Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire

The StreetPass Manchester group are slightly up-in-arms about the "Too much water" line, as the storyline of the villains is basically Land Vs. Water. As Jimbob rightly says, a stupid comment for a re-release.

I just got my copy!! *Fanboy squeal* I'm thinking I might do a nuzlocke of this game, so you can look forward to the journey of the worlds most unfoundedly arrogant rookie pokemon trainer as he takes on the greatest evil of all: climate change fanatics! I'll also post my initial impressions later. And for those worrying about spoilers despite this being a remake I will spoiler tag everything.

I can't describe how excited I am for this, which surprises me given my apathy to this game up to this point. But having it here, right now, I'm hit by a wave of nostalgia for these games. Hoenn was always my favourite region.

I agree with Jimbob that there is tedium involved in the large amount of water, but it's a stupid comment considering the plot and re-release. Not to mention the glaring inconsistency between IGN's original RSE review, which gave them 9.5 and didn't mention the water.

So yeah I have my games now and a new 3ds XL So now about to do the system transfer over and make a start.

Played it for an hour so far (I'm still addicted to freedom wars right now so oras is playing second fiddle to that, although that might change fairly soon), so far it's been complete and absolute nostalgia overload.  This is the generation I've always loved, I've liked pokemon ever since I started with gold but hoenn has always been the region I've been most fond of.  So with that in mind I'm absolutely loving this so far, it's hit the right balance of new and old.  They clearly knew that some of the players playing these remakes had played the originals too as within the first few minutes there was a massive callout that I won't spoil.  

This is what hoenn deserved, this remake right here.  With the new graphics the 3ds can provide they've done some sweet things, and while they're all little they add up to an effect that is nothing short of awesome.  For example when I arrived at the first small town on the way for my first battle with May and I had a look at the town sign the camera zoomed out and did a dynamic slow pan across the town before returning to the original point of view.  It's the little things like this combined with the overall effect of seeing my favourite region remade in such splendor that has me already saying game of the year like a fanboy.

Also, oh my god hoenn at night whee!!  For those that may have forgotten hoenn never got the day/night treatment despite amusingly having internal batteries for a clock.  No more, now we can see hoenn at night time!!


As for the nuzlocke, my progress so far is making it to the town with the protagonists father and seeing wally catch his first pokemon (wally blushed when asking to be escorted by the way ) so I haven't really done much.  I did however take advantage of the new feature that allows you to see special pokemon in the grass and got myself a sweet Lotad.  I also saw a zigzagoon and ralts using it, so it should be a lot easier for people to catch ralts now, and it activated fairly frequently.  

But as for my status, currently I have a Mudkip (Lord Kipper) and Lotad (El'Lota) who are both level nine.  For added amusing things my lotad already knows the egg move teeter dance.

Oh, one last thing, the music in this game is awesome!  They finally didn't over-arrange the music like they did in the last two remakes.  It's all done in the more modern quality, but aside from a few small tweaks here and there (trumpets have been massively reduced unfortunately) they haven't done anything wild (or stupid) to it.  Which is fine by me, all I ever really wanted was to see it get the higher quality treatment.

That last point's a big one for me. Hoenn had the best music in the series, despite being slightly bleepy-bloopy now. Mr. Briney's Boat, the desert, Mt. Pyre, Sootopolis... Wonderful stuff. I did a piece for TRP's a capella segment, I remember it so well.

Just got to Rustboro now and so far the only theme that hasn't grabbed me was the aqua battle theme.  I'll be honest, the theme just lacks bite in my opinion  It's not bad or anything, in fact it's fairly good, it just lacks that sort of little oopmth the rest of the battle themes have had.  Although one could argue that the trainers one fights to that theme don't have much bite either.  

Rest of the music has continued to be excellent though, and that includes the awesome gym leader battle theme which I heard during a online wi-fi battle.  It's the first game I'm bothering to keep using the headphones during play even after the beginning in quiet some time.  I could just listen to the trainer battle theme all day, which is just as well given how long my battles were when I was leveling Silcoon with its sole attack being Poison Sting...

