I think I'll start up a little thread for OrAs chitchat that doesn't require its own thread.

I think the controls are somewhat awkward. While the analog controls are quite fluid, the world is still optimized for D-pad movement, so I find myself using that more in tight spaces, such as caves.

Also, it's annoying how you can't manage berries from the sides.


Anyone have any idea if contest stats from Gen III pass forward to Gen VI? I thought they were erased at some transition. What about the ribbons from Gen III?

I like the controls so far, actually. They're a lot better than the roller skates were, at any rate. Haven't tried it with the d-pad yet, I'll give that a go later.

They really, really went all-out with the music, though. I feel like I'm continuously back at Symphonic Evolutions, almost. This may just turn into one of those games where I leave my 3DS open and listen to the music for five hours on loop.

Wrong. Not only are your ribbons retained through the generations, but they also keep any Pokeblock-induced coolness/smartness, etc...

I hear Reshiram & Zekrom can be shiny now

The game felt a lot more compact than the original. The routes are cut significantly, or so they feel like they are. Maybe it's just the graphics that makes it feel that way.

I don't like how the game babies you. For example, it automatically takes you to story's progression instead of having you wander around clueless. Sometimes it's optional, though. But your rival constantly healing your team... -_- Don't need it!

Those were my main cons. The game is great. Lol @ complaints on HMs. Mega Metagross is pain to defeat. Almost lost there it weren't for my awesome Mightyena! YEAH!!

Edit:

FYI, I did turn off the EXP share so my team was under-leveled against Steven.

The only problems I have with this game is the Battle Maison returning. I was really hoping for the Battle Frontier to make a comeback, since the extra rules make it more exciting than the PWT/Battle Subway/Battle Maison, because battling the same way you've been doing the whole game gets pretty boring, I'd like to spice things up like in the Frontier. Other than that, I have no complaints.

Wally is my new favorite rival because of how I can relate to him on a personal level. Going from being emotionally fragile to confident is not an easy task. I love how they emphasized this transition in the remakes, it really makes him a respectable character.

(This probably dosnt belong here, but we dont have a trade thread for Oras)

Has anyone reached the battle Masion place yet? I was thinking one of you guys teach my Greninja a move tutor move.

The trade/battle thread from before now applies to all of Gen VI.

Ugh, I've tried soft-resetting for Deoxys and Rayquaza in the Delta Episode, but man is that tedious work! Not even worth going through the cutscenes all over again. That's the only main problem I have with this game; they made every cutscene WAAAAY too long. You don't even get to save in between Rayquaza and Deoxys!

Can you KO them and catch them after completing the story, as you can with many legends during the story since Black/White?

Go ahead, pick an item you often find yourself using every once in a while but never needing much. No, not the Ice Heal, but quite similar.




Yes, are you seriously kidding me? This is just ridiculous! It's like every Pokémon in the whole darn Mauville area wants to paralyze you with Thunder Wave, Spark, Effect Spore, and Static, as it seems to be loaded with Electric types. I've had to use at least 20 Paralyze Heals and well over a dozen Cheri Berries because of this.

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My Marshtomp (now Swampert) is laughing.

I rather like the fact that the "Organize Pokémon" (previously "Move Pokémon") option can be moved to the top in the menu.

Alright, now that I've played through the majority of Omega Ruby, here are my thoughts. Spoiler alert to those who have not finished the game yet.

