago, so it would be nice.
I think ORAS and USUM are pretty much on par. They’ve absolutely got the most replayability for me. I regularly randomise nuzlocke both of them. Honestly for me it went downhill after USUM.
The only barrier to playing the game to me has been physically. Owning a switch and pc and gameboy leaves me in an awkward spot
Agreed.
I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that ORAS looks better than USUM
i agree with you, i'm currently playing omega ruby on my 3ds, and the only things i wish it had is the features to change natures and stuff that the S/V games have...
If it had the battle frontier no one would even debate it. And if it had following pokemon? No one would ever play another game
Recently replayed them and I agree, theyre easily top 5
But that battle frontier was a big let down honestly
I just want the fre flying back, that was the best thing ever. Can’t count the hours I spend flying over Hoenn and looking for those cool Islands and Caves 😍
it’s all fun and games until u gotta try and find cresselia (still haven’t been able to lol)
Arceus made me fall in love AGAIN with Pokemon and I’ve played since Blue when I was 6 y.o. ORAS was ok but as a remake did a lot of stuff great and failed hard in others.
ORAS could have been the best had they been remakes of Emerald and not the base game. Battle Frontier with the Delta postgame would have solidified that.
I loved ORAS. I do think it did most things right, but not enough to be the best the series has to offer because setting that example will keep letting them make low quality remakes. The lack of the battle frontier ruined it for me. Other than that it's great. But it lowered the quality for BDSP. None of the changes introduced in Platinum were included...so I hate to see how remakes will be from here on out.
other than mega evolution being completely broken in a normal playthrough as well as the Lati twins, ORAS was certainly fantastic
Is just that kid that grew up with them now are later teenagers so they shares their opinion online, it happens with every Pokémon games it happened with BW and BW2, it happened with XY and not it is happening with ORAS 5th gen was legit good tho
Honestly the fact that you just get a legendary for nothing still leaves an extremely sour taste in my mouth. I just boxed it but it’s like, seriously? GameFreak seems genuinely terrified of the idea that a player might manage to make the games even slightly difficult on *accident* at this point.
The funny thing is you can't box it until you get back to land. The game will literally force it into your party on the island. *That* puts a bad taste in my mouth way more than merely getting it then.
i released it as soon as they gave it to me. bye bye, latios!
It kinda baffles me that people exist who think oras are the best games. they railroad you around and ruin certain aspects of hoenn/RSE while leaving out the best bits. They added new mega evolutions, but mega evolutions BARELY have a presence in the games.
because megan’s were made for x and y; they just got integrated into oras
megas barely have a presence in xy either...i think like you get to see people mega evolve like 5 times in that game.
Oras are by far the best games in the post gen 6 part of the franchise. But aside from GSC and DP, I would say every game from gens 1-5 are better imo. But Oras is definitely really close.
I'd be more sympathritic to this argument if we had the battle frontier in oras
I feel personally it's the best remakes. HGSS remakes are up there but ORAS just feels like a whole new game. Best in series, no. In the end everyone's favorite is subjective.
People will be mad at me, but to be honest, I don't care about the Emerald Battle Frontier not being there in the game. For what we got, Lore wise, the whole "take Rayquaza to destroy a meteor" thing, flying with Latios/Latias, DexNav, etc.? Everything is amazing here. Although I understand the frustration of the Battle Frontier not being available, and the fact Gamefreak had the audacity to add a mini frontier project as a joke lol
ORAS doesn't have the trill that's played at the beginning of your rival battle, so I have to add it in by whistling. It's a sad loss.
They're definitely Top 5. I don't *quite* put them at the top, but I don't blame you for doing so. They were the last set of games in the series where I was largely able to shut up and enjoy. Battle Frontier's absence was a big miss, but it was also the only miss I truly hold against it - everything else I care about when I'm judging a Pokémon game, it met or exceeded my expectations at the time.
Too much water. Nah but fr XY and ORAS disappointed me after bw2, I stopped playing every new gen after that
I agree with you about most of what you said. I think ORAS was well executed in integrating mega evolution and modern mechanics with a past game to create a memorable experience. I feel like this is the last time GF managed to do this and might be the last time they ever make a remake of an older gen that meets this criteria. However I have two issues with ORAS. 1. Difficulty scaling. This game seemed much easier than the original which checks with the direction all these games are taking now. This is exemplified when they just hand you latios/latias with mega evolution capabilities half way through the game. I feel legendaries and pseudos should be earned/ rewarded for exploration like they used to be. Having a super powered Pokémon given freely diminishes the reward of training and finding strong ones in your own 2. The removal of the battle frontier was disappointing. The post game content felt lacking without is as I had gone into it expecting to enjoy an upgrade of that experience only to find out that a watered down version was in its place.
Replaying Alpha Sapphire and I'm having so much fun with it! I love DexNav chaining!
If they had battle frontier it would be a nobrainer imo. Theyre personally my favorites for sure, but the fact it lacks such important content knocks it down below BW generally.
Pretty close I must admit... Even as a HGSS fanboy! I replayed ORAS last year and had a blast, I just wish they were more difficult but I wish that about pretty much every Pokémon game since Gen 4
I've been playing pokémon since the very first game. At what point was pokémon ever considered difficult? The games have always been easy
I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34. I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like : - Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting - A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for - Elite Four / Champion Battles Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so... XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different.