Status report: Rustboro, out of four possible pokemon I've caught three managing to sneak through the forest without an encounter (I plan on shooting for a shroomish later), my team currently has Lord Kipper and El'Lota both at level 13, the newcomer Dusty the Beautifuly (as you can see my expectation on getting a dustox backfired rather badly   ) at level 11 and now Bowie the Taillow at level 6.

Lord Kipper is such a great name for Mudkip it might get stolen! Having said that, although Torchic is a definite no-no, I may decide to start with Treecko...

I was originally planning on going with treeko myself, but then I saw mudkip being all adorable and succumbed to choosing him.  



Progress report: two gyms are down and I've routed team aqua from slateport city.  Slateport city's music is awesome!   As for the team, it's come on a long way now.  The team currently is as follows: Shroomio the shroomish (level 16), El'Lota the Lotad (level 17), Lord Kipper the Marshtomp (level 17), Dusty the Beautifly (level 13), Bowie the Taillow (level 16), and Meowth? the Skitty (level 8).  In the pc I've got Eren Yeager the Magikarp and Majin Buu the Makuhita both at level ten.  

I had a couple of close calls, the first was with brawly who almost killed bowie with knock off (thankfully it found itself almost killed by wing attack and finished off with quick attack), and the second was me thinking shroomio could tank a bite from a aqua grunt's carvahana.  Actually I'll warn people of that as well, those things are actually trouble if you go in at the same level and don't one shot them, especially when it gets Focus Energy off and starts critting you every.  Single.  Attack.  If I didn't have Lord Kipper something would have died to that assault.

Some little observations include that the cave you needed to traverse to find steven no longer seems to exist.  You simply walk in, walk through a "hallway" down some stairs in to a chamber, and there he is.  That said there are some of the slopes you may remember needing the mach bike to get up, so I wouldn't be surprised if they just shifted the full cave in to some extra material instead.  

Also slateport city is huge now.  Remember how in the originals it was all fairly small and you could run through it in a matter of seconds?  Well, it still has all the same places in it with no new buildings, but everything has been made bigger, so it actually feels like a big port town now.  The market alone needed its own area!

About the PokeNav feature that allows you to see what's in the grass.  I've worked out how it seems to work, for those curious.  So, occasionally you'll hear a Pokemon cry and see a tail sticking out of the grass and a red pokeball outline alert will appear on the bottom screen, walk slowly to that point to encounter that pokemon (also the slower you walk the less likely you are to encounter wild pokemon through the normal method I've noticed), if you hit that alert then the closer you get to the pokemon sticking out of the grass the more information you get told on the bottom screen.  If you've not caught or seen it yet all you'll get is a shadowy outline of it.  If you've seen it in battle before you'll see what it is and (if I recall correctly) what level it is.  If you've caught it before you get the full lowdown, including what its nature is, its "potential", and what special move (if any) it has.

I won't link any music here because I won't want to spoil it for those who want to hear it whilst playing the game, rather than beforehand, but I'm a bit disappointed with the new rearranged soundtrack.

Verdenturf Town sounds corny to me, and the surfing music has lost its serenity. There's something not quite right about some of the music, perhaps hundreds of hours of listening to what was Pokemon's first rich sounding, non 8 bit soundtrack has the original sounds in my head.

I don't know which is worse, the fact I've had my first death or the fact it was such a stupid one.  I'll start at the beginning of yesterday's play.  Long story short I explored the route just north of slateport city, checked out the Trick House and left because of my inaccess to Cut (yeah, I've yet to catch a Pokemon that can cut anything), then headed north for my match with May.

The match started off well enough, she led with Slugma while I led with Bowie (who has since evolved in to a Swellow) who I switched out for my now evolved Lord Kipper the Marshtomp and took out the slugma with a rock tomb.  Naturally her next move was to send in the Grovyle, so I switched back to Bowie and took it out with a arial ace.  This is where the match started to go very badly, she sent in a Wailmer.  Yes, a Wailmer.  For that point in the game it's a rather deadly thing. I assumed however that it would be a weak thing because of past memories of trying to raise Wailord and bearing witness to its lackluster stats, so I sent in my newly caught level 15 Electrike called Faron.  

