Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Review

Earlier this year, Nintendo closed the eShop digital stores on both their 3DS and Wii U consoles. In the months since the news broke, it almost felt like those consoles had never been more popular, with people frantically buying up all the games they had once overlooked and now feared forever missing out. I was one of those people, and now my backlog is loaded with games like Ever Oasis and Professor Layton vs Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney (I'll get to you some day... maybe). However, this isn't about them. The reason for this brief interlude is that the renewed interest inspired me to look back at the reviews I wrote back when those games were still fresh - hopefully they'll inspire someone to shine the spotlight on these older games once more.

Remakes and remasters of video games have become more common in recent years, but there's always been something special about Pokémon remakes. Not only do they reintroduce classic games to new audiences with a fresh coat of paint, but they also bring these stories into the franchise's present, incorporating all of the new gameplay changes and even Pokémon in order to continue the series' vision of connectivity. For example, the Delta Episode epilogue story of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire may be seen as an attempt to retcon Generation 6's Mega Evolution phenomenon into the games, but it remains one of my all-time favourite Pokémon narratives.

Well, at least that used to be the way, prior to the walled garden approach seen in the Nintendo Switch games (a decision which has its pros and cons). So, let's turn back the clock to 2014, and my review of the Nintendo 3DS games Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, remakes of the Game Boy Advance's Pokémon Ruby Version and Sapphire Version, released in Japan in 2002 and internationally the following year.

As an aside, I played my personal copy of Pokémon Alpha Sapphire for this review, which I unfortunately lost when my New Nintendo 3DS fell out of my pocket during a screening of Deadpool. It must have landed on the spring-loaded, exposed cartridge slot. So, I now have a particular disdain for that particular design choice! I lost a Blaziken that had been my partner since the Pokémon Ruby Version days. I did however, recently pick up a new copy for my Japanese Nintendo 3DS, to hopefully help with my language practice. Oh well, onto the review.

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Originally Published: 16 Dec 2014

Back in May, town criers were trading their bells for trumpets as they swarmed into streets to celebrate news that either had people cheering with them or hiding under tables like scared children. For you see, the prophecy had been fulfilled. Hoenn had been confirmed.

Nine years after the release of Pokémon Emerald, the Hoenn region’s resorts were starting to look worse than Felixstowe (yes, apparently it’s possible) but for the re-imagining of the iconic Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire Versions, series developer Game Freak splashed the cash and gave the entire a region a brand new coat of paint and even replaced some of the parts that had become worn out over the years in preparation for the return of millions of fans. Being a remake obviously means that Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire will be familiar territory to anyone who has played the Gameboy Advance originals, but Game Freak have also added more to the game than just a graphical makeover.

When you load up the game for the first time, you will see a wonderfully familiar sight as the game has decided to replicate the original game’s “World of Pokémon” introduction, even keeping with the word styling of the time (such as “POKéMON”) which you go through as your player character is sat in a dark removal van (safeguarding issue?). From the moment I set foot in Littleroot Town, muscle memory kicked in and I knew what had to be done – I obtained my starter Pokémon, battled my rival May and embarked on my quest to gather the Hoenn region’s eight gym badges and challenge the Elite 4, with the occasional battle against Team Aqua now and then (as I played Alpha Sapphire for the purposes of this review).  The story really isn’t that different when compared to the original games with only a few deviations until about the mid-way point, when X/Y’s new Mega Evolution mechanic is re-introduced. It may seem like it was mentioned and then ignored as justification for the player receiving the Mega Bracelet but the new higher stage of evolution becomes a pinnacle plot point in the brand new “Delta Episode”, which easily blows the half-baked Team Magma/Aqua story out of the water with a character-driven narrative that builds on the region’s lore, shakes the foundations of the Pokémon timeline and possibly even includes the series’ first non-heterosexual character. I admittedly found myself rather bored with the formulaic main story, but the Delta Episode more than made up for it – out of all the series so far, it’s second only to Pokémon Black and White in regard to its story.

While promoting Pokémon X and Y, Game Freak director Junichi Masuda noted that the initial 3DS pair were developed with a theme of “beauty” in mind and to be honest, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have surpassed its predecessor in that regard. Some of the views I encountered during my journey across Hoenn were simply awe-inspiring, such as how Route 120’s night sky was reflected in the water and the walkways leading up to the Elite 4 chambers. Even the “World of Pokémon” speech is accompanied by a beautifully animated cutscene. Conversely though, I thought that the 3D models for the human characters looked rather ugly, with Maxie’s looking very peculiar in particular.

The greatest additions to this pair of games though, have to be the PokéNav Plus and Soaring features. I’ve found the BuzzNav to be useless admittedly, but the DexNav has found finding wild Pokémon a whole new experience, with its radar often displaying what ability, moves and level a Pokémon has before I even start a battle with it! What I perhaps love the most about the DexNav though, is that it also acts like the Habitat List from Black Version 2/White Version 2 and even includes an image of what the particular location you’re in looked like in the original Ruby/Sapphire! The Area Nav is similarly useful, placing a map of the region on the bottom screen with listings of berry trees, trainers who can be rebottled and markers that show you where friend’s secret bases are. All these great new touch-screen features do come with the price of really over-crowding the lower screen though, with X/Y’s Pokémon-amie, Super Training and even the essential PSS features all being lumped together into a single option that has to fight for space with the newer features, essentially creating menus within menus.

Perhaps my favourite of the new additions though, is the Eon Flute. By using this key item, you can summon Latios/Latios (depending on your version) and manually fly across the Hoenn region, with the added option of disembarking in routes and other notable locations instead of just towns and settlements. The Eon Flute key item also means that I don’t have to carry around a Pokémon that knows Fly, which in my opinion makes it the most useful new key item yet; hopefully new games expand on it by phasing out HMs with similar items.

While the previous 3DS instalment in Game Freak’s popular franchise admittedly really underutilised the full extent of the system’s communication features, I was happy to see that the developer decided to upgrade the Secret Bases from the original game by including StreetPass functionality, where the Super Secret Bases of people you pass in the street will be added to your game, with the added option of sharing bases via QR codes for people who might not benefit greatly from StreetPass. The games even decide to use Augmented Reality for more than just a backdrop for the Holo Caster, with it also providing a background for Pokémon Contests too.

One of the biggest criticisms of Pokémon X/Y was that there was practically nothing to do outside of the main story and fortunately, that has been remedied with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. With the return of Pokémon Contests, the addition of Super Secret Bases and the Delta Episode, this remake pair offers a lot more than their predecessors. However, with even my ten-year-old brother noting that he found his playthrough to be a walk in the park, I definitely think it’s time that Game Freak returned to the idea of implementing different difficulty settings though.

After the honeymoon period ended and my play time reached the 400 hours mark, I found myself noticing more and more flaws with last year’s Pokémon X/Y  but with my current Alpha Sapphire playtime being 10% of that, it’s already clear that this is a title that has worked to improve all of those flaws. It still has its own and falls into a lot of the familiar traps of the series, but this pair of remakes is a definitely solid entry in one of gaming’s most popular series’.

Disclosure: A copy of "Pokémon Alpha Sapphire" was purchased by Josh Stevens and used for this review. He also bought a copy of Omega Ruby, because those steelbooks look really cool.

8/10