Things I liked about the game:
The graphics remain very nice and very pleasing to the eye. Since I liked this about X/Y I thought I might as well bring it up here.
The DexNav is the most useful addition for competitive battling. It makes things so much easier and it's really convenient.
With the Exp. Share turned off, this game can present some challenges. It's definitely more difficult than X/Y. Obviously this probably doesn't apply if you're using Mega Lati@s or Primal Kyogre/Groudon.
The music is orchestrated very nicely while maintaining throwbacks to old generations. I can see Game Freak tried to appeal to both its old and new fanbases. (Team Aqua/Magma Leader theme hnnnnnng)
The new gym designs were a nice touch. I like them.
Mauville City looks absolutely gorgeous. I really love that they decided to change it into an indoor apartment complex along with something akin to a mall. It's such a drastic change but I think it paid off really well.
Speaking of Mauville, I particularly like the introduction of the New and Sea Mauville plot.
Contests look really fleshed out and I particularly enjoyed participating on contests. It's a lot of fun, try it!
I like that Brendan/May is a little bit more involved in the plot. It's just by a little, but it's enough to notice.
In the case of Omega Ruby, I really like how they characterized Tabitha and Courtney. They feel more like actual characters, unlike in the original Ruby where they seemed like really dull characters.
The Safari Zone reboot makes it so much easier to catch Pokémon. No entrance fee, no Safari Balls, no Pokéblock stuff...just like regular wild Pokémon encounters.
The Aqua/Magma Hideout doesn't close at any point. It's a minor thing but I have trauma of missing out on the Master Ball there as a kid.
The Victory Road reboot looks AMAZING!
The battle with Wally seems more emotional and actually pivotal in this version. In the old version he just seemed sorta like a mini-boss before the Elite Four, but now it feels like so much more. In fact, in general, Wally's arc just feels so much more rewarding in the end.
The Pokémon League design is really nice.
The entire Delta Episode. The post-game is such a breath of fresh air after the absolutely horrid post-game X/Y gave us. Okay, fine, it had the Looker Quests which were really fun, but other than that it had nothing. The Delta Episode is more fleshed out and actually leads us to wonder about the continuity of the Pokémon games as a whole. Zinnia is an amazing character that really was fleshed out well, considering she isn't around for long. But she also brings to the table the theory of alternate worlds in Pokémon...foreshadowing for Hoopa? Are the legendaries that Hoopa brings from another parallel world?
Making Rayquaza an actual plot point in ORAS is much better than Rayquaza's post-game boss status in R/S. Also the Sky Pillar looks awesome!
The Battle Resort is definitely more than I expected. I expected just the Battle Tower and not much else.


Things I disliked about the game:
I liked it more when the Center and the Mart were in the same building. I guess it does stay true to the originals though.
Though I said I like Wally's arc, I wish that Wally had more involvement in the plot. As it is he's still the more forgettable rival.
There's less Trick House puzzles. I liked the Trick House puzzles. The new ones are fine, but...there's just not enough of them.
They made the Mega Stones in this game really easily accessible. I found the Manectite so early, and the Aggronite pretty early as well...as if the game needed to be easier.
The abundance of HMs has returned, and with it comes frustration in having to have an HM Slave with you at all times.
They make such a big deal out of Secret Bases and yet I still haven't found much use in them. And this is coming from me, a guy who StreetPasses around 20-30 people a day just from walking between my dorm and classes.
I kinda wish the Gym Leaders were more involved in the plot like in B/W. They weren't important in X/Y and they aren't now. But unlike X/Y, where only Korrina was marginally important to the plot, ORAS has Wattson, Norman, and Wallace, so I guess I can't be too mad about it.
Looker's back, but...he just...doesn't do anything. Disappoint.
I didn't expect Team Aqua to be as relevant in Omega Ruby, but I kinda wish they had more plot presence. A little bit like Emerald, but it didn't need to be so evenly balanced.
Using the Mach Bike to get into small places is asking for trouble. I kept running into the sides.

So this is a thing now. Capture Power MAX. One hour.

Find a Secret Base pal who will tell your fortune. Hex Maniacs, for instance, work well.

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How much does the capture power increase catch rates? I'm guessing something like 50%, 100% and 200% but the Internet isn't telling me :/

Haha, this is pretty amusing.

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Dang it, you, now I'm going to be spending the rest of the night looking at "one does not simply ____ into Mordor" pictures.

I want to know who wrote that line and if I can buy them a sandwich.

Maybe all the Mirage Spots are projections of Poké-Mordor. Or clones. Or portals.

I'm disappointed at the lack of a Poké Ball store like in X/Y. It's tough remembering which stores sell the specialty balls and getting to them before Bargain Power runs out.

YES! I have achieved and finished 2 things today (Or yesterday if your ready this later), I got my 1000 flags for my secrect base and have defeated 50 battles in super singles and getting the trophy and unlocking the Wally rematch. Im so happy I think this was a chrismas present from the universe. (Especially completeing the 50 super singles was my first time getting to 50 and beating it).

Oh yeah one last thing, I updated and moved my base. So i'll be uploading my new base QR code in my albums here on VR, so please check it out.

I wish I could obtain flags at the same rate as you guys. :3

Passed by a German and English person this week and I now have the Eon ticket.

I never really had the effort to do any of that Secret Base stuff...I just do most of my training the XY way. It's not any easier, but I just don't have the sense of effort to get the whole Secret Base thing set up...

