Review: Pokémon Omega Ruby

Platform: 3DS
Release Date: Out Now
Developer: Game Freak
Publishers: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company

Note: The author of this article would like to announce that she has always thoroughly enjoyed obligatory underwater levels, harbours a secret music folder of sea shanties on her PC and only dates men who more-than-slightly resemble Aquaman. As such, there will be no mentioning of ‘too much water’ in the following article.

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Welcome back to the world of Pokémon. (Okay, I just squealed a little because Word recognises Pokémon as a legit term). Another journey of mystery and discovery awaits us all in the 3D remakes of the Hoenn region, complete with a few new Mega Pokémon for your delectation! This really is a welcome ‘back’ that feels decidedly good to embrace. It’s not just a chance to replay the yearly ritual trip across a dream region – catching a variety of powerful monsters, defeating the bad guys set out to destroy the world and finally becoming Pokémon Master 17 seasons faster than Ash Ketchum. No, all that’s important stuff, but for many of us, it’s a second chance to immerse ourselves in a fuzzy, childhood memory wrapped in Pokéblocks and Secret Base flags. Omega Ruby was definitely going to find its way onto my pre-order list this year, if for no other reason than that I had something of a score to settle with my past.

Back in 2003 the original Ruby and Sapphire made their grand entrance to a complicated mixture of chart-topping sales and less than promising player reactions. I have to admit that I was one of those players – as a young kid expecting the world and more from the sequels to Crystal (my Holy Grail at the time), I never quite recovered from a somewhat childish sense of disappointment at what seemed a dull range of available Pokémon, and the bad choice to adopt a Tropius which kept getting KO’d and whose dismal legacy I could never quite shake off. In the end, I dropped the game before the end of Team Magma’s arc and never returned. I never faced off against Groudon in the Cave of Origins, never stood on Hoenn League soil – and didn’t regret that decision, until now.

This review arrives a little late in defence of ORAS, like a lawyer stumbling to the stand to blurt out ‘Objection!’ after the gavel’s already been tossed. I’ll point my finger anyway, because the games are two solid, mature entries in the series that have dissolved some past problems with the originals and offer something the newest, uninitiated generation of players have yet to experience, making it a worthwhile, if still somewhat flawed, contender for knocking X & Y off the top spot as the very best there ever was.

Let’s start with some universal improvements, first up – graphics. Before playing it, the game’s flashy 3D capabilities almost didn’t seem worthy of mentioning in this review, because surely, I thought, the improvements would be obvious. How wrong I was. Kotaku, word of God that they are, weren’t wrong when they said the all-new animations and angles make ORAS feel like brand new games and not just piggyback remakes. The region has undergone great transformations; most noticeably, Mauville City has massively expanded past recognition to become the hub of ultimate moves, inverse battles and the Pokémon massage service. But something else also sucks you in: to further the plot, ORAS, like the originals, will have you hopping all over the map, refreshingly destroying the linear pace we’ve all come to expect and roll our eyes at in Pokémon games – occasionally your path is blocked by a footprint analyser or some Wailmer, but rarely will you bang angrily against these constricting and painfully obvious walls. In fact, most barriers are cleverly concealed within the map itself, in ledges and bodies of water, making most barred routes feel more like reminders that you simply aren’t a strong enough trainer to overcome them yet, as opposed to slaps in the face with the rigid, linear narrative of the game.

The wildest of all regions, Hoenn reaches truly staggering heights of beauty in parts; none more so than in its water reflections of star-spangled galaxies and the white mountains of Sootopolis City. And once Latios and Latias can be summoned to your side, well now, things become just a tad overwhelming. You can zoom, zap and loop your way all over the region on the back of a Legendary Pokémon, taking in all the breath-taking views Hoenn has to offer. A region like this one incites so much wonder, not just through its story, but through these spectacular landscapes, and in doing so dares you better than any other to explore the reaches of its borders. It brought out the rarely-seen explorer in me, and over the course of a few hours I had pushed through all the remaining unseen parts of the map, whereas in other Pokémon games I would have pretty much switched off my 3DS after the credits.

Ruby and Sapphire’s story has always been a step up from X and Y, though it now becomes almost painfully obvious with both games on equal sound and graphical footing. I personally had problems with the simplicity of some of X and Y’s campaign; it felt like every single HM was handed to you on a plate by a friend or random do-gooder and you were generally led by the hand through every instance of story. Conversely, Omega Ruby makes you search, sometimes beyond your reaches, for important items, pushing you to fully discover your world – think you’ll simply be gifted a Master Ball by a scientist this time around? Think again.

X and Y’s Shauna, Tierno and Trevor also came across as a rather bumbling supporting cast of trainers whose Pokémon were too weak to take seriously. Maybe I’m just past that point of innocent childhood where morals of friendship seem blindingly important, but not one of the characters from X and Y succeeded in living up to the rival status given to them in the game, and that made it quite a lonely journey to the top. ORAS brings back Wally, though, who always stood out as the most memorable rival from any Pokémon game to date; your battles with him become ever more meaningful and fulfilling as you watch him evolve and forge forward, defying his sickness to become an accomplished Pokémon trainer. It’s a truly heart-warming side story that is perfected on the 3DS, with new character facial expressions granting him a frankly adorable blush as he stutters in naming you his rival, and his unique, shy way of tripping around the world after you. Just like your character, Wally’s also seen a redesign, making his character feel as new and improved as any other.

Omega Ruby definitively succeeds in making you the evolving hero every other Pokémon game wishes it could do better.