Faron is then hit by Whirpool, which takes off about a third of its hp and traps it.  I realise at that point I badly underestimated my foe as Spark does barely anything and the wailmer attacks with rollout.  At this point I was lobbing the Soda Pops I'd won earlier at it in the pathetic hope that I would be released sooner than Rollout would take to kill Faron.  The turns go by, and eventually I'm facing a rollout that took out just under half my health.  Combined with the next turn damage of Whirlpool Faron was guaranteed death.  

Faron survives with 1 HP and is released from whirlpool!

I yank faron out and send in Lord Kipper to tank the fifth and final rollout, killing the wailmer after two rock tombs.  So, a victory for me and a edge of my seat battle.  I get the dowsing machine from may as a gift and continue onwards after she had restored the team, battling the wild pokemon I met on the way with faron to level it up.  

I encounter two trainers, the first one I kill with bowie in one shot.  The second trainer I meet has an Abra.  "Easy, those things only learn Teleport!  Free experience for Faron!" is what I literally thought as I switched in my level 15 electrike with only 15 hp remaining.  Naturally the abra proceeds to use Hidden Power and kills Faron on the spot, leaving me with only a feeling of absolute stupidity at what I'd done.  What can I say, I deserved that death over such a stupid play.  

That wasn't the only stupid play I made, I also switched in my swellow on a meditite in the electric gym.  Normally a safe move, but it occurs to me immediately after I pressed the buttons that the meditite will probably know Thunder Punch, that move of absolute arrogance almost got my strongest pokemon killed.  


On the bright side I also caught a Marill!!!  The advent of the successor to Aqua Mouse is mine!  And it even has the Huge Power ability, so once it hits level 20 and learns Aqua Tail Marill is going to be a big member of my team, just like old times.  I also caught a Geodude, believe me that wasn't even remotely intentional but the game decided to troll me by having me encounter one the one time you're forced to use Rock Smash, I'd have far preferred taking my chances with the grass but that's the point of the nuzlocke.  



As for some more general thoughts and impressions, finally I have something I don't like to say, and that is what they've done to Mauville.  I don't like it being one large shopping complex, the camera angles make navigating it a pain and it just clashes really badly with the nature-y atmosphere of Hoenn in general.  I get that modern pokemon games always have that hub city type place, but they really shouldn't have bothered with one, or alternatively done it better than what they did.  Something open air would have worked far nicer aesthetically than what we got and would have still allowed them to make a hub place.  Still, it could also be far worse, it could have been obscenely large like kalos giant city.  

On the flip side Wally's home town is every bit as relaxing as I remember it to be.

Disaster has struck since my last update!  I have made mild progress with routing team aqua from a mountain and defeated a gym leader, but in the process I have had not one but three Pokemon die!  I also accidentally killed another when trying to catch it!  And they were all very important for future plans as well.

So, what happened exactly?  Well, during my travels I caught a couple more Pokemon, a Skarmory I called Darkwing, I evolved several Pokemon, and continued on to try and route Team Aqua from kidnapping a scientist, during the trek I again got overconfident in my Pokemon's ability to tank moves and in a double battle Darkwing died.  Also on the route I encountered a Seviper, which I figured would live two Bubblebeams and land in the red.  Instead the second one crits and kills the poor thing!    

Then came the clash at the top of the mountain with Aqua's leader (the Archie battle theme is awesome by the way!) which after a bit of worrying ended perfectly fine.  I went on to the gym with Flannery, the trek through the gym was fine.  Then came the actually leader battle.  Which started out fine, my level 26 El'Lota killed the Slugma in one hit with Bubblebeam.  Than came the Torkoal, I switched to Lord Kipper for fear of fire moves (a trainer had already used overheat after all) and it decided to use Sunny Day.

So, fearing a potential Solarbeam I switched to Eren Yeager, and this is where the match turned nasty because the Torkoal used Curse.  Yeah, that move that buffs defense and attack while lowering speed.  Big problem given most of my team hits on the physical side and the only speciall attack on the team couldn't do jack in the sun.  I switch out to Lord Kipper in an attempt to tank whatever move he sends my way while he cursed again.  I tried using Rock Slide and did pathetic damage, meanwhile Torkoal used Body Slam and took out about 45 percent of Lord Kippers health...