Anyways, I'm on a quest to beat all the Super Battles at the Battle Maison in ORAS, and I just beat the Super Single Battle a few days ago and I got through Super Double Battle today. Next up is Super Triple Battles, and I have no idea what to expect. I just suspect that this particular set will take much longer than Super Singles and Doubles.

Finally started actively training myself some Pokémon in ORAS. Considerably easier here than in X and Y, given the levels of the Elite 4 and the Blissey Secret Base thing. Might actually have a real team together by the time Matt's tournament rolls around!

edit

Oh yeah and I'm considering trying to complete the Pokédex again, too, maybe even in Living Dex Order if I can be bothered to spend like a year arranging things in the Bank. Back in Black I picked up most of my things off the GTS and Dream World, but between Wonder Trade and the Radar thing progress is going significantly faster now.

Has anyone seen some werid stuff in some of the bases u visit? The other day i saw a lv10 shiny Zyguarde o.0

Took me 2 weeks to get 1000 flags.

In my final act of 2014 (literally), I beat Super Triple Battle at approximately 11:58 PM on December 31st. Now all I have left are Super Rotation and Multi Battle, both of which I presume are going to be quite the challenge.

I finally have the game, and the first thing I'll say is that the DexNav is a great feature.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how the DexNav worked, but once I did it quickly became one of my favorite new additions to ORAS. Makes trying to complete the Hoenn Pokédex with minimal trading almost possible! Plus the occasional free life orb and stuff.

Super Rotation Battle is proving to be a lot more difficult than I anticipated, because I have no ability to predict the AI. As such I haven't gotten past 40 matches won in a row.

So the "Battle of Hoenn" battlespot competition will start soon and im planning on battling in it just for the prize u get for battling at least in 3 matches.

The prize so say? Well its a Rock Head Tyrunt! (Tyrunts Hidden Ability)

Thanks for sharing! Since I'm in the competitive mindset right now (as much as I can be after a certain last fight, anyway) I just might participate if I remember after like five minutes from now.

Maybe its just me... But was anyone else disappointed with ORAS? I love the competitive metagame, but regarding the game itself, I really didnt enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I rushed through the initial story, but for the past couple of weeks I have been going through the all of the games sidequests as well as getting a significant flavor of the new features and there haven't been many aspects of the game that have really jumped out at or impressed me. I'm sure that I'm in a minority on this one but I just needed to get that off my chest.

I thought ORAS (or AS, at least) were great. The updated music and graphics and physical/special split was nice, obviously, but I really liked how they made a lot of the characters a lot more compelling by giving them more screen time and talking, facial expressions that would have been impossible in GBA-vision, etc. Even Wally was . . . less . . . annoying than he was in the originals, though that's not exactly anything to write home about.

And then there's obviously the aftergame, which was blown open completely from the originals. Thinking specifically of the Delta Episode, which was a fun little side story and a nice way to tie a little more mythology to a certain special Pokémon. And the Battle Resort, which is an interesting location at the very least.

To make a long story short, I'd rate ORAS pretty highly. But then again I gave X and Y like a 4/10 while everyone else gave them 8s and 9s so what do I know.

edit

So I've been running around Hoenn, trying to grind out money to buy vitamins and crap with. Spent some time trying to figure out the largest amount of money I could earn in one battle (minus Pay Day) and came up with this.

Used the Amulet Coin hold item, Prize Money O-Power level 3 against Champion Steven.

Any other factors that could be used as a multiplier here, minus Pay Day, does anyone know?

(Probably will try this with experience, also, as soon as I can track down a Lucky Egg and a Pokémon from a foreign country.)

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I guess that's the difference, when it comes to Pokémon I usually like atmosphere more than earth-shattering mechanics (let's face it, the rules are still about 70% the same as they were in 1996). ORAS had a really immersive atmosphere between the music and the landscape (as opposed to XY, which were . . . all over the place) so, as did HGSS, I really liked these games even if they had some shortcomings.

(Also I still say ORAS did a lot of things well and not a lot of things badly.)

You were at the PSE in Philadelphia too, right? You mean you weren't at least a little bit reminded of that on Route 113 and stuff? o-o

edit

Oh, I like a lot of the new music, too. the Zinnia music and the special Wally music and the Delta Episode introduction (at least, I think that was original) and whatnot.

So I got an Eon Ticket today . . .

. . . and then I saved, so I could record it . . .

. . . and then it up and vanished. No delivery nerd, no notification on the bottom screen, no nothing.

Thanks, game! Now to wait another 2 months to find another one!

Did you try speaking to Norman?