As for the main story arc, ORAS reintroduces Team Magma and Aqua as your nemeses, two groups with a questionable lack of sense, who want to cover the world in landmass and water respectively. While the stories are quite nonsensical – Magma’s leader, straight-faced Maxie, was apparently never taught as a child that humans need water to, well, you know, survive – they culminate in a fantastic climax of imminent threat, moral responsibility and the hope of youth in a bleak world. In Omega Ruby, Magma unleashes the vicious power of legendary beast Groudon upon the world and from then on a whole host of adults (and all of Hoenn) place their hopes of stopping it on your shoulders. Even Maxie, in a poignant moment of recognition, stops referring to you as a ‘child’ any longer. Omega Ruby definitively succeeds in making you the evolving hero every other Pokémon game wishes it could do better.

Groudon is not a fluffy type of legendary, either, but a fierce and frightening monster so powerful it has been depicted in mysterious wall paintings across Hoenn, bringing death and destruction wherever it goes. As a child, Groudon was the only legendary which incited my fear as much as awe, and really, it feels right that this should be the case, even as an adult. Groudon feels right because it is terrifying in a way that all Legendary Pokémon ought to have been, though somewhere along the way this sense of ‘taming the wild beast’ when succeeding in catching them has been lost. Omega Ruby brings this back twofold for Groudon with improved story, new atmospheric music and shuddering polyphonic roars that rumble the earth as you make your way down to its lair, in the depths of the Cave of Origin.

Deeply rooted within both Groudon and Kyogre’s might is the one, and only one, outstanding new aspect the games have to offer: Primal Reversion. It’s a kind of reverse Mega Evolution, allowing them to temporarily revert to their ‘primal’ states of heightened power in battle. Very little of Primal Reversion lore is ever explained, which leaves this otherwise interesting idea feeling a little empty, though, with a little digging, some details can be found by spamming the A button at every desk and bookcase in Team Magma’s secret hideout. I did discover in their library that Primal Reversion is an energy-based evolution, as opposed to Mega Evolution, which draws its power from people and Pokémon – but that’s just a tiny snippet of information for a large idea which seemed to deserve a much more detailed explanation than it ever received.

Now, as to the individual reasons why new and old gamers alike will find reasons to pick up ORAS:

For the mature gamers like me…

…Those of us who might have had a nit to pick with the originals, as I mentioned above. The main problem effortlessly dealt with in ORAS is freedom of choice. No longer does the gripe of an abysmal cluster of ‘good’ Pokémon to choose from plague the game. With ORAS connected to the same Pokémon Bank as X & Y, you could have your beloved Pikachu transferred as early as Petalburg City (level 5, of course). I won’t argue about experience bonuses or whether this is the right or wrong way to play the game, but the option being there is a comforting touch if, like me, you weren’t that enamoured with the Hoenn starters the first time around.

Suffice to say, Hoenn was the biggest offender when it came to the dreaded excess of HMs you needed to sink into your beloved team in order to propel the game forward. This hasn’t been utterly eradicated, unfortunately, but you can easily survive by sacrificing a Zigzagoon to Cut, Rock Smash and Strength, and as for Flash? Caves are bearable: so long as your screen brightness is at its highest, you’ll never need it. Fly, too, can be tucked away nicely as while the story drags you every which way about the region, in many places up until the point Latios and Latias become available, other characters are there to warp you to where the action is. Yes, you’ll still be required to inflict Dive on a party Pokémon, but it gets you to Groudon and we can’t have it all, can we?

For the newcomers to Hoenn…

…secret bases will surely become this games most exciting buzz. Once you’ve the power to bash in walls and hollow out trees, the Hoenn region grants you dozens of nooks to set up camp and fill your personal space with cushions, posters and Pokémon dolls, as well as tricks to dazzle your friends when they jump into your game. Pokémon Contests and Pokéblocks also see a modern return, along with a number of cute, unlockable outfits for series mascot, Pikachu. While I never saw Contests as much more than a minor distraction for killing a brief half hour, newer players and old players alike may see appeal in a revamped feature that will last long after the credits have rolled.

Most welcome in its return is the PlayNav, bringing back a few of the best Kalos features like Training and the petting zoo rainbow meadow that is Pokémon Amie (which now makes its home within the Kalos-esque section of the PokeNav). It’s a smart addition, if not to play with your adorable Pokémon and evolve your Eevee, then certainly because the battle bonus rewards that come with it – critical hits and self-status-healing – and accompanying interactions between you and your Pokémon add to the overall experience of creating a loyal and unstoppable team.

So, that score I had to settle? Let’s just say that Omega Ruby well and truly allowed me to appreciate a game I had never completed the first time around, and finally call myself a fan of every Pokémon region Game Freak has created. Overall, Hoenn is a welcome departure from some of the more recent regions in its natural quaintness and compelling lore. It doesn’t suffer beneath the weight of too much water (disclaimer override!), but rather, what I would say is an imbalance of variety. With half the map a landmass and half a great big sea, just as with the original games ORAS does fall into the pothole of throwing vast land routes at the player before the eighth gym, then an enormous body of water afterwards. It’s this imbalance of variety that can, at times, stunt enjoyment, but it’s nothing a good volume of Max Repels can’t fix if it’s truly ruining your experience. Either way, imbalance isn’t enough to call this duo of games a write-off, and certainly won’t stop me from resetting my cartridge and beginning my journey all over again.

As for the post-game content… I think I’ll leave you to discover that for yourselves.

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Does ORAS really catch your imagination? Let us know what you think of the Hoenn remakes @BoarGames!