In a mad rush I realise I have to lower the things attack before my team gets decimated, so I switch back in Eren to use Intimidate.  Completely forgetting that Torkoals ability is White Smog and therefore its stats cannot be lowered by an opponent.  The ensuing Body Slam does about eighty percent damage to Eren, and I realise that I'm not coming out of this battle with all of my Pokemon.  Someone is going to die, so I am forced to make the strategic sacrifice for the better good, and use the turn Torkoal spends killing Eren to heal Lord Kipper.

Three turns later Torkoal is dead after some mud bombs from Lord Kipper and I proceed to ko the last pokemon.  All up that was a disaster of a battle, I underestimated my foe and I lost a Pokemon as a result, a really good one at that as Gyarados rock.

But that isn't the end of my woes!  No, I played a little bit more, after being given the Go-Goggles by May I head out to the desert and nab a new TM after exploring for a while.  To get back to Lavaridge so May can warp me to the next gym you need to go back up the volcano and then down the mountain, and it was mostly completely uneventful.  Until I spot a tm to the side and try to get over to it.  Which is where I get spotted by a Veteran trainer.  

I was levelling up El'Lota at the time, so she leads with Mediitite and I lead with that.  I three hit kill the enemy uneventfully, but that's where the match gets shocking.  She sends in a Hariyama!  I'm not immediately threatened, and that one turn of using Bubblebeam is what costs me another Pokemon, I deal about a quarter of health in damage, Hariyama uses Belly Drum.  Yeah.  I think you all know what happens next, I can't kill it in one more attack, but if I switch whatever comes in will die for sure.  So I decide I might as well try my luck at getting a critical hit with bubblebeam, fail, and El'Lota the Lombre dies.  Vengeance is swift and vicious as I send in Bowie to kill it with Arial Ace.  


Tldr update version: I have four gym badges and since the last update had three deaths.  This is turning out to be one of the most eventful nuzlockes I've done, I'm totally not regretting making my first run of this a nuzlocke after the challenge its posing because of my ignorance of what the game has in store.

I've read (briefly, since I didn't want to be spoiled) that the post-game story has some of the best storytelling in a Pokemon game. Excited!

I called my Mudkip Roman Rains and my Poochyena Nymeria. I was pretty proud of myself.

Fought Norman this morning before going to sleep, I won't go in to spoilers but he was just as deadly as he was previously. If Lord Kipper hadn't had a very fortunate level up move half my team very likely would have gone down.

It's there: Alpha Sapphire. Enjoyed setting up my character, which is possibly a series first! Can't wait to get properly stuck in. Also, a notice: whenever I catch a new 'mon, I'm going to ask my Twitter feed to name it (Treecko is 'Tricolore', which I really like, and would not have come up with on my own). This is almost entirely because I can't be bothered to come up with a naming convention this time. So, er, look out for that if you want to give me a rude-sounding team.

I started yesterday but was quite late as I'd been playing smash. But I am enjoying what I've played so far.

In some of the best luck ever I just caught what some would say is the coolest and best pokemon in the games from route 120, alas it'll need some training before its combat ready. Meanwhile some other members of the team will also be in need of some training, half my trained team is weak to flying and Shroomio the breloom is quad weak to flying on top of being frail, so because they're going to have to sit the gym out I'm going to have to bring my newest member as well as a couple of other members up to speed.

Athrun888 wrote:

In some of the best luck ever I just caught what some would say is the coolest and best pokemon in the games from route 120...

I hope that means what I think it means.

Balladeer wrote:

Athrun888 wrote:

In some of the best luck ever I just caught what some would say is the coolest and best pokemon in the games from route 120...

I hope that means what I think it means.

It sure does, I am now the proud trainer of the feistiest Linoone the world has ever seen!

















Jokes aside, yes, the latest addition to the team is one Balla the Absol.

Also

A triumphant, confident remake, this is. Considering how R/S/E are my favourites, I'm smitten with the work that's been done here, despite having been disappointed with previous remakes. Will post better impressions soon!

I haven't played much yet, what with smash, boozing and an essay, but I am liking it a lot.

ZeroJones wrote:

 So, er, look out for that if you want to give me a rude-sounding team.

I finally know what I was put on this earth to do.

So started Ruby which my team is now Marshtomp, Poochyena, Ralts, Swablu, Pidgeotto but did put Sapphire in, I like that the world seems to be mirrored that's rather cool.

Ohh and I found Alakazam's mega stone.