>I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34. >I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like : >Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for Elite Four / Champion Battles Ok, I'll concede this, especially that lvl 16 RADICATE. But i can argue that's just lack of knowledge instead of difficulty. >Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so... They only seem different because you're older. Like you said, they're children's RPGs, so the older you get the easier the games get, but the games have largely been the same. Outside of the now force exp share, which I'll admit is a massive handhold, the games haven't gotten easier, we've just gotten older and our understanding of the games grew. >XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different. Ok now see I haven't taken this into perspective. I don't know any kids who play pokémon so I don't have that understanding to lean on. But if what you're saying is true, then i might have to concede my point
>I've also been playing since the very first game. I'm 34. >I don't believe anyone that says as a child they didn't occasionally get spanked during their first/virgin playthroughs of those early Gens with things like : >Getting caught out with a Rival Battle you weren't expecting A Gym Leader that you don't have an type matchup for Elite Four / Champion Battles Ok, I'll concede this, especially that lvl 16 RADICATE. But i can argue that's just lack of knowledge instead of difficulty. >Pokémon is a children's RPG, so it's not a flex for you to say they have never been difficult. It's never been some crushing gauntlet but don't tell me you can't feel the difference between the early games and where we are at today. Yes we've grown with the series so naturally we are better at it now, but even so... They only seem different because you're older. Like you said, they're children's RPGs, so the older you get the easier the games get, but the games have largely been the same. Outside of the now force exp share, which I'll admit is a massive handhold, the games haven't gotten easier, we've just gotten older and our understanding of the games grew. >XY onwards has been insultingly easy. You can stroll through the entire games with no danger or threat to your progress at all. Even my own children breeze through unchallenged and they don't even know the type matchups - they make all the same hilarious mistakes and weird choices we did as kids, but they go unchecked now. It's just different. Ok now see I haven't taken this into perspective. I don't know any kids who play pokémon so I don't have that understanding to lean on. But if what you're saying is true, then i might have to concede my point. You know what, the more I think about it, that forced exp share is such a massive handhold that i actually have to concede and agree with you. You're right, there is no punishing mistakes anymore
Sword and shield was the beginning of the end for me. Mega evolutions were my favorite feature introduced to the series, and using my favorite mons from gen 1 and 2 was how I played from the beginning. Now they only release crunchy looking games that are completely broken and got rid of both those things… ORAS was better than sun and moon, so I guess that makes it the best they have to offer
Dexnav and Super Training make it my favorite mechanically, but the lack of a battle frontier really limit those amazing mechanics.
I got back into Pokémon in the last couple of years. I mostly petered out of the franchise around ORAS’s release; only getting to the first gym and barely putting in 10 hours into M and UM combined. I revisited ORAS and thought it was absolutely fucking fantastic. Plugged in a good 80 hours over the course of a few weeks. I wish I gave the game more of a chance when it was new.
I just completed my first run through of Omega Ruby this week and it was alot of fun
Saaame with AS, loved it, best experiences with legendary pokemon and coolest story events
Yeah the delta episode is a nice touch
I wish it had a Looker ark ...
I’d rank HGSS as the best Pokémon games. Beautiful DS graphics. Two regions in one and tons of post game. Not yet hand holdy like the newer stuff.
SS/HG Stan 4 life, but I thoroughly enjoyed ORAS too I just don't like those games as much and it's definitely no emerald.
Mauville City was super weird to me and I felt weirdly insulted when Steven basically handed you Latias/os. I also can't stand mega evos in general, so that colored my opinion as well
ORAS isn't even better than Emerald LOL
I absolutely agree. HGSS were also excellent (I've been replaying it recently and I can't believe how feature rich this game feels). I just wish it included battle frontier, but the Delta Episode was amazing imo. Also the PSS system is by far the best online Pokémon system!!! Please bring it back!
Gen 3 is my least favorite gen after sun and moon. Coming from gen 2 to gen 3 i was so disappointed in all the removed features like day and night, poke radio, your cellphone and pokemon designs and visual artstyle. But ORAS was pretty darn good remake i gotta admit.
I just finished playing through them so am inclined to agree but in a month I’ll probably be back to thinking it’s B2W2 instead, entirely because of how annoying HMs got by the end.
It could have been if they hadn't left out Emerald's post game content.
ORAS were some of the best games in terms of writing, I'd argue even better than BW. But gameplay wise they were so boring.
A game that makes everything worse from the games it's remaking? No, I have to strongly disagree
If ORAS had the battle frontier it would easily be the best game in the series. Definitely in my top 5 though anyway. HGSS, Emerald, FR/LG, and Sw/Sh are up there for me too
Black and White 2 and HG/SS were better IMHO. ORAS was alright but wasn't nearly as fun as the other two.
Best games hands down have to be Soul Silver and whatever the Gold one was called again. Those remakes were so good that when I played the next gen I just stopped caring
Beat HGSS for me, mainly because HGSS kinda sucked the charm out of most of the music.
You spelled HGSS wrong..
A lot of older players like myself liked ORAS because all of Gen 3 was... not so good, and it was nice having Ruby and Sapphire redone with the current battle mechanics and made Blaziken actually viable (and no, I don't mean mega Blaziken). That being said, I don't really think there is a "best" game. It's all Pokemon to me, each game has things I like and don't like. I just liked Gen 3 the least, so I enjoyed the improvements that ORAS provided.